Barcelona

When you live in Madrid, you can feel an almost palpable sense of rivalry with the other sprawling metropolis in Spain, Barcelona. The two enormous soccer dynasties, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, are almost always contending with each other for league titles, but the dislike between the two cities runs deeper than sports. Barcelona is the largest city in Catalunya, a state in the northeast of Spain known for its fierce sense of indepencence. Catalunya has its own language, Catalan, and often supports separatist political parties. People in Madrid feel that Catalunya should stop their childish goal of independence, while Catalunyans feel that their relatively strong economy has carried Spain throughout the crisis and that they deserve to be their own nation. Knowing this (and hearing only the biased perspective of Madrid natives), I was a little apprehensive beginning the 8 hour night train journey to Barcelona. When we arrived, we immediately saw that many of the signs were in three language: English, Spanish, and Catalan. My friend Neeraj and I weren't supposed to meet the person we were staying with until noon, so we decided to head over to Parc Guell, one of the most important works of the renowned architect Gaudi. Not only did the park have a gorgeous view of the entire city, it also contained a lot of the distinctive, mosaic-style architecture that Gaudi was known for. After a quick nap on a random bench, we met up with my friend Erik to explore the city. As disloyal as I felt for thinking it, I had to admit that Barcelona was a more beautiful city than Madrid. The architecture, plazas, fountains, sights, and people just seemed more attractive. One local that we talked to in Barcelona described the city as European, while Madrid was heavily Spanish, which I agreed with. Madrid seems to have an almost insular feel, while Barcelona's proximity to the rest of Europe and better tourism industry lends it a greater sense of multiculturalism. Some of the things we saw included the indescribable Sagrada Familia church, Plaza de España (which contains the largest fountain in Europe), Las Ramblas, and the Olympic Stadium. Overall, the only regret I have about Barcelona is that I couldn't stay longer. Even though we saw a lot, it was clear to me that the city had a lot more to offer, and I hope to see it all one day.

Here's a great view of Barcelona from a different park we visited, which shows the Mediterranean Sea as well.

Segovia

The Spanish city of Segovia is renowned for two things: its suckling pig and its aqueduct. The aqueduct was the first on our agenda, and it was really quite gorgeous. Spain has Roman aspects to its history as well as Moorish and Jewish. Spain was a Roman outpost during the age of the Roman Empire, and Carlos V of Spain actually became the first Holy Roman Emperor. Therefore, it’s not too hard to understand why a very Roman aqueduct would be in the middle of a Spanish city. There’s also a mythological aspect to the aqueduct that I enjoyed as well. The legend goes that one of the women in the village (Segovia) was tired of constantly bringing water to her village. She proceeded to take the next logical step and sign her soul away to the devil if he could build a method of transporting water to the village before sunrise. The devil worked all night, and built the aqueduct that we see today. However, there was a single point missing from one of the arcs, and because of that the woman got to keep her soul. I guess the lesson is that the devil’s not that smart and is pretty easy to cheat. Anyways, the aqueduct is huge and really cool to look at from the side, with a statue of the Virgin Mary directly in the center. Another sight that we got to see was from the top of the castle that inspired Disneyworld. From there, you can see 4 beautiful views of Segovia and the terrain that surrounds it. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to try the suckling pig, but I’ve heard that it’s pretty good so I guess that’s enough for me.

Yeah I think it's weird too.

Pasapalabra

This entry is going to be a little bit different, in that it doesn’t really involve going somewhere and seeing things. However, Pasaplabra, one of the most famous game shows in Spain, has definitely been a vital part of my experience here. Pasapalabra is a trivia/word based game show that pits one contestant against the winner of the previous show. Each contestant has two people who help them in the first few rounds, in that if they miss a question or don’t know it is passed to one of their helpers. The goal of the first few rounds is to gain points, which are then converted into seconds for the final round. In the final round each contestant gets a wheel of every letter in the alphabet. The host will read them a definition or description of a word either starting with the letter (for more common letters such as a, b, c) or a word that contains the letter (for less common letters such as ñ). The contestant has to answer for each letter as quickly as possible, and if they don’t know it, they “pasapalabra”, or pass on that word. If they have enough time to go around the wheel multiple times they will be able to guess at that word another time. This show has been important for me for a few reasons. One is that it’s a fun show to watch. I ended up getting really invested in the results, looking them up even if we didn’t get back in time to watch it. Another reason is the bond it allowed me to form with my roommate and my host mom. There is a word in Spanish called “sobremesa”, which basically refers to the lengthy conversation that occurs at the lunch or dinner table as everyone is enjoying each other’s food and company. My roommate and I would have great conversations over dinner with our host mom, and oftentimes the catalyst for that was that Pasapalabra ran until 8:45 even though we started eating at around 8. Whether we were talking about how much we hated Javier, or how Paz would always be the greatest of all time, Pasapalabra allowed us to have conversations we never would in the United States, which seems to have a culture of eating as fast as you can and leaving. Sobremesa is definitely something that I’ll miss about Spain. The final, and possibly most important aspect of Pasapalabra was that it served as an indicator for my ability at Spanish. The first week I could barely understand anything the host was saying, and the show just didn’t make that much sense to me. However, now I can understand why a word makes sense with the definition, and the first time I guessed a word before the contestant did a single tear of joy ran down my face. Pasapalabra has definitely become the most unusual yet effective method of cultural immersion that I’ve experienced here.

Here's Paz, 54-time champion. Legend of the game, legend of my heart.

Toledo

Not to be confused with the fairly useless city in Northern Ohio, Toledo is considered to be the premier example when it comes to the mixing of cultures in Spain. In the year 711, the Moors came to Spain to try to conquer it. After this, the religions of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity were able to live together in peace, until the Reconquista which drove the Muslims and Jews out of Spain. However, the remnants of this melting pot still linger in Toledo. We saw very clear examples of Moorish influence when it comes to architecture, and there are still synagogues and mosques to this day. Another thing that Toledo is famous for is its crafting of medieval weapons, specifically swords and daggers. There are countless shops in the more tourist area of Toledo promoting the handcrafted steel and workmanship of their items. A few even sell full suits of armor, albeit for over 2000(!) euros. I actually bought a switch-dagger sort of thing as my souvenir, but unfortunately I lost it within hours. When my sister studied abroad in Spain, she spent most of her time in Toledo and she told me to make sure that I got to see the Cathedral of Toledo. Fortunately our group did get to see it, and it was completely worthwhile. As somebody who was raised Catholic, a lot of the religious imagery and intricacies of the artwork really resounded with me, even though the sheer vastness of the Cathedral made it impossible to see everything. Several of my friends and I agreed that we could probably have spent an entire day just in the Cathedral. Other than the Cathedral, we spent a lot of time wandering around (our tour guide was a bit incompetent) but because of that we got a good feel for a lot of different parts of the city, not just the “sights”. Overall, I really enjoyed getting to experience a very important city in Spain.

Here's a pretty cool picture of one of the streets of Toledo. Very cramped!

Museo del Prado

About a week and a half ago, our group took a weekday excursion to the Museo del Prado, which is probably the most famous art museum in Madrid. In the U.S. I'm not really a big art person, but it's definitely something I can appreciate here just because there's a much more rich history of art and culture. Before we left, Dr. Bryant gave us a brief art history lesson for 2 hours. Normally, that's not really my scene, but it was interesting to me because the subject of so many paintings here are either mythological or religious in nature, and it's cool to see different perspectives on stories that are such an integral part of Greco-Roman culture. As for the actual museum: it was incredible. I had actually come a couple of years ago with my family, but at that time I wasn't mature enough to appreciate what I was seeing. My favorite painting in the museum, which is pictured here, is Saturn Devouring His Son by Francisco de Goya. It displays the Titan Saturn eating his children because of his fear that they would take over his power. This painting is my favorite because it evokes such visceral feelings of disgust. You can see the insanity in Saturn´s eyes, and the black background which was common for all of Goya´s series of black paintings forces the viewer´s attention onto the act being committed. I definitely hope to return at some point on this trip and see anything I might have missed.

Better late than never

What's up everybody! This blog is going to detail the experiences I have as I study abroad in Spain for 6 weeks. There'll be pictures, stories, and other goodies so keep checking. I'll probably do a post about our trips to Toledo and Segovia in a little bit. Until then, enjoy this picture of me holding an unnecessarily large cleaver.