In Which I Butcher the French Language Yet Again

One of the many perks of living in Spain is that I can do things like take weekend trips to Paris. A bus ride to the Madrid airport and a short two hour flight later had me landing in the City of Lights last Thursday along with my study abroad group. I proceeded to have an absolutely wonderful time, cementing my choice of Paris as my favorite European city. It's so hard to capture Paris with just photos, so for this city you get videos! There is a special feeling in Paris that you don't get anywhere else, something magical and exciting, which is exactly what I squeal in almost every video on this post. Just a heads up.

Last time I was in Paris, I climbed the Eiffel Tower in the daytime, so to switch it up I wanted to go at night this time. After dropping by the hotel long enough to throw our bags into our rooms, some of my friends and I rode the metro over to the Tower. Even though we couldn't go the whole way to the top since it was too late, we could still ride the elevator up to the second level and look out over the city that way. It was gorgeous and in my opinion a lot cooler than climbing it during the daytime. It's not for nothing that Paris is called the "City of Lights."

Since I had been to Paris before, I tried not to do all the exact same things. Therefore, instead of just going inside Notre Dame (for free) I also paid to climb up it. Similar to how I preferred the Eiffel Tower at night, I preferred the outside of Notre Dame to the inside. Sure the inside is grand and the stain glass is fantastic, but I've seen so many grand cathedrals in Europe, and the stain glass of Sainte Chapelle can't be topped. However, no other cathedral I've seen has such an interesting exterior. The gargoyles add a lot of character to the outside, they're all different and some are carved so it looks like they are gazing out at the city. I ended up with about twenty pictures of gargoyles on my camera since each one was unique. As an added bonus, you also get to go inside one of the bell towers to look at one of the massive bells hanging there. 

The Catacombs were also new to me this trip. According the the cute French man who tried to flirt with my friend and me in the catacombs gift shop, there are over 6 million skeletons down there. Apparently back in the day, there was a large graveyard in Paris with so many bodies that it was causing the neighbors to fall ill. The bodies were dug up and moved to an old quarry that was at the time outside of the city. The highlight of the visit to the catacombs was when I tripped and caught myself against the skeletons. It was rather alarming and I'm sure my face was hilarious. 

This is the cemetery in the neighborhood on Montemarte. I was here on my last visit to Paris, but liked it so much I returned. The crows calling added to the graveyard atmosphere this visit and I tried to capture the sounds in the video though I'm not sure you're able to hear it very well. 

I'd have loved to spend more time in Paris, really the Louvre itself requires about a month to go through. Maybe sometime when I have zillions of dollars I'll go live there and spend all my time eating crepes and sitting on the Seine. Something to aspire to for sure. Hasta luego!

Class? What's class?

So believe it or not, I'm actually attending class here in Spain in addition to traveling around and generally goofing off. However class in Spain is much different than class in the United States. I don't know whether it's because I'm not taking any science classes and am experiencing what you could refer to as a "liberal arts" education this semester, or whether it's because Spaniards in general don't take university as seriously, but whatever it is, I'm unnaturally relaxed and not-stressed about my classes this semester. It's a nice change.

I'm taking four classes: literatura española, arte español, historia de España, and el mundo árabe en el mundo hispánico. All of them are taught in Spanish, but are classes specifically for international students so all the teachers know not to get too crazy with their Spanish. However, I've understood the teachers perfectly from the get-go so a language barrier hasn't been a problem at all. I only have the classes twice each week and each class is two hours long with a 10 minute break in the middle because God forbid we learn for more than one hour straight. The majority of my grade for each class is going to depend on a mid-term and a final, which composes about 80% of the grade, then depending on the class, attendance/participation is taken into account, and I think I might have a couple presentations. So far no homework or papers yet. 


My literature class was probably the one I was looking forward to the least going in, but the only one I HAVE to take for my minor at home. It's probably still my least favorite class but it's growing on me and I really like the professor. We always seems to go into side discussions about different words or actions that are rude here in Spain (stretching in public? whoops!) which is very helpful to know. We're currently working on analyzing short stories and poems which isn't my favorite in English and still isn't my favorite in Spanish, but every once in a while must be done in the name of being well-rounded. 


I've never taken an Art History class before, but I also need one for UVM (general requirement) so I figured I might as well get it out of the way here in Spain! The class is different than I thought it would be. Apparently the fall semester does art up until the Renaissance, and spring semester does the Renaissance on. That means I don't get to study Velazquez or Goya like I wanted, since they are both post-Renaissance artists. However the class has been more interesting than I thought, and we spent the past week learning about the different characteristics of Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals. This was pretty awesome since I've seen approximately 4 billion cathedrals in Europe, and now I'll be able to pick out different features in them! Of course I only know the terms in Spanish now (I had to go look up the term Romanesque to see what románico translated to in English) but it's still pretty exciting. Also apparently we get to take a field trip tomorrow to Salamanca's two cathedrals (one románica and one gótica) and field trips are always fun. 


My favorite class is my history class. I love history and wish I had time to take more classes in college. This class also started back in prehistory like my art class and we're slowly making our way forward. I say slowly since this is another class that often gets off track. We spent a large portion of class on Friday listening to Spanish music. We also are talking a lot about current politics since Spain is having a general election in November and it is widely expected that the PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español) is going to lose to the PP (Partido Popular) since the economic crisis has hit Spain pretty hard and the people aren't very happy with the current government. However a lot of people I know here aren't too happy about the predicted change since the PP is a more conservative party and is expected to cut a lot of the benefits that Spaniards enjoy. 


Finally mi árabe clase. I still feel like I don't have a good grasp of whether or not I like this class since I've really only had it three times. The semester officially started at 4 on Monday the first week, so any classes I had before then (like this one) didn't meet. That first week the professor was out of town or something so we had a sub on the Wednesday of that week. Then last week we had a holiday on Wednesday so I missed this class again. So after three weeks I still can't really judge whether I like it or not. All I know is that our exams are take home so I don't have to worry too much about memorizing random things which is nice. 


All in all, I'm enjoying my classes here. They're interesting for the most part and give my days some structure. However, that doesn't mean I'm not super excited to miss my Thursday and Friday classes this week to go to Paris!!! Better break my French back out so I'm prepared to deal with some Parisians! Au revoir! 

Country Clothes Wearing

As a nice break from visiting cathedrals and ruins and other such things (though I do enjoy it, don't get me wrong), I've been checking out the Spanish countryside to get a more complete view of the country, and also to get my nature fix since I'm not used to living in a city, even one as small as Salamanca. Last weekend my study abroad group took a day-trip out to a winery near the city of Villadolid, and yesterday since it was a national holiday (El Día de la Hispanidad), a couple of my friends and I went to the nearby town of Bejar to hike and enjoy the still summer-like weather. Both places were lovely, though it still sometimes surprises me just how dry the region of Spain that I'm in, Castilla y León, is. The hot, dry weather that the region is still experiencing is apparently out of the norm though. According to my host mother, after the festivals in Salamanca in the middle of September, the weather is supposed to get cooler and it rains a bit. It is indeed cool at night, but it still reaches the 80s during the day meaning that of course I got sunburned yesterday hiking. Sunscreen really isn't on my radar in the middle of October but I guess it should be. It was also nice to see some mountains again yesterday in Bejar, the flatness is just too flat compared with Vermont! 

In a slightly abrupt change of subject and jumping back in time to last Saturday, visiting the winery in Vallodolid was like being in a movie, specifically The Parent Trap. We frolicked in vineyards...

Saw wine being made...

And tasted it. (Ok maybe that's not like The Parent Trap). 

Lunch is being made and smelling delicious, so I'm going to end this blog post and write a more coherent one soon about my classes here in Spain, now that I've had them for three weeks and have gotten a feel for them. Hasta luego!

Living in a Strange and Foreign Land (except not really)

As of today I have officially been in Europe for exactly one month. And I have 867 photos to prove it. In honor of this occasion, I thought I'd share some of the differences I've noticed between Europe and the United States - mostly it's the little things that just drive the point in that I'm on a different continent. Por ejemplo...

1) Crutches 
All the crutches I've seen here are different than the crutches we have back in the US. Ours are meant to be held under the arm pits, making it easier to support your weight. You don't really have to be in shape to use them, unlike here where you're actually required to have arm muscles if you're on crutches and want to get around.

For example this lady whose image I pulled off of Google

Note that all her weight it held up by her wrists and forearms. I would not be able to do this. This actually proved a problem for one of the girls in my group who got a hairline fracture in her foot the first weekend here. Luckily she only had to have plaster on and use crutches for a week before she got a walking boot, but for that week she was basically housebound as it was too hard for her to get around.

2) Showers

I'm still trying to figure out the reasoning behind the different shower designs I've encountered in my travels. A couple of the hostels I staid in had showers that worked like those sinks in public restrooms where you push the tap and water goes for about half the time it takes you to wash your hands therefore making it necessary to push the button AGAIN after you've already started washing, transferring germs back onto your hands that you had already washed off. It is even more annoying when it's the shower that constantly turns off. I'm guessing the policy behind this is to save water? Though I don't really think people forget to turn off the shower when they're done. I mean it's kinda noisy and wet, and trying to dry off when the shower is still running is pretty counterproductive. Maybe it's designed to make people hurry their showers up since after the water shuts off for the sixth time most people are pretty ready to be done - at least I know I was. 

Another interesting variation on the shower I've encountered is the type where there's no actual shower head mounted on the wall, just some tubing with a nozzle attached to it. This makes it necessary to use one hand to hold it and leaving only one hand for actually washing. This is the kind that I have in my apartment here in Salamanca. The only thing I can think of is that maybe baths are more typical in some countries and showers are kind of an afterthought? This too can also serve the purpose of hurrying up showers as you can't really stand and soak in hot water without your arm getting tired from holding the nozzle. Actually now that I think about it, maybe this is where Europeans get their arm strength to be able to use their crutches. Hmmm...

3) Trains

In a less "that's bizarre" and a more "I wish we had this in the United States" note, I love the public transportation system here! It's not at all necessary to use a car to travel. Trains go to every big or even medium sized city and it's super easy to bop all around the continent with minimal effort. This is quite different from my experience with American trains, most notably when it took me 13 hours by train to get from D.C. back to Vermont after another form of transportation (airplanes) utterly failed me. Another advantage trains have are that you don't have to pay a gazillion bucks for a ticket (like airplanes) or be basically stripped searched down to your quart sized plastic bag of possibly explosive toiletries (also like airplanes). As you can tell,  I'm a fan. 

4) The Attitude Towards Alcohol 

Last but not least, alcohol. As every under 21 college student is aware of, the drinking age is a lot lower in Europe. However that doesn't mean that there's four times the amount of drinking and partying here than at home. In my view, since people grow up without alcohol being this horrible, forbidden substance, it is treated a lot more responsibly here, ie: a glass of wine with lunch, or some beers out at night with friends, than it is treated in the United States where people drink until they black-out because a lot of them aren't taught that alcohol has a place outside of raging parties or a purpose other than using it to get drunk. In my opinion, the treatment of alcohol is a lot more sane and safer here, but it's such an issue at home that there's no way any of the laws are changing any time soon. 

On that slightly more serious note, since this post has been a lot of words with not a lot of pretty pictures to look at, I'll leave you with these totally non-related, but lovely pictures of places I've been/things I've seen. Until next time! 

Puente Romano with Salamanca in the background

El Aqueducto en Segovia (another Roman construction that's stood the test of time)

La Plaza Mayor en Salamanca lit up at night