Coming to an end...

Right before coming to Europe in December, I had a plethora of ideas about my soon-to-be life abroad (most, I would soon find out, would be wrong). Sophomore year of high school I "studied abroad" in Cantabria for a month and much as I thought I could connect with my friends who had studied abroad during college, I had no idea.

One thing about Spain that I love more than any country is the culture. This country is so diverse it surprises me how it holds together. In Cantabria (the autonomia labeled in purple to the north of the map) the weather is very similar to that of what I'd imagine being Seattle (but colder during the winter). Everything is very green and the landscape is accompanied by large trees and hills it's also generally cloudy with a drizzle here and there that keeps everything green and, occasionally, people inside. The people speak a Spanish that is very similar to that which I learned in school as the western part of the region was controlled under the kingdom that became the most powerful and thus implemented their way of speech (i.e. modern Spanish is a result from their way of talk).
This semester I was very close to going to Argentina (due to cost and my obsession with their way of speech) however I ended up narrowing it down to Barcelona and Granada, neither of which located in Argentina. I decided Granada because I wanted to continue with my Arabic studies, the standard of life is vastly cheaper than Barcelona and the program offered a trip to Morocco. After being here for almost six months, I am positive that I made the best choice I could have. Granada, and Andalucía more vaguely, is what people think of when they think of "Spain". Andalucía is the most populated autonomia of Spain and the second largest. Much like the Southern United States, Southern Spain is an agricultural powerhouse (but also share some other things in common such as the highest birth-rates in the country, having a forma de habla [way of speaking] that is viewed as "uneducated" and having one of the lower GDP's in the nation). I've very much enjoyed my time here as people in Andalucía are much warmer than those anywhere else in Spain. I've also unfortunately picked up a little unwanted souvenir from my studies here as well: the accent. As much as I tried to resist, it was just impossible. A phrase such as: "Yo estaba estudiando allí pero tenía que ir a escuela al imprimir algo" has now (unfortunately) become "Yo ettaba ettudiando alla pero tenía que ir a eccuela a imprimi argo". Weird.

Regardless, I'm currently sitting in my room after just finishing a final with clothes sprawled throughout my room. I should be packing, yes. I should be working on my other paper, yes. However much that is the case, I cannot stop thinking about this experience. So instead, I'm listening to the most tacky (but SO awesome) club anthems that they play in the clubs here via Youtube. It's so strange having a retrospective on this entire 5 and a half months as it has changed me so much - I'm almost scared to go home for that reason alone. Since January 5th (which seems so long ago while at the same time feeling like just yesterday), I've never been so depressed in my life while at the same time I've never been happier. There are days when everything goes right: waking up to a happy Ana, going to school and following everything the teacher says, ordering a coffee and pastry and while waiting having a conversation with the waiter using subjunctive shortly followed by a pretérito plusquamperfecto. Then there are days in which I couldn't think of the word for something like coffee or something like that, I then get home and find Ana in a grumpy mood and while walking down the street I can't help but think that the 3 year old next to me speaks and will speak better Spanish than I could ever dream of. Another think I've realized about moods is how much weather actually dictates my mood. Fortunately for me, Granada just happens to be close to the Costa del Sol (Coast of the Sun).
...Pues...
There really is going to be so much I am going to miss. I never thought I'd say this, but I really will miss Ana. She's been lovely the past month. Perhaps it's the whole "distance makes the heart grow fonder" as I've been traveling like crazy and have only seen Ana maybe 60% of the past month. There isn't much wrong with our relationship I've come to decide. As one of my friends put it, "Could you really imagine after living by yourself in college for 3 years going to live with your grandmother... who just happens to be a SPANISH grandmother?!" I can tell I will really miss her, even though some of her "ideas" about certain things are abstract, talking with her and at times debating and defending what I believe in has really helped me improve with my Spanish speaking abilities.
I'm also going to miss the Spanish lifestyle a lot... however, at the same time I'm so READY to be back in the United States with our work ethic. A friend of mine here posted a Facebook status that I was thoroughly amused by the morning after we were at the club that overlooked the Alhambra until sunrise... As ridiculous as his status was, it described a lot:

i have mixed feelings about returning to a place where discos close before 8 am... and by mixed feelings i mean sometimes i like staying out until 730 in the morning but then other times i don't like staying out until 730 in the morning and right now those feelings are mixing together and so i have mixed feelings about returning to a place where discos close before 8 am...

Now in that quote you can replace the word "discos" with a lot of things. Along with the love/hate disco relationship, I have a love/hate relationship with: siesta (where everything is closed in this city from 2-4:30 or 5), domingos/Sundays where everything is close (perhaps from going out 'till 7:30 in the morning the night before), etc. I am, however, going to miss just how laisse faire Spain is. In the United States, I would never, EVER do the things I do here. Sitting on a park step drinking a 40 of Granada's provincial beer or other such activies. A friend of mine the other day even jokingly asked me something along the lines of: "Is it sad that when I see police I am more scared of sitting on the grass in the park than smoking a porro in front of them?" I'm also going to miss the "character" of Granada. The fact that this has been my life, walking through the old moorish streets on my way to school while on my way back home I see the towering mountains of the Sierra Nevada that still have snow on them despite the temperature reaching at least 85 degrees for the past 2 weeks. I'm going to miss la Universidad de Granada. It has such a strong student population (88.000 students strong) that really gives Granada its' charm. The nightlife is going to be something I'll miss a lot, too. Granada's "free tapas with a drink" policy is amazing and not to mention a cheap way to get full and tipsy :P
I'm also going to miss my friends here. Finally within the last 2 months I've fallen into the group I get along best with. It's a quirky group that always gets ridiculous and always has great stories the next day (i.e. "He's in the hospital... yes he's fine... no, he just got a bottle broken over his head for making fun of two people having sex on the beach" & "We definitely got kicked out of a shawarma place because she went behind the counter and was stealing the chicken shavings"). Haha, I'm sure I'll do one final post when I'm back in the United States making everyone aware of my culture shock, as having to drive again, be out of clubs by 2 and being able to drink (but having to show my ID each time) will probably take it's toll on me.

I'm not dead... Yet.

To any of you who even read this anymore, I’m sorry for my lack of “ambition,” I guess I’m not really following through the promises of my first post, am I? Since my last post I’ve done probably more than I’ve ever done in my life. I’ve been to North Africa, three islands in the Mediterranean and have gone through a ton of school (not to mention dealt with Ana). I figure what I will do is write about my escapades in the Mediterranean first, as it is still fresh on my mind.

As some of you may know-or not know-I went on break during Semana Santa to that the (not so) great island of Sardinia, Italy’s pride and joy. On this trip I went with travel buddy extraordinaire and recently-voted-illegal-English-teacher-of-the-year, Matt. We chose Sardinia in part because he didn’t want to go to Romania because that was too much of a “funny” trip (as his friends were already taking a “funny” trip to Moscow during Semana Santa) and the flight was relatively cheap. So with a few clicks of some buttons we purchased our tickets via Ryanair and made plans for our first few days in Alghero. Alghero is on the northwest end of the island with some amazing natural sights, one of which being Neptune’s Grotto. Unfortunately for us, Neptune’s Grotto was closed due to those winds (or what I’ve come to find out as Europeans referring to it as a “Hurricane”) that whipped through Barcelona in late January that resulted in some fatalities (and a delayed flight which cost me 65 more Euro for a train I subsequently missed). Unfortunately, Neptune’s Grotto was one of the reasons why we chose to stay in Alghero. So with that plan down the drain we were struggling for entertainment as Alghero is not a place you want to be for constant amusement. To make matters even worse, we had to pay for our hotel, called “Mamajuana,” in full the second day we were there – in cash only. I didn’t think anything of it and continued on my way until I needed to withdraw money from the ATM. Low and behold, it didn’t work (for many of my U.S. readers, you are probably asking yourself: “Why don’t you just use your credit card? I can use it everywhere here.” Well, unfortunately [or fortunately as I haven’t decided] many European restaurants, stores, etc. only accept cash). This, in turn, turned me in to Debbie Downer and Matt into something just shy of a sugar daddy.
Also feeding my disappointment in Sardinia was our previously mentioned hotel, Mamajuana. Matt chose Mamajuana with the best of intentions. Rough Guides did nothing but rant and rave about how great it is for the price and how quaint the café for breakfast is right across the street. The only negative if I can remember correctly was that the bathrooms were small, which they were. The first morning Matt and I wake up to stroll down stairs to get this delicious breakfast from the adjacent café. On our way we run into the Sardinian hotel worker (who was absolutely worthless) and a French tourist. The two are obviously having a slight misunderstanding being as the aforementioned hotel worker only speaks Sard while the poor French tourist who speaks: French, English, Portuguese and some Spanish is trying to create some common ground. Basically Frenchy, Matt and I all had one objective in common: to find breakfast. When it finally gets through the hotel worker’s thick skull that we were hungry, she points to a vending machine and starts pressing buttons. This was breakfast. It was stocked full of all of the Kinder Buenos one could ever want with a robotic coffee maker to boot. This was the cross-street café. As much as I would like to complain about this city, there were some positives. It is a quaint seaside town that has Spanish-style architecture and some great eateries. Two of which that I enjoyed the most were Lu Furat and Angedras. Le Furat is a tiny pizzeria tucked away in the side streets that is a mom and pop (and sons) kinda place. They have a wide variety of pizzas ranging from pepperonia and melone (not pepperoni and melon as Matt thought, but rather peppers and eggplant) to a salmon cream cheese and much more typical Sardinian/Italian fares. The pizzas here were also ridiculously cheap which resulted in us designating this as our food stomping ground. The other restaurant, Angedras, was situated right on the city’s seawall and was a little step up from the mom and pop pizzeria. The menus of the day came complete with a two course meal, bread and drink (Matt got his meat and melon finally followed by the swordfish while I noshed on gnocchi and squid).


After mishap after mishap (besides a little town called Bosa which was suggested by Rough Guides... I’d recommend going there, but not following their suggestions – get lost in the colorful alleyways while enjoying some gelato)

we escaped from Alghero to try our luck elsewhere on the island. We headed to the provincial capital, Sassari to test our luck there. After all, there was no where to go but up after the past days occurrences. Sassari was larger, more industrial but not as cute as Alghero. The hotel we were to stay at that night was like a five star resort after being in Mamajuana. The Vittorio Emanuele had nice décor, a REAL breakfast and comfy beds complete with a television. Also great about this hotel was the fact it was about two blocks away from where my parents wired me money. I owe them my life. After this day we head back to Alghero, with great caution I might add, to rent a car. Long story short, after a frustrating 4 hours, we finally had a car at our disposal (a Panda none the less) and I’ve never seen Matt be so happy. Our first destination avec car was to some of the islands’ Neolithic remains just north of Alghero which turned out to be neat, but not amazing. We then continued our trip up to Porto Torres (via Sassari which Matt did not like… I’m not sure why because I think driving around medieval streets during rush hour in a manual would be fun…) which we quickly abandoned since the city itself was just a giant naval yard that doubled as a maze.
Upon leaving Porto Torres, we headed to where we made reservations for that night: the Pinna Pensione at Castlesardo. Unfortunately we got there a little too late to enjoy the view right away, but in the morning we really got to see how lucky we were. This place was absolutely great! The most adorable old, Italian woman works there and not to mention our room looked out onto the Mediterranean and also the hill that the castle sits on overlooking the city. That day we got lost in the old city and I found a new friend (this cute little puppy!). After one night and a half-day in Castlesardo we moved on to Santa Teresa on the furthest north of the island. Before arriving to downtown Santa Teresa, we got lost on a tiny peninsula with some absolutely stunning rock formations. Personally I thought it looked like Gaudi’s playground.


A little scary, but we did not choose to make reservations at a hotel until our arrival in Santa Teresa, but it worked out for the best. We stayed at a hotel overlooking the bay and when it was clear Corsica was visible. In this city we did a decent amount of walking, some driving and a lot of drooling over traditional Sardinian cuisine. Matt and I managed to find this tiny bakery next to St. Teresa’s main church with seadas (a baked or fried pastry with ricotta cheese filling covered in honey or sugar) and smaller cookies. The rest of our time in the island really left a positive touch on this entire trip. On our way back to Alghero to drop off the car and catch our plane, we chose to drive a little more along the eastern coast and then drive through inland Sardinia (both of which were stunning) while stopping at a lake tucked between the rolling hills and eroding mountains to eat our picnic that we threw together at the supermarket.

My most recent Mediterranean vacation however consisted of spending time on the tiny archipelago of Malta. We chose to go here because I made it a point to go either there or Tunisia while I was here, it just so happened that Ryanair had 10Euro flights to Malta from Barcelona-Gerona and the cheapest flight I’ve seen to Tunisia has been in the mid to upper 200’s. Malta is a tiny set of three islands (only 316 square miles when all the land area is put together) but it has BIG personality. These islands, which have been at the center of a tug of war since prehistory, are a mix of almost every culture you can think of. Once a Phoenician settlement, then Roman, then Arabic, then Italian, then British, it is now an independent country (as of 1964) that houses people and buildings are not-quite-European, sort-of-Arabic but definitely-not-British. This island is home to a lot of interesting historical mysteries and “modern marvels”. The worlds oldest free standing building is on Gozo (~5000 BC) while the same island houses the third largest church in all of Europe (which was completely visible from the entire island of Gozo and easily 20 minutes inland on Malta). Gozo is also thought to be the island where Calypso, from Homer’s Odyssey, lived. Malta’s main island, Malta is not to be outdone by its sister island, though. The island and its cities (or rather every city was just a suburb of it’s capital, Valletta) all house beautiful and colossal churches and a sea of ochre buildings. The island also houses a number of Neolithic ruins like one we went to see called the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum. This ruin was a lot different than what I expected. It is completely underground and carved out of rock. I wish I could insert pictures but cameras were forbidden as to not chance a quickening of the decay of the ruins. Tickets fill up about 2 weeks in advance, which we did not know until our arrival… so Matt, being the champion of traveling and history that he his got up on his OWN at 6:30 to go sit in line for the tickets for the following day at the noon “last minute tour” that has a price of about 20 euro instead of the normal 4.50 euro for students. It was definitely worth the 20 Euro though, I’ve never seen anything like it – and it is a world heritage site. After we left Hal Saflieni, we headed to the outdoor ruins of Tarxien. Note to any reader who is considering doing these two temples in a day: Do Tarxien Temples BEFORE hal Saflieni… it was quite a let down, but neat none the less.
-Another great thing I found out first hand is just how cheap this country really is. Their food is great; a mix of so many cultures, but definitely has its own Maltese flair. Pastries of ricotta cheese or peas called pastizzi or the sweet called imqaret (a nepolitana-type pastry that was a filling of dates, cinnamon and lemon) were around 0.25Euro to about 0.50Euro depending on the location. Not to mention most of the attractions comparable to those that would burn holes in my wallet back in Spain and mainland Europe accepted my ISIC card (which is rare anywhere I’ve been so far) which sometimes knocked down the prices of tickets about 50%. Another cheap “find” in Malta are its buses. This fleet of buses is a hodgepodge of buses ranging anywhere from 1960’s buses to ones built in the past 5 years. Cost for the majority of the bus routes which traveled to every corner of the island: 0.47-0.58Euro.


The first day we arrived at the airport early, about 9:30 in the morning from Gerona airport and were excited to start our day. We managed to do a lot, mainly thanks to our militant schedule and underlined/checked/circled guidebooks which included seeing all of Valletta (practically), taking a bus over to Rabat and Mdina to see the older settlements that could look out over the entire island as they were on a hill. Mdina and Rabat are practically sister cities – or rather Mdina is the old fortified part while Rabat is the more “modern” extension outside of the old city walls. There, we saw St. Paul’s catacombs, ate some great traditional pastries and walked into a pretty impressive church in Mdina. When we got back we kinda lazed for a while to make up for the fact that we got up around 5:30 for our flight out of Gerona. After napping, we realized yet again how luck was working with us: the delay by a day of the Malta International Fireworks Festival. It was supposed to realizarse the 30th of April to the 1st of May, which was sad as we were arriving on the 2nd. Somehow, due to a stroke of ENORMOUS LUCK, one of the barges wasn’t working at the time thus forcing them to push it back a day. Matt and I with eager eyes watched on as the Poland team shot fireworks off to the soundtrack of starwars (so great) while Australia shot off fireworks to the Moulin Rouge soundtrack.

The next few days were pretty neat, we took a day trip to the sister island of Gozo by means of a 20-25 minute boat ride. Unfortunately it was a Sunday and the buses had awkward schedules which restricted us from doing what we actually wanted to do. We did however get to visit Gozo’s largest city, Rabat. Here we managed to see the large church I mentioned previously along with a nice old fortified city and locust, too!

In all, I was extremely impressed with Malta. It was something that I would have never been able to imagine or classify if I hadn’t gone. The language was beautiful. I left wanted to learn it but then realizing that the only upside to all the frustration of learning Maltese would only open up a job at the American Embassy in Valletta… which isn’t the most bustling city. Thinking about this past weeks adventures have left me starving some Maltese desserts.