Reflection on Study Abroad

Posted on 1 June 2014 by Casey Brown

Walk down memory lane

Now that I’ve gotten settled back in America, I can sit back and review my semester that I’ve spent studying abroad in Madrid. It didn’t live up to all of my expectations, but it definitely surpassed others and even gave me experiences I didn’t even expect. I can truly say that I’ll look favorably on this once in a lifetime experience that I won’t be able to replicate, even if I end up living abroad again in the future.

Over the past semester, I’ve had the chance to experience life in another country, live with a host family, and step outside my comfort zone. I’ve met lots of new friends from all over the world, and have also gotten to know 35 other AU students, a lot of whom I hadn’t met before or didn’t know as well as I do now. I even feel like I know Madrid better in some ways than I know Washington, DC. We’ve traveled all over Spain and the Iberian peninsula and I was able to visit 10 countries in total since I left the United States at the end of December, making for a pretty intense map of travels. I took five classes, three in Spanish and one at a local university, and also sat in on the program seminar and went on the paseos most of the time they met. During the time, my Spanish has definitely improved, especially my listening comprehension and confidence, because you can’t really avoid the language when you live in a Spanish-speaking country. I didn’t meet as many Spanish kids as I would have imagined and didn’t speak Spanish quite as much as I would’ve assumed, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t make new friends or improve our Spanish.

After having the opportunity to go on all of the program-sponsored trips, I feel we can honestly say that we conquered the Iberian peninsula and really got to see a ton of what Spain has to offer. We visited around 25 cities in Spain, the two biggest cities in Portugal, and went on significant trips to 12 of the 17 autonomous communities. I came across the 12 Treasures of Spain recently and was really impressed by how many we’ve had the chance to visit — though one of them (the Cave of Altamira) requires fudging because we visited a different cave, there’s really only one on the contest’s 12 winners that I haven’t visited, the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar in Zaragoza, Aragón. What’s more, we didn’t just visit these places, we actually learned a ton about them thanks to the hard work of Paco and our other professors at the AU Study Center. Though we obviously did a lot of travel outside of the country too and haven’t done every single thing in the country or been everywhere, we actually feel like we lived in Spain the country and took in all that it has to offer.

Travels 2014 - Spain

I plan on taking a lot of what I experienced back with me to the United States as I begin my senior year. I’m going to try to be more laid-back, enjoying life and no pasa nada, and I’m going to try to be more inquisitive in class and keep my new eagerness to learn, be involved, and experience new things. I’m also going to look at Washington, DC, with a fresh set of eyes. I did many touristy things while abroad and got to know Madrid quite well — I want to make sure I also take advantage of all DC has to offer and explore life outside of monument row as well. Let’s hope I stick to these goals, but regardless, I’m definitely going to look back favorably on the time I spent abroad, especially all I learned, all I experienced, and all the friends I made!

I’ll close with a few of my favorite pictures from my semester abroad, most of which appeared on the blog… but a few are new ones stolen from Facebook. 🙂

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Champion’s League Final: Real Madrid vs. Atlético de Madrid

Posted on 28 May 2014 by Casey Brown
Santiago Bernabéu

Santiago Bernabéu getting ready for the festivities

As we’ve more than learned by now, Spain (and Europe) really cares about fútbol. It was completely awesome then, that our last night in Spain was the final match of the European Champions League between the best clubs in the continent. What’s more, for the first time ever, the competition was being contested between two teams from the same city and those two teams were the ones we had been following around the entire semester, Real Madrid and Atlético de Madrid. Madrid was crazy excited because of this, and as we were packing our bags, the entire city was getting ready for an amazing match.

Beyond it simply being contested by two Madrid teams and typically being the most watched sporting event in the entire world, the match was also very significant in soccer history. Because Atlético de Madrid had just won the Spanish La Liga and Real Madrid had won the Copa del Rey earlier in the season, the winner of this game would also earn a doblete for the season, having won two competitions. It would mark Atlético de Madrid’s first ever win at the Champions League, and only their second appearance in the final. For Real Madrid, however, the win would be even more significant: they are already the club to have won the championship the most times, but this win would earn them the coveted la décima, or tenth win in their history. Part of the reason soccer is so popular is because of crazy statistics and firsts like this used to draw comparisons. 🙂 As we learned in our soccer class, context is key; a goal really only matters and gets recognition because of the content not only within the game, but within the world.

Our viewing location!

Our viewing location!

We ended up hanging out in the area surrounding Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. Though the sea of white shirts hurt since I was rooting for Atleti, I was happy the trophy would stay within Madrid (gane quien gane, gana Madrid) and we had a great time enjoying the crazy party atmosphere. Christy and I ended up returning to that area to watch the game after dinner. After a while wandering around for a place to watch it, we finally settled on crowding around a tiny TV outside of a bar with more than a hundred other people. Not quite the best place to go for actually seeing the game, but the atmosphere was amazing.

The game was really tense, especially for the Real Madrid fans because Atleti led the game 1-0 from the first 36 minutes until the 93rd minute, which I quietly rubbed in the face of a few of our friends who were supporting Real Madrid. (I didn’t dare say it too loudly though… or I really think we would’ve caused a problem because the fans really are that hardcore.) But then Real Madrid pulled ahead and tied the game in the extra 5 minutes, requiring extra time to break the time. Somehow, el Madrid scored 3 more goals in the last 10 minutes of the game, bringing the final score to a very sad 4-1. Though I was disappointed, at least the city as a whole won, and the people we were watching with were excited enough for all of us. Real Madrid really is the better team and had much more time to rest considering Atleti had just beaten Barcelona in La Liga.

Party in Cibeles

Party in Cibeles

In the face of the win, Madrid shut down for a huge party centered around the Cibeles Fountain in the middle of Plaza de Cibeles. If Atlético had won, they would have celebrated at the nearby Neptuno Fountain. Because of this, referring to Cibeles or Neptuno in conversation acts as a form of metonymy referring to each team and showing your allegiance to one side or another. I had told quite a few people I would be seeing them in Neptuno that night. 😉 The whole city came together after the win though and we ended up hanging out around downtown with thousands of other people until 4am. We left with the party still in full swing, but we had to get up at 7am to catch our flight home. Despite having mixed feelings about the results, the final and party were a great way to end our time in Madrid and say goodbye to a great city!

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Adjusting to Madrid’s culture

Posted on 23 May 2014 by Casey Brown

Whenever you study or live in another area, there are bound to some differences in the culture and lifestyle of your new country compared to your old country. Our study abroad program tries to prepare us for this and remind us to expect some amount of culture shock when dealing with these changes. At the same time though, there are some things that are surprisingly similar or only have small differences. Here are some of the major aspects that have drawn my attention while studying abroad in Madrid. It’s a long, disorganized list, but it’s been a long and crazy semester.

  • Madrileños and Spaniards are notoriously afraid of the cold. Though the weather often gets so hot in the summer that many people leave Madrid for their summer homes, the temperature in the spring fluctuates a lot, with ranges of 10°C (18°F) in one day. Because of this, madrileños always seem to wear long pants and shirts and there’s a popular saying that says hasta el 40 de mayo no te quites el sayo, which means until the 40th of May, don’t remove your jacket. Anyone who wears shorts before then usually looks like a guiri, which is Spain’s version of a gringo.
  • Spaniards are pretty social people, but they don’t typically say hi to or smile at random people on the street. Inside buildings, however, they usually always greet people because then there’s an assumption that they know each other.
  • People bring ladders to parades so that their kids can sit on them and see. This was one of the first things we figured out when everyone was carrying really large ladders to the Three Kings Day parade on one of our first night’s here.
  • Most non-Americans don’t celebrate Mardi Gras, but Carnaval is basically the same thing, though with a lot more masks.
  • Dryers are very uncommon, so almost everyone air dries their clothing outside on the clothesline. As a result, clothes don’t usually shrink much like we’re used to.
  • Many apartments are very small, so people very rarely meet in each others’ houses except on formal occasions, in small groups, or when invited over for a planned meal. People usually meet in cafés, bars, or in the city’s many green spaces. This, combined with the post-Franco movida madrileña, probably helps explains why there’s so much PDA in Spain — they don’t usually hang out in their houses, so they do it in parks and on the metro. All of this also leads to the long meals in restaurants, student tradition of botellón, and chill café culture that we’ve got to know well while in Spain.
  • Along the same lines, personal space is totally different here. Hugging and giving besos, or kisses, when meeting or seeing someone you know is the norm. It’s not at all strange to sit very close or talk very close together, even if you don’t know each other that well, aren’t romantically involved, or are of the same sex.
  • Siestas are a real thing. Though not as many people go home for a nap nowadays, almost everywhere has a long break from 2:00pm to 4:00pm where people have a long lunch break and relax. Many stores, especially smaller ones, are closed during this time too, which has occasionally caused us problems.
  • Pharmacies are everywhere and are indicated by the typical European green plus sign. However, they’re very different from ours and are nothing like your neighborhood CVS. They only have pharmaceutical drugs and you don’t really need a prescription, even for antibiotics. If you explain your symptoms the licensed pharmacist, they’ll decide what to give it to you and you don’t really need to go to a doctor. These antibiotics are also very cheap, even without insurance, presumably because of socialized medicine.
  • Speaking of shopping, the way stores are structured is very different here. While we have a lot of one-stop shops that carry a huge variety of products like Wal-Mart and even things like CVS, most of Spain’s stores specialize in a small set of product lines, like a clothing store, a drug store, a bakery, etc., which makes it hard for us to figure out where to buy certain items like school supplies. This is beginning to change with the arrival of some hypermarkets like Carrefour, Alcampo, and El Corte Inglés, much to the amazement of the older generations of Spaniards.
  • Living in a very Catholic country, a common question was always is today a holiday? Everything shuts down on major holidays like Christmas, New Year’s, Three Kings Day, Labor Day, etc., causing many problems if you don’t realize it and plan ahead of time.
  • There is a huge exportation of American culture like in many places around the world. Even though they have their own movies, TV stations, and other elements of popular culture, they still dub tons of our media and show it on their channels. My host family watches tons of our reality TV shoes like Pawn Shop and Grease Monkey and watches movies on the Paramount Channel, and one of our professors loves Netflix’s House of Cards. It was crazy to see all of the same stuff when we first got here.
  • Things as simple as the folders and paper we use for school are also very different. Besides the fact that they use a longer and skinnier paper size (A4, the international standard), they don’t really use our version of folders with pockets, but instead use plastic little sac things that close. Notebook paper is also different. We couldn’t find any lined paper, other than wide-ruled paper like from preschool; all their notebooks have paper that resembles graph paper.
  • The economic crisis continues to affect daily life all around Spain. As one of the areas hit pretty hard by the worldwide recession and Eurozone problems, all Spaniards feel the effects of la crisis and talk about it often. We’ve gotten used to it know, which is a little scary to admit, but it’s not uncommon to see homeless people begging on many street corners, outside grocery stores, or on Metro cars with handwritten and spoken appeals for money. It’s not too bad but sometimes they can be pretty forceful as well. You also occasionally see homeless pets and older people living on the streets because of foreclosures. The economic troubles are probably some of the major reasons that gold buying businesses and lotteries seem so popular here.
  • On a happier note: little dogs are huge here. Many of them also do not wear leashes, but do wear jackets when it’s cold out. I’m not sure if the jackets are to make them warmer or to make it harder for them to run away, but either way the dogs are adorable and trot along happily. I think one of the reasons they don’t need leashes is because their legs are so small that they couldn’t outrun their owners even if they tried.
  • The Metro here is amazingly awesome and so much better than the DC metro, with huge ridership, very short times between trains, very close Metro stations, and tons of lines with many transfer points that make using it and getting around the city so easy. One of the best parts is that we pay 35 € a month for unlimited rides on the Metro and buses, something that we really need to get back in Washington, DC. I also like that they seem to have a similar hatred for escalefting as we do in DC. They’re not quite as angry about it though, probably because with some lines 5 escalators deep into the ground, they don’t mind the occasional break from walking. The Metro, and its pretty long hours, is one of the things I’m going to miss the most when going back to the DC, even if Ben and I did get lost for 40 minutes on one of our first nights in Madrid because we got out the wrong exit.
  • As a huge tourist city, we’re very used to protecting ourselves from pickpockets. Some of our friends have had their belongings stolen, but we’ve gotten pretty good at separating money and valuables, as well as never leaving our phones or bags unattended, especially not in touristy areas or on the Metro. We’re also very mindful of where everything is on our bodies and only walk around with our backpacks on our backs when we know nothing important is in there. Madrid’s a very safe city free from most violent crime, but the skillful pickpockets are pretty common.
  • Something small that never ceases to annoy us is that the city’s crosswalks are also weird in that there is not one on every side of the intersection. Sometimes you have to walk around the intersection to get to the corner you want because there’s not a sidewalk where you want it.
  • Similarly, street signs outside the United States are very hard to come by or find. Madrid is one of the better cities for this, but it’s still often hard for us to see the street signs because they’re on the buildings and not on the actual street.
  • Finally, soccer really is huge, which you’ve already learned by now if you’ve read my blog. Our university offers a class on the subject, everyone talks about the games, people are often judged by their team affiliation, and the city supports two daily sports newspapers devoted almost exclusively to soccer. As we gear up for Madrid’s two teams to fight it out in Champion’s League final, which for the first time is being contested by two clubs from the same city, I’m reminded of the fact that things won’t be like this when we go back to the United States!

Despite all of these differences or surprises, and the many more I didn’t think to list here or just seem obvious by now, we all adjusted pretty well thanks to our local support system of friends, program coordinators, and homestay families. There are tons of articles about how Spanish culture will need to change in the future and that the economic crisis shows how the laid back culture full of siestas is unsustainable and might hurt their productivity. However, the Spaniards are very proud of their traditions and way of life, and we certainly loved our time here and could all learn a thing or five from them; we’re hopeful we’ll be able to take some of what we’ve experienced here back home with us, especially their fun-loving culture full of life that still considers the little things.

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Spanish cuisine

Posted on 23 May 2014 by Casey Brown

Over the last few months we’ve learned a lot about Spanish cuisine and have grown to really enjoy it. One of the best parts of living with a host family is that we get to eat healthy, home-cooked meals and not just pig out on tapas and menús del día at local bars and restaurants. We can honestly say that we like a lot of the foods we’ve experienced here and are eager to try cooking them back home!

One of the most important things we learned pretty quickly in Spain is that food isn’t very structured or pressured. All of our host parents were kind of like chefs, creatively throwing together a meal with fresh ingredients and no major recipes. This doesn’t necessarily mean it always works out well… I’ve had a few friends who’ve been given cold, uncooked hot dogs on a piece of a bread as their “sandwich” for lunch. Also, they seem to be much more laid back about expiration dates and refrigeration: it’s not uncommon to see milk sitting out in the grocery store un-refrigerated. Even still, our time here has helped break our beliefs that meals need to be perfect, which is especially good considering most of us are at the age where we’re going to start cooking for ourselves more and more. We know now that throwing together a meal could be as simple as putting a bunch of vegetables together and pouring olive oil over it. 🙂 (Consistent with the Mediterranean stereotype, they really use olive oil all the time and for everything here! We’ve grown to love it.)

The Spanish also have different food times than we do in the United States. Breakfast is usually something small if it’s eaten at all, lunch doesn’t happen until 2:00pm, and dinner doesn’t usually happen until around 10:00pm. Between those main meals, people usually take coffee breaks or snacks to keep away their hunger, and somehow they survive with such far spread apart meals! I think one of the main reasons they’re able to do this is, even though the snacks they eat are small, they seem to use a ton of sugar. Whenever you get coffee, they give you a huge packet of sugar and people tend to pour in the whole thing. They also have fewer empty calories. When they eat something sweet for dessert or a snack, they don’t seem to hold back… like the napolitana croissants that are amazing and filled with chocolate. 🙂

Our meals at home all generally follow the same structure. We have a soup or salad to start with, and then have a main course, which our parents try to vary up. It could be beans, chicken or pork, dumplings, pizza, pasta, vegetables, etc. We’ve had a ton, though garbanzo beans are usually a staple like they are throughout Madrid and Spain. For lunch, we almost always get bocadillos, which are sandwiches made on baguettes and usually filled with butter or spread cheese and some type of deli meat like chorizo. I’m not always sure what the deli meats we find in Spain are and sometimes they’re neon colors, but they’re usually good. 🙂 Between the bocadillos and the bread we get with our soup at dinner, we typically end up eating close to a whole baguette a day… that’s something we’ll definitely miss.

Though we don’t eat out that often, a lot of the restaurants in Madrid are very good. One of the strange things that we still haven’t totally gotten used to is that you have to specify what kind of meal you’d like. They end up setting your table differently (i.e., either no table cloth, paper, or linen) depending on whether you get a full course meal, a combined plate, or just small food or drinks to pick at. I assume this is to reduce confusion because a lot of stuff is include if you get the full menú del día, though it can sometimes be awkward if they get it wrong or you change your mind and they have to change the table setting. This has happened to us a few times when were just trying to get some of our favorite tapas, like patatas bravas, tortilla de patatas, or croquetas.

We’ll definitely be incorporating some of Spanish foods into our own cooking in the future. It’ll be a little more challenging to get such fresh ingredients though, given the fact that we don’t all have a corner grocery store in the United States and our radii are much larger.

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Fiestas of San Isidro and final days in Madrid

Posted on 23 May 2014 by Casey Brown

May 15, the day before I left for Israel, is known as “Madrid Day”, because it’s the feast of San Isidro, the patron saint of Madrid. Usually the entire weekend is full of fun events that most people go to see because they don’t have school or work. Naturally, we decided we had to take part in the festivities and were very glad we did. They’re all about celebrating Madrid history and culture, with cocido madrileño and the chulapo costumes everywhere, so it was a great thing to experience during the end of our semester.

Though there are events and special happenings throughout Madrid, most of it is concentrated in the the Parque de San Isidro in the south of the city. We must have seen thousands of people in that park and the fairgrounds. There were tons of shops, food stands, and drink stands setup throughout the whole thing, as well as a stage for concerts and exhibitions of the traditional chotis folk dance. We even saw a huge amusement park set up with rides and a Ferris wheel, as well as a much of games and stands setup throughout the park. There were also tons and tons of people hanging out and drinking in every open spot that wasn’t taken up by one of these attractions or stands, something that isn’t totally common because Madrid usually doesn’t allow public drinking and has so many green spaces that they’re not usually concentrated in such a small area.

We spent most of the day in that area and came back later that night for more hanging out and a concert by Mägo de Oz, a Spanish folk and heavy metal band that seemed to be very popular. Despite still being a little sad that everyone else left, we’re really glad we got the chance to see this celebration of Madrid culture during some of our last few weeks here.

Yesterday, Thursday, we also spent some more time ticking off the last things we needed to do in Madrid. After souvenir shopping we finally made it to the Almudena Cathedral and were able to go to the top of it and see view of Madrid and the Royal Palace. I can see why we hadn’t been there before… it was definitely a little underwhelming after us having seen almost all of Spain’s best and most beautiful cathedrals throughout the semester. Christy and I also finally finished our churro quest and made it to the last shop on our list. This one was much smaller and further from the other ones, so it was probably good we waited until now to do it. It’s crazy to think that we’re leaving Spain so soon and that these were probably our last churros for a long time.

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Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and the West Bank

Posted on 22 May 2014 by Casey Brown

For my last trip before heading back home from study abroad, I decided to visit Israel with Elyssa, my friend from high school who’s currently studying abroad in Jordan. I originally wanted to visit her in Amman, but it was expensive so we decided to meet next door in Israel. It’s sad to think that I just came back from my last trip and that I spent five days outside of Madrid when I’m leaving so soon, but the trip was worth it and hopefully it helped me get a taste of leaving Spain before I have to do it for real on Sunday.

Beach in Tel Aviv

Beach in Tel Aviv

After a long day of traveling that got me into Israel at 01:00 Saturday morning, Elyssa and I met up in Tel Aviv. Like all of my trips this semester, this one wasn’t without its adventures. Of course, there was a 45 minute delay during my layover in Istanbul, because I can’t seem to travel without some sort of delay. 🙂 It was an interesting experience nevertheless, because Hebrew became the common language among the passengers (other than me…) who didn’t speak Turkish. Though they didn’t have the same native languages, most of them were Jewish so were able to use Hebrew between each other, which was very cool to see in practice since that was the purpose of the language. Besides that, anyone who goes to Israel should realize that they take the whole “shabbat” thing pretty seriously. A huge portion of the county completely shuts down between sundown on Friday and sundown on Saturday. This includes the railway and buses that would have taken me from Ben Gurion Airport to our hostel, so instead I had to pay 167 ILS (~50 USD) for a private taxi. I continue to learn that the cheap flights might be cheap for a reason.

Tel Aviv is Israel’s second most populous city and also the home to its largest metropolitan area, and is known for its financial and business strength and lively, dynamic culture and nightlife. Far more liberal from the country’s official capital Jerusalem, the city is sometimes referred to as “the bubble” because the peaceful atmosphere serves as an escape seems so removed from the conflict that plagues the rest of the region. Its nickname as a “city that never sleeps” definitely seems well-earned — Elyssa and I walked around catching up until 3 AM and we were by far not the only ones still awake.

Tel Aviv and the beach

Tel Aviv and the beach

Though we didn’t take advantage of the nightlife because we just missed the Israeli weekend, we did have a lot of downtime enjoying the beach, which was packed with tons of people. We ended up with a bit of sunburn, but that didn’t stop us from walking along the Mediterranean coast and exploring the ancient port city of Jaffa. Overall, the Tel Aviv part of our trip was definitely the relaxing catch-up aspect that would differ quite a bit from the next few days filled with sightseeing, though we were able to see the old port, the clock tower, archaeological digs, and some markets. We definitely enjoyed it regardless, especially the beach and shawarma, hummus, fluffy pita, and other yummy foods. 🙂

On Sunday afternoon, we headed to the Tel Aviv bus station to take the 19 shekel Egged bus to Jerusalem, where we’d be sleeping that night and spending the next two days. The bus ride was pretty uneventful, other than the fact we had to go through Judean Mountains to get to Jerusalem, but the station and passengers were pretty interesting: the bus depot was full of activity, busy shopping areas, and IDF soldiers. Israel has between two and three years of compulsory military service for all citizens over 18, so that certainly makes for a lot of soldiers and an overall population with a great deal of military experience. Most of the soldiers travel in uniform and with their weapons when reporting to their posts and moving around the country, so, while a little off-putting to see such huge guns, this helps security. Apparently bombers have actually been stopped by these off-duty soldiers who had been carrying their weapons with them and heading home.

Though maybe we should have spent less time in Tel Aviv (or more time going out), seeing it before Jerusalem was a good choice because it really helped show the differences. From the second we got off the bus we could see that Jerusalem, considered a holy city by all three Abrahamic religions, was much more conservative than Tel Aviv. We barely saw any yarmulkes in Tel Aviv and saw lots of skin and tattoos. It was the opposite in the capital: though there were definitely some more secular residents and non-Jews, the city was full of kippahs and we saw many Orthodox and Haredi families with modest dress, payot, and tallit with tzitzit. Everyone was perfectly welcoming and the stricter religious observance wasn’t bad or anything, it was just very different from what we had seen in Tel Aviv and helped hammer in that aspect of Tel Aviv’s unique culture.

Interestingly enough, our hostel, the awesome and huge Abraham Hostel, was located right off of Jaffa Road, named after the city we had just left. It’s one of the oldest and longest streets in the city, and also one of the most important ones. We walked down the pedestrian street all the way to the walled Old City the first night. It was amazing to see the walls of an area so old and sacred to the world’s three largest religions just pop up out of nowhere alongside the cars and trams of the modern city, and then to have us just walk through the Jaffa Gate and be inside of it. After wandering around for a bit and getting some awesome and cheap falafel (15 shekels!), we headed in for an early night.

Western Wall

Western Wall

The next day started off bright and early, because we wanted to be at the Temple Mount by 7:30 AM when it opens. The lines tend to get pretty long and, as it is an actively used Muslim religious site, it completely closes down to visitors at specific times. The only entrance open to non-Muslims is the one right off of the Western Wall Plaza, so we took advantage of the early morning to also check out the Western Wall itself, which was full of people praying so I didn’t get to go up close to see the handwritten prayers, but it was still a cool experience nevertheless. The name refers to the fact that it’s the western retaining wall of Temple Mount, and it is thought to be part of David’s first temple and Solomon’s second temple, both of which were destroyed. It is arguably the holiest site in all of Judaism, probably more than the Temple Mount itself, which many Jews don’t go up to at all. Interestingly, like in Orthodox Judaism church services, access to the Western Wall is split according to gender, with men on the left half and women on the right.

Dome of the Rock

Dome of the Rock

After seeing the wall and waiting in line for 45 minutes, we went up to Temple Mount. We wandered around a bit and saw a few of the holy Muslim sites, like the al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam built on the site of Muhammad’s Night Journey, and the Dome of the Rock, one of the oldest works of Islamic architecture and home to the Foundation Stone, which Jews view as the location of the Holy of Holies in the Temple and the junction of heaven and earth and Muslims view as the location from which Muhammad ascended to heaven. Many Jews still pray towards the Foundation Stone, and Muslims used to before changing that location to the Kaaba in Mecca. It was crazy to visit a place so holy to so many different religions that’s still so controversial. Apparently an Orthodox politician was also visiting that same day, so security was extra tight for fear that there would be conflicts between his group and the Muslim worshipers on the Mount… definitely a crazy feeling and a little scary to be walking around.

We still had some time to kill before our hostel’s walking tour of the Old City, so we visited the Davidson Center of the Jerusalem Archaeological Park, also within Western Wall Plaza. It was very cool to see a bunch of ruins, but the coolest part was that we were able to walk through them and along one of the ancient walls. Add that to the fact that we saw a bunch of young boys celebrating their bar mitzvahs at the Western Wall after we finished up (how cool must that be?), and it was an awesome experience. From there we headed to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a church built on the spot where Jesus is thought to have not only been crucified, but also buried and resurrected. Obviously impressive on its own, but the church was also interesting in that its shared by many different Christian sects, including Eastern Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and a few more. Because the site is so valuable, the different groups often get into conflicts, try to maintain control of it for themselves, and sometimes fight over actions done by the other sects. This has led to a status quo agreement forbidding changes to common territories without consent from all of the communities, leading to delayed repairs and the famous “immovable ladder“. Two Muslim families actually hold the keys to the church, opening it every morning and locking it up every night for the Christians, because none of the orders would trust the others with the keys.

We did all of that and it was barely 11:00, but after chilling around for a little bit more it was finally noon and time for our tour with our hostel. They led us around the four quarters of the Old City, the Muslim, Christian, Armenian, and Jewish, and showed us basically all the same things we’d already seen. It was still worth it, however, because we got to learn more about what we were actually seeing and about the history. We had another early day tomorrow, so spent the rest of the day wandering around the Haredi neighborhood, Mea Shearim, and the nearby Mahane Yehuda Market, both located on either side of Davidka Square where our hostel was. Both areas are mostly filled with locals, with the former a much more conservative local sub-neighborhood in the city.

All of Tuesday was devoted to a tour of the West Bank that we booked through our hostel. The West Bank is the region to the east of Israel that makes up the bulk of the Palestinian territories and takes its name from its location on the “west bank” of the Jordan River. The area has a very complicated political situation given the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and that’s a total understatement. We weren’t really sure if we wanted to go there because of it, but after seeing our hostel offered a very awesome and comprehensive full-day tour that went to quite a few important holy sites as well, we figured we had to do it and are really glad we got to see another side of the region.

Qasr el-Yahud, the baptismal site of Jesus

Qasr el-Yahud, the baptismal site of Jesus

While most of the sites in Jerusalem were Jewish and Muslim ones, most of those we visited in the West Bank were Christian holy sites based on the Old and New Testaments. We first visited the believed site of the baptism of Jesus, Qasr el-Yahud, which is located in the Jordan River only like 10 feet from the Jordanian border, so it is very closely guarded. There were many pilgrims getting baptized there, but they were strictly instructed not to cross the river, or they’d be illegally entering another country. After that we went to the ancient city of Jericho, assumed to be one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world at over 10,000 years old. We can totally see why; the city really is a green oasis in the middle of the dessert. We saw ruins of the ancient city, its wall, the Zacchaeus sycamore tree, and the Mount of Temptation in the distance, before visiting the only brewery in Palestine, Taybeh Brewery, which was a pioneer microbrewery in the region. At the end of the day, we visited Bethlehem to see the Church of the Nativity and touch the rock they believe Jesus was born upon.

Other than the religious visits, we also had lunch and a walking tour in Ramallah, the de facto capital of the state of Palestine. At the current presidential palace, we saw the tomb of Yasser Arafat, one of the most important historical Palestinian leaders and first president of the Palestinian Authority who is either viewed as a heroic freedom fighter and martyr for Palestine or a terrorist against Israel. There aren’t really many sites to see in the city, but it was still very cool to walk around throughout the markets and get a flare for the city. It’s a lot bigger and more developed than I’d imagined, and is definitely a full-fledged Arab city filled with life and people. One of our favorite parts was when Elyssa and I politely declined a merchant’s offer in Arabic (la shukran, لا شكرا) and he was so amazed that a big group of tourists responded in Arabic! (Thanks goes to Elyssa for teaching me the “la” part, but I had the “shukran” part down. 😉 ) This was just another example of many that the Palestinians feel forgotten and ignored and just want some form of recognition, and are amazed when they get it.

Wall of separation

Wall of separation

Throughout the day, but especially before Bethlehem, we took a tour along the separation wall currently being built to divide Israel from the West Bank. Like the Berlin Wall, the barrier is full of graffiti directed at the international community, showing the people’s dislike of the wall and the current conflict. We stopped by a town that had the wall cut it in half, completely shutting down the stores right next to it, and also saw a refugee camp for expelled Palestinians from Israel. Definitely a somber end to the tour. Our tour guide took this opportunity to discuss the conflict in a very non-inflammatory way, which we were pretty impressed with, given his obvious Palestinian bias. He explained that the two areas are just currently filled with violence, hate, and misunderstanding, and unless the relationship is rebuilt people will continue to view an Israeli as a checkpoint or a soldier with a gun and a Palestinian as a militant with a rocket or suicide bomber. He expressed dismay in that he didn’t really see a solution in the near future.

All in all, Elyssa and I were very satisfied with our whole trip to Israel, especially the tour. I feel like we understand more about the conflict now, which basically means we realize how little we and everyone else truly understands. Jerusalem and the region is really like a microcosm with all of the many factions in the world all existing together in a small space arguing over high-stake artifacts, even between groups like individual Christian factions and secular Jews compared with more conservative Jews. Though things are okay at the moment and millions of people live, travel, and work there everyday, there are still so many real issues like misunderstanding and resentment bubbling under the surface that’s very palpable and scary if you’re paying attention. Not so much for safety reasons, because Israel has an amazingly advanced defense system and security procedures, but more because I don’t really know how things are going to be solved. Besides the conflict with Palestine, Israel continues to face its own internal problems as well, such as the issues with maintaining both a secular state and a Jewish majority without becoming too extreme or religious like Iran. I’m not really sure why I’m surprised there are still issues in the region though, considering people have been fighting over that same area of land for almost all of human history, with Jerusalem alone being destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times. People have been struggling to coexist there for a very long time.

There’s no way we could’ve seen everything Jerusalem has to offer, let alone all of Israel, in such a short trip, but we definitely got a lot done. I still want to come back someday to see some more holy sites like the Mount of Olives, revisit some of the sites we already saw with fewer crowds, and see some of the attractions related to the state of Israel like the Knesset Menorah, the government buildings, Yad Vashem, and the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Shrine of the Book. There are also many other cool places in the country like the Dead Sea, Sea of Galilee, Eilat, and many more. Hopefully the next visit will be very soon. 🙂

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Last minute touristy things

Posted on 14 May 2014 by Casey Brown

Because we’ve all finally finished exams and are preparing to have even more people slowly trickle out of Madrid, we’ve been trying to fit in some last minute touristy things that we either missed throughout the semester or are a little off the beaten track. Naturally, this also includes taking advantage of Madrid’s many green spaces and cafés. 🙂

El Rastro

El Rastro

On our last Sunday with the Iberian kids, we went to El Rastro, Madrid’s famous huge open-air flea market that’s held every Sunday in La Latina. It’s usually wall-to-wall people, but the prices are very cheap and there’s a cool assortment of different things to buy. The market isn’t just popular among tourists, it’s often full of locals too, who spend a lot of the day outside shopping, listening to live music, and frequenting some of the many tapas bars in the area. After shopping for a while, we headed over to a skate park not from the metro that usually has live music playing and listened to a very cool a cappella group that was also a comedy show. Soaking up the sun and chilling with the live music, followed up by a trip to Tierra Burrito, was a great way to spend our last weekend with the Iberian kids!

On Wednesday, we decided to finally to make it up to the top of the Palacio de Cibeles, the large building that dominates the Plaza de Cibeles. Though it used to be the old headquarters of the post office, it’s now the city hall (ayuntamiento) of Madrid. It offers some cool panoramic views of the city from the top and inside also has some art exhibitions and cool study places that we wish we had found out about earlier. Even better: it turns out that going to the top is free every first Wednesday of the month, and we just so happened to be there on the first Wednesday of the month! It was definitely cool to see the skyline of the city we’ve called home for the last few months one last time from a very new angle.

View from top of Palacio de Cibeles

View from top of Palacio de Cibeles

Saturday was Hyunjin’s last night in the city, so we went out for a little bit in Malasaña and Alonso Martínez, but not until after we headed to the Plaza de Oriente to see an event outside the Teatro Real at Ópera Metro. We’re still not really sure what it was for, but the Royal Opera House put on a light show advertising its upcoming events and sang a song. There were a ton of people gathered in the plaza shared by the Royal Palace, and we were all a little surprised when it ended after only 15 minutes, but it was still cool nevertheless. We think it was part of the San Isidro festivities. Because San Isidro is the patron saint of Madrid, his feast day, May 15, is also Madrid Day, so there are many celebrations, events, and cool deals during the week.

Grand finale at the Teatro Real

Grand finale at the Teatro Real

This Monday, Christy and I were about to head home after chilling with some of our friends, but decided to finally check out the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum when we realized it had free entrance for 30 more minutes that day. This was the only museum in the Golden Triangle of Art that we hadn’t yet it made it to, primarily because the private collection isn’t typically free for students like the Prado and Reina Sofía are. We had a whirlwind tour through the museum and were able to see most of it before they kicked us all out when the clock turned 16:00. I definitely think I prefer the Prado, but I understand that this museum is very good because it fills the gaps of the Prado and Reina Sofía’s collections, including more works from Italian, English, Dutch, and German artists, as well as Impressionist, Expressionist, and European and American more recent works from the 1950s onward. It was cool to see these paintings, but there wasn’t anything really big there. Either way, we’re very glad we made it just in time for the free period!

Yesterday, we continued our adventures with a very fun, chill day. Christy and I started off with the Ateneo de Madrid from our list of cool off-the-beaten track places. We were a little disappointed by this one, and still aren’t really sure what we visited, but the private cultural institution was at least somewhat interesting. Apparently they usually have cultural events and one of the main reasons it’s a cool place to visit is just to chill and study in the atmosphere of the second-largest library in Spain after the National Library. After that, we tried to go to Madrid’s Almudena Cathedral, which we are embarrassed to say we still haven’t been to. It closed at 14:30 and we rolled up at 14:31… awkward. Luckily though, we made it to our next stop, the big lake in Casa de Campo, and were finally joined by four of our other friends, Gian, Ben, Spencer, and Max. We just chilled by the water and then wandered around to the park until we got to the Teleférico de Madrid. Christy and I had already taken the cable car before, but the others hadn’t and it’s always cool to go on again. After lots more chilling and a visit to the Microteatro por Dinero, a theater with a bunch of short 15 minute plays, we ended a great day hanging out in Madrid with some bars in Sol and actually made it home at a decent hour.

Group photo at the top of Casa de Campo at the teleférico depot

Group photo at the top of Casa de Campo at the teleférico depot

It’s scary to think we’re nearing the end of our list of things to do and the end of our time in Madrid. Though I’m definitely going to miss the fun, laid-back times like these exploring the city with everyone, we’ll definitely leave with good memories of some good times and the knowledge that we really did accomplish a lot in our time here.

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Nightlife and Leisure in Madrid

Posted on 11 May 2014 by Casey Brown

Okay, now that school’s officially over (I finished my last final on Tuesday), I can talk about what you’ve all been really wanting to find out: nightlife in Madrid. Though we’ve been studying a lot and traveling, we’ve still had time to take advantage of the bar and club scene that Madrid is well known for. As with most of Europe, Madrid also has a very different alcohol culture from the United States, so drinking during the day is pretty common and almost everywhere sells alcohol, including places like Taco Bell! (They have no translation for “it’s 5 o’clock somewhere,” because there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a beer during their mid-morning snack at around 10:00… they typically don’t drink to excess, so see nothing wrong with it.) Couple all of that with a laid-back leisurely culture known for its midday breaks and siestas, and Madrid is certainly a cool place to enjoy some downtime and leisure, even if it’s just chilling out in a bar or café.

The most important thing to know about Madrid nightlife is that it really is nightlife. Bars, which usually are more laid back and serve food, stay open until about 01:00 to 02:00 and clubs or discotecas stay open until around 06:00. Things in general don’t start picking up until after midnight, and it’s a little scary how used to that we’re becoming. The metro is closed daily from 01:30 until 06:00, so a lot of people choose to skip the late night búho buses and just stay out until the metro reopens. A quote attributed to Ernest Hemingway that often finds its way into tourist pages about Madrid explains that “nobody goes to bed in Madrid until they have killed the night”, and that’s generally pretty true. Though I’ve never stayed out until the Metro reopens because it hasn’t been worth it since I can walk or take a quick bus ride home, I’ve definitely had a few nights where I returned at 05:30.

Though we try to change it up a little bit and try new areas, we do have our favorite places. For our last hurrah last Saturday night, we did one of our favorite itineraries: El Tigre at around 22:00, then Gris at 23:00, and finally Kapital at around 00:45 to get the deal.

El Tigre

El Tigre

El Tigre is definitely a must-do when in Madrid and one of our favorites, but make sure that you don’t go there on a full stomach. It’s a chain of three restaurants, all within a block of each other on Calles Hortaleza and Infantas in Chueca. For only 6€, you get a huge beer, sangria, or mojito, and seemingly endless tapas, including jamón, paella, chicken wings, croquetas, and more. Go with a big group and you’ll end up with plates and drinks covering your tables and you’ll definitely not be able to finish everything. It’s a little gross when you think about the fact that they must reuse all of the uneaten food to keep costs down and that their version of clearing the table is taking the plates away and knocking the trash on the floor… but it’s definitely a fun, different experience that we love.

Gris

Gris

From there we usually head to Gris, which is only one street away, and is one of our favorite shot bars that has a lot of interesting combinations, all for either 1€ or 1,50€, depending on what time you go. After a little bit of chilling with the alternative crowd there, we walk down the Paseo del Prado to Kapital, Madrid’s famous 7-story nightclub in the Atocha area. Each floor has a different music theme, so hypothetically you can never get bored. It’s definitely a little on the expensive side, with 16€ getting you entrance and two drinks, but only if you have a special code. Even still, we have had a few good nights there and it’s crazy how busy it stays until late at night.

Our first night at Kapital back in January!

Our first night at Kapital back in January!

We spent a lot of the first few weeks in the same places like Cien Montaditos, a really cheap cervecería chain all over Madrid that sells 100 different types of small sandwiches and has special deals on Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays. However, we also like to hang out around the different neighborhoods. Madrid has one of the highest densities of bars and clubs in Europe, so we really haven’t been everywhere and couldn’t possible, but here’s a few of the neighborhoods we like to hang out in.

Cien Montaditos

Cien Montaditos

Sol/Gran Vía: The Puerta del Sol is the central meeting point of Madrid and the heart of the city; with it being the point of kilometer zero, it’s also the center of the entirety of Spain. Though it’s definitely more touristy, you can still have a good time here. When we were in this area, Dubliners and Independance Club were definitely our main go-to’s. Dubliners is an Irish pub that’s full of Americans and British people, and also gets quite a few Spaniards looking to practice their English and meet foreigners. We didn’t like going there all the time because of how touristy it was, but it was a good backup plan that was usually pretty cheap and we met some cool people from. On Monday nights at the beginning of the semester you could find us at salsa lessons at the Independance Club very close to Dubliners and Sol. After a few hours of salsa lessons to get groups mingling, the venue turned into a pretty busy club that’s one of the only things to do on Monday nights, hence the event’s name F*cking Mondays. Many of us didn’t have class until late Tuesday, so this was usually a fun place to go and experience a little bit of the dance culture, even though they had the occasionally beer pong tournament that really got the Spaniards excited. (Apparently they had only seen it on the movies before?)

Girls with the salsa instructor

Girls with the salsa instructor

There are a few other big clubs in this area that we only went to once or twice and we didn’t really love, like Joy, Palace, and Moondance. They usually get pretty busy, depending on the night, and sometimes have good deals for international students, but we were generally a little disappointed. We really had to bring the party for it to be any fun. 😉 A little further down towards Plaza Mayor and on Calle Montera off of the Gran Vía there is the Mercado de San Miguel and a few chill cafés and restaurants with outside seating that are perfect for enjoying a sunny day.

Huertas/Plaza de Santa Ana: We only went to this area a few times, but it’s pretty popular among the young crowd. Centered around Calle de las Huertas, the bars in the barrio de las Letras are pretty fun and cheap and a favorite of my friend’s host sister, Cris. The nearby Plaza de Santa Ana also has lots of interesting bars and is the home to a few bars on the Ernest Hemingway bar crawl.

Theater that greets us every time we go to La Latina

Weird theater in La Latina

La Latina: Known for the popular Sunday flea market El Rastro, La Latina is pretty popular among locals, especially in the middle of the afternoon as El Rastro finishes up. They go to the nearby bars and even chill in the public areas outside, such as a local skate park that has live music on Sundays. It’s fun to just wander around the tapas places and bars in that area on other days too, and we always remember the neighborhood from a fun party we had at one of our friends’ apartments one night.

Alonso Martínez/Tribunal: These areas are very central, located right between Malasaña and Chueca and north of the Gran Vía and Sol. There are tons of bars and clubs in this area, including some late night food places. Pequeños placeres, a cheap bar that fills up pretty quickly, and T Club are pretty popular, but our favorite was definitely Space Monkey. It’s a tiny place that’s halfway between a bar and a club with some pretty cheap drinks, a good atmosphere and dance floor, and some interesting music. One of the rooms plays dance/top-40 type music, while the other one plays an interesting variety of songs you don’t typically hear going out, like classic rock, wedding songs like “Shout”, and fun older songs that you don’t really know how to dance to, but it’s fun trying to figure it out. Like Malasaña, it’s just a fun area to bar hop in.

Milkshakes at Tommy Mel's

Milkshakes at Tommy Mel’s

Chueca: Home to two of our favorites, El Tigre and Gris, Chueca might be the gay neighborhood, but it’s certainly welcoming to people of every background and also full of cool places to go. The very liberal and young area, full of saunas, gyms, tattoo parlors, and underwear stores that may double as sex shops, is pretty fun to just walk around in. We also loved the American diner bar Tommy Mel’s that had alcoholic milkshakes. We went to a few bars in the area, but one of the most fun things is to just sit at the cafés in the Plaza de Chueca with some tapas and a bottle of wine. The nearby Calle de Fuencarral and its side streets are also perfect for this, given the fact that Fuencarral is a big pedestrian shopping street with a few good cafés and restaurants. One of our favorite brunch places, La Tita Rivera, is also on one of the side streets, as is a really good ice cream place. 🙂

Malasaña: Centered around the Plaza del Dos de Mayo, Malasaña is the more alternative and edgier neighborhood. It doesn’t really have officially set boundaries and doesn’t have its own Metro station, but you can usually tell when you’re there. It’s interesting and fun to go barhopping in this area, but the crowd is definitely a little older, which I guess isn’t surprising considering Malasaña was known as the center of la movida madrileña after Franco, so it has a very old history. Our favorite places were Tupperware and Madklyn, but the bars are all definitely very interesting and unique, so it’s fun to explore.

Most fun part just chilling at a bar talking and telling stories

Most fun part just chilling at a bar talking and telling stories

We’ve had a lot of fun over the last few months trying to experience all the bars, cafés, and clubs that Madrid has to offer, and we’ll definitely miss it next semester. We learned how much the group you’re with matters and how some of the best nights can be chilling in a bar with a good group of people talking. The laid back and casual approach to alcohol and social settings is definitely different from the United States, so it’ll be weird to go back home. Despite the fact that most of my friends should be 21 next semester, it’ll be weird to get carded considering we haven’t gotten asked for ID here because of the 18 drink age. We’re preparing ourselves for the reverse culture shock, especially the fact that our friends will find it totally strange that we find partying until 05:00 completely normal!

We'll definitely miss El Tigre though

We’ll definitely miss El Tigre though!

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The Basque Country: Bilbao and San Sebastián

Posted on 10 May 2014 by Casey Brown
This sums up our bus trips pretty well.

This sums up our bus trips pretty well.

One of the few places in Spain that our program didn’t have the chance to bring us was the Basque Country. Since we had a few days between exams, Hyunjin, Ben, Christy, and I decided to take a two day trip to get a taste of the region. We left early on Thursday morning, and got back late Friday night. Because we only had to pay for one night in a hostel and took buses, it was a very cheap trip. I never ceased to be impressed by how good public transportation is in Europe, even though 5-6 hour long bus rides can get pretty tiring, especially when your batteries die.

We decided to spend roughly a day in two of the most important cities in the autonomous community, Bilbao and San Sebastian. Most people only know about País Vasco because of the former separatist terrorist organization, ETA, that killed many people over its 50 year history while fighting for independence and the unification of the Basque regions in Spain and France. The organization has since disbanded, however, and the region has much more to offer. The separatism actually shows one of the reasons the area is so special: because of its mountainous location, the region actually grew separately from much of Spain. It has a distinct culture with its own sports like rock lifting and pelota, which is similar to racquetball or squash but involves a rock and the players’ bare hands. They were also one of the first regions to industrialize in Spain, one of the country’s major ports, well-known for their love of gastronomy, and the home to one of the most unique languages in all of Europe, without any relatives.

Ironically enough, we had seen the movie Ocho apellidos vascos the day before we left for the trip. Movies are cheaper on Wednesdays and only cost 3,90 €, so we decided to take advantage of the good deal. Eight Basque surnames has been one of the most popular films in Spain ever and is still open despite having a release date of March 14. It’s a Spanish comedy film that follows an Andalusian man from Sevilla who follows a Basque woman to Euskadi and has to pretend he’s Basque to impress her father. Though we didn’t get all of the jokes, we’ve heard it’s very accurate in its depictions of andaluz and vasco stereotypes. We actually saw quite a few of them confirmed, such as the fashion worn typically by young Basque men such as earrings and dark clothes!

After our long bus ride and 07:00 departure, we finally arrived in Bilbao at around noon. Bilbao is the largest city in the Basque Country and a large port due to its ría, or estuary, which lies at the meeting point of a few different rivers. The most important thing to see in the city is the Guggenheim Museum, so we headed their first after getting our bearings. The building itself is one of the most famous pieces of contemporary architecture, especially because it was one of the few times when both the public and critics agreed on something. We weren’t sure if we were going to go inside the museum too, but I’m really glad we did. Though it doesn’t have any really famous pieces, it’s a very cool museum and the temporary exhibitions that we saw were big on participation, letting you walk through them or touch them. There were also some interesting exhibitions by Yoko Ono and even some cool paintings in the permanent collections. We spent two hours in there and then headed outside to eat our packed lunch in the nice weather.

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

We got the typical picture of the exterior of the museum and then set off on our own little walking tour of the city towards the Casco Viejo. These Siete Calles are the seven old streets that represent the medieval Old Town of Bilbao. They were a little underwhelming, I guess because we’ve already seen quite a few examples of narrow streets like Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, and this one has become a fairly built up shopping area. We did get to see the Church of San Antón from the outside and go inside Bilbao’s Catedral de Santiago, before taking a break at a bar to try some pinxos, which are the Basque’s version of tapas that the region is known for. Again, they didn’t seem to be that different from Madrid’s bar food, so we were a little let down, but it was good to try them nevertheless. They did seem to have more seafood because of how close we were to the coast. Also, to be fair, part of what the Basque are known for is the restaurant cuisine, which we poor college students didn’t have the chance to try, and the closed gastronomical societies called txoko, which are like book clubs but for food where the male members cook together and experiment with new flavors and ingredients.

After grabbing some ice cream and walking down the Gran Vía de Don Diego López de Haro, we hopped back on the bus at 20:40 for our hour long bus ride to San Sebastián, where we’d be sleeping that night. Even though Bilbao didn’t seem crazy different from other places we had been, it definitely has its own unique feel and people, and the city is definitely very beautiful with much more focus on contemporary architecture than Madrid. The people have their own style of clothes, with earrings for the young and lots of berets for the older men, and a knack for using “eso es” much more than we’ve heard in Madrid.

San Sebastián, or Donostia as it’s also known in Basque, is a huge beach town and one of the most famous tourist destinations within Spain. It also has tons of French travelers because it’s only around 20 km from the French border. We stayed near the Old Town, so we explored a little bit that night after grabbing some pinxos for dinner. It was cool to be walking around all the bars in that area at night, especially since the churches and old architecture were preserved. The next day, we walked around the three main beaches in the city, including the Beach of La Concha, one of the most famous urban beaches in Europe. Its name comes from the fact that it looks like a shell, or concha, when viewed from above because of how the long beach wraps around the inlet created by the Igueldo and Urgull mountains. We took the historic funicular line to the top of the Igueldo Mountain, where we got the view that the beach town is famous for.

Bay of La Concha and San Sebastián from Monte Igueldo

La Concha and San Sebastián from Monte Igueldo

After we came back from the mountain, we were surprised with some beautiful sun. The weather in Bilbao had been nice, but the morning in San Sebastián was overcast with some small drizzling. We decided to take advantage of the nice sunny weather and warm temperatures and spend the most of that day on La Concha Beach, after we had an awesome lunch of junk beach bar food, complete with a burger that had a fried egg on it. We wandered throughout San Sebastián for what was left of the day and eventually made our way back to the bus station.

All in all, it was a pretty good trip for our last one in Spain. Some long bus rides, but that just reminded us that even though Madrid is very centrally located in the middle of the Spain, it’s pretty far from everything in the middle of Castilla. I had good company though and I’m definitely glad we got a chance to experience the Basque Country. 🙂 It was one of the few places that we didn’t have a chance to go to that we felt we really needed to experience, and we definitely got to see a lot of it, even though we only had two days.

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Day trip to Palma, Mallorca

Posted on 6 May 2014 by Casey Brown

On Friday, a few friends and I decided to go on a day trip to Palma, Mallorca. Mallorca is an island off the eastern coast of Spain and is part of the Balearic Islands autonomous community and archipelago. The island also just happens to be the hometown of Rafael Nadal, which our friend Hyunjin was very excited about. It was about a hour and a half plane ride, but because we were only planning on being there for about 12 hours, we didn’t need baggage. I could get used to traveling like that… very easy and convenient!

All in all, it was a very laid-back trip. We spent some time just wandering around the city and relaxed on the beach for a little bit. The island, like Ibiza, has a reputation for attracting a lot of German tourists, so much so that I got confused for one a few times and they actually counted out my change to me in German… at least I think that’s what they said to me, your guess is as good as mine. We walked through the streets and saw the outside of the Cathedral and Palace of La Almudaina. Palma really reminded us a lot of Barcelona, with its architecture and sights being very similar — they also had a big Plaça d’Espanya and even their own La Rambla with flower markets. I guess that shouldn’t have surprised us all that much considering they also speak Catalan and the islands are located right off the cost of Valencia and Catalonia.

After a short visit with lots of sun, we hopped quickly back on our plane and before we knew it we were back in Madrid. After such a busy last couple of days though, we were eager to get some rest.

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