Granada

Hola!

It's been a week since we came back from Granada, so sorry I haven't written yet!

inside the train station!

Granada is a city in southern Spain, and it was the location of our longest (aka overnight) art history trip.  Our whole group, including Dr. Pauwels' husband who is here for the next few weeks, travelled to Granada on Thursday immediately after Spanish class. This was my first experience traveling by train and I LOVED it. Honestly it was 500x better than the bus- can't you tell how much I love the bus. Now, I was sick on the trip down, so I probably have a skewed view of the train; I think I was just thankful to be on the smooth train tracks and not a bumpy bus ride.

walking through the Alhambra gardens

Once we arrived in Granada, Dr. Kraft showed us the hotel and gave us our room assignment. 3 beds and 3 people per room, how nice!

Friday morning bright and early we headed out walking to the Alhambra- a BEAUTIFUL palace/fortress of Granada. On the way, we passed so caves in the mountainside, which Zach claims are the gypsy caves he heard about in a tv show. Back to the Alhambra- It has housed kings and queens of the city, including Ferdinand and Isabella when they met with Christopher Columbus! I didn't learn as much history of the Alhambra as I would have liked, but I did have time to admire its amazing beauty. The Alhambra is made up of the main palace, Nasrid Palace, the "vacation" palace, Generalife, the military fortress, Alcazaba, and the gardens. We arrived at the compound around 8:30 and had until 9:45 to take our first look at the grounds. Then our whole group met back up (hurry don't be late!) to be on time for our entrance into the Nasrid Palace.

The fountain of stone lions

notice Zach in the back acting dumb:)

This main palace is heavily Islamic influenced, and so different from the many Roman and Gothic architecture we have previously visited. One unique feature of Islamic art is that they never paint people or animals in their religious art, so many paintings and architecture is decorated with intricate designs of flora and calligraphy. They also incorporate colorful tiles onto many buildings, and the Nasrid Palace was no exception. It is amazing how much detail is on every part of the walls and fountains. That's another Islamic characteristic; no matter where you are within the structure, you can always hear running water, so there are gorgeous fountains all over the gardens and inside the palace. My favorite was the fountain in the middle of the palace surrounded by stone lions. Stone lions are my favorite, but thats another story you'll just have to ask me about. All in all the palace was one of the most unique places I've seen so far!

Calligraphy and tile work

After the palace, we still had several hours to enjoys the magnificence of the Alhambra as a whole. K'Leigh, Kaitlyn, Amanda, Karen, and I strolled slowly through the gardens and even took some time to sit and enjoy the relaxing environment. If I ever get to live in a palace, I will make sure it has gardens to rival the Alhambra.


The last part of the Alhambra we visited was the military tower at the end of the whole complex. we were able to climb to the top of the watchtower and from there see all of Granada. That was such an amazing sight. You can truly appreciate the beauty of this city, even me, who is not so keen on the city life. Granada is beautiful and seeing it from an old watchtower was so different and fun.

view from the watchtower 

Also sorry for all the Alhambra pics, but it was too beautiful to accurately describe!

We had the afternoon free to ourselves, and most of us went back to rest at the hotel for a couple hours before dinner. The whole group went to a Moroccan restaurant for dinner, which again new to me. I'm not sure how to describe it other than interesting; I had a breaded meat dish covered in cinnamon and sugar- too much sweet and salty for me. But I am a picky eater. Despite the unique food, going out as a group is really a lit of fun and good bonding (we better all be good friends after spending 3 months together).

Saturday morning was our traditional trolly tour! I really love those things. This one was good, but really bumpy because the roads are steeps on the side of the mountain. We all crowded on and I ended up having to sit in the very back with a group of people I didn't know. Now everyone who's knows me knows this is not a situation I like to be in, but I'm gonna brag on myself and say I did really good! I actually talked to them; the three adults I was sitting with were from London, thankfully they spoke English, and were very nice. There also was a super cute little boy sitting in front of me who kept looking back at me:). I didn't hear a lot about the city because my headphones weren't working, but it was still a successful choo-choo tour!

Saturday night was the flamenco show. All 19 of our group, along with quite a few others were stuffed inside a very intimate show room for the night's show. I was actually very impressed with the number of people they fit in the room, hope no one needed to get up! Show time- the first act of the show was the guitarist and singer performing a song with no dancers. Let me say that this guitarist was so impressive; he was incredibly talented and played beautifully. After that first song, the dancers came out for the rest of the show. I was not a fan of the dancing, but thats my own opinion and I feel that going to the show was still a valuable cultural experience. Maybe I just don't understand what it was trying to convey.... I'm not sure. There was a break in the middle where the guitarist played solo, which I loved! The whole thing was one more unique experience to add to my list and top off the weekend, and it gave us an excuse to dress up.

Nothing much happened this past week except class and my killer art history presentation. If any of y'all nee to know about prehistoric art (cave paintings) in Spain, I got you covered.

This weekend was the first weekend we split up; half the group went to the beach in Valencia, and the rest of us stayed in Avila. It was so nice to have a lazy weekend even if I did have to take care of not so fun things like washing all my clothes. Still this weekend was great; Zach, Luke, and I got pizza and sat out by the wall (the 1000 year old wall) and looked at the stars. granted we couldn't see them very well because the city is bright, but it was still fun. Yesterday 5 of us went with about 13 other guys from our dorm to play paintball. I've never played paintball and I don't know if it was my smartest idea to play with a bunch of guys who don't even speak the same language as me, but we had a great time. My team won of course- what do you expect :) and I got to ride in a car for the first time in a month. That isn't something I thought I would miss, or even realized I did until I was in the car driving out to the place we played paintball. I mean I knew I missed driving, but I even miss just riding in any car. So if you ever travel to Spain, make friends with someone who has a car, and be careful playing paintball because I am SO sore today!

Cool reflection pic thanks to Yeslin

Hope y'all are living it up at home and eating all the Mexican food for me!

love y'all, hasta lo:)

Toledo, Segovia, and Portugal

hola!

Life is moving crazy fast and so much has happened! I can't believe that in only a little over 2 weeks
I have been on 2 day trips- Segovia and Toledo- and a weekend in Portugal.

Toledo!

Ok so let me go back to our 1st Friday here; since we don't have Friday classes, Dr. Pauwels and a few of us planned a day trip to Toledo. We were so excited and just jumped right into things on our first weekend, I guess:).

Toledo is another historical town very similar to Avila, with one main difference I noticed right away- the streets are CRAZY steep! It really was a shock how hard it was to walk around with the town built more into the side of the mountain than Avila is (at least I got a good workout). The city was very pretty, and we were able to take another Choo-Choo tour! This tour took us around the city and then up the mountain a ways where we could see all of Toledo and the river around it. After the tour we took a quick peek inside the cathedral, which, of course, was gorgeous. Then our group split up- some to tour the cathedral and the rest of us to explore. we even found this little tiny zip-line over the river that Kaitlyn, Libby, and Luke rode while all of us took pics because we are just typical tourists, Right? K'Leigh and I also found a trail by the river that took us all around the town.

It was just like us to throw in an impromptu hike:)

The trail took us back towards the bus station we were all meeting at at 5:30 (tip- always have a meeting place), but on the way we found a really neat abandoned building. It was right on the edge of the water and actually had the river flowing through the bottom of it. It is these types of place I love to find and would never happen if we didn't have the spirit to do a little adventurous exploring. Thanks K'Leigh for being my go-to adventure buddy!

I think the only interesting thing about the bus ride home was that K'Leigh and I did watch Tangled in Spanish; I mean even the songs were in Spanish! Honestly I should probably do that more to help me work on actually learning a new language, which is so much harder than I thought it would be.

Oh and one other note about Toledo; we met a guy from NY! I didn't realize how nice it is to actually be able to understand and have a real conversation with someone besides the 15 people I brought over here with me. He was so nice and took a picture of K'Leigh and I- he also immediately knew we were from TX cause of our cute little accents!

Pic from our NY friend

Apparently we planned our first weekend in Avila very well because it was the weekend of their annual medieval festival. Since we only traveled to Segovia for the day, we still had Saturday to enjoy a crazy, fun, flamboyant festival! I LOVED it because it reminded me so much of the south plains fair at home, with a cultural flavor mixed in. We walked through the walls of the city looking at jewelry, leather, spices, and DELICIOUS food. I even found a booth with crepes- the amazing Nutella kind I grew up eating at my cousins' house. The festival made for the best closing to my first weekend away for home.

Our 2nd week of classes went smoothly and were super interesting. I'm loving my Art History class and how well it relates to everything we've seen in Spain. add in a little homesickness, grocery shopping, SO much walking, a 2nd Avila tour from our Spanish professor, and a group of people I'm learning to love, and it was a crazy, good week. Next stop, art trip to Segovia! (or as Kaitlyn refers to it, Se-GO-Vi-A, to the tune of princess diaries' Genovian national anthem)

knee deep in history

Segovia is home to the beautiful and most famous Roman architecture in Spain, the aqueduct. the aqueduct of Segovia runs directly through the center of town and is an amazing sight. It really gave me so much respect and wonder fro the Roman culture; seeing something that impressive and built so long ago is truly incredible. This was our first stop on Dr. Kraft's field trip day, of course after we had eaten our cute little sack lunches from the dorm. She lead us along the length of the aqueduct up to the point where it is low enough for you to climb and stand on, and trust me, you can't pass up standing on a 2000 year old aqueduct!

Now comes the Cathedral, as you probably guessed since that has been a main part of our sightseeing in each place we've visited. This cathedral was very beautiful, but not as ornately decorated as the one in Avila. They were also kind of strict on picture taking, but how can you not take pictures?! I really do try to be respectful of the places we visit, but I'm not gonna lie, I got caught taking a picture by a security guard.....

I guess I'm gonna have to work on following the rules a little better.. but you know take risks and make memories!

Lastly in Segovia was a quick glance at the castle on the edge of the city. we didn't have enough time to go inside, but the outside was beautiful and a great picture taking spot!



I know I mentioned how hot it has been in my last post, so all of us decided to take advantage of that before fall really gets here, and take a trip to the beach. So K'Leigh did an awesome job of planning, booking, and getting us ready for our first overnight excursion. We bused out of Madrid at 9:00 pm, beginning a 9 hour drive to Lisbon, Portugal. Sounds exciting right?? Not at all. I have the hardest time sleeping on anything moving an this bus was definitely no different; I'm gonna have to stop traveling overnight. We arrived at the international bus station in Portugal at 3:30 Lisbon time and NOTHING was open... That means sleeping for a couple hours in the bus station for a couple hours until the trains and metros are awake and running for the day. Not the best idea we ever had, but hey, we all made it. Now public transportation is not my thing and I'm horrible at navigating it, so this was a very interesting morning. we had to take 2 metros and then a train to the costal town of Cascais, where our hostel was.

Cascais

After all the craziness of getting there, it was beautiful to stand and admire this cute, peaceful town. The buildings were fun colors and the cobblestone streets bold patterns. Also, yay, we finally found some food! Most of our crew couldn't wait another second to find food and ran into the nearest restaurant-McDonald's. i don't even eat there in the states, so there was no way I was going to in a foreign country, so Yeslin, Anna, Dr. Pauwels, and I found a bakery with delicious pastries. I probably ate way too much chocolate- it was worth it!

"Mouth of Hell

We spent the rest of the day relaxing on the beach and hiking to see the "mouth of Hell", a famous cave formation in the cliffs on the coast. This whole weekend was a nice change from the cities we have been to in central Spain. 2 straight days on the beach really puts you in a good mood despite the unavoidable sunburn. Beaches are one of my favorite places, and it was so cool to be able to see one across the world. One of my favorite parts was our early morning adventure on saturday. A few of us woke up early and went out on the fishing pier to watch the sunrise over the ocean. I love the sky, sunsets, and sunrises and this one was no exception (granted it wasn't the TX sky).

I can't forget to mention the food! Apparently Indian food is very popular in Cascais, and it sounded SO yummy we couldn't resist. I had not realized how much I have missed spicy food and chicken, and not having ham all the time.

Thanks Zach for this cool pic

Delicious food, crazy public transportation, sketchy bus stations, beautiful beaches, and one more country to check off the list- a great weekend don't you think!

Adios until I have some more adventures!

Week 1

Hola from the other side of the world!

First off I'm sitting in the window of MY ROOM in Avila, Spain writing this for y'all!
I can't believe I am finally here and I feel so blessed to be. :)

So I guess I'll start from the beginning, all our bus and airplane adventures to even get to where I'm sitting now. Our group of 15 students, 2 professors, and 1 tag along (sorry Albert) left Lubbock, TX Friday morning at 9:00 AM by bus and began the first leg of our 24 hours of traveling. The bus ride was nothing much, but Page was generous enough to get us McAlister's for lunch- she couldn't let us starve! After arriving at DFW, the chaos of airport security hit full swing. Before I could think my 42 lbs bag was checked and I was on my way through security. BUT TAYLOR WAS SUPPOSED TO SEE ME OFF AT THE AIRPORT! Don't worry, she made it just in time to give me a hug and bag full of goodies before I made it all the way into the terminal. Now came the intense traveling- a 9 hour plane ride to London. I don't sleep very well in any kind of moving vehicle, so you can see how much I was looking forward to this. So I got all settled next to Kaitlyn (luckily I was sitting by someone I knew) and began browsing movies. I've never flown through British Airways before and I don't know if any of you have, but it was so nice. They served us coffee and tea periodically, and also a delicious dinner and breakfast just before we arrived in London- although my amazement at this could just be due to the fact that I've never flown overnight! London Heathrow was a whole new world for me- huge and full of SO many different people. We had about 4 hours there, and I wanted to explore but honestly I was too tired to do anything. I took about a 1 1/2 hour nap and the walked around to at least be see the airport while we were there. Our flight to Madrid was only 2 hours and the air was clear enough to see some land and ocean below us because yay I had a window seat! landing in Madrid was so exciting because we finally made it to our destination country and now all that was left was an hour bus ride to Avila. the driver met us at the airport , which was fun because I've never had anyone waiting to pick me up sign in hand and all. The bus ride was absolutely GORGEOUS. I had the best seat in the bus also; it didn't have a seat in front of it, so I could see out the entire window in front of me to all the Spanish countryside. As the last leg of our trip ended, we pulled up in front of the converted monastery that is our home for the next 3 months. Y'all would have laughed at us had you been there because honestly no one could believe this was actually our new home! All 15 of us students have our own room and bath (that's one of my favorite parts) and a beautiful view of the city. I couldn't have asked for a better way to bring such a long 24 hours of traveling to a close. (except there is no AC, what is that about??)

Sunday was our first full day in Avila and we spent it on a walking tour with a retired guide who was kind enough to show us around. Her name is Victoria and she has been so amazing to our group and in educating us on all aspects of Avila. She didn't take us to see much on Sunday- we were way too tired. 

Our Dorm

Not being on LCU campus has some losses and one of those is missing chapel and the community it provides everyday, so in place of that we have begun a tradition of a chapel/small group time on Sunday nights. Our first one was a great success and I am so excited to get to know everyone embarking on this adventure with me on a deeper level. 

Monday was a Monday, but in the most exciting way possible- CLASSES IN SPAIN- what else?! Each morning we have a nice mile walk to school on the edge of Avila down some of the prettiest streets I've seen. This Monday the dean of the college, UCAV, and our international studies director met us and welcomed us to their university. From there we went on to Spanish and met our professor, who is the only on from UCAV who will be teaching one of our classes, and he showed us around campus. After Spanish everyday is Personal Finance and the Art History; I'm not in Personal Finance, so that gives me a couple hours of free time. Classes end at around 2:15 and we all go back to the dorm to have lunch together, which so far has been delicious. In Spanish culture they have a time

every afternoon of rest, siesta, which so far everyone has really enjoyed. I'm not a huge nap person, but I do love a chance to relax, maybe get a little homework done, write in my journal (thanks Carleigh), or just sit and enjoy the beautiful place we are in. After siesta a group of us went exploring, and just got to know each other a little better. It was probably one of the most fun times I've had on this trip because it was so simple and easy and we all got along so well. Fro-yo was a must, of course.

K'Leigh and I at the 4 posts overlooking Avila

So according to our art professor, Dr. Kraft, Trolly (choo-choo) tours are in most cities, so her and her husband, Albert, took us on the Avila version Tuesday night. It was so fun! and very educational ;) We made a picture stop at the 4 posts and had an AMAZING view of the city. I can't wait to hike up there and explore a little more!

The wall around the old city of Avila you can see in the picture is the best restored and one of the oldest in Europe. I can't believe I am living in a city with such a rich history. Avila is called the city of Stones and Saints, for the wall and St. Teresa of Avila, but it is also the city of three cultures or religions. It has been ruled and designed by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Sunday when we took our first tour of the city, we mainly learned the history of the wall around the city; it is almost 1000 years old and has seen so much history. Not only is it built with large granite stones, but when parts were being rebuilt in the 112th century many stones from old Roman buildings were used. you can even see that they used some roman tomb stones (the Romans cremated their dead and put their ashes in a hallowed out stone). Around half of the wall is actually in such good shape that today you can walk along the top, although I haven't had the chance to do that myself.

Roman tomb used as part of the walls

St. Vincent's

The empty tomb inside St. Vincent's

On our 2nd tour around the city with our wonderful guide Victoria, we went inside the church of St. Vincent and in the Cathedral of Avila. St. Vincent's is a Romanesque era church and very well restored; it was so beautiful and a great start to all the Cathedrals and churches we will hopefully visit. The church was built on the location of the graves of martyrs, Vicente and 2 others, during Roman rule. There is actually a "empty" tomb or a faux grave above the spot where the martyrs are believed to be buried. This beautiful memorial has original 14th century paint and beautiful carvings. One of my favorite facts of the church is not about the church itself, but about its renovation at the turn of the 20th century; to keep the church is nearly new condition- considering its hundreds of years old- each stone of the outer walls was taken and turned so its inside was now the exterior of the church. I can't even imagine the enormity of that task. Some stones were even numbered so that whole sections of the walls could be taken down at the same time and constructed with each stone in exactly the same place. St. Vincent's was an amazing place and one of the most beautiful Romanesque churches in Spain.

After St. Vincent's we walked inside the walls and into the Cathedral. This amazing structure is the first gothic style

St. Vincent's painted stone

Natural quarry stone in the cathedral

cathedral in Spain and still contains many influences from the romanesque period. The cathedral is built so that its apes (the rounded part at the end) is one of the wall's turrets. This is amazingly impressive from outside the wall to see such a beautiful strong structure defending its city. The cathedral is surrounded by stone lions, which used to be connected by chains as a kind of fence. Inside the cathedral is just as amazing as the outside. I don't understand how a space can feel so much bigger on the inside than looks possible from the outside, but this cathedral definetly does that. the ceilings were miles high and so ancient feeling. As big as the cathedral felt right then, there was so much more- you can't even see the main alter and worship space from the entrance. It is hidden behind a choir box decorated with gorgeous renaissance carvings added during the 16th century. One of the most interesting things to me about this building is the stone used to make the main alter; it is red and white stone from a quarry outside of Avila. Even more interesting is that inside of St. Vincents, the alter stone is painted to mimic the natural veins in the stone of the cathedral. It is gorgeous stone and adds so much character to the space and gives it an Avila touch- I love how unique that is. This city is becoming more and more amazing to me and this cathedral just adds to it!

Inside of Avila Cathedral

It has been such an amazing first week and I still can't believe I am actually here. I do already miss TX, sweet tea, Rosa's, AC,  and of course all you amazing people! Love y'all and don't worry I'll keep you updated on all our crazy shenanigans!

Adios!

view from my window