Assimilation

For the past two weeks, I've finally felt completely at home in Granada.

I've always been open to change, but I consistently have a long adjustment period afterward. This definitely held true to the latest change I've gone through, AKA uprooting my life in the United States and plopping down in southern Spain to coexist with a completely different family and culture for four months.

I wrote a post a month or so ago about homesickness. Looking back at that, while I remember those feelings, I now feel completely different.

My host family's habits and customs don't intimidate and confuse me anymore. I'm used to some of the strange things they say now, and I can laugh at them. I can sit in the apartment and not feel out of place or like I don't have a purpose. Part of that is that classes have picked up here, and tests and papers consume parts of my day. We're also constantly making travel plans, and while I am in no way complaining about that, it takes a lot of time and effort to coordinate. I am also starting to plan my life when I return to the United States — I need to find an apartment in Dayton, Ohio, for the summer and I need to pick out my senior year classes. SENIOR YEAR CLASSES. That sounds horrifying and exciting at the same time.

My ear is now used to the Andalusian accent, and when I overhear conversations, I no longer hear a rapid mash of who knows what, but more so it sounds like comprehendible Spanish. I don't have to ask "¿cómo?" as much in the house when my family talks to me. My speaking abilities are improving, but Spanish really is a difficult language to speak since there are so many verb tenses that don't exist in English! At least I know my accent has improved greatly.

I have planned out my first meal when I get back to the States (Aurelio's pizza, a fruit platter, salad and a huge glass of milk — por favor mom and dad!), but even so I don't crave American food as much as I did in the beginning. Instead, I have come to crave some of the meals that my host mom makes (pisto con huevos fritos y paella especialmente!) Also, note to roommates in the Ugly Shrub — our meals will surely have some Spanish influence next semester!

A lot of us here are starting to talk about how little time we have left in Europe — time is flying and we're getting anxious about the inevitable end. We've been opened up to a world of traveling — the more we travel, the more we know what else we're missing. I've already been to places that I didn't think I'd travel to during this trip, but there are also places that I planned on going but now I won't be able to, because of time and money. It feels like a curse and a blessing at the same time.

But, we are savoring every moment we have here as much as we can. We now have the Spanish culture under our belts, and are focusing on what we still want to do here while we can.

Aprovecha el día.

Córdoba y Sevilla

Photo credit: lonelyplanet.com

Sun and siestas. That pretty much sums up my past weekend in Sevilla (Seville).

But first, we made a pit stop in Córdoba on Friday for a day trip with our school.

Córdoba, a separate province from Granada, is best known for its cathedral, which actually originated as a mosque. The mosque was built in 784, but after the Spanish Reconquista in 1236 in Córdoba, it was used as a church and later a cathedral was built inside of it. After having visited countless cathedrals in Europe, I was happy to see something a little different. So much that I neglected to take pictures of the cathedral part. Sorry!

We saw some other beautiful places in Córdoba, including the street of flowers. Córdoba is a great place to visit in May, because there is a "patio festival" where people open up their patios to the public, and the patios are decorated with tons of flowers and plants. We saw the beginning signs of that festival. Qué bonita.

The calle de flores, with the alminar
of the cathedral in the background.

The gardens of the Alcázar palace.

After Córdoba, ten of us headed over to Sevilla for the rest of the weekend. Sevilla is the capital of Andalucía, which is one of the autonomous communities of Spain (Granada is part of Andalucía as well).

We stayed in the Garden Backpacker hostel, which reminded me of the Art Hole in Prague. It was small, eclectic, had free sangria and we were served paella one night for €6!

The lobby of the hostel.

On the patio! Such great weather.

Per custom, we did the free city walking tour on Saturday morning. Our guide, Medi, ("like medieval without the 'evil,'") was quite a character, rife with facts and sexual innuendos to keep our attention. We also heard a lot about his Polish ex-wife, whom he fell for because Moroccans are crazy about blondes. But really, it was a good tour, especially since Sevilla is absolutely gorgeous. I broke out my maxi-dress and sandals for the first time this season and bore my pasty skin to the Andalusian sunshine!

There's Medi! In the background is the Torre del Oro,
which was used as a watchtower along the Guadalquivir River.

Plaza de España. Absolutely gorgeous, and less than a century old!

All the provinces in Spain had a special area in the Plaza de España. Here's Granada!

The Plaza de Toros. AKA the bullfighting ring.

The rest of the weekend basically consisted of eating gelato and tapas (which, unlike in Granada, are not free) and moving from place to place, taking siestas in the sun. We are living the Spanish life right here. 

On top of the Metrapol Parasol, better known as the mushroom. 

A lovely siesta in the Parque de María Luisa.

There were so many bands practicing for Semana Santa in Sevilla! We'd just be walking down a street and hear some music in the distance, and suddenly there'd be a band marching down the street! Conveniently, a bunch of bands congregated just down the street from the hostel, so I hung out there for a while just listening to them play! Their sounds were generally big and brassy, but even so they were very talented.

And of course, we did the Sevilla pub crawl. One of the funny things about pub crawls is that there's a guide who will take you around to all these bars, and then basically drop you off at a club at the end of the night. So around 6 a.m., it's up to you to find your way back home. This has proven to be very difficult in every city we've done a pub crawl in thus far. Patti had packed a map, but we basically sat laughing at ourselves for 20 minutes while we tried to remember what street our hostel was on and what street we were currently on. But, one way or another, we have always found a way to get home. This time, miraculously the guys we were talking to in the club came out and "happened to run into us" and then helped us get back. So, if there's a lesson in this, befriend locals. 

One more siesta to leave you with.

¡Hasta luego!

A reaction to the press in Spain

So the good news is that Spaniards (at least from the small population sample I've encountered) watch a lot of news on T.V.

When I sit down with my host family for lunch, they turn on the news. When I sit down for dinner, the news is on again. As a journalism major, this doesn't really bother me, as I'm gaining an understanding for how the Spanish press functions.

But believe me, it's a lot different than the press in the United States.

On a daily basis, I'll watch stories with amateur video showing police beating citizens in Venezuela and people throwing what looks like fireballs at police in Ukraine. I've seen the naked bodies of the singers in the Russian punk band "Pussy Riot." I've grimaced as cameras zoomed in on drunken youth trying to barf after consuming a little too much at botellón (botellón is basically the equivalent of a pregame, where there are public places in Spain where you can drink). I've seen the bloody organs of people undergoing surgery.

These are images that I have never seen on American news stations. And it made me think, "Why haven't I seen these types of violent and graphic images before?" The United States has a very independent press, and I couldn't think of any laws restricting the types of images shown on T.V.

So, I emailed Jeff Unger, a wonderful and informative journalism professor I've had at the University of Illinois. I asked him if it is essentially an ethical issue for T.V. stations to decide what images to show to audiences. Here is his response:

"I'm sure you've heard the saying (not heard as frequently as it used to be) about American TV news: "If it bleeds, it leads."

I think American TV in general tends to be less 'blood and guts' than TV in many European nations, Mexico and South America. I don't know about Australia, and I'm guessing Canada is much less prone to graphic news photos.

Showing those images is not, however, restricted by our FCC; what's shown pretty much is up to station management in the U.S. Big city news (WGN is a good example) is more graphic than small-town news (the stations in Champaign-Urbana, for example).

Of course, Chicago has much more day-to-day violent crime, and the feeling among producers for the stations there is that the audiences are accustomed to the nightly shootings and other forms of violence, and therefore, they are somewhat inured to seeing it night after night. It's disheartening to think people are so accustomed to violence that they become numb to witnessing the result of it on their TV screens.

Bottom line: It IS an ethical issue, insofar as each station pretty much is on its own in terms of deciding what to show."

So now I wonder — which approach is better/more informative?

As I become accustomed to the way news is reported in Spain, like Jeff said, I am becoming "numb" to the graphic images I am seeing. I now expect them, and the violence I'm seeing doesn't shock me as much.

Although I cannot understand everything that is being said on the news programs here, I do not think the stories give as much informational content as those in the United States. The segments are very short, and many times, if the stations don't have a lot of video or image content, they will repeatedly show the same images as B-roll throughout the segment.

So, I'm favoring the American approach to the news. But is it beneficial to see the extent of some violence, such as how violent the protests in Ukraine are? Does that make people pay more attention? Does it draw more interest? Does it make people understand the situation better?

What do you think?

New country, new surprises

Before I left for Spain, my friend Alexa told me to write a blog post about the unexpected things I'd encounter abroad. So Alexa, this one's for you.

1. Sites like Pandora and Netflix don't work here.
But no need to fear — there's a way to get around it. You can download "Hola Unblocker" on Google Chrome, and click the little fireball icon on your toolbar when you reach the site. Hola will then remove the regional block on the site.

2. The people in Granada are very blunt and forceful.
I am definitely not in the Midwest anymore, which is arguably the most polite region of the U.S. Here, people generally won't move out of the way when you're trying to pass them on the narrow sidewalks, and in busy stores they will push past you and in front of you if you're not aggressive enough. The Spaniards in our host families don't hesitate to tell us girls that either we have gotten fatter, or we are going to get fat because we eat so much. Sure, maybe we have bought one too many tortas de chocolate from the bread lady (But really, who can turn down €.50 deliciousness?). We'd just rather no one tell us that.

I've come to realize that these differences are not because Spaniards are rude, it's just a part of the culture. Even so, I don't think I'll ever get used to it.

3. When I traveled out to Central Europe, I never had to reset my watch.
Even though Spain lines up longitudinally with Britain, Portugal and Morocco, it is one hour ahead of those aforementioned countries. In the '40s, Spain's Fascist dictator Francisco Franco turned the clocks ahead one hour to line up with Nazi Germany. The clocks haven't been changed back, but there is some discussion of doing so.

4. "Weefee" is always an adventure.
Yes, it's true, "Wi-Fi" is actually pronounced like "weefee" here, since "i" in Spanish is pronounced how Americans say the letter "e." It sounded weird at first, but now I've become so accustomed to saying it that it's going to be hard to go back to the English pronunciation.

Anyway, most coffee shops in the U.S. offer Wi-Fi that can be automatically connected to. Here, in most places you need to buy something in order to get a Wi-Fi password, which expires after a couple of hours. If there is "free Wi-Fi," most likely your browser will never load and your texts will never send.

At my host family's apartment, we didn't have Wi-Fi for a couple of weeks, and then for another couple of weeks the router's signal wasn't strong enough to reach my room down the hall. Even now, the signal isn't strong enough to enjoy Netflix. But that's OK — I just write these blog posts instead, for your enjoyment.

Basically, I will never take Wi-Fi for granted again.

5. Going abroad makes you very patriotic.
It doesn't matter if people are bashing or supporting the U.S. — we ("we" being the American students studying here) find ourselves trying to put in a good word about the good 'ol U S of A wherever we can.

It may be a defensive reflex, as most of us came here thinking that foreigners look at Americans as rich, spoiled and obnoxious. Oh, and fat. Can't forget that.

Just the other day, I was watching the news with my host family and some segment came on that made my host sister ask if all American kids are fat. I immediately got on the defense, saying that that is what a lot of foreigners think, but obesity levels among American youth are actually decreasing. (And no, I didn't just pull that fact out of my butt — I had remembered receiving a news alert from the Washington Post about it.)

On the other hand, I like to see that a lot of Spaniards are very fond of President Obama, much more than they are of their own president, Mariano Rajoy.

Coming abroad to a country with a 26.7 percent unemployment rate — based on 2013's last quarterly report (the U.S.'s unemployment rate is at 7.3 percent) — and looking at the U.S. from a distance makes you realize that every country has problems that are not conceivable until you put them into perspective with the rest of the world. The U.S. is a huge and vastly diverse country, and therefore trying to keep everything running relatively smoothly is a feat, and one that I think Americans can be proud of.

6. My technological problems followed me to Europe.
Technology rarely goes smoothly for me. My laptop, which had chronic problems in the U.S., fizzed out on me here and was unusable until I brought it into a quasi-Apple store in Granada. There, the tech guy told me just how to shake it (yes, I was instructed to shake my laptop) so as to shift the RAM into place. I still have to shake it about two or three times daily.

My phone has also started to vibrate whenever it wants to and ring even when it's on silent.

But hey, I'm in Europe, so all's fine.

That's all I've got for now, but there will surely be more to come!

Por fin: ¡Otra entrada en español!

Ha sido dos meses desde yo llegaba en España. Recientemente, he empezado a pensar en español y por eso, es un poco más fácil hablar sin hesitación. Es cómico que algunas veces pienso en español en mi mente que quiero decir, y después lo traduzco en inglés para ver si es correcto. Al principio, hice lo contrario.

También, pienso que mi acento español es mejor. Todavía, tengo un acento americano, pero es menos obvio. En los barres, cuando hablo con españoles, ellos dicen que hablo español bien. No sé si ellos digan esto porque soy una chica y ellos son chicos y estamos en un bar, pero lo me gusta cualquier manera.

Pero, todavía no entiendo todo. El acento en Andalucía es diferente que el resto de España, porque aquí la gente no pronuncia "s" al fin de palabras. Otra vez, cuando estoy en barres y hablando con españoles, ellos dicen que están hablando con un acento de Madrid, porque saben que es mas fácil para los extranjeros entender. También, algunas palabras le pronuncia más suave. Por ejemplo, "Granada" es pronunciado más como "Grana" — se cae la "d." Esto es un poco difícil para los extranjeros, especialmente en la habla informal y rápida (con amigos y familia). En clase, los maestros usan un español más formal, y entonces podemos entenderlos muy bien. Espero que mi familia española pueda verme y escucharme en clase, porque allí, puedo hablar mucho porque comprendo todo. En la casa, es más difícil para entender porque ellos hablan rápidamente y sin enunciación.

Es interesante que como aprender más español, siento que saber menos y menos. Español es un idioma muy difícil, y hay muchas reglas y tiempos verbales que inglés no tiene. Parece imposible para saber todo y hablar español con fluidez. Pero, por lo menos, hablo español suficiente y espero que mejorar poco a poco.

Budapest, Hungary

Photo credit: lonelyplanet.com

One of the first things I learned about Budapest: Buda and Pest are actually separate areas, separated by the Danube River. In 1849, the beautiful chain bridge was the first bridge across the Danube, and in 1873 the two cities united to become Budapest.

Budapest's Parliament, which was modeled after the Palace of Westminster in London.

Matthias Church on Castle Hill. I loved the tile roofs!

On Chain Bridge, which connects Buda and Pest.

Our hostel (another Wombats) was in Pest, and was situated smack dab in the middle of a ton of bars and restaurants, and just a short walk to the center area.

Our first excursion, as it was the eve of Valentine's Day, was to get Padthai Wokbar and then trek across to Buda and up Castle Hill to the Fisherman's Bastion to enjoy a sunset. We made it there just in time to see the sun fall behind the mountains. 11 girls, Budapest, fast food and a sunset. Doesn't get more romantic than that.

All 11 of us on Castle Hill, overlooking Pest.

After that, some of the girls bought cheap wine at a supermarket (no need to cringe though, because in Hungary, cheap wine doesn't mean bad wine). Patti and I bought cheap cereal, which ended up tasting like chocolate plastic. I guess the same thing for wine doesn't hold true for cheap food.

Soon after that, it was time for the Budapest pub crawl! Once again, we met a lot of really nice foreigners on this pub crawl. Our guide, Mark, admitted to some of us that he was new at this and we were his first big group (there were probably 30 or so of us). At some point during the crawl, he let people stop and get pizza (which was the worst pizza I've ever had) and in the process of getting to the next bar, he left seven people behind — one of them being one of the girls in our group. Oops. Luckily, that pizza place ended up being next door to our hostel. Anyway, we got to see some of the ruins bars in Budapest. I wish I had pictures to post, but ruins bars are essentially abandoned buildings and unused outdoor areas that have been transformed into eclectic bars. The most interesting one was Szimpla, which was the biggest bar I've ever been to. It had so many different areas, both outdoor and indoor, with exposed piping on the ceiling and a mixture of paintings and photographs on the walls. There were plants in some areas and a mixture of types of furniture. It's hard to describe just how unique this bar was, but suffice to say that it was really, really cool.

The next day we took it easy and took a tour of the city and ate some really good food. A lot of the food we ate on this trip was similar (goulash, goulash, goulash), so I'll just post some of those pictures here. For my dad's sake. :)

I couldn't help but dig in before this picture was taken.
Roast beef, cranberry sauce and potato dumplings in Prague.

Goulash and bread dumplings in Prague.

Our tour guide said this was a popular Hungarian dish, and I sure hope she was right,
otherwise I ate a mountain of fried dough, sour cream, cheese and ham for nothing.

On our last day, Patti, Melissa and I headed to the House of Terror, which I learned is not a haunted house. It's actually a museum/memorial dedicated to telling the story of the Nazi occupation and the communism rule in Budapest. It was pretty haunting and a little similar to my experience at Dachau. I wish we had a tour guide, however, because a lot of the signs were only in Hungarian.

Outside the House of Terror. The building used to be the headquarters of
the secret police of both the Nazi and Communist governments.

Bullet holes in the former Ministry of Defense building,
leftover from the Communist regime.

Later that day we successfully survived a Ryan Air flight and made it back home to Granada. Before coming to Spain, I didn't think I'd visit any of the countries we traveled to during Semana Blanca, but I'm so glad the opportunity came up. This was one heck of a trip.

Vienna, Austria

Photo credit: lonelyplanet.com

Vienna is more modern and not as beautiful as I expected it to be, but nonetheless it is a city of fine arts, and that was enough for me.

1. Mozarthaus
Before the trip started, visiting the Mozarthaus was the only thing that I knew I had to do. Years and years ago, I fell in love with Mozart's music when I learned his flute concerto in G major, which is basically a rite of passage for flutists. I still have a good portion of that concerto memorized, and I can feel the keys and the air passing through the flute as I think about it. (Yes, I miss playing just a bit.) 

Anyway, Mozart spent a lot of his life in Vienna, and one of his apartments was turned into a museum. Patti and I went together, and while both of us are terrible at directions, we were very proud of ourselves for figuring out where it was on our own (only with a couple questions to passersby along the way).

Outside the Mozarthaus!

While there weren't many originals in the apartment (as they are spread out in various museums across the continent), it was still really cool to walk through the rooms Mozart did himself a couple hundred years ago. 

Just outside Mozart's apartment. Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures inside.

There was a special exhibit on Salieri, who was another lesser-known composer during Mozart's time. It seemed like the exhibit was dedicated partly to debunking the myth that there were ill relations between the two composers, as movies such as "Amadeus" have proposed. ("Amadeus" is a great movie though, I highly recommend it if you like classical music at all!) 

Patti and I also made friends with one of the workers there, and he was eager and willing to answer any questions we had. We just laughed afterward because we completely forgot to ask his name.

2. A €4 ballet at the Vienna State Opera House

Right after Mozarthaus, we met the rest of the girls at the Vienna State Opera House, which is the beautiful, main opera house in the city. To our chagrin, the rest of the girls had showered and put on nice clothes, whereas I was in green cargo pants and a jean jacket, and Patti was wearing leggings. But since our standing room ticket for the ballet was only €4, we figured that nothing much could be expected of us anyway. 

In our standing room area at the ballet! People used scarves to save their "seats."

The ballet was split into three parts, and each part was extremely different. The first was very modern, the second modern as well but with more visual and audio elements, and the third was my favorite, as it had a live pit orchestra.

During the intermissions, we watched as classy, older couples in extravagant clothing sat down at pre-set tables with platters of caviar and more fancy food. Then I pulled out a water bottle from my purse, along with the tiramisu nuts I had bought at the Naschmarkt earlier. Saving money likes pros there.

3. Schönbrunn Palace

Just about a 15-minute train ride outside the city center is the Schönbrunn Palace, which was the summer residence of the Habsburg family. Even more magnificent than the lavish interior of the palace were the sprawling gardens. I wished I could be one of the runners casually jogging through the finely cut hedges, past ornate statues and up the hill to the little reflecting pool.

The next day we left the Wombats City Hostel (by the way, we stayed in a Wombats hostel in both Vienna and Budapest, and while they're not the most social hostels, they do have an awesome all-you-can-eat breakfast for less than €4) and headed to our last stop: Budapest, Hungary