La ciudad de Toledo (espadas y dagas)

WOW! I have not been keeping up with this at all!! Our trip to Toledo was...oh about a month ago (plus some). But, seeing as I'm giving a presentation on my personal experience in visiting Toledo, I should be fairly good with details (I think...)



So...TOLEDO!! It was the weekend of March 20th and I reaaally like the city. As you can see from the pictures, it was basically something from out of a Lord of the Rings book. We got there Friday afternoon/evening, grabbed something to eat quickly, and then took a little tour of the city. It has such an ancient/historic feel to it with the narrow pathways made of stone and the castle-like buildings. We walked around to see the places we would visit the next day. Then we returned to our castle (first picture) where we slept. Do you see the top windows in that tower? Yeah, that was our room - it was awesome!



The next day we trecked up the giant hill into the city (as seen in the second picture). Our first visit was el Museo de Santa Cruz (picture three) which had once been a hospital, but was now converted into a museum. We took a while in there (the museum part of it was giant!) and after that, we chose to go see the Greco exhibit.

I REALLY liked the Greco exhibit. I really liked his style of painting and the colors he used. It was very dark, but yet very bright at the same time. It was really interesting to see (the fourth picture is from the exhibit). Then a small group of us went to see a master swordsman who our professor knew because he had bought one of his swords earlier. It was really cool! The swordsmith still made weapons the old way and took us 'behind the scenes' to see how they were made. You can seem some of the swords in the next picture. They weren't all fancy and decorative, but they were real (balanced and everything!). After that we grabbed lunch at a tapas place.

Then we met up with more people and found a really cool lookout spot right by the Alcazar (sixth picture) complete with cement lounging/tanning blocks and then ate some of the mazapan (marzapan) that we bought. It's one of Toledo's famous things (Toledo's know for swords and marzapan) and I liked it.

The rest of the day was wandering around. We saw the cathedral (picture 7) and listened to all the accordian players playing in the streets. We went to a Sinagogue/Sefardie museum and then ate dinner and returned to the hostel/castle.

The next day, bright and early, we went to see el Greco's famous "El entierro del Sr. de Orgaz" (which is something like the burrial of Mr. Orgaz, ha). I was blown away! It was giant and really cool, but unfortunately we couldn't take pictures, so I settled on just getting a postcard of it. Our professor explained all the parts of it and it was really interesting.

Then we got to go see the museum of torture, which was interesting, but also kinda sickening. They were instruments used during the inquisition to basically give the person as much pain as possible without killing them.

The second to last picture is of the 'iron virgin' where they put the person in there and were able to adjust the spikes in such a way that they would go through your skin, but not hit any vital organs. Lovely. And they had a whole bunch for removing any part of the body (take your pick) in the most painful way.

And that was the last main stop on our trip, but I don't want to leave you with that gross section, so I added a picture (one of my favorites I've taken so far) of the city from a side view. As you can see, it's very storybookesque. And that's Toledo. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up a little more soon, but school is very busy - we'll see. Until next time.

Behind the Times - Lo siento! Alcazar, Jerez, and Plaza de Espana

And once again I fail to keep up with my original goal. But finally I have set aside some time to catch you all up on what is occurring in my life. So here it goes.

Ok, so the weekend after Morocco I had a trip to the Alcazar de Sevilla on Friday with the William and Mary group. Apparently it is the oldest still in use palace in Spain (and in Europe??) which I think means that the king/queen of Spain still sleep there when they visit Sevilla. It was pretty cool. The gardens were very nice and there were a lot of fountains and ducks everywhere. There was also a room with a bunch of giant tapestries on the walls of different historical scenes. It was a nice outing. The first two pictures are from the Real Alcazar.

Then that Saturday, a small group of us went to the city of Jerez de la Frontera. It's about an hour train ride from Sevilla and is a really nice smaller city. It was nice to just walk around without really having a plan and explore the area. We got to see the Alcazar there (which I really liked!) with its olive oil mill, mezquita, and gardens (fourth picture - sorry out of order!). We actually got to go in for free because it was Dia de Andalucia (Feb. 28th) which is the holiday of the southern region of Spain. Then we went and got to see the Cathedral (third picture) and thought we stumbled upon a wedding, but it was just a celebration for the holiday. We then proceeded to walk around a little more and then ate our lunch in a really nice gazebo (in picture).

We then went on a wine tour since Jerez is part of the sherry triangle or something like that. After the tour we walked around a bit more and then took an Arab bath! It was so relaxing!! We had to put on these crazy blue plastic footie things to protect our feet or something. There were three pools of water - warm, hot, and cold - and you were supposed to cycle through them in that order at a leisurely pace. The cold pool was terrible, especially after the hot pool, but we went in for the experience. We were also served hot, sweet, mint tea and just relaxed listening to the music for an hour and a half - it was amazing!! We were so tired and relaxed when we got out that we decided to grab a bite to eat (i had a crepe with ice cream and chocolate syrup) and head home a little early so we could sleep, ha! It was a really fun trip.

Hmm...let's see what else happened - it was a while ago! Philip got sick with food poisoning (from Morocco perhaps?) and had to get checked at the hospital, but he's back to normal now. I had two weeks of midterms which, for the most part, went well. I did really well on a few and decently on the others, so I was pleased, but am very glad that they are over! I misjudged the 'study' part of 'study abroad!' But classes are still going really well. My Global Econ one is really tough and the History of Sevilla is a lot of work, but it's all manageable. I got to meet with my intercambio (the spanish student the university assigns you to) twice so far and she's cool. Her name is Rocio and we got to talk about Spain and traveling and languages (she speaks English and Spanish and is learning German and Italian - insanity) and movies. Oh speaking of movies I got to see Slumdog Millionaire in English with Spanish subtitles - I highly recommend it! The music is amazing! It did test our Spanish language skills because there were parts where the kids aren't speaking English and we were forced to read the subtitles to understand what was going on!

This past weekend was a nice stay at home weekend. I did make it out on Saturday for a very nice day of visiting the Plaza de Espana and then I got to sit in the park next to the Plaza and just lounge and do some homework - it was really nice! The Plaza de Espana is realllllly cool (next picture). It has a whole bunch of 'exhibits' about all the different regions of Spain and also about the different time periods of Sevilla. It's all outdoors and there's a fountain in the middle. I also got to see a ton of images of the historical people we learned about in my Sevilla class which was cool. The park next to it was also really nice with a whole bunch of different sections. I got to walk around and explore a little (didn't get to see all of it - it's giant!). Then I just picked a tree and sat down and did some work in the Spanish shade listening to the Spanish birds - awesome! And then to complete the whole experience, I walked back past the Catedral and got to see it all lit up. The last picture is of the Giralda (the tower of the Catedral.)

And I think that brings it up to the present. Everything is still going really well. I can't believe it will be two months on this Wednesday - it doesn't seem like I've been here that long and it's just flying by!

Marruecos! (Morocco)

Sorry this took so long to post - got backed up with school work and such (midterms - it's not all fun and games - I have to remind myself that it is called study abroad). That being said, let me proceed to tell you about some of the fun and games I had in Africa two weekends ago.

Morocco! It was a really interesting and different experience, but very worthwhile and enjoyable. We left from Sevilla Friday afternoon and took a bus to the Mediterranean where we caught the "Fast Ferry" across into Cueta. Upon our arrival to Africa, we were greeted by a statue of Hercules between two columns. I think the two columns signify Africa and Europe/Spain, but I'm not sure. Cueta is one of the two Spanish cities in Africa - we actually crossed the sea, but were still in Spain! We drove through Ceuta and made our way to the border where we waited for an hour or more watching people smuggling goods over the wall into Morocco while we got our passports stamped. It was very interesting because I think they had to pay taxes on the goods they brought back and forth across the border to sell. To avoid this payment, they had people on the walls with rope and people on the ground tying bags to the rope and they would pull up their goods and toss them over the wall (while avoiding the police, of course!). It took a while to get our passports done, so we got to watch the whole play-by-play. Then finally we moved on and drove to M'diq which was where we spent the first night.


M'diq was a small fishing village (which is what they kept saying - it was too dark to see what it looked like exactly) and we stayed in the 'Golden Beach Hotel.' The first picture is the view from the back of the hotel looking out into the Mediterranean that I took when we stopped there on the way back. The location was amazing! Everything else was...ehhh. We had dinner in the hotel that night. We ate a ton of bread - there was always a ton of bread. Then they brought out the soup. This soup was a yellowish/brownish color and had no flavor whatsoever! Because of its appealing color and taste, it was fondly nicknamed 'barf soup.' It was really funny because EVERYONE was asking the waiter for some salt or pepper or something to help the blandness and we ended up having pepper with a side of soup. Then we had chicken with some fiery, interesting tasting olives and lemon peels and some eggy flan for dessert. So the food was ok, not the greatest, but could have been worse. The living situation was great though! I was put in a room with Brett (a guy in our group from W&M) and Hajime (an exchange student from Japan and a really cool guy). It was really fun (and difficult) because when we were in the room we could only use Spanish which was both of our second languages. It was really cool because we got to learn a whole lot about Japanese culture and language - in Spanish - while we were in Africa - it was awesome. Brett and I taught him Mafia (which we played pretty much every time we were on the bus and even convinced Victor (our teacher) to play a couple rounds) and he taught us two Japanese versions of rock, paper, scissors ('Green peace' and 'zhang kem poi' (spelling?)). It was a really fun experience and we learned a lot.


The pillows in Morocco are kinda cylindrical and a little higher than normal which wasn't bad for two nights, but it was an adjustment. Also, brushing your teeth with bottled water and making sure you don't drink tap water is a little tougher than it sounds. Saturday morning we got up bright and early, took freezing cold showers (apparently there was no hot water because everyone was showering at the same time), and watched the Matrix in English with Arabic subtitles until we had to meet downstairs for breakfast. For breakfast we had cafe con leche, hard boiled eggs, and rolls (there were some rolls with chocolate in them - delicious - what a great idea!). Then we drove to Tetuan.

We went to the Medina (which means city - it was the ancient part of the city that is still in use as a market area) of Tetuan and the guide told us not to get separated from the group or else we would get lost. He was right - there were so many streets and so many twists and turns it was like a labyrinth! Here the people open up their shops whenever they want, for however long they want - there is no set schedule, and there was a multitude of interesting smells everywhere - some good, others not so good. The next picture is of the colored chalk they had in a couple places. The people use it on their houses outside and inside like paint. There were also these bereber ladies everywhere (you can tell because they have the straw hats which I think means that they're married) selling their goods. There were so many things you could buy everywhere from pastries to vegetables to fish to meat to shoes to thread to clothing to electronics etc etc. We got to visit a bereber pharmacy where we got to smell the different types of perfumes, medicines, and teas and then went to a rug place where we got to see these beautiful carpets of all different colors. I wanted to get the magic carpet one which was red, gold, and blue, but it was waaay out of my price range - I did get a picture of it though! Then we had a nice lunch of, you guessed it, rolls along with cous cous (is that how you spell it?) and a delicious soup. To top it all off we had some hot sweet mint tea - yummmm. That lunch was better than the last dinner. Then we were off on the bus again.

We drove to the part where the Mediterranean met the Atlantic ocean which is where I took the fourth picture. The water was clear and blue and really pretty. Here we got to barter with some of the people selling trinkets - I really like bargaining, but I'm really not that good at it! Then we drove to another spot and got to ride on the camels. This was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip and of course is where the fifth picture is taken. It's such a strange sensation to be on their back when they stand up and sit down. Then we made our way to Tanger. Here we had some free time before dinner so we went into the city and the medina and looked around. You had to really make sure you had all your belongings the whole time in this place because it was very sketchy (we used the word 'sketchy' so many times that Hajime asked us what it meant, so now he knows 'sketchy,' 'creepy,' and 'shady!'). There were people brushing up against you trying to pick-pocket, people trying to sell drugs to you, people trying to get you to follow them to 'help you out,' but then expect to be paid for their help - tons of sketchy business. Ha, but it was fun and we got out with everything we went in with.



Dinner was good that night and after that we played some rounds of Mafia before heading to sleep because we had to get up at 7 am the next morning (oh, Morocco is an hour different from Spain, I forget which way, but we just stayed on Spanish time while we were there to avoid confusion). We had a giant bed in one room and two twin beds in the other room of our hotel room (it was a really nice hotel) so we played Green Peace to see who would get the giant bed and I won! It was a good night's sleep and warm showers in the morning and then we left for Chaouen in the mountains.

The mountains were amazing - it was so strange to look out the window and see these giant mountains and realize 'hey I'm in AFRICA!' At Chaouen we went to the Grotto of Hercules and saw the opening in the shape of Africa backwards made by the water and got to put our hands in the 'lucky spring of Hercules.' Then we went to the medina of Chaouen where everything is blue - the walls, the doors, the houses, the path - a light blue chalk color covers everything! It's good for keeping the mosquitoes away, but is also really aesthetically pleasing. I took tons of pictures of pretty much just walls and doors just because it all looked so cool. The last picture was taken in Chaouen. Imagine that blue everywhere. We had some free time before lunch and I got a black, orange, and white knitted hat. All the shops had so many things that were made of so many colors - it was really pretty to just look at everything against the light blue background. Lunch was good, we had rolls, soup, beef and vegetables and a fruit cup for dessert (oh and orange fanta to drink!). Then we bid Marruecos goodbye and got on the bus, went through customs, went back across the sea, drove back to Sevilla and had dinner with our host families. It was a jam-packed, busy weekend, but it was very fun and I made a ton of new and interesting memories and can now say I've been to Africa!