Roamin' Redheads (Part II)

December 12, 2009

In an effort to pretend that finals don’t exist and that I don’t need to go home this week, I’m updating the blog. I’ve been slacking and have not updated in a month. The biggest things that happened were that my family came to visit and I went to Brussels and Rome! My parents and Brit came to Spain and I met them in Sevilla. We spent two days in Sevilla and two days in Granada, and saw a lot! We went to the Alhambra, La Catedral, saw a flamenco show, and frolicked all around. We went out for tapas a couple of nights which was hilarious because my mom was uncontrollably giggling after less than one sangria. We all came back to Bilbao together, and Brit stayed with me in the apartment. Rosa made a delicious (and huge!) meal for everyone on Monday, and later her sister and brother-in-law came down, they are unbelievably sweet. On Tuesday after classes we went kayaking in the river, which was awesome! It was really tranquil and I love seeing Bilbao from different perspectives. For dinner we went out with Meghan, Rosa, and Jasone. On Wednesday we went to Plentzia, but it was raining, so it wasn’t great. On Thanksgiving we were supposed to go hiking, but I was sick all day, so everyone explored a bit and then we had dinner together. My family left for Madrid early Friday morning, and I had the rest of the week to catch up on work before heading to Brussels and Rome! We had a long weekend so I went to Brussels, where I stayed with Kristen for the day! It was so much fun to see her, and I really liked Brussels with all of the Christmas markets (not to mention the Belgian waffles). On Thursday I went to Rome to meet up with Claire!!! I’ll skip the beginning of the trip, because that’s been covered already. The Vatican Museums were huge and much nicer than expected. I saw someone in my Spanish class there, which was funny. When Claire and I headed back, we ended up getting lost in some demonstration for about an hour before finally taking the PACKED metro. We had dinner at a really cute restaurant, and had delicious lemon gelato with limoncello! We went to an internet café and tried to call my friend who’s in Rome, but instead had a sketchy encounter with an Italian man who apparently teaches at Stony Brook. On Sunday we took pictures with rude gladiators, went to the Pantheon, then Piazza Navona (where we had yummy traditional Italian desserts), and finally Trastevere, which is the old part of the city. It was awesome, and had lots of unique stores and restaurants. (Good suggestion Kristin!) Rome was beautiful, but seeing each other was the best part of the trip!!! Now I’m back in Bilbao and I leave in 4 days...I could definitely stay longer, I absolutely love it here and my host family is incredible! Que será, será.

P.S. Happy Birthday B!

Roamin' Redheads!!! Part I

Ali and I have officially rocked Rome. But let me backtrack...
Jason visited me for the week of Thanksgiving, and it was awesome. He did an amazing job cooking, and we went nearly everywhere in Graz during the week, and went to Vienna for a day as well. It was really nice to see him, and show him all of the sights! Plus, we ate the best desserts ever, that he somehow discovered while here.
Then last Thursday I headed to ROME to meet up with Ali. Getting to the airport and then the train station was fine; finding the hostel was a different situation. Make a mental note - Asking for directions in mcdonalds is not that reliable. After asking another old man (he was also wrong) and a third hotel front-desk man (he was right) I finally located the building... and was met by an interesting assortment of people. And then it happened: the most awesome redhead ever Ali arrived!!! I basically pounced on her. We spent the evening talking, catching up, discussing life, and eating austrian crackers, belgian chocolates, clementines, and nature valley bars.
The next morning I sprang out of my top bunk (just like a true sleepover) at 8am and after a shower that basically consisted of ice cubes attacking me, we went in search of breakfast, and found a little cafe with perfect cappuccino and sandwiches. It was slightly drizzly and we decided to spend the day roamin' (I am going to use that whenever possible!) and shopping. Tights stores are everywhere, and we liked the glass and leather stores a lot (sometimes we could even afford the things inside). Dodging the raindrops we went to a few markets, and walked some fancy streets... and happened upon the Colosseum. We also saw the Spanish Steps, held some roses and then gave them back to the guy selling them, and even bought some things (I think three things between the two of us. Which is a successful shopping day in our book). For lunch I had pasta with tomato and garlic, and Ali had lasagna, and later in the afternoon we had gelato, which is basically a requirement while in Rome, no matter the weather. For dinner we had pizza at kind of a sketchy little place, but it was still good, and then turned in for the night. We (aka Ali) did an excellent job navigating throughout the day.
The next day was the Colosseum. After a breakfast of more delicious coffee and multiple pastries, we arrived and joined an English tour (btw they didn't even offer them in German, and the Spanish one intrigued Ali, but I declined) to 'skip the lines' and found ourselves with some crazy blonde italin male tour guide with aviator sunglasses and a leather jacket. He ended up being great though, and I learned a lot of new things (basically everything he said about the Colosseum I did not know beforehand... including the fact that when I asked Ali about the Romans earlier that morning I was approximately 200 years off, if not more). The Colosseum was ginormous, and has such a rich history that afterwords I was really pumped to learn more history (nerd alert?).I guess Rome does that to you, because that is a feeling I rarely get. We were then informed that the Vatican is closed on Sundays (thank you all-knowing tour guide). So we changed our plans from seeing the Roman Forum to going straight to the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel for the rest of the day.
Stay tuned for Part II

Stift Rein

Last weekend Kadie, Fran and I went to Stift Rein, a monastery from 1100. The tour was amazing, and we even got to see the balcony/ organ area of the chapel! The library was stunning and our tour guide, after getting past the whole language barrier, really warmed up to us and took books out of the shelves and opened their fastenings and everything. They had one of the first science fiction books, which discussed men walking on the moon. The walk to Stift Rein was 45 minutes to and from the train station, and on the way back we stopped at a cafe for some dessert because they day had ended up pretty cold, but it was a quiet and gorgeous area - definitely worth the trip.
Last night I had a SUNY dinner up on the Schlossberg, which was amazing! I had pumpkin risotto with goats cheese and apple strudel, and it was one of the most amazing things I have ever eaten. After we went to a Gluhwein stand, which is basically just hot wine... but I was able to keep the lovely mug, so I guess it was worth suffering through the taste.
Today we went to a few thrift stores (which had dirndls, but only the old lady kind unfortunately) and a really delicious yet not expensive chinese buffet. At the moment I am attempting to finish all of my homework before Jason gets here tomorrow! I can't wait, and by next week I will have something exciting to post here...
Bis später! (Until 'later,' or 'until next time!').

Barcelona!!

November 16, 2009

Hola! So Barcelona was awesome…it was my first real non-ISA related, need-to-take-a-plane trip out of Bilbao. I went with Megan, Chelsea, and Ana. Friday night (Nov 6), we figured our way out around the city a bit and ate dinner on a side street of Las Ramblas, which is the main street in Barcelona. When we got back we did some serious planning on everything that we wanted to see/do for the weekend. Saturday morning we got up somewhat early and headed to La Boqueria, which is a huge market with fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, fish candy, chocolate, pastries, and basically any other foods you can imagine! I got a delicious strawberry-guayabana slushie. Saturday was a Gaudi-ful day (get it…like beautiful, but Gaudiful)- we went to La Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, and sort of saw his houses. La Sagrada Familia is one of the biggest attractions in Barcelona, it is the still unfinished masterpiece of Gaudi. The church was started by Gaudi, and it was such a huge undertaking that he never expected to finish it in his lifetime, but he did expect to get more done than he did, because he was killed by a tranvia (bonus fun fact: that’s why they don’t have tranvias in Barcelona anymore). The outside is stunning, there is an enormous amount of detail and each thing has significance, mostly religious or related to Gaudi’s life. He was influenced a lot by the physics and architecture in nature, which I thought was super interesting, and La Sagrada Familia mimics nature in a lot of ways (the crystalline structures, the spires, the columns that are like leaning tree trunks). Anyway, you can learn plenty about Gaudi himself on Google, so I’ll leave it there. We went inside, which is under a lot of construction so it wasn’t nearly as cool as the outside, and then up to the top which had beautiful views of the city. Next we went to Park Guell! Another Gaudi stop…but sooo cool! It was huge, and in a pretty remote part of the city, but there were beautiful mosaics, and buildings that looked like gingerbread houses, and overall gorgeous views- plus we were there when the sun was setting. Saturday night we went out, which was fun, and luckily did not get mugged like I kind of expected to.

On Sunday we had a packed day!! We started off by going to Barri Gotic, the Gothic Quarter, which has a bunch of old buildings, the most famous of which is La Catedral (I think there about a zillion “La Catedrals” in Spain). We tried to find a secret surprise that Genoveva told us about, but didn’t have much luck, so we headed down to the Mediterranean! There was a market type thing along the water, and also on Las Ramblas that was cool to see, but definitely geared toward tourists. We had a delicious lunch at a little restaurant on the water, and the staff was really nice, which made up for the not so nice people where we had breakfast. After lunch we headed to Montjuic where we intended to go up on the cable car and see everything, but it was really windy so the cable cars weren’t running. Instead, we went to the Olympic Stadium! There was a snowboarding competition going on that was fun to see. There are tiles all around the stadium with the footprints of famous athletes in them (like Nadal). It’s also really close to some huge Palace with fountains…I should probably know the name of it, but I don’t. Meghan and I went back to Las Ramblas and stumbled upon this amazing local market with artesian foods like honey (with the honeycombs still in it), cheeses, pastries, all kinds of goodies! And then we returned Monday morning to torrential downpours, lightening, and thunder in Bilbao…

The rest of the week was fun, it was Meghan’s birthday on Monday so Rosa made a big lunch and we sang Happy Birthday in English and Basque. We also went out for Mexican food Friday night with friends to celebrate which was super delicioso. On Saturday we had an excursion with ISA to Burgos, which is where Genoveva is from. We took a tour of another “La Catedral” and went around the city, which peaked around 1200, but it’s still pretty cool. Yesterday, as a result of some miscommunication with Rosa, I ended up running a 10k…interesting….but fun. Rosa’s great-nephew came over for a bit because apparently he speaks some English, but there wasn’t much evidence of that, although he did live in New York for a few months! At night we went to see another play with Jasone and her girlfriend (whose name is Ainoa, I think) because they had a couple of friends in it. It was called “Sueños del Metro,” and it was pretty good, not the best, not the worst. And now my family is coming in less than three days!!!

Spanish Words of the Day:

Boina- beret

Sellos- stamps

Viudo- widow

Los sintecho- homeless

Cotillar- to gossip

Desviada- deviant

Guiño- wink

Basque Words of the Day:

Herri- pueblo- town

Krosa- carrera- race

Eskerik asko- gracias- thank you

Ez horregatik- de nada- you’re welcome

Zorionak- felicidades- congratulations

Bai- si- yes

Ez- no

Lagunak- amigos- friends

Großbritannien!

On October 25th, 2 weeks ago, my mom's friend Isabella picked me up and we went to Tierwelt Herberstein, a zoo thats near an old castle-residence, and has beautiful gardens (that I am sure are even nicer in the spring! But there were some yellow roses left at least...). The day was very nice, and the zoo even had lemurs which was awesome.
The following Friday I was off to England! It started english-y enough, with pouring rain at 4:45 am as I took two buses to get to the airport, and ended up arriving before check-in even started. I was so excited though it didn't matter. Zoe greeted me at Heathrow Airport, and her dad Ian drove us back to their house, and I swear I got more and more giddy every sign I read - Coral Reef, the Lookout (where they filmed part of Harry Potter, btw) and Crowthorne!!! That afternoon Zoe and I walked around, checked out the new library (I was impressed), and I examined all of the new things that have crept onto High Street. Carol came home from work, and we had a delicious tea (dinner) and amazingggg pudding (dessert as the yanks would say) and watched some fabulous English reality shows. The next day we were off to Bristol, where I got to see Emma, who kindly made the trip from Uni to visit! We had Thai food for lunch (they had a special for students... we took full advantage) and attempted to eat crepes at the docks, without wearing them too. Emma is one of the funniest people I have ever met, and it was great to catch up. She left in the late afternoon to go to Dunster Castle (where she worked and LIVED last year!) to participate in their haunted house on Halloween. Zoe, Carol and I went back to their family friends' house for tea, and it was hilarious to hear everyone's continuous reactions to trick-or-treators... no one besides me found it anything other than annoying. Zoe and her friend and I played 'Cluedo' (Clue) and ate a ton of biscuits (cookies)!
The following day I went into Birmingham by train to meet up with Courtney! It was great to see her. We both showed up in dark blue pea coats, light blue scarves, jeans, and converse. Which we hadn't planned, but was kind of awesome. We got lost within 3 minutes of walking and looked confused enough for a man to stop without us asking, and offered us directions, which we mistakenly took. After an hour we realized that he had been wrong, but ended up anyway at 'the Mailbox,' a very posh shopping mall. So posh in fact, it didn't have even numbered floors, and only one directory. We looked at the stores' displays for the holidays, and found a small, considerably-affordable cafe that was playing the Grease soundtrack. We had lunch and coffee, and ended up talking for so long that not only did the Grease soundtrack play twice, but we ended up hearing some other 50s music as well. In the end though of course we had to leave to get back to our respective trains, unfortunately. But the good news is, Courtney will be meeting me in Vienna to have Christmas with my family!
On Sunday night I spent some more time with the Johnsons (including watching a BBC special!) and got ready to leave, which I was less than happy to do. On Monday morning we first stopped by my old neighborhood again so I could quickly take a picture of my reading tree (I used to climb the branches, which spiraled, when I was little, and read in the tree... apparently I have always been this cool) and then it was off to Heathrow again. Carol dropped me off, and after convincing security that yes, I have an Austrian visa in my USA passport and no you should not be alarmed, I-am-not-hiding-anything-in-my-decorative-scarf, and having my carry-on liquids tested, I bought a fun UK magazine (which ALWAYS come with free things! I couldn't find any with a free bathing suit at this time of year, but I did get free nail polish, and another 'mag' for Mel... but I can't say what it came with, because its a surprise, and she may be one of the 3 people who read this) and some English chocolates.
This past week I pretty much have been catching up with work, and tutoring, which I love doing. Yesterday I met up with some friends from German language class and the folk dancing class, and we went to the farmer's market and then to a great Austrian restaurant for lunch, where I had Marillenknoedel! (Oma, yours are still better. They got really overzealous with their sugar). I was a bit sick yesterday evening (no connection to the Knoedel) but I am better today... and in my health I have had ample time to catch up on my homework, I am happy to say. Last week I also signed up for my classes next semester, and I am really excited to return to the ICD. My friend Kadie and I have also been scheming for Thanksgiving, which is sounding rather ambitious - but Jason will be here, so I'm not too worried about cooking thank goodness! I'll just take on the baking, and leave the turkey to the others...

German words of the week(s):
das Abenteuer - the adventure
der Flughafen - the airport
Sommersprossen - freckles
Loewe - lion
Tiergarten - zoo
Markt - market
wunderlich - fantastic
Großbritannien - Great Britain
Nachbarschaft - neighborhood
Spaziergang - to take a walk

Halloween in Spain

November 6, 2009

Quick Update: I’m leaving for Barcelona in 30 minutes, but haven’t updated the blog in a couple of weeks so here’s more or less what happened. Rosa went to Granada for the week, so her daughter Jasone and her girlfriend came to stay with us (I really need to learn her girlfriend’s name). That Sunday night we went to a play that Jasone’s friend was doing the lighting for- it was really funny, it was in Spanish, but there was a lot of nonverbal communication and it was really well done. All of her friends are about 100 times more hipster cool than I am, but they’re really nice! During the week it was fun to have other people in the house; I spoke so much more Spanish having them both here. On that Thursday night before Halloween we went out, but before leaving I made dinner for everyone, and Jasone’s cousin came over. We had a great time, talked a lot, and even all got somewhat dressed up in costumes! Last Friday we went to Puente Colgante, the oldest hanging bridge in the world (I think)- I had class in the morning so I missed walking across the top of it, but got to ride in it after. We all went out to lunch in Portugalete (not Portugal). Saturday Megan, Meghan, and I went to Plentzia- which is about a 45 minute metro ride, and it is beautiful! It’s basically a smaller version of San Sebastian that’s only a metro ride away! It’s right on the ocean, but also has the mountains…I loved it! We went out that night with a bunch of people from CIDE to Getxo, and later to a party in an old military bunker from the Spanish Civil War on top of the cliffs of the beach in Sopelana. Talk about guay! We ended up staying to see the sun rise, and didn’t get back until 9:00 in the morning. The walk back from the metro was interesting seeing as basically no one is out on a Sunday morning besides runners and everyone was looking at me like I was the weirdest person ever.

Rosa came back from Granada and brought us cute boxes, she’s so nice! On Monday night Rosa and I were talking, and she started showing me pictures of her husband and family- it was really interesting to hear all about, because I didn’t know much about him. He was fifteen years older than her, because Rosa is a baller, and when he was 7 he was sent to England to live for 2 years when Franco gained power. He loved to dress up in costumes for Carnival, there were a lot of pictures of that. She said that he held all kinds of jobs- fisherman, cleaned crystal, etc. It was really sweet of her to show me things from his life, and I like looking at old photos so it was fun. On Tuesday night we went to another play with Jasone that her girlfriend directed- it was quite possibly the oddest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Wednesday night I saw Millenium 2 with Megan and Becca…also kind of a strange movie. That’s the shorthand version of the past two weeks minus the boring midterms and presentations. On the plus side, I just registered for classes! Next semester will be terrifying, but it’s worth it. I don’t really have time to do words of the day- but I promise to make it up next time!

In der Lurgrotte

I spent most of last week actually doing school work, including enough German reading in my literature class to last me a lifetime! My Wednesday night Austrian Folk Dancing classes have been going extremely well - and last night we even learned a greek dance, which was really fun. Theresa's dad visited her last weekend, and we went with our friend to a cafe that overlooked all of Graz. In the evening the dorm building threw a party in the basement, which was pretty fun because we were able to meet more people that we basically live with!
On Sunday Theresa and I woke up fairly early and headed to the Hauptbahnhof where we were to meet our SUNY Graz family... and where they left without us! It was a mix up on their part though, so Julia was kind enough to turn around and pick up the poor orphans. She then proceeded to drive what had to have been at least 100 mph to the Lurgrotte to get us there on time for the tour.
There was a big group there and in most of the cave you have to walk single file, and despite the freezing temperature, it was an awesome experience. Each centimeter of the stalagmite build-up caused by the water along the crevices takes about 100 years to form - they almost look like icicles, and some were taller than me! (I know that isn't that hard because I'm short, but that's basically millions of years, which is still impressive!).
There are over 600 bats living in the cave... thankfully the handful of them that we saw were not only asleep, but tiny. Around the size of my thumb. At one point there is a lake where all the streams in the cave meet, and there is water raining from a hole in the cave, even though it wasn't raining outside at that moment. The tour guide turned off all of the lights and shone a flashlight onto the sprinkling water, and it created this amazing effect, as if glitter or gems were falling.
This past Sunday was also my mom's birthday, so of course I called her to wish her a good one! Melanie had hidden my card excellently... we are just those sneaky sort of kids.
I am still working on my current weekend plans, and will surely update next week! I think Ali wins this week's blog post competition... but not to worry, I have plans up my sleeve in the coming weeks!
Quick note - Today in history, I learned about Austrian coffee, because my Professor was appalled that we didn't know specifics. So Dad, I know you have been dying to know: A Grossen Brauner is so strong because it is the first coffee made from the beeans, only being run through it once. A 'Brauner' has milk, a 'Schwarzer' does not. However, a Melange coffee is the second run through the coffee beans, so it is lighter, and also has the fluffiness in it(as he, the teacher, described to me).

German words of apparent significant importance, according to my classes this week:

Klauen - slang for 'stealing'
ledig - single (not married)
fluchten - to curse
wimmern - to whine or complain
lallen - slur
das geschorene Shaf - the shaved sheep

Austrian:

jäh - abruptly
Heuer - this year

and if you ever want to say 'potatoes,' you have three choices: Erdapfel (Austrian), Kartoffeln (German), or Krumbirne (apparently originally somehow French!).