The Return to Normalcy

Spring break ended with a bang. My mom and I went ghost hunting at the Parador in Santiago, but with no luck. We did however manage to experience (entirely by accident) one of the oldest and most sacred traditions in Spain. The week before Easter in Spain is called Semana Santa, or Holy Week, and every night, at every church or at least in every town, there is a processional depicting a different stage of the death and resurrection of Christ. My mom and I were coming back from a long day of wandering the old city, throwing our jackets on the beds of the hotel, when I heard bagpipes and drums out in the cathedral courtyard. I listened, thinking that perhaps one of the street musicians had been joined by a friend or a band. As I hung my head out our third story window, I started to see figures with candles appear around the corner. One by one they emerged from the darkness, some with candles, some drumming, and all of them wearing emerald green cloaks and canonical hoods. I grabbed my jacket and ran downstairs in time to catch the procession. In awe I watched as they proceeded beat by beat barefoot through the street, clanking metal canes on the cobblestones in a ghostly rhythm with the drums. A hush fell over everyone as a gilded glass sarcophagus came by on the shoulders of ten men, a replica of the bloodied body of Jesus inside. It was slightly creepy because the hoods and cloaks of the men look identical to those worn by the Ku Klux Klan in America. Interestingly enough, the KKK actually took the design of their outfits from these religious ceremonies, as the men who participate in these rituals have been doing so in Spain for hundreds and hundreds of years. A little known fact but very important to note if you don’t want to get the two groups mixed up. Upon researching these processionals after I first saw them, I found out that the hooded men are members of a Catholic brotherhood whose job is to maintain the figures they carry on their shoulders and present them every Semana Santa to the community. Some of the statues that they carry are over a thousand years old. I don’t care if you are religious or not, the whole spectacle was enough to inspire somber respect and a sense of awe. It was an experience that I think very few people are ever lucky enough to have.
Other highlights in Santiago included the new discovery of the fact that I actually do like seafood. I ate slices of octopus tentacles, what the people in Galicia call “pulpo”, and loved it. In addition, I found a new love for langostinos, creatures that resemble large shrimp but which are really small lobsters. They are a very tasty fingerfood delicacy in Galicia. I was awed, in addition, by the splendor of the cathedral. On the outside, it looked like an old Baroque building covered in green and orange moss, with three high towers and a friendly pilgrim statue presiding over it all. Upon entering, my jaw dropped. I have never seen so much gold in one place in my entire life. The sacristy façade was gilded, top to bottom, with columns of golden grapevines and golden-haired angels four times the size of a human being upholding the canopy. I also enjoyed my first rainbow in years while sitting under an awning with my mom in a deserted hillside neighborhood. It was an entirely unique experience, wholly satisfying and awe-inspiring. I may never pass that way again, but what I saw and felt there will last me for a lifetime.
Back in Barcelona I have been trying to enjoy my time to fullest. The weather has been phenomenal, the sun shining every day, and thus I have been spending my time at the beach, having lunch outdoors at the local cafes, and at night with my window open listening to the sound of traffic and wanderers on the street below. Tonight I enjoyed a particularly exciting time at a soccer match between Barcelona and a team from the UK. I haven’t heard a stadium roar that loud since I left Cal, and it melted my heart to experience a sort of athletic-fan solidarity once again. Not to mention the fit of laughter that ensued after witnessing a Santa Claus-looking old man in a red communist cap screaming Spanish vulgarities and insults at the two teams for “playing worse than his mother”.
Everything I am doing is making me love Spain all the more, but also miss home more than I ever did before. Half of me is going to be devastated to leave. I finally feel like I have gotten into a groove of living. I am not shy about talking to strangers in Spanish anymore; I have learned the city streets like the back of my hand and can navigate myself easily through shortcuts and back alleys without a map; I finally know the best routes for taking a walk, the best places to find a good deal on scarves and earrings, and where to buy the best bocadillo within 10 miles; I figured out that even the street vendors whom tourists usually stay away from are quite interesting men to talk to; I know how to make a phone call from an international calling café; I know where to buy the cheapest beer in town, coupled with the best patatas bravas. There is no end to the list of things I feel I have mastered, or the list of things I could master if given more time in this city. But then there is half of me that has already started the countdown until I come home. Every day that half gets a little more ancy, a little more excited, and a little more ready to say goodbye to Barcelona and hop on that plane home. Just 20 more days. 20 more days and I am going to be ripped in two, and then put back together again. 20 days till goodbye…and 20 days till hello.

Finally Some Sanity

Spain is treating me well. Just as I was starting to think that school was going to bore me into a pile of mush, spring break came around and saved me from impending insanity. My mom is currently with me, and we spent the first few days pouring over every minute inch of Barcelona. I finally figured out where I get the stamina that I have as a tourist. The first day she arrived, she slept while I was in class, but then we walked around the city for almost 8 hours, only stopping to have a drink occasionally and dinner. We visited three of the four main neighborhoods of the city, shopped, had beers at 4 different establishments, and enjoyed a tapas dinner on Passeig de Gracia, the main drag in town. I kept asking if she was tired, to which she replied, “Absolutely not! Let’s go see something else!” and would briskly walk off in the direction of something new. We have been doing things non-stop every day, including our “easy” days, during which we have perused Park Guell and Montjuic, enjoying picnics of blue cheese, baguette, tomatoes, and wine. I have never enjoyed this city so much.
We decided to take a small trip outside of the city for a new adventure, and decided upon Montserrat, a holy mountain about an hour’s train ride from Barcelona. We arrived in its formidable shadow with open mouths and breathless. The mountain is a compilation of gigantic rock spires jutting out of the farmlands and valleys, with a train that winds slowly and perilously up the side. We made it halfway up to a village tucked away in the rocks, and then took a funicular (a type of train that scales nearly vertical mountainsides using a pulley-like system) to the very top of the mountain. There is no wonder the place is a pilgrimage site. The view from the top is enough to inspire someone to drop to their knees, and the silence is rivaled only by the sound of the basilica bells gonging down below in the ravine. Apparently hermit-monks used to live in caves within the mountain, and from where we stood we could actually see some of them still carved into the rock. We had a picnic of steak and cheese at the top with the sun shining un-obscured on our sweaty faces. I took a rock with me to keep as a souvenir, hoping that some day I will be able to hand it to someone and tell them it was plucked from the foot of the sky.
We visited the basilica in the village and paid homage to a very renowned statue within, lit candles for our intentions, had coffee at a local restaurant, and headed back down. I could have spent three or more days exploring that mountain for all there was to see and experience. Someday in my life I will return.
After spending some time in Barcelona, we decided to venture even further out of town to a small pueblo called Cardona. We stayed in a Parador, which is a chain of hotels all over Spain that have been converted from old places that used to lodge pilgrims making their way around the country. This one was a castle/monastery/fortress in years past. Parts of it were as old as the year 8 B.C. We spent most of our day and into the night exploring every nook and cranny that the place offered, making conjectures as to which parts were older, which were newer, and what rooms were used for what purposes. One of the most interesting parts was the Tower of La Minyona, a gigantic stone guard tower with a prison-like room inside of it. In ancient times, the lord of the castle locked his eldest daughter inside the tower because she fell in love with a Moor, the people who at the time were ransacking Spain. He refused to let her out until she renounced her love for him, but she refused. She died in the tower, abandoned by her father and without getting to experience the love she died defending. The story is historical fact, but there is a legend that her ghost still haunts the tower and the western corner of the top floor in the castle. Mom and I went ghost hunting, but saw nothing. I was too afraid to go near the door of the tower at night, and she wouldn’t do it alone, so we settled for looking at it from the courtyard below.
We returned to Barcelona today, and are attempting to sleep a bit before flying across the country tomorrow to Santiago de Compostela, where we will be staying in another Parador, an old monastery in the ancient part of the city. I’m really hoping there are no ghosts there either, but we’ll see.
Thank god for spring break.

Diary of a Plebeian

Last night, I was privileged enough to be invited to spend the evening celebrating a stranger’s birthday. I was reminded of balloons, cheeky hip hop songs, and bottles of the cheapest wine or champagne toasting to honor the lucky person. Eating out at a restaurant was appropriate, and after a 30 minute metro ride we arrived at the place. Wait, could this be it? I walked in thanking God that I had worn closed toed shoes and a fancy shirt. And to think, minutes before I was worried I would be overdressed.

I was seated in a black leather chair at a long dinner table lined with unfamiliar faces and glasses of white wine. I was immediately poured a glass, which I cautiously sipped while admiring the minimalist silver and white décor of the restaurant. I felt like they should have charged me to get in the door. I could not remember the last time I had been placed in such a fancy setting, the cheap wine and dirty songs seeming entirely appropriate to me for celebrating a birthday. What an adventure though, to be placed in a circle I don’t normally get to visit with friends who could offer me new opinions and things to talk about. I was sorely disappointed on that front, however. Somewhere between the discussion on why So-and-so’s family was banned from Such-and-such country club in Hollywood and the plans for renting a villa on the coast of Italy for spring break, I realized that I just didn’t belong in that circle. Perhaps it was the fact that I knew no one, or the fact that I seemed to be the only one worrying about the cost of my leg of lamb or the six bottles of wine provided for the dinner, but something made me stand out. Of course there were conversations about sports, college housing, Spanish racism, and other things of a worthwhile nature, but it scared me to be in the presence of seven college males whose financial security was great enough to provide them the freedom to later order a VIP table and two bottles of Grey Goose at a club, as was their tradition every weekend.

I felt (perhaps needlessly) uncomfortable listening to these things, and yet I realized that if I were in their monetary position I would probably be doing the same thing. Who I am to judge them then, barely having met them for the first time? It is prejudice, is it not, to judge someone based on the amount of money that they have, whether it be too much or too little? The entire night I spent with them, from the restaurant to the club and home again, I spent assuaging all of the judgments and preconceptions that swirled around in my mind about kids like this. The phrase I used previously to describe their kind was, “Those kids who come here only to frolic about Europe and play with Daddy’s money.” While parts of my stereotype seemed to fit (honestly, a villa in Italy for spring break while the rest of us are staying in hostels?), I used my experience last night to try and open my mind to a different lifestyle from mine. That is the whole point of being abroad: to experience new ways of life and keep an open mind to the things one sees and hears.

I left the club that morning (yes, it was 5:30am when we left) chuckling to myself over the whole thing. The VIP area in the club – empty the whole night. The two bottles of Grey Goose – undrunk. The leg of lamb and six bottles of wine – possibly one of the best dinners I’ve ever had. And the kids who were playing with Daddy’s money – walking with me in the rain to catch the metro instead of a paying for a cab. I have officially opened up to the kids whom I previously thought brainless, careless, bottomless pits of cash. They’re not half bad if you get to spend some time with them. Don’t assume too much though. I would still one hundred percent rather celebrate my birthday with cheap bottles of liquor, a pizza and some Mickey Avalon.

Back from The Island

Seeing as my blog tactics have worked to get out a mass publication of my travels, here is an update from my trip a week ago.

Upon arriving in Irelandia (Ireland, the Island, the Green Isle) we were blasted off the steps of the aircraft by gusts of frigid wind, taking our hair in all directions and causing us to grasp tightly to our coat collars for warmth. Thank the lord for gloves, was all I could think. The bus trip to the center of town took no time at all. We hopped off the bus and proceeded to wander about town with a mediocre map, trying to find our hostel. We found that the city of Dublin had bested us before we even began – the streets had about three names each, starting with one, continuing for a few blocks, then turning into another and then another without so much as a warning or a turn. Straight streets with three titles but only one direction deceived us into going about 3 wrong directions before finally realizing through trial and error which direction we ought to be going.

While wandering the streets I ran into Shane and Lindsey! Go figure, in such a large city within less than 15 minutes of us being there I should run smack into the one person I knew in the entire country. He helped us get our bearings and then we continued in our separate ways, as we had to drop our bags and they were already on their way out for a Guinness.

Our hostel was mediocre at best, it’s highlight being the pointedly attractive and friendly front desk boy who helped us check in. We slept in a room with about 20 bunk beds and a menagerie of other female travelers, whom we never once saw awake. They were napping when we arrived, sleeping when we got home at night, and still sleeping when we went out each morning. By the time our last night arrived in Dublin I was so disappointed at not meeting people during our stay in the hostel that I went downstairs by myself to see who I could mingle with and ended up with two email addresses and quite a few compliments from a few male travelers, both of which were foreign and fluent in over three languages. I went to bed that night feeling a combination of victorious mingling and linguistic inadequacy. Damn America for it’s one-track language program.

Our days were spent rising early, enjoying coffee and muffins at a local cafe (which we frequented about 7 times in our two days), and then touring about the city and surrounding countryside. The day of our arrival we simply wandered the city on foot, finally figuring out the city streets and various neighborhoods, such as Temple Bar. We found Trinity College, also, which is somewhat of an abroad sister college with Berkeley. They even have a Berkeley Library on campus and a golden globe statue that we have on our campus (if you see photos online you will know which one I am talking about). The buildings were very impressive and the campus overall very small, but quaint.

On our second day we took a bus tour through the Wicklow Mountains, where we saw the ruins of an old monastery and several lakes and waterfalls. The monastery used to grant safety to those in need, but once you entered you could not leave for a year, all the while having to help clear your soul of the problems that led you to seek the safety of its walls in the first place. The cemetery was filled with ancient tombstones and celtic crosses, all with faded names and dates grown over with moss. We hiked to a lake above the cemetery and allowed ourselves some time to take in the scenery. Along the way we took detours through the woods, marshes, and up to a waterfall in the foothills. The landscapes and natural formations in Ireland are breathtaking, and I can honestly say that I did not know that green of that hue existed in real life.

While we were there we were confused at one particular phenomenon: the place seemed overrun with men in kilts. From the moment we got off the airplane we noticed it - one of my friends claimed that there must be a "convention of some sort" taking place. We asked around and finally figured out that Scotland was playing Ireland in rugby on Saturday, which apparently was a big deal in Scotland (bigger than in Ireland). All the Scottish came down to watch the game and of course sported their colors as all true Scottsmen do - by wearing plaid skirts and sporens (the little furry purses on the front, which I actually found out they use to keep cell phones and wallets). Every night we rubbed elbows with these guys, all of whom were the friendliest men I have met anywhere in the world. The first night we met some who were lawyers and grad students in Scotland. We drank beer with them and they taught us to sing songs of Scottish pride, which oddly enough included "Do, a Deer" from The Sound of Music. We met several Irish locals in our nights there as well, whom we sampled tall (and small) glasses of Guinness with and danced with. One even showed me how to do an Irish jig, and not the kind that I usually make up in imitation of Riverdance, but the real kind that they do in pubs when celebrating a victory like the kind they had over Scotland's rugby team.

Overall the people were nice, the weather was cold, the food was traditional, and the beer and song was abundant. We left with aching feet and smiles still gripping our faces from the fun we had enjoyed in the land of leprechauns and laddies. The whole way home we made plans of how we could come back to work, or go to law school, or marry an Irishman and live there the rest of our days. I would love to go back someday when I have more time and money to explore the rest of the island. For a weekend trip, however, I could not have asked for a better time.

Genesis

So I've decided that easier than emailing everyone with my updates would be to post them at whim and allow you to read them yourself given your liesure time and desire. Thanks D for the idea. This is my test to see if it actually works (I am an internet skeptic a lot of the time, espeically when it comes to posting personal info), and once I realize it does I will begin the updates. Feedback welcome.