Sorry for the absence of posting lately; I've been really busy! Whoever said study abroad was easy homework-wise clearly just took blow-off classes. Anyway, I think I'm on the week of Sept. 27. Really, I should say Sept. 29th because nothing interesting happened until then. As well as being my birthday, it was also the day of the huelga general. The idea was that everyone in Spain would go on strike for workers rights and such. The reality- nothing really happened in Toledo. The only effect of the strike on me was that I stayed in the Fund Tues. night and discovered the Flor with my friends. The Flor is a really cute bar with outdoor seating and fantastic sangria. The view is pretty fantastic too- it's right by a church and a park and overlooks the cathedral. I also met Joe, one of a group of brits staying at the Fund for three weeks to teach English and one of my new favorite people. Sadly, he's back in England now, but we had some good times. My birthday itself started horribly- a friend and I started a philosophy presentation that morning for our class in the afternoon. We compared philo to cake, though, so it was a success. Things improved later when Ángeles threw me a party. This time, I could actually make conversation with people! Hurray! Ángeles and her friend Hot Miguel (not actually his name, we just call him that) made some Galician concoction at the end of the night to keep bad spirits away or something like that. It consisted of apples, sugar, and aguardiente (basically moonshine) in a big pot. They set it on fire and stirred until it burned itself out, at which point we drank it. Yeah. It was pretty good. Ángeles stirring:
It was a good night. The next day I helped some tourists out and they told me I spoke English really well and that they were from Connecticut ("It's by New York- do you know where that is?"). I thanked them and informed them I was from Michigan. Nice. I also chatted with some Texans on a tour of Spain. That night, Veronica and I went out with our friends from the ice cream shop. Apparently the one from Madrid watches The IT Crowd- Los Informaticos in Spanish. How awesome is that? I usually can't find people who watch it in English! They also watch Dexter. It's pretty funny watching TV here- most of the shows are American and dubbed in Spanish. I can understand them pretty well now as long as I don't look at the characters' lips. I watched CSI in Spanish the other night. Fantastic. Anyway, I didn't want to go all the way back home as we were leaving early for our weekend trip to Ávila and Salamanca, so I spent the night illegally in a friend's room in the Fund. I kind of felt like I was breaking parietals or something at ND. Anyways, here are the wall and cathedral of Ávila (the cathedral and houses are built into the wall!):
Our guide was from France and had a pretty pronounced accent; I kept being surprised that she was speaking Spanish. The main draw of the cathedral is a sepulcher made for three of the patron saints of the city (it has something ridiculous like five or six), siblings martyred in Roman times.
After seeing the sights, we continued on to Salamanca. It's famous for its university- one of the best in Europe. The central plaza (I can't remember the name. Probably Plaza Mayor):
The cathedral has two parts: the "new" cathedral is gothic (one of the last of that style built in Spain) and the "old" one is romanesque. They're attached to each other, so they're not really two separate cathedrals, but there's a pretty clear divide. They're kind of like siamese twins. I love gothic architecture. The immensity, the pillars like huge tree trunks, the flying buttresses- I love it. When we visited, the sound of monks chanting echoed throughout the cavernous new cathedral. Combined with the smell of incense and the lights filtering through the windows high above, reflecting off of spinning dust motes and glinting on the organ pipes, it lent a haunting atmosphere to the place, as if we had stepped back in time or the ghosts of the past still dwelt there. It's amazing to think of people building these churches over decades, sometimes centuries. What possesses someone to start a project like that, one that they probably won't see completed? It's truly amazing. The new cathedral:
The old cathedral:
A view of the cathedral from a convent:
By the way, the word for flying buttress in Spanish is arbotante. I actually didn't learn this in a cathedral but from watching Los pilares de la tierra (The Pillars of the Earth) with Ángeles the other night. It was a good miniseries (in Spanish at least). I want to read the book when I get home. I tried it in Spanish, but I just don't have time. I want to strangle whoever said study abroad was a blow-off semester. I have two 5 page essays due Mon. and a 10-pager due in two weeks. And the next two weeks are midterms. I feel like every week is like this, too. Estoy jodido. But that's enough wallowing in misery. I had an film criticism due the Mon. after Salamanca (you see what I mean? It never ends!), so I spent most of my free time working on that. I had to track down a place to rent movies in Salamanca and pay 6 euro to rent a movie from the '70s. Ridiculous. I did get out though, we went out for drinks and tapas with some students from the University of Chicago Sat. night. Let's see... after that, the only thing that really happened until Thurs. of last week was our goodbye dinner for the brits. We went out for chinese and to the Flor. It was pretty fun. A random thought I had: there's a roundabout near where I live with a fountain in the middle. A bunch of ducks live in the fountain. My question: why are there not a bunch of duck carcasses in the street? Are the street cleaners just really prompt? Perhaps the ducks are smarter than I give them credit for.
My friends and I, a little blurry:
Our guide was from France and had a pretty pronounced accent; I kept being surprised that she was speaking Spanish. The main draw of the cathedral is a sepulcher made for three of the patron saints of the city (it has something ridiculous like five or six), siblings martyred in Roman times.
After seeing the sights, we continued on to Salamanca. It's famous for its university- one of the best in Europe. The central plaza (I can't remember the name. Probably Plaza Mayor):
The cathedral has two parts: the "new" cathedral is gothic (one of the last of that style built in Spain) and the "old" one is romanesque. They're attached to each other, so they're not really two separate cathedrals, but there's a pretty clear divide. They're kind of like siamese twins. I love gothic architecture. The immensity, the pillars like huge tree trunks, the flying buttresses- I love it. When we visited, the sound of monks chanting echoed throughout the cavernous new cathedral. Combined with the smell of incense and the lights filtering through the windows high above, reflecting off of spinning dust motes and glinting on the organ pipes, it lent a haunting atmosphere to the place, as if we had stepped back in time or the ghosts of the past still dwelt there. It's amazing to think of people building these churches over decades, sometimes centuries. What possesses someone to start a project like that, one that they probably won't see completed? It's truly amazing. The new cathedral:
The old cathedral:
A view of the cathedral from a convent:
By the way, the word for flying buttress in Spanish is arbotante. I actually didn't learn this in a cathedral but from watching Los pilares de la tierra (The Pillars of the Earth) with Ángeles the other night. It was a good miniseries (in Spanish at least). I want to read the book when I get home. I tried it in Spanish, but I just don't have time. I want to strangle whoever said study abroad was a blow-off semester. I have two 5 page essays due Mon. and a 10-pager due in two weeks. And the next two weeks are midterms. I feel like every week is like this, too. Estoy jodido. But that's enough wallowing in misery. I had an film criticism due the Mon. after Salamanca (you see what I mean? It never ends!), so I spent most of my free time working on that. I had to track down a place to rent movies in Salamanca and pay 6 euro to rent a movie from the '70s. Ridiculous. I did get out though, we went out for drinks and tapas with some students from the University of Chicago Sat. night. Let's see... after that, the only thing that really happened until Thurs. of last week was our goodbye dinner for the brits. We went out for chinese and to the Flor. It was pretty fun. A random thought I had: there's a roundabout near where I live with a fountain in the middle. A bunch of ducks live in the fountain. My question: why are there not a bunch of duck carcasses in the street? Are the street cleaners just really prompt? Perhaps the ducks are smarter than I give them credit for.
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