Barcelona, Blisters, Colds, and Classes

It has been a hard week. Between blisters, registration for classes (que fracaso), illness, and all the consequences of these things… oh boy. Long. Week.

But let’s start with the fun part—Barcelona!!! This past weekend was spent very pleasantly in Barcelona, arguably Spain’s most international city alongside Madrid due to its proximity to France, and therefore Europe, as well as its size and appeal as a travel destination for foreigners. I adored the city, although I feel like it might have been a bit overwhelming to study abroad in because it’s so big, and also because many people prefer to speak the local co-official language, Catalán, as opposed to Spanish. In some ways, I could understand the Catalan better than my fellow travel companions because I speak French as well and some of the words were basically a mix of Spanish and French (exit = sortie (fr.) + salida (sp) = sortida!), but sometimes it was just bizarre and made me feel like my brain was melting. The fact that some of the buildings also appear to be melting only adds to the weird mental delirium! :P Antoni Gaudí was a modern artist around the turn of the 20th century who created much of what makes Barcelona so fascinating to me—he designed and built several awesome but bizarre houses (the melting ones, plus some that look like gingerbread houses from fairy tales), the Sagrada Familia Cathedral with its melting front and fruit bulbed turrets, and the Parque Güell, with rock tree formations, an undulating ceramic patchwork bench, and an adorable Salamander fountain. He was so cute I had to give him a kiss. :) The first day of our weekend was mostly spent running around the city to see these various buildings, and wandering through Parque Güell, where I bought a really beautiful swirly ring from a gypsy and the other girls got scarves, rings, and necklaces. In the afternoon, we wandered down Las Ramblas to the Market of the Boquería, a really lovely market where all the fruit, candy, dried fruit, and other products are displayed with such precision and organization that it seems almost a shame to buy anything and disrupt the displays! Every stand was like a posed painting, and the exotic nature of much of the fruit added to this impression. I bought a little fruit bowl for only a euro fifty for an afternoon snack, and feasted on the mango, watermelon, strawberries, coconut, cactus fruit, and honeydew quite happily. That evening, my friend did a really lovely decorative braid in my hair, which was super exciting for me because I am basically a tomboy at heart and can’t do a damned thing with my hair most of the time except pray that it behaves itself! :P This first night, we found an all-you-can-eat buffet with a gorgeous salad bar and yummy pizza and pasta and gorged ourselves. I think almost every single one of us six girls ate over three plates of food, and most of us regretted it after, but it was still a fantastic (and fun) meal.

Of course, being the bright, forward-thinking young ladies we are, we forgot that we had planned to have a beach day the next day, and now the prospect of displaying bulging bellies in our dainty bikinis didn’t seem quite so appealing. :P However, we held fast to our plan and made our way over to the coarse sand beaches the next day to enjoy the sunshine and a break from sightseeing. Only four of the six ended up staying all day, and I am happy to say that I was one of them! I am also VERY proud to say that I managed to avoid sunburn despite being under the sun the whole day—yay for sunscreen!! It was a wonderfully relaxing day, and a very much needed break from both the daily grind as well as the frantic sightseeing of the previous day. Unfortunately, I was a bit of a ditz and didn’t drink quite as much water as I should have; when we got up to go back to the hostel, I suddenly felt dizzy, nauseated, faint, and way overheated. Oopsies, heat exhaustion! I really should have known better, but I was lucky to have great friends with me to pulled me along through the metro and force fed me water until we got to the hostel, and then basically pushed me into a cold shower, after which I felt much better and was able to lay down for a few hours to regain some strength before dinner. Dinner tonight was much simpler and smaller—pizza at a little cafeteria next to the hostel, and then gourmet ice cream before girly chat time in our bedroom and to sleep.

Our last morning in Barcelona, we wandered the Gothic Quarter a bit and had a coffee next to the Gothic Cathedral before visiting the Chocolate museum, which was both charming and delicious—the ticket to get in was a chocolate bar!!! :) My favorite chocolate sculptures were the ones that reinacted scenes from the French comic Astérix and “Up!” I was super excited about the Up one in particular—it was so adorable!!!

Our voyage home was long but uneventful, other than the fact that I was now beginning to feel positively horrible—congested, exhausted, achy, with very sensitive skin—all sure signs that I’m coming down with something unpleasant. As I had predicted, I woke up Monday morning feeling miserable, and skipped my morning classes to be able to rest and try to get a bit better. Tuesday I also skipped my morning classes, and I am SO glad I did, because by Wednesday evening I was starting to feel better, and today I am all better except for a little residual congestion. Still, you all know how much I HATE being sick, so I was quite a grump at the beginning of the week.

To add to my grumpiness, I had registration for next semester’s classes on Tuesday at 4pm Pacific time… which is 1 am my time. As I do not have internet in my house and didn’t want to stay up, and wander out alone and sick at one in the morning to an internet café, I did something kind of maybe like having my parents register for me. Maybe. I mean, I would never do anything against Scripps rules like give my password out… but come on. No one would blame me if I had.

Anyways, the one class I NEED to complete my general education requirements is a Natural Sciences class. Of course, by the time my registration time came around, both the ones I had picked out as non-science-major classes that fit in my schedule were full. Haha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Yeah. I was not so happy about that. I suppose maybe karma is trying to save me up some good luck so that my plane doesn’t get stuck in volcanic ash on the way home, but still. It was just another blow to my mood during an already difficult week. Well, I wrote to the teacher of my preferred class, and I’m fairly sure he’ll let me in, but I still don’t enjoy the extra stress that registration added to my week. Happily, I got into my three other classes without any fuss—“Voyage et Exotisme” (French class on Travel and Exoticism through literature), “Within the French Salon” (Another French lit class, to be taken with my lovely Melissa!!), and an Intro to Latin American Culture and Civ class (because I think I’ve got Spain covered now).

The next day I was so stressed about writing to the teacher and hearing back from him as soon as possible that I almost RAN back and forth from school—under the hot midday sun, in sandals, while sick—twice, and in doing so, gave myself a very angry blister. Guess where the blister was? Not on the side of my foot, not on my heel, no, on the BOTTOM of my foot, right under my second toe. And it was BIG—it probably protruded a good quarter of an inch (I don’t actually know since I didn’t measure it, but it was a lot of protruding angry blister, that’s for sure). THIS, my friends, was the cherry on top, and suddenly, I wasn’t angry or frustrated any more. Oh no, now I was hysterical, and hysterical for me means that I’m all laughs and giggles—and on the precipice of a nervous breakdown. It’s a dangerous but surprisingly enjoyable state to be in. Well, luckily, things started turning around and I didn’t have to have any breakdowns. When my host mom got home from the movies (Wednesday is her night to go to the movies with her friends, she’s so cute!), I showed her the blister and she called her friend (who was a nurse) to ask what the best course of action was. Because the blister was on the bottom of my foot, there was nothing to do but pierce it with a needle and drain the fluid so that I could walk the next day. I was really nervous that it would hurt a LOT, but because the surface of the blister is dead skin, the piercing and draining process was relatively painless! Concha and I had a good laugh over it and off to bed I went, feeling much more cheerful. Concha always has this affect on me. :)

Over the past two days, I’ve been resting up, and the blister has been healing beautifully under the strict supervision of Concha and repeated sterilization with… iodine? Some yellowish liquid that she uses as an antiseptic liquid. Tomorrow I’m off to the beach with some friends for the day to “work on my tan”—by that I mean lie in the sun all day obsessively applying sunscreen and watching my freckles start to appear. My nose is already highly freckled and adorable. :)

I almost forgot! Monday is Día de la Cruz, and all over Granada they set up crosses and play traditional music and people dance Sevillanas (traditional dance, relative of Flamenco), so yesterday Concha started teaching me Sevillanas! At first she was just going to teach me the first part (there are four parts), but I did so well that we made it right up to the fourth part last night!!! She said that I learned more in a day than many people learn in months of classes—I was very proud. Anyways, she wants me to dance it with her for her friends, which I’m excited about. I just LOVE spending time with Concha—I definitely feel like she has been one of the most positive parts of my experience here in Spain, and she made this week in particular much more bearable. :)

I hope you all have enjoyed a less turbulent week than me, with considerably less blisters. ;)
Pura vida,
Kelsey

Sevilla, Olive Oil, and Why Boys Suck

First of all, I want to note that actual good guys are going the way of the dinosaur. Men are quite scummy these days. I just thought someone should raise the alarm on that one. (I’ll tell this story later on.) **Edit: Ok, FINE. Guys are generally kind of awesome, I just fell in with the wrong crowd for a minute there. And, to be fair, women can be just as bad (often worse) than men. I'm sorry I got upset and said that men are scum. Sorry, men. You aren't all bad, the bad guys just seem to be more... vocal.**

Anyways. This weekend, a few friends and I went to Sevilla, which is the capital of Andalucía and a really cool city. It was a bit rainy on and off during the day, but it was actually pretty awesome to hear thunder occasionally, and at one point, it was ACTUALLY RAINING—not sprinkling like it usually does, but really coming down! I definitely went and danced around in it for a minute. :)

The first place we went to we actually found on accident, because we were lost. :P It’s called the Plaza de España, and it’s one of the buildings that was built in 1929 (I think?) for a big fair thing, and it has representations of each Spanish municipality in these cute little booths, all done in lovely Sevillan tile work. We found the one for Granada and took pictures of it and with it, of course. The building is built in a semi-circle, and it has a cute little fake canal and very cool bridges that go over it—all very useless but beautiful.

Next, we walked through a lovely couple of parks in search of the Cathedral and Alcázar (palace), and played around on this awesome tree with a really cool, complex, above-ground root system. Then, we got lost in the old Jewish neighborhood—judería, which pretty much every Spanish seems to have, and they’re all beautiful and cool. (We did a lot of getting lost and finding cool places by accident.) Eventually, we actually made it to our destination, the Cathedral. I kind of feel like I’ve seen so many gothic cathedrals that they all blend together and look the same to me after awhile. However, this cathedral is supposedly the third biggest in Europe, which is pretty awesome. Also, its belltower was built by the same guy who built a belltower I saw in Rabat, Morocco, which is pretty awesome. It has a ramp up to the top instead of stairs so that whoever was going to ring the bells could ride a horsey up to the top, which I loved, because sometimes walking up or down a lot of stairs gets me pretty close to having a panic attack, actually. (I’m remembering the tower in Bruges – it was not very fun trying to come back down from the top. Poor Melissa had to coach me through it—I miss that girl!)

After seeing the cathedral, we took a lunch break on a bench in the square in front of it, and did some people watching and horsey watching—there are a lot of carriages that hang out there to take tourists on little jaunts. Then, we went to the Alcázar, which is the palace where the King stays when he visits Sevilla, and very similar to the Alhambra. One really cool thing about the Alcázar is that a lot of the paint is still intact, so you can get an idea of what the Alhambra would look like if more of its paint decorations were still intact, too. There were a ton of rooms, and we kept discovering new little nooks and courtyards, each one cooler and more charming than the last. Also, one of the girls I went with was pretty goofy because she’d stayed out all night the night before and was a bit sleep-deprived (ahem), so she got us all to sing Disney songs and dance around through the royal halls and gardens. It was pretty awesome. She also serenaded the fishies in one of the many fish ponds (which were all pretty grody looking, poor fishies) with a lovely rendition of “Come little fishies, I’ll taaake you away…” from that movie, the one with the witches… what was that called? Anyways, all in all it was a pretty awesome day.

The next day, my program took us to an old olive oil making place that is now only a museum, and it was super cool to see the way they press olive oil. We didn’t actually get to see them make any, since the machinery isn’t functional anymore, but still. Olive oil is such a huge part of the culture here, and I love how good it is for you, as well as how good it makes me feel—my hair and skin are definitely softer, for one thing! So that was fun. Plus, there was this cute doggie who accompanied us on our tour, and we named him Jack. I wanted to take him home and give him a bath, and maybe a few rabies shots. :P

So, I guess I should explain my frustration with men a little further. Besides the gross catcalling and horror stories of harassment I keep hearing from my friends about Spaniards, I have become pretty disillusioned with some of the guys in our program lately, too. A lot of them seem really nice, right up until you realize they’re just looking to get some action and don’t actually care too much about developing a friendship with you. I’m really NOT looking to hook up with anyone, and as soon as they figure that out, many of them have stopped being so friendly. It’s really quite charming. There’s one guy in particular who seems to be making the rounds of the girls, pursuing one until he hooks up with her, then ditching her to pursue someone else. And this is a guy I thought originally was really a sweetheart—shows you how good a judge of character I am!

Anyways, not all men are scum, as evidenced by my friends back home and two guys here who have yet to mar their reputation in my eyes. One of them is the guy who has been really great at supporting me and talking through things with me concerning my ex-boyfriend—he’s really challenged me to be strong and take care of myself first, which I appreciate a lot. He’s been a great friend to have here. The other guy is super nice, has a girlfriend, and is SUPER great with boundaries. He makes it clear that he isn’t going to do anything that would make his girlfriend uncomfortable (she is one lucky girl!), but he’s still really fun to hang out with. So last night when we all went out, I kind of just stuck with those guys, and had a really good time (even though some of the not-so-cool guys were around doing their not-so-cool thing, which got me all sorts of mad). They taught me how to eat sunflower seeds! And danced with me without being gross and sexual. It was very nice. So, I guess, most men are scum, but there’s still hope. Sort of.

I’m a little worried about how jaded and bitter I seem to be, but, well, I think it’s a normal part of the growing-up process, and I think perhaps it’s good for me to be seeing bad behavior and identifying it as such. Maybe it will help me to make better decisions about who I get involved with in the future. I’m pretty frustrated with dating people I’m not very compatible with (haha).

I am pretty excited about coming home—being away from all of my friends and family for a little over eight months is pretty difficult and exhausting. I feel SO lucky and SO grateful that I’ve had this experience—I’ve done a LOT of learning and growing up, and I wouldn’t change a thing that has happened in these eight months. Still, I miss home. I miss a sense of predictability in life. I miss not sticking out like a sore thumb—being stared at in the street actually gets old after awhile. :P

Love to all, and see you in a little over a month!!
Pura Vida,
Kelsey

Daily Life in Granada...

I have a few little things that I keep meaning to blog about but put off because it doesn’t seem like enough for a blog, but now I think, between all of them, it’ll be enough. :)

On Sunday when I came home from skyping with my mom at the internet café, there were strange people in my house!! Concha’s brother (the one that’s alive and that I didn’t know existed—now I understand why, whenever she talks about her other brother she says, “the one that’s dead”) and his wife were in town visiting from Valencia, and they brought Concha’s mom over (she lives with Concha’s younger sister on the other side of town) for a visit. They were having tea and watching motorcycle racing when I came in, so Concha made me some tea and sat me down in the circle. At first I felt kind of awkward, but the wife (who Concha is really close to) was super nice and asked me questions about where I was from and that sort of thing, and we had that discussion about how Washington is, in fact, on the west coast and Washington DC is NOT, in fact, in Washington state, and how little sense that makes. (Seriously, whoever named our state “Washington” deserves an award for confusing pretty much the entire rest of the world.) Then we started talking about how no one in the USA knows world geography—some people think Portugal is a part of Spain, some people think the Alhambra is in Sevilla, etc—and had a really interesting discussion about politics and education and all that good stuff. I felt like they were genuinely interested in my opinion and it was surprisingly pleasant, even though I felt like I was bumbling through my Spanish and saying everything wrong because I was nervous. Anyways, it was really nice, and a few days later Concha told me her sister-in-law had called to say how much they all liked me, which of course made me feel great.

Now I can’t remember the second thing I was going to write about. Shoot.

Well the third thing is a bit of a rant, which I don’t usually do, but I’ve got to let off some steam or I’m seriously going to mangle some Spaniard one of these days. As much as I try to be culturally sensitive and aware and I usually don’t have any problems with catcalling and staring, it has been pissing me off to no end lately. Over the last few weeks, I feel like I have endured way more growls, whistles, hisses, invasive staring, and muttered come-ons than any one person should in their life. I have actually started trying to make myself look a little frumpier than usual before I leave the house—AND IT’S NOT HELPING. What grosses me out the most are the older guys—as old or older than my DAD—who stare at my really rather inappropriately and not at all subtly as I pass and then say “oye, guapa…” at me. I actually had some guy say the equivalent of “wow, what a hot thing” in Spanish to me. The feminist in me was SO LIVID—I mean, talk about objectification at the most fundamental and blatant level! Feminist Kelsey and Cultural Analyst Kelsey are really having it out over this whole problem, because I have to realize that, at some level, this is a cultural phenomenon—but, on the other hand, it is unacceptably machista and doesn’t exactly empower women—more specifically, me. I’ve started muttering things back, though—mostly along the lines of “F*** off, you mother f*ing asshole.” It makes me feel slightly better and slightly less like performing a few back-alley castrations, but still. I never thought I’d mind catcalling—after all, some days it’s nice to hear that perfect strangers think you’re hot—but it has gotten absolutely ridiculous, and I often feel like men single me out because I look and dress differently; because I am obviously not Spanish. I know I ought to embrace my uniqueness, but if that involves embracing drunk bums who stumble after me at 2 in the afternoon propositioning me, I’m sorry, but I think I’ll pass.

On to the next item of business! Both of my morning classes were cancelled today, so I spent a lovely morning wandering around the city and enjoying some much-needed solitude. First, I went to the Park—Parque Garcia Lorca—to sit in the intermittent sunshine by the fountains and write some letters. It was wonderfully tranquil—until a guy came up and tried to hit on me, but he was relatively nice about it, so I just smiled and said I was busy writing, and he went away. What a relief. Then, I went to the Church of the Patron Virgin of Granada—la virgen de las Angustias. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but it is gorgeous inside—all gold curlicues and extravagant altars to various virgins or Christ figures. It was very lovely, so I sat down to enjoy the silence and lack of creepers. A French mom came in with her kids, and she sat on the other end of the bench I was on. Her kids wanted to light the little light bulbs masquerading as candles, so she gave them some coins and they came scurrying by me, almost stepping on my toes. The mom called to one of them and told her to say sorry (in French), but the little girl just kept going. The mom made eye contact with me and said sorry, and I said “No big deal”—in French! It just came out in French! I love moments like that where my languages just pop up and I impress myself. :) Not like, “No big deal” is exactly difficult to say, but still! I love my brain, it’s so coy.

Last thing! Today as I was finishing lunch, Concha got up and went into the kitchen, and came back out with this bubble wrap and started popping it. She said, “I just can’t help it! I LOVE popping this stuff!” And I laughed and said I did too, and she extended it to me, and we spent a good five minutes just popping bubble wrap and laughing. I love silly little moments like this; they make me feel so wonderfully young and human and connected with other great people.

Alright, signing off for now,
Pura Vida,
Kelsey