My Life in a Nutshell

(due to technical difficulties, this blog was delayed in being posted. It is therefore already a week out of date. Story of my life.)

A few moments ago I briefly closed my eyes. When I opened them just now, I found that somehow a month had passed. The past weeks have been packed, with traveling, with family, and even with a little bit of class thrown it to fill up the free time. I have crossed the length of Spain from Granada in the south to San Sebastian in the north, toured the small towns, back roads and ruined castles of Portugal, and briefly popped over to Africa for a weekend in Morocco. I am currently coming back from a trip to the Scottish Highlands to take my finals over the next few days and then return to the U.S. in exactly a week. Time flies when…well, when doesn’t time fly?
For a brief recap:
One month ago, I went with my program to Granada, mixing place of many cultures, vestige of the last Moorish kingdom to fall to the Spanish Reconquista, and home of the incredible Alhambra fortress/palace. The trip was, of course, too short. But the winding streets steeped in centuries of history and conflicting cultures were nothing short of magical. At the end of my trip, I returned to Salamanca to find that my parents had not actually made it across the Atlantic yet (though there was a Magda Love staying at the same hotel at the time who kept this from being a straight forward discovery).
Luckily, two days later my wayward parents arrived safely after a pitstop in Dallas to renew a passport. The next weekend, the three of us hopped in a rental car and drove up to San Sebastian in the northern Pais Vasco (Basque country). People say that “Spain is different,” which the more I travel the more I realize is very true for a number of not easily pinpointable reasons. But in Spain people say that “Pais Vasco es diferente,” which is also true. Somehow San Sebastian manages to mix the architecture and feeling of a Mediterranean resort town with that of a village from the Alps. After enjoying some great seafood, and even a night of tapas (small snacks that you acquire while drifting from bar to bar) we returned to Salamanca, at which point Mom and Dad embarqued on a tour of central Spain and I went to class.
The next weekend, Bill joined us for a tour of the less seen sights of Portugal. Aside from being a wonderful family trip accomplished in true Love-Anderegg family style (i.e. lots of good food, good company and going to bed early) this was also a nice break from the crowded bustle of my previous travels that had necessarily been restricted to those highly populated areas accessible by public transport. We visited something on the order of 5 castles (in various states of disrepair), gave our respects to the Atlantic Ocean, and as an early Christmas present stayed in an incredible palace in the middle of a national forest.
Upon returning to Salamanca, Mom, Dad and Bill undertook another small excursions, and I went to class. Me going to class may appear to be somewhat of a theme, but a assure you it is not. Aided by a few Spanish holidays, I have completed all of one full five day week in Spain. It is, I believe, a lifestyle I could get used to.

Once my family returned from their outing, we celebrated a very Spanish Thanksgiving (i.e. eaten at 2:30 p.m. and consisting of a variety of meats, with some meat on the side and some fried potatoes to top things off), before heading our separate ways, my parents and Bill back to the U.S. and me to Morocco. At this point, I realized that I was going to miss approximately half the classes that remained before finals. Accompanied once again my trusty travel companion Rosalie, I ventured into the exotic, labyrinthine, and generally overwhelming streets of Marrakech, Morocco. Unfortunately, the one full day that we were in the city, it happened to be an Islamic sheep sacrificing holiday. This meant that everything, absolutely ev erything was closed and the streets were deserted. We perhaps should have suspected something when we encountered numerous sheep the evening before, tied on top of cars, trussed up on the sidewalk, on the back of motorcycles. But we were caught quite by surprise the next morning when the only people to be seen where the kids burning sheep heads over fires in the streets. Despite this minor setback, we greatly enjoyed checking Africa off our list of continents visited, and returned to Spain content.
After another brief interim of going to class (made more brief when I caught some nasty stomach bug and was out of commission for a day), I headed off for my final trip. My housemate Chris and I did what any sane person would do on a holiday in December, and headed to northern Scotland. As one might expect, Scotland was fairly cold, very wet, and very dark. However, the weather, infrequent off season busses, and six hours of daylight were more than compensated for by the highland scenery and the Scottish natives. Traipsing our way from small town to small town, Chris and I had the entire highlands to ourselves. At every turn we found mystical glens, windswept mountains, and ridiculously nice Scottish people. From the couple we met on the plane ride over who drew us a detailed map of how to get from the Glasgow train station to the bus station and gave us their phone number in case we should run into any trouble on the trip, to the man we met on a ferry who told us all about diving on ship wrecks in the area, the Scottish people were welcoming almost to a fault. Our final night in Inverness, we found ourselves in a pub talking to two toothless old men (or trying to talk, impeded as we were by their thick accent and lack of teeth) who proceeded to buy us pints of beer. When another man who we could actually understand joined the conversation, it turned out he was of the same Scottish clan as Chris (who is ¼ Urquehart). We did not find the Loch Ness Monster, nor see very many kilt wearing bagpipe players, but after a few hours of talking to Chris’ distant relative, we returned to our hostel feeling like we had gotten the real Scottish experience.

The three S's

(that would be refering to Salamanca, Segovia, and Sevilla)


Me, caught pursuing one of my favorite activities: eating chocolate con churros. The hot chocolate in Spain is so thick you can litterally almost stand a spoon up in it. With a wonderfully greasy churro on the side, one cup of chocolate is basically a meal. Particularly when one is with three or four other people who can't finish their chocolate and must finish another few half cups of chocolate. (I hurt considerably after this picture. But it was worth it).


Salamanca's cathedral at sunset.



Segovia's fairy tale castle at night.


A giant stage in front of the cathedral in the Plaza Mayor of Segovia. These Spaniards know how to throw a party. Castles, concerts, cathedrals, nice people and good food, what more could you want?


One very small portion of the very large gardens of the Alcazar (Royal Palace) of Sevilla.


The float of the Virgin in the Dia de Todos los Santos procession in Sevilla. This one was made mostly out of carved wood, though I hear the floats for Semana Santa (Holy Week)are plated in gold and silver.


So, i realize I was previously uploading pictures from my travels chronologically, and that i'm not up to Spain yet, but here is a quick snapshot (or series of snapshots) from my last few weeks. I'll get back to the rest of my trip soon, i promise.

Spain: Sevilla to Salamanca

After a little more than a month in Spain, I am beginning to feel at home, at least as much as I can while still dressing like an American and speaking broken Spanish. Spaniards, it seems to me, are a generally welcoming, generous and spirited lot (not to mention sharp dressing). They are quick to offer advice, give directions, share their culture, and bombard you with far more rapidly spoken Spanish than you can easily comprehend. A quick anecdote to illustrate my point. My roommate Chris and a Japanese friend named Yoshinori and I ventured down to Sevilla this past weekend since we had Monday off of school for All Saints’ Day. Sunday night, as we stood in the oldest bar in Sevilla (which dates back to the 1600s) eating tapas and admiring the collection of centuries old bottles behind the bar, we randomly met an old Sevillan named Jesus, who promptly offered to show us some sort of cultural spectacle. Five minutes later, we were walking directly in front of a float of the Virgin Mary alongside some incense wielding monks as a giant crowd of people made its way slowly between the small church of Saint Something and the Convent of Saint Somethingelse. Along the way, we learned about the festival, how the men carried the float, how the floats for the fiestas during La Semana Santa are at least three times as big as the one we were running in front of (which was carried by upwards of 15 strong men), and that the big bouncers aroudn the float will kindly relocate you if the crowd is too packed and you are in danger of getting run over (this I learned not from Jesus but from the bouncers).
Or take, for example, the man who sat across from me on our long bus ride back from Sevilla. Not only did he rapidly pick up cribbage as I explained the game to Chris and Yoshinori, but he happily explained to me fragments of numerous Spanish card games (or maybe entire games, but I only caught fragments).

Another thing that I appreciate about Spain is that I can at least attempt to converse in the native language. I often forget how nice this is when I'm floundering to say anything beyond the most superficial pleasantries, or when I realize for the millionth time just how far from truly understanding Spanish I am. At those times speaking Spanish seems like an utterly impossilbe task, and I feel like I am forever trapped in my own little shell of Americanness. But after traveling for a month in countries where I spoke at most five phrases of the native language, I can appreciate that here I am at least trying to bridge the gap between me and the world. In Spain I am not entirely dependant on the worldlyness of the rest of the world to cater to my aloof monoculturedness.

The great thing about patron saints is

Patron saint's day (i.e. a really big party). This last weekend I went to the nearby town of Segovia with my roommate Chris and another girl in our program named Caileen. It just so happened that Saturday was Dia de San Frutas de los Pajaros* who is the patron saint of Segovia. (*this is probably not the actual name of the saint, since it directly translates to "Saint Fruits of the Birds," but it's sure what it sounded like every time a local told me what was going on).

As a result of this coincidence, we not only thoroughly enjoyed Segovia's incredible castle, good views, and quaint streets, but also partied all night long with Segovians of all ages. After walking through a river park below Segovia in the evening and seeing the castle lit up against the background of nearby mountains, I almost wish that the University of Salamanca were in Segovia. When we got back to our pension (private residence that rents out cheap rooms), we found a large stage erected in the Plaza Mayor right in front of the cathedral. At about 10:30 p.m. segovians of all shapes and sizes began filling the Plaza, and a band began to play. Four and a half hours (and two wonderful bowls of some soup that are somehow associated with Saint whoever and distributed widely at midnight) later, the band finally stopped playing, and the people began to disperse. It was a little strange to dance to covers of classic American rock songs between some middleschool kids who knew every lyric and a cute old Spanish couple who nodded their heads to the beat while leaning on their canes. But all in all, a wonderful time.

This week I had two midterms, because apparently it is already 1/3 the way through the quarter, and managed to make it through my second full five day week for the year. Luckily, I'm not going to have another one until the week before finals in December. Today after class, I'm headed to Sevilla in southern Spain for a long weekend, since we have Monday off for "All Saints' Day." It's supposed to be in the high 80s in Sevilla, which is very unseasonal, but I don't think i'm going to complain.

A taste of the Alps

A taste of the Alps. It turns out that it´s tough to capture them in one picture, because they´re so darn big. So this is the valley below the Jungfrau.


It´s a bird! It´s a plane! No, it´s me running off a cliff and hoping that the guy behind me holding the ropes knows what he´s doing. I have pictures that my pilot took while we were in the air, but I don´t have a card reader to download them. So you guys are just going to have to wait for the documentation of the full paragliding experience.


Rosalie and I strolling leisurely through the valley underneath Gimmelwald. Shortly after this picture we entered Stecklberg and ate some incredible fondu. It´s a hard life, this traveling bit.


Kathy and I at the top of the world. Well, not even that close to the top of the world, but after a few thousand meters of verticle climb in the rain, part of it along a rather impressive knife edge ridege, this mini peak felt like quite an accomplishment.


The aforementioned ridge, which looks less intense than it did when we were on it.


The Jungfrau (young girl), one of the three real peaks in the region. We could see this slope of the mountain from our hostel, which made for a pretty amazing stay.


Yet another view of the Berner Oberland. Gimmelwald is on top of the cliff on the right hand side of the picture.


Rosalie, Kathy and I on our first hike out of Gimmelwald, Switzerland. What you can´t see in the picture are the hillsides full of cowbell wearing cows and a couple of little flower bedecked swiss cottages.

Prague Pictures round 2

A coat of arms made out of human bones. This is the handywork of the artist whose signature is in the last blog post (also made out of human bones).


A stained glass window in a random tower in the middle of Prague that is guarded guarded by armor wearing and sword weilding Czechs. The spires in the lower left are the Tyn Church.


Russian stacking dolls in a store near our hostel. Kathy and I make a guest appearance in the mirror in the back.

Prague Pictures, try 1

Rosalie (left) and Kathy (right) in front of the astronomical clock.


Tyn Church: one of the many ridiculous Gothic buildings all over Prague. Notice the buildings that are directly in front of the church so you can't see the entire facade. This building things right in front of awesome buildings seems to be a pretty common practice in Prague.


This is the Old Jewish Cemetary in Prague, where centuries of persecueted Czech Jews have been burried. Nearby is a synagoge that has been converted into a memorial for the thousands of Czech Jews that disappeard during WWII, with thier names, date of birth, and date of disappearance covering the walls. The pair make for a pretty somber visit.

This is the signature of the artist who made the sculptures out of human bones in the basement of the church in Kutna Hora. Very wierd. Very creepy.