Granada continued, again

Whew! Finished a quiz yesterday and an exam today. We had another oral exam today in my dreadful America and Spain class, but since we have to talk to him one at a time, we ran out of time before Ángel got to me. I was so relieved. But I will have to do it on Tuesday, the day after I get back from Morocco and the day that two internship applications are due! Also have a small quiz and a composition tomorrow! Busy week! Who knew there would be hell weeks in Spain?

Anyway. Granada.

Sunday morning we woke up and had possibly the most incredible hotel breakfast I have ever eaten in my life. I had flaky croissants (croissants= my absolute favorite) with cheese and turkey, yogurt, cheese eggs with more cheese than eggs, frosted flakes, kiwi, pineapple, hot cocoa, orange juice, basically all of my favorite foods together in one place. I ate so much food, and then took a few packs of pastries and wrapped up another turkey and cheese croissant for lunch.

After breakfast Alyssa, Steph and I tried to go to the pool. Our professors had told us to bring a swimsuit and towel, and I had been very excited when I heard that the hotel had a pool. However, we learned that it was only an outdoor pool that wasn't open and a spa, which we would have had to pay money for. Such a letdown :(

After we put our bags on the bus, a few of us walked down from our hotel into a part of the city where we hadn't been before towards the river. The river, however, was a letdown compared to the river in Sevilla. It was more like a shallow creek in concrete. There was still a beautiful view of the Sierra Nevadas, though.

On the bridge over the river

Then we went to a little restaurant where we could sit outside with a view of the mountains, so that the people who hadn't wrapped up sandwiches at the breakfast bar could eat. I was not hungry in the least, so I just had a coke. It was an incredible day, probably the prettiest we'd had yet. Warm, with blue skies and lots of sun.

After lunch we met the group back at the hotel and hopped on the bus to the Alhambra, the Moorish palace that overlooks the city. It's one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe, and I can see why. It's a castle on a hillside, with amazing architecture and fantastic views of the city and the Sierra Nevadas.

We were divided into two groups, with Carmen as our tourguide again. First we went to the palace of King Charles V, a Christian king who built it after Granada was captured from the Muslims.

Charles V's palace

We went into the circular courtyard, surrounded by marble columns. In the middle, Carmen told us, the acoustics are incredible, making it the perfect spot for the venue for the International Festival of Music and Dance every year. She told us that we should sing something. So there, in the middle of a palace courtyard in Granada, about 25 UNC students of us sang the Alma mater, "Hark the Sound"-- every bit of it.

Where we sang "Hark the Sound" in the middle of the palace

Next we went to the alcazaba, the fort that defended the Muslim city. This is the spot where the soldiers from Aragon and Castillla raised the flag in 1492 after their conquest of Granada, signifying the end of the Muslim reign in Spain. This was the spot where the Moorish king Boabdil looked back and wept. His mom chewed him out, saying "Weep like a woman for what you couldn't defend like a man."

The alcazaba mainly consisted of a wall and ruins, but we were able to climb up in the tower for a fantastic 360-degree view of Granada and the Sierra Nevadas. As I said, it was a perfect day with incredible weather, which made it all the more breathtaking!

View of the Sierra Nevadas

View of the ciudad

Our whole tour group-- about half of the total program, including SAS students

City

City with a view of the alcazaba

Mountains!

Next we went to the Palacios Nazaries, the Moorish royal palace that was built mostly in the 14th century. It was beautiful-- rooms decorated from top to bottom with carved wood ceilings, stucco "stalactites," ceramic tiles, molded-plaster walls, and filigree windows.

We saw the Court of Myrtles. The building surrounding it was thought to be the living quarters for the women with a screen that let the women look out without clearly being seen.

Then the boat room, which is called so because it is derived from the Arab word baraka, meaning "divine blessing and luck," similar to the Spanish word for boat (barco). Then the Grand Hall of the Ambassadors, where the sultan received foreign emissaries. It had finely carved Arabic script-- the Muslims didn't use images of living creatures but instead carved decorative religious messages. One phrase, "Only Allah is victorious" is repeated 9,000 times throughout the palace. In 1492, this is where the last Moorish king, Boabdil, signed the terms of his surrender before leaving for Africa and also where Columbus made his pitch to Isabel and Ferdinand to finance a sea voyage to the Orient.

Boat room

We then saw the famous 12 lions from the fountain of the Patio de los Leones. The fountain was a gift from a Jewish leader celebrating good relations with the sultan, and probably represents the 12 tribes of Israel. The fountain functioned as a clock, with a different lion spouting water every hour, although conquering Christians disassembled the fountain to see how it worked and it's never worked since. The lions were removed from the fountain for an extensive restoration project in 2008. We saw the lions, but it was in a dark room with them in the middle and big screens detailing the extent of the restoration process in a circle around them. They yelled at us when we tried to take pictures.

Courtyard of the Lions

Then we saw the Hall of the Abencerrajes, the room where the father of Boabdil killed nearly the entire pro-Boabdil Abencerraje family in an attempt to deny power to Boabdil and his siblings from the king's first marriage and grant power to the children of his second marriage. But his scheme failed and Boabdil became king anyway.

Then to the Hall of the Kings, the Hall of Two Sisters with a beautiful stucco ceiling, and the Washington Irving room, where he wrote the Tales of the Alhambra while living in Spain in 1829.

Ceiling of the Hall of Two Sisters

Our last stop was a room down in the basement. At first it seemed like a boring, plain room with a white ceiling that stretched down to the walls. But then Carmen told us about the acoustics-- if one person stands at the corner of the room and whispers into the wall, the sound carries perfectly to the diagonal corner. We had a ton of fun playing telephone like we were kids on the playground.

And that was it for the Alhambra! After that we meandered back to the front gate and boarded the bus, back to Sevilla.

Granada continued

(Continued from the last entry)

After we went to the cathedral and the chapel, the group split up. I went with some friends to a tetería, or tea house. Granada still has a lot of Muslim influence, and it is know for its many teterías throughout the city. This one was different than the one we went to in Sevilla. It was a lot nicer, with more tourists because it was just off the main plaza. It was full of hanging draperies and wooden benches. The one we went to in Sevilla was off a backstreet in Santa Cruz, and was full of high schoolers who are too young to hang out in the bars.

The tea was absolutely delicious. Steph and I split a hawaiian tea (yes, hawaiian tea in Spain, how funny) and a chai. Chai is my favorite, and this one was incredible.

Me, Alyssa, Alice at the tetería

The tetería

After we paid we headed back to the hotel for dinner, which we ate as a big group. It was amazing! We had a appetizer buffet with salad and pasta, then a main course of chicken or fish with potatas fritas. It also came with a delicious baguette and an ice cream cake for dessert.

After dinner we set off as a group again to see a beautiful view of the Álhambra by night. It was higher than the view we'd seen of it earlier that day, and it was very beautiful with lights illuminating each of the towers.


It started raining as we were standing on the hill looking at the view, so we headed back down the mountain. A bunch of people were going out to the clubs (and how they made it up and down the cobblestone roads up the mountain in four inch heels-- and then back down again in the rain-- I will never understand). However, my friends and I hadn't brought anything to go clubbing in and none of us really felt like it anyway. We ended up going to a "dance bar" which was actually just a bar with loud music, where we could get 1 euro cervezas, then back to the hotel.

I took advantage of the hot shower when I got back. At my apartment in Sevilla we are only allowed to take 10 minute showers, and the water is lukewarm, at best. I took a long, scorching hot shower, and it was wonderful.

More to come! Sorry I am having to rush through and break my entries up like this-- I have a quiz, two exams and a composition due this week, and I am also trying to apply for internships before I go to Morocco for the weekend! So crazy!

Granada

Just got back from a weekend trip with our program to Granada. We left on Saturday around 9 in the morning on a tour bus of 50 (SAS kids went with us, too.) Stopped at a little cafetería along the way for coffee, snacks and a Cola Cao for me, then arrived at our hotel in Granada at 1:00.

We wanted to go out and explore the city as soon as we got there, since we only had 2 days to see the whole city! We set off following a big group of people from the program, and got lost a few times. The walk was pretty, though, artistic graffiti on all the buildings and a view of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the horizon.

The snowy Sierra Nevada mountains were a perfect backdrop against the white buildings of the city. I never realized that the Sierra Nevadas were that huge, or that snow-covered! It made me miss the mountains a lot, and also want to go skiing.

The graffiti was everywhere in Granada-- covering many of the buildings.

We finally made it to Plaza Mayor, and had some delicious helado, which was delicious. Then a few of us split off from the group and hiked up to an overlook to view the Alhambra, the huge Moorish palace on a hill overlooking the city.

On our hike up to see the view of the Alhambra

We took the scenic route getting back to the hotel, and ended up wandering through some narrow, hilly, winding backstreets in the old Moorish Quarter of the city.

Our scenic route (ok, ok, we were completely lost) in the Moorish Quarters of the ciudad

Lost!

Once we got back late to the hotel, we set off again as a massive group to visit the chapel and the cathedral. Unfortunately our professor, Fernando, who usually gives the tours to our group, wasn't able to make it on the trip because his father was in the hospital. Instead we toured with Carmen, who is our Spain and Islam professor right now (she trades off with Fernando, but she teaches the artistic part of the class.)

We went to the chapel first. As we were standing outside, we watched the gypsies trap a few tourists. They walk up to you and shove a sprig of some green twig in your hand. Once you take it, they won't leave you alone until you have let them read your palm, tell your fortune and paid a few euros. They are very persistent. I've heard of gypsies who, when you tell them you have no money, will follow you to an ATM until you pay them. My friend Alice got caught by one of them in Sevilla and lost about 15 euros! Another girl we knew got out her wallet to pay, and the gypsy took it from her. As she was fighting to get it back the gypsy mysteriously managed to steal about 20 euro without the girl noticing. Crazy!

The chapel was charming. Fernando and Isabel spent a fourth of their fortune to build it. The most exciting part were the tombs of Isabel, Fernando, their daughter Juana the Loca and her husband Felipe the hermoso. It was incredible to see the tombs of the people who had so much influence on Spain and the world. The majority of culture classes so far have been about the Reyes Católicos, so it was very exciting to see their tombs. We also watched a movie about Juana the Loca on Friday afternoon for our Art and Culture class, and I think it made us all relate to Juana.

Everyone knows how Fernando and Isabel sent Columbus to America, united the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile, pushed the last Muslims out of Spain in Granada, and conquered territories around the world. They are known as the parents of modern Spain because they basically created Spain as we know it.

But in case you don't know the story of their daughter, Juana la Loca: Isabel and Fernando married off all their children to various royalty throughout Europe in order to promote good relations (including their daughter, Catalina of Aragon, to King Enrique the VIII.) They married off their daughter Juana to Felipe of Austria (known as Felipe the hermoso.) However, Felipe was a womanizer and a player. He slept around with lots of girls and made Juana extremely jealous. According to the movie, this is what drove Juana to madness, although our professor Fernando says it also ran in the family. Juana and Felipe became king and queen of Spain when Queen Isabel died because all of the siblings who were next in line to take over the throne died. This made them the reyes of Spain, Austria, and all of the many territories that Spain had conquered under Fernando and Isabel. However, Juana was declared crazy and unfit to rule. No one liked the foreigner Felipe taking over, and he mysteriously died after drinking a glass of water (probably poisoned.) Juana spent the rest of her years locked away in a tower, where she kept Felipe's embalmed body by her bedside and kissed it goodnight before she went to sleep for two years after he died.

The tomb of Juana la loca. Because she and her husband had such a distant relationship, the figures are turned away from one another and looking in different directions.

Me in front of King Fernando. The figure of Isabel has a bigger dent in her pillow to signify she has a bigger brain, because she was more intelligent than Fernando.

We could go down below the monument and look through a glass window to see the actual caskets of Fernando, Isabel, Felipe, Juana and one of their children who died really early in life. Kind of eerie, but cool.

The high altar is dedicated to John the Baptist and John the Evangelist. In the middle the two Johns (Juan, in Spanish) are chatting in a humanistic scene. Scenes from John the Baptist's life are on the left-- including a gruesome scene of his beheading. John the Evangelist's life is on the right-- including a gruesome scene of him being boiled alive in oil. To either side are statues of King Fernando and Queen Isabel praying.

To the right of the chapel as we were exiting, we came to a treasury, that contained Queen Isabel's silver crown ringed with pomegranates to symbolize Granada, her scepter, and King Fernando's sword. We also saw the queen's prayer book, a box that she supposedly filled with jewels and gave to Columbus to finance his journey, and cloaks that she and Fernando wore. It also had a very fine art collection owned by Isabel.

Queen Isabel's crown. We weren't actually supposed to take pictures in here, or I would have more.

Worn by Queen Isabel!

Then, we we headed to the cathedral, which is one of two Renaissance churches in Spain, and the second-largest in Spain after the one in Sevilla.

The cathedral definitely looked different than the other cathedrals we've seen so far. The walls were white and the semi-circular main altar had details carved in gold. It focuses around the theme of light and bright. Like the Convento de San Estaban in Salamanca, it had one big, main nave instead of several small chapels. It was a huge church, very impressive, but hard to enjoy for too long because it was so cold. There is a space heater beneath each of the pews so that people won't have an excuse not to go to church. Despite the cold, it was beautiful, probably one of the most impressive cathedrals we have visited so far.

(Entry to be continued-- look for more on Granada soon!)

Salamanca dos

(Follow up to my first Salamanca entry)

Walking through Salamanca

After we went to the university, we headed through the city to the Convento de San Estaban, built in 1525.

Courtyard of the Convento

The well in the middle of the courtyard reminded me of the Old Well at UNC

Mirrors used to view the details on the ceiling of the convent. Or, for taking pictures.

The church part of the convento was the first church I've seen that actually looked like a church. Instead of being divided into chapels, the sanctuary is in the form of a Latin cross, with a single Gothic-style nave.

After we finished our little self-guided tour, we decided it was lunch time. We left the historic, touristy part of the city and walked through the more urban and commercial part of town to a tapas bar recommended by Rick Steves, where I had the most incredible tapas I've had since I've been in Spain! So delicious, we couldn't stop talking about it the rest of the day. And the best part was that I got two tapas, bread and a cerveza for only 2 euros!

"How much did you guys like the tapas?"

After lunch, we walked back through town and met up with Alice at the Plaza Mayor. The Plaza Mayor is the most important spot in the city, and it's where everyone gathers and meets up.


Then Cherise, Audra and I headed to the Puente Romano (Roman Bridge), which is the entrance to the city. It was part of the Silver route, the Roman road which linked Mérida with Astorga. It was built by the Romans to both cross the Tormes river and access the city of Salamanca in the first century. We spent some time sitting on a bench beside the river in the park.


Next, we went to the Convento de las Dueñas. It was a simple little convent consisting of a courtyard and a small museum, but it was cute. It was founded in 1619 and donated to be used for the nuns of the Order of Santo Domingo. Since its foundation, the nuns of this monastery of Saint Mary of the Dueñas or of the Consolación devoted their life to prayer, study and work. We bought some dulces from a nun.

Dulces! The ones we bought were the specialty of the house-- amarguillos. They were a little bit like shortcake, but with a fruity aftertaste. The nuns sell them to raise money for charity.

The columns were held up by strange little contorted figures. Each column was different-- contorted babies, mermaids, horses, etc. They looked like they were in pain.

We went back to the hostel to drop some things off and met a girl from Holland, who was staying on the bunk below me. She spent the last six weeks traveling around Spain, staying in each city for one or two weeks at a time and studying Spanish. This was her last night in Salamanca, but her housing situation had ended the day before so she was just staying in Salamanca for the night before going back to Holland. We talked to her for awhile about traveling Holland, the United States, Spain, etc., and she gave us some pointers on the city and going out. She said people will walk up to you in Plaza Mayor and give you tickets for free drinks in nearby bars, so you could just barhop all night and never pay for a drink.

Then we met up with the other girls and went back to the same tapas place for dinner. It was just as good the second time around-- although much more crowded.

Outside the tapas bar

Love this place!

The SAS girls

After dinner Audra, Cherise and I went to a little cafe-bar and had cake (chocolate, of course.)


We started heading back to Plaza Mayor. All of us were so tired from not sleeping all night, but at the same time we wanted to go out and do something because Salamanca, being a college town, is know for its bars and nightlife. We came to a consensus and took advice from our new friend from Holland. We decided that if someone gave us a free drink ticket, we would go and get something, but if not we'd just go back and sleep.

We sat in the Plaza Mayor for a few minutes watching the people pass by. There were even more people at night, and the plaza was so pretty!


We weren't sitting there long when two girls came up to us and handed us a coupon for a second drink free at a nearby bar. We could tell from their accents, and the fact that we could actually understand them, that they weren't Spanish. We got to talking, and found out that they were Irish and they were studying abroad in Salamanca for the semester. They said they just went to the bar and asked if they could get a job, and they weren't really sure what they were doing. Then they asked if we wanted to come hang out with a bunch of their Irish friends. We ended up having the most amazing time! It was so class (Irish word for cool.) Who knew that the Irish were so friendly and awesome? We drank some sangria in a little plaza behind a building with about 40 Irish people (about 35 of whom were girls). It was like something out of a movie. They would even get up and randomly start Irish stepdancing!

We learned a lot about Irish culture. Most of them were studying at the University of Dublin, but they were from all over the country. They talked about how different their accents were, and how they wished that they had American accents. They told us about how everyone speaks English in Ireland, and even though they are required to learn Irish in elementary school, no one actually speaks it except in very rural parts of the country. They also told us about how awful Irish television is, and about all of the American television that they watch. They asked us if Jersey Shore and high schools on TV were really accurate.

The craziest part was that a few of them are spending their summer in Myrtle Beach. Yes, out of all the places in the United States to travel, they are going to Myrtle Beach. How funny is that?

With Lisa, our new Irish friend and one of the girls who is spending the summer in Myrtle Beach

As we were leaving, we met a guy from Canada. As soon as he found out we were Americans, he said "We're neighbors!" It's incredible how being abroad gives you crazy connections with people you otherwise never would have talked to, just because you speak the same language!


The next morning we woke up early again (8:30) and went to the same little breakfast place. Then we went to an awesome art museum, called the Arte Nouveau Museum. It was all contemporary art in a beautiful building with huge stain glass windows. My favorite part was the huge collection of toy dolls. It took us about two hours just to get through the museum!

We ate at another tapas place, and then it started raining so we ended up passing the afternoon in a coffee shop. Our bus left around 5:30, so we got back around 12:30.

And that's it for my Salamanca trip! This weekend I am going with my program to Granada, so look for more posts to come!