Sunday, September 30, 2012

"You must do the thing you think you cannot do".





Exploring the world around me

In an attempt to see more of Spain and the cities around Seville I went on a few day trips to Carmona, Ruinas Romanas de Italica, and Pueblo Blanco, and a playa near by.

I have just come to terms with my goals while in Spain, speak more spanish, really as much as I possibly can and to hang out with as many Spaniards as possible as well as trying my hardest to soak in all of this history and culture I am witnessing. It is so hard to actually realize in the moment what is going on, where I am, and what I am seeing. We can go down the street and visit the palace of the Royal Family of Spain, we can go across the street from school and visit the Plaza de Espana an amazing site to see built years and years ago, about thirty minutes away and see some ancient Roman Ruins, go to the Cathedral to see the tomb of Christopher Columbus, it is insane and so hard to appreciate everything right now, it is hard to really believe what your seeing when you have only heard about them in history books, magazines.. to realize that you are actually standing right in front of it and to absolutely give it the admiration that it deserves is so hard to do. You really have to take a few seconds, take into consideration where you are and what is around you, who has been here before you how long some of these things have been here, how they were made and by who they were made, it's surreal. 







These pictures are from Carmona, a small city about an hour away from Sevilla, this tour was a bit difficult because it was pouring down rain, but this is the view from the Castle ( Alcazar de la Puerta de Sevilla). It is pretty interesting because when you look at the castle walls you can see the different years it was built, the different styles that came along with the different years because different techniques were used as well as different types of rock/tile.







This was suppose to be hot chocolate, ended up being more like chocolate fondue.



Churros in the morning of course. 



-From the Torre-












What your seeing there is actually a castle/palace, made into a Hotel.


OFF TO THE RUINS!


This is the type of thing typical to find in a wall or floor, beautiful pieces of art, you can kind of get an idea of how small all of those pieces are and what they are put together to make.





Left: Statue of Diana (cazadora) This is what the remains look like, it is cool to see that this stuff was all found in Italica, in Spain when you would think to only find it in Italy right? An example of the traveling made and who settled where, makes you realize how diverse Spain is and how the world has globalized over the years.



This is at the arena, in other areas you can see the underground area where they would have the gladiator fights and where they would keep the lions in cages. Crazy stuff yeah?




A little piece of life, i love this picture I think it gives the natural-ness of the place, the age.




Oh by the way we had a photoshoot, nbd. haha




Left: Statue of heroica del emperador Trajano. 
Right: If you look down you can see the amazing tile of an ancient Roman home that has survived all of these years.  Try and look closely at all of the small intricate pieces that make it what it is, it is truely incredible, must have taken so much time and soo much talent. Every room in the home would have these floors, of course these are the homes of the very wealthy settlers. Not all life of the Romans was this glamorous. 

Mosaico de los Pajaros -->






Mosaico de Neptuno
<--











Mosaico del Laberinto
                        (Casa de Neptuno)

--> 






Lets be honest the night wouldn't have been complete without a no preservatives clunk of helado.


Here at Pueblos Blancos
 Left to Right: Me, Elenor, Bryn, Emily, Kristen, Gabby


"Vamos a la playa!"






I am slowly, well trying to speed up the process, of realizing that my time here is limited and I need to make the best of it and take advantage of every opportunity that has been given to me. Have fun, be smart, and viva la vida. A month has passed now and I have no idea where it went, I am having the time of my life, I see myself looking at everything very anthropologically, anthropologist at heart. And I love seeing all of these new things and breaking it all down for substance. This whole experience has been so rewarding and beneficial to me in so many ways. I am over coming so many different obstacles without a sweat and I am pretty proud of myself, I made it to Spain on my own, have established a base, a point of contentment and adaptability that has been impressive on my part. At this point in my Study Abroad experience I am very proud of where I stand and the chances I have made, going outside of my comfort zone and trying new things, like new foods, new transportation methods, new lifestyle in general. This week I was talking to my friends about what we wanted to get out of Spain and if thats what we feel like we are accomplishing now, I really love that we are all on the same page and have the same responsibilities and expectations for our experiences and that we all feel as equally blessed to be where we are. We are living "without borders" as SMC would say, living by the idea that, "One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it's worth watching."


Wednesday, September 26, 2012

"Even if you stumble, you're still moving forward".

First week of school

I woke up on the first day of school, a bit nervous to say the least, I still had no idea what classes I was going to take, where they were or exactly what time they would be. My horario, Schedule, has been ridiculous this week, I've gone to as many as 6 classes in one day to try and find some good fits, I have until Friday to give my advisers here the complete list of the classes I want to take. 

  • 9AM be at CIEE office to talk to advisers about what classes I plan on taking, mind you I switched out of Advanced Liberal Arts last Friday so I had to restart the whole enrollment process on Monday, met all my new advisers, found out the new dates for all my new travel excursions, and all the new classes that may be offered to me. 
Monday: The first class that I planned on getting into was at the University of Sevilla, I walked over about two hours ahead of time so I wasn't "that girl" that walked into class late. They had told me that there are some professors that will lock the door so if you are not in time, you aren't going to class, period. From CIEE I walked up the street, through the park, across the street and to the front entrance of my school, iPod on, swagg in my walk haha, and a smile on my face thinking about how I had no idea where my class was. This is the thing about class rooms at the university, they make no sense. There are three patios that you walk through from the entrance to get to the anthropology classes, you can go right or left or upstairs. I walked right and asked a girl if she knew where the number of the class was, XXIII, she said she wasn't sure but maybe down the hall, I walked down the hall, down the hall in the opposite direction, up the stairs, down the stairs. Wrong. Okay my explanation, the classrooms go 1,2,18,VII,34,200,5. Yeah, no sense. I finally walked over to the International Student Office and they told me exactly where my class would be, yeah Salva made sure we all knew where to find that office ha for good reasons. I had about a hour until my class would start so I rewrote my schedule, put events in my calender, went to the bathroom, where I actually saw someone I knew which was a cool feeling, I told her about how lost I was she said it was her 5th year and she still doesn't know where anything is, kind of like a don't worry, no one knows. They are not consecutive, but basically all the Roman Numerals are the classrooms for the same estudio, like all Roman Numeral class rooms on the left are Sociology Class rooms or all the regular numbered class rooms on the right are Arabic class rooms, so yeah I mean it is a bit difficult.



Trying to take a picture of the classroom without anyone noticing.. 


I won't bore you with how all my classes went but I am pretty happy I will finalize everything this week, not much else has been new, I've just been trying to figure out school, classes transferring back to SMC and classes in Mexico not clashing with what I have now, everyone at SMC has been amazing with getting back to me in a timely matter and not just leaving me hanging, I think I have my schedule down perfect for the rest of this year and for next year, and I have officially declared my Bachelors in Global Justice and my two minors in Psychology and Spanish, I have just enough room for everything I am supper excited! Time really flies! I graduate next year and I'm off!


Here is a little iSpy, 
I walk through the park everyday, so I look around a lot, I'm not a creep lol



Meow



This is where they use to display the cut off heads of people that disobeyed the law


Olay!


They love them some Washington Irving let me tell you








In the center of the park


30 euro for a year and you can use a bike whenever


Just because? :)


I think this picture just looks like a movie set, like that's all I think of.


Sunday, September 23, 2012

A life lived in Fear, is a life Half lived.




I think it would be fit to say that this blog was inspired by my roommate Erin, in Granada. 
A person I am in awe over and who made me find a new perspective, a new punto de vista. 
Erin is 22, from Michigan, and she is blind. Upon realized this small detail, I thought, really why would she want to be traveling abroad, by herself for that matter? It is kind of a burden to everyone around her, people have to direct her on where to go and what we are doing ect. And how scary would that be to travel to a new country while being blind? I couldn't see her reasoning. These were my first thoughts. 


But in reality, what a leader. How courageous is that. I being perfectly healthy, having no disabilities, still was stressing out on missing a flight and on moving in with strangers, being alone in a new city, new country, this girl is doing all of that, and not seeing a thing. Like isn't a big part of traveling being able to see these amazing works of art, ancient building, new styles and being able to compare them to familiar things? Being her roommate allowed to me see what kind of work it takes. Walking to the room I would place my hand on her shoulder and direct her, straight, slight left, to the right, your going to feel a wall, ect. She had a stick to feel if there were things in the way or different floors (carpet to tile) but what a leap of faith. She had to be able to trust in me that I wouldn't lead her the wrong way that I would get her to the right place, that I was being honest and there to help. I can't imagine the difficulty in having to depend on another human being to be able to walk down a hall, I mean sure when I was two my mom taught me how to walk and she would hold me hand and guide me but if she where going to try and lead me into a fire pit I'm sure even at two I would go the other direction or be able to see I was in danger. Erin doesn't have that ability. I walked her in the room and would grab her hand and tell her to feel the walls, walk around and find her bed, the closet, the bathroom door, the toilet, the flush, the trash can, the sink, the soap, the towel, the shower so that she had an idea of how to move around. 
Eating, I would ask her what she wanted let her touch her plate, her cup, her silverware and tell her what she had, she did great with everything, she had to feel her food of course but she did really well you really couldn't tell she was blind.




It really didn't dawn on me the difficulty or the realness of the situation until I thought to turn on the bathroom light for her, i realized, well, that isn't going to do anything. Like click, her life is darkness, she lives everyday as if she is walking around in the dark. I didn't think as fast as I spoke and I said okay I'm going to turn on the light, and she made a joke, " Ah I can't see!" . I thought that was great humor, spoke a lot about who she was in the 10 minutes that I had been getting to know her.

She took a different stance on life. You keep living, no matter what happens, no matter what difficulties you may have, you keep living, or you get buried alive. Just wow. Just because she can't see doesn't mean she is going to stop living be depressed, give up on life, no all it does is make her a better person, she doesn't let life get to her, she takes the challenge, I think that makes life so worth living, would would want life to be so easy. Like grandma always said, "Anything worth having, is worth working for", I'm a blessed human being to have had all of those amazing sayings passed down to me and it makes me see life for what it really is. Life is a struggle, but if it wasn't, it would be boring, you wouldn't have any good stories to tell. Just way to turn a sad story into a success story a story worth sharing. Erin has other blind friends which I think is key, to know that you are not alone, that this is a 'norm' for some people to not think your weird or that you don't belong because your different, the human race needs support systems, teams, interest groups, friends, family, they let us know its okay it'll work out, others have been through the same. She's even had a boyfriend! But broke up with him before she left for Europe! Shoooot Get it Gurrrrl! 

Just an inspirational story and anyone that is down, know that your not alone, got your heart broken, well your not the first, got your window shield cracked, theres been a few, low on income, join the club. It makes living a little sweeter when you can say you overcame something that seemed to be taking over your life, it really does make you stronger it "builds character". 


In the gardens of Alhambra, they had lots of Gardens and mazes. 


At the torre of Alhambra- the very top of the castle, I know the red and yellow flag is the flag of Spain, the rest I couldn't tell you. 


The view from up top


Their Cathedral, monument for the Christian settlers


The Alhambra was very Muslim, well because the first settlers were Muslim so everything was in Arabic, this piece alone says "Alla is the only god", all over the walls 

Just about everything was detailed like this, there was writing on the walls, floors, ceilings everything, but the Muslims always but God first, always telling the others not to worship them but to only give worship to God. You could walk in a room, and the floors would be so intricately set with a pattern of stones, marbles, tile, there were drains of marble where water would run through the floors. Ceilings were carved out in the shapes of stars to make it look like you were looking up into the sky, lots of windows and stars and moons carved on the shutters so that when light shines through that is the shape of the light, there was also lots of color in the walls mainly blue and orange.





Little piece of outside, there were lots of little "pools" like this all over the outside of the Alhambra


Different view from outside, you can see that there are mountains, so in the center its like a valley and then more mountains. apparently it is divided between the left, center and right part of the city. Originally the city was founded by Muslim kings, but was taken over by Christian Kings, and they fought a lot about what belonged to who. 




Ribbit


Defense mechanism, this is the outer wall, if anyone tried to shoot cannons or fire arrows, it would not do too much if any damage. 


Where people came to watch shows, if you go in the middle and talk, everyone, even upstairs can hear you perfectly, I think that this was mostly used for opera shows.


The story of the twelve lions, Idk lol, twelve is just a really 'good' number, they are not completely sure why it is twelve but there are twelve months, twelve disciples ect. 
This is a super important room at the Alhambra, the Muslim King had many wives, like
200, but he had a love affair with a man, the other nobles found out and of course wanted to kill the kings lover, they knew what family he was in but he had three brothers so they did not know which brother it was, so they killed all four of them. in the room to the right of this picture there is a "tub" in the ground looks more like a base for a fountain, they killed the brothers in that room, one by one, they would kill them in the tub and the drains in the ground would carry the blood down the steps and out of the room you can see an example of the drains in the middle right part of this picture, in the ground, do you see it? When they did the killings, none of the brothers saw it coming because there was no blood. 







Streets of Granada


Statue of Columbus proposing his trip to Americas to Queen Isabella, in the center of town

Lots of history here regarding Columbus, many admired him and he was very famous here for his "Discovery" of the Americas. 

Queen Isabella and King Felipe are buried in a tomb right next to the Cathedral here in Granada, we went to see their tombs as well, apparently many thought that Isabella was smarter then Felipe, which was a bad thing to admit at the time, but, on the statue of their tomb they are both laying on a bed next to each other, one thing you notice is that Isabella's pillow is indented more than Felipes, to say that the artist agreed with the idea that she was smarter, so her head weighed more than his so that is why the indent in the pillow is lower then that of Felipes. There is a marble statue like (thing) that is on the first floor for the King and Queen and then you can go down stairs to see where they were really buried. 
Also on the statue they are looking away from each other because it was said that they did not really like each other. 


In the market place

Lots of Hookah and bargaining on this street, very Muslim origin, most of the things sold in Granada are from Morocco. 



Beautiful ceiling lamps imported from Morocco. Pero Mucho mas caro aqui! 
Made in Morocco, sold here for waaaay more.



I found Ruby!! :) and girl to the very left is Jennifer, senior at SMC lol I met her yesterday, she's in the Liberal Arts Program, and coincidently she's going to Rome the same weekend I am on the same flight lol ... crazyness


Granada main street, lots of Taparias, ice cream places, bars, discotecas in Granada


Nom Noms


Beautifully decorated "patio"


Me and Sarah and Alejandro, Sevillanos, looking over the city 



Outside of the run bakery. 



Asking for treats from the runs, nuns in Spain do Bake Sales to help the church ha, who would have thought


Gypsy Trick, ask tourists to smell this leaf, when they go to grab leaf they grab your hand and tell you to give them money or they won't let go, mmm scary? a little. They didn't ask me, I walked by them twice, because everyone here thinks I'm Spanish! woo wooo


Thought: Even though we may be so far apart, were under the same moon :)