Casey Brown's Blog

Granada: Spain’s Last Moorish Conquest

Posted on 27 February 2014 by Casey Brown

After spending almost all of Thursday driving through Consuegra’s windmills and visiting the mosque of Córdoba, we finally arrived in the city we’d be sleeping for the next two nights: Granada. We didn’t get there until around 8:00pm, so we wouldn’t be doing much that day apart from chilling out, eating dinner, and sleeping. When we all crowded at the front desk for check in, the receptionist instinctively moved the WiFi password sign to the middle where we could all see it. He knew what we all really wanted.

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Posted in Study Abroad in Madrid | Tagged al-andalus, alhambra, andalucía, aragón, architecture, carlos v, castilla, catholic, caves, el escorial, escorial, felipe, felipe el hermoso, fernando, flamenco, fortress, gitano, granada, gypsies, gypsy, isabel, islam, juana la loca, market, moors, mountain, mudéjar, muslim, muslims, navarra, open-air market, palace, paradise, pashmina, philip, philip the handsome, pomegranate, reconquista, reyes católicos, romani, sierra nevada, toledo | Leave a comment

The Windmills of Don Quixote and Mosque of Córdoba

Posted on 22 February 2014 by Casey Brown

We left early Thursday morning for our trip from Madrid to Andalucía, one of Spain’s largest autonomous communities, located along the southern coast of the country and dominated by its Islamic history and influence. This will be a very long trip — from Thursday morning until Tuesday night — but on it we will be exposed to many different places in the Iberian Peninsula, such as the cities of Córdoba, Granada, and Sevilla in Andalucía and Lisbon in Portugal. Fortunately, because this trip is included in the Iberian Experience kids’ study abroad program, all of our AU classes are canceled this week, so I don’t really have homework and I only miss one ICADE class!

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Posted in Study Abroad in Madrid | Tagged al-andalus, almodóvar, andalucía, andalusia, bodegas, calamari, castila-la mancha, castilla, cathedral, catholic, catholic monarchs, catholicism, cervantes, cheese, chipirones, chipirones fritos, cola cao, consuegra, córdoba, don quixote, es, film, food, granada, harry potter, iberia, iberian peninsula, islam, islamic, la mancha, la piel que habito, lisboa, lisbon, manchego, manchego cheese, mecca, mezquita, mosque, muslim, paco, pedro almodóvar, portugal, pt, religion, reyes católicos, roman, rome, salmorejo, salmorejo cordobés, sevilla, skin i live in, spain, squids, trips, vineyards, visigoth, windmills, wine | 1 Comment

Weekend trip to Amsterdam

Posted on 18 February 2014 by Casey Brown

On Friday morning I woke up at 4:00am to take my first trip out of Spain since I arrived a month and a half ago. Madrid’s metro rail doesn’t run at that hour, but luckily there’s a 24 hour shuttle service to the airport that only costs €5. It leaves from the night bus hub at the Plaza de Cibeles, which is much cheaper than the flat fee of about €35 for a taxi ride to the airport and pretty convenient despite it requiring a 30 minute walk in the rain. Although I was initially hesitant to go to Amsterdam because I had already visited the city with my family before, it turned out to be completely worth it. Our weekend trip was awesome, and I got to see and experience many things that I missed out on the first time.

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Posted in Study Abroad in Madrid | Tagged amsterdam, amsterdam centraal, anne frank, anne frank's house, art, bloemenmarkt, botanical garden, canabis, canal, canal tour, canals, centraal, central station, cheese, coffeeshops, dam square, de wallen, drug policy, drugs, flower market, flowers, food, french fries, gedoogbeleid, gouda, heineken, heineken experience, hermitage, holocaust, homomonument, hop on hop off, hortus, hostel, houseboats, i amsterdam, ij, marijuana, market, metro, museum, museumplein, museums, nazi, nazis, nemo, nemo science center, netherlands, nl, party, plaza de cibeles, prostitutes, prostitution, red light, red light district, rijksmuseum, schiphol, secret annex, shuttle service, skinny bridge, smoking, st. christopher's in, stedelijk, stopera, stroopwafel, stroopwafels, trip, van gogh, van gogh museum, vip, wallen, weekend trip, winston, world war II | Leave a comment

Journalism field trip, Reina Sofía, and El Lobo de Wall Street

Posted on 9 February 2014 by Casey Brown

The last week has been pretty low-key. After staying up so late for the Super Bowl, the cold that I had been getting over came back with renewed fury and quite possibly a case of bronchitis, so I’ve been mostly taking it easy in my bed with my Netflix subscription instead of going out at night. I’ve tried to make the best of the time I am actually out and about so, in addition to visiting the Prado again with Paco’s class, I did some other exploring with some friends when they dragged me out of the house. I’m glad I decided to abstain from drinking though, because I might be slowly getting better!

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Posted in Study Abroad in Madrid | Tagged abono, art, au, basque, basque country, class, dalí, elena, field trip, franco, guernica, journal, journalism, lobo de wall street, luis buñuel, mario, metro, modern art, movie, movie theater, movies, museum, netflix, news, pablo picasso, paco, país vasco, phone, picasso, reina sofía, salvador dalí, santiago bernabéu, stadium, trips, un chien adalou, un perro andaluz, v.o., v.o.s., wolf of wall street | 2 Comments

Madrid’s Prado Museum

Posted on 7 February 2014 by Casey Brown

The Museo del Prado is Spain’s largest art museum. It’s located right in the middle of Madrid, about a 10 minute walk to the east of Puerta del Sol and right off of Plaza de Cibeles, the night bus hub that’s also home to the Bank of Spain and Madrid’s City Hall. We first visited the museum during orientation week to see some of the major highlights and returned on Tuesday to see some portraits, or retratos, of the royalty of Spain.

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Posted in Study Abroad in Madrid | Tagged arqueological museum, art, art changes, bank of spain, christ washing the disciple's feet, class, dalí, disrobing of christ, el greco, elites, elitism, european art, goya, greco, hierarchy, kings, las meninas, monarchs, museo arueológico, museo del prado, museum, paco, patricia, picasso, plaza de cibeles, portraits, prado, puerta del sol, queens, reina sofía, retiro, royalty, royalty of spain, sol, spain seminar, spanish monarchs, thyssen-bornemisza, tintoretto, titian, velázquez | Leave a comment

Super Bowl XLVIII as an expat

Posted on 4 February 2014 by Casey Brown

Like the 111.5 million other people in the United States, some friends and I stayed up late on Sunday night to watch the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII. Kick-off was scheduled for 6:30pm… but that’s east coast time in the US. For us, that meant the game wouldn’t start until around midnight our time, and we wouldn’t get back home until around 5:00am Monday morning! That fact certainly made us think twice about whether to watch the game or not.

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Posted in Study Abroad in Madrid | Tagged ads, advertisements, america, american, american football, amfam, athletic bilbao, atlético de madrid, bilbao, broncos, budweiser, chrysler, coca-cola, coke, commercials, culture, denver, denver broncos, dreams, festival, food, football, fútbol, holiday, holidays, homesick, import, james joyce, jeep, made in america, puppies, real madrid, red card, ronaldo, seahawks, seattle, seattle seahawks, soccer, super bowl, superbowl, united states, usa, wilderness | Leave a comment

Paseo #2: Authentic Flamenco Performance

Posted on 31 January 2014 by Casey Brown

Unlike the typical Paseos por Madrid which take place during the day on Fridays, this week’s class took place at 9:30 on Wednesday night and didn’t finish until 11:30. Being out so late (though, honestly, midnight is not late in Spain) on a school night was definitely worth it, because we were able to see a flamenco show! It was very cool to follow up the flamenco class after last week’s paseo with a real, authentic performance by professionals.

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Posted in Study Abroad in Madrid | Tagged andalucía, andalusia, brazil, culture, dance, duende, duendes, flamenco, guitar, gypsies, gypsy, mudéjar, music, paseo, paseos por madrid, performance, phrygian scale, romani, samba, show, singing, song | Leave a comment

Real Madrid Game

Posted on 29 January 2014 by Casey Brown

Santiago Bernabéu at night

On Tuesday night, Christy, Hyunjin, and I finally had the chance to see the Real Madrid stadium filled with real people. It was a totally different experience to see the venue lit up at night with tons of people in it. When we toured the Santiago Bernabéu last Monday, it was still bright out and the stadium was almost completely empty. On game day, the stadium was alive with tons of people excited to see the game. Though the stadium didn’t look as filled as the Atlético Madrid vs. Sevilla game we attended, the Santiago Bernabéu can fit 85,454 people! That’s about about 30,000 more people than the Vicente Calderón Stadium, and a huge amount of fans in one place, so even just barely filling the stadium is quite an achievement.

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Posted in Study Abroad in Madrid | Tagged atlético, atlético de madrid, barça, barcelona, copa del rey, cristiano ronaldo, espanyol, fútbol, game, la liga, real, real madrid, ronaldo, santiago bernabéu, soccer | Leave a comment

Snowy Mountain Hike in Cercedilla

Posted on 25 January 2014 by Casey Brown

As if we didn’t get our fill of the outdoors during our visit to the Retiro yesterday, today we decided to go on a hike in the Sierra de Guadarrama within the Cuenca Alta del Manzares regional park. This is actually the same mountain range that we had to drive over to get to Segovia last weekend. (Wow, I can’t believe it was only last weekend that we went…) Though our hike was cut short due to a lot of snow on the ground, we still ended up with a challenging trek of about 6 miles.

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Posted in Study Abroad in Madrid | Tagged cercanías, cercedilla, commuter rail, hike, hiking, nature, outdoors, sierra de guadarrama, snow | Leave a comment

First Paseo: Retiro Park and a Flamenco Class

Posted on 24 January 2014 by Casey Brown

Paseos por Madrid is another class offered as part of American University’s Iberian Experience that the Madrid Business Program students can participate in occasionally. Paseo is a Spanish word that means a walk or stroll, though its connotation is very similar to the English word promenade, as it’s more a leisurely stroll through a public area. The class tries to expose all of us to different areas of Madrid in ways that it would be difficult for us to do on our own, so even though the class is optional for us, we will try to attend as many as possible so we can get to know the city we call home that much more.

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Posted in Study Abroad in Madrid | Tagged andalucía, andalusia, art, atocha, boat, cats, class, dance, dance class, elena, franco, keke, monument, park, paseo, paseos por madrid, reina sofía, renfre, retiro, retiro park, tirso de molina | Leave a comment

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