modern art

reina sofia—art museum. not quite as

famous as el prado, and

different than el prado. but

i like it.

i like modern art—

i like it

because it tries—and

because even when it fails,

it fails shamelessly.

i like that it’s so in-your-face

screaming some hidden message

that i can’t quite figure out—

blatant&buried. respectful&rude.

i like that it attacks tough stuff

that we like to forget.

that it breaks rules

and doesn’t make sense.

that it’s so personal.so anonymous.

i like that it has the strength to cry out

even when there’s nobody to listen.

and that even when i walk away in disgust

it doesn’t care—

and they all lived happily ever after...

in a castle of course.


This weekend has been full of castles. And aqueducts. And cathedrals. Lots of beautiful stuff. 


Friday: Segovia

The Roman aqueduct in Segovia. It's incredible. SO huge.

The cathedral in Segovia. It's absolutely amazing to me how
these buildings were constructed so long ago. The inside is even
more beautiful, but I couldn't take any pictures.

"The Walt Disney Castle"--recognize it from Sleeping Beauty?
Well, it's actually a legit castle that the king and queen lived in.
(Segovia, Spain)
yes yes yes yes.

Well, you can't really see me...but you can see the
awesome view that I would have from my window if I lived
in a Walt Disney castle.
I thought the picture was worth posting.

Outside on the castle walls with Erynn and Chris--
two of my buddies from my Mexico study abroad.

Me otra vez. Still on the castle walls...but now you can see all
 the beautiful countryside.

A beautiful old church in Segovia. It was super simple.
But for some reason, I absolutely loved it.

Inside of that beautiful old church. The front of the church.
These murals were the focal point--everything else was starkly plain.
Such a contrast with the ornate cathedrals we've been seeing.

Saturday: Franco's tomb, El Escorial, and El Castillo de los Manzanares.

The tomb of Francisco Franco.

His tomb and the basilica is magnificent. But it wasn't a good magnificent. Walking through it was like hearing all the muffled shuffling of the "slaves" (political prisoners) that he forced to construct his tomb. Like feeling all the pain and injustice of his regime. We talked to our "mom" about it- for Spain, it was 40 years of silenced cries. 

El Escorial was a Spanish palace, completed in 1584. Unfortunately, I left my camera in my backpack (which I couldn't take with me), so I don't have any pictures. It's huge--very impressive. We walked 1.5 miles during our tour and we didn't even see it all. 


El Castillo de los Manzanares is another castle. I loved it because we didn't have a guide. We could just run around it and explore to our hearts' content. SO cool. Here are the pics!

The entrance to the castle.

Bethany and I inside the castle walls. 

I love spiral stairs. These are the stairs inside of the castle tower.

Guys, look, I've finally found my knight in
shining armor!

Welcome to my castle tower. :)

Well, that was picture overload, if I do say so myself. 


In other news, Irene (our "mom") makes the best paella ever. SO much better than what we ate at the Plaza Mayor. The tortillas espanolas are to die for as well. I think Spanish food is super tasty. However, it's still not as good as my mom's cooking. I don't know if any food is.


Speaking of which...Happy Mother's Day, mom! You're incredible, beautiful, and the best mom in the world. I know that I wouldn't be who I am without you. Thank you. I love you!! 

my clothes smell like sunshine.

they really really do.

our "mom" washed our clothes yesterday...

and we asked if they were dry.

so she took us around to the back patio

and there they were

just chilling in the sun. 

 

they're not as soft.

but they smell twice as good.

mhmm.

this picture is actually just off the internet. but it really was like this. promise.

Holy Toledo

Last Saturday, we visited Toledo. Oh. my. goodness. This is the most enchantingly beautiful city I have ever seen. I absolutely love it. Forget going to Paris on your honeymoon—go to Toledo. We began our day there with a tour. Usually, I don’t really like tours…but everything we saw was so incredible that it wasn’t boring at all.  And after the tour we had about two and a half hours to wonder about the city. Oh, love. You know how usually the wow-factor decreases exponentially after you’ve looked around for a bit? Well, in Toledo, it doesn’t. 

Well, I’ll quit with the raving and let the pictures speak for themselves. 

Well, here you've got part of the bus window...and some of the many
stairs to get to the city. Thankfully, there's also a escalator...on the other side.
Guess what the Americans used?

Toledo is right next to a river...lots of mountainous terrain. And
the city is behind me.

I read a book on medieval architecture on the plane to Spain...
the book was a bit boring. But since, then architecture has been
fascinating! This is part of a synagogue from the 12th century.

Part of our group maneuvering our
way through the streets.

Bethany and Laura trying to decide which road to take.

One of the shopkeepers--he was way nice.
We looked through all his wares and had about a 15
minute convo in espanol.

Trying Marzipan. Toledo is famous for it.
It kind of kind of reminded me of linzer cookies. I thought
it was delicious, but it made Laura sick. :/

Outside of the walls of Toledo.

Classes here aren't too bad. It's a little harder for me to understand the teachers though. 

Well, time to go home for almuerzo...to be honest, Laura and I are hoping it is something other than fish soup. :) 

Several Significant Statements Sobre Studying in Spain this Spring

For you non-Spanish speakers, “sobre” means “about.” I just didn’t want to spoil this entire alliteration thing I had going on with the title. Also, there are more than just several statements…again, couldn’t ruin the alliteration. Sorry about the brief deception.

1)  It’s only been two days and I recommend coming here with all my heart. I LOVE it! Everything is so lovely. Flowers all over the place. Beautiful beautiful old buildings…seriously, fantastic architecture that is centuries upon centuries old.  Street musicians. Quaint outdoor cafes. Clean. A plethora of parks and plazas. Cobble stone streets. Lots of little stores and stands. Charming atmosphere.  Are you sold yet? Because I definitely am.

I realized I forgot to take a picture of the streets here...so I snapped

one from where I'm sitting right now (Plaza de Cervantes).

2)    Cervantes was born here in Alcala. He’s an important dude. Know him and Don Quixote at all costs. Or you can just feel like an idiot. Let’s just say, I was very glad I had sparknoted the book before coming. Oh, and extra credit points with the teacher if you can pull out a copy of Don Quixote in Spanish out of your backpack and say you’re reading it…like one of the kids in our group did. No lie. He was carrying around all six million pages of it. Now that’s a real overachiever right there.

Chilling with Don Quixote.

       

Me and my buddy Sancho. In front of la casa de Cervantes. 

3) Soccer, or futbol as they call it here, is also a big deal. A group of us watched the game (Real Madrid vs. Barcelona) in a bar in Alcala. When we first walked in and sat down around the screen, everybody’s head swiveled toward us. It was pretty awkward. Surprised looks from the guys. Death stares from the girls. But fifteen minutes into the game, we were an accepted part of the group. And then it was so much fun it was ridiculous. Everybody was around our age. Oh, and this was the biggest game of the year. We cheered for Real Madrid. Unfortunately, Barcelona was better, and they beat us 2-0. Kind of sad. The Barcelona fans had no qualms about telling us we lost. Both in Spanish and English. “You…lose…lost…!!!”

A group of us girls at the bar.

4) I brought an adapter with me to Spain…I totally forgot about getting a converter.  I plugged in my straightener and it started smoking. I thought , how weird. And then it ceased to smoke. Um…whoops. I now have a broken straightener. So if you feel like buying me a new straightener, feel free. Or an adapter would be nice too. Actually, I’ll take both, thanks. I didn't take a picture of this one...But imagine me with a sad face + a broken straightener and you've pretty much got it.

5) I’m living with a great family. They’re really nice. But we have a lot of little rules. Like how to shut the door. I received a one-on-one tutorial on how to close the bedroom and bathroom doors with the least amount of noise. We can only shower during the afternoon/night.  And those showers need to be limited to five minutes. Five minutes?!? But, Laura and I have done it. We. Have. Done. It. And will continue to do it. Oh, I’m so proud. I think that’s probably as bad as culture shock is going to get for me, so I’m feeling gooooood.

This is the outside of my house. We live in a townhouse type
deal inside of the gate. Oh, and there are roses everywhere here.

6) Living with a host family is a great way to really eat Spanish food. Our food is fantastic…like really, it is tasty. I would just never ever order what we eat at a restaurant. For example, we ate fish soup for lunch. I don’t eat sea food. An overwhelming desire to be polite is a great motivator though and I ate it all. By the time I had finished my bowlful, I had decided it wasn’t too bad. I can’t decide whether the food here is healthier or not. I definitely eat way more vegetables and fruit. But man, olive oil by the SPOONFUL.  And there’s a lot of deep-fried food. It’s olive oil though. That’s how I justify eating it.

7)    Speaking of food, the bread, juice, and yogurt here is better by 100000000X. Haley can testify to the fact that I eat lots of yogurt at home. Well, good thing we don’t have Spanish yogurt in Provo or I would probably eat even more.

8) I used to dislike the Provo road naming system. Well, I’m madly in love with it now. Laura and I have gotten lost out of our minds in the twisty, winding, cobble-stoned streets of Alcala twice now. Yesterday began with us leaving our house to go to school…at 8:30. School started at 9:00, but the bus ride is like 10 minutes, so we weren’t too worried. Well, we got on the right bus going the wrong way. We were on the flipping bus for an hour. After about 35 minutes of suffering on the bus, I got up the nerve to ask the bus driver if we were close to the Plaza of Cervantes. He stared at me. He thought, What an American idiot…And then he told me it was a long ways away, to just sit down, and that he would tell us when to get off.  We finally arrived…and then we couldn’t find the school. The bad thing with it being such an old building is that 95% of the buildings here are old. We found it eventually…and finally arrived at our classroom over an hour late. P.S. Actually, I’m kind of in love with the twisty, winding, cobble-stoned streets of Alcala, at least whenever I’m not lost. Call it an affair, if you will.

I also love all the fountains. This particularly famous fountain happens to be in Madrid.
However, there are tons of fountains in Alcala as well.

9) El Prado is huge. It’s full of beautiful art. Oh, and it’s huge. You need lots of time. But even more than that, you need lots of stamina.  I am convinced that it takes a lot of energy to appreciate art because by the end of it all, I felt like I had just run the Provo half-marathon again.

Laura (my roommate) and I outside
of the Prado Museum.

10)   Do not wear tshirts. Or sweats. Also, never go barefoot in the house. Our mom is convinced that we will catch our death of cold should we ever walk on the tile floors without shoes on.

11)    Jet lag is over-hyped (if that’s a word). I was way tired the day I got here. But since then, I have had barely any problems with it. I’m hoping for the same kind of luck on the return trip. Especially because classes start at BYU the day after I get back.

12) I love Spain.

And churros. And chocolate caliente.

i love you most, best, forever.

At least that's what my little sister tells me.

My dad picked me up from the airport Thursday night. As we were driving home, he updated me on life around the house...a piece of which was "Jeremiah's room is always neat. Evelyn's room is always messy. In fact, it's usually so messy that she really has no idea where to even begin to pick it all up."

I walked through the door of mi casa around midnight. As my mom hugged me, she told me that Evelyn had picked up her entire room. For me. By herself. Now that's pure love right there--coming straight from a four-year-old.

Evelyn was thrilled to find me in her room the following morning and woke me up by jumping all over me. She's been glued to my side the entire weekend.

I told her I had to leave tomorrow and asked her if she'd miss me. She sighed and said, "Yeah." And then, "Will you miss me?"

"Of course."

"Don't worry, Emily. You'll make friends at college who'll talk to you too."

little miss evelyn herself.

Thanks, darling. Love you most, best, and forever too.

two more days of finals.

         It's 11:15 and I'm sitting in the library. I'll be here till 2:00am. Then very loud music will come on over the speakers and all us students will be released from this self-inflicted library stuDYING.
         Cheryl and I are pros at this entire staying at the library for ridiculous amounts of time.
         My brain is fried. I feel like I have been cramming physics into it for hours...but that I still don't know anything about physics. It is a strange feeling. Here's to remembering it all when I'm actually sitting in the testing center. I have my doubts, but at least I'm trying.
         Also, I strongly dislike group projects. I admit it--I can be a perfectionist sometimes. I WANT my good grade, dang it. The fact that I care so much means that I often end up with a lot of work. Oh, there needs to be a powerpoint? I can do that. Nobody wants to do the brochure. Fine, I guess I can do it. Everybody hates public speaking? Well, guess I could take care of that too. I know I shouldn't. But our group should get a pretty rocking grade at least. I shouldn't complain. I'm just a tad tired. Blahhhh.
         Tomorrow I'm studying some more. Taking my physics exam. Finishing the brochure for that group project. Memorizing my half of the group presentation. Sleep sleep sleep.
         I'll wake up Wednesday and I have another meeting for that group project to run things through. I'll pack. Take care of a last few things on campus. Help give our HNRS202 presentation that night. Then finals are DONE.
         I'll clean and pack throughout the night. Leave for home the next day. :)
         Finals this semester really haven't been too bad. Plus, on this night of library-lateness, Cheryl snuck some frozen yogurt into the library and totally surprised me. Made all this studying better by one hundred times infinity. Infinity, people. The librarian never came around so nobody told me to toss it or put it away (you can't just put away frozen yogurt, lady). I ate it in complete happiness. Pretty sure the strangers sitting across from me were jealous times infinity. I would have been.