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.

Another Monday

I just realized yesterday that when new acquiantences ask the inevitable question, "how long are you here for" I can no longer respond "two and a half months. Now it's only two months. Shoot fire. The more time I see pass by me, the less I understand how and where it goes.

Anyway, I would title this last week as "the beginning of normalicy." I have started falling into somewhat of a routine, in which I do approximately half the things I wanted to/planned on doing every day and know that the same thing will happen tomorrow. But it's nice to have some structure to life. I have four hours of class a day, beginning at 9:00 and ending at 2:00 with an hour break in the middle. Then I return to my homestay for lunch at around 2:30, and do homework/check my email/play soccer/plan trips/take a siesta/explore Salamanca until dinner at 9:30, and continue with more of the same after dinner. Life is pretty laid back.

However, the meal schedule somehow manages to leave me either starving or stuffed beyond comfort. Breakfast is not a widely respected meal in Spain (mine is usually a very small muffin and a glass of orange juice), and because lunch is so late I am usually packing a powerful appetite by the time I get back from class. Then, after eating the mountain of food my señora feeds me, usually because it´s good and sometimes just because I don´t want to be rude by leaving something on my plate, I can do little more than stagger into my room for a nap. Yet somehow I am miraculously hungry again by 7:00. at which point dinner is still a solid 2:30 hours away.

This last weekend, I went on an excursion to a national park and to Ciudad Rodrigo with my program. The park was slightly different from the typical American park, because it mainly consists of tiny little towns that have been making a living off the forests for the past 1000 years. Only recently have they begun to reap a new harvest, that of tourism, so even today the majority of the park looks like overgrown farm land. However, it was a wonderful break to get out from the city, and the influx of tourists in the last three decades has yet to wipe out the small village feel of the towns that we stopped in.
Ciudad Rodrigo, with it´s almost completely intact mideival wall, was equally charming, though the food left me somewhat worn out. After trying the local local dish, which consists of a egg drowned in grease with some sort of fatty sasuage and a side of french fries, I felt as if I had consumed all of my calories for the week. The next day in an attempt to cut back I ordered a vegetable sandwhich. This would have been a healthy choice, had the bread not been fried in grease and had the 'vegetables' not been a bit of cabbage suspended in half a liter of maynaise. I returned to Salamanca a few steps closer to a heart attack, but overall very content. I am now going to attempt to upload some of the photos that I have been accumulating for the past month and a half. If i´m successful, you will have already seen them before this post.

La vida española

At this point in my narrative, I need to introduce more characters. The first is Vicenta, my señora. Vicenta is maybe 65, loves to give advice, cooks a mean paella, and runs the household that I am staying with. She speaks loudly and quickly, but generally clearly, and I can usually understand her unless she´s saying something important. Character two: Benito. Also in his sixties, Benito is Vicenta´s husband. He is smaller in stature than Vicenta, quiter (unless he and Vicenta are argueing in raised voices, something that seems to be a favorite passtime of many Spaniards), reserved, and absolutely one hundred percent impossible to understand. Most of my conversations with him usually end with me saying, "Si, si. Vale. Te entiendo." (Translation: "Sure, I understand") and thinking "God, I hope that wasn´t anything important." Character three: Cristobal. Chris is the other American student living with Vicenta and Benito. Chris studies hard, runs a lot, and refuses to speak English (which is a stark and refreshing contrast to many people in the program who only speak Spanish when in class). Cristobal is a font of good vocabulary, despite not having spoken a word of Spanish before he got to Salamanca in September for a month intesnive program. The only thing that I can hold agains him is that his room has wireless, and mine does not. Finally, enter the chorus: Vicenta and Benito´s family. I think they have two sons and a daughter, most of whom have spouses and some of whom have children. However, I have yet to really nail down family relations, since most people seem to come and go rapidly and at random. The end effect is an often full house, even though only Vicenta and Benito live in the apartment.
Now the set:
Salamanca is beautiful, a labyrinth of tan sandstone streets, hidden parks, baroque churches, and college students. Everything is within walking distance, because walking is really the only way you can navigate the inner city, but it always seems to take a little longer than you think to get somewhere, because straight streets were apparently a moral afront to the city planners. As a Spanish city, life begins around 10:00, completely stops between 2:00 and 4:00 pm for lunch and siesta, and then doesn´t really get going again until 9:00 in the evening. That is unless you´re a college student, in which case life doesn´t really start until midnight ish. If you´re really a foreigner, you can usually get away with going out at 11:00 and coming home at 1 or 2 am. But that´s only if it´s a week night.

In terms of action, last week I was mainly getting used to the city, classes, my host family, and trying to speak Spanish. Classes, despite the fact that they´re in a language that I only partially understand, should leave me plenty of time for traveling and tasting spanish culture. Luckily, there is a lot of culture to taste, and I find myself uncomfortably full almost every day due to the giant meals that Vicenta feeds me.

Spain at last

The journey to Spain was long and arduous (as you can probbly tell from my blog thus far), but my perserverance paid off last Wednesday. After a short an pleasant flight from London (note some sarcasm in this sentence, mainly stemming from the inhostpitable atmosphere of London airports), I met my program director and fellow ISA (International Studies Abroad) students in Madrid. Together, we formed a large tour group very similar to the groups I had grown to despise earlier in my trip and took Madrid by storm. Maintaining our storm like semblance, we then swept through Valle de los Caidos, El Escorial, and Toledo to end up in Salamanca on Sunday afternoon. My impressions of these places? Madrid is huge and overwhelming. Valle de los Caidos is a giant underground chapel with a couple hundred foot cross on top constructed by Franco in remeberence of the Spanish Civil War, and is both impressive, and oppressive. El Escorial is a giant palace/monestary/school/cathedral, which I found much less decadent and far more regal than any of the palaces I´ve seen in France, London, or Madrid. And finally, I found Toledo absolutely enchanting. Even aside from the fact that Toledo has sword shops every few feet, the town is mostly still contained within its old walls, nd absolutely loaded with character.

While it was a bit of a relief to join a larger group and let others plan everything for me, I have begun to see the advantages of traveling alone. I am left feeling that I missed a significant portion of Madrid and Toledo, though without traveling on a tour bus I would not have been able to see Valle de Los Caidos and El Escorial. There are always trade offs, I suppose.

Lee in London

I freely admit that I owe the inspiration for the title of this post to Charlie's blog from Japan (his blog name was Jarlie in Chapan). Don't be too mad, Charlie, imitation is a form of flattery, right?

Anyway, after a truly wonderful stay in Paris, Sam and I flew into London early last Saturday. After touring the sights on Sunday and watching "Lion King" the musical (which had the most spectacular costumes I have ever seen), I accompanied Sam to Oxford on Monday. Tuesday, I had another full day of sight seeing in London, which ended in a very long night catching public transit around the city and eventually to Gatwick airport, where I spent what was left of the night failing to sleep on the stone floor. My impressions from my brief stay in the UK are as follows:
1) British accents are wonderful, though they make getting directions hard
2) London is a beautiful city steeped in history, but it is impossible to navigate by foot.
3) Room temperature ale is an acquired taste, but once one acquires it, one instantly becomes an ale snob. (I now disdain those "chemical concoctions" called cold lagers. Or at least I did while in London. Now cold beers and I are back on good terms, since they happen to be what the rest of the world except the UK drinks.)
4) London has four airports in name, but none in reality. One cannot fly into or out of London. One must instead fly into a distant corner of the UK and then catch some other long and costly form of transportation into the city.
5) London football pubs are awesome, and even if your team is losing (i.e. Liverpool in the Champion's League) you can still bond with complete strangers over those two great British passions, beer and soccer.

Cheers mates (as the British would say).

A Baguette for your thoughts

Perhaps the single best and worst thing about Paris was the food. The best because the French blend food and art like no other culture I have yet seen. The worst because my appreciation of pastries is very much ruined, maybe permanently. Let's face it, how could any other pastry really stand up to French baking? Having a bakery that was voted the best baguette in Paris in 2004 right outside my front door has made me realize that those sorry concoctions of flour and sugar that I used to enjoy are just pitiful imitations of true pastries.
I believe that my baguette consumption while in Paris averaged slightly over 1 per day, and my pastry consumption about three times that. But who can fault me for doing my level best to sample as much of French culture as possible? I'm saddened to report that even my rigorous cultural enlightenment regiment left much out. In order to complete my education, I must return to Paris for no less than a month. Not only is my knowledge of pastries sadly lacking, but I have only begun to dabble in such fields as Entrecote (a French version of steak and frenchfries that has apparently overcome its modest American roots to become high cuisine in Paris), crepes, and escargo. So much to do. So little time.

Even food aside, I believe Paris is the most beautiful city I have spent time in. Prague is magical, Lucerne is quaint, Rome impressive, and Vienna is stately. But Paris is beautiful. My impression of the city was probably somewhat influenced by the incredible hospitality of John Watson and Betsy Blackwell, who warmly welcomed us into their wonderful apartment and enthusiastically supported our exploration of the city. But there is still something about Paris's wide boulevards, graceful monuments and old buildings, and matching architecture that make it special. If only I spoke French (and maybe had a hefty bank account to put up with Paris prices) I would love to spend more time there.



p.s. Rosalie's blog is http://rosalie-bateson.blogspot.com
Unlike me, she has already figured out how to post pictures easily, and has some really great ones up.