My bomb schedule

In Spain, babies and dogs run freely through the streets, never to be seen with their appripriate owners.

In Spain, people eat fried, oily food, drink excessive amounts of alcohol, smoke like chimneys, and yet live to be 100 and never get fat.

In Spain, a tiny jar of peanut butter costs over five dollars, and can only be found in one specialty grocery store in this city. Pretty much Spain doesn't produce any peanut-related products (including Reese's peanut butter cups-- which is becoming problematic for my chocolate dependent emotional stability).

In Spain, everyone is Catholic, but gay marriage is legal, making love in the street is common place, and moving in with you boyfriend or girlfriend after two months is the norm.

In Spain, women don't begin to have children until their mid-thirties. Isn't that when American doctors consider it a high-risk pregnancy? Something is a little backwards here.

In Spain, I am the only blonde.

In Spain, in this culture full of lively, late-night, party people, no one ever smiles in the streets. You will rarely see someone laughing with a friend or acting like a total fool. This is one cultural standard in which Andrea and I refuse to conform.

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Monday marks the first day of our new classes. Our two week stint of "Intensivo" is now over, and our individualized schedules begin. So of course, we're all trying to figure out when and where our classes are and what new buildings we have to discover. In the midst of this research, I was told that one of the classes I signed up for, which I was most excited about, Medical Spanish, was no longer going to be offered. Apparently only myself and one other girl signed up for the class, so they had to cancel it. So let me break down my schedule for the semester:

I was signed up for five classes in total: Intensivo, Medical Spanish, Phonetics, Literature, and Art History. I just completed Intensivo, and Medical Spanish was cancelled. So that leaves me conveniently enrolled in three classes for the remainder of the semester. Supposedly, we are required to take a full course load of 15 credits, but hey, I'm not the one who cancelled one of my classes. So I think I'm just going to let that slide, considering I only need six more credits to complete my minor. Lazy and sneaky? Maybe. But am I going to take any proactive measures to aquire another unnecessary class? I think not. The program director can track me down if necessary, but I'm not exactly going out of my way to change this situation.

So here is what my actual schedule of classes looks like:
Monday: 4-5, 6-7
Tuesday: 11-12, 4-5
Wednesday:11-12, 5-6
Thursday: 10-11, 4-5
Friday: 11-12

Yes, you read that right. My earliest class is only one day a week, at 10 AM. And on Mondays, my first class isn't until 4 PM. And all other days I start at 11 AM. What a drastic and welcome difference for my life. I could get use to this.

Just another week in Spain

I'm currently taking a survey as to what I should do with my 10 day spring break in the beginning of April. It will be la Semana Santa (Holy Week) here in Spain, and everybody takes off for vacation during that time. Paris, Rome, Cinque Terre, Greece, Canary Islands...they're all possibilities. Its kind of stressing me out though, because I know I'm staying for all of May, and I'm going to be traveling so much then, I don't want to go overboard before May. No se, no se...please just tell me what to do, because I'm just being way too indicisive right now.

In other news, my two week "Intensivo" class ends tomorrow, and we will have our first test. However, it's a little difficult to study for a class that has basically been a 14-day continuous, casual conversation about the culture of Spain. I know we have learned some vocab words, and some phrases, but really? It's not the type of class where I feel like we have been preparing for a test.

Andrea and I are taking proactive measures against the greasy, fried food, olive oil induced comas we are about to enter-- our walking regime has begun. For the past three days, we have been really good about taking hour long walks during our siesta, after we eat lunch. However, my power walk is equivalent to Andrea's quick jog, so it makes conversation a little difficult when she's trying to keep up. Its also really great for seeing other parts of the city that we didn't even know exist. For example, today we walked in one direction we have never ventured to before, and we ended up finding a shopping center! A real, American-feeling, Wal-Mart-like shopping center! It was the most capitalistic, American-esque, material-loving place I have been since arriving in Spain. They just don't have stores like Target or Wal-Mart here. For example, on the way to this shopping center, called Carrefour, we passed a store that only sold yarn. And then we passed another store that only sold printer ink cartridges-- no printers or paper, just ink. Stores are SO specified, you have to run to about seven different stores when running errands.

This weekend, about 90% of our group is taking an optional excursion to Lisbon, Portugal. Andrea and I decided to stay in Salamanca, considering the forecast for Portugal is heavy rain for three days straight. And we are also looking much more forward to saving our money for our big spring break trip. So it will be nice to get some alone time this weekend, because we all spend so much time together as a group, it gets exhausting.

Well, back to the books.

In the meantime, entertain yourself here:
gotta love Chatham County Line

Segovia: We are not friends.

Some might think that walking in the rain and snow with soaking wet shoes and socks for over five hours is a grand old time. I do not. That experience sums up my Sunday afternoon. A bus full of thirty hung over, cold, and wet students equals major crankyness for the afternoon. There may or may not have been tears involved.

Okay, maybe that's an unfair representation of Segovia.

After we left the hotel in Toledo, we took the bus for two hours until we arrived in Segovia...which would have probably been a wonderful city if it wasn't negative 234523 degrees, snowing, windy, and none of us were dressed properly. The major problem was footwear. Had our feet been properly informed of the temperamental weather, they would have been better prepared, being covered in rain boots, or waterproof snow boots, or plastic socks (if only they existed). The combination of soaking wet footwear, taking a five hour walking tour, and my poor circulation issues in my extremities proved to be a bit of a death sentence. It all began at this moment featured in the picture below, when my feet first got soaked.


We visited the gardens at a palace called los Jardines del Palacio de la Granja. They were pretty. Pretty cold and wet.
After the fourth hour, we found ourselves taking a tour of a Medieval castle, made completely of stone and exposed to the elements (aka- not heated and completely miserable). By this point, my feet had been lacking blood for about three hours, and I literally could walk no longer. Don't get me wrong, we were all cranky and cold, but I physically could not take another step. I found myself a cold little corner of the castle and took my socks and shoes off and just broke down for a quick minute. When people noticed my feet were completely yellow, it was time to do something about this. We made our way to the bathroom and praise the Lord, there was a heated air hand dryer. I spent the next twenty minutes attempting to regain blood in my feet, by shoving my legs above my head to reach the hand dryer. It was a really shining, proud moment in my life. It might look like I'm laughing in the photo below, but trust me, there were tears rolling down my face at that point. I'm officially known as the girl in my group with the foot problem. Awesome. Oh, and also, restaurants in Segovia have dogs that walk around eating trash off the floor. Just another reason I am not friends with this city. We SO did not get along.

Toledo: the sharp-objects capital of the world

I don't think two days could contrast any more drastically. Our program took an excursion this weekend to visit some other cities to learn more about the history of Spain. My Saturday in Toledo was such a great time, while Sunday in Segovia was about as wonderful as shoving my face in a vat of boiling manure for 24 hours.

We left Salamanca on Saturday at 7:30 in the morning, with Toledo as our first destination. After a three and a half hour bus ride, we arrived to the wonderful Cathedral de Toledo. Apparently in Spain, you can't take photos of anything that is worth taking photos of. So being the daughter of a photographer, I decided to live on the edge and take lots of illegal photos inside the ancient cathedral. Like this one:

And this one is also an amazing catch...you have no idea how hard it is to sneak taking good pictures without a flash-- 99% of them become quite blurry on account of having to quickly shove my camera back in my pocket when the guards began running at me with their mace.

And this photo sums up the weather of Toledo-- beautiful, sunny, warm, although a little windy:

Little known fact: Toledo is apparently the Sharp-Objects Capital of the World!!! They are known for making things like scissors, kitchen knives, butcher knives, letter openers, pocket knives, medieval swords, Lord of the Ring movie swords. Really...anything sharp. Let me expose the truth:

And those four photos of sharp objects are only a tiny fraction of the lethal items available for sale on the streets of Toledo. Hello danger.

After visiting the cathedral, we also visited another church, a synagogue, and a mosque (which in Spanish is pronounced "mosquito". Trust me, the jokes lasted all afternoon.) We stayed at a really nice hotel in the middle of Segovia, where we spent the rest of the night. Some students wanted to go out to bars in the area, but the majority of us spent the evening in with each other at the hotel. We were required to dress up to go to dinner at the buffet inside the hotel-- and let me just say, we would have NEVER dressed up to go to such an average hotel buffet restaurant in the States. I mean really. We were told to wear dresses, and the guys to wear ties. However when we got to the restaurant, we felt like we were dressed to go to prom, but decided to stop for some double cheeseburgers at McDonald's on the way. SO out of place and overdressed. But regardless, it was fun for us to get dressed up and feel like we had somewhere to go.

So all in all, Toledo was a wonderful city, with wonderful sharp objects, and a sub-par hotel buffet in a beautiful four-star hotel. It was great for all of us to stay together in the hotel, get to spend more time with the group as a whole, and see other parts of the country. The plan was to leave Toledo in the morning and take the bus to Segovia, another prominent city two hours away. However, little did we know, the weather was going to be anything but cooperative.

El gripe de Espana

I am easily convinced that one of the worst experiences one can have is being sick in a foreign land. If you don't believe me, try it. Try going to a four hour class and falling asleep on top of a cluster of desks during the half hour break. That's the final indicator that something really isn't quite right.

I've been achy and had a terrible cough and congestion that you would never believe for about two weeks now, and I'm so not a fan. And I'm a Love. That means we don't go to the doctor. We pretty much never take medicine. We don't even have NyQuill in our house. If you're lucky, you might find a tylenol floating around in the medicine cabinet. So my natural instinct is to just ride it out and let it pass. But this time its different. I'm ready to be pumped up with some antibiotics, horse tranquilizers, an IV of Red Bull...anything that will make me feel drastically different than how I feel now. It's really no fun to try to appear somewhat energetic and put together around people I barely know, in a country I have just arrived in. I'm tired of faking that I feel okay. But I don't want to be that girl who just stays home and sleeps all day and all night, while everyone else is going out and "experiencing the culture" (AKA going to bars and acting like disgusting drunk American college students, only to reinforce the perception that Spaniards have of us).

On a side note, I guess I haven't really shared much about my classes and my daily schedule so far. For these first two weeks, until February, we are all taking "Intensivo", a four hour course from 9 AM-1 PM every week day. On the first day, we took a placement test to see which section we should be put in, because we're all at different levels of comfort with the language. My section of about 15 students is taught by a professor from the University of Salamanca named Javier. He is perfect. Young, full of energy, loves making fun of Americans trying to speak Spanish with our terrible accents, and makes us laugh so much. His favorite line is "No taan-go de-nair-oh", spoken like a twelve year old girl. He definitely keeps things fun, because a four hour class can obviously be a little rough to get through.

In the first four days of intensivo, we have been focusing on learning phrases and vocabulary that we will need to use to really fit in with the culture of Spain. We spent about 30 minutes learning a variety of insults and "bad words", which they call "tacos". Obviously, if you want to really blend in with the culture, you have to be able to tell someone to f*** off. That's when you know you're truly fitting in.

The overall purpose of the intensivo is to be able to speak with more fluidity, including knowing filler words like "well, um, alright". It really is the little things that make it seem more natural to speak and understand another language. Right now, I definitely have a strong grasp of the bigger picture of the language, but the details really mess me up. I can understand about 99% of conversations with my madre and my professor, but when it comes to speaking myself, I usually get flustered and lose my confidence. The year and a half I took off from being in Spanish classes has really hurt my confidence in my speaking, but I'm hoping it will quickly be regained living here.

Not Spain, but European nonetheless

alright, new favorite video.
Bon Iver, my latest fave music group/dude, doing a take-away show

The first few days in photos

As OCD as it gets

My madre fits the clinical definition of OCD to the extreme. It’s like control freak to the max around here. We aren’t allowed to open and close the blinds in our own room, because she is afraid we won’t do it correctly, heaven forbid we don’t shut them all the way. I was blow drying my hair in the room with the door shut, trying to be quiet, but obviously the room got pretty heated. So like any other person would do, I went to the window, pulled the curtains aside, and cracked the window an inch. Five minutes later, she came in to let us know dinner was ready, and without even pausing, she walked right over to the window, and adjusted the curtains to lie flat against the wall, because I clearly had touched them. I bet if I left a gum wrapper on my nightstand, her super madre powers would send sirens alarming her of the crisis, shooting off neuron signals in her brain, and within half a second she would have it properly placed the trashcan.

As a nation, Spain basically shuts down between the hours of two and four in the afternoon for the siesta. Everyone heads home from work or school, businesses close, the University is gated shut, and it’s time to eat and rest. Since we’re still getting use to the schedule here, Andrea and I have been laying down after lunch each day and sleeping a little. The moment we get off our beds, our madre is in the room straightening the blankets and pillow, smoothing out every last wrinkle until it resembles a five star hotel room. Literally every time she passes through our room, she straightens something, shuts a drawer, or smoothes out our beds. I have never seen her enter and leave our room without adjusting something. I don’t have any idea how she raised two boys in this apartment.

On the day we moved in, we weren’t allowed to wheel our suitcases into our room. At first, I just assumed she was being overly hospitable. As I watched her wheel our luggage through the maze of doorways and hallways in the apartment, she took each bag one at a time—going in reverse, then forward, reverse, forward, reverse, forward like someone trying to parallel park an 18 wheeler in Manhattan. I finally realized she was trying to insure the bags didn’t graze past the doorways and damage the wood. Incredible.

We also received an intensive course on how to open and close each door in the apartment, including the main entrance with three different locks. I was sweating with anxiety as she had us practice open and close our bedroom door without making a single sound. I pray each time that the wood doesn’t stick or that the heavy front door doesn’t slip out of my hand and slam shut. I won’t be able to sleep at night just thinking about how she might pay me back at the next meal.

But really, asides from her insane, OCD, controlling tendencies, she’s just about the sweetest old lady I have ever lived with. She’s also the only old lady I have ever lived with.

tengo a cell phone

So I officially have a cell phone now, in the case that someone feels like selling their body in order to pay for an international phone call. If that sounds like something you're into, my number is 649584335. It is free for me to receive calls, but it might cost your life to call me. Or, calling cards to make international calls are usually really reasonable.

Our program provides us with phones mainly so we can contact each other here, but we have to buy minutes. It's kind of a lame system, but its the best option for all the students to stay in touch. Well yeah, feel free to call me if you would like, but skype is the cheapest (aka free) option. It just might require scheduling a date, considering the 6 hour time difference. Once I get my class schedule, I can publicize that junks.

Spanish love.

Bienvenidos a Salamanca!

Bienvenidos a Salamanca! Ok so basically Salamanca is perfect. My Madre (my host mom) is pretty much exactly what I had envisioned her being like—in her mid 60s, widowed, tiny, feisty, and talks 100 km/hour (km, not miles. I’m trying to do all things European. Including understanding military time. It’s been rough to say the least.). She has worked with the JMU program for the past 11 years, since her husband passed away. When Andrea and I arrived, she wouldn’t let us carry a single bag, didn’t want us to lift a finger. As she showed us around her apartment, we walked into the formal living room where she began to tear up and cry as she explained why she doesn’t use that room anymore. Since her husband passed away, it has become too difficult because there are just too many memories associated with the living room. We about died with compassion as she got all emotional on is, it was adorable. Pretty much, I want to be her.

Our room is great, it feels like living int the dorms freshman year all over again. The room is probably about 15x10 feet, with two twin beds, two closets, and a table. With the exception of probably the most uncomfortable, lumpiest pillow I have ever slept with, everything is great. Our madre is responsible for cooking three meals a day for us, and so far, they have been incredible. It’s clear that she really takes pride in providing for us and taking great care of us. I made my bed this morning, and she came in and told us not to make our beds-- she is our cook, our hotel manager, our maid, and our mother, and that all she does all day is take care of things around the house for us. So that’s great—I’m not allowed to take my dishes to the sink, I’m not allowed to make my bed, and she even told me to stop saying gracias so much. I’m not allowed to thank her. This is ridiculous.

Once we got our bags into our room, she immediately fed us. She was under the impression that we are both strict vegetarians, so she had a salad, vegetable dish, and fruit for us. We clarified to help her understand that we both actually eat chicken and seafood, just not red meat or pork. And so began the continual conversation about what we do and do not eat, considering Andrea is lactose intolerant, I don’t like tomatoes, and Andrea doesn’t like oranges. And I’m sure the list will continue to grow as the semester continues. We emptied our bags and got settled into our room, and then headed out to walk around the city and pick up a few things from the stores.

Spain is so different in the sense that rather than running to Target to pick up everything you need, you have to stop at about 12 different stores when running errands. We needed toothpaste, shampoo, and a hairdryer. Those three items required stopping at three separate stores. There are bread stores, meat stores, fruit stores, perfume stores, shoe stores, jacket stores, scarf stores, domestic electronic stores, general electronic stores, and who even knows what else. I do have to say I appreciate the convenience of one stop shopping, but it just feels like so much more of a cultural experience when you step onto the streets here in Spain.

Dinner in Spain is at 9 PM, and is much lighter than an American dinner. It consisted of a Spanish tortilla, which is actually more like a potato-loaded quiche. And let me tell you, it was amazing. What wasn’t so amazing though were the deviled eggs, cut in half, and covered with warm red pasta sauce. What a gross combination of flavors. But what the heck, I’m determined to try everything.

So of course being in Salamanca for the first night, we met up with about 15 other students from our group to go out for drinks. The central meeting point in Salamanca is la Plaza Mayor (which, when spoken with the proper Spanish accent, sounds more like la platha. I hate the accent here. I just feel like I’m lazily slurring my letters together with a terrible lisp). While standing in the plaza waiting for more people to arrive, we totally got pegged as the obnoxious Americans who came to Spain to get wasted every night. Two separate bar promoters approached us trying to sway us to come out to their bar. We were literally being fought over by Spaniards. Anyway, we ended up in this kind of creepy bar for the rest of the night, and we had a chance to get to know the other people in our group a little better. Considering it was the first night most of us were in the country and we were completely jet lagged, we made it an early night (1:30 AM, according to Spain’s standards, is apparently early). The social schedule is definitely something I’m going to take some time adjusting to.

This morning, we had our first orientation. Our madres were required to walk us to la Plaza Mayor, which is only like 5 minutes from our apartment. It totally felt like the first day of elementary school, when our parents had to walk us to the bus stop, holding our hands as we crossed the streets. I just love the hospitality here. Orientation was held in a university classroom, so we got to see a little bit of the campus, and learn that we have access to free wireless there. We were glad to hear that, considering there isn’t a network for us to use at our apartment. Orientation consisted of a 30 minute lecture about finding the correct balance between having fun (aka staying out late drinking), and studying. Apparently that’s a huge problem with JMU students in Spain (surprise surprise). I don’t think I’ll really have to worry about that, considering Andrea and I are both babies when it comes to being out late. Our sleep is just too precious. That lecture was followed by a brief overview of our maps of Salamanca, where the important buildings and landmarks are located, and how our cell phones will work.

Lunch today was like a tasty bite of heaven in my mouth. We had this amazing soup which tasted exactly like the Senate Bean Soup my parents have made at home, salad, chicken, and fruit. Perfect.

Bienvenidos a Madrid!

I’m in Spain. I mean, I’m really in Spain. This moment has been in the works for over a year now, and it has finally actually all played out, and it couldn’t feel more fake. Oh, you mean I’m still supposed to be a student? Here? In this amazing European treasure of a country? We’ll see about that.

The way my flight worked out through frequent flyer miles landed me in Madrid a day before the actual program began. Conveniently, the girl I was paired to room with for the semester, Andrea, also got in early. She arrived two days ago, and has been staying in Madrid with a family friend. So of course I shacked up with her for the night.

Let me digress. The journey to Spain couldn’t have been any more smooth. Although packing for my trip has quite a different story. I spent all of yesterday in my room throwing, squeezing, stuffing, beating up, and yelling at my personal belongings until they fit into a single 50 pound rolling duffel. Ten pairs of shoes quickly dwindled to five pairs, shampoo had to be left behind, scarves had to be sifted through and voted out. Some purses, dresses, and skirts (all things too frivolous anyway) also got eliminated as well. So after literally six straight hours of going back and forth to the scale, I finally made it all work. The funny thing is that every other person on this trip packed TWO fifty pound bags. Literally twice as much as myself. But for backpacking purposes in May, I had to limit myself to one extra bag to ship back at the end of April.

Once I arrived in Madrid, it was 7:40 AM east coast time,. My travels began at 6:09 PM the day prior. Needless to say, my body is all sorts of messed up on sleep. Andrea met me at the airport, and shuffled me through a series of metros to make it back to the apartment. We took that time to chat it up, considering it was the first time we met in person. After showering and getting settled in, we headed back to the metro to an area near the Plaza Mayor to do a little shopping. It has already begun, and I am going to go broke sooner than I realized. I just can’t help it that Europeans have such impeccable fashion sense, and at ridiculously low prices. Apparently the first few weeks of every year are kicked off with government mandated sales (called rebajas), forcing retailers to mark items down to insane prices. And of course, we arrived right in the middle of that season.

The rest of our evening consisted of wandering around Madrid looking for a place to eat. We settled for this tiny bar that had a few tables. Being the Americans we are, we came to eat dinner at a reasonable 7 PM. However, Spaniards don’t typically eat until 9 or 10 PM, so we clearly threw off the restaurant staff when we were the only people in the place eating food. Of course we had to start our time off with some Paella, with crawfish, mussels, shrimp, chicken, and calamari. We also ordered some tapas—one with shrimp, green peppers, onions, and mussels soaked in a oil-vinegar dressing. The other closely resembled potato salad found at any nasty cafeteria. And tasted just the same. The two of us sat there just trying a little of everything off of all the plates, until it was just about cleared. Honestly, the tapas alone would have been enough to fill us up. We also learned that not all tapas are created equally—the shrimp one being 10 euro and the potato one was 3 euro. Better to ask next time I suppose.

Skype is up and running—I pay $3/month for unlimited outbound calls to the US, to any phone lines. Additionally, computer-computer skype is always free. It’s looking like that will be my primary means of communication for the next four months. I will get a cell phone from the University once I get to Salamanca, where I can receive calls for free. I’ll post that number once I get it and figure out all the details. It won’t cost me anything to get a call, but anyone calling from the states will pay international fees or can just use a calling card.

Tomorrow we head to the airport to meet up with our group, and make the 2.5 hour journey to Salamanca. Hasta luego Madrid.

last 41 hours in virginia

Come Wednesday at 6:09 PM, I will be taking off for my 133 day excursion to Europe. It will begin with 3.5 months completing my minor in Spanish at the University of Salamanca, in Spain. Then come May 1st, I will be backpacking throughout Europe, with a big focus on Italy. And the plan is to return to the States on May 28th. 

These first two weeks of January have been a whirlwind of travel and roadtrips, so the fact that I'll be living in Europe hasn't really been on the forefront of my mind. It will inevitably sink in soon enough. In the meantime, I will continue to ignore this terribly rude fact.

Emailing and this blog are your best bets for keeping in touch with me, although I will also be reachable through skype (name: hannahalove), google voice/video chat, facebook, my spanish cell phone number (tba), carrier pigeons,  and singing telegrams.  And please do keep in touch. As much as I look forward to sharing my stories, I equally look forward to hearing back from you about how much season 8 of American Idol sucks, how I missed the presidential inauguration, who wins superbowl XLIII, and what the flavor of the week is at Klines. Really unfortunate things I'm skipping out on in order to, you know, "gain worldly perspective".

Additionally, my mailing address is: 

Calle de Alarcón 2, 2° C 

37007, Salamanca, Spain

I am all about sending mail through the postal service, so if the idea of receiving a one of a kind, classy, european postcard piques your interest at all, let me know your address, and I can guarantee a little somthin' somthin' in your mailbox from yours truly. 

Until Spain, much love.