Oh Shit, I Forgot to Mention Jesus!

Jesus is a big fucking deal during Semana Santa, as you'd probably expect since it's the week leading up to and including Easter. It became a family joke after visiting the Prado and seeing lots of religiously themed art that we were seeing a lot of the Sagrada Family (Mary and Jesus, and occasionally Joseph. But mostly Mary and Jesus).

So we saw some of the Sagrada Family in Madrid, but in Barcelona we pretty much got stalked by Jesus. He was everywhere. Especially on Good Friday. On Good Friday they have these massive processionals at night that last forever and include a series of large brightly covered floats that depict the various stages of Jesus dying (carrying the cross, on the cross, dead on Mary's lap, etc.). Also, the people who walk in front of the floats wear what can only be described as black KKK hoods and cloaks. While I'm sure that these guys had their outfits way before the KKK did, it's still a little unnerving to see these black hooded figures carrying around floats with a dead Jesus. When it wasn't creepy though, it was pretty.

Semana Santa!

So it's been a while since my last post, but I've been traveling for the past week or so with my parents and it was great. No work, family time, and fantastic food is a killer combination. We spent the first half of break in Madrid going to eat (a lot), exploring some of the art museums (the Prado is kind of overrated), seeing the royal palace and plaza mayor, and lots of other cool things. Oh yeah, and we had dinner with my host family, so it was my parents, me, my two host parents, and their son José. It was so cool to have my two families in the same room, and even though it was a little difficult with the language barrier (my parents speak no spanish and my host parents speak no english), José and I did a decently good job of translating for everybody.

After Madrid we went to Barcelona, which was so beautiful and also involved a lot of eating. Barcelona is nestled against some small mountains and looks out over the Mediterranean, so the views from Parc Güell, a park designed by Gaudí up on a big hill/small mountain, were completely breathtaking. Also, Gaudí must have been on some heavy duty drugs. In addition to various buildings and cool architectural designs in Parc Güell, we saw the cathedral of the Sagrada Familia which Gaudí also designed. It's the craziest building ever and a very modern take on a cathedral, but it's really pretty. Even though Barcelona was great, I'd still have to say that my heart belongs to Madrid.

Classes started again on Tuesday and it was really nice to see all the people from my program and catch up with everyone. And now that I've had two days of back-breaking work (ha), I'm rewarding myself by going to Lisbon after classes tomorrow/today (thursday)! I'm going to be meeting up with Fink, one of my best friends from vassar, and we'll both come back to Madrid sunday night so she can see Madrid for a few days. I'm SO excited.

Also, this is pretty unrelated to Madrid, but I know where I'm living next year for senior housing! I can't wait to live in a house with people I like where I can cook my own food and not have to share a bathroom with freshman boys who leave their shaving stubble in the sink every morning. Gross.

Also also, I'm trying to plan a trip with my friends during our 4 day weekend in May. Hopefully we'll be spending two days in Sevilla and two days in some town with a beach. I don't especially care what town it is. I just want to go to the beach.

It's a pretty rough life, huh?

Is it spring break yet?

So I took my two exams. I studied really hard and they still just blew me away. Fortunately I have a date to go shoe shopping with Annie tomorrow. If I'm gonna fuck up my grades, I'm at least gonna rock some killer footwear. Yeah.

Aside from destroying my GPA, it's been a pretty good week so far. Monday I went out to luch with Annie and one of her friends to this Asturian restaurant (Asturia is one of the regions in spain) where you can get a whole roast chicken and a bottle of cider for under 10 euros. While pretty much all the food here is phenomenal, it's almost never cheap. Last night after I finished studying I went out to this cozy little bar with Rachel and one of her friends from vassar who's visiting now, then popped over to Café Populart, which may have become my favorite jazz/blues club in madrid. Last night they had a great blues band with a guitarist, bassist, drummer, and harmonica player (harmonicist?). And the guitarist sang in English. Sometimes it's really nice to hear your own language out in public, though I honestly shouldn't complain. I've been speaking way too much English recently and not enough Spanish.

But I'm sure this will change when my parents get here on monday and I have to translate everything for them (love you guys). Semana santa (the holy week before/including easter) starts this weekend and I can't wait to show my parents around madrid before we head off to barcelona! I just hope they can adjust to the fact that Spanish dinner time is their American bedtime.

That's pretty much it for now. I may or may not be going to Sevilla this weekend, depending on if I can find a hostel and someone to travel with me. I'd love to go back to Andalucia where the weather's even warmer and explore a new town for a few days. We'll see how that works out.

Un abrazo muy fuerte (a very strong hug, or a colloquial way of ending a letter. Go colloquial class!)

So this one time I saw the president of Spain

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, current president of the government and presidential candidate in today's elections, came to speak at the UC3M on Tuesday. And it was incredible. I've never been to anything like that before. He spoke about a lot of really important topics like affordable education for all, women's right to work at the same jobs and earn the same pay as men, and working towards a society free from prejudice and xenophobia. He also promised not to send a single Spanish soldier to Iraq (good for him!). Even though I'm not a Spaniard by any stretch of the imagination, it made me proud and hopeful to hear Zapatero saying these things, whether they're just campaign promises or not. If I could vote today (who has elections on a Sunday?), I'd totally vote for him. What was also really cool was that I could understand EVERYTHING he said. It was such a great feeling.

Oh, and I forgot to mention in my last post that Pepita "outed" me Friday morning. I was eating breakfast in my usual semi-conscious morning state while she was preparing lunch. She was making a fish soup and telling me how fish is pretty typical for lent, and out of nowhere she asks me what religion I am. Once I stopped choking on my toast, I hesitantly told her I was Jewish, to which she responded, "And you eat everything?!" Clearly she's never seen the Proujansky family in action.

More recently, I spent this weekend traveling with the program to Salamanca and León, two cities northwest of Madrid. Salamanca was really pretty and old. The second oldest university in Spain is there (founded in the 1200s- it's a little older than Vassar), and it's all stone that must have taken forever to sculpt. León was cool too, we went to this modern art museum and visited a cathedral for a change, but it was beautiful and full of stained glass.

And now I'm back in my apartment, and I have two exams to study for this week. They're going to make me earn my spring break...

I love the weekend!

Weekends are great for so many reasons. There's the obvious no classes and no homework thing. But it also means I get to have lunch with Pepita and Luis. Luis is adorable and usually forgets half of the things we've talked about before. Fortunately he only forgets the really good things, so every time I tell him that I like football (soccer), he gets really excited. He also can't remember that I'm single. The last time I told him this, he said (in spanish, clearly), "Forget Spain. I'm going to America."

I also get to explore the city in my free time. Thursday night I went to see a play in Spanish, and I pretty much understood nothing, but the spectacle part was cool. Yesterday I rode the teleferico (cable-cars) with my friends Rachel and Annie and got to see some great views of Madrid and one of its parks. Then for dinner I went to this mind-blowing Peruvian and Colombian restaurant. Once our meals came, everybody was just dead silent because we were too busy eating. It was fantastic. And today I got to see the Rastro, Madrid's weekly flea market, which is MASSIVE and kind of overwhelming. Overall I got to see a lot of cool new things this weekend.

Things I forgot to mention in my last post: I've now started an exchange with this guy Anto, who my friend Tatiana did an exchange with when she was in Madrid. It's awesome. We hang out for about an hour and spend the first 30 minutes speaking Spanish and the second 30 minutes speaking English. The second half is almost as hard as the first half- it's really hard to switch from entirely english to entirely spanish so quickly. There were several times he would ask me a question in English and I responded in Spanish. I'm sure I'll get better as we talk more though.

I also started having an English conversation once a week with this 16 year old Maria, whose cousin Pepa is one of the monitores. She's really sweet and awesome and speaks pretty good English. She wants to go see a movie in English sometime, which sounds just fine with me. Also, it's really nice to have a job again.

Classes, the weather, and other things that are completely ridiculous

Classes work very differently here. For example, I spend a lot more time in class here than back at Vassar. Tuesdays and Thursdays I have 5 hours of class, though for most of April that will jump up to 7 hours of class. But on the bright side, homework here is mostly a joke. I have had no reading to do. None. And I'm used to having to read a chapter or more of a psych textbook for each class period. It's kind of great.

The weather continues to be unseasonably warm. Yesterday I walked around campus in a short -sleeved t-shirt and no jacket. I know global warming's bad but it sure does make winter a lot more tolerable.

I think the Spanish presidential race can also qualify as something that is completely ridiculous. Or not so much the race itself as much as the fact that on Tuesday, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the current Spanish president and incumbent in the race, will be visiting my university. I am going to have a chance to see the Spanish president in person. I think I'm getting more than my money's worth from this program.

And the last ridiculous thing. Yesterday was Melanie's birthday, so we all went out to celebrate. I did not get back until 5 AM and then I had class at 10. Never, never again.

I am a bad person... and it's so much fun!

Nothing makes me more upset over here than seeing large noisy crowds of drunk Americans doing everything they can to perpetuate the stereotype of the stupid drunk American.

Last night my friend Rachel and I were waiting outside the metro station for another friend of ours, and there was a group of four or five drunk American college students and 2 drunk and creepy American men in their 40s. Being the dumb Americans that they were, they thought we might have been Spanish, and decided to ask us where the nearest bars were. And being the pain in the ass that I am, I lied and told them we were Spanish and that we spoke no English. Clearly that will teach them a lesson.

But when I'm not being a horrible bitch to dumb Americans, I'm usually in class or exploring the city. I started my AL (a regular university class with real Spaniards), history of film, this week and it's awesome. The professor talks a little fast and I usually have trouble understanding what the Spanish students are saying, but I love the class. I think it's going to be really helpful and the topic is so interesting. On Thursday we watched some of the first short films ever made, including the first sci-fi film, which was completely ridiculous. The only bad thing about the class is there's an oral presentation that's worth 20% of our grade at the end of the semester. That should be... interesting.

I also went for a run yesterday with Rachel through the Parque Oeste (West Park), which is all of 2 blocks from my apartment and is really pretty. We ran for 15 minutes before we realized that the unseasonably warm 60 degree weather shouldn't be wasted on running. So we decided to sprawl out on a hillside, which lasted for about 5 seconds before I realized we had sat down in a series of anthills. A couple old men walking through the park were pretty entertained as we tried to swat all the ants off and generally freaked out. After that, we walked to a grassy ant-free hill and actually got to relax that time.

Also, for anybody who's been trying to check out my pictures and wondering why there aren't any new ones, I'm really sorry. I've been trying to avoid looking like a tourist, but I think I'm just going to suck it up today and go take pictures of everything I can.