PLAN TO BE SURPRISED.

Posted on May 6, 2013

May 6, 2013

I’m baccckkkk!  AMERICA!  The land of the free and the home of the brave!  There’s no place like home!  Home is where the heart is!  Home is the comfiest place to be!  I could go on like this forever….

Honestly, though, it’s great to be home:  I’ve missed my family, friends, and America more than I think I even admitted to myself.  There is nothing like a long trip to really help you revalue what is important in life and put things in perspective.  Like they say, “distance makes the heart grow fonder” (right now I could seriously spit out a mile-long list of clichés like it was my job…but I’ll try to rein it in), and I am certainly a lot “fonder” of all of the comforts and conveniences that I appreciate as an American citizen.  This sentiment truly took form as my plane from Madrid to New York was preparing to land at JFK, and American Airlines played an instructional video about navigating customs.  At the end of the video there was a collection of shots of different American citizens happily inviting, “Welcome home!  Welcome home!”  I’m not going to lie, as I watched I started to become fairly emotional.  I am home!  Thank you for welcoming me!  Similarly, as I waited to get my passport stamped and officially be accepted into the country, the man reviewing my documents looked at the list of countries I had recently visited and exclaimed, “Well you’ve certainly been all over, haven’t you?  Welcome home, young lady!”  Music to my ears!  Thank you, thank you very much!

Now, don’t let me fool you into thinking that my appreciation for being home in any way belittles my shock and “homesickness” for Spain.  Although I have certainly enjoyed my time at home sleeping, lounging, and organizing my life, there is a reason that it has taken me over a week to write this final blog post.  And, that reason is denial (What, who said that?!).  Is my semester really over?  How the heck did that happen?  I have no clue, hence my obviously logic-backed decision behind delaying writing this post so as to somehow indefinitely extend my time abroad…Duh.  But, as Dr. Seuss wisely expressed, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”  Well, given all I have experienced in the last several months, I don’t think I’ll stop smiling anytime soon…  And, it certainly did happen (I know this to be forcefully true!), because the other day I walked into Target (Ohh, Target!  How I’ve missed you!  But that’s another story…) to pick up a prescription, and when the lady behind the counter asked how she could assist me I almost, instinctively, started speaking to her in Spanish.  Indeed, I think it took me about five minutes to form any kind of coherent sentence at all and finally remember how to ask for assistance in English.  It is safe to say that this never would have happened if I had not lived in Spain and studied Spanish for an entire semester, and I can therefore prove that my time abroad certainly did happen.  HA!  Now, that I’ve solved that “conundrum” (snaps for Katie!) let me describe the final details of what exactly transpired my final days in Spain…

I didn’t have much turnaround time after my trip in Sevilla, and I immediately hit the ground running.  My final Tuesday was my last day of teaching, and it was definitely bittersweet.  Although the experience could be trying (and exhausting!) at times, I am certainly glad that I took up the opportunity to teach in a Spanish public school, and I feel like I have learned a lot about myself and the ways in which Spanish and American cultures (and education systems) both differ and overlap.  This experience also afforded me the opportunity to form relationships with locals in unique, beautiful ways, and I could tell that several of the teachers were quite sad to see me go.  I didn’t fully realize that the feeling was very much mutual until the afternoon.  In the teacher’s lounge during recess several of the teachers presented me with two gifts:  a book of drawings and descriptions of all of the notable sites in Toledo, and a book of hand-drawn “thank-yous” that the students had made me.  Both gifts were extremely touching, incredible ways for me to recollect both my time in Toledo and my experiences teaching at La Ciudad de Nara Colegio.  Several of the pages that the students had drawn are also quite comical and endearing.  For example, “We like the way you speak English, Katie!”  You do?!  Aww, well thank you!  It’s almost as if I’m American or something!

After recess I was walking to the preschool building when I encountered some kind of outdoor show, complete with a clown, going on to celebrate “El día del libro.”  All of the kids ages three through five were gathered in the courtyard shouting with excitement and doing funny dances in response to the microphone-armed clown’s instructions.  When they all saw me they collectively cried, “Katttieeeeee!” without stopping so that, distracted, the clown decided to call me up in front of the whole crowd.  He did a little bit (at my expense), which consisted of me introducing myself, him attempting to speak English after learning that I am from the United States, and then him trying to “kiss” me (yeah, there’s a reason clowns freak me out…).  The kids absolutely ate it up!  The clown then asked for a round of applause in my honor, and the children (all 100 or so of them) all rushed towards me with open arms desiring hugs and kisses.  It was adorable, and one of the teachers even hastily ran behind me to “catch me” as I doubled over and my knees gave out from the swarms of “niños!”

During my last class period (which appropriately was Mari Carmen’s class…I wouldn’t have had it any other way!) I read to the children in Spanish, which was actually a nice change of pace from our usual focus on studying English.  After we finished two stories, Mari Carmen sat the three-year-olds around in a circle and had them compliment me (in Spanish) one-by-one.  It was ridiculously precious, and some of my favorite “compliments” include:  “You are pretty”; “You are nice”; “I like your earrings”; “I like your hair”; “I like your smile”; “You do your make-up nicely” (Thank you, three-year-old?); and “te quiero mucho!” (I love you a lot!).  Then, they promptly began singing a Spanish song that they had recently learned, sang it in full, and then collectively proceeded to mass-hug me!  I didn’t know I was coming to school that day to behold a seemingly never-ending display of adoration!  ADORABLE!  When it was time for me to finally go Mari Carmen, Mari Paz, and I all exchanged our final goodbyes.  As I thanked them for a wonderful semester we all couldn’t help but tear up, and I left the classroom of screaming, dancing children with a mixture of tangled emotions.

In summary, Tuesday I worked my last day of colegio, kissed a clown, was sung to and complimented incessantly by four-year-olds, and was hugged by literally 100 niños at once…it was like storming the field, and I was the field…

“¡Te queremos mucho, Kaatttieee!”

Michael Bublé says it right: “It’s a beautiful day!”

The rest of the week I spent studying for exams.  With the semester coming to a close and the realization that my last couple of days living in Spain were rapidly approaching, it was quite difficult to study at times, but several of my friends and I found the perfect little study spot in the “Torreón” or tower with 360degree windows that sits atop the Fundación.  Perched in my chair atop the tower I was simultaneously able to study and admire the beauty that is Toledo.  As far as studying goes, it doesn’t really get much better than that.  I was pretty spoiled…

Looking back, even though I didn’t much care for my art professor, I am very glad that I decided to take his “Arte de Toledo” class because it afforded me the opportunity to visit and learn about several important, historical sites in Toledo that I might have not otherwise learned about.  Case in point, in the last several days when my friends were scrambling to create a list of “must sees” in Toledo, I checked my Spain guidebook surprised to find that I had already visited (and learned!) about most of them during my class excursions!  Win, Katie!  As a result, I elected to “sightsee” (it is weird to call it “sightseeing” because we were doing it in our own city, but that’s essentially what it was…) with my friends, and, upon their requests, I acted as “tour guide” and explained what we were seeing at each historical place.  It was actually a very rewarding experience, and I’m so thankful that I took the time to really explore and appreciate my city.  It sounds like a pretty normal, commonsense thing to do, but it can be easily overlooked and forgotten during the pressure-filled hustle and bustle that comes with wanting to explore the world. However, when it all comes down to it, Toledo itself has a lot to offer.

And, we spent our last several days enjoying “everything Toledo” we could possibly squeeze in.  We shopped, devoured churros and chocolate, spent a considerable amount of time sitting and relaxing atop the “mountain” that overlooks the walled portion of the city, visited cathedrals and museums (notably, El Greco’s “house” which holds many of his works), ate by the Río Tajo, and spent time with our host families.  One night what seemed like the entire student body of the Fundación met at a little spot right on (and questionably in) the river, and we all hung out.  It was nice to be fully able to enjoy Spain without the stresses that inevitably come with school, deadlines, and traveling, and we were really able to soak up our final moments as a group!

Saturday afternoon Lissa, Zoe, Caroline, and I decided to eat at a restaurant right by the Fund, “Madre Tierra,” that we had heard great things about.  Seeing as it was our last real day in Spain, we decided, “¿por que no? and finally bit the bullet and decided to dine out.  Madre Tierra is a vegetarian restaurant, and its zen-like ambiance matches its menu and creates a soothing, peaceful environment, which was perfect giving the mounting anxieties that naturally accumulated during our final days.  That lunch was so serene, and it was a lovely opportunity to take a step back and spend quality time with some of the girls that I have grown so close to during this life-changing adventure.

Saturday night we had our “graduation ceremony” where we all received certificates congratulating us on our successful completion of an all-Spanish academic semester.  My entire host family attended graduation (all six of them!), and when my name was called Lucía excitedly cheered “Kaatttieee!,” evoking a bevy of laughter from the audience.

After the ceremony there was a reception where we were able to talk with our host families, meet our friends’ host families, and say our final goodbyes to our professors.  Naturally the rest of the Notre Dame students and I flocked to our favorite theology guru, Professor Santos, and profusely thanked him for a wonderful semester of passionate teaching and enthusiastic exclamations.  Professor Santos really shed  “¡la LUZ!” on theology of the Spanish mystics, and I think that he was “la leche” de profesores.  “¡JODER!” he was “la leche” de profesores…!

After the reception our families returned home and the students all migrated to Dragos to hang out and say our final goodbyes.  For the record, I loathe goodbyes…

The next morning I woke up at 5:00am, threw the rest of my things in my suitcases (I will not reveal how many suitcases I ended up taking home with me…), said a sad goodbye to Silvia, and then rode with Daniel and my luggage to where I was supposed to meet the bus to the airport.  We stood in the dark with my friends and their host families at the stop in Polígono and waited for the bus to come and whisk us off to the airport.  We said our final goodbyes, boarded the bus, and just like that (give or take 24 hours of travel time…) I was home in America and in the arms of my family!

I have had a lot of time to think and reflect over my past week at home, and I decided to start a little list of tips, suggestions, and recommendations for students studying abroad, particularly in Spain.  Actually, I think I want to ask everyone in the ND group to contribute a couple of tidbits of advice, and then I’ll assemble all of the responses into a common blog.  Wait, I like this idea…  To be continued…

Tips, Suggestions, and Recommendations For Students Studying Abroad, Particularly in Spain:

• “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”  I know I’m being repetitive, but seriously; use this motto as much as you can, live life to the fullest, seize every opportunity, yadayadayada…  But seriously:  scare yourself every once and awhile!  I promise you it’s healthy!
• Look up.  This is a modest piece of advice, but honestly anywhere you go (whether it be cathedrals, museums, or simply the open-air square of any given city) don’t forget to look up.  Visual stimulation tends to be concentrated in your immediate peripheral view, but a lot stands to be lost if you fail to take in the entirety of your surroundings.  You will often be surprised by what you find above…
• “If you don’t come home fat and broke, then you did something wrong!”  Okay, this one isn’t mine, it’s my friend, Sarah’s, but I loved it so much that I simply had to include it.  Don’t be wasteful, but don’t be overly frugal with your money abroad; it is a once-and-a-lifetime experience, and it would be awful to miss out on something just to save a few bucks.  Don’t be reckless, but be willing to treat yourself…and the same goes for food!  As far as I’m concerned, “diets” don’t exist during study abroad.  If you are studying abroad during spring semester you literally have all summer to work off any weight you may have gained, and food is so much a part of the experience that I will promise you the only thing you will regret is not trying something.  Again, be good to yourself; you deserve it!  Sometimes it felt weird to not eat my normal diet, but the whole ND group and I collectively decided that it’s part of the experience, right? Our mottos were “¿Por que no?” (why not?) and “No pasa nada” (“nothing happens” or “it’s nothing”) which we loosely translated into “I’m not gunna not…”  But seriously, when in Rome (or anywhere abroad, I don’t discriminate!) do as the Romans do…EAT GOOD FOOD!
• And this is only the beginning.  As I said, to be continued…

Kenny Chesney really knew what he was talking about when he wrote his song “Don’t Blink”:  I feel like I’ve blinked and somehow returned to just where I started, at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee writing a bookending blog post about my European adventures (and referencing Kenny Chesney…).  And, sitting here, it is almost difficult to believe that the past semester actually happened.  Is this real life?  Did it happen?  Oh yes, it happened, and I have 20 blog entries to prove it!  And, while it will probably take me a good long while to unpack and organize the details of exactly what happened so that I can continue to learn and grow from this semester, I can wholly and irrevocably say that even though, physically, I may have returned right to where I started, I am not the same person as I was sitting at this same table in early January.  To the contrary, I am “International Katie” as my Dad likes to remind me, but, more seriously, I feel different, more grown-up.   I have seen the world, lived it, and loved it, and now I have a both a firmer foundation and an increasingly insatiable appetite to know, grow, and discover.   “Adventure is out there!”

One of my favorite movies, Dan In Real Life concludes with Steve Carrel’s character, Dan, talking about “the subject of plans,” saying, “But if we’re really honest with ourselves, our plans usually don’t work out as we had hoped. So instead of asking our young people “What are you plans?  What do you plan to do with your life?” maybe we should tell them this:  Plan to be surprised.”

To be honest, I don’t know what my “plans” were before I began this semester.  Sure I had goals, but I didn’t really know what to expect.  How could I have known?  To a certain extent, I was plunging headfirst into the unknown, into the unexpected, into the unplanned, and I think that that was one of the most beautiful aspects of my time abroad:  I took a metaphorical leap-of-faith and learned through the twists and turns of life’s surprises.  I have been surprised by the world in a myriad of unprecedented ways, and I cannot wait to continue unraveling all that is left to discover.  And, Lord knows there is so much more out there.

I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.

To a world of surprises,

Katie

4 Comments

LA VIDA ESTÁ HECHA DE PEQUEÑOS MOMENTOS: SEVILLA Y OTROS PEQUEÑOS MOMENTOS

Posted on April 21, 2013

April 8^th-April 21^st

So I know I haven’t blogged and awhile…believe, me it’s been rough!  Two weeks?!  Wow, I’ve really been “letting myself go!”  However, in my defense these past two weeks have been insanely hectic.  And, a lot has happened in the life of Katie Puszka since I have last blogged; namely, I secured definitive summer job plans, I “DARTed” (chose my Notre Dame classes for next semester), I found out what section I will be living in as a RA next year, I gave a presentation for my internship and took two finals (finals are already here, WHAT?!), and I was officially accepted into the ACE Program via early application through their Senior internship program!  This is HUGE:  I am going to earn my Masters in Education from Notre Dame and teach for two years after graduation!  Whattt?!  So, yeah, it has been a crazy of couple of weeks for this girl:  several giant life milestones!

With all of these progressive plans taking form, it seems a little difficult to focus on the present.  And, while this has been relatively true (my mind has been wandering towards South Bend a lot lately and understandably so), I have definitely determined to soak up every last minute in Spain.  I cannot BELIEVE how quickly my time here has passed:  I go home a week from today!  It seems like just a few weeks ago that I first arrived in Spain, met my host family, and became friends with everyone in our ND Toledo group:  How?!

It is difficult to describe what I’m feeling right now:  it’s definitely a bittersweet mixture of emotions.  For one thing, I am so excited to go back home, see my friends and family, and bask in everything American!  If it is any indication, my “most played” songs on iTunes for the last couple of weeks include Toby Keith’s “Made In America,” Lonestar’s “You’re Like Coming Home,” Rodney Atkin’s “These Are My People,” and probably about six other songs that have either “America” or “Home” (or both…) in their title.  I think my subconscious might be telling me something…  But, at the same time, I can’t fully fathom that I am going to be leaving Toledo!  It’s absolutely incredible!  I guess that just means I need to “¡aprovechar y disfrutar mi tiempo aquí en España!”  On that note…

Sevilla:  Sweet Orange Blossom Perfumes, Quotes, and Memories

Last weekend Maegan, Lissa, Sarah, and I went to Sevilla in Southern Spain.  I had heard amazing things about Sevilla, and I couldn’t quite make peace with the spending an entire semester in Spain without visiting, so the four of us decided to make it our last weekend trip.  And what a perfect last weekend trip it was!  I love the chicas that I traveled with, and we made our time in Sevilla the ultimate girl’s trip:  can you say sightseeing, sun, late-night conversations, laughs, wine, and chocolate?

We arrived around noon Friday, and the instant we stepped off the train, I was hit with it:  the intoxicating perfume of orange blossoms, “el aire de Sevilla.”  Sevilla has an abundance of fragrant orange trees, and, as a glorious result, literally anywhere you go in the city the air smells delicious.  Like, I could eat that!  It is difficult to describe if you haven’t smelled it before, but I never grew tired of taking deep, long inhales full of the Sevillan air.

After feeling like I walked through the Garden of Eden, we arrived at our hostel.  And by hostel, I mean apartment.  Yes, somehow we managed to spend nearly the same low price that we usually spend to stay in questionably questionable or straight-up questionable hostels to spend the weekend in a small apartment with our own bathroom and kitchen!  We had a place!  And that place had a rooftop terraza with seating that was perfect for late night stargazing.  And the girl’s weekend gets even better…

After we settled in, we walked along the river into town, encompassed in a world of natural exquisiteness.  An article that Sarah read on the train described Sevilla as “effortlessly beautiful,” and that is truly the perfect, purest way to depict it.  I don’t know what it is about Sevilla but it is simply “effortlessly beautiful” in an enchanting way that takes your breath away, makes you slow down, and pulls you into a simpler time of old-world Spain.  Toledo is wonderful, and I think, for various reasons (namely it’s size, charm, and key location) it is an ideal place to study abroad, but Sevilla embodies everything I would traditionally think of when I think “Spain”:  warm weather, semi-tropical vegetation, outdoor cafes, sunshine, and a relaxed, laidback lifestyle.

We spent the day wandering around town and taking in the scenery for several hours before we headed back to our apartment and made a “family dinner” of pasta, salad, wine, and chocolate.  I’m not kidding about Sevilla’s lifestyle:  we were so relaxed.  Loved it.

Saturday we leisurely slept in, had breakfast, walked back down the river, and visited Sevilla’s Alcázar.  The Arabic, Mudéjar, Renaissance, and Baroque architectural influences; the grand, open-air spaces; the never-ending colorful gardens; the peacocks (yes, there were peacocks strolling the palace halls!)…all PERFECT.

Next we visited the Catedral de Sevilla, which happens to be the third largest church in Europe (after St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican and St. Paul’s Cathedral in London…I have seen both of these now!).  The Cathedral itself was pretty, but my favorite part of our tour was beholding Sarah’s reaction to seeing Christopher Columbus’ tomb.  Even though she knows Columbus was a questionable/not-so-great person in reality, Sarah was just so “star struck” when she saw his tomb that she threw her arms up in the air and did a little happy dance.  I give you Sarah McCarthy, ladies and gentleman.

We were also lucky enough to see not one, but two traditional Spanish weddings while we were in the Cathedral.  The brides were beautiful, but we couldn’t stop gawking over the guests’ attire:  Spanish women really know how to dress!  Where do they get their style from?  Several outfits were notable, but our unanimous favorite was a woman who was dressed in a turquoise dress with a bright fuchsia artsy hat propped on her head.  We were enthralled.  One English-speaking tourist overheard us and turned to laugh at us as we appreciatively commented on her choice of color combinations…  What?  We have no shame:  It was cool!  See for yourself!  We agree her big black tat really “adds” something to the look, no?

After witnessing our first Spanish “fashion show,” uh, I mean, wedding we proceeded to stroll, wander, and admire Sevilla.  Zapped from the sun, we returned to our place for a little to rest before heading back into town to go “tapa hopping.”  Somehow, even though I have spent an entire semester in Spain, this managed to be my first time tapa hopping, and I loved it!  Tapa hopping simply consists of moving from restaurant to restaurant (outdoor seating is preferable…gotta maintain contact with that Sevillan air at al times), choosing a couple “tapas” or appetizers to sample from each menu, and enjoying them in the company of a pitcher of Sangria.  And possibly some live Spanish guitar.  We “hopped” around four different tapas joints until we concluded our night in a cute little Spanish dessert shop.  It was so lovely.  We even passed one restaurant with a sign that reminded me of a MasterCard commercial:  Food, 2 euro; Drink, 1 euro; Laughing, 0 euro; Enjoying, 0 euro.  Priceless.  ¡Qué preciosa!  The States could really benefit to pick this idea up from Spain, and we vowed to carry this tradition with us and “tapa hop” somewhere in South Bend next semester.  It’ll be great, but I have a feeling it just won’t be the same…

Sunday morning we woke up and lazily made our way across town to the “Plaza de España” and the famous gardens that surround it.  There was definitely a reason that author described Sevilla as “effortlessly beautiful”:  he must have spent an afternoon in the  Plaza de España.  The plaza is not even particularly “old” (it was built in 1929), but with its colorful tiles, open air, cobblestones, and beautiful architecture it is exploding with Spanish charm.  I don’t know if I have ever taken so many pictures of the exact same thing, but I was just absolutely enthralled by the plaza.  We wandered for a while before finding a perfect picnic spot in the gardens right across from it where we sat for over an hour eating cheese and olive oil bocadillos, shooting the breeze, and loving every moment of being outdoors.

Afterwards, we continued to roam around the city, found a couple of open-air markets, walked past the University, and explored Alfonso XIII Hotel (by “explore” I mean we oohhed and ahhhed at it before we used their amazing bathrooms…), and returned to our apartment for a “siesta.”  I don’t know if I have actually really “siesta-ed” before this weekend (usually I just don’t have time for a mid-day nap…), but it was marvelous.  For dinner we dressed up and went to a “fancy” restaurant we had stumbled upon earlier in the weekend and had an amazing dinner for a fairly reasonable price.  After the fact we discovered that the restaurant has won awards from Trip Advisor, but it was secretly rewarding to have found such a great place all by ourselves.  As I have quoted before, “Not all who wander are lost…”

On our way home we stumbled upon another sign that said “La vida está hecha de pequeños momentos,” which translates to “Life is made of small moments.”  Awww!  Seriously, Sevilla, stop being so adorable!  I couldn’t have said it better myself!

After that we went home and headed to our terraza to sit in the warm night air and enjoy the chocolate-covered strawberries that Sarah had made us earlier.  Me encanta Sevilla.  I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect final weekend of travel in a semester abroad in Spain.

We left Sevilla early Monday morning, which was super hectic because I had to take a train from Sevilla to Madrid, take a train from Madrid to Toledo, take a taxi to the school where I teach (I arrived perfectly on time, despite the fact that I arrived in Toledo at 9:53 when my job starts at 10:00…SWAGGG), taught for four hours, stayed at school for fifteen minutes extra before I DARTED and chose my classes for next semester, and then made my way back to the Casco where I picked up lunch and went to class.  Phew!  What a morning!  The life of a traveler!  Like I said, I have determined to “aprovechar y disfrutar” my final weeks in Spain, even if that means running around Spain like a chicken with its head-cut off for a morning.  No regrets.

Other Little Moments From My Spanish Life That I Will Sorely Miss…

• Last week I was on the bus home with my iPod headphones in listening to music when this old Spanish man sat down in the seat across from me and started up a conversation.  He told me that he doesn’t understand why young people listened to iPods, and he started telling me all about what life was like during the Spanish Civil War.  He really made me think.  As our bus continued to drive, he’d point out certain buildings and explain how they were impacted by the war.  When he reached his stop to get off, he told me to have a great day, smiled, winked, and went on his merry way.  It was adorable, and I didn’t put my headphones back on after that…
• Last Thursday in history we were watching a movie about Franco’s Dictatorship when the “1812 Overture” came on.  Half of the ND kids are in that class with me, so when we heard the music we all looked at each other, formed our fingers into “BK” and silently hailed “Kelly, Kelly, Kelly…” in the back of the room…  That happened…
• The other day I came home from school to find Silvia, Miguel, and Lucía in the kitchen.  Lucía greeted me by announcing, “Kaaatttieee!” and enveloping my in a bear hug.  After she finally released me, Silvia told her that I am only going to be here for one and a half more weeks.  Lucia hated this:  “Nooooooooooooo!!!”  It reminded me of The Office when Toby comes back to work and Michael just can’t handle it:  “No, God!  No, God, please, no!  No!  No!  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”  It was really cute.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcz4u3Lv9ko
• On a similar note, a few days later I came home and was talking to Silvia when she said that she was going to really miss me and couldn’t believe how quickly time has passed.  Why can’t I just stay instead of having another girl come and live with them this summer?  Awww!  I feel loved!
• This Thursday several book vendors erected a long line of temporary stalls to sell books this weekend through the end of next weekend.  It’s really precious:  they are selling books outside!  I don’t know why that combination fascinates me so much, but it does.  The shops were set up to celebrate the upcoming shared birthdays of William Shakespeare and Miguel Cervantes, and, following suit, I chose to honor these literary legends by purchasing the first novel of the Harry Potter serires in Spanish (“Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal)”.  I think it will great way to keep up my Spanish this summer, and I could always go for a HP reread…
• After our history exam Thursday the entire class, including our professor, went out to “Dragos” bar right next to the Fund to sit outside and enjoy a beer or tinto de verano.  I have never really even contemplated the idea of getting a drink with a professor before, but it was actually very nice and refreshing.  Professor Herrerín is very personable, funny, and passionate about what he studies and teaches, and taking with him about Spanish culture and the Spanish Civil War on a beautiful day in a less formal setting was the perfect ending to an interesting class.
• Lately the weather has been gorgeous!  The sun, the warmth:  I don’t know how I will be able to cope with the Chicago “spring” weather when I get home…  Spain has spoiled me!  Lately, with the weather being so nice Meagan and I have been going on long walks around Polígono.  So lovely!  I’m really going to miss conversing with Meags as we walk along the beautiful blooming trails through the Spanish countryside, with perfect views of the Alcazar in the distance.
• Yesterday several of us climbed the “mountain” that overlooks Toledo.  This was my second time on the mountain, and it is so perfect to just sit up there, take in views of the city, “tomar el sol,” and talk with my “people.”  You just don’t get views like this in the Midwest…

ONE MORE WEEK!  I have several finals to get through and a world full of packing ahead, but I cannot wait to enjoy my last days in Spain!  Slowly down!  Thanks for the inspiration, Lucía, now I feel like Michael Scott… “No, god, NOOOOOOOOO!!!”Leave a comment

LONDON. LET THE PARENT TRAP AND HARRY POTTER REFERENCES BEGIN!

Posted on April 9, 2013

This past week was pretty crazy readjusting to Spain and “normal life” after a whirlwind ten-day tour of Europe!  And, I’m not going to lie, it felt kind of strange to not see Katie Mullins every second of every day…I felt like I was missing something!  It was so strange, in fact, that Tuesday morning I woke up for class in a panic, anxiously searching my room for her and wondering, “Where is she?  We are going to be late!” It was quite terrifying, actually…

However, even though this week was pretty hectic (amidst everything else I had a lot of blogging to catch-up on!), I came to a certain realization.  Traveling is amazing; but country music, long runs, days with extended periods of sunshine, and conversations with your Spanish mom about how your host sister looks like a cross between a Chuckie Doll (¡una muñeca de Chuckie!) and the girl from The Ring are also pretty phenomenal.  Yes, there is an explanation behind this.  Apparently Monday night Lucía had trouble sleeping (I wouldn’t know; I was out like a rock!), and during the middle of the night Silvia and Daniel heard a mysterious loud thump outside their bedroom door; Lucía had run, headfirst, into their door and was moaning “oww!”  Silvia put her back to bed, but a couple of hours later she woke up startled because she felt the presence of “something” standing at the edge of her bed.  In Silvia’s words, that “something” was a haggard-looking Lucía quietly standing with a pale face, strewn hair, and an air about her that made Silvia horridly think of Samara from The Ring.  Out of sorts, Silvia got up, put Lucía back to bed for the second time in a row, and went back to bed herself.  This happened several more times but culminated when Daniel got up to go to the bathroom, used the toilet, and screamed because Lucía was quietly/creepily standing in the bathroom corner behind him!  With these various descriptions and behaviors, it’s no wonder why Silvia chose to describe her five-year old daughter as a gruesome character straight out of an American horror film!  As she relayed this preposterous series of events she just kept giggling and saying, “She was like that girl from The Ring!”  “She was like the Chuckie doll!” (in Spanish, of course), and we were both practically rolling around the floor dying we were laughing so hard.

Basically, ¡Me encanta mi vida española!

London Calling!

Friday afternoon Katie Mullins and I arrived in London!  Now I have wanted to go to London my whole life, and you’d better believe that all of last week leading up to our departure I was quoting The Parent Trap and Harry Potter like it was nobody’s business. “She needs to sort out her priorities!”  Noted:  Priorities sorted! 

And, not only were we lucky enough to visit London for the weekend, but we also had the opportunity to stay with Heather, a good family friend who, for lack of a better word, was my “nanny” for two summers before Ryan and I could drive ourselves to sports and other various activities.  Heather recently married her husband, Mike, last summer, and they moved to London soon after the wedding.  So, when I was talking to Heather about my adventures in Europe and told her I planned on visiting London, she asked if I wanted to stay with her.  Nice!  It was really wonderful to be able to see Heather and Mike, catch up, and walk around London together, especially because Heather, who studied in Luxembourg when she was in college, was one of my main inspirations for wanting to study abroad.  I don’t have any older siblings, and my parents did not study abroad when they were in college, so I honestly think that Heather originally catalyzed my acute desire to explore and see the world!  So, thank you, Heather, both for letting me stay with you and Mike in London and also for helping show me how awesome the world can be!

When we first arrived we took the train, met up with Heather (who is conveniently and strategically located near King’s Cross Station), and then had coffee and lunch as we caught up with her in her new home.  After getting situated, Katie and I took the Metro (*I mean, “Tube!”) right near Big Ben, Parliament, the London Eye, and Westminster Abbey.  We took in the scenery, popped in our Rick Steves’ audio guides, and sight saw and walked around for a little bit before we went to Westminster to attend “Evensong,” which is an Anglican coral service.  I wasn’t really familiar with this type of service, but it was a free way to see Westminster (SWAG:  Stuff we all get!), and it was actually pretty beautiful. 

After the service we walked back towards the Thames River and met my good friend and roommate who is studying in London, Margaret, right near the London Eye.  Now, I had seen Marge in Galway (and we both cried…), but I felt like we hadn’t seen each other in ages, and we both ran in for the hug-tackle when we spotted each other amidst the bustling London crowd.  Marge took us back to the London students’ flat (which is ridiculously centrally located only a five-minute walk from the London Eye), saw her room, and spent several minutes catching up with her and the rest of her flat mattes.  Next, we moved a few floors down to visit some of our other friends who we had just seen in Rome last weekend, and we joined them for a little dinner party/get-together.  It was really nice to spend time with all of my lovely Domers, especially after our time in Rome.  Is this is what my life has become?  Seeing my friends in various European cities each weekend?  I certainly can’t complain!

After dinner a large group of us meandered over to the Ye Old Cheshire Cheese Pub.  Although the original buidling was burned during the Great London Fire of 1666, a pub has been standing on this property since 1538, and, back in the day, it used to be the hotspot for famous writers such as Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Alfred Tennyson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, G.K. Chesterton, and Katie Puszka.  Oh, wait, that last one wasn’t born yet; I have my dates incorrect!  (Jokes!)  But really, how cool?!  My friends and I grabbed a pint and felt like we were transported back in time to a period of great literary thinkers!

Saturday morning Katie and I visited the Tower of London with Heather and Mike.  The weather forecast threatened to be unpromising, but we were lucky enough to have the sun peak out behind the London clouds all day! 

We walked around the site, which was founded in 1066, for about half an hour before we began our tour.  We were able to see the Crown Jewels during this time, which were incredible.  If I am correct, one of the diamonds that rests in the center of the Queen’s crown is the biggest in the world.  For the sake of comparison I think the diamond was actually bigger than the seemingly fifty-pound ravens we saw perched inside the tower gates…so, yeah…

Our tour guide was terrific!  It was obvious that he was very passionate about his job, and he relayed stories of the countless gory deaths and beheadings that took place on the very ground on which we stood.   For example, he spent a considerable amount of time detailing the death of Anne Boleyn that was mandated by her husband, Henry VIII.  He was so zealous about expressing his story that he pretended he was Henry VIII himself and animatedly walked us through the sequence of events that lead up to Anne’s death.  Naturally he needed an Anne Boleyn to help him properly play the part, so he chose me to be his soon-to-be ex-wife.  Given the circumstances of my imminent death, I don’t know why I was laughing during the entirety of this episode, but I couldn’t seem to help it…  Luckily Katie grabbed my camera from my hands and captured the moment as I lay on my figurative deathbed.  We really have each other’s backs, this girl and I; we understand one another’s priorities!

After the Tower of London we crossed the Tower Bridge and made our way to Borough Market.  FYI, London markets are marvelous; America could really learn a thing or two from Europe about outdoor markets!  We perused the stalls of local food vendors before Katie and I decided on purchasing grilled cheeses (I know they were only grilled cheese sandwiches, but somehow they managed to be quite remarkable!), and then Heather, Mike, Katie, and I all elected to purchase something from the most-scrumptious looking sweets stall.  We enjoyed our lunches, headed back to Heather and Mike’s place to enjoy our desserts with fresh coffee, and then Katie and I hit the road:  to Abbey Road!  (First, though, we had to take a small detour and visit Platform 9 ¾ as a tribute to Harry Potter…To Hogwarts!  For some reason I wasn’t able to break the brick station wall…next time!)

Being in London, we naturally had to take pictures on the infamous Abbey Road and recreate the renowned Beatle’s album cover.  This was easier said than done; little did we realize, but Abbey Road is actually a fully-functioning/fairly busy street.  Who would have thunk it?!  (We probably should have…)  So, Katie and I dodged traffic as we tried to “capture the moment” and not die.  Looking back, it probably wasn’t the safest thing we could have done, but it was definitely worth it!   “Here comes the sun, doo doo doo doo, and I said, it’s all right!”

Next we hopped back on the Metro, took it to Green Park, and walked through it on our way to Buckingham Palace.  Much to my disappointment I did not see any Corgis outside the palace (yes, I think I would have rather seen the corgis than the Queen herself at this point…I miss my Cocoa!), but we did see the guards patrolling the palace gates with their big poufy hats, so that definitely redemptive.    

Then we walked down the street a ways towards Harrods.  Now, I didn’t plan on going shopping, per se, but I did want to see Harrods because I’ve heard so much about it that I just felt like it was something I needed to “do” London.  So, we “did” Harrods.  And, I realized that every other large-scale department store that I have ever visited before this point have been horrible, horrible lies.  Seriously, though; Harrods puts every other store to shame.  It’s actually quite over-the-top, and Katie and I didn’t feel like we necessarily fit-in with our student-traveler budgets, but it was definitely quite the experience.  We wandered around for a little bit before deciding that we should probably move on, and as we were trying to find an exit we happened upon a stairway with a blockade.  Not being able to pass, we searched for an alternative exit route, and I tried to open these giant doors with long pole-like handles.  Pulling on the door, I somehow managed to yank the handle clear off the door; I looked at Katie and just went, “Uhhh:  that’s about right!”  I tried, to no avail, to fix it and suggested that we leave, but Katie insisted that she wanted to try her hand at fixing it.  Fail.  …Run away, run away!

Next we headed back to the Notre Dame flats, but first we walked through St. James’ Park (lovely, Govna’!) and along the Thames again.  Marge and the rest of her flat mates hosted us for a pre-Booze Cruise dinner party (Every semester the London kids host a “Booze Cruise” along the Thames and invite other ND students who are studying abroad in Europe to reunite for the night in what is essentially a floating dorm party.  Don’t get me wrong, Katie and I definitely wanted to go, but seeing as we were only in London for two nights, we wanted to make the most of our short weekend and thus opted out of the infamous “Booze Cruise.”  Hey, I had a great night and still got to hear all of the stories the next day…).  All the girls were in nice dresses and heels, and Katie and I were in our street clothes, so I joked with Margaret that I felt like her “mom” sending her off before a high school dance.  Have a good time, honey!

Instead of Booze Cruise, Katie and I went to see Once the musical.  Good life decisions:  It was spectacular!  The music is so memorable and moving, the actors were terrific, and all in all it was quite a great evening.

Sunday morning Katie and I visited St. Paul’s Cathedral (which is where Princess Dianna got married) and then crossed London Bridge and made our way to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.  Now, when an English major and a Theatre major travel together, there is no way they cannot visit the Globe in London:  it had to happen!  I thoroughly enjoyed touring the exhibit, seeing the recreated theatre (the original burned down in the fire), and watching a group of London student performers “jigging” on stage in preparation for a new show.  And, even though our tour guide was an obnoxious person who obviously didn’t make it in acting for a reason (namely because he was more focused on himself than the information he was supposed to relay), nothing could have tainted the experience we had!  Love me some Shakespeare!

After our tour we walked along the Thames, got scones, and met up with Margaret again.  Marge took us to see Trafalgar Square, the inside of the National Gallery, and the Notre Dame academic building (Which was ridiculous.  I guess that’s what happens when your University outbids the French Embassy for a large edifice in a strategic spot in the middle of London…).  We didn’t have too much time before we had to leave before our flight, so Margaret took us to one of her favorite bars, which happens to be a docked boat along the Thames, and we enjoyed pints of Guinness as we conversed, soaked up the sun, and admired views of Big Ben, Parliament, and the London Eye.  It wasn’t tea and biscuits, but it was certainly a lovely way to cap off an action-packed weekend in London!

Leave a comment

WHEN IN ROME, DO AS THE DOMERS DO: VISIT THE PAPA

Posted on April 8, 2013

March 29^th-April 1^st

Friday morning we took another early train, this time from Assisi to Rome!  We had to leave our B&B at the crack of dawn and trek to the train station, and when we got there unfortunately we realized we had a problem; of course nobody was manning the ticket counter at that ungodly hour, and the “ticket machine” didn’t work.  The “machine” was essentially only a metal box with two slots, a pushpin, and a place to but coins, but there was absolutely no way to see what we would be putting our money towards; because that makes sense.  We played with the machine for several minutes before giving up, and at that point another person came to the platform to wait for the train.  We asked him if perhaps he could help us, but, naturally, he didn’t speak English.  He tried his best to assist us, however, and he fiddled with the machine for several minutes before he too gave up.  In some combination of Italian and sign language he mimed that he would help us buy tickets on the train.  Given the circumstances, this was ideal.  If you are found on Italian trains without a validated (and purchased, obviously) ticket, then hefty fines usually follow suit.  We wanted to avoid this, and we thought our new “friend” could help explain our situation to the Italian ticket collectors.  So we had a plan.

We got on the train, situated ourselves, and waited.  Our friend sat across the aisle from us.  After about thirty minutes our friend disappeared, motioning that he was going to try and find a ticket collector.  He returned after a couple of minutes, but it took over an hour before a ticket collector walked through the car.  When he finally did, the two men started speaking to each other in Italian as the employee wrote us out a ticket:  solid!  Things seemed to be going smoothly until our friend told us that tickets cost ten euros each; that is when we knew something was wacky.  We had been using the Italian train lines all week, and there is no way this trip (which happened to be our longest trip between Italian cities yet) cost less than all of our other train trips.  We collected our ticket, the conductor left, and our friend moved to sit right across from us to explain what happened.  Or so we thought.  As he moved, a couple entered the train car and took the seat that our friend had previously been occupying:  now he was stuck with us.  Or, now we were stuck with him.  It still seemed fine though until he asked us for a pen and paper so that he could give us his name and number.  Then, after over two hours of shenanigans he requested, in English, mind you, “Call me.”  Oh, so now you speak English.  Great.  Obviously we didn’t give him our names and numbers, and nothing happened, but it was just kind of strange because then he just sat there.  For the whole rest of the train ride.  It wasn’t a horrible situation because nothing actually happened, and he didn’t talk to us after we didn’t give him our information.  Plus, we were in a train car full of people, but it was still kind of unsettling; I don’t want to be an untrusting person, but at the same time, I feel like you can’t always discredit peoples’ motives.  Everything ended up being fine, and we left him behind as we exited the train on our stop, but it definitely reminded Katie and I to be even more on our guards than we had previously been.  However, with over ten days of traveling with just one other girl this was the absolute worst that we experienced, and I cannot complain; what a great, uneventful week!

When we finally arrived in our hostel we checked in, got ourselves situated, and then raced to find our fellow Domers!  Long story short, every year Notre Dame organizes the opportunity for all students who are studying abroad to have the option to attend Easter Sunday mass at the Vatican with the Pope.  At the risk of sounding repetitive:  Casual.  And, I don’t know if you’ve heard lately, but there is kind of a new Pope.  So, given the quick turn of events with Conclave, we were provided with an incredible historical and religious opportunity!  Several of my friends who have studied abroad in the past told me that when they went to Easter Sunday mass they saw various people waving their country’s flags in Saint Peter’s Square to represent and honor their heritage.  Pretty cool, right?  Right, but amongst all of these national flags there was also a Notre Dame flag, proudly waving in the Easter wind.  Now that’s pride.

And, it gets even better; through Campus Ministry, ND also provides the opportunity to signup for a full-track Pilgrimage with a weekend of planned religious events to various significant sites in Rome and the Vatican.  Before I left home in January I didn’t know about this option, but after researching it further there was no way that I could forgo it!

So, even though Katie and I had missed the previous day’s activities due to our stay in Assisi, we hurried to meet our fellow students who were on the full-track Pilgrimage at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.  This basilica is significant because it was consecrated to house the Passion Relics brought to Rome by St. Helen of Constantinople, mother of Emperor Constantine.  The church itself is considered “in Jerusalem” because it contains dirt and earth from the Holy Land and is thus thought to maintain part of its original foundation.  We were running a little late, but we found our coordinators, John Paul and Anthony, and entered the Basilica. 

As we were in line to see the relics my friend, Carolyn, tapped me on the shoulder, motioned for me not to scream in excitement after seeing her, (which is probably what I would have done without the reminder; jeesh, Katie, you are in a holy place!) and gave me a giant hug.  As we continued to wait we saw more and more of our classmates.  Now, I don’t quite no how to describe seeing over thirty people that you know from various classes and activities that you haven’t seen for several months converge in the same place, especially when that place happens to be somewhere in Europe, like, I don’t know, Rome, but it is unlike something I have ever experienced before.  It was just so wonderful, and even though I was “displaced” in a foreign city that I had never visited before, a large part of me immediately felt like I was home.  That for me is Notre Dame.  There is no way to explain this feeling to someone who doesn’t share it, but there is such a bond that our school creates, such a sense of community, and that community never dies; even thousands of miles from campus.  So, I am feeling all of this, and, of course, I am forced to remain quite for the following half hour.  Irony.  That was difficult!  And almost even painful!  But not as painful as what was about to come…

 Our next stop was the Scala Sancta, which translates to the “Holy Stairs” and are, according to Christian tradition, the steps that led up to praetorium of Pontius Pilot in Jerusalem, where Jesus stood during his Passion on his way to trial.  St. Helena brought the stairs from Jerusalem to Rome in 4^th century, and ever since Christians have climbed the stairs in order to honor Jesus and the Passion of Christ.  (*A brief side note and admission:  No, I did not know all of this information before I actually arrived in Rome.  Before this Pilgrimage I had never even heard of the Scala Sancta, and I received all of my information about the site from the accompanying guidebook that John Paul and Anthony provided each of us with.  To be completely sincere, before the Pilgrimage began I actually kind of questioned if I would be the “right kind” of person to do something like this, because even though I went to Catholic grade school for nine years of my life and now attend a Catholic university, I feel like I don’t know as much as I perhaps “should” about the faith.  Thus, my thoughts pre-Pilgrimage went something like this:  “Am I holy enough for this weekend?  Will I know what is going on?”  Well, I soon realized that this was a silly concern.  To quote Will Ferrell in Kicking and Screaming, “Like anyone could even know that!”  Yes, perhaps I’m not fully up-to-date on all of the Catholic doctrines, but if this weekend taught me anything, it’s that there is no “ranking” system when it comes to religion.  At least for me there isn’t.  Each individual experience is unique and special, but, even without fully knowing what I was “getting myself into” I still learned, experienced, and grew so much during my weekend in Rome, and I believe that that, hands down, is one of the most crucial and rewarding elements of any faith-based experience.  Just a thought.) 

So, I arrived at the stairs with the newly directed expectation that we were going to pray and slowly climb them.  And we were, but I was missing one little detail; we were going to climb them on our knees.  Twenty-eight wooden stairs.  This thought had previously never entered my mind, and, I’m not going to lie, as we stood in line for about half an hour or so, my friends and I wondered, “But isn’t that going to hurt?”  Yes, but that’s kind of the point.  And, while I definitely do not condone the idea of physical punishment to “atone for sins,” it was actually pretty interesting and perspective-changing to pray and meditate in slight discomfort for an extended period of time.  There were certainly several moments when I was climbing the stairs on my knees that I was in serious discomfort, and after we reached the top and tried to walk and “shake it off,” it was definitely a little difficult to walk.  While this might not fit a typical definition of what constitutes a “good time,” it was certainly a very moving, thought-provoking experience.  If I am in this much pain after only having climbed a wooden staircase on my knees, then what sort of pain must Jesus have felt when he was nailed to the cross?  Dang, I have it pretty good!  Now that, is perspective for you.

Next we saw St. John Lateran (which is the cathedral church of the diocese of Rome and the official ecclesiastical seat of the Bishop of Rome) and had a little break before we reconvened for a Good Friday Service and the Adoration of the Cross.  I have never been to that service before, but it was a really neat experience. 

Afterwards, we had some free time before our next organized activity, so we decided to walk around Rome!  So, we saw the Colosseum and other Roman ruins (one of my friends stepped in as our “tour guide” because he had recently visited Rome with his dad and somehow remembered all of the information from his historic tour…clutch) and then found a pizza place for dinner.  Strangely enough several other groups of ND kids straggled into the same restaurant, and John Paul, being a member of one of those groups, even picked up the check for all of us.  Granted it was on Campus Ministry’s dollar, but it was still an incredibly thoughtful gesture, especially when you are a broke college who is studying abroad.

After dinner we met as a group again before heading to the Colosseum.  Our next event:  Good Friday Stations of the Cross outside of the Roman Colosseum with the new Pope.  I’m sorry, but when will I ever be able to do this again?  What a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience.  We had to get there very early in order to be able to have a semi-decent seat (just kidding, there were no seats; we stood the whole time), but even with the two-plus hour wait I certainly didn’t mind; I was with great friends I hadn’t seen in months, and I was even meeting mutual friends that I hadn’t had the opportunity to meet on campus. 

When it was finally time for the “main event” the crowd hushed, a bevy of light seemingly instantly spread as the crowd ceremoniously spread the flame of their lit candle to their neighbors’ candle, and the Pope emerged from his red papal tent.  I don’t know if it was the lighting or the magnitude of the event itself (who am I kidding, it was definitely both), but it was magical.  Again, even though I didn’t understand everything that was happening because Stations were in Italian, it was certainly an extraordinary experience.    The crowd kept yelling, “¡Papa Francisco!” and “Viva el Papa!”  I don’t know if I have even attended Stations of the Cross since Catholic school in eighth grade, but, as all of the weekend’s events similarly influenced me, the acute presence of faith and community (both within and outside the Notre Dame community) that I experienced during my three days in Rome definitely inspired my desire to grow more strongly in my own faith as I continue to mature.  What better inspiration can you derive from “An Evening in Roma?”

Saturday morning Katie and I woke up, walked to the Vatican from our hostel (it was about a forty minute walk, but it was the nice way to wakeup, especially after we got coffee), and finally arrived in Saint Peter’s square about forty minutes before our guided tour was scheduled to begin.  We erroneously thought that this would have been a sufficient amount of “cushion time”:  well that was a farce.  I have clearly never been to the Vatican during Easter weekend before, because I had failed to account for the hoards of people who would be present.  Katie and I parked ourselves in line, waited about twenty minutes, and moved very minimally before I left our post to “scope out the situation.”  As if that was going to help us, Detective Katie.  Well, actually it did, but not for reasons that are altogether “kosher.”  So, while I was out of line I accidently ran into one of our other ND friends (yes, her names was, “Caity:” how did you know?!) who was alone in line and in the same predicament as us.  The three of us talked, realized we were never going to make our tour, and put our heads together to devise a plan.  Here is said plan:  we were going to cut the line.  I mean we had to.  (Justification was readily at work as this whole process unfolded).  I would leave our position in line by myself, pretend I was going through my purse/throwing something away/tying my shoe (I was wearing boots…), stall for awhile, and then reenter the line so that the people behind me thought that I had just stepped out for a moment instead of cutting bujillions of people.  Then, Katie and Caity would come running up out of breath and cry, “Thank god we found you; we thought we lost you!”, join me in line, and we would all inconspicuously continue on our merry way and make our tour on-time.  Okay, typing this all out makes me feel kind of ridiculous, but it seemed like a good idea at the time…and we made our tour!  Yes, we felt badly about it (it’s that dang Catholic guilt!), but we promised ourselves that we won’t get mad the next time someone cuts us in line.  Karma, right?  Plus, I’m sure they will probably just be trying to make their tour and be lost for the rest of the day…perfectly reasonable!

Once we managed to successfully locate the rest of our group we toured St. Peter’s Basilica with Anthony (who casually served as a professional tour guide for the Vatican back in the day) and saw a myriad of really notable monuments, including the tomb of Pope John Paul II.  Anthony was an excellent tour guide, and he may even be up there with Rick Steves… Maybe…

After our tour we collected our tickets for Easter mass from John Paul right underneath the obelisk in St. Peter’s square.  However, everyone from ND who planned on attending mass the next day had to collect his or her tickets at this time, so it actually evolved into an hour-long reunion.  SO MUCH JOY.  Katie Mullins literally tackled one of our friends, Kelsie, to the ground, and my face actually hurt from smiling too much.  Problems. 

After our massive reunion several of us searched for food and had a little break before we reconvened to tour the Vatican Museums.  So, the Vatican Museums were amazing, and, given the right circumstances I would have loved to spend a day touring them and learning more about the history of the church.  However, the Saturday afternoon before Easter did not constitute “the right circumstances,” and, to be frank, the tour was somewhat miserable.  Long narrow hallways + one main traffic flow+ infinite masses of people= not my idea of a good time.  It got to the point where we just kept moving forward in the hopes of eventually escaping the crowd; to no avail!  It’s a shame, but once we finally reached the Sistine Chapel Katie and I fought (with what felt like our lives) for a spot to rest against the wall, listen to our Rick Steves’ audio guide, and soak up Michelangelo.  And, even though we suffered our way to that point, that was worth it.  Wow.

I was exhausted after we finally escaped (yes, that is the right verb) the Museum, but we headed across the river towards Trastevere, which is where our friends who are studying in the ND Rome Program, Kelise and Eliza, live.  The girls hosted about eight of us for an amazing dinner of salad, bread, pasta, and wine at their apartment, and the evening was an absolutely beautiful way to end such an exciting day.  Some of my friends who are musically gifted (I am not one of them…) even started singing and playing guitar while the rest of us gawked in amazement and danced along.  And we may or may not have gone out to our “Roman friends’” favorite gelato place afterwards… “When in Rome!”  Also, worth noting, it was supposed to rain all day (literally there was an 80% chance of precipitation in the forecast), and the rain didn’t affect us a drop until right as we finished eating our gelato and were leaving for the night:  Divine intervention?  Great travels, great food, and great company; this is living.

Katie, our friends Samuel, Alex, Renée, and I woke up early Sunday morning, got ready, and then head back to the Vatican for Easter mass!  But not before taking a detour to Trevi Fountain.  I had wanted to visit Trevi Fountain all weekend, and we realized it was right on our way, so why not?  And, it was absolutely amazing, because NOBODY WAS THERE!  Usually the foundation is swarming with tourists, but we stumbled upon a pristine, serene empty piazza on Easter Sunday.  Gorgeous.  So naturally we took pictures reenacting the scene from the Lizzie McGurie Movie (jealous?) and threw coins over our shoulders so that, according to popular legend, someday we will return to Rome.  A girl can dream.

We finally arrived in the Vatican, met up with the masses of Notre Dame students, entered St. Peter’s Square where mass would be held, and waited.  As I found when we waited hours before Stations of the Cross, I actually really enjoyed having copious amounts of time to spend with my friends.  Before we knew it the Vatican band enter, we were chanting the Rosary, and mass had begun!  Standing in a crowd with my friends and crowds of adoring fans it actually kind of felt like a ND football game (What?! Who said that?!).  Pope Francis said the mass (so cool!), and during communion we couldn’t help but break out the hugs…it is tradition after all. 

After mass Papa Francisco rode around in his “Pope Mobile” and greeted the crowds.  We were actually very close to him, and although I couldn’t take great pictures because of my “shorter stature,” (these photos are courtesy of my tall friends) I was right there!  We even saw Pope Francis take this little paraplegic boy into his arms, embrace him in a tight-locked hug, and not let go.  It was quite the moment, and I cannot believe how blessed I was to experience this firsthand with my home-away-from-home ND community.

Once Papa Francisco finished working the crowd (and boy does that man know how to work a crowd; “¡Viva el Papa!”) he gave his final blessing.  Being from Latin America, his form of Italian is a little less “pure,” and I could actually understand the majority of his speech!  We held up things that we had bought to bless (I bought several rosaries made out of rose petals…they look and smell divine!) and just appreciated the moment.  Afterwards we all stood around in utter amazement about what we had experienced when I, in gratitude, said aloud, “Thank you, Notre Dame!” and requested, “Can we please sing the Alma Mater?!”  That happened.  About twenty-five of us or so circled up, sang our Alma Matter, and then broke out in the Fight Song.  (Curious bystanders took photos of us.  I’m probably going to be in some crazy girl’s blog…) I straight up had goose bumps.  Again, PURE JOY.

We spent the rest of the day walking around Rome, mingling at a ND Reception (Funny story…I ran into my friends Courtney and Mallory who are studying in Rome for the year as architecture students at the reception.  When I was in Utah last summer, Carolyn, Susan, and I were at a market in Salt Lake City, hula-hooping of all things, when Courtney saw me, screamed my name, and ran across the square with her mother to talk with us.  Do you know where this is going?  Well, the exact same thing happened in Rome; Courtney was with her parents, saw me across the square, called my name, and we met up to chat!  Except this time I wasn’t hula-hooping…Her mom didn’t forget this though; when Courtney asked, “Mom, do you remember Katie Puszka?” she said, “Of course I do!  The first time I met this girl she was hula-hooping in Salt Lake!”  Too funny.), getting gelato at the best place in town (Frigidarium…it was dipped in chocolate!), climbing a hill that had beautiful panoramic views of the city, and walking through several popular piazzas that boasted Bernini sculptures.   Katie and I sadly had to return to reality, say goodbye to our friends, and head back to our hostel before spending the night in the airport (Hey, it wasn’t fun, but I feel like it’s definitely a solid thing to check off my study abroad “To Do” list.  And, while it wasn’t my idea of a great time, it wasn’t horrible either.  Honestly the situation was probably improved by the fact that I had just traveled for an amazing ten days and was so exhausted that I could actually fall asleep on an airport floor…literally…and not even wake up!  Solid.  Again, literally.).

 I don’t even care; we had an unparalleled weekend.  I am so blessed, and this opportunity really gave me a new lens through which to view and appreciate my faith; I only hope to continue to grow spiritually and holistically through my time abroad and the myriad of other experiences that Our Lady’s University offers. 

I can’t help but say it:  “I love thee, Notre Dame!”

Leave a comment

FINDING PAX IN ASSISI

Posted on April 3, 2013

March 28^th

Thursday morning Katie and I elected to take another early morning train in order to make the most of our daytrip to Assisi.  I hadn’t been to Assisi before (I hadn’t been anywhere in Europe before this semester), but Katie visited the town with her family several years ago, and ever since she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it.  According to Ms. Mullins, it is one of the best, most peaceful places on Earth.  I didn’t know quite what to expect, except that it was the birthplace of Saint Francis, but willing to go pretty much anywhere in Italy I took her recommendation and was anxious for what Assisi had to offer.

Before we left our hostel, we realized that we weren’t actually staying in Assisi proper, but rather in a small town, Bastia, located a train stop before Assisi.  We expected that Bastia would be small, but we didn’t have a great sense for how small “small” would be, and when we got off the train at our stop the conductor looked at us and curiously questioned, “Really?”  As in “Why on Earth would they be getting off in Bastia?”

I am pretty sure only one person in Bastia speaks English.  And, I’m pretty sure that one person is the Italian woman who runs our hostel (excuse me, Bed & Breakfast…upgrade!) that we were trying to locate.  So that doesn’t help.  Usually we had been very organized about preparing directions ahead of time and knowing how to locate the places where we were staying, but for some reason we dropped the ball for Assisi.  So, we approached the Italian woman who worked the in the small train station snack shop and the handyman who was there helping her repair something and asked them if they knew where the B&B was located.  They did know, but they only spoke Italian.  Katie and I can understand bits and pieces of colloquial Italian because it is somewhat similar to Spanish, but there is no way that we can properly respond.  A hilarious combination of charade-like hand motions, guttural noises, pointing, and symbol-style map drawing ensued, and finally we were on our merry way!  As frustrating as it was not being able to communicate and speak the language, it was very refreshing that these locals were so willing and able to help two random American girls that probably looked like they did get off the wrong train find their way home.

This generosity, hospitality, and patience only continued as we attempted to navigate our way across town with the limited directions provided us.  We asked several people for directions along the way, none of whom spoke English, but all of whom were willing and eager to indulge us and point us in the right direction.  We stopped and were consulting our hand drawn “map” after we crossed a bridge when all of a sudden this little older woman overheard us speaking English, asked us if we needed help, looked at our map, grabbed Katie’s rolling suitcase, and told her to follow her!  I know about “stranger danger” and everything, but there is no way that we could not follow this friendly little smile of a woman; she was holding Katie’s luggage hostage, after all!

We finally located our B&B, met our hostess who spoke excellent English, checked in, and then took the owner up on an offer for a free ride to the town bus station.  Her husband was going to have gone anyway, but she offered that he carpool with us on his way.  How sweet!  I really love the people of small-town Italy so far!

We took a bus up the rolling hills of Assisi, and I was immediately taken.  Assisi actually kind of reminds me of Toledo; it is a small, quaint walled city teeming with cobblestones and bursting with character.  Also, there are infinite patios with gorgeous flowers literally everywhere you turn; Assisi even hosts “patio contests” in the summer months!  Another thing that I love about Assisi is that you literally “stumble into” things there; everywhere you go, there is something new, quaint, and lovely to encounter, and it seems like there is no “wrong” way to venture!  Case in point, we were on a quest for food when I simply turned around and found myself in the entrance of picturesque little coffee shop.  We got coffee, nibbled on sandwiches, and relayed how badly we want to learn Italian; the spoken language is absolutely melodic. 

Next we embarked on another Rick Steves’ guided historic walking tour:  superb.  We meandered by beautiful old cobblestone streets, admired the lovely gardens and patios, watched as little old ladies hung their floral linens out to dry, and took in a sweeping view of the city that, as Rick pointed out, consisted of various shades of greens that reflect the different types of vegetation that are found in Tuscany.  Notably, many of the stone houses that line the cobblestone lanes have little decorated terracotta signs above their doors that echo Saint Francis’ famous saying, “Pax e Bonum” (“Peace and Wellness”).  What a beautiful sentiment:  Peace and wellness. 

We continued to explore various churches, learn more about Saint Francis and Saint Claire, and we eventually discovered this tiny little church that was absolutely charming.  It was entirely made of stone, not very decorated, completely empty, and adorned with lilies.  Its simplicity made it the perfect place for a moment of contemplation, prayer, and thanksgiving for being able to visit such a peaceful, enchanting place.

We continued our tour, did some shopping in the little stores that dot the main drag, got our daily dose of gelato, and relaxed for a while before touring St. Francis’ Basilica. The Basilica actually consists of two separate basilicas, an Upper Basilica and a Lower Basilica, and with the help of “you-know-who” we toured both basilicas, learned about the famous Giotto frescos in the Upper Basilica, and even saw St. Francis’ grave. 

After our tour we stuck around for Holy Thursday mass.  The Lower Basilica was actually pretty crowded with Franciscan monks, nuns, and tourists, but we managed to grab a seat next to an adorable little Italian nun.  She couldn’t speak a lick of English, but she wanted to know where we were from, and she giggled in delight as we mimed “America.”  She was quite adorable with her brimming glasses and her preposterously short stature; she came up to about my shoulders, which is certainly saying something!  She squeezed our arms and said “God bless!” (we got that one) just as mass began. 

Mass was beautiful, but it was also extremely long and in Italian, and, afraid that we might miss our last train home, we decided to bite the bullet and duck out after mass.  We felt kind of guilty about this, but our Catholic guilt was lessened by A) our rationalization that the entire mass wouldn’t actually end for another solid half hour…it was that long, and B) our little nun friend was right behind us; she was ditching too!  All’s well that ends well, right?

Yes, yes that’s right.  Katie and I were literally starving when we finally made it back to our hostel (didn’t even have to ask for directions this time!), and because there were literally no open food options in Bastia we were starting to worry that we would go to bed hungry.  However, as if it were a miracle, right across the street from our B&B we discovered an open grocery store that we hadn’t seen earlier!  Success!  After plundering the grocery store for fruit, yogurt, and cereal, we pocketed our spoils, made our way home, enjoyed our feast, and passed out.  Peace and wellness, indeed!

Leave a comment

HIKING THROUGH A RAINBOW: CINQUE TERRE

Posted on April 3, 2013

March 27^th

Wednesday morning we left our hostel in Florence bright and early in order to jump on a train towards Cinque Terre!  I hadn’t heard of Cinque Terre prior to this semester, but practically everyone that I talk to who has visited the five little Italian villages (hence the name “Cinque Terre”, which is literally “The Five Lands”) tucked along the coast of the Italian Riviera absolutely rave about it.  So I mean, when in Rome, right?  Or at least when it Italy…  I wasn’t about to miss out on this adventure!

And, boy, did the adventure begin from the very beginning of our trip!  Cinque Terre is famous for its incredible hiking through vineyards and along its coastline, but unfortunately due to torrential rains and mudslides in the fall of 2011, the main “blue” hiking trail is still out of commission.  Well, that’s a bummer, because Katie and I were all “jacked up on Mountain Dew” for a hiking-filled day.  Luckily, we asked around and quickly learned that although the main paths were closed, several more “difficult” paths that traversed up through the mountains and ended down in the towns were still considered “safe” and were thus open for hiking.  Even though my family has had several interesting scenarios with “difficult” hiking (*Exhibit A.)  Going down the completely wrong side of a mountain in Vermont, finally reaching the bottom of said mountain, finding a random ranger and riding in his flatbed truck forty-five minutes…by car…back to the place where we had originally begun hiking that morning… Exhibit B.) My dad almost getting lost hiking in Utah last summer slash running out of water slash not showing up for over an hour after the rest of us had finished hiking because he wanted to take the “scenic route” and only surviving because a stranger found him and lent him some agua…yeah…) I was game!  And, to be completely honest, this hike was nothing like either of those experiences; smooth sailing!  Phew!

We started exploring the “last” town, Monterroso al Mare; not by design, but because this is the only place that the train actually stopped.  Not a problem!  Actually, it was pretty funny because right after we got off the train I saw a guy wearing a Notre Dame sweatshirt and thought to myself, “I have to go talk to him!”  It was only after I had started to approach him that I realized that one of the other guys he was with was one of the University of Minnesota students who is studying in Toledo with us this semester.  Too funny!  We said “Hi!” to Joe and then asked the other guy about his sweatshirt; it turns out he and the other friends they were with are actually also juniors at ND studying in the Bologna, Italy program.  To quote The Parent Trap, “Small world!  And getting even smaller!” 

We explored the town for a little while, scaled one of the hills in search of a good view, and then hopped on a train to Vernazza, which is the next town over.  Vernazza has beautiful colorful shops and great places to sit on the rocks listen to the seagulls croon, taste the mist of the ocean spray, and feel the rough pounding of the waves against the shore.

Next week trained to Corniglia, the middle town.  After traversing the town for a bit we decided to begin our hike!  We climbed upwards through the great green hills and mountains, through expansive vineyards, and along the jagged coastline that radiated below.  I have gone on some pretty EPIC hikes before (those Zion Narrows will forever hold a special place in my heart), so it is difficult to determine if this was my “favorite” hike, but why play favorites?  It was beautiful.  We would literally hike along the path for a while, follow the markers, and then randomly but curiously take a detour into someone’s little private garden.  It was a charming and glorious way to get lost.  Mr. Tolkien was right when he wrote, “Not all who wander or lost.”  Indeed, they aren’t lost; I think they are just enjoying some nice older Italian couple’s quaint gardens.

After hiking for a while Katie and I found an ideal spot to relax, enjoy some bread and strawberry jam that we had purchased earlier in the day, and soak up both the sun and the stunning views that surrounded us.  Picture perfect.

Next, we continued our hike, explored vineyards, stumbled upon more random gardens, and elected to take the “scenic route” as we descended into the next village, Manarolla (no, this “scenic route” was not misleading in name; it was actually scenic and not utterly impossible to hike). 

Once we arrived in the town itself, we enjoyed some celebratory pizza, walked around the towns, and sampled some celebratory gelato, pistachio of course, (hey, there are a lot of things to celebrate after you have just completed a successful, exhilarating day of hiking) as we sat along one of the town walls and watched the waves slap and roar against the jagged ocean rocks.  We leisurely strolled around town, marveled at the beautiful juxtaposition of reds, pinks, oranges, and yellows of the buildings (I swear all of the houses in Italy remind me of sunsets…), took pictures of adorable locals (I’m not creepy; I’m artsy), and made our way to the train station with plans of visiting the next town, Riomaggiore, with enough time to watch the sun set.  Well, long story short that didn’t happen; our train never ended up coming, and we waited over an hour in the outdoor train station.  But, we were still able to see the sun set over the ocean.  While it was not part of the plan, worse things have definitely happened.  That’s one thing I really appreciate about travel; it helps you become much more flexible, spontaneous, and ready to adapt to any situation. 

We ended up having to forgo our change to visit Rimaggiore because of the looming threat of missing the last train back to Florence (yeah, we wouldn’t really have been able to cab this one…better safe than sorry!).  It is a shame, but at the same time I had an amazing, action-packed day hiking through a rainbow, and I don’t think I really have room to complain.  After all, as Phil from Modern Family so astutely advises, “When life gives you lemonade; make lemons.  Life will be all like what?!” 

Leave a comment

FLORENCE: THE BIRTHPLACE OF BOTH THE RENAISSANCE AND MY QUEST FOR THE BEST PISTACHIO GELATO IN ITALY

Posted on April 2, 2013

March 25^th-26^th

Leaving Paris and flying into Italy Monday morning, I could hardly believe my life.  I enjoyed an airplane row of seats to myself, read my Italy travel book, and listened to Dean Martin croon “That’s Amore” and “Mambo Italiano!”  I was ready.

We touched down in Pisa, trained to Florence, and arrived at our hostel.  Our receptionist was the cutest little old Italian man, Paulo, and he helped us check in and print out museum tickets, and he even called the Uffizi Gallery to reserve tickets for us to visit the next day, something that Rick Steves recommended that we absolutely do in order to avoid long lines.  Then we got situated in our room, which had a surprisingly impressive balcony view, and prepared for an afternoon of Italian exploration!

We headed towards town, but not before stopping at a nearby Pizzeria.  Katie and I both got a slice of pizza with eggplant, olive oil, fresh cut tomatoes, and feta and goat cheese.  Yum!  If this weekend was any indication, our time in Italy would definitely be a week of great food.

After lunch we explored town for a bit and then decided to climb the Duomo.  The Duomo is the dome atop the Florence Cathedral; construction initially began in 1296 in the Gothic style, and it was structurally completed in 1436 with a dome engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi.  Notably, before more modern structures were erected, the dome was the biggest in the world, and it still remains the largest brick dome ever constructed.  I don’t understand how these people did it!  I can’t even fathom building something like that now, let alone hundreds of years ago!  Katie and I scaled the numerous stairs and eventually reached the top of the Duomo to be greeted by stunning views of Florence.  We had arrived just at dusk, so we stayed a while to watch the sun set over the city.  It was incredibly inspiring to watch the colors in the sky change from pinks and reds and oranges to purples and dark blues, and the naturally changing light of nature instantly reminded me of Monet’s “Water Lilies” from Paris.  Curiously enough, as we reveled in watching the sunset we saw a man holding an iPhone with a Notre Dame case and asked him about it.  Apparently his son just graduated, and the father was here visiting Florence with his family.  As I have previously mentioned, you truly can find Domers anywhere in this world; even a top another Dome in Italy!

We descended the Duomo, continued to walk around the main part of the city, and stopped to get gelato.  It was actually fairly chilly while we were in Florence, but we didn’t let that stop us from eating gelato in Italy!  Before this trip I had never tried pistachio-flavored gelato before, but I have heard great things, and I was determined to sample some for myself.  MINDBLOWING.  To say the least.  When I finished, I literally looked down into my cup, saw that there was no ice cream, and then earnestly exclaimed, “Where did my ice cream go?!”  Thus, I instantly decided that my new calling in life (or at least my new calling for the week) would be to sample pistachio gelato everywhere we stopped for a tasty treat in a quest to find the “best” pistachio gelato that is out there.  Is it possible?  I don’t know.  It “could be risky,” but challenge accepted!

Katie and I continued to explore Florence and its many piazzas at night, which was pretty magical.  I could definitely spend a lot of time in Italy…  After meandering around the city by night, we grabbed a quick Italian dinner of pasta and wine and headed back to our hostel in order to prepare for the action-packed day ahead of us.

Tuesday morning we again woke up at the crack of dawn (this was the theme of the week:  wake up early, do a bunch of really cool things, and come back to the hostel to pass out…and it was beautiful) in order to walk a couple of blocks to the Academia and see Michelangelo’s “David.”  Unfortunately, unlike the Orsay Museum in Paris we were unable to even attempt to take pictures, but David is quite stunning.  You see him pretty quickly after you first enter the Academia doors, and the way that the domed window frames him and casts him in a spectacular combination of lights makes him all the more striking.  We listened to Rick Steves (Side note, if you have ever seen Amy Poehler’s “Caitlin” character on SNL where she incessantly pesters her older brother with questions, “Rickkkkk!”, then you will understand, or at least indulge me, when I say that every time I turned on my iPod to follow my new favorite travel guru I couldn’t help but screech, “Rickkkkk!”  Yes, it was absolutely necessary.) as he explained artistic elements about David and relayed information about Michelangelo’s experiences carving him; and, as per Rick’s suggestion, it was very neat to appreciate and analyze David from a myriad of different angles.  Interestingly if you look at David straight on he looks confident and utterly sure of himself; however, if you move slightly to the right and see both of his eyes, you are quickly able to detect elements of fear and uncertainty.  Again, I don’t know how these ancient artists did it!  How do you make something so magnificent from stone?

After we finished touring the Academia, Katie and I stopped at a local café to sample some coffee that a random fellow study abroad student stumbled upon during her quest for the best coffee in Florence.  It is actually pretty funny; earlier we had Google searched “good places for coffee in Florence”, and we encountered some girl’s detailed blog post about how she could not find any good coffee recommendations prior to her trip to Florence.  As a result, she single-handedly decided to initiate an expedition to sample coffee at several different cafés and then blog about her experiences.  Apparently people actually do read students’ blogs!  So thank you, random blog girl, you helped us find some excellent java!  After our coffee we found some great croissants next-door.  We have no problem locating those for ourselves….

Next we decided to follow Rick Steves’ audio guide on a historic Renaissance tour through Florence.  I learned and saw so much, and, although I know it is impossible, I almost wish that I could witness all of the old-school Florentines walking around the streets in their colorful tights and doing their thing back in the day.  Florence is the birthplace of so much art and thought!  For example, great minds such as Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Dante (just to name a few) all laid important claims in Firenze.  No big deal.  On the tour we learned more about the Duomo and the Cathedral, Ghiberti’s famous bronze doors outside the Baptistery, the famous street, “Via del Calzaiuoli,” the place where Dante was baptized, a point in the middle of one of the major piazzas where a famous monk, Giorolama Savonarola, was burned at the stake by the Medici family for publicly renouncing clerical corruption and despotic rule, and the famed Ponte Vecchio (bridge).  It was very informative, and all the while Rick was dropping corny gags such as, “Be careful, because there are probably a “Firenze” of people in this piazza.”  Jokes.

After our tour we decided to cross the river and hike up to the Piazza de Michelangelo, which has great, sweeping views of Florence.  Although it was pouring rain literally all day Tuesday and our feet were absolutely soaked, there is something to be said for seeing cities in the rain; it adds a certain extra magical quality that is unparalleled.

When we unanimously decided that it was time to warm up and eat, we sought out a cute little restaurant that we had read about in one of our guidebooks.  Actually, this place is known as a “library café” and is just as lovely as it sounds; it is a place where books and coffee meet delicious food in an enchanting environment.  And, luckily enough, this particular library café happened to have an entirely vegetarian menu.  Katie and I were both so excited:  “We could choose from the whole menu!  This is what normal people must usually feel like when they visit restaurants!”   The food was delectable, and we spent a couple of hours soaking up the ambiance, enjoying our food, having great conversations, and inconspicuously warming our drenched feet on the heater that was parked next to our table.

Then we quickly ran back to our hostel, changed our wet socks, and then backtracked to the Uffizi Gallery to pick up our tickets and tour the museum.  Notably, while waiting in line we struck up a conversation with the Americans behind us, and I discovered that they were from Lake Zurich and had actually attend to Buffalo Grove High School; what a small world!  The Uffizi Gallery is actually the old converted offices of the infamous Medici family that once governed Florence, and it now houses art from great masters such as Da Vinci, Botticelli, Raphael, and Titian.  It was very interesting, and we appreciated Rick Steve’s guidance and frequent puns such as, “I bet by now ‘your feetsies’ hurt really bad!”  I particularly liked Botticelli’s “Primavera” which reminded me of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (I’m not sure that there is a connection, but it makes sense in my head, for what it’s worth).

After the museum we decided to relax, refuel, and consume our daily dosage of gelato (I, of course, sampled pistachio).  On our to visit one of the piazzas at night, we walked past a restaurant, and I literally stopped and did a double take because I thought had I had seen my friends.  And I was right!  I noticed my ND friends Will and Melanie, both in the Toledo program, by chance in a restaurant window.  ¡Qué extraño!”  We got their attention, and they came out and talked to us for a while.  We knew they would be in Florence this week, but we didn’t realize that it would be at the same time as us, and it was nice to see them and catch up.  After we talking for awhile we saw the piazza, got sandwiches, and headed back to the hostel to rest up for a day of hiking in Cinque Terre!

Leave a comment

“LET THEM EAT CAKE!” TWO NOTRE DAME GIRLS TAKE ON PARIS

Posted on April 2, 2013

March 22^nd –March 25^th

I know that I haven’t blogged for the last two weeks; I apologize!  In order to atone for my lack of entries, I am about to go blog-crazy; I just got home from ten days of traveling for Spring Break, and I have oodles and oodles to talk about.  So many stories!  I think the best way to do this is go city by city and write each post individually.  So, it might be a little slow going, but here is the beginning of my latest grand adventures:  Paris!

My friend, Katie Mullins, and I planned our Spring Break trip early in the beginning of the semester, and I cannot believe how quickly this week crept up on us!  It is difficult to fathom, but after Semana Santa (Holy Week and our Spring Break) I only have less than a month in Spain!  Where did the time go?! 

I couldn’t have asked for a better itinerary and travel companion for this trip.  Katie and I took on Paris, Florence, Cinque Terre, Assisi, and Rome, all by ourselves.  It was so rewarding, exhilarating, and freeing to travel with just one other person.  And Katie was the perfect travel companion; we have similar interests and travel expectations, and, conveniently, we are both vegetarians, so agreeing on places to eat was a breeze.  We had to rely on each other a lot, but we were also further forced to step outside our comfort zones, take charge, and be extremely organized.  There is so much to be said for planning and executing a trip in this way, and it was very neat to think that I was responsible for my presence and adventures in each respective country.  Travel is very liberating and empowering, and it is an amazing way to realize how independent you can truly be; With these rewards and the amazing memories you inherently make, I truly believe that travel is one of the greatest gifts you can ever give yourself.

That being said, we arrived in Paris early Friday afternoon (March 22^nd) and were planning on staying with Katie’s second cousin, Chris.  Katie and Chris had never met, but he was still gracious enough to host us for the weekend.  Unfortunately, Chris wasn’t going to be home to let us in until later in the evening, so we had to devise a plan to store our luggage somewhere during the day so we could maximize our first afternoon in Paris.  Thus, before we left we had looked into leaving our bags at one of the train stations we would be stopping in, and once we were there we tried to locate said luggage station.  Seems pretty easy, right?  Well, it was much more complicated than we had anticipated.  I don’t know if you know this or not, but in France they do not readily speak English.  Or Spanish.  To reuse a Steve Martin joke from a previous post, “It’s like those French have a different word for everything!”  As a result, we had to ask several different people where exactly we were supposed to check our luggage.  Nobody seemed to be very helpful, and we continued to ask until we found a sign for ourselves and followed it to what was essentially a long alleyway that led to an abandoned warehouse.  It was the kind of place where I felt like I was going to be “shot out back” in some gangster movie.  Needless to say, we were not in the right location.  But, we pressed on, finally arrived at our destination, locked up our luggage, and continued to make our way into the city.  It was a bit frustrating, but once everything was all sorted out we were proud that we had successfully maneuvered our way around a totally foreign city, overcame this bump in the road, and were finally in Paris!

So, after we had just successfully maneuvered this sticky situation, I somehow managed to get myself into another one.  So I don’t know if this is a “thing” or not, but you know those little metro stations with the closing doors that you have to insert your ticket into?  Well, somehow I managed to get myself stuck in one.  Straight up stuck.  Yeah, that takes some serious skill.  I tried to go through first and then roll my suitcase behind me, but my bag was jammed, and the gates quickly closed on my body.  I’m not going to lie, it kind of hurt.  Katie stood behind me, initially in shock and amazement, but then she just couldn’t help laughing at me; I was a mouse caught in a mousetrap.  She eventually got her ticket of her pocket and freed me from my prison, and as we were laughing it off she asked me, “Is it bad that my first reaction was not to help you, but to take a picture?”  Well, I’m going to say no, because my very first reaction after the doors closed on me was not  “Ow!” or “This hurts!”, but rather, “Wow!  This will be great to blog about!”  So yeah, that’s about where I am in my life…having fire to fuel this blog comes before concern for my personal wellbeing.  Priorities.

Once I became a functioning human being again and was able to travel unimpeded, we finally made it to the city, had a great lunch, and arrived at the Louvre.  The first thought I had when I saw the impressive older architecture juxtaposed with the more recently erected glass pyramid was that I was in a Dan Brown novel.  Naturally.  I might as well have been.  With this train of thought, I half expected to see Tom Hanks running in front of the Louvre’s pyramid today and a cardinal to parachute out of a helicopter above the Vatican later in the week.  Needless to say that neither of these things actually happened, but regardless, it was still an extremely epic week.

Speaking of epic, when you are a broke college student who spends all of her money traveling and creating the memories of a lifetime, (Side note: I have a beef with whoever said, “Money can’t buy you happiness.”  I understand the gist of it, but at the same time, has this person never traveled before?!) it was extremely exciting to discover that all museums and main attractions in Paris are free if you flash your student visa at the ticket counters.  As in 100% free.  As in I spent zero money entering the Louvre, the Orsay Museum, the Orangerire, Versailles, and Marie Antoinette’s house.  Thank you, Paris! 

So, we entered the Louvre and toured the majority of the museum accompanied by one of Rick Steves’ audio guides on our iPods.  Rick Steves is my latest discovery and most recent obsession.  I didn’t really know too much about him before leaving for Spain, but his guidebooks are excellent.  And, if they weren’t good enough, he offers podcast tours of major museums and sites in several European cities that you can download for free onto your iPod.  I’m not kidding, I’m obsessed; Katie and I probably used about ten different guided podcast tours for various sites in Paris, Florence, Assisi, and Rome over the week; we learned about the history and significance surrounding the major sights we saw, free of charge courtesy of Mister Steves.  And, not only is he extremely informative, but he also combines wit and intelligence to effectively set the scene of a historical time period and relay information about what you are seeing.  Rick also understands that, when it comes to museums, “art overload” is a serious threat, and he does a superb job focusing on main attractions so that you can actually stay interested and engaged by what you are touring.  I can’t rave enough, and I will absolutely continue to use Rick Steves in all of my future travels.

As I learned from my Rick Steves’ guide, the Louvre actually used to be the original royal palace prior to Versailles.  As a result, all the rooms are extremely ornate and over-the-top.  However, after the royals moved to Versailles, the French government opened the Louvre as a museum for the general public, and it now houses famous pieces of art such the Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa, and a myriad of notable ancient Greek statues with incredible backsides.  (But really…) I have always wanted to visit the Louvre, and even though the Mona Lisa was actually pretty tiny, it was really neat to see a piece of art that I learned about in what seemed like every historical textbook I ever read in my childhood.  I still don’t quite understand why the Mona Lisa is such an utter phenomena, but I do know that I she could beat anyone in a staring contest.  With that unwavering eye contact and a gaze that follows you no matter where you try to hide, she’s definitely the world champ.

After we spent several hours eruditely perusing art and becoming even more “cultured” than we already are, we decided to explore the city.  About five minutes after exiting the Louvre, I turned around and caught my first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower.  It was so exciting, and with the illumination of rose lighting cast by the slowly setting sun, it was all the more stunning.  We continue to walk several miles along the river towards the great monument. 

Because it was dark when we finally arrived, the tower was illuminated, but as we turned a corner, the whole structure suddenly began to glimmer, shimmer, and glow!  Apparently the Eiffel Tower “lights up” at night every hour on the hour, and we were lucky enough to arrive just in time for the “show!”  It was pretty magical, and, as couples made out on park benches, Katie and I danced in front of the sparkling tower and proceeded to take numerous “selfies” in utter glee and excitement.

We were entirely exhausted by the time we retrieved our luggage (from its proper holding station; no worries…I was not shot out back) and arrived at Katie’s relative’s house.  Although they had never met Katie before, Chris and his girlfriend Geraldine (When you say her name in French it sounds infinitely better than it does in English:  Geraldine) were extremely welcoming.  Chris’ mom is American, but he grew up in France and is first and foremost a Frenchman.  It was actually very cool to stay with French people in France because A) it made our experience all the more authentic, and B) they cooked amazing authentic French foods and supplied us with cheese, bread, and incredible jams.  So, we spent the night talking and eating and then passed out in anticipatory exhaustion, anxious for everything the morning would hold.

Saturday was jam-packed with sightseeing activities; it is truly amazing how much you can do and see in one day if you are organized and have a great travel companion.  Katie and I began the morning with a delectable French breakfast of fresh bread, homemade jam, and earl grey tea with honey:  yum!  After our bellies were full of deliciousness we trained to Versailles.  I find history and the French Revolution particularly fascinating, and, as a result, I have always wanted to see Versailles.  Let me just preface my reactions by saying that I cannot believe that anyone ever lived there.  Excuse me?  I knew Versailles would be big, but it was one of the most expansive, incredible, seemingly infinite estates that I could ever imagine.  The residence itself was actually very crowded with tourists (Side note:  Why do so many people thinking that lugging around iPads and taking pictures with them is a good idea?  Why?  You look like an idiot carrying that cookie tray around:  please go find a real camera!), but it was still very rewarding to see first hand a place that is so integral to events surrounding the French Revolution.  And, thanks again to Rick Steves (Warning:  I am not going to limit the number of shout-outs to Mr. Steves in these next couple of blogs…I am his new biggest fan, and I am going to make that known.  Just a courtesy heads up.), I was both able to understand what exactly I was seeing and simultaneously brush up on my history about Marie Antoinette so that I could remember more about her besides the fact that in response to the French commoners she famously declared, “Let them eat cake!”  Actually, one of the beautiful that I am realizing about travel is that it pushes me to want to learn more about everything from history, to languages, to the way people interact:  everything!  I just want to learn things.  I have always been curious to explore, but my experiences abroad have just been so intriguing, and they have further catalyzed and ignited my hunger to know, learn, and discover.  Ah, experience is the best teacher out there:  Teach me things, world!

I thoroughly enjoyed strolling through the famous “Hall of Mirrors” within the palace, but I think my favorite facet of the residence has to be the luxurious gardens.  The three King Louis’ thought they could control all facets of life, even nature itself, and, as a result, they exerted extensive control in cultivating and manipulating nature and vegetation in their own homes.  The gardens are meant to awe, inspire, and exert messages of this influence, and they certainly do not fall short.  Even the trees are groomed and trimmed in such a way that is contrary to natural form and thus demonstrates the influence of human control and power.  It’s actually pretty unbelievable.  Unfortunately the most prominent section of the gardens was under construction (the statues were covered, there were piles of dirt, the fountains were off…the whole nine yards), but they were still beautiful nonetheless.  I can’t even imagine how amazing the gardens would be in the summer with blooming flowers, spitting fountains, and brilliant sunshine.  I would kill go on a relaxing summer bike ride around Versailles’s grounds and soak in the natural, I mean man-made, natural beauty.  As we strolled and I saw various Frenchmen running down the paths, I also found myself really wanting to go on a nice long run around the gardens.  Or a horseback ride.  Anything would do, really…I’m not picky!

We leisurely walked around for a while before stumbling upon Marie Antoinette’s house (why she would have needed her own house separate from the main residence, I’m not quite sure, but “por que no”, right?)  That woman sure knew how to decorate; I appreciated her combination of spring-inspired girly greens, pinks, and light woods after having toured the excessively ornate main palace.  I could definitely have curled up with a cup of tea and good book in there.

Later, we took the train from Versailles back to Paris with one mission in mind:  we had to find lunch.  And crêpes!  We located a recommended falafel joint for lunch (best falafel I think I’ve ever had) and then continued our quest for dessert. After looking at several places, we fortunately stumbled upon what had to be crêpe-gold:  a little stand right outside Notre Dame Cathedral that sold almond, banana, Nutella crêpes.  GOOD LIFE DECISIONS. 

We ravenously devoured our flavorful gooey crêpes and then set off on the Rick Steve’s historic Paris walking tour.  We knew where we were supposed to walk to visit each place on the tour, but we weren’t able to do so because the area surrounding Notre Dame was literally swarming with people.  It was extremely difficult to move, and we couldn’t figure out why there were so many people present on what seemed like a casual Saturday afternoon, but we thought that perhaps the masses would disperse if we waited it out for a bit.  Yeah, that didn’t happen.  I think I half expected Quasimodo himself to appear from the bell towers, greet his adoring fans, and put on a little show.  Confused and curious, we stopped and asked two young French girls what was going on.  Apparently, Notre Dame had recently replaced the bells in the bell tower as part of its 850^th anniversary celebration, and that afternoon was the first time that the new bells would ring.  So, we waited with the French masses in order to hear the new bells play.  They rang for about five minutes, and then everyone clapped in excitement; it was precious!  It is pretty cool that, by chance, we were present to hear the new bells play in a cathedral that is both extremely famous and also near and dear to our hearts and students of Our Lady’s University.

Afterwards we crossed the street and stumbled upon what was the epitome of an English major’s heaven:  the Shakespeare & Company Bookstore.  I’m serious:  I think I died and went to heaven.  Shakespeare & Co. is a quaint little English bookstore located in the center of Paris that was, back in the day, a literary mecca for famous writers such as Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, and Richard Wright.  Um, queue Midnight and Paris because I think I just fell into company with Owen Wilson’s character himself!  So, basically, the bookstore was the local hangout for some of the biggest names in literature:  casual.  Not to mention it is positively cluttered with a myriad of books, wooden sliding ladders, inspiring framed famous sayings and quotes, and other fascinating odds and ends.  Needless to say I was enthralled.  We explored the bookstore for a while, but it was extremely crowded due to overflow from the Notre Dame bell ringing ceremony.  Because it was too difficult to successfully maneuver, we agreed to leave and revisit the next day, but before I could bring myself to exit I encountered a darling little paperback book that detailed the entire history of the Shakespeare & Company Bookstore, complete with pictures of prominent writers casually reading and writing in its upstairs lounge.  As I flipped through it, I immediately decided that I needed to own it.  I turned to Katie and said, “Katie, this is kind of silly, but I think I need it,” and before Katie could respond, this little older woman with big rimmed classes and inquisitive Professor Trelawney eyes responded, “Honey, it’s not silly; its enchanting.”  You know, random Harry Potter-esque woman whom I have never met before, you are absolutely right:  it is enchanting.  What a perfect word to describe this little literary gem.  Utterly enchanting.

After I could finally bring myself to leave the bookstore (keep in mind I was only able to do so because I knew that I would be coming back the next day) we continued our walk and sauntered along the Seine River, through Tuileries Garden and along Champs Élysées Street, which is the Parisian equivalent to Chicago’s Magnificent Mile.  Tellingly, the student-oriented guidebook that we were using to navigate the city advised college kids to steer clear of this street because it is not even close to being within our price range.  I feel that.  But, it was still cool to traverse the street and window shop, and one of the prominent macaroon shops that we were recommended to visit was along the street, so that didn’t hurt either.  We visited Ladurée for the best macaroons I have ever tasted in my life (okay, I’m pretty sure they are the only macaroons that I have ever tried before, but even if they weren’t they would still be the best), and the experience felt like a trip back in time.  The shop was so lovely and ornate, and the gorgeous display windows and pretty parings of different desserts made me feel like I had transported to an older time where going out for dessert was an highly anticipated, decorated event.  After waiting in a long line and casually meeting several girls studying in Italy from the University of Illinois, I finally purchased my macaroons to sample:  coconut, lemon, chocolate, and pistachio.  Let’s just say they exceeded my expectations.

Dusk was just setting in, but we continued up the street a couple of blocks to visit the Arc de Triumph and sit on a bench to enjoy our little French desserts.  After relaxing we caught the metro home (on the ride home this French woman bumped into me as the train came to a screeching halt and animatedly exclaimed, “excusez-moi!” which Katie and I inexplicably thought was the coolest thing ever), had a great dinner with Chris and Geraldine (we may or may not have had delicious homemade yogurt pear cake and put us at the trifecta of desserts in one day…ehh, it’s Spring Break in Paris, I’m not gunna not…), and passed out before we even knew what hit us.

Sunday continued our theme of “let’s do and see everything that we can physically accomplish in one day” travel itinerary (which, in my opinion is the one of the most rewarding and entertaining ways to travel) and woke up at the crack of dawn to attend Palm Sunday mass at Notre Dame.  On our way, we were crossing the street at a light and had the right-of-way when this parked taxi proceeded to back up, see me, continue to back up, and almost hit me.  I had to bolt out of the way in order to avoid being trampled.  And then when Katie and I turned to give the cabby dirty looks we saw that he was laughing at us; he had tried to hit me!  Wow.  Excuse my French, but what the “bleep?!”  He probably knew we were Americans…

My near death experience aside, to use my new friend’s expression, Notre Dame is simply enchanting.  The stain glass rose windows are breathtaking, and they fill the cathedral with a mesmerizing purple light that undoubtedly fosters reflection and contemplation and enhances a feeling of divine presence.  I know I said that La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona is one of my favorite churches, but I don’t know…Notre Dame certainly has a special place in my heart.  Interestingly, the palms that we received weren’t the typical palm fronds that we receive in the States; rather they were small branches from olive trees.  We were also provided with a French copy of the Magnificat, and, even though I know approximately zero French, I was surprised that because French, like Spanish, is also a Romance language I was actually able to translate enough words to roughly understand what was going on in the readings.  That’s pretty cool.

After mass Katie and I used our Rick Steves’ podcasts to tour both the cathedral’s interior and exterior facades, and then we made our way towards the museums in hot pursuit of a cute French café where we could enjoy a nice warm cup of coffee (Sunday in Paris was absolutely frigid!)  We searched and searched, but we couldn’t find a place where we could find a big enough cup of coffee for the right price.  So, (and this is a tiny bit embarrassing) we settled on Starbucks (which, in my defense, was significantly cheaper than the other cafes we encountered.  Jenny Traver, I obviously thought of you the whole time!)  The coffee was delicious, warm, reminiscent of home, and it did the trick so that we were ready to spend an afternoon exploring French museums!

Fact:  the Musée d’Orsay is my new favorite museum of all time.  I enjoy and appreciate art, but (not to sound over-privileged or snarky) once you see several sculptures and Renaissance paintings, they all kind of start to blend together.  Impressionism, however, which is what the Orsay is famous for, is absolutely intriguing:  now that is my cup of tea!  I greatly appreciate and admire how impressionists such as Monet, Manet, Renoir, and Degas used color and movement to capture facets of humanity and nature that are just so vivid, real, and relatable.  I have found that I most appreciate art when I identify with it, and I was absolutely able to appreciate the enchanting depictions of nature that each of these artists portray in their inspiring work.  We weren’t supposed to take pictures, but unaware of this, Katie and I had been taking numerous pictures of the various paintings we admired (so everything), until a guard stopped us in the last room we visited and warned us that picture taking was strictly prohibited.  Whoops!  Little do you know that we have been illegally doing this all afternoon, Mr. Security Guard…muahahaha!  Katie and I spent unrecognized hours in the museum, and when we finally checked our watches we couldn’t believe how quickly the time had flown!  I could have easily spent an entire afternoon there, but we had more to see, so we said goodbye to the lovely impressionist paintings, grabbed lunch, and crossed the river to the neighboring Musée d’Orangerie.

Although the Orsay was my favorite museum, the Orangerire is amazing in it’s own right.  It’s actually a vey small museum, but Monet’s “Water Lilies” make it a must-see.  Let me attempt to set the scene for you:  there are two large oval rooms with eight wall-wide paintings.  Each painting depicts picturesque ponds with water lilies, but each portrays different colors as a result of the changing lighting at various times of day.  You walk into the room and literally feel like you have stepped into a storybook.  When I first walked in my jaw actually dropped and I exclaimed, “Wow.”  There are padded seats in the middle of the room where you can just sit and gawk at the beauty of the scene that you are immersed in; it is so lovely and enthralling to just stare, imagine, and be carried away to Monet’s peaceful imaginative land.

After having been engrossed by fantastic art all afternoon, we walked along the Seine River towards the Eiffel Tower (yes, it reminded me of Ratatouille.  And yes, I actually saw a small child holding a stuffed animal rat “Remy” under his arm as we walked).  We found the perfect picturesque spot and stopped for a photo-shoot (yeah, that happened) and tried to be French.  For me, “being French” involves wearing a beret and placing a strand of hair under my nose and pretending it’s a mustache.  Obviously. 

After our photo-shoot we decided to climb the Eiffel Tower.  Now, you can either climb the Eiffel Tower to the second level or you can take a lift.  Unsurprisingly, the lift option was twice as expensive, and the line was more than twice as long; what does this say about the current state of society?  We arrived at the top to find stunning panoramic views of the entire city:  so worth it.

Next, we took the metro back towards Notre Dame, got another Nutella crêpe (yummy gooiness = perfection!), and, as promised, returned to the Shakespeare & Company Bookstore.  As expected, my English major senses were tingling, and it was the perfect, most idyllic place to sit and unwind after a full day of exploring. 

We returned home, had dinner (fortunately for Katie, Chris did not follow through with his offer to bring home French snails and cook them for her to try…) and “desert cheese”, relaxed, and repacked our suitcases in order to prepare to fly to Italy the next morning.

Overall, Paris was enchanting.  All weekend I kept thinking to myself how much I would love to return someday, especially with my Mom because I know that she’d love it.  It is impossible to “do” Paris in three days, but it was definitely a great sampling of an awe-inspiring city.  AND THAT FOOD.  It is absolutely to die for. 

Au revoir, Paris!  Ciao, Italia!1 Comment

ON A SCALE OF ONE TO DON QUIXOTE THIS LIFE IS PRETTY UNREAL…

Posted on March 18, 2013

So, once again, I am enthralled by life.  I feel like this is a reoccurring theme, and it is, but for a good reason.  Honestly, in my opinion it is difficult not to be amazed while studying abroad.  For example, even when I’m tired and the “day-to-day” becomes mundane or even somewhat tedious, I find myself doing something simple like looking out the bus window at the city view as I commute to school in the morning, and I can’t help but think, “Wow.”  I may be here for a semester, but living in Toledo will never be “normal”; I mean, I am living in a castle town.  As I’ve said before, I don’t think this semester will really “sink in” until I return to the States, have time to reflect, and finally realize, “What the heck did I just do?!”

And, while everyday I am absolutely thankful for the numerous opportunities and experiences I have been given, sometimes it is nice (and needed) to take a step back from the hustle-and-bustle of travel and really enjoy the moment.  I adore travel, and I thrive on visiting new places, learning about new cultures, and sampling delicious foreign foods, but this past week some of my friends and I realized that we haven’t yet dedicated an adequate amount of time to exploring Toledo.  Yes, we are here at least four days a week, go to class each day, and even have established statuses are “regulars” at local hotspots, but we had yet to walk around the entire city, linger at a relaxing café, or take time to discover Toledo’s “road less traveled.”  So, with this weekend being the weekend before spring break, we decided that we would devote Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to some much needed Toledo-focused exploration.  This is, after all, our city!

Friday several of us decided to take advantage of a Fund-sponsored excursion, “La Ruta del Quixote,” to visit the famous Don Quixote-inspired route, particularly the renowned windmills.  Now, I know Don Quixote is a literary classic, but for some reason the Castilla de la Mancha region of Spain (the name of the larger region in which I am currently living) is seriously obsessed with all things Quixote; everywhere you go there are informative signs about DQ, random DQ statues you can pose with, DQ collectibles in tourist shops:  DQ just about everything you can think of!  (No, “DQ” does not refer to “Dairy Queen”…Americans).   Alas, (yes I just used that word, jealous?) I have regrettably not yet read DQ, and my knowledge of the famous “novella” is limited to A) the small segment, and by “small segment” I mean two tiny pages, of Don Quixote that I read in my high school Spanish class, and B) the large, mustache-wearing cactus that my roommates and I had Sophomore year.  Yes, he had a felt-mustache; yes, we felt like naming him something “exotic”… how about “something Spanish?”…how about something like “Don Quixote?!”  (I am re-questioning this decision-making process…); yes he was our precioussss; and yes, somehow I managed to kill him before the year was over (how does one kill a cactus, you may ask?  Well, it definitely takes some serious skill…Well, we loved him; that’s all that matters.  *See picture below.), but, if you ask me, cactus Don pretty close to the real thing himself.  So, as you can see, I knew a lot about Don Quixote before coming to Spain.  Luckily, however, this little excursion saved my dammed English-major soul:  I learned oodles about DQ, and it all had absolutely nothing to do with cacti!

Namely, one of the elements that makes Don Quixote such a renowned timeless classic is that author Miguel de Cervantes breaks the literary third wall so to speak, and it is extremely ambiguous where reality stops and fantasy begins.  For example, DQ thinks that the now-notorious Spanish windmills are “giants,” and he consequently tries to fight them by jousting on his horse.  (Because, if I saw a giant, my first natural inclination would be to “fight” it…right.).   Furthermore, the novel investigates deep themes such as philosophical deception, the acute importance surrounding individualism, and the exploration of varying character perspectives on an intimate, revelatory level.  To paraphrase the Fund professor who graciously gave us a literature-meets-real life background tour, Don Quixote takes questions regarding life and reality to a whole new level so that it becomes wholly impossible for Don Quixote to decipher if his reality is, in fact, real.  I’m beginning to notice some overlapping symbolism between Quixote’s and my own adventures…  Is this real lifeeee?   For all I know, I too could be seeing giants, for this experience is almost too good to be true…

Case in point:  Saturday afternoon some of the girls and I decided to hike the “mountain” in Toledo and have a picnic atop the scenic perch.  Now, I have seen beautiful encompassing views of the city before via a Fund-directed bus tower, but other than that I haven’t had the opportunity to take-in Toledo as an assimilated (or at least relatively assimilated) local.  And, what we saw was amazing.  I’m not trying to belittle any other Notre Dame study abroad program, but I honestly think that the Toledo program is a whole other breed.  I mean I get to live with a host family, improve my Spanish in unprecedented ways, learn more about a foreign culture, eat authentic Spanish food, and live here every day!  The more-popular London and Dublin programs just don’t have that.

So, we walked by the river on the outside of the city, hiked up the “mountain” (it is a hill, but again, I miss Park City, so let me just call it a mountain, okay?), and had a glorious picnic.  Oh, yeah, and we had a photo shoot…  I mean, when you have seven girls, seven cameras, and a scenic view, how can you avoid a photo shoot?   Exhibit A….

I feel like I cannot repeat this sentiment enough, but the ND group here is really top-notch.  I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting new friends and getting to know everyone more intimately, and I truly believe that some of the “less publicized” or “more difficult” moments associated with study abroad (such as possible exhaustion, homesickness, culture shock, and issues surrounding the language barrier) are infinitely easier and almost even entirely squelched because of the amazing Notre Dame community that has been relocated to Spain.  We have all grown immeasurably together, and I know that, even with all of the cool places I have seen and foreign people I have met, this experience would be significantly less meaningful if I did not have these friends with whom to share it.

After we spent a sufficient amount of time taking pictures (or, more accurately, after it had begun to rain…) we descended the mountain and elected to explore the nearby little church that one of my friends, Lissa’s, host mom had told her about.  While we had been picnicking, we heard the church’s bell ringing, and ringing, and ringing.  We didn’t understand it until luckily Lissa explained to us that, according to her host mom, all the single women in Spain ring the church’s bell so that someday they will find a husband.  (Um, queue Beyoncé:  “All the single ladies!”).  Well, thankfully none of us are a “ring-by-spring” kind of girl, but we still thought it would be fun to ring the bell for ourselves.  (Now queue pre-decline Lindsay Lohan in the Parent Trap:  “I’ll take a whack at it!”).  What the heck, right?  So, one by one, seven girls rang the bell…and some of us may have even rung it several times in a row because it was that entertaining.  To be clear, that is a lot of noisy bell ringing, and I’m pretty sure we created enough of a ruckus to scare away any “potential” boy within a 100mile radius…no regrets.

The church itself was quite pretty, and, for some reason or other, we naturally transitioned from ringing bells to circling up and singing the Alma Matter in the middle of the chapel.  And, we didn’t even stop when a Spanish “abuelo” came in to check what all the commotion was about; we were having a moment.  If that isn’t Notre Dame enough for you, then I don’t know what is…

I spent the rest of the afternoon browsing through the little touristy shops in the Casco that I hadn’t explored yet, Skyping friends and family, and watching Alice and Wonderland with my host siblings.  It was quite the perfect end to a lovely day, and, God knows why, I was rather delighted to watch the Mad Hatter and Hare sing “A Very Merry Unbirthday” in Spanish.  I don’t know why, but it was hilarious.  Once again, I thought things were significantly funnier than the 8, 8, 5, and 4 year olds I was watching television with did.  To be fair, I definitely warrant the “Who is this girl?!” looks that they give me….

In the same weekend that I sang the Alma Matter in a Spanish church, I also danced the Irish Jig and executed several other of our football cheers at an Irish pub in Toledo for St. Patrick’s Day.  You can’t go to Notre Dame and not celebrate St. Patty’s, and we weren’t about to let the fact that nobody in Spain celebrates March 17^th stop us!  We made friends, were given hats, and continued to have Notre Dame “moments”.  Irish by association.

So, funny story, today one of the teachers at my “colegio” asked me to organize an activity to teach the kids about St. Patrick’s day; so, I prepared a short story and a shamrock-hat-making craft thinking it was short, sweet, and to the point.  When I walked into my first class of three-year-old preschoolers Maripaz excitedly greeted me saying, “Katie, I have an Irish hat!  I have a hat for you to wear!”  The hat was the same “Pint of Guinness” hat I had received the night before.  Well, this is weird…  There obviously isn’t a lot of “Irish gear” for sale in Spain.  I had to explain to her that it didn’t really seem appropriate for me to wear the hat, and I tailored it a bit so that it simply said, “Happy St. Patrick’s Day!”  That’s better.  It was made even better by the fact that the kids thought I looked absolutely ridiculous in the hat (Hey, I do what I can.  I’ll take points where I can get them!), and the project was an absolute success.

All in all, a great week guided by the luck (and blessings) of the ND Irish.  Love thee, Notre Dame.

Leave a comment

LIFE, LOVE, AND REALLY GOOD CHOCOLATE

Posted on March 11, 2013

This past Monday I woke up to teach after spending a weekend in Andalucía, and I felt miserable.  I think it was a combination of traveling, the extremely volatile weather we have been having the last couple of weeks, a lack of sleep that is related to my travel schedule, and my spending eight hours a week with over 200 young children, many of whom don’t cover their mouths when they sneeze and cough and all of whom never wash their hands.  So, honestly, it was a long time coming; I’m only surprised it didn’t happen sooner!  Last week was “the week,” though; several kids went home sick with fevers, and the list to see the doctor that visits the Fund was ten people long.  Solidarity! 

Teaching Monday morning was horrible; I swear my voice rivaled that of a 100-year-old male chain smoker.  It was seriously attractive.  My internship consists of me reading, tutoring, and speaking in Spanish and English for four hours a day; I love it, but when you try to do it all without a voice, then you begin to run into complications.  Let’s just say I wasn’t helping anyone with their English Monday.  Luckily I was able to see the doctor Tuesday, though, and thankfully he whipped up a magical series of prescriptions (I was instructed to take no less than three different meds), and I promptly went to the farmacia to fill them. 

I ended up going home sick after my doctor appointment (*Yeah, so I have never been “sick in Spanish” before, and, as a result, I have never had to describe symptoms.  I probably should have known this, but, hey, it’s all a learning process, and when I asked my teacher if he’d mind if I went home sick, I innocently told him, “Estoy caliente, y necesito regresar a mi casa” (I “am warm,” and need to go home).  Funny story:  “Tengo fiebre” is the proper way to say you are warm; “Estoy caliente” means something entirely different and may or may not be relatively explicit…whoops!), took a nap, and woke up to a concerned Silvia, Miguel, and Lucía who had come home.  Silvia took my temperature, called me “pobrecita” several times, and told me that she would help me in whatever way she could.  I went back to my room to rest for a while and do some homework in bed when I heard a quiet knock on my door: it was Lucía, and she had a deal to strike up with me.  She had some coloring “to do,” and she wanted to know if she could please “work” with me in my room.  She said she would be quiet; she just wanted to keep me company so that I would feel better.  I’m pretty sure my heart melted a little.  I wish I would have taken a picture; I sat cooped up in my bed while she laid quietly on the floor humming with all of her markers and various coloring books splayed out around her:  ¡Qué precioso!  

Actually, Tuesday night was quite lovely in an odd sort of way.  Because I had gone home sick, I spent a good portion of the day relaxing at home, and I was able to spend some quality time with my host siblings.  The kids hadn’t been home the last couple of weeks because Silvia has been traveling for business, and I realized how much I missed them.  So, Tuesday I did “big girl work” with Lucía, watched fútbol with Miguel, and was able to converse more with Silvia.  I’m not going to say that I liked being sick, but it was definitely nice to spend quality time with my Spanish family.  It’s moments like these that make me wonder how anyone could study abroad and not have this experience; I love living with a host family.

I don’t know if it was a result of Lucía’s influence or those mysterious magical Spanish drugs that I consumed, but the next day I woke up feeling considerably better.  It was quite a relief as I feel, given my class schedule, travel plans, and upcoming week of Spring Break that I am physically not allowed to get sick.  A lot of my friends here keep saying, “We can sleep when we are dead,” and, while I understand this sentiment, I also can’t travel, explore, and learn if I actually am dead, and I am trying to be very conscious of my health in order to be able to perpetuate this lifestyle and make the most of the opportunities I have been given.

Just Another Example of an Opportunity That I Have Been Given:  Prost!  Katie, Katie, Katie, and Munich

This weekend “the Katie’s” took Germany by storm.  Katie Raskob, Katie Mullins, and I were lucky enough to be able to stay with Katie Raskob’s family friends, Calvin and Pam, and have an unforgettable weekend.  Now, these aren’t just any family friends:  they are Domers.  And, as cliché as I may sound, I truly believe there is something special about Domers.  Calvin used to be a professor at the University; he specializes in music and Latin, and he composed much of the liturgical music that we use in the Basilica.  No big deal.  He and Pam are currently in Munich because he has funding to co-author an English-German dictionary on ancient Latin musical terms.  Now that is a niche if I have ever heard one!  What are you doing with your life?

Pam is from Chicago (small world) and wanted to converse about all things “home” with me (which was honestly kind of nice), but she also shared stories upon stories upon stories about where in the world they have lived and traveled.  She spoke about her life in such an honest, inspiring, yet completely unassuming way while I drooled over everything she had to say.  I know a lot of people travel and are able to have very neat experiences, but it is pretty special when someone is able to say “We got these mosaic coasters in Istanbul” and “That vase is from New Zealand” in a wholly humble, non-bragging manner and be able to share so much without being assuming or condescending.  Not only that, but the couple has such an obvious passion for adventure, education, and life in general, and their words and actions go a long way in sharing this fervor with the people they encounter.  I admire so much about Pam and Calvin, but I think that is what I respect most.  It is beautiful, and I only hope that I am able to live my life with as much zeal and passion. 

Furthermore, fun fact, Calvin’s youngest son (who is also a Domer) majored in Philosophy but now happens to be the head chef at a restaurant in Chicago that was recently rated 12^th in the “Top 20” places to eat in America.  Again, no big deal.  Now, while this little factoid is neat in and of itself, it meant something invaluable for our weekend; their son’s talent didn’t just come from nowhere, and we were living with superb cooks who would be artistically crafting food for us for the next couple of days.  In addition to everything else… Are you serious?!

Case in point:  we first met Pam at the airport where she picked us up and herded us home to a delicious little lunch of lemon soup (it was more complicated and intricate than that, but I have yet to learn to properly speak the language of “food”), a delicate tomato salad, and the first (of, admittedly, many) German pretzels.  It was scrumptious and unexpected, and I think my previous lack of expectation made it all the more delectable.

After lunch Pam graciously offered to take us on a tour of the city.  Usually if we were traveling by ourselves we might look for something like this to get our bearings and learn a little bit more about the place we are visiting, but Pam took the idea of a “tour” to a whole new level.  Honestly, someone should pay this woman to speak about Munich (actually, Calvin has looked into this, but given their visas she isn’t allowed to work in Germany…only spend money) because she really knows her stuff.  For example, she pointed out several locations where bombing from WWII is still evident, explained the significance of the sites, and answered all of our questions.  She also took us through Englischer Garten and explained how the numerous beer gardens function, guided us to the top of a hill in the park that overlooks part of the city, and then ushered to the town’s main center.  This area of Munich is strictly pedestrian, and it teems with people yet has a seemingly tranquil atmosphere that is accentuated by the habitual presence of artists in the square who perform in an effort to perpetually provide the people with some art form.  For example, we saw two different grand pianos and pianists situated in the middle of the street playing classical music like it was the most natural thing in the world.  It was pretty neat.   We also walked by “Dodger’s Alley,” which is a seemingly normal road that is highlighted with a curved trail of gold bricks.  Pam explained that before and during the war this was the route normal citizens took everyday in order to silently protest the war and avoid the Nazi soldiers that stood guard in the center of the square and force the “Heil, Hitler” salute.  Wow.  It would be quite a loss to be in the city and miss these little details.

In addition to all of this, everything in Munich seems so clean and organized.  It amazes me.  I am not a “city person” in general, but I was very impressed with Munich’s cleanliness and punctuality.  You will rarely encounter a bus in Munich that deviates only more than a couple of seconds from schedule; things run like tight German clockwork.  Yet, this system isn’t rigid as much as it is practical and responsible.  Fascinatingly, this characteristic isn’t limited to the public sector; according to Pam and Calvin, it also greatly influences moral code and ethical decisions.  One very minor example of this is evident at any given cross light in the city; it is a big “no, no” if you decide to cross before the crosswalk light is green, even if there are no cars in sight.  Apparently if you do this and there is a mother present with her children she will scold you and ask, “What kind of example are you setting for my children?”  Part of this is probably related to the fact that Munich is 85-90% Catholic, but it sounds like this type of disposition is relatively common among the German people.  Responsibility, morals, organization, and the need to be law-abiding citizens are that engrained in the German nature.  It is as if they are guided by some kind of unshakable moral compass.  Dang, this explains a lot about my disposition and my German Mary Lou Scheid roots….

After our little tour we ended in Marienplatz plaza and then made our way to meet Calvin and his professor cronies at his favorite beer hall.  Now, Calvin has been a regular at this beer hall every Friday since 2003, so he’s kind of a big deal.  He has his own personal waiter, Sonia, who is a particularly German woman with a thick, deep accent, broad shoulders, and a beaming smile.  Sonia was delighted to meet us, the “Three Katies!”  She continually referred to us as “Katie 1, Katie 2, and Katie 3” and would burst into thunderous laughter at the non-subsiding hilarity surrounding this gaggle of American Katies.  (After this, Pam officially dubbed us “Katie Colorado,” “Katie Cleveland,” and “Katie Chicago”… I appreciated both the organization and the alliteration of this). 

Sonia was particularly charming, but I especially loved Calvin’s friends.  One of them is currently helping Calvin co-author the English-German-Latin-Possibly four other languages dictionary he is writing, and the other is a philosophy professor at the University of Munich.  I am so mad at myself for not taking a picture, because the later crony was Albert Einstein resurrected; I’m not even kidding, he had white hair that stood on end as if he had just stuck his finger into an electrical socket, and his myriad of wrinkles and prominent forehead just made him look like a genius.  Oh, and naturally his big black Standard-Size Poodle was also there, his eyes smiling at me from across the big wooden table.  The whole group was awkwardly perfect:  the ultimate German waitress, Pam, Calvin, Katie(s) x3,  a genius German professor, Albert Einstein’s protégée, and his poodle.  My life.  As if the company wasn’t enough, the beer that Calvin ordered us was absolutely to die for.  I like beer, but this didn’t even taste like it; it was an extremely rich, filling, and dessert-like dark wheat beer.  Calvin taught us how to say “Cheers!” in German (“Porst!”) and welcomed us to Germany like any good German would.

After we had been properly indoctrinated into German culture, Pam and Calvin took us to the local vendors to buy food for dinner.  I was surprised by the impressive quantity and quality of the food at the outdoor German food markets; it was as if there were endless farmer’s markets of only the highest caliber.  And everything was so pretty.  It made me wonder if it would be more worthwhile to eat the food or to simply look at it and appreciate its vivid beauty.  Can I have my German cake and eat it too???

Well, I’m not sure about the food that I saw specifically, but I definitely had a delectable dinner of pasta, salad, bread, more pretzels, and different varieties of wine that Calvin has acquired from all over Europe.  Pam and Calvin certainly didn’t cut any corners in hosting us; not only did they provide us with comfortable accommodations and informative tours, but they also hospitably catered to my and Katie Mullin’s vegetarianism and spoiled us with fine wines and thoughtful, contemplative conversation.  It was after this dinner that the other Katies and I agreed upon the word that would simply yet adequately define our weekend:  Lovely.

Saturday morning we woke up and had a lovely breakfast that consisted of coffee, raspberry yogurt, pretzels, bread that was accompanied by various lemon, nougat, and peach jams, and peanut butter.  Now, I love peanut butter (*In moderation… I’m starting to realize that this blog post paints me as a complete foodie… ehh, there have been worse things…), but there is NO good peanut butter available in Spain.  I have decided it is one of Spain’s tragic flaws.  So, somehow, against all odds I have been living thus far this semester without Peanut Butter, and when I encountered German PB on the breakfast table I was utterly delighted.  Pam had also prepared soft-boiled eggs for herself and the others, complete with their own little individual egg stands and a fancy “egg cracking” device.  (It reminded of “Bread and Jam for Frances” from the Frances the Badger children’s books series because there is an “episode” where Frances eats eggs in this manner, with little stands and such, and I used to think it was so cool.  Okay, I just needed to mention that obscure connection from my childhood.  I’m good now.  But really, it was so cute!)

After breakfast Pam walked us to our tram stop (seriously, she is the loveliest thing), and we headed to the Nymphenburg Palace where the German royals spent the summer months.  We didn’t go in, but the exterior was very beautiful, and we even encountered several promising signs of spring’s imminent arrival!

When we finished touring the grounds, we hoped back on the tram and headed towards the city center.  Notably, my mom’s maiden name is “Scheid,” and one of the stops was named “Scheidplatz.”  I was so excited that I even took a picture.  There you go, Mom, you are up to two shout-outs in this post; you officially have no more room to “complain” about your lack of recognition, madam.

We spent some time strolling through Marienplatz, browsing the cute little shops, and climbing the St. Peter’s Church Tower.  From the top of the tower we were able to see utterly breathtaking 360-degree views of Munich.  I loved the combination of reds, greens, and whites in the German architecture.  And, even though it was slightly overcast, I was able to see the Alps!  Simply awe-inspiring. 

Next we toured the “Residence” or the winter palace of the German royals.  (Which, I would like to mention, is only about a twenty-minute walk from the summer palace…)  It was very beautiful and ornate, but we kind of felt like we were in a never-ending maze.  Even with the audio-tour I was not able to comprehend why it was necessary to have so many rooms that look exactly the same and probably served what was essentially the same function.  Didn’t these people recycle?  We spent a couple hours ooh-ing and ahh-ing until we finished and decided it was time for the main attraction:  German chocolate.  Awww yeahhh. 

We crossed the street to the famous chocolate shop and café that used to serve the German kings and had fun discerning which cake we would possibly choose (it was a tough decision!).  Katie Raskob and I settled on a German Chocolate slice that was infused with ginger.  Slightly odd?  Yes.  But so good! 

After we finished our cake we pondered which chocolates we should buy (disclaimers, most of our purchases were gifts… for now…) as if it were a controversial philosophically-rich point of contention.  We were frustrated that we couldn’t read what the chocolates were, but we quickly amended that frustration by realizing that chocolate is chocolate anywhere; and German chocolate can do no wrong.  Not to mention that the store was beautifully decorated for Easter, and the bright colors paired with the gorgeous displays were just so happy!  It was extremely entertaining, and we were all exceptionally giddy.  It was almost as if we were little girls in a candy store!  Oh, wait…

On our walk back to the house we stopped by a significant historical marker that Pam had been telling us about earlier.  There is a monument outside the University of Munich that is dedicated to Sophie Scholl, a former student who was tried and murdered by the Nazis after she had been caught distributing anti-war pamphlets with her brother and professor.  The story Pam told us was unbelievable, and the monument’s subtle yet meaningful design gave the impression that the papers were scattered in haste and fear.  It is a powerful way to honor Sophie’s willingness to speak out against such an oppressive, destructive period in time, and we all found it to be particularly poignant.

We finally returned home, caught up with Calvin and Pam, had another delicious dinner (I am now in love with “Pinade,” a French dish of all things), engaged in more scintillating conversation, and then experienced a welcome yet unexpected surprised:  our ND friends from the London program were in Munich, and they contacted us to meet up!  We hastily grabbed our jackets and speed-walked back to Marienplatz to find our friends.  Now, I spent the entire past summer teaching with one of the girls, Carolyn, in Park City, Utah, and we have grown extremely close.  I haven’t been able to see “Carol” since December, so when we were finally able to reunite in Munich (under a giant golden statue of Mary, no less…Domers for life!), it just made me inexplicably happy.  We hugged, talked, and bounced around in excitement while the rest of German society bustled around us.  You can travel the world, but nothing warms your heart as much as the friends and family you have to share your experiences with; I’m so blessed.

Sunday morning we woke up, had a quick breakfast (during which Pam surprised me by revealing that she had bought me my own personal peanut butter to take home!), and accompanied Calvin and Pam to German mass.  The mass was extremely long and traditional, but the music was beautiful, and it was noticeably the most crowded, well-attended mass that I have been to in Europe thus far.  I literally understood nothing of what was said during the entire mass (except “Amen”:  I got that one), and it was honestly really exciting to realize that this was the first time that I have been in a country where I understand none of the spoken language.  Honestly, though.  Ireland is English speaking, I know Spanish, and I could even semi-read Portuguese because of its written similarities with the Spanish language.  I was completely out of my comfort zone in Germany.  And, I realized that kind of liked it…

After mass the five of us went out for coffee (lovely), and Katie Mullins and I just so happened to spot Carolyn and the other London kids in the center of the plaza from our café window!  Naturally we couldn’t help but say hello again!  What a small world. 

Upon finishing coffee we saw the Glockenspiel, which is basically a giant, life-sized cuckoo clock that rings twice a day in the middle of town, complete with “jousters” that fall off their horses in defeat at the end of the performance. 

Then we hurried to catch the Metro to visit Dachau Concentration Camp.  Now, I don’t want to say that I was “excited” to see the camp, because that is not at all the right way to package my sentiments, but I thought it was very important and significant to visit Dachau, and I am very thankful that we were able to have this opportunity.  There is no way that I could possibly describe what we saw; everything was too horrific to put into words.  During the entirety of our audio tour I felt like I had been transported into the middle of a horrible scary-movie and wasn’t able to escape; except this wasn’t a movie.  This was real life.  This had actually happened.  My stomach was unsettled as we listened to the explanations and personal survivor accounts surrounding the bunkers, gas chambers, and crematoriums.  How could people have acted like this?  We really appreciated the tour, but we opted out of more than merely browsing the photo museum because we all agreed that, at that point, we couldn’t really handle any more horrific images.  Regardless, the tour was very well done, and it was an extremely powerful experience.

Finally we took the train home, packed our backpacks, chatted with Pam and Calvin, and left for the airport.  Pam and Calvin stayed with us until the very end and gave us all really big hugs.  Again, I cannot express the depth of my gratitude for their hospitality and friendship; although Munich is amazing and would have been incredible regardless of their influence, Pam and Calvin were what perfected our weekend.  They were just so lovely.

When we got to the airport we regrettably discovered that we could, in fact, not bring my peanut butter as a carry-on item.  As I explained before, up until this point I had sorely missed my PB, and I was delighted to find it in Munich.  A deprived girl’s DREAM!  Yet, apparently it is considered a “liquid” and exceeds the “liquid limit.”  Gahh.  What a bummer!  But we weren’t about to let that stop us.  I don’t know if it is possible to “chug” peanut butter or not, but, yeah, that happened…

After “chugging” our peanut butter we finally cleared security and arrived at our gate.  Things were moving a little slowly, so we decided to find some dark-wheat German beer and say goodbye to Munich properly. 

Auf Wiedersehen, Germany!  It’s been lovely. 

– Katie ^3 

ANDALUCÍA: THE LAND OF ORANGES, FLAMENCO, ALADDIN, AND GYPSIES

Posted on March 4, 2013

This weekend I traveled with the other Notre Dame students to Andalucía in Southern Spain to visit Córdoba and Granada, and we were treated like Spanish Royalty.  Or at least it felt that way.  The whole trip was sponsored by the Fund:  aka no planning, no coordinating multiple connections for public transportation, no staying in questionable-at-best hostels, and no scrounging for food at grocery stores in an effort to conserve money.  And, not only did we not have to worry about these things, but we also stayed in a four-star hotel (can you say “WARM SHOWERS!”?) and were stuffed with enough food at meals to last a lifetime.  I actually had strawberries every day of the weekend…strawberries!  Even South Dining Hall can’t compete with that!  (I’m sorry for bashing you, SDH, because I honestly really do miss you and the bevy of food choices you offer.  Please forgive me for ripping on you.  But these were strawberries…). 

Now, I want to preface the following statement by saying that I am in no way-shape-or-form complaining about being disadvantaged (to the contrary, this semester as even more clearly highlighted for me how truly blessed I am), but honestly you don’t really realize what you don’t have in life until you are reminded that you don’t have it.  Does that make sense?  For example, I, the proclaimed hotel-snob who doesn’t particularly enjoy staying in hotels… (Okay, yes, there is a side story here:  I’m not actually a hotel-snob, I just am a huge fan of “The Office,” and apparently that is my epic character flaw.  Specifically, there is an episode when Dwight, Michael, Jim, and the rest of the gang are staying at a hotel for some kind of business convention, and Dwight, being the lovable weirdo that he is, decides to have a black light party in the hotel room.  Upon turning off the normal room lights with all the black lights on, the room essentially glows.  Michael then asks, “What are all those stains?!”  And Dwight responds, “Well, it’s either blood, urine, or semen,” and Michael groans, “God, I hope it’s urine!”  While I fully acknowledge that this is a television show, I haven’t been able to shake this image from my mind every time I stay in a hotel.  Thank you, Dwight K. Schrute, for ruining me forever.  But I digress…).  I have quite-nicely acclimated myself to hostel life.  Hostel, not hotel.  Hostels definitely aren’t the epitome of great living, but they certainly aren’t horrible either; some of them are actually really fun to stay in.  Over the last couple of weeks, I have grown accustomed to staying in hostels, and it has gotten to the point that they now fail to faze me.  My objective in all of this is that it was only after staying in a hotel that I have recognized:  I am making baby steps and becoming a big girl!  All jokes aside though, without realizing it I have embraced something that would have slightly irked me in the past.  This is only one (if “petty” and relatively ridiculous) example of how deeply study abroad can widen your perspectives.

Early Friday morning we all met in Polígono to take the bus to Andalucía (Kat and I successfully managed to located the bus stop this time…. and we didn’t even need to ask someone, “¿Dónde está la biblioteca?”!) and were on our way!  I slept the entire ride there and woke up feeling like I had magically transported to a completely different world:  Southern Spain is very different from Toledo and the rest of central part of the country.  Sleepy-eyed I got off the bus and stepped into a world teeming with orange tree-lined streets, heavily Arab-influenced architecture, and an abundance of flower-covered patios.  Of course, my immediate thought was that I had to eat one of these oranges!  Yet, alas, all of the oranges were treated and thus severed as decoration and a constant reminder of the scrumptiously appealing morsel that I could not eat.  Talk about forbidden fruit…

 Next we were herded to Córdoba’s claim to fame:  “La Mezquita.”  Although it used to be an Islamic mosque, after years of cultural and religious reform and that little period known as “the Spanish Inquisition” the site is now a Catholic cathedral.  We had a Spanish-speaking tour guide who explained the fascinating, intense history of the site and left my head reeling with facts and descriptions of varying types of architecture.  Thanks to the “Arte de Toledo” class that I am currently taking I was actually realized both how extensively my Spanish vocabulary has expanded and also the extent to which I can now talk about Spanish architecture.  (Notably, if you asked me to try to sound intelligent and explain some facet of architecture in English I would fail miserably…this is a funny world that we live in).  So, while I would still initially describe the following images by saying something along the lines of, “Oohh, look at the pretty red and white alternating bricks!”, now I am more fully-equipped to assess Renaissance and Moorish artistic influence and note the changes that occurred as a product of cultural and religious authority.  I am just so learned and erudite now I can’t even stand it…

I very much marveled at the splendor and significance of this site, but, as my friend Maegan pointed out, I think that the facet of this excursion that I found most beautiful was the fact that I was exploring this acclaimed site and learning about it in Spanish; in the language of the people who lived, breathed, and redecorated a million times here.  And I understood it all (even, admittedly, with spacing out every now and then…mad skills).  Now that is something beautiful.

After we finished our tour we had about an hour of free time before we were supposed to meet for lunch, so a couple of us decided to explore the quaint older-section of town and peruse the numerous shops that dotted the flower-pot lined streets.  It was all very relaxing until two lovely, lovely women stopped Maegan and me on the street…  And this now begins the section of my blog entitled:  “You’ve Been Gypsyed!”

 You’ve Been Gypsyed!  One Girl’s Tale of How She Realized Her Dream of Becoming A True American Tourist

Note to future travelers:  If a woman ever comes up to you in the street and tries to put something in your hand, then refuse whatever that something is.  I don’t care what you have to do:  firmly tell her no, avoid eye contact, ignore her completely, pretend you don’t speak Spanish, pretend you don’t speak anything, put your hands in your pockets so as to make them unavailable to receive said item, slide your hands in your jacket and pretend that you lost your arms in a tragic rock-climbing accident and subsequently don’t have hands at all (this is a tactic that I plan on employing in the future)…  I don’t care what you have to do:  just don’t accept her “offer!”  To be fair, I didn’t initially intend on taking this woman’s mysterious object (it was a piece of rosemary…or was it…?), but I was walking with Maegan who was stopped by the woman’s equally-witchy-looking crony, and I couldn’t leave her behind.  So, while I was waiting, I was taken advantaged of, and the plant was shoved in my hand.  At this point I promptly put one hand over my bag, kept one eye on Maegan and her gypsy, and gave myself over to whatever it was I was being sucked into.

Apparently it was fortunetelling.  And, according to my Gypsy fortuneteller con artist extraordinaire, the following is true:  I have three siblings, I am the youngest child, and I am currently expecting a baby.  Hint:  none of those things are true…  Also, I will have a long, healthy life, I will have two loves in the future (at the same time, notably…scandalous!!!), and I will have three children.  Fascinating.  As she was telling me all of this, her shrub-plant-prop was in my right hand while she was reading my palm, and she kept trying to see my left hand (which was planted firmly over the flap of my purse) to “read my other palm.”  She really needed to see it.  Uh, no thank you, lady.  I’m gunna leave my hand right where it is, thank you very much. 

When she was “finished” she then asked me for money.  At this point I invoked one of the aforementioned tactics and pretended that I didn’t speak Spanish…which was obviously not the wisest choice since I had been responding to her revelations in Spanish during the whole ordeal.  She kept badgering me, and, being fed up, I told her “Adios” and started to walk away.  At this point she started calling me about every name in the book (and probably some names that are even not in the book… okay, question:  what is this “book”, and why on earth would you ever want to read it?!) and told me that she revoked everything she had previously said; now I was going to have a horrible life!  And then she struck me down with fire bolts that shot like lasers from her eyes.  I almost wish that would have happened; for the creativity that she demonstrated with the colorful variety of her language I was actually disappointed that this was the most severe threat she could conjure.  Oh well.

I effectively escaped my gypsy-witch-demon and had evaded paying this woman when I again had to stop and wait for Maegan (you’re killing me, smalls!) to finish escaping from her gypsy.  When it became apparent that she wasn’t having any success, I decided to try and help her out.  Maegan’s woman was a lot more aggressive than mine, and she was not about to let Maegan go without paying, so Maegan was busy fishing out money from her wallet.  When my woman told her gooney-cohort that I had not paid her, the other woman went loca, and I’m pretty she went dementor-style on me and tried to suck my soul with the look she gave me.  How DARE I not pay for a wimpy piece of vegetation and a service that was forced upon me!  CURSES!  So, Maegan paid for both of us (I lost this fight…Point:  gypsys), I promised to reimburse her later, and we quickly fled the cursed ground we now inhabited. 

To be truthful, looking back the whole thing was relatively harmless, quite comical, and very lucky.  Thankfully neither of us were robbed, and now we felt that we had almost bridged some kind of backpacker’s right of passage:  I mean how could we go four months in Europe and not have a gypsy experience?  Now that just wouldn’t be authentic at all.  Maegan and I also decided that the next time we saw a gypsy (we saw about 20 other woman on this trip who tried to entrap us with rosemary) then we would firmly cross our arms in an “X” across our chests, run forward towards them loudly screaming “NOOOOOO!”, and then sprint away, exorcist style.  It was a great plan, and I may or may not have executed this strategy several times during the rest of the weekend….  Curious thing:  no one bothered the crazy girl ever again.  Point:  Katie.

After a satisfying lunch we were loaded back on the bus for an ever-so-convenient siesta and shuttled to our next destination, Granada.  We checked-in at our four-star hotel (apparently the Fund doesn’t mess around), and Katie, Katie, and I (yes, we did that on purpose) settled into our room.  Several friends and I spent the next couple of hours exploring the city before we returned to the hotel, had a quick dinner, and then left the hotel as a group for a Flamenco show.  It was a very neat experience, and I am very glad that I decided to pay the extra money and experience Flamenco for the first time in Southern Spain.  The show was extremely intense (I could never keep a straight for that long…I was impressed!) and very emotion-filled; I could very much feel old-world Spanish culture as the dancers artfully stomped around the strange.  After the show we were guided on a short tour of the neighborhood that we were in, and we could see the Alhambra lit up under the night sky.  It was absolutely gorgeous.

Saturday morning we went to the Alhambra, which is Spain’s number one tourist attraction.  The Alhambra was originally constructed as a Muslim fortress and then converted into a royal palace during the Spanish Monarch’s “Reconquista” (I’m telling you, these people like their conquering and redecorating).  It teems with Arab-influenced architecture (I felt like I was in Disney’s “Aladdin”) such as columns, fountains, arches, running water, and reflection pools.  Although the Alhambra is extremely immense and has had many additions, every part of the site is meant to correspond with the theme of a “paradise on earth.”  This intention is only reinforced by the fact that the grounds sit nestled between snow-covered mountains that almost diminish the splendor of the Alhambra itself and yet also somehow add to it magnificence despite this effect.  ¡Que imprecionante! 

We spent the rest of the day watching the Madrid-Barcelona game, shopping in the cute little Moroccan-themed tourist trap-type of shops, eating our amazing buffet-style meals, and exploring the rest of the city.  It was pretty relaxing and laidback, which was honestly a nice change of pace from some of my other trips.  Besides the Alhambra, Granada doesn’t have a whole list of “must-sees”, so we didn’t feel time-pressured to squeeze in a ton on our whirlwind vacation. 

Sunday proceeded in a similar manner with a nice breakfast, mass, some casual browsing and shopping, and, luckily, some light sunbathing.  Then we re-boarded the bus and were driven back to Toledo without the hassle of having to take a train to a train to a plane to the Metro to a bus to a horse to a helicopter to a pogo stick…  You get where I’m going with this…   All in all, it was a tremendous trip.  (*Another shot-out to George Puszka with my use of the word “tremendous”!  That’s two shout-outs in a row…I see you, Dad.)

2 Comments

“MAY THE ROAD RISE TO MEET YOU…”

Posted on February 25, 2013

Midterms were this week.  While this last sentence is not in Spanish, I will translate it for you:  my week was relatively boring, and I have little from my “Toledo life” to share.  I had a week of exams (in Spanish, of course), and I spent a lot of time studying; as a result, this section of stories might have taken a little bit of a hit.  However, here are a few notable snippets from my week in Spain:

• Early this week I went for a run, and I encountered an interesting character on the street.  A little old Spanish man hobbling up the street saw me running and promptly stopped to scold me (with his cane, no less) wearing shorts outside because it was, “¡frío chica!”  How cute!  It was 55 degrees out; there was no way I was not breaking out the shorts.  Apparently someone has never been to South Bend…
• I was teaching in one of my classes at the “colegio” I work at, and the science teacher I was working with was trying to silence the children and reorient their focus.  She tried to express the sentiment “be quiet,” but it didn’t quite come out that way.  Instead she said, “Shut up now!”  For better or for worse I didn’t have the heart to correct her English.  Also, hearing a teacher repeatedly tell her third grade class to “shut up” was mildly entertaining.  Again, it was midterms week; I’ll take a reprieve wherever I can get it.
• I have great news!  Remember the teacher at my school who I find hilarious and described as the mom from my “Big Fat Greek Wedding”?  Well, I didn’t know her name, but I randomly decided to dub her “Carmen” after America Ferrara’s personality-abounding character in The Sisterhood of Traveling Pants.  Well, I finally discovered what said-woman’s real name is.  Funny story, it’s Mari Carmen:  as in I partially got the “Carmen” part right!  For some reason I feel like this is very exciting and definitely worth sharing…
• This week Silvia was away in South America for a business-related trip, so Thursday night after I finished exams Daniel and I had a great dinner of Tortilla Española (he’s knows it is my favorite and purposely made it for me) and a special desert that he had bought.  We had a great conversation about Spanish politics (which, I actually now know a decent amount about, thanks to my clase de historia!).  It was a very nice gesture and a lovely way to cap off the busy week!
• And now onto the main attraction…

Galway Girl:  A Domer Returns to the Motherland

Thursday night after I finished my midterms I could finally focus on my weekend plans.  What was my reward for a week of exams?  A weekend trip to Ireland!  Seriously, the fact that I am able to travel so freely and easily hasn’t ceased to amaze me; I feel so free, free as I’ll ever be (There’s a Zac Brown Band song for that…).  And, while I have definitely experienced more challenging exam weeks, I think that this week was a little bit different change of pace for me from the normal hustle and bustle that classes and travel have created in my life this semester.  It is not to say that I had a lot of down time this week, but I did have more time to sit and think without being distracted by travel and the myriad of amazing things that are currently happening in my life.  Long story short, I finally began to feel a little homesick.  Here are the things I miss about America:  Grass (and GREEN things in general…although Toledo is an utterly amazing, breathtaking cobblestone laid city, it is seriously lacking in the vegetation department.  This girl needs her GREEN!), Target, Chipotle, people who smile at you on the street and say hello, driving my car… oh yeah, and I guess I miss my friends and family too.  Just kidding, I absolutely miss my friends and family: they are my life.  However, I don’t see this “homesickness” in a negative light; my time abroad has already allowed me to learn and experience so much and appreciate more fully my friends, family, and all of the gifts I have been so graciously given.  So, have I been homesick?  Yes.  Yet, I would never in a million years revoke my decision to study abroad:  this is the best gift I have ever given myself, and I am so unbelievably happy.  Remember what I said before I left Chicago?  Well, it’s true; Life certainly begins outside your comfort zone…

That being said, I was elated to experience something new, visit Ireland, and finally compensate for the “green void” I have been experiencing.  In transit to the Madrid airport I couldn’t stop listening to the Dixie Chick’s “Wide Open Spaces.”  The lyrics seemed to prescribe exactly what I was missing:  “She needs wide open spacesss!”  (I seriously think there is something wrong with me; I cannot overemphasize how much I need nature… apparently this is what a summer in Park City does to you).  I was all situated to listen to my “Ireland” playlist (yes, that happened) on the plane, complete with music by Mumford and Sons, Flogging Molly, and the High Kings when, much to my enjoyment, a charming young Irish man sat down in the seat next to me.  He immediately started talking to me, and his accent was delightful (he was also “tan guapo,” so that surely didn’t make things any worse…).  He introduced himself as Patrick (are we surprised?  He’s Irish.  That’s akin to introducing yourself as Katie from Notre Dame…I would know.), and we proceeded to talk for the entire two-and-a-half hour plane ride.  Pat provided me with directions around Ireland, tips for where to eat and what foods to sample, a list places to visit, and he even taught me how to say several common expressions in Irish (I am impressed that anyone can speak the Irish language; it does not make sense to me!).  All in all it was a terrific plane ride, and as I disembarked I thought to myself that if this was any preview of what the weekend would hold, then I was in for a real treat.  Welcome to Ireland!

My friends and I bussed straight from Dublin to Galway− en route to get me that green I so desperately yearned for!  The whole trip only lasted a couple of hours, but we literally traversed the entire country; it is amazing to think how large the States are in comparison to the rest of the world.  Upon arrival we figured out our Saturday plans, checked in at our hostel, and then I desperately used WiFi to get in contact with one of my roommates and good friends, Margaret.  Marge is studying in London, and we had been talking a few weeks ago when we discovered that we would both randomly be in Ireland on the same weekend.  And, not only would be in the same country at the same time, but both of us were also going to Galway.  And we just found out that we both made RA for senior year!  ¡Qué suerte!  Now that’s some “Luck of the Irish for you!”  Margaret and I had planned on meeting up, but you never really know how things are going to work out when you are traveling abroad and don’t have a consistent, reliable means of getting in touch with other travelers; so, when I saw that girl run through my hostel door, proceed to tackle me with a hug, and then pick me up and swirl me around in a loving embrace, I couldn’t help but cry.  Actually, we both burst into tears.  I don’t know if it was because we lived together earlier this year and Marge was a little taste of home and familiarity for me, or if it was because we have grown so close in the last year (okay, no, I do know; it was both of those things), but seeing Margaret made me happier than I could possibly describe.  She was traveling with a group of Notre Dame students studying in the London program, so all of us displaced Domers convened in an Irish pub for dinner and drinks.  Between the excellent food and Guinness and being able to talk to Margaret and hear about her adventures in London, it was the beginning of an unforgettable night.

After we finished dinner we all migrated down the street to a neat Irish pub, “The Quays” (pronounced “Keys”) that was located directly across from our hostel.  The pub was amazing with its extensive wooden interior, multiple levels, cool windows, and hodge-podge yet seemingly coherent old-Irish decorations.  We went to the lower level and somehow started talking to this group of women, only to discover that one of them was a Domer.  I don’t even know if I’m genuinely surprised by this; after seeing a fellow Domer ten miles in while hiking at the bottom of the world’s largest slot canyon, Zion National Park’s “The Narrows,” this summer in Utah, I honestly don’t think I will ever be surprised where in the world I encounter “my people.”  The University’s connections genuinely run deep.  We talked to this woman for a while, and she then proceeded to buy us all drinks before leaving.  Nice.  Have I mentioned that I love my school?

After she left we were immediately bombarded with another source of entertainment; a group of about thirty British men were in the bar celebrating a “Stag Party” (*Bachelor Party).  Not only were these men hilariously tipsy, but they were holding an “Ugly Jumper Competition.”  Now, apparently sweaters are known as “jumpers” in the UK, but the concept was the same as any college campus in the States; these men were competing to determine who could rock the ugliest sweater.  And, let me tell you, some of them were down right hideous.  (Does it make sense to say, “That is a sweater that only a mother could love”?  No, that doesn’t make sense.  But you get the concept.)  The men mingled with us for awhile before the real show began, and they held a Derek Zoolander-style “walk off” competition where each gent “strutted his stuff” (and, of course, his ugly jumper) as he sauntered down the bar stairs in a drunken display of theatricality.  We, the adoring fans, then rated them on their performance and cheered the loudest for our favorite “ugly jumper.”

It was quite the show, and I’m happy to say that my favorite contestant won the award− a golden goblet, which he promptly drank from.  I mean how could you not vote for this lovely hombre…?

After the contest culminated I spent the rest of the night talking to our new British, post-middle-age besties, catching up with the London kids, goofing around with Margaret and the other Toledo students, and dancing to the live music of the Irish band that played from a suspended platform above us.   My life is currently ridiculously perfect.

Saturday morning Magean, Melanie, and I woke up early to catch a bus and a ferry to the Aran Islands for the day.  My good friend Bridget traveled to Ireland last year when she was studying in London for the semester, and she couldn’t stop raving about the day she had spent biking around the Aran Islands when she traveled to Galway.  Knowing and loving Bridget, naturally I had to take her up on the suggestion.  So, we arrived on the island, collected our bikes, and began our day of cycling in Irish paradise!  We may or may not have taken a small detour to the Aran Sweater Market, and I may or may not have purchased a chunky, cable-knit Irish wool sweater (it was my “Congratulations, Katie, for making RA” gift to myself).  I am really glad that I bought it, though, because A) it is adorable, B) it was really cold on the islands and after purchasing it I promptly put it on over my other numerous layers, and C) because the Aran Islands are actually the “birth place” of these traditional Irish sweaters; this is where the tradition that has become so widespread originated.  So, if I was going to buy an Irish sweater, then this was the place to buy one!  (On an unrelated fourth note, I also bought it because D) I have had my eye on a good Irish sweater for awhile now and this sweater, which was authentic and from Ireland proper, was cheaper than the Irish sweater I tried on at the Notre Dame bookstore…just saying.  How’s that for my habitual “This is good because [insert reason here]…” purchase justification, Ryan Puszka?).

After fulfilling all of my shopping dreams/needs we actually embarked on the tour.  And IT.  WAS. AWESOME.  While I fully acknowledge that I have gotten into the habit of making each of my most recent trips this semester “the best trip” I have been on, I can genuinely say that the day that I spent in the Aran Islands was one of the most perfect, memorable days I have had traveling in Europe thus far.  The girls and I biked numerous hills, both through town and along the coast, while our jaws dropped in amazement and appreciation of Ireland’s natural beauty.  We also cracked endless jokes about the seemingly infinite number of stone-on-stone-on-stone fences we encountered; “Were the Irish people bored in the past?!  They must have built all of these walls for fun or something!  There are so many of them!”  (As you can tell we are both extremely funny and very erudite and learned when it comes to Ancient Irish traditions).

We biked several miles before arriving at our destination:  the Dun Aengus cliffs.  (I cannot, for the life of me, remember how to pronounce that properly).  We parked our bikes, walked for about twenty minutes up an extremely rocky path, and then encountered the most amazing thing:  a dog!  He was very cute and very “Irish looking,” and we instantly became friends.  We didn’t know whom we belonged to, so we decided that he “must belong to the islands.”  Naturally.  He was hilarious, though, and we spent several minutes watching him run around, chase after rocks, and scale the ancient Irish walls with flawless grace and ease (apparently he couldn’t read the “DO NOT CLIMB THE RUINS” signs that were scattered throughout the land…poor guy).

After finally parting ways with our new friend we finally made our way to the cliffs’ edge.  As has become custom for when I encounter beautiful things when I travel, I feel like words cannot suffice in describing these cliffs.  All I can say is that travel has undoubtedly heightened my appreciation for nature.  I think I left part of my heart in Galway; love Galway, love Ireland, love thee Notre Dame.

Once we had spent a considerable amount of time at the cliffs we walked back to our bikes and made our to a quaint little thatched-roof café for lunch.  I think I about died inside; the café was adorable, complete with numerous books and a lovely, quirky assortment of trinkets and teacups, and we warmed ourselves with delicious Irish vegetable stew, Irish brown bread, and a delightful late.  Between the food, the environment, and the great conversation I had with Maegan and Melanie, lunch, as my dad would say, truly “warmed the cockles of my heart.”

After we were sufficiently saturated with food and warmth we continued our bike tour, this time along the coast.  We road near the water and continued to “ooh and ahh” at the scenery when we arrived at what was marked as the “Aran Island’s Seal Colony.”  Unfortunately none of the seals were basking on the rocks, but we did see some little heads bobbing in and out of the waves.

Unfazed, we continued our journey back to the ferry when we encountered something strange.  Now, we had been turned on to the fact that Saturday was the main celebration day for a popular Irish festival in honor of “Father Ted” (now, I’m still not entirely sure who this priest is, but I can tell you that it is not Father Hesburgh…and yet, at the same time, I wouldn’t be surprised… ), and as we rode we encountered random groupings of people “celebrating” by drinking and wearing interesting costumes (think drunk, somewhat slutty nuns, chipper priests, men in diapers, two-legged sheep, and other things that am unable to describe because I’m not quite sure what exactly I saw…).  So yeah, I don’t know what that was, but that happened.  We took in the locals, returned our bikes, and enjoyed some delightful hot chocolate before catching the ferry back to Galway and then bussing back to Dublin for the evening.  I couldn’t have asked for a better day.

We arrived in Dublin around ten at night and headed straight to O’Neill’s (a pub that some of our ND friends studying in Dublin recommended) for some much-needed dinner.  I don’t even quite know how to describe what I had for dinner (it was some kind of cheesy, pasta-y, casserole-y delicious thing with scrumptious potatoes and Guinness), but it hit the spot.  O’Neill’s was perfect.  (*Side note:  this is not, at all, pertinent information, but I still find it fascinating, and I thus feel the need to share it:  The bathrooms in O’Neill’s are the coolest bathrooms I have ever seen!  They have black lights!  This means that everything literally glows.  Everything.  Like the toilet paper and, um, other things that one commonly encounters in a bathroom…  It was so weird and unnecessary, and yet it was great!  I’m sorry; I just couldn’t keep that one to myself…)

After dinner we located our hostel and met up with the other three ND Toledo friends who had been with us early in the weekend.  We dropped off our bags and decided to trek a little ways to the bar that is famous for being filmed in “P.S. I Love You.”  It was cool to see, but there was an expensive cover fee to get in, so we decided to explore the Temple Bar area instead.

Sunday morning Maegan and I woke up early and continued to explore Dublin.  We walked around for a while and saw the city, Trinity College, a cute little bakery called “The Queen of Tarts” (where we couldn’t help but splurge for some scones), and Christ’s Church.

Our end destination was the Guinness Storehouse for the acclaimed Factory Tour.  Okay, it’s time for me to make a qualification:  I am not the type of girl who typically drinks in the morning (You mean your Sunday morning breakfast doesn’t consist of a healthy pint of Guinness every week?!  What is wrong with you?!), but, given the operating hours, this was literally the only time we could squeeze the tour into our short trip.  And, seeing as the Guinness Storehouse tour is the most popular tourist attraction in Ireland, we couldn’t not.  So, Maegan and I quickly browsed through the factory (we were girls on a mission:  we had a plane to catch!), learned a lot about the process of making beer (before I literally knew nothing on the topic, so I will describe the limited information I gained during this quickened tour as “a lot”), and made our way to the seventh floor’s famed “Gravity Bar” to enjoy our complimentary pint.  The Gravity Bar is actually very cool because it has 360-degree panoramic views of Dublin, so we were able to take in a lot of the city from this key vantage point.  However, seeing as it was roughly 9:30 on a Sunday morning, Maegan and I were literally the only people besides the bartender in the bar.  We started talking to the him and made instant friends; not only did we have someone to explain the Dublin sites (one of which included the stadium where ND played last Fall) and teach us more about Guinness, but we also had someone to take our pictures!  Thank the dear Lord!

• Fun Fact:  Back in the day Guinness patented the iconic harp image, which is a traditional symbol of power and pride that stems from Ancient Irish tribes and used it as its company logo.  Later, the Irish government decided that it wanted to use the harp as the country’s symbol.  But, you see, there was a problem; Guinness had it patented.  Squabbles ensued, but eventually both parties came to an agreement:  the government could use the harp image on the condition that it was flipped “backwards” from how it traditionally appears in the Guinness logo.  Wow.  Moral of the story:  basically Guinness has a bit of a leg up on the Irish government…

Anyways, after talking our ears off, our new bartender friend asked Maegan and I if we had any preferences in music for him to play.  We actually did:  Christmas music, please.  Obviously.  Because that’s logical.  Whether it was logical or not, I’m not sure, but there was something inherently right about looking over the snow-covered Irish mountains and enjoying a heart-warming pint of Guinness as Bing Crosby crooned, “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas…”

As our departure time quickly approached, we hastily gathered our things, left the Storehouse, and proceeded at a hasty clip towards the station in order to make the airport bus.  Luckily, (again, it must be the “Luck of the Irish”) Maegan and I made the bus literally thirty seconds before it departed.  We sat down, high-fived each other in celebration of our efforts, and then promptly devoured our scones, which we determined were the best we have ever tasted.  Go team!

Ireland was amazing, Galway was divine, the Irish people were the friendliest I have encountered all semester, and I finally was able to take-in my fill of green!  Like I said, I think I left a piece of my heart in Galway; I will go back one day.

“…And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.”Leave a comment

“I NEED SOME HANGIN’ AROUND IN MY LITTLE TOWN, IN A BIG WAY…”

Posted on February 17, 2013

This week has been just what the doctor ordered:  no travel, only one day of working my internship job, and a lot of down time to run, catch up on work, and hibernate in my bed.  I think all of the Notre Dame kids have been secretly brimming with anticipation awaiting this weekend.  I feel like I have done “nothing” the last couple of days (travel-wise, that is); and I am honestly okay with that.  It was nice to rest, explore Toledo a bit, spend time with my family, and relax in the house.  So, I apologize if this blog entry is a little less exciting than usual.  To give you a brief snap shot of the week, yesterday I spent the whole day in sweats and literally did not the house (I had a productive, yet relatively relaxed day of writing application essays, planning Spring Break, working out, and catching up on some American tv shows online…and it was GLORIOUS) until later in the evening to meet some of my friends in Polígono for tapas.  When I finally got dressed for the day and told my parents I was going out, my mom excitedly exclaimed, “Muy bien!  Muy bien!”  I don’t know if she was A) excited I was leaving so that she could have some alone time, B) excited I was leaving in consideration of my own mental health, and she was thrilled that I was finally getting out of the house, or C) excited I was leaving because she thought to herself, “Maybe this girl does have a life after all?!”  Regardless, it was a great day and a nice change of pace.

So, here is my week in a nutshell.  While you probably don’t want to hear about many hours I slept or what I ate for lunch yesterday, I find that even the “ordinary” is exciting.  So, even if I was “lazy” this week, somehow I still have plenty to talk about…

It’s The Little Things:  Mundane (*Weird) Spanish Tidbits That I Somehow Find Fascinating…

• Today I went for a run around Polígono.  Pretty standard, right?  I ran past the apartment buildings, the numerous churches, the parks, and the surprising amount of dog feces on the street when I encountered something wholly unusual:  a group of men in their late fifties and sixties had taken over one of the main parks and were racing motorized cars.  Competitively.  Around a track.  And there were about thirty of them.  Complete with a cheering crowd.  Needless to stay I stopped and stared for a couple of minutes; ¡Que extraño!   Imagine a gaggle of older Spanish men aggressively racing remote-control toy cars around an outdoor track and swearing about who was in the lead while their groupie-wives yell from the bleachers, somehow equally fascinated by the race…  Words do not suffice.  Like I said, this is some pretty notable stuff!
• Earlier this week I was coloring with my two youngest host sisters, Lucía (5) and Paula (4).  We were coloring for a while when Lucía told me that I had something on my face.  Thinking I had accidently colored my cheek with the marker I was using, I asked her where the “mark” was.  She directed me to the center of my forehead, where I have a prominent new pimple.  In Spanish she asked, “What is that thing?  What is on your face?  It is red!  Have you seen that?!”  Thank you, five-year-old.  No Lucía, I haven’t seen it.  I must have missed it, silly me.  Just give it ten years or so, and you’ll be sorry…
• A couple of the other Notre Dame kids and I were sharing stories about our host families, and somehow we started talking about weird things that each of us have in our bedrooms.  My friend, Melanie, began the conversation explaining how when she initially arrived home on her first day in Spain her host parents excitedly explained to her that they had just purchased a new bed comforter in her honor.  They had redecorated Mel’s room in anticipation for her arrival, and they were really excited for her to see the new design.  This is she encountered five minutes after arriving in her new Spanish home

Her external response: “Oh, it is so nice!”  Her internal response: “You bought a new comforter, and this is what you chose?!”

We all died a little bit after hearing her story.  Needless to say we promptly initiated a contest on our ND Toledo Facebook Page in order to determine who had the weirdest room out there.  Feel free to judge for yourself.  Some of the entries are pretty priceless…

Didn’t know we were in London…

What is that THING?!  IT’S ALIVEEEEE!!!

¿Cómo se dice, “Boy Bands”?  ‘MERICA!

Oh, yes, I really like the way that this tapestry makes me contemplate the meaning of life and the nature of woodfolk when I first wakeup every morning.

My room.  Clearly my parents are also very worldly and cultured, and they wanted to convey this in their interior decorating.  This art pieces is meant to honor the esteemed “Chinos” in Spain who are always cheap and never closed…Obviamente.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!  Maegan takes the cake for weirdest/creepiest bedroom decoration piece!  This, hanging above her bed, is a portrait of her host brother from his First Communion.  He’s currently 23.  The lucky lady gets to wake up to it every morning.  Parents are awesome.  You go, Glenn Coco!

• But I digress… The other day I was home for dinner with all of my little Spanish siblings.  Although we didn’t eat until 10:30, all of the niños were still bouncing off the wall, and dinner was interesting to say the least.  To be concise, dinner at my house consists of debates about what color parrot poop is (I mean, naturally, who hasn’t thought about that?), contests to see who is the slowest eater, and competitions regarding who can contort their face and or other parts of their body in the weirdest/most number of ways.  Pretty normal, right?  What is standard operating procedure for dinner at your house?
• On the topic of host siblings, yesterday I Skyped with my American family, and my host sisters barged in as I was about to signoff.  They said “¡hola!” to my family and then promptly demanded to see Cocoa.  I have talked to them about Cocoa before, and after seeing pictures they have become absolutely obsessed with my dog.  And, if Cocoa is one thing, he is definitely a people-pleaser, so he was more than willing to Skype with three adoring fans halfway across the world.  The girls loved it.  Earlier today Paula even asked me if she could talk to Cocoa today.  “You want to talk to my family in America again?” I asked.  No, just Cocoa.  Apparently my “perro” has become an international celebrity right before my eyes.
• I gained major points with the host parents today at lunch.  Major points.  Somehow we started talking about the last host student who lived here.  My deduction:  she was a total gem.   Here is what I learned:
  • She-who-will-not-be-named (who, I’m just going to put it out there, was not from Notre Dame…) had major attitude and, in my parents’ words was a “choque” (the Spanish equivalent of a “train wreck”).
  • She-who-will-not-be-named went out seven nights a week and slept through half of her classes.  Things got to the point that Yuki at the Fund had to call my mom out of dire concern for said deviant.
  • She-who-will-not-be-named never said “Hola” or “Adios” when she entered or left the house.  Apparently the only valid way Silvia and Daniel were able to know if she was home was by seeing if her bedroom door was closed or not.  She sounds like she’s full of all sorts of warm and fuzzies.
  • She-who-will-not-be-named had a boyfriend in America.  And in Spain.  And the Spanish boyfriend came over all of the time.  When he was over, Silvia and Daniel knew she was home because her door was closed.  That is all I will say about that one…
  • The family threw a birthday party for She-who-will-not-be-named, bought her a cake, and even sang happy birthday to her.  Yet, She-who-will-not-be-named did not say thank you or eat any of the cake…
  • … She-who-will-not-be-named probably did not eat any of the cake because apparently she did not eat anything at all.  Ever.  She only drank.  Which, just for clarity’s sake, is not the same as eating.
  • On the rare occasion that She-who-will-not-be-named did make an appearance and talk with my parents it was always to cry and complain to them that she had run out of money and that her parents in the States would not send her more.  As a result, she was without funds for a whole month.  After this, for some wholly inexplicable reason the Spanish boyfriend started coming over more often…
  • One day (or, more specifically, one day after she had already been living in Spain for several months…) She-who-will-not-be-named got lost in Polígono and could not find her way home.  So, she called Silvia, who calmly asked She-who-will-not-be-named for directions to where she as “lost.”  She-who-will-not-be-named could not provide Silvia with any form of directions.  So, logically, Silvia then asked She-who-will-not-be-named for a prominent land marker to help pinpoint her location.   She-who-will-not-be-named expertly picked out a pharmacy.  This is not helpful, seeing as there are more pharmacies in Polígono then there are Starbucks and Walgreens combined in any given Chicago suburb…  Silvia then talked on the phone with  She-who-will-not-be-named for an hour, googlemaped her 100 possible locations, and then finally located the lost puppy dog and brought her home.  As per usual She-who-will-not-be-named did not say thank you.
  • She-who-will-not-be-named spent her last night in Spain sleeping with a friend in the Fund.  Apparently she packed her belongings during the night and left without saying goodbye.  My parents woke up to a post-it note saying “¡Gracias!”  That was it.  Four months, and she said goodbye with a post-it note!  At least she finally said thank you for something…

Yeah, I’m feeling pretty good about myself right about now.  Thank you, She-who-will-not-be-named.  In doing nothing you have done more than you will ever truly know.

So, this has been my week!  Scintillating, no?  In other news, this Thursday I visited a beautiful monastery with my “Arte de Toledo class.”  Toledo never fails to amaze me.  Visiting the architectural site I learned about various artistic forms of gothic style, numerous historical tidbits about King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, and a plethora of information regarding Spanish architectural influences.  Amazing.  But, what was my main takeaway message from the excursion?  That my future house will definitely have an orange tree in the backyard…

* In case you didn’t see it clearly the first time…orange tree!

¡Hasta I return from Ireland next week!

Abrazos y besos,

Katie

P.S.  Here is the view from my classroom window.  I can’t complain.

Leave a comment

BARCELONA AND MY GAUDÍ LIFE

Posted on February 11, 2013

I love people.  I do.  In an apparently cliché yet seemingly genuine way, my abroad experience has continued to unearth certain elements and facets of myself that I have always known but have perhaps not fully embraced, and here I have wholeheartedly realized that I love people.  And nature.  And life.  Alright, now I sound like some sort of naïve little girl or hipster, but I don’t even care.  I’ve been hit with this inexplicable feeling several times during the last month (a month already!!!) where I just feel so good about the world, so connected to people, so alive.  For example, I was exhausted riding the bus from the school that I teach at to the Fund last Wednesday, but I just felt so good, so right about things.  I can’t explain it, and I don’t even know if I should try, but I have definitely grown to feel more anchored and present than I ever have in the past, and this makes me preposterously happy.

Case in point, I adore the women that I work with at my school.  I mean this in the best possible way, but the teacher’s lounge is literally the epitome of a roost full of clucking hens; these women constantly cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, with no foreseeable pauses or interruptions.  Although there is no apparent connective theme or relationship holding the volatile elements of the conversation together, there seems to be an unspoken agreement and source of understanding that hurtles dialog forward and forgoes the necessity to backtrack.  It is fascinating to watch and listen to, and it is especially entertaining when I try to engage and enter the conversation for myself.  Notably, this is the only apparent time when the exchange halts and reaches an impasse; apparently I’m still learning how to “cluck.” 

There is one teacher especially that never fails to put a smile on my face.  I don’t even know her name, but in my mind she is the mother from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, complete with a booming deep voice and an even more thunderous, resonant personality.  Life must be amazing, because this woman literally constantly smiles whenever she talks, and her loud raspy voice asserts her presence in a full, uncompromising way so that when she is present you know she is there.  Additionally, I always know when she is around because when she is present she is perpetually in my face.  Not in a bad way, but she is literally always in my face.  I have found that Spanish women are not familiar with the differences between public and private life.  Personal space means nothing to them.  Queue SNL’s “Close Talkers” digital short.  As a result, they “get all up in your business,” in the most endearing way possibly, of course.  I swear, in America this would be a game between immature friends or siblings:  “Does this make you feel uncomfortable…” Well it doesn’t; I actually kind of love it!

This woman, let’s call her Carmen (her booming personality and propensity to say whatever she is thinking reminds me of America Ferrara’s character, Carmen, in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants), loves talking to me, asking me things in English, and then erupting in endless laughter when she doesn’t understand my response but is still thoroughly delighted by the fact that the American girl made noises and talked!  It is a delightfully hilarious back-and-forth, really.  For example…

Carmen (in Spanish):  Katie, it’s freezing outside!  Why are you wearing flats?  Where are your socks!  If I were your mother I would kill you!

Me:  I’m okay, I promise!  I’m not cold!  (It was 60 degrees out…which obviously meant that every woman in Spain was donning her knee-length down puffer winter jacket.)  I made sure to check the weather this morning as I was getting dressed!

Carmen:  No coherent verbal response…  *Queue uninterrupted booming laughter and clucking.

I don’t understand.  She’s hilarious.  She loves to ask me things, then says she understands my response, and yet then she laugh uncontainably at what I say.  Right in my face.  As in “all up in my grills.”  It is one of the weirdest and yet somehow funniest personality traits I have ever encountered.  She also loves complimenting me on my clothes, petting my hair (yes, like a little dog.  I am her preciousssss.), and telling me I’m “guapa” (seriously, these Spaniards are going to give me some kind of complex when I return to the States…).  If the kids are having an off day and don’t make me laugh, then I know I can always count on Carmen for some comic relief.

Speaking of comic relief, I was thrilled on Wednesday because I made a classroom full of Spanish sixth graders laugh at me.  Intentionally.  I don’t even fully remember what I said (it had something to do with explaining the differences between Katy Perry and myself.  Obviously we are the same because we have the same(ish) name and are both from America…), but I produced a unanimous roomful of laughter.  It’s truly the little things in life.  If Charlie Sheen spoke Spanish I’m sure he’d comment #ganando.

However, when it comes to comedy, I have found that not everyone shares my sense of humor.  Although I essentially think everything is funny, I’d like to think I have a very refined appreciation for humor (okay, this statement doesn’t even make sense to me…).  Yet, sadly, apparently my siblings, Miguel and Lucía, do not have this in common.  Specifically, Wednesday night I returned home from school, ate dinner and talked with my host parents, and then started to head to my room to begin my homework.  I passed the living room and was sidetracked:  by SpongeBob.  I am by no means a procrastinator, but, for some inexplicable reason, if you sit me down in front of a couple episodes of Spanish-dubbed “Bob Esponja” then I cannot possibly bring myself to do homework.  So, naturally, I sat down and watched thirty minutes of SpongeBob with an 8 year-old and 5 year-old.  (It was the episode where SpongeBob tries to get buff and buys fake plastic muscles to wear to the beach, in case you were wondering.  I knew you were).  And, sadly, I thought the episode was hilarious, much more so than they thought it was.  One of the characters would say something, I would burst into laughter, and Miguel and Lucía would just look at me like “Who the heck is this girl?”  It was funny, I swear!  Apparently “Bob Esponja” is my Kryptonite. 

In other news, this week was “Carinval,” a popular and wildly ascribed to Spanish pre-Lent celebration, and this Wednesday a large group of Notre Dame students and I decided to go out in Toledo and join in on the festivities.  Now, Carinval is not for the feint-of-heart, and people really go all out in selecting, designing, and adorning themselves with elaborate costumes.  Since I did not pack a costume pre-Spain-departure (What on Earth was I thinking?!), several of my friends and I went to buy “costumes” at a local Chino (I’m not racist!  That’s what the stores are called here!).  I purchased an “elaborate” two-euro Venetian-esque mask complete with glitter and feathers that made me feel like I was blind and had some sort of facial deformity all night.  Nonetheless, it was extremely fun and interesting to see all the dressed-up Spaniards, and I had an amazing time.  Carnival really puts American Halloween to shame!  Let’s just say I already have a few Spain-inspired costume ideas for next Halloween…

This weekend we (and by “we” I mean a group of fifteen Notre Dame students…¡Hola, Cataluña!) traveled to Barcelona.  While I honestly think there is a very good possibility that every new place I travel will be my newest “favorite,” I absolutely loved Barcelona.  The relaxed beachy atmosphere, the Mediterranean, the countless number of art pieces by Gaudí:  Barcelona is wholly unique and magically other.

Friday morning my friends Maegan, Sarah, and I visited Gaudí’s “La Sagrada Familia.”  Hands down, this is the most exquisite, breathtaking, and inspiring church that I have ever visited.  Gaudí began building La Sagrada Familia towards the end of his life, and, seeing as he was unable to finish it after being killed by a trolley car, the larger-than-life piece of religious architectural artwork is still under construction.  Indeed, there are even cranes and scaffolding that semi-obstruct tourists’ views and impossibly complicate photo taking (Gaudí really should have planned that we were all coming and adjusted accordingly…how thoughtless of him).  We spent what seemed like a quick four hours touring the church, listening to our audio tours, and learning more about Gaudí and architecture than I have ever previously known.  It was fascinating.  Gaudí derived much of his inspiration from nature, and he erected the church to promote thoughtful contemplation, reflection, and self-discovery in conjunction with God and inspired by nature.  For example, the tall never-ending columns are meant to mimic giant trees in a forest that have established, wide-extending roots and reaching branches that open towards God in the Heavens.  So cool. 

After La Sagrada Familia, the girls and I elected to take a nice, long stroll back to our hostel, take in the sites, and eventually meander down “Las Ramblas,” Barcelona’s famous street notorious for cute shops, abundant flower displays, and pickpocketers.  We thankfully escaped robbery, encountered some of our friends outside “La Boqueria” (Spain’s largest outdoor food market), picked up some cheap dinner, and returned to our hostel to relax and get ready to go out. 

We ended up going to a discoteca named “Opium” which is located right on the coast in a part of town known as “Barceloneta.”  Apparently Opium is a relatively exclusive, popular nightclub that demands some sort of connection for free entrance and crowd control, and we didn’t know if we’d be able to get in.  However, one of my friends, Daniela, has a friend, Donny, from home that is studying in Barcelona, and for some reason (God only knows how) he had his name on the club’s “list.”  Before entering he told us that as long as we stuck with him and said the “code word” at the door, then we would be permitted entrance.  Doesn’t sound sketchy at all, right?  So, we all get to the door (all 15 of us Americans) and followed Donny’s lead.  So, doing as I was told (Don’t question it, just doooo it!), I walked up to the intimidating-looking bouncer, said “Hola,” and then proceeded to say the code word:  Michael Jordan.  Yes, the code word for the night was “Michael Jordan”:  I’m not making this up.  The bouncer looked at me, nodded, and allowed me to enter, completely “gratis.”  That’s right, I know a guy.  Thank you, Michael Jordan (and Donny).

Saturday we toured Gaudí’s famous “Casa Batlló.”  During eighth grade I distinctly remember watching Samantha Brown on the Travel Channel as she toured Batlló, which is modeled to resemble a house full of bones, yawns, and dragons with added inspiration from the Mediterranean Ocean.  I thought it looked amazing, and ever since I have wanted to see it.  So, Saturday I fulfilled my eighth grade dream and saw it for myself.  All I can say is that Gaudí was a genius.

The rest of the weekend we walked down Barcelona’s famous shopping streets (we may or may not have gone in several stores, including Burberry, and pretended to “shop” as if we could buy the whole store…), strolled through Gaudí’s Parque Güell, went thrift shopping (Hey, Mackelmore, can we go thrift shopping?), went out to dinner for tapas, paella, and postre, and walked along the beach.  Although we were only there for three days, I feel like we sampled many different facets of Barcelona’s culture (Gaudí, shopping, the beach, nightlife, food, etc.) and were able to acquire a good feel and appreciation for the amazing city.  As always, though, it was lovely to return to Toledo, be able to understand the language, and come home to a warm bed and a welcoming host family.  I love traveling to other cities in Spain, but so far nothing beats Toledo:  there’s no place like (*my Spanish) home! 

Leave a comment

“SOMETIMES I’VE BELIEVED AS MANY AS SIX IMPOSSIBLE THINGS BEFORE BREAKFAST”

Posted on February 4, 2013

¡Vale!  How is it already time to blog again?  Coming back from Portugal today, I was taking the Metro, and I found myself thinking, “Didn’t I just do this?”  Yes, actually I did, four days ago for my Madrid trip.  This is what my life has become:  four days of classes followed by three invigorating, action-packed days of travel, and a newfound relationship with the Metro.  Everything is beginning to blur together − the days, the weeks, the languages– and this, this “life” that I still often cannot believe that I am living, is becoming “normal.” 

No, scratch that.  Just as I begin to acclimate myself to something in Spain and make it part of my routine, then that thing wholly and irrevocably commits an about-face and changes entirely.  For example, just as I started to feel comfortable with speaking Spanish and taking my classes at the Fund, I began my teaching internship at a local grade school.  Through an internship course offered through my Education, Schooling, and Society (ESS) minor, I am working in a local school helping teach Spanish kids English for eight hours a week.  And, of course, it would take a grade school to make me realize that I essentially don’t know anything about Spanish.  I began this week, and I instantly realized something vital; I do not speak kid Spanish.  Yes, I can adequately, clearly, and even gracefully ask a native, “Dónde está la biblioteca?” (okay, maybe it wasn’t graceful per se…but is asking for directions ever really “graceful”?), but speaking Spanish with children is a whole new world of uncharted territory.  For example, when it comes to the bare-bone basics, such as asking a classroom full of preschoolers if they need to pee or poop (that is how the teacher told me to frame the question, no shame), I am completely and utterly at a loss.  And how can I consider myself a connoisseur and true student of the Spanish language if I cannot ask a roomful of little people if they need to go “number one” or “number two”?  Clearly, I have a lot to learn! 

I’m not going to lie, though, the one thing that definitely helps me feel better about my Spanish is listening to the Spanish teachers try to speak English.  Several of the teachers are currently learning English so they can then teach the young students the language, but their language acquisition process is far from flawless.   Interestingly, the majority of Spaniards who learn English learn the British variety (they don’t speak no Americano…) of English; as a result, many of the phrases they teach their students are utterly irrelevant to our form of communication in the states.  I would even go as far to say that, given the current dialect they are studying, if one of my Spanish children went to a US school and tried to pass for speaking English, they would promptly be given a wedgie and stuffed in a locker either for complimenting someone, “I like your slacks!” or asking, “Would you like to go to the cinema and eat biscuits tomorrow afternoon?”

 But, then again, I’m not sure that my students would even be able to get that far, seeing as they currently do not comprehend the fact that  “Hello” and “Hi” are, for all intents and purposes, the same thing.  Similarly, as I was leaving the classroom Monday afternoon I said “bye” to the students only be met with “cricket, cricket” noises, and the teacher informed me that they do not understand the word “bye”; they only understand the phrase “bye bye.”  Claro.  At least I’m not the only one who has some work to do…

But really, so far I love my internship.  Besides having the young students constantly tell me that I look “American” and pretty, (seriously, what am I going to do back in the states when I don’t receive this kind of constant validation?) working at the school is improving my Spanish in so many unforeseen and unprecedented ways.  I thoroughly enjoy working with the locals and learning more about Spanish culture, education, and colloquial ways of life, but the internship also provides me an opportunity to practice the language for an additional eight hours a week.  And, even after one day, I have definitely noticed a difference.  For example:

1. Monday night I was eating dinner with Daniel, and we were talking about a myriad of things from languages, to regional dialects, to the sports I played in high school, and we literally talked for an hour and a half.  Not only did the time fly by, but I was fully engaged in the conversation during the entire duration of “la cena.”  I could understand, I could speak, I could joke:  MY SPANISH JUICES WERE FLOWING. 

*Side note:  I think I have determined a valid way to assess whether or not you are adequately improving in the given language you are studying.  Just ask yourself this question:  Am I able to effectively employ casual sarcasm in everyday conversation and have people understand that I am, in fact, JOKING and am not, in fact, STUPID?  (Whether they understand the sarcasm or not is one thing…I’ll take not appearing as an blundering idiot as a success…)  If you can honestly answer “yes” to this question, then you are progressing!  Ten points for Gryffindor!  You go, Glenn Coco, you speak that language! 

All jokes aside, it was a great dinner and an even greater conversation, and afterwards Daniel even told me that it was our best conversation to date!

1. Tuesday morning I was sitting outside my house at the bus stop to commute from Polígono to Toledo when an older Spanish woman came by, said “hola,” sat next to me, and then preceded to have a conversation with me.  Now, I’m not saying this conversation was “normal” per se, but I A) definitely was able to casually converse with a local, and B) gave her the impression that I was either semi-Spanish or not-so-blatantly American, either of which I would accept as a “compliment” in Europe.  We talked, like normal Spaniards, about the weather, the seasons, and how cold it was.  Next she transitioned to speaking like a not-so-normal slash questionably-bothered Spaniard as she began to tell me that she is allergic to the sun and will often break out in uncontainable, vivid hives and swell to the size of a balloon if she is outside for too long, so she really hopes the bus comes quickly.  Naturally.  Because this is what I tell strangers who I meet at the morning bus stop.  And, in case you are wondering if I translated this conversation incorrectly, then I will ask you something:  Do you honestly think I could just make that conversation up? 

And, because I would progress in one language and regress in the other, apparently my English is starting to reform itself as my Spanish improves.  I’m not quite sure what this means, but the other day I was waiting at the bus stop in Zocodover to head home when I started talking to some of the University of Minnesota students who also attend the Fund and take classes in Spanish.  The girls were really nice, and we were talking (in English) when one of the girls asked me if I was from the Deep South.  No?  She was utterly floored by this:  apparently, I have a very prominent, noticeable twang.  Mmm, mmhmmm…  A twang, you say?  What is Spain doing to my Chicaaahhhgo accent?

I’m not quite sure that I know the answer to this question, but I do know that Spain is rekindling my affinity for soccer.  There have been several instances since high school that I have sorely missed organized team sports, especially soccer, and living in Spain (the epicenter of all things fútbol) has definitely reignited my passion for the game.  How can it not when everyone here seemingly eats, sleeps, and breathes soccer?  Being the “locals” we are, some of the other Notre Dame students and I have found a favorite bar in Polígono, which we frequent to get our fix of tapas, cervezas y fútbol.  This week Real Madrid played Barcelona, and the bar was packed with Spaniards who didn’t dare deflect their gazes from the television, a line of locals standing outside the glass windows who were drooling over the game, and a table-full of Americans howling at the screen with the rest of them.  Seriously, I’m not sure how we have acquired our current status at “El Metropolitano,” but Angelo, the bartender, definitely takes care of his own, and he has recently taken six awkward American students under his wing to nourish us with his seemingly endless appetizers one night each week for “the big game.”  Not too shabby.

Do you know what else isn’t too shabby?  Me going a full week without breaking and or destroying something in my host family’s house: neither pre-travel nor at all!  It’s definitely the little things in life.  That isn’t to say that the beginning of my weekend of travel still did not brim with excitement and anxiety though…  But aren’t those fleeting formative moments of apprehension and near-abject terror almost half the fun of travel?  ¡Por supuesto! 

I began my weekend trip to Portugal by incorrectly looking at our overnight bus’ departure ticket.  Thinking I had plenty of time to come home after class and go back Thursday afternoon, I didn’t even consider packing Wednesday night.  You can imagine my surprise (and stress) when I learned I had misread my ticket and was supposed to leave Toledo less than two hours after my last class ended.  This would be a comfortable amount of time if I lived in the Casco and did not have to commute twenty minutes each way to and from my house in order to pack and return to the station (that’s a round-trip of 40 minutes, assuming I made every bus on-schedule…which is risky business considering the fact that even the buses here are on “Spanish time” and seem to come and go as they please…).  Yes, this is not the case, and there was no way to avoid returning home to ready my belongings:  the race against the clock was on! 

Luckily Katie Mullins was in a similar predicament, and as we sat in our history class together we could practically feel the pressure of the ticking of the clock with every passing second.  A few minutes before class ended we started packing our things, and the second our professor stopped talking we literally bolted to the door, sprinted down the hall, and left the Fund running towards the buses in Zocodover like our lives depended on it.  Now, if this weren’t stressful enough, let me paint a beautiful picture for you:  two American girls running uphill (yes, the way back to the plaza is uphill…figures…) on ancient, narrow, painfully cobblestoned roads with our jam-packed backpacks lurching to-and-fro, our cross body purses thumping up and down against our hips, and our untied scarves flying in our faces as we raced past confused shopkeepers and elderly locals going for casual strolls.  My heart was racing as I finally reached the plaza and saw a bus pull up; it was my line!  I boarded the bus exasperated and flustered and mentally planned out my packing list to expedite my turnaround time.  Long story short, I made it to the Toledo bus station and met my friends onetime.  Sitting on the bus I found myself wondering what adventure awaited us if this was only the pre-adventure.

You Can Call Us Katie, Katie, Katie, and Kat:  Portugal

So Katie Mullins, Katie Raskob, Kat Kimmel, and I (yeah, it is a “Katie Club”, jealous?) successfully made it to Madrid so we could take an overnight bus to Lisbon, Portugal. (In a nutshell, our travel schedule went something like this:  take a bus to a bus, take that bus to the Metro, take the Metro to the bus station, take that overnight bus to Lisbon, take the Metro from bus station to a local street, walk from a local street to hostel…lather, rinse, repeat).  We had about two hours to kill in the bus station, so naturally we decided to relax and talk.  Thinking our bus would not be crowded (I mean how crowded can a night bus from Madrid to Lisbon be on a Thursday, right?) about fifteen minutes pre-departure we nonchalantly decided to go to the bathroom and then meander down to our gate. Apparently this wasn’t kosher.  We got to our bus only to meet an irate bus driver who spoke God-knows what language (it definitely was not Spanish…nor English…and that’s about all I’m good for…) and was (given what I was able to deduce from his body language) incessantly swearing at us for being “late.”  Okay, perhaps we should have arrived a little earlier, but, to be fair, we had a good five to ten minutes before we were supposed to leave and we didn’t have any luggage to store.  Frustrated, he said something I did vaguely understand that went something along the lines of “poor pretty girls.  They don’t know how to read…” and continued to make incomprehensible noises at us as we boarded.  (Later, on our return trip, we discovered that the fine print on our ticket said that boarding ends half an hour prior to departure.  Preposterous.  And who reads the fine print anyway?)

Contrary to our preconceptions, the bus was packed.  And, not only was it packed, but it was filled with the most random assortment of people I have ever seen in my life; I’m not just talking about ethnicity, I’m talking age, language, vibes-given, etc., but if the bus were a crayon box it would definitely be a 64-pack, and everyone would definitely be their own color.  Trying to appease our lovely bus driver, I sat in the first random seat I could find (I was sitting next to an interesting-looking person who definitely fit the “Laser Lemon” yellow crayon description…whatever that means…) and tried to make myself comfortable.  The other girls found seats scattered throughout the bus, but a couple of minutes later Kat and the man next to me thankfully switched places (who knew that Laser Lemons could be so nice?), and we settled in for an eight hour bathroom-less (a travesty which is probably related to my earlier discovery that Spanish people do not drink water) bus ride. 

After a long trip and a thirty-minute stop at what I can only deduce was a Spanish-style truck stop, we finally made it in Lisbon, took the Metro, and got off in an eerily fog-encumbered country.  It was actually pretty cool, but seeing as it was about seven in the morning, nothing was open.  We felt like we were in the midst of a Tim Burton movie trying to find our way to our hostel in a place where literally every street has no name (or at least no clearly marked name)…quality.

We finally made it to our hostel, thoroughly exhausted from a semi-sleepless night and yet utterly amazed by where we had ended up.  I can honestly say that “Destination Hostel” in Lisboa has forever ruined me for all future hostels.  Think gracious, hospitable staff members who speak what seems like an infinite number of languages and have lived in every country imaginable, clean, spacious rooms, a big, open communal kitchen, and an unlimited delicious breakfast of toasted rolls, jams, coffee, and fresh-Nutella covered crepes.  I’m pretty sure we ascended from the fog and stumbled upon heaven.  This sentiment was only reinforced by one of the magnets we found on the hostel’s refrigerator:

But really…

After breakfast we continued to our quest of uncovering impossible things and walked around Lisbon for a couple of hours before training to Sintra, a small town that is located about forty minutes from our hostel.  Sintra is breathtaking.  Essentially, it is where the Portuguese royals “summered” back in the day, and it teems with numerous gorgeous, castles tucked precariously into the rolling landscape.  We walked around town for a couple of hours and then took a bus to see the most popular castle, Pena, which is a vivid watercolor sunset of a castle, complete with vibrant yellows, reds, oranges, and purples.  We toured the castle for hours, taking endless photos of the fairytale architecture and stunning panoramic views.  It felt as if we had been swept away and gracefully placed into a Disney movie (In this vein, we may or may not have pulled out an iPod and played some of the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack…):  It was unreal.       

After we had toured for a while and were about to leave, one of the castle workers came up to us looking perturbed.  He asked us how long we had been there, and thinking we had exceeded some kind of picture-taking quota we said we were about to leave.  Then he did something surprising and asked us if we had seen the inside of the castle.  No?  Did we want to see the inside of the castle?  Of course we did, but we are poor college students studying abroad.  Apparently this wasn’t a problem, and he said that if we swore not to tell anyone then he would tell the lady who worked admission that our tickets had blown away in the wind.  Yes, all four of our tickets collectively and simultaneously blew away in the wind.  Excited, we followed him into the castle, silently giggled as he ushered us past the gate, and then began our tour:  completely “gratis.”  Yeah, we know a guy…

The next day we woke up, had our amazing breakfast (seriously, we all went to bed excitedly commenting that we were so close to eating breakfast again), and then took a trolley to Belém to see the monastery, church, coast, and Belém Tower.  Belém is a quaint town that is full of history, and it reminds me of San Francisco:  seriously, it has vivid colors, numerous trolleys, and what actually appears as a double of the Golden Gate Bridge.  Saturday was a fun, relaxed day of taking pictures, enjoying the sunshine, sitting by the Atlantic Ocean, and eating gelato as we walked along the coast.  Before heading back to Lisbon we treated ourselves to coffee and the locally acclaimed pastries (we had desert twice in one afternoon, yeah, that happened!) at Belém’s famous “Pastel de Nata” bakery.  What a perfect ending to an action-packed, adventure-filled, and impossible-esque trip.

2 Comments

¿DÓNDE ESTÁ LA BIBLIOTECA? MADRID AND OTHER ADVENTURES

Posted on January 28, 2013

Whoever said “time flies when you are having fun” must have lived in Spain.  I cannot believe that I have been here for over two weeks already!  Then again, maybe they did not live here, because between Spaniards’ delayed meal times (I eat lunch at 2:00pm and dinner at 8:30pm, time that are both considered “early” in the Spanish grand scheme of things), midday siesta, and propensity to stay up until the wee hours of the morning enjoying tapas, chatting with family, or watching fútbol, the days honestly begin to blur!  There are so many moving parts, and I am still not quite sure how they all work.  For example, it is very typical for the Spanish to stay up until 2:00am.  Awesome, right?  Yes, except when you still wake up at a normal time with the rest of the world…  When do these people sleep?!  I guess there is always siesta, but still…

In addition to my inability to comprehend this seeming sleeplessness, I cannot, for the life of me, figure out when Spaniards drink water.  Actually, I think I should reproach this mystery from the angle of “Do they drink water?”  Honestly, I have yet to encounter A) a water fountain, B) behold a Spanish person drinking anything other than Coke, Fanta, Beer, or Wine, or C) find a bartender who doesn’t look at me with an exasperated expression when I ask for “agua en un vaso” (water in a glass) because it is free and I am literally dying of thirst from their tendency to withhold water from the general population (cruel and unusual punishment?).  I didn’t know water was “a thing” in the States, but I always carry around my water bottle when I’m home.  Perhaps Spaniards have built-up some super-human tolerance so that they don’t need water?  Hmm, I don’t know…I’m still working on this case…

Last Sunday I went to mass at the famous Catedral in Toledo.  It was absolutely beautiful inside, teeming with sculptures, paintings, and intricate woodwork, but honestly I was a little surprised by the lack of participation during the mass.  There were less people present than I would have expected, and the music and spoken responses were dull and unenthusiastic.  Seeing as Spain is decidedly and notoriously Catholic, I didn’t quite expect this.  Perhaps it was just the time and “venue,” but mass seemed much more of a social scene than a religious one on Sunday.  Indeed, all the old Spanish women were dressed in their fur coats and donned heels, the men wore blazers and nice trousers, and everyone chatted afterwards.  It is really interesting to juxtapose mass here versus mass in the states, and while both have their pros and cons, I honestly think nothing beats the intimacy and community I find every week at Notre Dame’s dorm masses.  Oh no, now I’m getting Domesick…

Speaking of all things religious, one of the classes I am taking this semester is a theology course about the Spanish mystics.  The class predominantly consists of Notre Dame students seeking to fulfill their second theology requirement, but after having two full classes with Professor Santos, I can already tell that this class will be anything but a boring way to satisfy a requirement.  Hmmm, how do I begin to describe Prof. Santos?  Well, he is a skinny, gangly older man who is avidly and inexplicably passionate about what he studies and teaches, and this unparalleled zeal vividly oozes out of the very core of his being when he is at the front of the classroom.  I wish I could share pictures of his facial expressions during Theology class, but I can’t, so let’s just say I have honestly never seen anyone with Santos’ range of facial activity:  his face never stops moving!  His eyes are particularly intense, and he uses them to express his utter enchantment, fascination, and wonder of the subject he is teaching.  Indeed, after sitting in the first row front and center during the intro class, I kept thinking to myself, “Okay, Santos, you can break eye contact now…”  He’s that intense.  In addition to his vivid facial activity, the rest of his body never ceases to move either.  I’m pretty sure he believes that his appendages and intense corporal reactions are great teaching strategies, but I also think he is genuinely unable to contain his academic excitement.  Think Gollum meets, Tigger, meets an ADD kids with a candy bar:  the guy is literally all over the place. 

And, if this weren’t all great enough, he has a catch phrase too.  And it is quite an uncommon one, especially for a theology professor.  Indeed, after every couple of words Prof. Santos animatedly exclaims, “Joder!”  Alright, now I’m just going to qualify this by saying that 1) yes, this is considered a “swear word” in America (you can googletranslate it if you want, but it is akin to a certain palabra that rhymes with “Duck”), 2) this word is a lot more common and less severe than it is in the states, and 3) he honestly doesn’t mean to say it as a “swear”:  Santos is genuinely so excited about what he is explaining that he will say several things, pause dramatically, and then exclaim “joder!”  The first time we all heard it, we looked around smiling, thinking “did he just say what we thought he said…”, and then, before we could extrapolate a clear answer, he said it again!  It is more of a “Wow!  This blows my mind” than it is a curse, as in “Plato commonly questioned if things in fact exist as separate entities or if everything is merely a copy of everything else…JODER!”  In my mind, you can’t really be more passionate about your job than that.  So, yeah, I basically love his class!  Just another day in theology…joder!

 Speaking of more Americanized instances where exclaiming “joder” would be appropriate, I have already broken several things in my host family’s home.  Basically, I am just a graceful, delicate butterfly-of-a-girl who somehow cannot help but live life with reckless abandonment and passion the freedom of movement…  Or maybe I am simply, as my dad would like to say, “A bull in a china shop.”  Hmm, I think I’ll go with the first description.  But really, let me tell you about the “incidents.”  My poor host family…

Incident A:  Katie Puszka and the Not-So-Very-Friendly Porcelain Towel Hanger

Wednesday I had to get up early for Theology class (which, as you have recently gathered, I thoroughly enjoyed), and I wanted to shower beforehand.  The way my bathroom is set up, the bidet (also commonly known as “the great mystery” or “the weirdest invention in the history of mankind”) is right next to the shower’s sliding glass door, and I literally have to execute this complicated little dance of movements, body folding, and maneuvering to clear the bidet and get into the shower.  Yes, incase you were wondering, it is a very calculated and graceful procession of movements.  Well, Wednesday I was doing my dance, and I bumped (lightly, mind you!) the little porcelain towel-hanger that protrudes from the wall above the bidet.  It fell of the wall and crashed to the ground with a sharp shrill, exploding into a million pieces.  I just stood there, shocked, tired, and unsure of what to do…so naturally I showered.  When I finished, I found that the evidence was still there.  I don’t know why this surprised me.  As it was early and my family was still sleeping, I quickly got ready for class and scribbled note wishing my family a great day, explaining that I would be home for dinner, and adding that oh, by the way, I’m sorry about your towel holder…   I felt badly about it all, but when I later returned home and apologized again, they were very understanding and brushed my apologies aside with genuine hospitality.  Thank the dear Lord.  Now let’s just hope this streak doesn’t continue…

Incident B:  This Streak Does In Fact Continue:  Katie Puszka and the “Great Storm of January 2013…”

Literally one day later, lightning struck again.  Or at least “lighting” is the excuse I was hoping to go with.  Friday morning I had to get up really early to catch up bus to Madrid for the weekend, and in the haste of packing I tried to charge my camera battery.  Long story short, even with the proper electricity converter my camera battery doesn’t charge very easily in Europe, and I decided it would be a good idea to plug my American power strip into the converter, plug both into the wall, and then plug my charger into the power strip.  Well, it was a good idea in theory.  I didn’t even get the plug halfway in the outlet when my lights instantly flickered off.  Thinking that perhaps I simply wreaked havoc on my room, I proceeded to check the bathroom light, only to find that I had indeed successfully blown the power for the entire house.  I think this deserves a standing ovation… it really takes some serious skill. 

Then, as I stood in the hall trying to determine whether or not I could effectively shower in the dark, I heard my host mom coming down the hall nervously muttering, “La luz no funciona.  ¡La luz no funciona!  (the lights don’t work!).  I went to get my flashlight (thank you, Mary Lou Puszka…once again you are always right, and I do indeed have use for packing a flashlight…), and I helped her investigate the “mysterious” source of the power outage.  Even though she didn’t accuse me or ask me of blowing her electricity out, I felt the need to cover my tracks, and I casually suggested, “¿Había una tormenta anoche?”  (Was there a storm last night?)  Yeah, not one of my prouder moments…  I just didn’t have the heart to tell her that I had again devastated something else in her home (I’m a good person, I swear!)  We went to the hall, managed to successfully restore power, and then Silvia proceeded to return to bed.  At least now I know a little more about how electricity works?

 After this whole episode was finally resolved, I left the house to meet my friend, Kat, and walk to the place we were supposed to meet the Madrid bus.  Yuki, one of the staff members at the Fund, had provided us with what were supposed to be very clear instructions and a map, but for some reason the bus wasn’t in its expected location.  We continued down the streets of Polígono, in the semi-dark, trying to find a landmark with which to help reorient ourselves.  Yuki had told us that the spot was located near the library, so we honed in on finding that.  Now, let me back track and say that I find the phrase “¿Dónde está la biblioteca?” (Where is the library?) comical on a couple of different levels. 

1. In the movie Dodgeball, White Goodman famously jokingly asks, “¿Dónde está la biblioteca, Pedro?”  It’s funny.  More movie context is required, but for now just take my word for it.
2. When SNL’s the great Seth Meyers performed standup comedy at Notre Dame last semester, he described some of the comical difficulties and frustrations associated with learning foreign languages and “complained” that several phrases we learn in high school language classes are essentially useless for real-world purposes.  For example, take the the phrase ¿Dónde está la biblioteca?”  As Seth joked, “When am I ever going to travel to a Spanish-speaking country and have to ask someone, excuse me, but can you please point me in the direction of the library…?” 

Well, Seth, apparently that is not such a preposterous question after all.  So Kat and I are trying to find our way, and we see a local walking his dog, go up to him, and ask, “¿Perdón, dónde está la biblioteca?”  The second it came out of my mouth, I thought of Seth Meyers and started giggling.  One look at Kat, and I could tell she was thinking the exact same thing.  Well, we finally found the bus, but we couldn’t stop laughing the whole rest of the walk there.  Oh, American comedy…

  Next we bussed from Toledo to Madrid as part of a day trip with the Fund.  They took us to “El palacio royal” (The Royal Palace) where the Spanish royalty used to live, oh, lo siento, I mean “summer.”  The palacio was gorgeous, and the whole time I couldn’t quite bring myself to comprehend that people actually lived here.  As my friends and I initially climbed the grand, winding staircase we found ourselves imitating Disney’s The Princess Diaries when Anne Hathaway learns how to properly address her royal court and intricately dips her delicately-gloved hand and announces, “Thaaank you for being here today.”  (Yes, we did that, that actually happened.)   We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the building, but the rooms consisted of some of the most luxurious, outrageous, and over-the-top interior decorating that I have ever beheld.  There were more chandeliers, giant painted portraits, marble, intricate woodwork, inlaid gold, and velvet-laid walls than I thought could ever reasonably coexist.  My jaw remained perpetually dropped throughout the entire tour.

 Next, the Fund herded us to lunch at “El museo del jamón” (The Ham Museum) restaurant.  I found the hanging ham and the myriad of exposed ham legs (complete with hooves, mind you) particularly appetizing, and I ate my omelet (¡Hola, eggs!) with quiet gratitude.  Despite me electing not to try the main dish, it was still quite an experience.

After lunch we were free to explore the city for ourselves.  Most of the other students from Notre Dame and I had coordinated to stay the weekend in Madrid and use the next couple of days to see the sights.  We navigated to our hostel, checked in, walked around Madrid a little, and then went out for tapas.  Later, some people went to the famous club in town “El Kapital” and stayed out until 7am, but me and several others elected to get a good night’s rest and wake up early to explore the city.  And , boy, am I sure glad I did…

Katie Mullins, Katie Raskob, and I (yes, we are all named Katie…) began the morning by spending several hours exploring “El Prado” museum.  We felt very erudite and worldly admiring and reading about old paintings by Goya, Velázquez, and El Greco.  It was very academically satisfying to see first-hand artwork that I had learned about in both my Spanish and History classes, and we definitely enjoyed leisurely perusing the galleries and commenting on the “obras” as if we actually knew what we were talking about.

We left the Prado to discover it was a beautiful day outside, so we stripped off our coats, threw on our sunglasses, and headed to frolic in “El parque del buen retiro” where the royals commonly leisured back in the day.  The park is HUGE, and it has so many different facets that I feel like I am in a different storybook every few steps I take.  For example, when we first walked in, the numerous topiaries and fountains made me feel like I was in Alice and Wonderland, and I was half expecting the Queen of Hearts to come out and chase me. 

Then, we kept walking and encountered a quaint open area with brilliant architecture, trees, and people renting adorable little rowboats on a manmade pond.  We sat, relaxed in the park, and soaked up the sun before we stumbled upon my new favorite building:  El palacio cristal.  The building is entirely made out of crystal and is simply breathtaking.  I felt like I was thrown into a tangle of Disney princesses, The Secret Garden, and The Sound of Music, so Katie Mullins and I broke into a impromptu version of “You are Sixteen Going on Seventeen.”  Naturally.  I think I took nearly a million pictures of the palace, but I will never get over how beautiful it is.

Next, we headed to see if we could find tickets to what is the Spanish equivalent of a Broadway show, but we weren’t able to, so instead we went to a popular lookout and took in a view of all of Madrid.  Pretty amazing.

We finally picked up some food, made it back to the hostel, crashed, chatted with our other Notre Dame friends, probably fell into a food-induced coma, and then went out for churros and chocolate (Yes, I felt soooo Spanish).  I love Madrid.

In the morning, Maegan, the Katies, and I got up early and walked a few blocks to “El Rastro,” an outdoor market with various vendors selling craft-related items.  It was fun to shop around, people watch, and explore more of Madrid, and we stayed for about an hour before we hurried back to the hostel to pack and meet everyone else for the Real Madrid game. 

Let me just say, the game was absolutely AMAZING.  I have always wanted to go to a “real” soccer game, and where is a better place to do that than in Madrid?  As I walked into the stadium and saw the brilliant green of the grass, I think I about died of happiness.  Not to mention the fact that I got to watch Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the best (and most beautiful) players in the world score three times in a row for a perfect hat trick.  I sat with several of the guys in our group during the game, and the whole time I kept saying, “I want a header goal!  I want a header goal!”  Well, Ronaldo’s second goal was a perfect header directed flawlessly towards the back of the net.  Absolutely sick.  It didn’t hurt that the Spanish fans were unequivocally crazy with excitement, and even the little kids were screaming and going wild with fútbol fever.  In Spain fútbol is nothing less than religion, and if I didn’t fully understand this before, then going to a live game certainly made that clear.  The atmosphere, stadium, and level of soccer were unparalleled, and I still can’t believe that I went to a Real Madrid game! 

Royal palaces, museums, rolling parks, breathtaking panoramic views, tapas, and fútbol:  I could certainly get used to this.

Leave a comment

TRUE LIFE: I LIVE IN A STORYBOOK

Posted on January 19, 2013

I have been in Spain for less than a week, and I already feel pretty settled!  There have definitely been several Spanish-unique things to figure out (for example:  the various ways one can flush a toilet…who knew there were so many possibilities out there!,  the ins and outs of eating Spanish “comida” as a vegetarian, and, of course, the foreign language itself).  In a similar vein, I have found that doors in Spain are almost impossible to unlock.  And I mean impossible.  It’s not just me, I swear, (Ryan Puszka, I qualify this statement for your benefit:  contrary to your beliefs I do indeed know how to open a locked door….) as several of my friends experienced similar frustration while trying to help me get home.  You see, opening doors in Spain is a “dance” if you will, an art form very similar to Flamenco:  once must flawlessly memorize the various steps and necessary movements so as to execute the task in a fluid, natural manner.  I’m not exaggerating, here are the steps I have committed to memory so that I am able to open the door to my “casa” in the rapid pace of under thirty minutes:  in, slight right, down, hard left, slight right again.  Yeah, it’s a dance all right, but after a few days (and a ten minute practice lesson with my host dad) I have become a pro.  Who can open two Spanish doors in under two minutes now?  This girl!

And, while I have noticed that several little day-to-day things are different in Spain than at home, most things have proven to be universal and constant.  For example, while talking with my host mom the other day she detailed her busy day filled with work, child-centered activities (such as “parent meet the teacher night”), and other mundane, necessary tasks (such as getting the car inspected).  So, while things are definitely very different here in Spain, I find comfort in the commonality of humanity.  Humans are humans with the same tasks, problems, and joys, no matter where they live:  Life as a whole is (“mas o menos”) consistent.

What other deep, connective consistencies have I found between Spanish and American life?  Taylor Swift.  And “Sponge Bob.”  And “Gangam Style.”  But really….

Exhibit A:  Taylor Swift. 

Tuesday I got out of the shower while my host dad was blasting the radio preparing “la comida” (lunch).  It was a Spanish station, and I enjoyed listening to the music as I got ready for the day.  It was cool listening to the ethnic beat and translating the lyrics in my head.  Not gunna lie, even though I didn’t know all of the words, I felt prettyyy Spanish.  That all changed when the next song came on and I knew all of the lyrics:  “We are never, ever, ever getting back togetherrrr.”  Apparently, TSwift no habla español.  Hearing her song play on Spanish radio cracked me up, and from my room I could hear Daniel humming along to it.  Later I asked him about it, and he said that he didn’t understand the words but that he liked the beat.  This is what I call universality.  Hmm, I wonder if he would still appreciate the song if he understood the intimate, deep, well-thought-out lyrics?  “Like, ever.”  Yet, apparently Taylor Swift is a universal constant.

Exhibit B:  “SpongeBob Squarepants”

Growing up (and…uhhh…now), I loved watching SpongeBob on TV and laughing at his stupidity as he and Patrick caroused around Bikini Bottom.  Frankly it is a ridiculous, yet intriguingly hilarious show, and it only gets better in Spanish.  What do American children and Spanish children have in common, you might ask?  Sponge Bob.  Lo siento, I mean “Bob Esponja.”  I think it is safe to say that Sponge Bob is even funnier in Spanish than he is in English.  This may have something to do with the fact that the actor who dubs SpongeBob from English into Spanish sounds like a man who is over forty, chain smokes, and talks with a lisp.  Props, Spanish Nickelodeon, you really have an excellent sense of humor.

Exhibit C:  Gangam Style

After a mere week of studying abroad I have become so cultured and worldly that I am able to cross three cultural realms in one fell swoop:  I, an American living in Spain, have danced to “Gangam Style” (a dance of Korean origins) not once, but twice.  America meets Spain meets Korea.  Pretty impressive, right?  What’s more impressive is the pop cultural pull that “Gangam Style” seems to wield around the world.  Indeed, the other Notre Dame students and I broke out our best “Korean cowboy lasso moves” at a Spanish discoteca.  I again demonstrated my mastery of this Korean art form this afternoon when I came home to find my three Spanish sisters (ages 8, 5, and 4) dancing to the smash-hit and trying to sing along “in Japanese.”  Like I said, prettyyyyy impressive…

In addition to learning more about cultural differences and similarities, I am also finding that my Spanish has been improving, even in the few days I have been here.  While I can still understand a lot better than I can respond, it is becoming progressively easier for me to think and speak in Spanish.  Interestingly, I notice these improvements in small, quirky ways.  For example, I will have trouble finding the right word in English when I know the word in Spanish, or I will text friends and family at home in English interlaced with bits and pieces of Spanish.  Case in point:  my mom now knows that “lo siento” means “I’m sorry.”  As in, “I’m sorry for texting you in a language that you don’t understand, Mom…”

There have been several notable “breakthrough” moments of my language acquisition thus far.  The Spanish that I was taught in school is derived from a more Latin American dialect than the Spanish used in Spain.  As a result, several Spanish words that I know do not correlate with their respective Spanish words in Spain.  For example, when I was explaining my vegetarianism to my host mom, and I said I like “frijoles negros” (black beans) she just stared and looked at me.  When we finally made the connection she explained that, in Spain, beans are “judias.”  I thought I had committed this new word to memory, only to find otherwise.  Later, while talking to my host dad, I incorrectly said, “Me gusta comer judíos.”  He was really confused by this.  “You like to eat Jewish people?”   Yes, I am actually a Jew-eating vegetarian.  Clearly this is a learning process…

And, while I certainly have a lot to learn, I take comfort in the fact that my host family finds English even more challenging than I find Spanish.  The clearest example of this has to be how they pronounce my name:  “Kaaatieeeee.”  My host parents have it down, but the kids can’t quite seem to grasp it.  As a result, my four-year-old sister told me that because she couldn’t pronounce “Katie” correctly she was now going to call me “Julie.”  Naturally.  I can’t say I’ve heard that one before…

Similarly, this morning I woke up to my four sisters chanting “Kittyyy, Kittyyy, se llama Kitty!” outside my door (Kitty, Kitty, her name is Kitty!).  So, I am now officially “Julie.”  Or “Kitty.”  Or Katie….

Despite my Spanish family’s inability to properly address me by my give name, I am really excited by how well we get along.  My host parents both work long hours, and they aren’t always home, but when they are I really enjoy the conversations we have.  For example, one afternoon my host dad made me “Spanish Tortilla” (potatoes, onions, and the latest food to enter my diet…eggs) and we talked about religion and politics in Spain.  It was a pretty awesome conversation to have on my third day abroad.  I also really love living with four kids.  My family consists of two former families that each had two kids and came together as one (think Spanish “Brady Bunch” on a smaller scale), resulting with one boy and three girls.  And, I’m pretty sure the girls adore me.  They have demonstrated this adoration in the following ways:

• Lucía (age 5) literally tackled me to the ground with a hug when she first met me and then proceeded to give me a shell from her grandma’s favorite beach as a present.
• All three “chicas” barged into my room after I got of the shower the other day in preparation to go out and instantly started brushing, straightening, and twirling (also known as irrevocably knotting) my wet hair and then placing multiple headbands on top of my head and plastic bracelets on my wrists.
• Tonight I played a Barbie board game.  The game essentially turned into a session of “let’s put “makeup” on Katie.”  In case you were wondering, I can seriously rock pink lipstick-drawn-hearts all over my forehead.
• Daily I receive an endless number of hugs and kisses, and my lap is the new best seat in the house.
• They tell me that I am “guapa” (beautiful) every five minutes.
• And Paula (4) told me I have big teeth.  Thanks?

Yes, my Spanish siblings are quite entertaining.  And, living with children is honestly a great way to expand my Spanish vocabulary in contexts that I might not otherwise be exposed to.

In addition to a week of orientation, the beginning of classes, and settling into life with my host family, several of the other Notre Dame students and I decided to take a day trip to Cuenca, Spain on Friday (we don’t have classes, Friday:  Hello, travel opportunities!).  Cuenca is about a three-hour drive from Toledo, and it is famous for its “casas colgadas” (hanging houses) that precariously rest on the edge of the dramatic, majestic cliffs that loom high above a river.  Cuenca is GORGEOUS, and the houses are breathtaking.  Also, the “casas colgadas” notably resemble something out of A Series of Unfortunate Events.   Indeed, I was half expecting Count Olaf himself to walk out from the house and take us into his custody….

This literary theme continued as we walked past a beautiful plaza, cathedral, and house-lined river only to encounter the infamous Count Olaf “eye” symbol in this hills.  I’m not kidding; it was weird.  If you don’t believe there is some kind of Lemony Snicket conspiracy going on here, see for yourself…

Regardless of my interest in fictional connections, Cuenca is a small city teeming with color, beauty, and precarious living situations.  I felt like traveling there was like living in a rainbow, but I think that actually living there would be akin to a riding “The Tower of Terror” an infinite number of times, habitually waiting for the floor to drop out from underneath you…

In a nutshell, this, in addition to what seem like endless tapas excursions and siestas, is my Spanish life.   It’s unexplainable.  Everything is about the life I am experiencing around me is so rich.  I feel like I’m living in a storybook.  This is what happens when you send an English major to live in Spain for a semester…

Leave a comment

TOLEDO: A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS…

Posted on January 19, 2013

1 Comment

¡ESTOY EN TOLEDO!

Posted on January 13, 2013

After traveling over twelve hours and experiencing a seven-hour time change I am finally in Toledo!  Thankfully our flights were uneventful.  It was difficult for me to say goodbye to my family, but it was nice to have ten other Domers on my flight from O’Hare to JFK.  Next, we all converged at JFK and flew as a group into Madrid.  We arrived at 8:30am local time, which translates to 1:30am for me at home.  And, since airplanes are notoriously comfortable, I am exhausted.  Honestly, most of the Spanish I have been able to muster today centers around the phrase “Estoy muy cansada, lo siento” (I am really tired, I apologize).  And, while I am tired, my adrenaline cannot help but kick in:  I AM IN SPAIN!  AHHHHH!

We got off our airplane and walked through what was mostly a deserted Madrid airport.  Why was it deserted, you ask?  Well, for one thing it is Sunday, which connotes a change of pace for most Spaniards.  But more significantly we, as a large group of 24, actually missed the rush because we stopped to go to the bathroom, brush our teeth, and be “slow”, obvious Americans.

When we finally arrived to customs we prepared ourselves to speak our first official sentences in Spanish.  I had this whole dialog of answers to potential customs questions lined up in my head.  But what was I met with?

“¡Hola, señorita!  ¡Bienvenido a España¡  ¡Adios!”  (Hi, miss!  Welcome to Spain!  Bye!)

To which I skillfully replied, “¡Gracias!”

Moral of the story:  it’s safe to say I got this whole Spanish speaking thing taken care of…

Next we proceeded to baggage claims to retrieve our luggage.  Thankfully everything followed us over the Atlantic.  We then pretended to look like we knew what we were doing and found two of our program coordinators who excitedly greeted us and then herded us onto a coach bus for the trip from Madrid to Toledo!

The bus ride finally made it real:  we are in Spain!  Ok, it was real in a way that it only could have been for 24 sleep-deprived, hungry, misplaced kids who were being shuttled around Spain whilst Katie Mullins decided to play the ukulele to Michael Bublé’s “Everything.”  So, THIS is Spain.  This and the 100 stores for “muebles” (furniture) that dot the side of the road.  All sarcasm aside, when we finally turned the corner that revealed Toledo, we were all speechless (and not just because we were tired and hadn’t officially started speaking Spanish yet…).  Toledo is GORGEOUS!  The buildings resemble castles, and the town is completely constructed from stone and guarded in a vast, encompassing wall.  Amazing.

We drove as far as we could, and then the bus stopped in a parking lot and we were told to exit and help unload our luggage from the bus on to a…uh…I guess you could call it a fancy rickshaw.  This is necessary because the bus literally cannot fit through the city walls.  It was actually pretty epic.  We hauled our 50+ pound suitcases into the bed of this fancy truck only to be surprised as it retracted and lowered on a downward slopping decline from which we were to pile our “maletas” onto.  Seems reasonable.  So we did what was expected of us and got back on the bus.  From our seats, we watched as the bed of the truck/rickshaw/thingamagiggy restored itself to its original from:  as our luggage precariously and questionably slid from its holds.  When the bed finally made it to an upright position we all cheered…our luggage was saved!  This was going to be a good day.

We continued to ride the bus as it climbed up a side hill before we had to get out and trek the rest of the way on foot.  We met our luggage right outside the Fund, gathered it, and ventured into our “Notre Dame away from home.”  The Fund’s staff is great, and they gave us a tour of the school while explaining the rules, regulations, etc. in Spanish.  At this point several of us were about to pass out (no sleep + travel + new country + foreign language = quiero dormer ahora…), but we didn’t have to struggle to stay away when our program coordinator, Yuki, spoke to us about the “chemistry” we are supposed to have with our host families.  To paraphrase:  “If it’s not there, it’s not there.  You don’t have to like, for example, every boy or girl who is out there in the world.  You look around to see what works:  there are a lot of other good boys and girls out there, so don’t worry!”  Good to know!  Thanks, Yuki.

Did I mention Yuki is Japanese and speaks English and lives in Spain teaching Spanish at the Fund?   She really needs to work on diversifying herself and broadening her horizons…

After Yuki spoke, it was time to meet our host families.  She shepherded us halfway down the stairs where we proceeded to stop and look out at the main floor of our soon-to-be Spanish mothers.  It was like an amicable, good-natured stare-down.  “Are yooouuuu my mother?”  Yuki called us one by one and we greeted our host moms and or dads with “dos besos” (two kisses), one on each cheek.  We were told this was the polite thing to do.  Then we walked into the cafeteria and sat at a table with them, conversing.

“So you’re my kid…?”

Just kidding, they were really nice!  My host mom and dad are Siliva y Daniel, and they are extremely personable.  First question:

“You don’t eat meat or fish, right?”

“Correcto, lo siento.” (Yes, I’m sorry.)

“Do you eat eggs?”

*Hint:  I really don’t…ever…

Me (fervently):  “¡Sí!  ¡Por supuesto!”  (“Yes, of course!”)

I just couldn’t bring myself to tell them I don’t eat meat.  Or fish.  Or eggs.  So now I eat eggs.  And I did for dinner, true to my word.

Second conversation:

My host mom:  “Do you go by Katherine?”
Me:  “I prefer Katie.”

Silvia:  “Oh!  Katie!  That’s the name of the main character in the book I’m reading!”

Me:  “What book are you reading?”

Silvia:  “Un lugar donde refugiarse.”  By Nicholas Sparks.  Do you know him?”

Me:  “Do you know that we are going to be friends?”

It only got better when we left the Fund wheeling my gazhillion-ton suitcases fifteen minutes across the broken cobblestone streets and eventually arrived at their car that literally could only fit my big suitcase in the back…  Luckily, Silvia seems to understand what girls need to pack for a semester abroad, and she dismissed my numerous apologies of embarrassment.

 Siliva works in this building.  ¡Feliz Navidad!

As we drove from Toledo to Polígono, a band came on the radio, and I asked about it.  Then I got a lesson in Spanish Music 101.  Apparently Enrique Iglesias is overrated.  Also, in an attempt to demonstrate her awareness of American music, Silvia turned to a station that was playing Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing” and proceeded to sing it, in English, and then tell me, in Spanish, how beautiful it was.  Yes, I’m impressed.

We arrived to our house, I got a tour, unpacked, ate “comida” (queue the eggs), and then reviewed their rules and expectations.  Basically I am free to do whatever I want (no “reglas”), they just want to know what I’m doing so they know not to worry.  Awww.  And no parties in the house.  Wait amend that:  they said no parties unless they are invited.  These people have a sense of humor!  Also, apparently they will do my laundry.  If I put it in the communal “family” hamper every day, they will clean it, fold it, and put it on my bed.  Why does this mildly freak me out instead of elate me…?

I continued to unpack, set up WiFi (pronounced “WE FEE” in Spain), and get settled.  When I finally came out of my room, Silvia and Daniel were all dressed up ready to go out.  Apparently their friends just had twins, and they wanted to visit, and then they were going to the movies.  Honestly, that’s wonderful for me.  I’m going to bed!  ¡Buenos noches, Toledo!

1 Comment

¡BIENVENIDO A CHICAGO!

Posted on January 8, 2013

So I am going to be living in Spain for a semester.  Casual.

Although I am still home for one more week (or four days as my mom likes to remind me…see picture of family calendar below), it honestly hasn’t hit me yet.  SPAIN!  And, to be honest, it probably won’t sink in until I land in Madrid, arrive at my school, and meet my host family.  Only then may I actually realize:  I don’t think I’m in Kansas any more…

But, I’ll back up.  Through Notre Dame’s study abroad program I will be studying in Toledo, Spain, which is about 45 minutes South of Madrid.   Although I will live with a host family in Polígono (a suburb of Toledo), I cannot wait to explore everything this historically rich city has to offer.  Can you say castles and cobble stone streets?!

Although I plan to do and see a lot, this trip is not, in fact, merely “Katie’s four month adventure in Europe”; I will attend a university called “La Fundación”, or “the Fund” (“foo-nd”) for short, and all of my classes will be in Spanish.  I haven’t yet received my class schedule, as we officially register once we arrive at the school, but I am excited for this great opportunity to improve my Spanish.  I have been taking Spanish since high school, and I feel fairly confident in my comprehension and speaking skills, but I want to push myself to go that extra mile.  I was able to use my Spanish a little this summer while teaching in Park City, Utah (mostly decoding the students’ crude jokes…kids these days… and electing to translate “Call Me Maybe” from English to Spanish during one of my many long, scenic hikes…Can you blame me?  It’s catchy!), but I crave full immersion and exposure to the language.  Good thing I will be living in a country full of Spanish-speakers for four months!

To be honest, I am a little nervous about transitioning and bridging the cultural gap during the first couple of weeks, but I know this experience will allow me to grow in unprecedented and currently unrecognizable ways.  During my sophomore year I found a quote that I really love, “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone,” and it has guided my train of thought for the last several months as I prepare for Spain.  Let’s just say that soon I will fully and irrevocably be launched outside the border of my comfort zone.  Well, “hellloooo, life!”  Or should I say, “hola”?  It’s like those Spaniards have a different word for everything…

Another admission:  I am going to miss my friends and family like crazy.  It seems that Notre Dame embodies a special, unparalleled place inside my heart, and it will be quite strange to be away from campus during the school year.  And, while I will probably be just as “Domesick” as homesick, technology is amazing, and I know that I will be able to stay in touch and share my experiences during these next couple of months.  Hence this blog!

Did I mention that this is my first time blogging?  Please humor me as I try to figure out the kinks, but I plan on updating frequently and incorporating pictures to aid those experiences that I’m sure mere words will not do justice.  Similarly, this is my first time traveling outside the country (besides the Bahamas, does that “count?”), so I guess all-around this is a semester of firsts!  Stay tuned, because as I like to say, “It’s a crazy world, lots of smells!”

Pues, I should probably get back to what I was doing:  packing and listening to Country music, my favorite!  Hmm, I wonder if Spaniards like Kenny Chesney and Zac Brown Band…

I promise to write soon!

¡Abrazos y hasta luego!

Katie