The Honeymoon

I am here in Salamanca and absolutely LOVING it. According to this chart, I am experiencing what is called the "Honeymoon Stage" of my study abroad experience. 

Also according to the chart, I should eventually progress on to the terrifyingly named DISINTEGRATION stage where, I assume from the name, I crumple like a pile of sand as my cells no longer hold together. Hopefully that won't happen. 

Our bus got into Salamanca Friday evening and I met my host family, which, so far, was the most nerve-wracking part of this entire trip. There is no non-awkward way to meet random strangers that you're going to be living with for three months. However they are super nice and everything is going fine. My Spanish family consists of a married couple, Lidia and Felix, that are in their 70's, and their grown son Juan. Juan doesn't live in the apartment, but he comes over for lunch and dinner so I see a lot of him. My biggest fear was that I wasn't going to be able to communicate with them but it's not so bad. I understand Lidia very well, and while I have a harder time with Felix and Juan, even over the course of this weekend I've found that I can understand them better. I guess it's just getting used to the way they talk. I think they're pleased by how well I can understand them and speak, since they've hosted many students before and I'm sure they've had people who've come with a lot less Spanish than me. 

My room is actually set up to hold two students, but Lidia told me that something happened and the girl I was supposed to be sharing the room with couldn't come to Spain. Therefore I have a bedroom and a bathroom all to myself! It might have been nice to have a roommate for kind of a moral support, but on the other hand, the lack of one forces me to only speak/listen to Spanish in the apartment which will be very beneficial. 

I am slowly adjusting to the Spanish schedule which is quite different from America's especially in terms of meals. The big meal of the day is served for lunch, which is at two in this apartment. Dinner is a smaller affair and is served later around nine. Lidia likes to serve me a lot of food so I can actually hold out that long pretty well. If I get hungry in the evening I can also meet some of my friends for tapas or ice cream en La Plaza Mayor, the central hub of the city. 

La Plaza Mayor

In addition to meals being later, Spaniards party much later too. Much later as in they don't go out until one and stay out until six in the morning. No wonder we have a siesta time during the day :) All in all I'm having a great time so far. I'm taking my placement test in the morning and my first class is in the afternoon. That of course means that I should get off the internet and go to sleep so I'll leave you with this lovely picture of Salamanca from across the Rio Tormes. Hasta luego! 

Note the reflection in the water. Que bonita!

Finally in Spain!

Hola from España!

Yes I am finally in the country that I will be spending the remainder of the year in! However, I still haven't reached Salamanca, that's not until tomorrow. I've been orientating in Madrid with some of my group since Tuesday, though we've also been making day trips - such as to Toledo today. There are seven other people here in Madrid, the rest came early for intensive Spanish language classes and are already in Salamanca. However, I've liked having a smaller group. It's made touring easier and we've gotten to know each other better than we would have with a larger group. Everyone seems pretty nice and will be good company for the semester.

I've been using my Spanish a bit, probably not as much as I'll be using it in Salamanca when I have classes and am speaking with my host parents, but I've been talking to the shop keepers and some of the students in my program. I've been finding that I understand a lot more than I did when I visited Spain for a week two years ago after Senior year in High School which is reassuring. People here, just like everyone else I've met in my travels, has been very helpful in giving directions and communicating with the Spanish I know and the bits of English they know. For example, my purse is falling apart and I needed safety pins to fix it. I was in an office supply store to buy a notebook, and thinking they also might have safety pins was looking around for them. A man asked if he could help and I managed to communicate what I needed, and he drew me a map to a store that sold them. I also learned the word for safety pin in the process - imperdible. I can see how my Spanish is going to improve rapidly by being surrounded by it all the time; I also think I'm starting to pick up the Spanish lisp eek!

In other news the weather has been gorgeous here - sunny and warm; it's been a return to summer after three rainy fall-like weeks. The sites we've seen have been pretty interesting too, especially El Prado Museum. I could have spent several days going around - so much great art! We had a really awesome tour guide too; she had just the right mix of fun facts and information without dragging it out long past when it was interesting. Once again it was really cool to see things I've read about in real life, like the Vasquez painting Las Meninas and the Goya painting The Third of May 1808. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the museum so unfortunately I can't post any, but if you look them up online they will definitely be familiar.

I'm not sure of my internet situation in Salamanca - whether I'll have internet at the house I'll be staying in or not, so I'm not sure when the next post will be up. However by that time I'll have met my host parents and maybe even started classes so I'm sure I'll have a lot to say.

Hasta luego!

My group at the train station in Madrid waiting to go to Toledo

A Lovely Weekend Avec Mon Amie

Since I've been madly traveling for the past couple weeks, its been nice to spend this weekend just relaxing and hanging around with my friend Katherine in Chambery, the town in France where she's studying abroad. I've also been able to delegate my foreign language speaking duties to her since she's here to study French making her language skills vastly superior to mine. That's not to say I can't make myself understood when needed. At the train station in Lyon it turned out that the ticket agent didn't (or wouldn't) speak English, but I managed to have enough vocab to buy a ticket, and I ended up in the correct town so I guess I was understood!

While a large part of my weekend has been lounging around, Katherine and I have gone out and seen some of the sights in Chambery. There's a big fair going on this week so we went to check it out. A large portion of it seemed to be people selling mattresses or hot tubs, two things we weren't necessarily in the market for, but there was a cool exhibit about King Tut. Going through it, neither of us had enough French to figure out whether it was actually the relics from the tomb since they looked pretty legitimate, but a county fair would be a really bizarre place for them to be exhibited. When it came down to it, we weren't really sure how impressed we were supposed to be. Coming back to Katherine's apartment, we googled it and determined that it was just replicas of everything, so while the exhibition was neat, it definitely was not as cool as it would have been if the relics had been real.

Entry to the (not real) King Tut exhibit

We also went to the local chateau that used to belong to the Dukes of Savoie. The region of Savoie, where Chambery is located, actually has a very interesting history. It was an independent territory for a long time and was swapped back and forth between Italy and France before ending up in France as it is today. At one point the capital of the Savoie region was actually Turin which is presently a city in Italy. It's pretty interesting to think about. The chateau was very nice; there were some older parts that have been preserved in a historic state, but some parts are still used today, like they were in the past, by the governing body of the region. Of course this information is somewhat of a conjecture on my part as the signs and tours were in French and I didn't totally get what was going on. We did get to climb to the top of one of the towers though which had a very nice view of the town and surrounding Alps.

While I've had a lot of fun traveling around, I'm definitely ready to stop living out of my backpack and get into a routine again, so I'm glad to be heading to Spain on Tuesday. I'll get orientated in Madrid and do some sight-seeing there with my group before heading to Salamanca for the remainder of the semester. I'm excited to learn about my class schedule for the fall and start practicing my Spanish, the real reason I'm in Europe in the first place. Next time I update, it will be an hola de España!

Here, There, and Everywhere

So since I have last updated this blog I've been to three more places: Kinderdijk in the Netherlands, Brussels, and Lyon. What this translates to is A LOT of train riding for the past few days. Tiring, but a lot of fun and I've gotten to see some pretty spectacular sights.

Kinderdijk
It was difficult, to put it mildly, to get here. Difficult as in my guidebook, despite being published this year, was out of date and compounding the problem, I don't read or speak Dutch, which is unfortunate when trying to decipher signs and train schedules. However even if I had understood and perfectly followed all directions, I would have still needed to take two trains and two buses. In the end, after probably doubling the supposed traveling time I finally reached the most typically Dutch thing out there after wooden shoes. And it was pretty spectacular.

Brussels
I hadn't planned on going to Brussels, but after three days in Amsterdam, I felt like I had seen the city and had one extra day to play with. Since I had to connect in Brussels anyway on my way to Lyon, I decided to go a day early and check out the city. I'd give Brussels the title of "Typical European City," in fact I actually did say that when stopped by a student taking a survey of tourists. It has it's old cobblestoney parts where the buildings are grand and ornately decorated, and it's modern parts where the skyscrapers look like skyscrapers from anywhere. Nice but pretty average.

One thing that Brussels does have that no other city has is a famous statue of a small peeing boy. Manneken Pis is it's name and that statue and copies of it have been in the city for hundreds of years. To add to the silliness is that fact that the statue has outfits that it wears - over 750 outfits in fact. Apparently a new outfit for the statue is a pretty common diplomatic gift to Belgium. His outfits are stored in one of the city's museums and you can so see them, which I did. It's a pretty fun concept especially for a leaders of nations to be apparently pretty enthusiastic about.

Unfortunately, not wearing an outfit the day I visited

Lyon

Lyon is a lovely city, and I'm having a good time wandering around it and badly mangling the bits of French I remember whenever I'm spoken to. One thing though, my hostel and the sites I wanted to see are all located on Fouviere hill. You wouldn't think this would be a problem since I live in Burlington and pretty much have to walk uphill wherever I go, but this hill is A LOT STEEPER than the hills in Burlington. So much so, that some of the roads are actually just steps. 

Pictured: A street

At the very top of Fouviere hill is a gorgeous church built around the same time as Sacre Coeur in Paris and for the same purpose: to give thanks that the Prussians didn't sack the city in whatever war they were fighting back then. While I find Sacre Coeur lovely on the outside but not that spectacular on the inside, Notre Dame de Fouviere hill is both gorgeous outside and in. The walls and floor inside are almost totally done in mosaic, the ceiling is painting, and gilt and turquoise seem to be the overarching decorating scheme for the detailing making the inside glisten. Stunning and not something that cameras can capture very well, but never the less I tried. 

One day without trains it all I'm getting, I'm back on them tomorrow, but not for long. I'm just heading over to Chambery to visit my lovely friend Katherine! 

Architecturally Appealing Amsterdam

Greetings from Amsterdam!

In spite of battling a cold and being a bit lonely, I'm having a lovely time here. This is an adorable city and my absolute favorite part of it is the canals and architecture of the houses lining them. Interestingly, all the ground that the city is built on is very marshy and unstable. You would think it would be very unwise to build houses here in the first place, but since it's after the fact, it's neat to see how the builders cope with such unsuitable terrain. Every house is actually built on pillars, lots of concrete (previously wooden) supports that sink down the twenty or so meters needed to hit the solid ground underneath. In this way the houses should remain stable, but that actually doesn't prevent them from leaning, as I've seen walking around the city and on my canal tour today. I tried to take some pictures to show the leaning, but it's harder to see in the photos; it's much more pronounced in real life - almost to a Dr. Seuss effect.

I'm not sure whether any houses actually fall down, or what the authorities do when it happens, but I sure wouldn't want to live in one of the leaning houses!

Another interesting Dutch architecture feature, at least from back in the day, is their obsession with symmetry. I've toured some of the older buildings that have been preserved from the Dutch Golden Age, and a common theme with them is the inclusion of fake doors in rooms. This is done for the sole reason of making the interior of the room symmetrical. For example if their's a real door on the right side of the wall, the owner would then have a fake door installed in the left side of the wall. Sometimes the doors were even disguised in the case of one door in the Van Loon Museum. On one wall was a large fireplace, and so to make the room match, they had the frame of a large door installed in the wall directly across from it. The actual door makes up part of the fake door and part of the wall, as you can see in the next picture.

The definition of an interior design perfectionist

Other notes - this is a great city for art lovers! One museum, the oldest in the city called the Rijkmuseum, has a great collection of works from the Golden Age Dutch masters: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Jan Steen, and many more. A side note - all the museums in Amsterdam seem to be under construction/being restored, but this actually worked in my favor in the Rijksmuseum. Instead of wandering the miles of corridors, I had all the most famous works conveniently grouped together in one hall. In addition, there is an entire separate museum dedicated just to Van Gogh, called, unsurprisingly, the Van Gogh Museum. This museum was set up with his works in chronological order, giving an interesting perspective into the maturation of his style, and also with the mental illness he suffered from. 

Amsterdam is a small city, especially in comparison to my recent sojourn in London, and so I've seen all the highlights in the three days I've been here so far. Therefore after my planned excursion out into the Dutch countryside to see the windmills tomorrow, I think I'm going to cut Amsterdam a day short and head to Brussels. I'll keep you updated!

More English Thoughts

My current location is now Amsterdam and I've had a busy first day here, but I'm going to time-travel back a couple days and finish up my time in ENGLAND!

Stonehenge

I went into this preparing myself to be disappointed, since I've heard it's a little bit like a Mona Lisa letdown, only in this case, instead of being way smaller than expected, the let-down is that you have to stay too far away from the stones and can't examine them really well. However, I thought they were REALLY, REALLY COOL. My dad and I had taken a train up to Salisbury (the town closest to Stonehenge) and from there took a tour bus to the site. The bus was driven by a man who looked like he was the lead guitarist in a punk band in his spare time and this impression was reinforced by his driving style which seemed a little wild. The bus ticket included admission into the site, which is in the middle of a bunch of fields with sheep grazing in them. I really liked that the stones were a little bit isolated and not surrounded by some commercial center or something. It added to the mysterious atmosphere. Additionally, I thought we were able to get pretty close to the stones. I mean I would've loved to climb on them, but that's why they're roped off, so people like me don't try to get to the top of the archway. With my audio guide telling me what researchers know about the stones (a lot of unconfirmed nothing), it was pretty easy to transport back in time to when whatever ancient people (NOT the Druids according to my emphatic narrator) built it for whatever purpose. 

Changing of the Guard

This is one thing that all tourists in London are required to go see. It's a rule. So of course Dad and I wandered over to Buckingham palace one morning to witness the ceremony, a dignified exchange of the arguably most important task in the land, guarding the life of the Queen, it was a serious, regal occasion... just kidding. It started out as I expected, with the old guard all lining up and the new guard marching in to the music of a band. Then instead of quickly swapping places, the captains walked around for an indeterminable time while the band played... Thriller? What? Yes, as the soldiers marched around in their crazily tall hats, the marching band played September by Earth, Wind, and Fire, 76 Trombones from the Music Man, Thriller, and many others. This went on for over half and hour without any end in site, so eventually Dad and I left. It was neat for a little bit, but then in the words of Monty Python and the Holy Grail "Get on with it!"

St. Paul's Cathedral

You may think that once you've seen one cathedral you've seen them all, but that most definitely isn't the case with St. Paul's. This was a very cool cathedral, and different from others in design. It was built more recently (as in late 1600s early 1700s), so the architectural style had moved away from the typical arches to a domed design. There were some fantastic mosaics on the ceilings, but the best part was you were allowed to climb up to the top of the highest dome, 546 steps up a narrow winding stairway. It was a little nerve-wracking but the views of London from the top were worth it. 

You can see the Eye and Big Ben to the left of the Thames

Millennium Bridge going to the Tate Modern with the Globe to the left

Dad and I on top of St. Paul's

All in all we had an excellent time in London, definitely a city I'd recommend seeing at some point if you can; there's just so much history in it! Farewell for now and up next is Amsterdam!

In Which We Speak American...

At this point I'm about halfway through my trip to London with my dad, and am now able to start stories with the following:

I remember this one time in England when I was having a Guinness in a 700 year old pub and....
So this time I attended a play at the Globe and...
I remember this one time I was having afternoon tea at the Tate Modern and...

and so forth. In other words, were having a fabulous time.

London has so many absolute must-sees, it's hard to fit them all in on one trip, and even harder to adequately describe each of them so I'll just stick to a few of the sites we saw that either made me think or exceeded my expectations.

Number One: The Houses of Parliament
First of all, you aren't allowed to take pictures in the majority of it, so I don't have illustrations of the decorations on the inside, but believe me, they were over the top. The current Houses of Parliament were built, for the most part in the late 1800s after a fire burned down the building before that, and were built specifically for Queen Victoria, so there are a lot of portraits and other references to her in the decor. Beyond the ornamentation, which was beautiful, the building gave off, in my opinion, a rather condescending air. Maybe it's just American egalitarianism, but I can easily see how our Founding Fathers tired of all the pomp and circumstance surrounding the tradition of British governance, especially when there is still a House of Lords that is not elected, but rather selected from prominent members of the House of Commons, or other prominent members of society. Not to say that's actually the feel when the ministers are actually governing, but  I do enjoy being able to feel superior about our form of government.

A juxtaposition of old and new

Number Two: The British Museum 

This was a fabulous stop, I adore museums and could have spent days in there. In fact, I spent about an hour in the first hall, before Dad reminded me, that there was another 60 or so rooms to see and we should probably move on. The first hall happened to be a hall of objects from Egypt, and as I'm sure anyone who took Who Owns the Past? with me last year immediate thinks, like I did, 'LOOTING? SHOULD BRITAIN OWN THEM? DOES ANYONE HAVE THE RIGHT TO OWN A BODY(MUMMY)?' At least that's what I was thinking, not only for the Egyptian artifacts, but also the Assyrian wall freezes (my favorites), the ELGIN MARBLES, and many, many other things. This didn't prevent me from greatly admiring everything though, as I said, we spent a very long time there, and I would definitely go back again. It is however something to thing about though, whether the dead really wanted to end up on display in a foreign country. 

Another example of "Jenny always finds something horse related everywhere"

The Rosetta Stone

Number Three: The Globe Theater

Dad and I also went to the reconstructed Globe Theater to see Doctor Faustus which, while not a Shakespearean play but rather by his contemporary Christopher Marlowe, and very good. The theater was reconstructed as it would have appeared back in Shakespeare's day, and the thing that I found really cool about it, was that the interior was very well decorated. The walls and pillars were intricately painted, as were the curtains. I was expecting something a lot plainer, and was pleasantly surprised about how pretty it was. Dad and I splurged and rented cushions for our seats, which were definitely appreciated after a day walking around the British Museum. It was an incredible experience, and would highly recommend it for anyone taking a trip to London. 

Some of the painting in the Globe

Whew, that's all I can type for now, Dad and I have also been to other cool places like Westminster Abbey and Stonehenge, and were off to Buckingham and the Tower of London tomorrow so stay tuned for more pictures!