Ronda, Sevilla, and Cordoba

Hey everyone!

After being here for over 2 months, we still have not written about our experiences in Ronda and Sevilla (February 2-4) and then to Cordoba (February 19). Our bad!

RONDA

The weekend before we started classes, we left early Friday morning and went to Ronda. Ronda is a super small and beautiful city about 2 hours away. When we got there, the sun was shining and it was nice and warm. We spent the first hour walking around with guides (who happened to be the three teachers that IES has for the art and architecture classes). We began by looking at an incredible view of the the hills. There are tons of olive trees here, and they were just beginning to bloom. It was so nice!

We continued on a paseo called "The Paseo of Ernest Hemingway"...It was cool to walk in places that may have given him the ideas that he included in his books. I couldn`t stop talking and thinking about The Sun Also Rises. It was really nice! Our paseo was beautiful and took us right to the Arab baths. We got a tour of it (because it wasn`t in use in the winter) and walked all around it. It is a really neat system and we get to try it out in Morocco in a few weeks...super pumped!

After the paseo, we all met up and had a picnic lunch where we started. It was a little sad because all of the other students who have señoras had 3 sandwiches, fruit, cookies, and extra snacks to eat. I took bread that we had saved from the dining hall, some oranges, and I think yogurt (or something) and tried to make something of a lunch for us. It was pretty lame, but not to worry Ken, nobody went hungry :)

After lunch, we met up at the Bullfighting ring, and went inside. Most of the Spanish cities have them, but we had never been inside one before. We got in and immediately took pictures of ourselves pretending to be bulls and the bullfighters, etc. (It is funny because before we went in, the Spaniards told some students that the Americans always take pictures pretending to be the bull...they didn`t really understand that.) Anyway, we again were guided by the teachers and we heard all about the customs and the beauty of the bull fight. It seems interesting enough--pretty gross, but culturally beautiful, so we will all probably go in April or May when they are in Granada.

We left Ronda, and headed to Sevilla.

SEVILLA

Sevilla is absolutely beautiful. There is a beautiful river and nice architecture. We arrived in the early evening and had a few hours until dinner. We walked along the river a bit and noticed people paddle boating (this will be important later). Afterwards, we got ready for dinner and as a group of 90, we went to this beautiful catered dinner. It was a really nice night, and afterwards we all went to bed.

The next day, we had tours of the Alcazar castle and the gardens, and the cathedral. It was absolutely spectacular! The gardens were amazing and there was even a maze of bushes (I found out later that it was only fun for me because I actually could not see over the top, and everyone else could). Everything was beautifully crafted and it was truly a sight to see. The cathedral was also incredible. It was a mixture of Islamic and Catholic architecture (historically, it was created during a time when everyone was getting along, so the king had a mixture or architects work on the cathedral) and it was beautiful. We climbed over 30 flights of stairs to reach the top of the tower, and it was worth it for the view. It was amazing!

That night there was a flamenco show and a soccer game at the same time. Nathan and a few others went to the soccer game and the rest of us went to the show. The show was really cool, and an awesome experience. I maybe would have preferred the soccer game, but oh well. While Nathan ran through town to get to the stadium, he bumped into some fans who were headed there as well. They gave him an extra ticket that they had, and Nathan sat with them. After the show, the game was still going, some of us headed across the river (where there were less Americans) and went to a great tapas bar. We had a lovely time, and then Nathan met up with me after for a later dinner, and then I was too tired to go to another bar, so we headed back to the hotel. Sadly, Brad was sick and stayed in bed to sleep that night. He didn`t miss too much.

The next morning, we had an amazing all-you-can-eat buffet (consisting of different types of eggs, breads, churros, fruits, cereals, yogurts, and juices). It was delicious. Brad was sick so Nathan and I brought him some food. We finally all got up and decided that we had to go paddle boating. It was super fun, except that it started raining, and then pouring for a bit. The rain subsided, but nonetheless, it was crazy! Afterwards, we pretty much ran to see the Plaza de España, a beautiful area of buildings and parks. We ran out of time, but we got a nice look of the outside. It was definitely worth seeing.

After that, we ran back to the bus, made it just in time (not enough time to drink the Starbucks that I had been craving, but oh well).

CORDOBA

The final trip to blog about is our day trip to Cordoba. Nathan has his internship on Fridays, so only Brad and I went on this one.

We got on the bus at 7 in the morning and left for Cordoba. (Side note, on the bus, we bet what time we would be there, and I split the pot with a friend...made a euro, nice!) Anyway, we first went to Medinah Al-Zahara an old Arab city.

We walked around the ruins for a few hours. It was really beautiful. It was really neat to see what used to be a city now in forms of ruins. We learned more about the Arab culture before they were kicked out of the area, and a bit of history about later on. Mostly, we just appreciated the pretty views and remaining architecture that were all around us. (Historical note, Cordoba was the top city in the 1000`s...Athens in the BC`s, then Cordoba, and most recently New York in 2000, pretty cool).

Afterwards, we jumped on the bus and headed straight for the Jewish Quarter in Cordoba. We made it to the synagogue just before it closed and looked inside. It was very small but very beautiful. We walked around the area a bit, and then headed over to the mosque. We had free time for lunch and paseos, and then met back up to tour the mosque. The mosque was absolutely huge! Inside was beautifully created with tons of arcs (which represent palm trees) and other really neat and traditional Arab architecture. It had been taken over by the Catholics later, though, so there was a lot of Catholic influence around as well. Mosques are generally darker and don`t have super high ceilings, so you can easily tell that the stain glass are newer elements. The most interesting part is that right in the middle of this incredible mosque (which you cannot see even until you walk right up to it) is this HUGE cathedral. It was really interesting to compare the architecture styles and see how grand the cathedral was. Super crazy!

We visited a castle afterwards, which was really fun as well. The climb to the top of the tower was a bit treacherous, but really cool and worth it for the view. It also inspired our idea to bring Laser tag to the castles of Spain. (just wait, it will catch on!)

Well, that is all for now. Stay posted for stories from France and the UK.

Granada = Pomogranate = Granade

Alhambra - crazy cool castle, picture taken from IES building! located across from our buliding

Plaza Nueva - where IES is

Plaza Bib Ramblas (sp?)

Catedral de Granada 5 minute walk from IES

Sorry - there are some technical difficulties that have prevented us from making a photo album of Granada. I'll try and add some individual pictures so you get the idea. I got a hair cut, you have been warned. - Brad

Hola. Thurs and Fri orientation in Granada

Our first weekend in Granada we went to the Alpujaras (aka Sierra Nevadas) for a hike (for those of you from Colorado they are more like local foothills)! It was a group trip with all 80 or so of us and we had the option to go on the ‘easier,’ lamer hike or the super cool ‘harder’ hike. I think you all know which one we went on. It was gorgeous (hopefully there will be pictures soon). We stopped half way to eat our packed lunches… everyone else has host families that pack them delicious meals like bocadillos/sandwhiches made with bread, cheese, jamon, and love. We however, had to settle for leftovers and such and thus get bocadillos of just bread and cheese (and carne for me) sin el amor. Then on the way down we walked by this 90 year old man who has been living by himself there for scores of years… he was very cool and I wish I would have had the chance to sit down and talk with him and learn about his life, but alas we had to march on. It was a lovely hike.

Finished up Orientation and went to Sevilla from Friday to Sunday (more on that another day). Then classes started that next Monday (just IES classes, University classes didn’t start until two weeks later!). (we have Friday’s off from class!) Read below for explanations. UGR = University of Granada

Brad’s schedule (and haircut from above):

Monday:

Spanish – 10:00-11:00

Islamic Civ. – 11:00-12:30

Teatro/Theatre – 12:30-14:00

Lunch/Almuerza/Cena/Ciesta

Volunteer at Colegio Ciudad de Los Ninos – 16:00-19:00

Tuesday

IES Consejo (advisory commitee) 8:15 – 9:00

Spanish – 9:00-10:00

Spanish view of ‘the other’ – 11:00-12:30

UGR – Sociology of Education – 17:00 – 18:30

Wednesday

Spanish – 10:00-11:00

Islamic Civ. – 11:00-12:30

Teatro/Theatre – 12:30-14:00

Lunch/Almuerza/Cena/Ciesta

UGR – Sociology of Education – 18:00 – 19:00

IES futbol – 20:00 – 21:00

Thursday

Spanish – 9:00-10:00

Spanish view of ‘the other’ – 11:00-12:30

Brooke’s schedule:

Monday:

Spanish – 10:00-11:00

Islamic Civ. – 11:00-12:30

UGR – Anthrolopogy of Ethnicity 13:00-14:30

Lunch/Almuerza/Cena/Ciesta

Spain and EU – 17:00-18:30

Tuesday

Spanish – 9:00-10:00

Spanish view of ‘the other’ – 11:00-12:30

Lunch/Almuerza/Cena/Ciesta

Spain and EU – 18:30 – 20:00

Baile/Dance class – 21:00 – 22:00

Wednesday

Spanish – 10:00-11:00

Islamic Civ. – 11:00-12:30

UGR – Anthrolopogy of Ethnicity 13:00-14:30

Lunch/Almuerza/Cena/Ciesta

IES futbol – 20:00 – 21:00

Thursday

Spanish – 9:00-10:00

Spanish view of ‘the other’ – 11:00-12:30

Baile/Dance class – 21:00 – 22:00

Nathan’s schedule:

Monday:

Spanish – 9:00-10:00

Islamic Civ. – 11:00-12:30

Lunch/Almuerza/Cena/Ciesta

Practica/Internship class – 18:30 – 20:00

Tuesday

Spanish –10:00 – 11:00

Spanish view of ‘the other’ – 11:00-12:30

UGR – Music Criticism 13:00-14:30

Lunch/Almuerza/Cena/Ciesta

Capoeira (Martial arts/dance) – 18:00-19:00

Baile/Dance class – 21:00 – 22:00

Wednesday

Spanish – 9:00-10:00

Islamic Civ. – 11:00-12:30

Lunch/Almuerza/Cena/Ciesta

Practica/Internship – 16:30-19:30

IES futbol – 20:00 – 21:00

Thursday

Spanish - 10:00 – 11:00

Spanish view of ‘the other’ – 11:00-12:30

UGR – Music Criticism 13:00-14:30

Capoeira (Martial arts/dance) – 18:00-19:00

Baile/Dance class – 21:00 – 22:00

Friday

Practica/Internship – 9:00 – 14:30

Group stuff:

Everyone has a Spanish language class each morning. Brooke and Brad are on the same schedule and Nathan is on the opposite schedule. B and B usually eat breakfast together and often join Nathan on his early mornings so we can get to school early and do some work. Though there are buses running in the mornings that take us pretty close to our classes we usually end up walking. It doesn’t take much extra time to walk (about 30 minutes walking) and it’s a nice way to start the day. On the way back up, however, we sometimes take the bus (at least I do..) because it’s uphill and sometimes takes a bit longer/I am more tired.

None of us are in the same Spanish class but we have the Islamic Civilizations and Spanish view of the Other classes together after our language classes. Our Islamic civ class is awesome, we love our teacher dearly (El Indalacio – some call him the Spanish version of Robin Williams. He is very enthusiastic and kind. He eats at the cafeteria/comedor up in our residence hall every day for lunch. Every day, and he has been doing it for the past 4 years! So sometimes we get to eat with him up there which is great. He has very red glasses). We are also in that class with two of our good friends up here, Erica Selding of Colorado and Brian Manning of Yale. Our other class we have together is Spanish Other which I think will end up being a very interesting class. It’s going to talk a lot about immigration as well as the formation of the Gypsy communities in Granada/Spain.

Depending on day to day plans we have, we usually try to meet up for lunch at our comedor in Carlos V (residencia). Often we’ll eat there around 2:45 depending on where we are coming from. We also sometimes have time before or after to take a ciesta/nap, and we also have the option of eating in the Comedor or taking our food to go and eating/saving it up in our room.

Every Wednesday our program rents a soccer court (hard court kind of like an outdoor basketball court that is meant for 5 v 5 soccer with goalies). We go every week and usually have from 15-25 players show up! Afterwords we usually go to a bar for some drinks/tapas and/or to watch a soccer game on tv.

Brad’s Stuff :

Colegio Ciudad de los Ninos (School of the City of Children) is a pretty big partially residential partially day school that I (Brad) am volunteering at on Mondays. It is in a poorer part of Granada and works with a lot of immigrant families/kids as well as with families from Granada that can’t afford to keep their kids in their houses throughout the whole week (need to work or whatnot..). I think it is going to be a great experience and I’m really looking forward to it. I have been twice so far, once to ‘interview’ and once to actually help out (this past Monday). I started out helping kids with their afterschool homework time.. a couple kids were working on math and a couple on english homework. After that I played some basketball and then some soccer with kids. I really had a great time with them… there was one boy from Belize who spoke English pretty fluently and was working on his Spanish. Other than that there were a lot of Spanish speaking kids and a few that were immigrants with pretty good Spanish. The ages I worked with were from about 10-16 (though the colegio has kids from like 6-20 in different buildings/programs). The director of the school, Paqui, has been very nice to me. I met up with her for the interview and then met her the next week at a cafeteria before my volunteering started. I ended up sitting down with her and two teachers for about 45 minutes which was great. We spoke (in Spanish) the whole time about us/Spanish politics, futbol, the education system/their school and more. Also, after volunteering, Paqui offered to drive me home which was great (otherwise I would have taken a bus and walked another 20 minutes or so). We stopped by her house to pick up her husband and 20 year old son. They were all really nice and she invited me over to dinner another night. Her son is studying computer programming/technology and I may meet up with him to be intercambios (interchanges - going out for coffee or whatever and practicing our Spanish/English with eachother).

My University class is called Sociologia de Educacion and is going to be talking about the creation of Education systems in Europe, general sociology of Education and where it came from, and also some comparative information about different education systems. I am in it with another student on our program from Colorado, Erica Seldin, and we think we are going to really enjoy the class. It doesn’t seem to difficult and the teacher seems friendly and approachable… though sometimes she talks a little too slow and repeats herself a bit. This may seem like it would be a good thing when one is taking a class in another language, but falling asleep in a Spanish class is just as looked down upon as it would be in a class in English (if that makes any sense to you..). Anyway, there is also a student cafeteria across the street where there is delicious fresh orange juice for only 1.40 Eu per large glass! So far I have always gotten an OJ and water before class, and I think, for the most part, I have also indulged in a juice after class as well. Mmmmm….

On Tuesdays I have to go early to meet with the IES Consejo, a group of 5 students and the director and assistant director of IES. We serve as the intermediary between students and the IES program/staff. In our meetings we talk about upcoming event possibilities as well as give feedback on everything IES. It’s… interesting. I think I would run the meetings a little different, and the other members of the consejo are interesting/diverse group of minds/people as well, but overall I think it will be a cool experience. Plus it’s another cool outlet/real life way of practicing Spanish which is always nice.

Nathan :

Practica – Cines del Sur, they have a film festival in Granada the first week of June with films from the southern Hemisphere. They show the films all around Granada. It’s an awesome organization and the people are great, but Nathan’s hoping to do a little more interaction with directors and such. As of now he has been doing more computer work: ej- transferring Word document file to Excel. Apparently the staff there thought he did an amazing job with that. Go Nathan! It’s located pretty close by our class buildings, in the center of Granada.

Capoweira – It’s a Brazillian Martial art that encorportates Dance, singing, martial arts, and musical intstruments. Nathan’s class is from 12 – 20 year olds and most of the students are younger kids/beginners (though some of the little guys are pretty good). On Saturdays sometimes Nathan goes to the open practice sessions where he does more advance things (the music’s faster, more advanced moves). He also checked out an advanced class where the beat was twice as fast and thus everything else – dance, music, singing – was twice as fast. He has purchased a Capawaira pants and t – shirt as well as a Brazillian adidas jacket – “quite the Brazillian wannabe” Nathan admitted.

I will add that I have seen Capowaira preformed by two Oxy students (who actually are both on our IES program!) and it’s a very beautiful and cool looking martial arts/dance. I’m excited to see Nathan do it sometime.

UGR – Contemporary Musical criticism. Music Journalism kind of. He has to go 8 concerts and do write ups on them. He also has to learn about the development of Musical Criticism. He is in a group with two Denmark women/chicas and they have group work every week. Maybe more of an update as things continue.

Brooke:

UGR – Anthropologia de Etnidad (Anthro. Of Ethnicity). So far she has watched a said and disturbing movie on Rwanda – and that’s it so far. It was in Spanish subtitles in African language dubbed over in Spanish. It was really hard to understand with another language in the background. She is in it with about 4 other IES students, “it will be fun – hopefully.”

Brooke and Nathan :

Dance class – Ritmos Latinos – Latino Rhythms. Originally they thought they were just learning Salsa. Then the next week they found out that the previous week they had already learned two dances and that there were two more remaining. It’s in the basement of the Granada Basketball Arena, they are the only ones in the class below 30. Ages range from 30-50 ( Brooke: “55 -that old couple is kind of old” - Brad: "I dunno, 55 isn't that old.. i know plenty of people around that age and they are quite young" ). They have mastered Salsa and Merengue and they still are going to learn the Mchleduahl and the Cha Cha Cha.

We still have to tell you about our recent trip to the south of France as well as some other trips around spain, but we'll save that for another time. Adios.