Cartagena

This week has been a pretty good one. On Saturday I went to Cartagena, a city on the mediterranean coast about 45 minutes from Murcia. I went on a free, school sponsored trip for all the international students in honor of international week. It was nice to get away from Murcia for a day and Cartagena was absolutely beautiful!

We started out the day with a tour of the Aumentacion (town hall) which is apparently the oldest building in the Murcia region. The coolest part of this building to me was the light fixtures which were originally designed to show off the light bulbs because Cartagena was the only city rich enough to have light bulbs in their town hall.



After that we went on a tour of the Museo Teatro Romano which is a museum of the history of an old Roman aphitheatre they found in the center of Cartagena. Apparently the theatre was built about 300 years before christ, how cool is that!? I really liked seeing all the statues and stuff they found in the surrounding area, and the actual theatre itself was so well kept up I could almost imagine being there.



After that we climbed yet another mountain to see a castle, it was pretty nondescript. The best part? There were wild peacocks everywhere! I couldn't believe how beautiful they were. Unfortunately, non of the males spread their feathers for me while I was taking their pictures. Apparently I'm not an attractive female peacock.



On Sunday I relaxed, cleaned, and worked out. I love Sundays here because they are just so relaxing. I think most people here truly do see Sundays as a day of rest, and I am okay with it for sure! Monday was full of going to class. I think I have finally found three classes that I like and am willing to spend my time doing. YAY! I might have to add another, though, depending on what Butler says about how the credits will transfer. I'm hoping I don't. On Monday night my friend Erin who also goes to Butler and I went to our first flamenco class. It was so much fun! I can't wait to go back on Wednesday. Today in the morning we went to buy our shoes and skirts for the class. When we went yesterday in sweats and sneakers we felt like total misfits! I ended up spending about 70 euro on the skirt and shoes, but I think it will be worth it in the end because I am going to really enjoy the class.

This weekend there is another school trip to Sevilla. The bus leaves at 2:00am on Friday morning. I am really looking forward to this trip because I want to go to Sevilla so badly! Hopefully travelling with all the international students won't be too much of a let down--I'm finding that I really hate travelling with large groups of people as a general rule.

The weather seems to finally have taken a turn for the better. It has been sunny for three days and today it was 70 degrees out! Hopefully this means that the sun has returned from its vacation, and will now stay here where its supposed to be! The only bummer about this is that I haven't gotten to try migas yet. Migas are a food from the Murcia region which they only eat when its rainy out. Maybe there will be a couple more rainy days so I can try some, then again, I would gladly have sun for the rest of my stay in exchange for just eating migas. Tomorrow I have my last school day of the week and my Flamenco class at night. I can't wait!

Class

So...class started on Monday. So far I have had pretty mixed feelings about the whole affair. On Monday I spent about 20 minutes looking for a class. My sheet said "Facultad de Letras" on it and also "Aula 2.12" Aula means classroom. So I went to the building called Facultad de Letras, and I found the room marked 2.12...needless to say that wasn't where class was. It was the office of a professor of political science, who was totally useless in helping me figure out where I was supposed to be. Finally after wandering around very confused for a few minutes someone told me that all the "Facultad de Letras" classrooms where in the building called the "Aulario," the "classroom building." I was like...why did nobody tell me this ahead of time!? I know its probably common knowledge for the people who work and go to school at the University but at International Student Orientation don't you think they could have mentioned that!? I managed to make it through the class without too much ado, and my second class was cancelled because of elections.

Tuesday was yet another interesting day. I went to the same class again, History of Spanish Barroque Art, and I really like the professor. He said if I needed any help I could ask and he would always be willing to give me extra time if I needed it. I think I'll make it through the class as long as I can get ahold of the notes for it. My second class, Narrative of the Hispanic World, is a great class! Its all about short stories writting in South and Central America, so I am familliar with a lot of the authors. The professor is very acommodating to international students and he understands that we read more slowly, so he is only requiring us to read about half of the huge number of stories the Spanish kids have to read. I'm so grateful for that! My third class, Spanish Literature of the Middle Ages, was such a bummer. I didn't understand a word the professor said and when I spoke to him after class he said "good luck." That didn't help my self confidence at all.

Today I went to the same three classes as yesterday. My art history class is getting easier every day, but I'm definitely going to need to work hard at it. Narrative of the Hispanic world will be a great class, I'm so excited for it! I decided to drop the other literature class after a second consecutive day of having no idea what the professor is talking about and him being no help whatsoever. I am going to try a different class next week; Espanol Normativo. Apparently its about the use of the Spanish language in different parts of the world. Sounds interesting. Hopefully next week will be better!

Alicante...can I move here?

My roomate Lara and I traveled to Alicante yesterday and came back today. What can I say? I absolutely love it there. The very first thing we saw when we got to the city was the ocean. Every time I see the ocean I wonder to myself why I ever moved away. Obviously landlocked Indiana isn't the best place for me. After we got off the bus Lara and I walked down a beautiful street called La Explanada which has street vendors all over. They sell cool rastafarian things like pipes, handmade scarves and purses, leather goods, and insence. I loved it! La explanada is right next to the harbor, and it was wonderfully sunny out so we enjoyed the walk.


After checking into the hostel we walked around the city and enjoyed the beautiful day. It was about 70 degrees out! We walked on the beach, and sat there enjoying the waves and the sun for a couple of hours. After that we walked around the old part of the city which was all decorated for carnival, which is happening this weekend. It was cool to see all of the decorations. The Plaza de Alementacion had giant masks and tapestries hanging all around it, and there were lights everywhere.



After that, we went to the Museo de los Fogueras which is a museum to commemorate the statues which are built every June in the city during a big festival. The statues are hundreds of feet tall and are incredibly beautiful and intricate. After a few days all of the statues are burned and the celebration begins. I loved seeing the miniatures of the statues and the pictures of the fires and celebrations. Then we went to the Museum de las Belenes (the museum of nativity scenes.) We only really went because it was free, but it turned out to be pretty cool. Each nativity scene was impecably designed and there were layer upon layer of details in each one. It was cool to be able to see the ways people from different places all around the world portrayed the birth of Jesus. After going back to the hostel for a quick siesta we went to dinner at a fabulous restaurant and ate a lot of delicious food. Then we walked around the city some more, and saw the casino, which is lit up at night. We also found a live band in one of the plazas which was celebrating Carnival. The main festivities didn't start until midnight, but by then we were too tired to go see anything.



This morning we slept in and then went to breakfast at the cafe behind our hostel. After that we went to the indoor market downtown. We had read in the visitor guide that it housed a market of handmade goods and treasures from the Alicante area. What we actually found was a food and flower market. It was huge! There were hundreds of stalls of fish, breads, fruit, vegetables, meat, and flowers. It was absolutely beautiful and very interesting to compare to the outdoor market in Murcia. I loved all the flower stalls, and took a bunch of great pictures.



After the market Lara and I went to the Museo de Agua (the water museum.) It described the plight of Alicante and the surrounding area of finding, purifying, and transporting potable water. It was interesting, but not really that exciting. After that we climbed up the mountain in the middle of the city to the castle. The hike up was absolutely beautiful and it was only beaten by the beauty of the castle itself. Most of the castle has been left in its natural state, but parts have been redone to house art galleries. The artist whose works were on display was a sulpture who designed pieces with metal men doing physical activities on wooden bases. They were pretty cool to look at, and definitely show a lot of respect for the human form. The best part of the castle for sure, however, was the view. Every way you looked was stunningly beautiful. I also really enjoyed the fact that we could take an elevator back down the mountain. The hallway to the elevator had really cool tiles in it which had Spanish sayings on them like "where the heart leads the foot follows."

After going back down the mountain Lara and I walked along the beach some more. We stopped at an adorable little restaurant and had paella for lunch. I love paella! It was pretty cold today, so after lunch we went back to the hostel to warm up and take a break. Afterwards we went to the Museum of Classical Art, which was cool but the curators were really rude and were talking loudly on their cell phones and to each other. It ruined the experience for me. After a stop to get chocolate and churros (which I still don't like) and a walk back along La Explanada we were back at the bus stop and it was time to go home. I had a great couple days!

Empujate! No empujate!

I have finally found the time and internet access to write about my wonderful weekend in Madrid. I had an absolutely wonderful weekend visiting Molly and seeing the sights of Madrid. On Thursday I got into Madrid at about 9:00. Molly met me at the bus station and we went to my hostel so I could check in. Then we went to her house for dinner, it was delicious!

On Friday we woke up early and went to the Museo del Prado, a huge museum that has a lot of classical art. It was really beautiful and I got to see Las Meninas, a painting by Diego Velazquez that I have loved for a long time. It was so cool to see a painting which I have been thinking about for years in real life. After that we went to a cute little cafe by Molly's house to have lunch and then back to her house for a break. In the afternoon we went to El Museo de la Reina Sofia which is a modern/contemporary art museum. There were a lot of works by Salvador Dali and Picasso in this museum which was cool, but I liked the Prado a lot better. After that museum we went to the futbol stadium and got tickets for a Real Madrid futbol game! We went to Molly's house for dinner again and then I went to bed early because I was exhausted from walking around all day.

On Saturday we went to the Mueso de los Artes Decorativos which is a cool little muesum with housewares from Spain. There was a lot of cool china there as well as fans, jewelry, and rooms which were decorated to show what different types of rooms in Spain looked like through history. I really liked the 17th century Spanish kitchen. There was also an exhibit of Japanese art at the museum, which was cool because I got to see some of the things I studied last semester in my Japanese Popular Culture class. Then we went to the Parque del Buen Retiro which is a huge park in the middle of Madrid. I loved it there! There were a lot of street performers and artists all over the park. There is also a huge lake there and we rented a boat and paddled around on it for a little while. After that, we stopped at a cute little restaurant in the park and had lunch and coffee. Then we walked across the rest of the park and went to the Mueseo Thyssen, which is a museum of a private collection with all kinds of art in it. There were a bunch of Monet paintings there, which I loved because he is my favorite artist. There were a bunch of other great pointilist and impressionist works by Degas, and other famous artists. I also got to see some more Picasso and Dali paintings.

On Saturday night we went to Molly's house for dinner again and then to the futbol game. It was so amazing to go to the stadium and see 50,000 people cheering for the Real Madrid team. There were so many people there but I was suprised at how calm they are. The only crazy fans were in the "superfan" section and they had flags, drums, and all kinds of pre-determined cheers. It reminded me a lot of the superfan sections we talked about in my Japanese Pop Culture class, but in general I was suprised at how calm the fans were.

Overall, it was a fun weekend, but I was also happy to come back to Murcia. I am looking forward to a relaxing week off from class before the real work starts on Monday!

A Week

This week has been pretty nondescript. I have been going to class, coming home, sleeping, and eating. I like the way I'm getting into a schedule here, but of course after this week my schedule will be all screwed up again. I've been pretty sick but finally went to the farmacia today and got some drugs. I was really grateful that the lady who works at the farmacia by my apartment was helpful and didn't have troubles understanding me.
Tomorrow afternoon I am going to go to Madrid to visit Molly. I am really excited to get away from Murcia for a little bit as well as to get to see Molly and Madrid! We are going to go to the Prado and the Reina Sofia museum, which I can wait for. I'm also excited to get a taste of the nightlife in Madrid. Hopefully it will be a nice weekend so walking around the city won't be miserable.
Other than that I really don't have any news. More to come though, I'm sure!