Rome, Italy!

Total Fall break mile count: 2,585. Salamanca to Madrid, Madrid to Rome, Rome to Reggio and back.  Once in Reggio, we went to Taormina (Sicily) and back, as well as Scilla and Back.  Look em up on a map!

Monday, October 31st, Happy Halloween!  We flew air europa from Madrid to Rome without issue, and then caught a bus from the airport (named after Da Vinci) into the center of town.  Our hostel, The Yellow, was somewhat famous and very cool.  By the time we got there it was about noon, so we dropped our bags and headed off to be gladiators.  You can see the colosseum all you want in movies, textbooks, and on google image but you just don’t get it till you see it in person.  The word that comes to mind for all of these huge ancient structures for me is impressive. 

View from outside!

They are just so big and complex in construction and function, that it’s pretty unreal how long ago they were built.  

The colloseum was all it is hyped up to be and more – the sheer size of it was unbelievable, and the idea that they filled up the bottom portion with water to stage naval battles was the coolest thing to me.  

Moving on, the palatino was like an ancient college campus – houses, fields, random buildings that I wasn’t quite sure what they were, and the huge athletic field where they started the decathalon and the olympics!  

Ancient Field!  

The Roman Forum was lots of pillars, old churches, and old stages – wasn’t quite sure about the history per say, but it was still neat to see all of it.  After a long day of site-seeing, we returned to our hostel at about 5:30, and got a shower and a nap.  Then we headed out to dinner, at Restaurante al Giardini, a restaurant that was in Tanner’s college travel guide written by Harvard grad students, which has been a life saver.  I got this amazing pasta, that I’m not sure what it was, but the noodels were clearly home-made and coated in some sort of sauce, but it wasn’t a sauce like I’d ever had. 

Authentic Italian!

Topped it off with fresh parmesian cheese, and it was delish.  We ended up meeting all kinds of people at the hostel – brits, Australians, people from Holland (Dutch?), Ireland, New Zealand, and the States.  With that mix of people all having happy hour drinks, it turned into a big ole party as more people kept getting there as the night went on.  The world is SO SMALL – I met two girls in the hostel who go to University of Richmond and hang out with my friends from high school!  Getting even smaller, I met a girl who goes to Davidson and knows my friend from middle school who now plays baseball there!  Craziness.

Tuesday, November 1st.  Ouch.  Waking up was rough, and on top of that, All Saints Day is a national holiday in Italy (who knew).  We made the best of it.  We headed down to the famous Roman out-door markets, in the Southern part of the city called Fori Imperi, Which was SO COOL.  In terms of cultural experience, it’s been one of my favorite things yet.  

Awesome Market!

There were all kinda of vendors which you could barter with and ask for stuff – foods, spices, pastas, t-shirts, jewelry, hats, ties – you name it and it was there.  We shopped around there for quite some time, and on a cool note, there was a statue in that plaza on which the video game character in Assasins Creed is based. 

For all you Assassin's Creed fans out there

From there, we got some awesome pizza (one of my top two favorites in Italy). 

Spicy Salami with Tomatoes and Spinach!  Delishhh

After lunch, we walked to this artisan square where there were thousands of paintings and drawings on sale, and these street artists who were SO TALENTED doing ridiculously good pastel portraits in under 15 minutes.  

We watched this one from start to finish, which was incredible

From there we hit the Trevi Fountain, which was gigantic, you couldn’t even fit half of it in one picture frame, zoomed all the way out.  

At the Trevi Fountain, last picture with the oakleys, sad day.

We tossed our two coins into the fountain, for return to Rome and good health!  After that we went to this huge park where all the trees looked like they were from Africa, only the tops had leaves and branches, it was nice and relaxed.  That night we went out to an ICE CLUB, a bar that was completely made out of ice, it was quite an experience, but it was a fun time.  

A bunch of people form our hostel ended up there too, so it was fun!

Wed, Nov 2: Not a national holiday, thus the Vatican was open!  We missed the Pope speaking by like an hour, which would have been so cool, but it was still an experience.  You were allowed to photograph ALL of the vatican museums, which was a pleasant surprise I took advantage of.  I’m not going to walk you through every bit of the Vatican Museums, just my favorite parts, which were Raphaels apartment (my favorite example of art), the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Square, and St. Peter’s Basilica.  We started off in the meseum, seeing all kinds of statues and works of art from literally all over the world.  The immense collection itself is enough to stun you, but the quality is what got me.  There was a room called the Sala Rotunda, with moziac floors depicting mythical battles that was AWESOME, and they had a statue of Hercules. 

Moziac pictures!

Hercules Hercules!

There was a really cool tapestry of the last supper that I liked, here it is.

Getting into Raphael’s apartment, you are just awestruck at the incredible artwork that is all throughout these massive rooms.  My personal favorite was the ceiling of one of the rooms, which depicted four biblical scenes: Moses and the Burning Bush, a sacrifice that I can’t put my finger on, Jacob’s latter, and the Birth of Christ.  Very cool.  

Whole ceiling

Birth of Christ

Jacob's Ladder

Moses and the Burning Bush

Sacrifice...name is escaping me right now

Moving into the Sistine Chapel, the hype was destroyed.  It was just amazing to think that one person painted this by himself.  Apparently Da Vinci never recovered from back problems that he sustained while leaning backward to paint the ceiling.  The famous finger touch can be scene in th center, but the zoom on my camera is not good so I couldn’t zoom in very far.  I was just overwhelmed by all of the paintings, it was something else.  Here are some pictures.

Front Wall

Ceiling - famous finger touching part in top left hand corner

more ceiling

Unbelievable!

Moving out of the meseums, and entering St. Peter’s Square, as corny as it sounds, I could just feel the history.  It was pretty neat to imagine the square being packed, everyone waiting for the announcement of a new pope.  I can’t even imagine how many people could fit in it, it’s freaking huge.  I also am a big Angels and Deamons fan, so it was cool seeing where the movie was filmed!  Here are some pictures of St Peter’s Square. 

Just plain awesome

Tan-man and I livin the life

The line into the Basilica was about 40 minutes, not bad considering it can apparently get up to 4 hours, and it was the only line we waited in all day.  As soon as we got in, our jaws damn near hit the floor.  This was, for me, the most impressive thing we saw all trip.  The ceilings had to have been 200 feet, and God knows how high the dome was (it is still the biggest in the world). 

Packed, but didn't even feel crowded it was so big

The statue of Mary and Jesus that is so famous was pretty moving, and there were other huge statues and paintings that were gorgeous also.  

Mary holding Jesus

The way they had the windows set up, the light was beaming in so beautifully and it was an awesome time of day to see it.  They were actually setting up for mass, which was neat to see.  

Pretty light beaming in

The dome!

The big wooden awning thing was massive and intricately designed, with thombs all around and an actual body of one of the Popes visible in a glass Coffin.  I did not care to look at it, grossed me out.  Still, my favorite was definitely being in St. Peter’s Square, it was just really really cool, that’s the best adjective I can use to describe it.  After a long day at Vatican City, we grabbed some quick pizza and headed to the airport to catch our flight.  Blog about Reggio Di Calabria and the South of Italy to come!  I need a break, this one took me a few hours!  Ciao!

Madrid, Spain

This is going to be a Marathon blog post.  I just got home from my fall break, and it was a whirlwind of fun.  I’m going to break it up into cities: Madrid, Rome, Reggio di Calabria, Taormina (in Sicily), and Scille (pronounced shee-la, just north of Reggio).

Madrid: 110 miles

Art, lots of art.  We started the trip on Saturday the 29th, at 8am.  Wasn’t too bad because everyone was being lame and no one wanted to go out on the Friday befote.  We first visited a Monestary a bit outside of Madrid which was OK, nothing special, and DEFINITELY nothing compared to St. Peter’s Bassilica.  At every place in Madrid, we were not allowed to take pictures, so I literally do not have any Pictures from the interior of buildings we saw.  That afternoon we went to the Prado, which was full of paintings that were clearly masterpieces, but I haven’t studied World history all that extensively yet  so some of the pieces that had huge significance I had never seen befote and thus couldn’t really apréciate as muh as I could or should have. 

Saturday night we went to see HAIR in Spanish.  That was COOL, and plus I had never seen a musical in English, so it was a double first for me.  

The end of HAIR!

It was incredible how good all of the cast members were, every one of them had some serious singing pipes.  The story line was apparently different, but it still followed that same anti war, weed smoking, hippie type theme.  From there we went out to one of the best clubs in the World – El Kapital.  On top of that, I met up with one of my good old friends from high school who I hadn’t seen in years and is studying in Madrid this semester.  It was one of my favorite nights yet – this club had 7 floors, all with a different theme and music.  

Crazy first floor dancers and dance floor!

The top floor had a canopy roof that oponed up to the open air, and the bottom floor was live DJs with all kinds of crazy dancers on this huge stage and a massive dance floor, definitely the coolest club I have ever been to.  Worth every penny of the 20€ cover with two free drinks.  Shout out to Corey Pegram, awesome night at Kaptial my friend.

Sunday we Wole up at like 9:00 and went to the Royal palace and the Reina Sofia art meseum.  The palace was pretty similar to all the other ones, I wouldn’t have minded going somewhere else – it’s getting pretty redundant.  What was not redundant was the Reina Sofia and it’s plethora of Picasso paintings!  Now those were something that I could have looked at all day long.  Everytime you looked at it from a different angle, there was something else you could see and another aspect that you didn’t see before.  Once again, you couldn’t take pictures, but I love how Picasso’s stuff at first looks like it’s done by a five year old, but then you actually look at it and realize how brilliantly bizarre it is, and in my opinion is definitely the defintion of abstract.  After that, vacation started!  We headed to our hostel, went into the shopping district of Madrid to walk around and took it easy that night, we had an early flight to catch to Italy!

Fall Break and Italy!

I first would like to send out a big "HAHA" to my fellow dukes because we have fall break here, and you don't have it there.  Secondly, this last week was pretty tough school-wise, but I can't really complain, it's not been the most rigorous work load of my life thus far.  I had a business test today that went decently, there was some peculiar stuff on it, but oh well.  I bought a SWEET belt today, that's like a mimic of the spanish flag, from a store that had a 50% liquidation sale, for 13€, it's awesome.  We are going to a concert tonight of some sort, not quite sure, then off to Madrid for the weekend.

After Madrid, I fly out to ROME for two nights and three days, then head to the South of the boot of Italy, a little town called Reggio di Calabira, to stay with my roommate's cousin who plays professional volleyball there!  We are going to explore the small town and definitely go see Sicily, which is only a half hour ferry ride away.  Gonna be an awesome trip, I'm sure there will be lots more blog posts after the trip!

Hasta luego!

Andalucía!

 Mile count: 894

Day One: Granada

7 am came real early once again, as we had gone out the night before.  It’s OK though, my last minute addition to my luggage was this neon green microfiber squishy pillow thing, and it was quite possibly the best thing I packed – it’s a LIFE SAVER on the bus.  I put that bad boy in the corner and put on my “Nap” playlist on my Bose headphones…lights out.  Four hours later, abra ca dabra, and we are in Granada.  Andalucía was a trip of Cathedrals and Palaces.  Don’t get me wrong, it was cool to see, but we saw three cathedrals and three palaces in four days…they get somewhat repetitive.  

Anywho, the Cathedral in Granada was neat, my favorite part was the obnoxiously big organ set they had, it was GIGANTIC.  

The ceiling was pretty cool, but other than that it wasn’t anything to phone home about. 

Our Flamenco dinner was another story, it was legit!  The restaurant was in Old Granada, which is what you would imagine when you think of Spain – small streets, cobblestones, old little houses, Rolling Hills, the whole bit.  The Flamenco place was literally in a cave. 

First, the meal was obscenely huge, as are all the meals here.  Thank God I have Only put on five pounds thus far, I have no idea how.  

Zuchinni Fries! With syrup type sauce

so. good. 

I think it’s because we literally do not snack here, only meals, and we eat alot for those.  Anyways, the meal was great and as we got our dessert, the Flamenco started.  Talk about intense!  The guitar player and singer were both like something I have never heard.  The singers voice is really tough to describe, but I would liken it to an Indian tribal voice, but singing in Spanish about this really sad story.  There certainly was a story line, but we couldn’t follow it since he was singing it.  

Singer

Whole group, on the left are the dancers/clappers, and the singer and instrumentalists are on the right.

There were four dancers, one male and three female – and they were all in peak condition, Flamenco-ing for 20 minutes a piece, straight.   One would dance, and 5 other people would clap a rhythm (not simple, very complex, each would be on a different beat) while the guitar player and singer both did their things – I can’t imagine how much practice it would take to be as good as they were.  

The women had on the most intense, “I am going to kill you and eat your baby” looks on their faces, like the black girls on step team when they step, except this was WAY better than step team.  They moved their feet so fast and were so into it, it was one of my favorite things yet.

After flamenco, we ended up having a bro night out – Tim, Glenn, Carl, and I went out to meet up with one of Tim’s friends who was studying there.  It ended up being alot of fun, we first went to this place that I could only liken to a huge skate park where there were literally hundreds of people congregated and drinking – it was just a huge pregame.  

View of La Alhambra at night!

Then we went to this really cool disco that had an all glass dance floor, that went out to a huge patio which had a view of La Alhambra that was breathtaking.

Solid day one.

Day Two: La Alhambra in Granada and Córdoba

So on day two our wake up call came EXTREMELY early, but the shower had great water pressure so that woke me up.  We made our way to La Alhambra, which is an Arabic Castle in Granada that was taken over by the Spanish when they reconquered Andalucía in 1492 (it was a good year).  This was pretty cool, unlike any architecture I have ever seen.  They had some gardens that were pretty damn cool, but we have seen lots of royal gardens, and they are starting to lose their luster.  

What did not lose it’s luster was the really pretty reflecting pool that was in one of the buildings, as well as the fantastic views of Old Granada. 

View of Old Granada

On to Córdoba.

Córdoba: Here we saw the Mezquita, or Mosque turned Cathedral.  It’s the oldest Mosque in the whole of Spain, even though it’s not really a Mosque anymore.  This was probably my least favorite because it was architecturally exactly the same as what we had just seen at La Alhambra hours earlier.  Boring.  We went out again in Córdoba, which was alot of fun.  

We started out in this little local bar with house music, which sadly only played for like ten minutes after we got there.  Still cool.  Then we went to some discos, and I was really excited about asking for a beer and being served Budweiser.  

Excited about budweiser in Spain!

To top it off, because we were from the states, the bartender gave us free shots of Jack Daniels...God Bless America.  I love going out in Spain because it is a totally different scene, and for some unknown reason, it is somehow easier to understand and speak Spanish after having a few drinks.  I suppose I am not worried about sounding stupid or being wrong or being perfectly grammatically correct, so I just speak and don’t worry about it.  As for the listening part, I can’t explain it, but everyone is in agreeance it is easier to understand after having a few drinks.

Day 3:  Sevilla

This day started out even earlier, and even more struggling.  When in Spain...

It also started out with another Arabic royal palace.  Once again, neat, but it got a little boring.  There was however some really intricate tile work and paint schemes in this palace. 

Lion tile work, it was like this all over the place.

Cool tile work

The most ineresting fact about this particular royal palace is that Spanish Royalty still stays there when they come, and we visited the room where Coloumbus was initally denied permission to go explore and find what turned out to be America.  Any explorer who wished to get funding from the king and queen had to pass through this room – very cool. 

The gardens outside where a lot like the others, except there were WILD PEACOCKS just walking around mingling; it was quite odd but pretty sweet.

Peacock Chillin

Onto my favorite cathedral, the Gran Catedral de Seville.  It is the third largest cathedral in the world, and there was some ridiculous number of masses on Sundays, something like seven or eight.  The stained glass windows were incredible – detail to the nth degree and just beautiful.  

Unbelievable stained glass

So bright!

Thank you firework mode on my camera, it got some very very clear pictures of the stained glass.  Also, the remains of Columbus’s son, as well as, Christopher Columbus himself were both in that church!  Kinda creepy yet pretty freakin cool says the history nerd inside of me.  Lastly, there was a tower about 50 stories high that we could go up in, and there were some absolutely wonderful views of Sevilla from up there. 

Lots of rooftop pools and restaurants which is a great idea, there should be more of those in the US.  I did not go out in Sevilla – I had a few glasses of wine and watched “Jerry McGuire” in Spanish and crashed.  The “HELP ME HELP YOU” scene, is even funnier in Spanish, incase anyone was wondering.

Day 4: Merida

Merida, Spain is close to the Portugal border, we had about a 2 hour busride from Sevilla to Merida, then another 4 from there to Salamanca.  We log some serious time on that bus.  We have the same driver, David, who is hilarious and always wears sunglasses, a shirt and a tie – we joke that we think he is a secret agent.

Anyways, in Merida we visited the Roman theatre and ampitheatre – they were straight out of gladiator.  Built by the Romans to hold 25,000 people, the ampitheatre was huge.

Gladiator style

It had the places to hold animals, the Royal box, and the moat they would fill with water to have little boats fight.  It was dam cool.  I can’t imagine walking into an arena fileld with 25,000 people know that I am either going to kill someone or be killed.  The adrenaline rush would be out of this world.  Right next to the ampitheatre was the Roman theatre, which was also dam cool.  

Very old roman Theatre

The natural acoustics of it were pretty unreal; we could here people talking in regular voices on the stage from probably 300 or so feet away.  The Romans were some smart freakin people that’s for sure. 

All in all, the Andalucía trip was a success.  Cantabría is still definitely my favorite trip thus far, but I have many more to come.  Team Flacco no Sacco (my fantasy football team) is struggling, currently on a 3 game losing streak.  Oh well...This blog was a long one so I probably won’t blog again for a week or so.  Thanks for reading!  

Segovia Day Trip

Early morning yikes.  I passeddd out on the bus ride, and we got to Segovia 3 hours later before I knew it haha.  Our first stop in Segovia was the Royal Gardins of Queen Isabel.  I can't remember the king, but she was the Queen of Spain, and married another royal person from a country that I can't put my finger on right now (somewhere in the Middle East I believe).  As a wedding gift, the Royal Family of Spain had all of these ridiculous gardens and fountains built. 

Gardens

Sweet fountain, but they only run the water through it like 3 times a year and it's  HUGE deal

Jesús was talking to us the WHOLE time through these little machines that we plugged headphones into and he had a mic attached to his shirt collar.  It was certainly interesting but he rambles sometimes and can be hard to understand.  He would get on a roll and start using words none of us knew, but the fountains and gardens were still cool and pretty.  Another perfect day in Spain, it was a bit colder like 60s but still nice out.

From the gardens, we hopped on the bus and headed to the aqueduct.  This was SWEET.  First of all, they used this aqueduct for running water until 1950, which absolutely blew my mind.  They built the aqueduct because the city center is at a low point, and water would not flow through it, then back up hill, so they built this super tall aqueduct to carry water through the city. 

So Cool!

Aqueduct = Awesome!

There is also a purification house that used super old techniques like running the water through sand and what not to get the water clean.  As you can see in the closeup, there is NO CEMENT used on the pillars or the arcs, just at the top to keep the water from leaking out.  How they did this, I do not know, it was certainly an incredible engineering feet. 

We then went into the center of town (like a tne minute walk from the aqueduct, Segovia is not a big city) and had some lunch.  After lunch we headed to the Royal Castle of Segovia, the one Walt Disney based his caslte on.  FINALLY we were allowed to take pictures inside a caslte or palace!  It was pretty neat, not as cool as the one in Sintra, but neat in it's own right.  

Look Familiar?  This is the REAL thing!

The stained glass was super inricate and well done.  The coolest part about the caslte was the room of the kings, and they had a color sculpture and name inscription of each king at the top of the walls and it went all the way around a massive room.  

beautiful stained class hourseman

VERY VERY cool Room of the kings!

The view was nothing special, just lots of history and a good day in Segovia!  Of to Andalucia, the south of Spain, to visit Córdoba, Granada, and Seville this weekend, should be a blast!  Sunny and hot!

Clase de los Niños!

I am now a little bit over a week into my class where I get to go into an elementary school called a “colegio” and teach the little kids, and it’s pretty awesome.  I have six hours a week to do, and a Journal to write, and that’s the class.  I go Monday, Tuesday, and Wed to the colegio which is not more than five minutes walk from my house, which is SO convenient and way easier than walking the 25 minutes to where classes are.  I teach first and third grade, but all in English.  I am still not quite sure what the philosophy is behind the way they teach English to their students, but apparently they only have one hour a week dedicated to English, which I am there for.  However, some of the other subjects, for instance science, they have in both their Castillan Spanish and in English.  Very interesting.

The first graders are pretty tough to work with.  Happy go lucky and very funny, but also frustrating at the same time because they don't listen to ANYONE, and are always yelling out and getting up from their desk to do whatever it is five year olds do.  The second graders are MUCH better, which is interesting since the age gap is not huge, but they are much better behaved and learn ten times better.  The teachers have interactive DVDs that they play on the projector screens: they have songs in english to help remember things like animals and parts of the body.  Just in the one hour that I teach them, they make noticeable progress, but forget it by the time I get back for the next English class.  If I had an hour a day with the same class I know I could make their English tenfold better, and they would definitely make my Spanish better.  Oh well.

First grade class!

The teachers, who teach them English, are not well spoken in English.  It would have been the equivalent of me trying to teach a class in Spanish after finishing Spanish 2 or 3 in high school.  I wouldn't be able to do it, and they have a tough time with it - part of the reason they have so much trouble with English is that, as I have noted, certain phonetic sounds in the English language do not exist in the Spanish language.  Therefore, neither the teachers nor the students can say letter combinations like "th" (although it's very similar to the "s" sound they make here when the speak spanish) or anything with a hard "A", like my name...they call me "Jota".  Overall it's a really great experience and I love the kids and the teachers I work with, invaluable to see into a elementary school in a foreign country for my future in education as well as my Spanish.

One of my favorite 2nd grade students, his name is escaping me right now

Reflections after a MONTH in Spain

I can’t believe that I have already been here for a month!  Time has flown and it has certainly been a whirlwind.  In this month I have learned hundreds of new words, phrases, and a whole new culture.  Until you are removed from what’s familiar to you, from the language you were raised on, from your home culture, from everyone whom you love most, you take it all for granted.  Not in a bad way, but living here without all of my close friends, family and wonderful girlfriend has made me appreciate them all that much more.

That being said, I miss them dearly, but the friendships I am making over here are awesome, and certainly lasting ones.  We are all learning the same thing, and it is an experience, a phenomena that is tough to put into words.  We are forming an awesome relationship with our madre, she is a trip and big joker, which is perfect for us.  Each and every day, I learn something new, something I didn’t know before – whether it’s a coloquial phrase specific to Salamanca, or learning a new basketball term when I go to the park and play.  The regulars who play basketball at Salas Bajas (the university sports complex) now know me, and we talk and play and banter just like back home.  

My taste buds have fallen in love with the Spanish food, they have some great flavor combinations and the Iberian ham here is out of this world.  The weather has been picture perfect, we had rain our second day in Salamanca, and on our trip to Cantabria, but aside from that EVERY single day has been blue skies and sunny, between 70 and 85 degrees, without much humidity.  The general adult population of Salamanca is not very friendly, store workers give you short, one-word answers and just are not very nice.  The college students of Salamanca, the spanish ones and other international students like myself, couldn’t be nicer.  Everyone is really cool and it sometimes works out that I want to practice Spanish and the spanish speakers want to practice english, so we will have a bi-lingual conversation, which is pretty neat.  A lot of times we just speak Spanish, which is what I prefer, right now I’m working on getting my Spanish accent better.  It’s tough because the phonetics are totally different, so Spanish words we would pronounce one way with our English phonics are supposed to sound a whole other way with the Spanish phonics…I’m getting there, slowly but surely.  

Big shout out to my sister BETSY who I AM SO PROUD OF for getting some awesome job offers and interviews, she has worked harder in her college studies than anyone I know, and deserves every single one ten times over.