What is it we value? Innovation. Originality. Novelty. But most importantly … timeliness.

Brandon Sanderson

Hello hello hello! Due to the large quantity of photos that are coming your way, I decided to resurrect my old travel blog as a suitable venue for this task (and also because the overloaded emails literally crashed my devices multiple times, and hopefully I will not have that problem with the website).

Having learned my lesson from my Stockholm write-up (and also my still unfinished study abroad travel blog… which is this website… which still has 7 draft entries that have not been touched since 2019/2020), I am going to aim to publish first and foremost, and worry less about the word count and prose. As you can tell from the Sanderson quote, let’s try to be a little more timely! What this means for you is I will mostly be providing captions of photos, except for some paragraphs of notes I had taken or outlined during my travel. Enough with the forward, on to the trip!

Sunday & Monday April 23/24: All the world’s a stage, and all its men and women merely fly Play Airs

My travel starts with stress as the Play website is not working and I am unable to check in online. Repeated attempts fail, so I will just have to check in at the airport. I spend the day hiking with Amy, who is celebrating a birthday and just buying a house, and she drops me off at BWI because she lives 15 minutes away. I cannot find where Play is at first, BWI is a small airport so this is no issue but when looking up “Fly Play BWI” I learn this this is the 5th day they have been flying to/from the USA, they are still in their first week of intercontinental travel!

We board the plane, and since it is a half full flight I have an empty middle seat. There are issues with seating because they have moved a lot of people around and for some reason BWI staff care about who was originally sitting in which seat, but all gets figured out and we go to take off on time when we are told we have to come back to the gate because of a customs issue. I later learn that someone came from Iceland yesterday, was rejected by customs, and deported back via our flight, and we had almost left without them because the crew had confirmed all “regular” passengers on the manifesto and closed the boarding doors, forgetting they were charged with bringing this person back. The issue gets figured out, we take off 30 minutes late so my 1:30 layover connection is looking slightly fraught but hopefully should still be fine. 

Hour into the flight the call goes out for medical personal on board to come up to the flight deck, then it is repeated a couple minutes later more urgently asking any doctors or nurses to head to the back of the plane. Stewardesses (which is the longest word you can type entirely with your left hand using official hand placements on a typical QWERTY keyboard) rush back and forth through the aisle, with bottles of water and towels and trash bags, unclear what is going on but definitely more “excitement” than desired. 

I only got a disgustingly little amount of sleep, but at least the sky is pretty when I wake up – viewed another way, I slept from sunset to sunrise! Still flying over the ocean, but then we see the beginning of (ice)land. 

I make my way through my Iceland connection to London, and then bus in from the Stansted airport (all London airports are inconveniently far out from the city) to Kings Cross station, where I am staying at a cheap travelers hotel. I meet up with my friends Zac and Caroline for lunch at an outdoor market then they go back to Work/School and I head to the British Museum, where I see the rosetta stone (awesome!), stolen Elgin marbles (with pamphlets arguing the legality of the British position), and a bunch of other neat museum stuff (like jewelry, and old clocks). 

Dinner is at a pub, with Zac and I sharing a couple of pints and catching up while Caroline finishes up some work for her finals week, and then we head over to a friend of theirs birthday party on the other side of town where I get some good recommendations for Ireland, but the jet-lag forces me to call it around 11p. Pretty decent job though of pushing through the time change!

Tuesday April 25: Greenwich, me, ‘n time

Tuesday started with getting a nice tea and pastry breakfast with my local friends. Upon their recommendation, I spent most of Tuesday in Greenwich. Before that though, I walked my friend Zac to work at Google. This involved walking along the Regents Canal, which is to London as the Highline is to New York. It was a lovely day, and so it was really nice to stroll down the canal and see all the greenery and canal houseboats. Eventually I made it to Camden Market, where I got food samples in the Asian Aisle and then took the Tube down to the ferry stop. I took an “Uber Boat” down the Thames to the town (Uber sponsors the ferry, it is not a private boat like the name would imply). I had a great time here. From the open market I got some high quality fudge samples, including a slice of fresh hot fudge (which is just… chewy chocolate), and it was delicious. I then had a super disappointing meal of traditional meat pie and mash, with the picture not even included because it was just… bland and unappealing. After I toured the Greenwich Royal Observatory, which had a couple of great things: The Prime Meridian line itself, a lot of interesting telescopes and other aperture devices, and some interesting historical pieces on Royal Astronomers and the science of clocks. Afterwards I toured the Cutty Sark, once fastest ship in the world (at 20mph), which although was not as historically neat as the preserved Vasa from the 1600s, this 1870s sailing vessel was very neat. At it’s height it would carry 10k tea chests which was worth 18.5 million pounds, or 200M cups of tea. After the tea craze died down it switched to wool, then coal, then becoming a training ship, and now is a dry dock exhibit! Walking the middle Tween Deck was tricky as it is only 6 feet talk so I was aways close to hanging head, would not have been fun as a taller lad! I took a River Tour/Cruise on my way back to London, which commented when we pasted by notable features, such as the London Bridge. This is not the original London Bridge, although there has been a London bridge for 2k years – the most recent prior London bridge was sold and now is in Arizona of all places.

Here are some of the places we passed by on the boat tour, and on my walk home afterwards!

I ended the night with my first Indian food (a staple of British cuisine) getting dinner with a blockmate who has moved to London first for Oxford grad school but now works for Spotify (which is actually a Swedish company, the more you know).

Wednesday April 26: Royalty, afternoon tea, and a museum “T”

Because I had been to London before, I had already down some of the classic tourist things – Buckingham Palace, Churchill War Rooms – but not everything, so it was nice to be back and hit the famous Tower of London. I thought the Tower was, well, just a tower, with the crown jewels on top and a prison on bottom, and did not realize it was a whole royal palace complex. As I waited for my Yeoman Warder tour, I checked out the royal mint, where I learned more about the process of assaying and the difficulties of debatably “fiat” currency in the middle ages. The Beefeater gave a great tour of the complex, including the traitors gate, the crows, and the execution area, and also had a great (dry) British sense of humour. There have been 414 yeoman warders ever, and our guide is the 411th. In the present day there is a minimum requirement of 22 years HM army service with various good conduct medals, just to even apply! After the tour I checked out the crown jewels, where the highlight was the diamond the size of an actual egg in the royal crown… it was a crazy big diamond. There also was a royal spoon for oil from the 12th century which is interesting. I toured the royal armory as well, which had a lot of suits of armor and weapons. 

After the tour I got my classic afternoon tea, and then walked around the Tate Modern museum for a bit, which had a couple of neat exhibits. My favorite was the room where there was a blue line across every wall at the same hight, and also across many darling mirrors, so no matter where you walked the line stayed level, as if it was almost independent of the physical space. After the museum I reunited with my friends for a chiller night of home cooked meal and cards (as well as another pint or two, of course).

Thursday April 27: High Culture (and Higher Powers)

Another destination I had seen but not visiting from my last time in London was the Westminster Abbey, so I was happy this time to be able to go in and explore the entire space. The architecture is great, the stained glass neat, and all the graves and burials and monuments are really interesting and give it a uniquely “crowded” vibe, but in a good and historical way. The are so many famous people buried on these grounds! 

After the cathedral I got a perfect meal of fish and chips, exactly the fish and chips meal that I wanted (with plenty of vinegar and tarter sauce). I then passed through a public/royal? park on my way to Fortnum and Mason, a luxury department store that has been around since 1707. I did some tastings of turkish delight and tea, and also some smell-ings too of their tea offerings and perfume selections.

As this was my last night in town, I went out to dinner with my friends, and then stared out for quite a few pints as we made sure to hit all their favorite local pubs. 

Friday April 28: Top O’ the Morning to Ya(reland)

I was headed to Ireland Friday, and so my morning was a pretty simple affair of meeting up with a college friend for breakfast, and then getting to the airport to catch my quick flight across St.George’s Channel!

Stay tuned for Ireland, part 2 of this trip!

I am not a great cook, I am not a great artist, but I love art, and I love food, so I am the perfect traveler

Michael Palin

Now, I cannot with a straight face claim that my Monday morning class attendance was a thing of perfection. I definitely took advantage of the 3 excuse-free absences, and also may have dipped into a 4th grade-lowering one, but if you ask me that is heresy. Nevertheless, after having an entire Sunday to sleep and recuperate, even the sagging no-support twin mattress I slept on could not stop me from showing up early for my Monday AM class. That does not mean I payed a lot of attention to my courses that day, and the memories are definitely overshadowed by a momentous Tuesday.

One of the benefits of writing in the moment, in momento if you will, is that you can place details more accurately. I left myself a breadcrumb trial of photos so that I could Hansel and Gretel my way into the Witches Cottage of an accurate blog post (not sure if that metaphor works, but what is important is that I had fun with it), but sometimes I look at something and I wonder what specifically I wanted myself to remember when looking at this photo, other than it has to do with something memorable. I bring this up as a lead into the life-changing discovery of Alt Heidelberg, a German cafeteria just shy of the Plaza Universitat that was one of the most impactful locations of my time in Barcelona, after my homestay home and …I guess the academic classrooms. 

Often in the consulting world you are presented with a problem, and in crafting your solution, you are presented with the triangle of Good, Cheap, and Fast, and are told to pick two. Having all 3 is impossible, they say! Oftentimes you’ll only get one, two is what you inspire too! As a starving university student on a budget, or at least an often-hungry studying abroad student who was trying to be thrifty, finding a conveniently located, cheap, filling, and tasty restaurant seemed like an impossibility. Pick two? How about picking four! Alt Heidelberg was this nirvana, this miracle, this promised land. Granted, at no time was I not the youngest person in sight by at least 20 years, and I was always sitting at the bar so meals here were not social affairs, but those do not detract from the dining experience of Alt Heidelberg; they merely shape what it was. 

Almost every Tuesday and Thursday, between crossing from classes at Plaza Catalunya to Plaza Universitat, I would stop for a late lunch here. With class ending at two and not resuming until 3:30, I had plenty of time to wander and try different locations, which I did on first, but once I found Alt Heidelberg there was just no other reason to go anyplace else. For 5.50 €, or approximately 6.50 $, I could get the Menú del día, which consisted of everything you would want in a mid-classes meal. Specifically, this is: Alcohol (Your choice of a mug of beer or a carafe of wine; being in Spain I always went with the red wine which was a pretty generous two cup portion), Protein (The menu changed every week, which meant that I had a new dish every time, and specific food names was not an area where my Spanish was particularly strong so there was always an exciting element of randomness to whatever I would get), Starch (Every dish comes with a side or two, and they were always a rice or potato variation, occasionally it was majority vegetable side but not usually), and Bread (useful for mopping up sauces, reaching peak satiation, and absorbing just a little bit of that early afternoon wine… listen it was 7:45 in Uzbekistan which is well past the 5p mark so I consider myself in the clear). 

On this particular occasion, the 12^thof February, I had a lovely lunch of pork, French fries, and curried rice, and the combination of hot, tasty, filling food and an afternoon libation did wonders for my soul. I was in high spirits going into my Barcelonan history class, and definitely had more raport with the teacher than normal, much to the embarrassment (but not too much annoyance) of my seatmate and friend. We discussed the Palacio De Musica, a beatuful architectural marvel that would be the destination for a field trip Thursday. The good vibes continued into Art history, where we learned about Goya, and his historical position between two eras, that of the absolute monarchy and that of the liberal revolutionaries, and how the changes and new ideas shaped his artwork. My other classes featured a bit more of an eclectic collection of assignments, with a “blog post” for my Cross-Cultural Therapy class that explored how our biases and worldview limit the understanding we have of other communities, a Spanish essay on types of intelligence and what we think we possess, and a Parenting focus for the Child development class, as we looked at and wrote about how own upbringing, and the affect our parents had on who we turned out to be, as well as a couple of posts about the effects of Technology on developing children and Gender & Race on children more broadly. 

The highlight of this week, apart from the food at least, was our tour of the Palau de la Musica. The Music Palace, to write it in all three languages spoken in Barcelona, is a concert hall built by the architect Domènech i Montaner, considered the progenitor of the modernismo style that was popularized by Gaudi. Built in the early 1900s, this concert hall is a stunningly beautiful example of Catalan Modernist architecture. Every single part of the hall is exquisitely decorated. The internal columns are all adorned with carved flowers, the undersides of balconies featuring laurels and roses, the stairs featuring scrolling fruits and vines, and all these are just in the spaces between the outside of the building and the inside of the theatre! Before we did get inside the auditorium though, we gathered in the attached cafeteria (on of the prettiest places to get overpriced coffee in all of Barcelona) and joined other touring groups to go into an auditorium directly underneath the stage and seating, where we saw the foundation stone (the first stone laid in the construction of the Palau) and watched a video that talked about famous composers whose work has been performed here.

(As a brief aside, I should mention at although Thursday was Feb 14th and thus Valentine’s Day, I was 1: still semi-recently single and 2: had not begun my abroad fling and so had no reason to celebrate or even notice it. Interestingly, Valentines Day is not as big a thing in Barcelona as Saint George’s Day, or El Dia de Sant Jordi, which also happens to be International Book Day. I’ll take more about that on April 23)

Once you get insdie you are blown away by a king’s ransom in stained glass, including the famous skylight, a sun rising out of the concert hall itself or setting into it, surrounded by the faces of women who once sang in a choir in the building. For a time, I believe it was the heaviest suspended glass structure in the world, and remains a marvel for more than just its appearance. The flower motif continues, with the ceiling by carpeted with red and white flowers, and the windows featuring the red and white cross, symbols of nationalist pride (or really Catalonian pride) by the architect, who also frames the stage with giant carved stone reliefs depicting the glorious fight for freedom.

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The last notable feature inside the auditorium is the collection of muses that sprout from the walls of the stage, figures that begin as 2D mosaics but emerge from the walls as 3D statues each cradling a different instrument. It really is an amazing building! The balconies, overviewing the street outside of the building, remind you how integrated into the city his opulent theatre was, as it lies just on the corner of a rather cramped street, and also feature mosaic covered columns that bring the line of artistic succession from Domenech I Montaner to Gaudi into even greater relief (see what I did there? I used relief in its artistic context earlier to set the seeds for using it linguistically here for the wordplay!). 

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Once our tour of the Palau de Musica finished, it was time for regularly scheduled art history. However, I had special plans for this weekend. My one and only trip as part of a tour grip, I had signed onto a Gibraltar/Morocco experience alongside some other friends I had made from Indiana University (in Bloomington, though I am sure I do not need to remind you that), and our flights were Thursday night because the experience was Friday to Monday. Oops, does that mean I have to leave class early and I’ll be missing my Monday classes too? Well, maybe I will just tell them I was sick… But having just had one of two classes in a row with the same professor, I felt bad skipping so blatantly, and so attended part of Art History before departing with her blessing. This did cause me quite a lot of stress as I panicked that I would miss my flight, and did cut it a little too close, but all is well that ends well and I caught up to my friends in line to board with time – not much – to spare. I cannot wait to share with you my wonderful time in Gibraltar (technically part of the United Kingdom, so in many ways – or at least culinarily – preparation for my trip to London), Morocco, and Seville!

No man is brave that has never walked a hundred miles. If you want to know the truth of who you are, walk until not a person knows your name. Travel is the great leveler, the great teacher, bitter as medicine, crueler than mirror-glass. A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet introspection.

Patrick Rothfuss

Few things are quite like finding yourself alone in a foreign country. I have been alone before, of course, and enjoy the solitude, as much as I also like to be around people. I have been in situations where I cannot speak the language of those around me, as was the case with Portuguese in Lisbon, and dealt with the struggle of communicating. And I have treaded forth into unknown situations countless times; head raised high and nerves, if not settled, then at last placated. But the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This was not going to summer camp – missing your family but then conquering that homesickness. This was not my month long rock-climbing trip – going into the depths of the Wind River Mountain range with complete strangers to try something I’d never done before. This was not working with a potter in Mallorca – traveling to a town where nobody knew my name or spoke my language and the experience was to be nothing more, and nothing less, than what I made of it. This was, ultimately, all of those, and more. I had nothing in Lisbon; no plans, no connections, just a single night booked at a cheap hostel. I knew no one, and no one knew me. Let’s begin, no? Vamanos.

My schtick for traveling abroad while abroad was fairly constant. I would leave Friday, return Sunday, and get to enjoy 2 nights and the better part of 3 days in whatever city and country I had went to. Sometimes I left Thursday night, and sometimes I was “sick” on Monday and thus was unable to make it to class (and may have happened to be out of the country as well… but wanderlust can be infectious, so that counts right?). I would buy plane tickets weeks, if not months, in advance, in order to get the cheapest prices and have a hope of sticking under my ambitious planned travel budget. In general, this proved effective, and it let me have a clear schedule planned out weeks in advance, a rare example of me front-loading work and not procrastinating and then being able to enjoy the fruits of my laborers real time (and no I am not also talking about writing my travel blog over a year after I finished my travels, I am hurt by the accusation). Unfortunately, I had made a classic blunder when it came to booking my Portugal travel that I only realized days before my trip. In Europe, they use a different dating system than in America. Now, I am not talking about Tinder, Hinge, or Carbon, but rather writing calendar dates Day/Month/Year versus the Month/Day/Year standard of the states. So, when I was buying my tickets for the first week of February, my browser had remained in Spain Spanish rather than American English, and that meant that buying tickets for 2/4/2019 meant I was buying tickets for April, not February (not to mention that I had already planned a trip for that weekend)! Once I did not receive my confirmation email 3 days before I was due to depart, I realized my mistake, but because ticket prices had risen so close to the deadline, I ended up being some pretty inconveniently scheduled flights. When the dust was settled, I would be landing in Lisbon a bit before noon on Friday, spending a single night at the lovely (and budget-friendly!) GoodMorning Hostel, and flying out a scant 40 hours later a bit before 5a Saturday Night (or Sunday Morning, for the early risers among my readership, or those that like to date and time things correctly).

After landing in Lisbon, I made my way straight to the historic and touristy part of town. Sporting just a day’s worth of luggage in my backpack, and wanting to make the most of my time, I skipped dropping my stuff off at the hostel and caught a train from the airport down to the southwest tip of the city, where multiple monuments and museums are located. My first destination was the Jeronimos Monastery, a combined monastery/nunnery in gorgeous light stone that really captures the sunlight and shines, especially on a sunny spring day. I mean, just look at this edifice!

I had learned somewhere that there were discounts for students, as long as you were only planning on going inside of the church and not the attached museum. Following classic human psychological behvariours, I found a line of tourists waiting to get inside, and joined the back of this line. Once I made it to the front, I was informed that this line was for those who already had tickets, but that yes as a student I could receive a discount, and that the line to get tickets was not a line at all but rather a kiosk inside the museum entrance but before you went into the exhibits of the museum itself. Tricky tricky! I did get to learn that there was a nunnery as part of the complex I could visit though, so that was a nice find, and I decided to do that before going into the church proper. I’m glad I did, because it was beautiful! The entire building is made out of this light stone, which means on a sunny day like today, when there are no clouds, the structure almost sparkles with light.

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The nunnery area was a beautiful two-story complex. The first floor featured various rooms the nuns would have used, as well as historical and informative plaques. The upper floor was less busy, but had amazing carvings on every surface – its crazy how every part of the building, no matter how out of the way, was made to look nice. There was also a grass courtyard in the middle of the complex, with a fountain that I wish had been working, but I guess that because it was still February the pipes were turned off still? Either way, if I were a nun, two blocks from the Atlantic Ocean in a Lisbon seaside nunnery is where I would want to be. Afterwords, I went to the church part, which unfortunately was not open to the air and thus did not get to benefit from the sun and blue skies. That didn’t stop it from being completely covered in decorations, although now that it was inside there were a lot more paintings of saints and other religious iconography. There also were some beautiful stained glass windows, which although they were not at the level of La Sagrada Familia, nothing ever will be, and I appreciated them just the same. It’s interesting to me how much I love stained glass windows in buildings I visit, but I’m not sure if I would be such a fan if they were in a building I lived in. Seeing it everyday might make the magic go away?

After my time in the monastery and cathedral, I exited right out onto the serene Empire Plaza, or Praça do Império. Portuguese is an interesting language, as it is not Spanish (shocker!), but that is not something I realize until midway into reading or listening to it because it is pretty similar. Especially with the practice I got guesstimating Catalan from Castilian Spanish (what we in America just call “Spanish”), my skills at understanding Portuguese were a solid 25 – 40%, which although objectively not much enabled a surprising amount of competency in this foreign country. I was also surprised how many people did not speak Spanish, or understand it all that well, because it seems like we are so close to Spain and the languages similar enough that it shouldn’t be that big of a challenge, but to be fair most Americans only know English and no other languages so who am I to judge. Anyways, this tranquil plaza was pleasantly occupied by people sitting around, snacking, or on a smoke break, and featured a huge water feature in the middle, which is the easiest way to my heart. They say the quickest way to a man’s heart is his stomach, and I do love my food, but spout a nice fountain in front of me and I will swoon.

On the other side of the plaza, bordering the ocean, is the incredible Discoverers Monument. This is a many stories tall awesome statue of larger-than-life explorer figures on the prow of gigantic stone boat, facing off into the sea, and I had never known that it even existed! Not only that, but it is hollow, and features the ability to go the the very top (the metaphorical crow’s nest of this ship statue) to look out over the bay, or at the giant courtyard mosaic of a compass rose, as well as a basement museum of exploration. After getting some super clever posed photos of me facing out just like other famous Portuguese explorers (I jest but also I did not see anyone else doing this until I did and asked someone to take a photo of me doing so, so I actually did start a trend here?), I went into this museum, and was very pleasantly surprised by how much the museum, in talking about the era of the Portuguese Empire and the “discoveries” their explorers made of “unknown” lands, acknowledged the dehumanization and animalization of indigenous people by colonizers, and the brutality of slavery. Good job museum.

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Closing in on 5 o’clock, with the sun setting and the lighting situation soon to become unreliable, I quickly went over to the other notable riverside building in the Belem neighborhood. That is right, technically this water was the Tejo River, even if it was in sight of the Atlantic Ocean. Or maybe it counted as both? Everyone definitely colloquially treats it as the Atlantic. Anyways, this structure is completely isolated from the land, requiring one to jot over a wooden walkway and a drawbridge to gain access. Definitely not the nicest of accommodations, there were about four main levels with very narrow passageways to the exterior walls to look out in very narrow nooks, as well as a staircase so narrow that they were using a timer and a red light/green light system to tell you when it was one-way up or one-way down. If I haven’t made it clear yet (and I used narrow thrice, so it should be fairly clear), pretty much every part of this structure is a tight fit! Even this building, the southernmost defense structure of Lisbon, meant to spot any ships heading into port from the Atlantic, featured a well decorated courtyard. Presumably for when nobility was visiting, this open air portion was intricately carved and featured a statue of the Virgin Mary with Baby Jesus, because Religion! This nicer area was the lower adjacent attachment section to the tower. I was having a jolly time, cracking jokes with any other tourists who were also finding amusement with the squish, when I actually heard a familiar voice! Alone, in the middle of a foreign city in a foreign country on a foreign continent, I saw someone I knew. Now, it gets slightly less exciting when I tell you that they were a friend I had made in my study abroad program, but still, crazy odds! Nowhere else did I ever have an unplanned run-in with anyone familiar, home or abroad, so to be in this tower at the same time as my cooking friend Colin (The IU business fraternity fellow who had brought me into that community in Barcelona) was slightly mind-blowing to me. He was there with some other friends of his, and I was still committed to this being a solo trip, so we hung out for a little bit at the tower but soon we went our separate ways. I got a nice picture of the Torre de Belém in the last light of day, and then traveled just a little bit inland to the Cultural Center of Belem.

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(Quick Sidenote: The way I was getting around this smaller mile apart distances was by Bird, because I wanted to be quick to accomplish all the destinations on my list and also because it was still cheaper than public transit. Reading along the ocean – river 😦 – boardwalk was already pretty scenic, but I discovered through testing and calculation – which is to say, SCIENCE – that the Portuguese electric scooters actually go faster than those in Spain and the United States! Now, they might not have all been Bird or Lime brand, but some were, and instead of the 15 mph max these would get up to like 18 or 19, which might seem small but was a difference you definitely felt. I travelled with SPEED!)

The Berardo Collection Museum, part of the culture center, is a fantastic museum. It is full of modern and contemporary art. Even though I was going late, I still managed to spend almost two hours here, and saw a range of works from paintings by famous painters (like Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol) to experiential installations by up and comers. Cool statues, interesting aural experiences, and some rooms that weren’t quite my thing, but overall I was very pleased with the museum. I ended up an impromptu photographer for a couple of girls who also seemed to be American tourists is Lisbon, which payed off for me when I ran into them again and they could return the favor with me in front of the familiar Warhol flowers!

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After my time in the museum, I finally decided to check in at my hostel. I was only there one night because of my improvised flight arrangements, or at least I had only booked a single full night’s stay, so it was pretty simple to find my bunk bed and drop my backpack off there. Luckily I had arrived during the 7-8p cocktail hour, where there was free sangria in the main living room which everyone decided to congregate around to chat. It was fun to get to know some strangers who were doing the exact same thing I was doing, other college kids who were studying abroad but also some regular tourists, even a father-son pair, who were doing there best to explore on a budget, even if it wasn’t a student’s. The hostel was running a fair amount of activities, including day trips to the nearby destination of Sintra (which I totally would have done had I scheduled my weekend properly, but alas had to forego), walking tours of the city (free too, which made it a no brainer for me to sign on even if it meant a 10am start after what was looking to be a late night), and bar crawls that very night, which of course I had to take them up on! A short conversation with the the hostel staff pointed me in the direction of a not-too-overpriced dinner, though not particularly memorable either, and then I was ready for our 11p Lisbon Bar Crawl. After joining up with the other crawlers from my hostel, we followed the guide to a big open courtyard. I had made some friends from the Sangria Happy Hour that were also going on the bar crawl, so these two ladies and this gent (Brits, the all of them) ended up being my coterie for the evening. In this courtyard we were joined by multiple others packs from hostels across the city, until we had amassed a veritable hoard of early/mid 20s tourists ready for a night on the town.

The bar crawl involved hopping in between a couple of bars over the course of the night, where we as individuals or collectively were obligated to purchase a certain amount of “discounted” drinks. Although theoretically each bar was supposed to be for a different type of drink that they were known for, every place was pretty much like the others, especially when it came to being incredibly packed and humid and not made for one-tenth the amount of people that were trying to fit inside. Every hour was a new bar, which entailed the organizers loudly getting the attention of everyone, corralling them through narrow alleyways, ignoring the gratuitous amount of open containers, and repeating it all straight from the beginning. We did arrive at a special bar at around 1am, where they not only had multiple bartenders which made it a lot easier (but still nowhere near easy) to get drinks for your posse, but also a special cinnamon shot challenge. We had been told earlier about the bar where you could breathe fire, and we had finally arrived. No one wanted to be first, but finally a sufficiently brave (or drunk) volunteer sat on the chair, took their shot of green who-knows-what-liquor, did not swallow it, and then let a lady put a lighter INSIDE THEIR MOUTH, light said mystery spirit on fire, have a guy sprinkle cinnamon on it to make it flare up, and then swallow that burning concoction. If that seems hard to picture, well, just watch it below.

Needless to say, we were all impressed, but no one amongst my group particularly wanted to do it, or at least be the first to do it. After hemming and hawing, negotiating and betting and offering sworn promises of “I’ll do it if you do, I’m just not doing it before you do!”, it ended up being me as the sacrificial lamb. I wasn’t that scared, but it would be a lie to say I was not nervous. Once I started though, it all happened to quickly to actually panic or anything. You swish alcohol around your mouth (gross), it gets lit on fire, you don’t actually feel it, you start to feel it, you shut your mouth and swallow and end up fine because you reacted at the slightest hint of danger long before any actual burning would begin. For those ye of little faith, my newfound friends did follow through on their oaths, and so we all ended up spitting fire like our album just made platinum.

That was bad.

Anyways, our bar hoping continued until about 2:30 in the morning, where, aware of the detrimental affect all this sugary liquor was having on my teeth, and also having grown weary from travel and a full day’s worth of activity, I returned to the hostel to get my one night’s sleep in Portugal. It was surprisingly pleasant to walk the old town streets when you were not longer in a loud boisterous crowd, as the city was still alive at this late hour even if it was at a more languid pace, and these narrow alleys were still well lit enough that you felt safe on your way back home.

The next morning, I begrudgingly forced myself out of bed to go on the walking tour I had committed to last night. The day conspired with us to make it a good tour, as not only was our guide very knowledgable and the assembled group attentive and well behaved (I wonder if this is self-selection because the more boisterous personalities were still out from a heavy night of drinking?), but Lisbon just makes for a good city to walk around in. Over the course of almost 3 hours, we covered a lot of ground, saw a lot of street art, and learned a lot about the history of Portugal. For example, did you know that Portugal has the oldest established borders of Europe? They were set all the way back in 1143. That is 877 years ago, which is like 40 generations! That seems a crazy long time, but also maybe not? Lisbon also has been fairly unlucky in its past, with the year 1755 being particular notable. On November 1st of that year, All Saint’s Day, following the spooky All Hollow’s Eve on October 31st, the catholic town was celebrating the holiday when disaster struck. A strong earthquake ripped through the city, killing tens of thousands, placing it as the third most deadly quake in history. Shortly after, this coastal port town was beset by three waves of tsunami, of course caused by the strong earthquake. All the votive candles that had been up for the special day were knocked over during the earthquake and tsunami, leading to a blaze of terrible proportions that engulfed the city. Beset by earth, sea, and fire, roughly 1 in 4 residents of the city died that day, almost 90% of the buildings were destroyed, and Portugals colonial and political landscape irrevocably altered. I’ll move away from the disaster now, but can you just imagine what that day must have been like for a survivor? Like the very maw of hell has opened up in your town, and heavenly retribution sent down as if you were Sodom and Gomorrah reborn. Wonder how the atheists felt.

So you’ve got ancient history, medieval history, and now it’s time for art history! Street art is a big thing in Lisbon, often inspired by Portuguese Fado performers. Fado is a Portuguese music genre that translates to “destiny”, or “fate”. It is mournful, melancholic, and hauntingly beautiful. As our guide told us, it is kind of like a somber counterpart to the lively Spanish Flamenco, which is much more about fiery passion, or like a Latin twist on “the blues”. Many street artists create murals or mosaics of their favorite Fado performers, from small corners on a side street to wall spanning larger than life marvels. And sometimes this is to indicate notorious places, like Chapito, a restaurant/clown training academy/”motel of love”. The chronology on this place was a bit weird, but yes, as far as I can tell it may or may not have been a brothel, definitely was a destination for couples or people were were coupling, might have been a literal school for performing clowns at the same time, the clowns might have been the pursuers or the pursued (who knows), and also yes all of that at the same time or shortly preceding it’s function as a restaurant. If that seems like a mouthful, well, Chapito specializes in those too… what? It’s a restaurant! That’s eating food. Plus, clowns pull so many handkerchiefs out of tour mouths, so I can’t imagine where else your mind could have gone.

One of the last stops on our walking tour before our park ending point was El Jardim Das Pichas Murchas. For whatever reason, Lisbon loves its pricks, and this “garden of limp dicks” is no exception. Originally just a gathering place for old men to shoot the breeze and maybe play some fado, as its popularity (still amongst the geriatric crowd) grew, it gained this… interesting appellation. There even was an official sign put up, and though it was removed, an unofficial sign put up by the locals remains in the square today. Fortunately it was too early for the Garden to be in bloom, and I am satisfied with just having heard the story. As our guide thanked us for our time, gave us a couple recommendations of what to do in the afternoon, and passed around the hat for any tips – a group of newly made friends all in their 20s decided that we would head to lunch and explore the flea market we had been told about later. It was an interesting group, as basically all of us had never met until we walked the city together. The only memorable members were a pair of sisters from the UK – I ran into a surprising amount of British tourists in Lisbon, I guess – where one was a student and the other was a baker preparing to open her own bakery! This meant opinions on food, but we finally find a place that let us all have a table, and though we were the youngest in this restaurant by about 20 years, it just meant that we could get to know each other better. Per recommendation from the guide earlier, and because it was a special on the menu, a lot of us got a fish dish that we were led to believe was a speciality of port city Lisbon, but the language barrier of between Spanish/English and Portuguese at the restaurant was rather strong. I also got some great tips from these sisters, who originally had lived in Morocco, on the food I had to try when I made my way across the Atlantic to Morocco in a couple of weeks.

After our lunch we wandered just a little farther to get the the flea market. It ended up being a larger affair than any of us had realized, in sellers and in buyers. The many stalls went across multiple streets, and although it was not packed like the bars last night it was definitely busy with people. There were a bunch of items on sale, from clothing to books to various used goods. I found one stall selling pottery tiles, and as I had decided that my souvenir from every country I visit would be a clay tile, I found the best one I could – a colorful depiction of the famous Lisbon streetcars – and snapped it up. We also passed by a homemade jewelry stand that got the attention of the girls, and as we were chatting with the maker she took enough of a liking to us to tell us about a small concert she was performing in tonight. Even though we did not end up going, it’s very fun as a tourist to make a good enough impression on a local that they tell you about cool things like this! I kept my eyes pealed for any other things I would want to buy, like books or cool articles of clothing, but unfortunately I did not spot any books I was interested in, because everything was in Portuguese and also because I saw no books that I wanted to own Portuguese copies of. Once we got to the end of the flea market grounds, I said my goodbyes to the group, as I had one more destination I needed to get to before the sun set.

As per the advice of friends I had consulted before heading to Lisbon, I knew that I needed to visit the legendary Pasteis de Belem. Ironically, Belem had been the area I was in all yesterday afternoon and evening, so I could have done this had I planned a little better instead of traveling from one end of the city to the other today, but alas what is done is done and all you can do is move forward. I hopped on a street car, got confused about how exactly fare was collected and if I was going to be arrested for not paying for transit, possibly overpaid, and within two hours I was approaching the Pasteis de Belem Bakery. This bakery is known for their egg custard like pastries that are apparently incredible, and have been made for almost 200 years. The line was certainly incredible, as when I got there around 5 it was stretching across multiple streets and corners. I got in the back, prepared to wait however long it took, and was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the line moved for all that it must have easily had over a hundred people. Within thirty minutes I had made my way in the shop, where multiple counters were handling customers based of the complexity of your planned order, and got a regular order of the egg tarts, which I had learned were called Pasties de Nata more broadly and it was only this store that had been so iconic as to have its name for them spread far, kind of like Kleenex for tissues or Hershey’s for chocolate. Alongside my two pastries were a packet of cinnamon and a packet of powdered sugar, and so I took my order outside to a little park, found an empty table, and artfully decorated my desserts/late afternoon snacks. They were delicious! I wish I had gotten more, they were so late and tasty that they felt like they just disappeared instantly.

Once I had completed bakery run, I returned back to the hostel, where I had left my backpack for the day, and made sure I was checked out. Even though I was only booked for last night, they were very chill about me being around, and while I was there I spontaneously made plans with the two girls I had gone bar crawling with last night to go out for dinner tonight. We got a couple of recommendations, loaded up a map, and headed out. Unfortunately the first place we tried, per rave reviews by locals, was completely full, with over an hours wait. It had only been open for 20 minutes, so we were pretty surprised to hear that! We then turn around and went in a totally different direction to try a restaurant I had found that had good reviews, only to find that it too was not an option, although this was because it was closed and was not serving anyone. Our third-time-is-the-charm was just to look at restaurants nearby, find one that looks good, and go there, which ended up sufficiently working. We found a nice looking restaurant and although all the regular tables were full, they had a small display table in the window with fake fruit and other props to indicate this was a restaurant to any passerby’s. We were hungry though, and we asked if we could just eat at that table, even though it was only meant for two and – you know – not meant for customers, and some combination of us actually being willing to ask and the fact that it wasn’t a big deal meant we got our way, and they cleared off those two small glass tables for us. With a bottle of wine, some complimentary bread, and marinated olives for everyone else, we proceeded to have a rather nice dinner! Really we were just happy to be sitting down and eating, because it was past 9p by the time we had gotten to this place.

It had gotten pretty late once we had finished, and that was perfect for me, as my last activity in Portugal was to be to go to a Fado show. Fado is something that does not need a lot of space to be performed, so many bars had performers at night, but it was popular, could be hard to get in to, and often required some sort of cover or commitment to ordering off the menu. I bid goodbye to my companions and went across the city once more, to the old town, and started looking for places to go. I had gotten some recommendations from the tour guide earlier, and you could hear it on the streets, so eventually (before midnight) I found myself at a tavern with a small Fado troupe. I walked in off the street, asked if I could listen to the music, asked what I needed to do (just order a drink, which was easy, because Abroad Adam was generous with his libations), and sat at a small little table for two. It was a beautiful experience. The combination of the ambiance, the music, and my emotional state from the past 36 hours of exploring this city on my own as well as the past couple months of emotional ups and downs in my life led me experience such catharsis in this moment. The singer, a women in a beautiful long red dress, and her band of four men, did a fantastic job. Many of the patrons were smoking, and so the dim light scattering through the hazy air combined with melodic strumming of the guitar-like instruments made me feel like I was sitting in a storybook tale. I say with no shame that the experience brought me to tears. I tried to record it, but was quickly told by the waitstaff that recording was not allowed, so you will just have to take my word for it. They alternated between performing a couple of songs, then taking breaks while the restaurant went around serving food and taking orders. I felt a little bad for taking up my table, as I did see some people outside, and ordered a second glass of wine, and then the band came back and the lights were dimmed once more. Everyone was quiet, and this tavern was not that big – maybe like 40 people – so it did feel pretty intimate. At around 1:30 they stopped, and I kind of jolted back to myself, out of this timeless haze, sad that they were not going until 2. I thanked the restaurant, took my backpack off of the other chair at this tiny table, and departed.

At this point it was clearly late, and the only things really open were nightclubs. I had no desire to transition from my introspective, emotionally raw state to a clubbing one, so I just walked the streets of the old city for a little while. For the first part it was mostly just me, walking old stone alleys light with warm yellow lights, but eventually I got to the busier areas with people, louder and more brightly lit. It was a nice walk, and I was starting to perk up a little around the energy of people, but I also was noticing that I was physically tired from a long day of activity, so I headed back to the hostel. As you can recall, I had not booked a second night, because my plane was leaving at 6:40a and I had figured that if I was out until four, then I would just be heading straight to the airport, and there was no point. I ended up with some unaccounted for time, and I used this to go to the living room of the hostel and just used my backpack as a pillow and my phone as an alarm to wake me up from a brief nap. I don’t recall if I did fall asleep, because I was stressed about missing my flight, but it was nice to be off my feet and chill for an hour or so. At 4:30 in the morning, having been up since 8:30 or so the previous day, I caught my uber to the airport. I took advantage of the family Priority Pass status to get into a nice airport lounge, where I had a decent breakfast of complimentary food (mostly bread), found a nice dark nook to wait until my plane was boarding, and then flew back to Barcelona. And that, in a little over 6,000 words, is my 40 hours in Lisbon. Looking back, as much as I enjoyed traveling to so many places with friends, I wish I had taken a couple more trips just myself. It can be really nice to just be yourself, on your own, and also have the option to find others just like you and journey with them for a time before you part ways. I don’t know if I walk away with any lessons learned from my time in Portugal, but I do think I am a little more confident in myself, a little more confident in being alone. I look forward to returning to the city one day!

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page

Saint Augustine

Writing this in April of 2020, when the week in question took place February of 2019, does mean that you forget some detail. I took detailed notes and photographs, and those help me remember a lot about the places I visited and the things I did, but that does mean I have lots of downtime moments when I just can’t remember what I was doing then. However, the pattern I set in previous weeks did tend to hold fairly steady. I would go out for lunch almost every day, trying my best to go to new and interesting places. I would begrudgingly attend class, and do a little bit more than the minimum necessary but not a lot. And I would go out once or twice a weeknight, but what with all my weekend travel I often just wanted to rest and relax! Of course, this changed as I made more friends abroad and had more things to do, but the big change there doesn’t happen for a couple of weeks. In the mean time, let’s talk about some of the cool things I do remember doing this week!

In Barcelona History class this week we talked about the Barcelona Cathedral. As I have already mentioned before, the beautiful facade it currently sports is a newer look, up until the late 1800s it had a very simple, almost flat, surface, that was redone to make it much more majestic. After that, I headed over the the CaixaForum for an art museum field trip with my Spanish Art class. We had entered into our study of the Baroque period, and luckily this museum was putting on a special exhibit of Diego Velazquez works, along with some by Francisco de Zurbaran. Observe the following image:

Look how realistic it is! Our philosopher, with greying hair and a wrinkled face. He wears simple brown robes, as if he was just a common bigger, and although there are symbolic references to his history (notice the book he carries is likely his famous Fables), this piece can very well be interpreted simply as a realistic portrait. We were actually not supposed/allowed to take photos within this exhibit, as these pieces were on loan from Museo Nacional Del Prado, but I snuck in a few none the less. Here is another realist’s work, taking the mythical figure of Hercules and his trials and grounding it in the reality of the canvas:

What pure talent! Even with a grainy photo taken in secret you can observe the musculature all throughout the human body – not exaggerated, but every tendon and join and vein that you would see in real life is seen in the painting. And the shadows! Zurbaran was well known for his use of Chiaroscuro, a painter’s manipulation of light and dark, and it is evident in how he uses shadows to further define Hercules’s body, and have the bull fade into the background because Hercules is the figure of importance here. Both these painters were at their prime in the early and mid 1600s, so it was truly impressive to be able to see and engage with their work almost 400 years later.

The other cool activity of this week was our Barcelona History field trip to Palau Guell. This was one of Gaudi’s masterpieces, the house (mansion) he designed for perhaps his biggest sponsor, Eusebi Guell. This house is truly a work of art. As you can see in the handy model, this building is multiple stories, with the roof adorned by distinctive Gaudi structures.

There are a couple particularly noteables rooms in the Palau. Our visit began with an exploration of the basement, formerly the stables, where horses of visitors had been stored. The foundations of the palace are exposed here, great funnels of brick holding up the building, and you can ascend upstairs by climbing a very spiraling ramp. The main chamber, a large double storied room, features two giant doors plated in gold on one side of the room. This central hall was used as an antechamber for concerts and performances, and thus these doors served as a “Gaudy” backdrop, but they also opened up to an altar so that the religious family could regularly pray. Almost every roof in the palace features geometric motifs in rare woods, creating beautiful shapes and patterns that you would not even see if you do not look up! Every pillar, no matter how out of place, is carved, and some feature embedded metal and gold filigrees with the crest of the Guell patriarch. There are also multiple oil paintings and murals in the building, including some exceptionally pretty Art Nouveau ceramic and stone pieces.

Something I found interesting was that one room for guests, either a waiting parlor or a guest room, actually got a little tricky with it’s roof. The beautiful crisscrossing layers of wood appear ornate and indicative of the wealth of the Guell family, but they also allow sound to easily travel up into the room above. This was by design of the Guell matriarch, who liked to gossip and wanted to be able to eavesdrop, or at least listen in, on her guests. Another small but cool feature is the bathroom. Styled differently than practically every other room in the house, these bathroom is covered in tiles from a local ceramics factory, and the toilet is a work of it with blue floral motifs glazed onto the porcelain.

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After we explored the inside of the building, we made our way onto the roof. Palau Guell is famous for its spires. Each one is a unique Gaudi creation, all 20 of them his attempt to make a traditional chimney a little more exciting. Gaudi was well known for his style of using ceramic fragments to form mural-like designs, as you can see on two chimneys below. Other chimneys featured designer covered in tile fragments, broken or discarded pieces from the factory that he used to make the tiled walls in the bathroom. In the center of the roof is a taller spire that you can partially ascend, which enable you to catch a glimpse of La Sagrada Familia in the distance. Legend has it that no buildings are allowed to be built to obscure the view between Palau Guell and that Barcelonan landmark.

After that cool field trip, I went back to the university to learn about the Rococo period. It was funny to me to finally be learning art history after hearing my friends in high school spout this nonsense terms, and my sister too before that! We went over some big names – Juan Bautista Tiépolo (or Giovanni Battista Tiepolo as his native italians would say), Luis Paret y Alcazar, and many others. And that was that for the interesting academics of the week! Another… “exciting”… thing had happened in the middle of this week though. Due to a stupid mistake on my part, I had bought my Lisbon plane tickets for the wrong month. I had double booked a travel weekend, but because I was going to be traveling that weekend with a friend, I knew I couldn’t just push my Lisbon trip back to then, I had to do it this weekend like I had planned (but now did not have any tickets for). Some quick research found me a good hostel to stay at, but plane tickets were dramatically more epxensive a couple days in advance of the flight then they had been 3/4 weeks ago. Trying to be budget conscious and stick to my planned, well, budget, I found the cheapest flights there and back that I could. This meant I was leaving around noon Friday, which was no problem, but I would be coming home on a 5a flight Sunday morning. Not the most ideal circumstances, and I decided that I would not even book a bed for Saturday night and just immerse myself in the city before leaving for the airport, but the only way out was through!

Join me next time to hear about my trip to Portugal – two nights that ended in flames, and tears, and I could not have had a better time!

Don’t worry about a thing, ‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right

Bob Marley

We did a lot of stuff in Prague. It was my first trip out of Spain, and so I felt a little nervous about it, as I felt it was going to be setting the tone for the rest of my trips. I wanted to get out (of Barcelona) a lot, but if it wasn’t fun, that might mean that other weekend trips would also not be super fun. I did a lot of research and planning for this trip, using google, travel books, and even some friends of mine (shout out to Zac, a graduated Harvard friend who had been abroad in Prague and so could give me sweet restaurant and location recommendations). I was doing this trip with Joey, the person I had connected with most so far in the first week abroad, and we were both high stakes on this trip going well.

Needless to say, we had an amazing time, it was super fun, and I ended up being “abroad” something like 13 of my 16 weekends abroad. So let’s dive right in shall we?

Rabbit Rabbit! Today was the 1st of February, and the beginning of my first full month abroad. How fitting then that it should also mark my first trip out of my host-country. We landed in grey Prague around midday that Friday, and were able to quickly make our way out of the airport and onto the “downtown” transit bus. Traveling abroad is different than traveling within the US, for a couple of reasons. When we make weekend trips all we do is bring a stuffed backpack with our 1-3 days of clothes, which means getting around is very easy. However, between currency exchanges, navigating unfamiliar languages, and figuring out each city’s unique way of handling airport transit, you can at times begin to feel like you should start looking for a good place in the airport to sleep lest you never escape. Prague had use using busses to get close to the Jewish quarter in the center of the city, which was by where our Airbnb was. Although I wanted to use a hostel, and did end up using hostels a majority of the time (they are cheaper and often do special events for travelers, not to mention they are full of interesting strangers that are a conversation away from becoming new friends), for the first trip we decided to go with the more expensive but safer (and nicer) bet. The walk between the old town bus stop and our dwelling for the weekend was chilly and cloudy and absolutely fantastic. Because we were in the Jewish quarter, and Prague had a rich and well-maintained semitic history, we were able to walk by multiple synagogues and other Jewish institutions.

Once we got settled in our temporary housing, it had turned the corner on 4p, and our stomachs were well past grumbling. One thing about flying budget airlines is that you can get a great deal but that comes at the cost of many things – like picking your seat, getting food on the plane, carrying on baggage, one of a limited number of parachute etc. – and so between our rushed morning and aerial afternoon we had not eaten it what felt like forever. A brief wandering of our Old Town neighborhood found an incredibly populate and lively warehouse-like building that would give us good filling local cuisine. We walked in, were quickly seated, and were given the beer menu alongside some food options. It was briefly comedic when the waitress took in my (vaguely?) Eastern European features and gave us the Czech menu, only for our helpless faces to indicate that we needed English. I am a sap for cliches in all shapes and forms, and the way this manifests in travel is that I like to do not only real cool immersive things but also the quintessential tourists actives like “eat like a local”. Joey humored me, possibly also because heavy food sounded great on a cold, wet, Winter’s day, and so we got meat, potatoes and meat & potatoes stew. The dumplings (or Knedliky as they are called) were great for sopping up sauce, and Velkopopvizky dark washed the meal down quite well.

After our supper (late lunch? early dinner? Granted everything is early dinner compared to Spain) we continued into the other parts of the old town, and crossed the river on the famous Charles bridge. This area is full of tourists and stalls set up to cater to them. Prague still has that historic European look of dark stone and cobbled streets, especially in this older neighborhood, and the bridge is a beautiful construction of grey-black rock adorned with busts of royalty. On the other side of the river we stopped for a lighter dinner, recharging from our almost 3 hours without food, before circling back and exploring the Old Town Square. A giant statue of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, is one of the two attractions of this square, but is not nearly as cool as the other. The second is the clocktower, which has both a belltower with clocks for those far away to tell the team, and also an intricately designed and detailed clock face at it’s base that features automatons moving around every hour, like the Disney ride “It’s a small world”.

By now it was after 10, and because we had gotten up early, we were rather tired. However Joey had not had dinner with me earlier, so we went to a nice sushi place next to our Airbnb where he got a full platter of sushi, and I got a hand-roll because why not. Although the food was beautifully presented, there was something a little funny to me about having Japanese our first day in the Czech republic. Regardless, this 3rd meal was enough to rally our spirits, and so we decided to head out for a drink. We ended up at a Gin bar, a small hole-in-the-wall speakeasy that served only gins and tonics, but it’s shelves were full of different options. Obviously we decided to get a gin and tonic to drink, but when we went to order, we were quickly told that we were not ordering a simply drink, but rather crafting a recipe for the bartender to follow. They took pity on the poor American college students abroad and helped us out with a series of questions about what flavors and textures we were looking for – Spicy? Sweet? Sour? How hot? Dry? Viscous? Sharp bubbles, more mellow taste, stronger alcohol bite, country of origin for the gin or the tonic…. There were many questions and eventually the bartender felt satisfied enough to begin making our drink. My first cocktail was of an Italian gin – Malfy – with a sweet, blue, lemony tonic for a nice, cool, citrus taste. My second went a little more adventurous, utilizing the peppery Fentiman’s tonic for a drink with a little more heat. Although I had never been to a bar like this, the drinks and atmosphere were both great, so it was a hit!

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The next day we crossed the northern river and explored the Dox Centre. This modern museum is filled with really cool installations that comment on present day issues. The bottom floor was was a gym where everything was broken, which each aspect commenting on a different broken aspect of society. The punching bags were a variety of rather disliked world leaders, with many people indulging in a little cathartic exercise. They also had exhibitions about a famous Czech band, social media, and a zeppelin made entirely out of wood. I’m not sure what the last one was commentary on but it was life size and very cool to explore inside.

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Our next stop after spending so much of the morning and midday in the museum was to get lunch! If you haven’t gotten the sense now, I love food, and took photos of pretty much every single non-Barcelona meal I had during my entire semester, and some of those too! Through careful application of data and wifi we found a nice and hidden tea place, where Joey and I got light fare (by Czech standards), alongside coffee for him and a beautiful berry tea set for me. Our walk back took us through Letenské (Letna) park, which is a big destination for tourists and locals during the summer, but during a cold and snowy winter’s day it was relatively abandoned. This park is beautiful though, as you are walking alongside the river and there are many works of art in various places. One notable one is a giant 10~ meter tall trebuchet-like structure, a modern creation of black and red metal that looks virgule like a crane. Although the weather was dreary, getting to be up on a hill and gaze out on the green and red rooftops of the city provided a sufficiently pleasant view. Once we made our way through the park, we arrived at our afternoon destination: Prague Castle. Prague Castle is a compound containing not only a royal residence but also churches and tradesmen spaces and military installations. The weather began to clear, and this really illuminated the city, as suddenly the red rooftops across so many beginnings began almost burn with brightness.

While in the area, we got to see the 4pm progression of the royal guards, with fur hats and bayonets, and we also got to see some very pretty stained glass. However, we were too late to go into the main part of the Cathedral, as that closed at 4, not 5 as we had thought from our earlier travel research. Daunted but still unbowed, we made up for this by climbing the many hundreds of steps in the accompanying tower to get a premier view of the city and the cathedral as the sun finally broke out from the clouds.

However, the sun begging to set reminded me of something I had been told to do! The Petrin Lookout Tower in Petrin park was a destination that a friend of mine (Zac) had told me was a fantastic destination for sunset views. Although the sky’s cloudy mien had meant we had assumed we would not be getting a pretty sunset, the clearing clouds meant that this was now back on the table! We were not that far away, but far enough that I was not sure we would be able to make it in time. Luckily, Joey was willing to humor me, as we ran from the castle to the park, conquering some serious elevation change. As we got to the foot of the tower, the sun was just beginning to touch the horizon, so I knew we did not have time to waste. The tower looks a little bit like a shorter Eiffel tower, and after paying the fee to get in we ascended quickly. However, before we got to the top, Joey told me that he did not wish to go all the way up. My poor friend was afraid of heights! He had been so kind as to accommodate me rushing him over to this lookout that he did not even want to be a part of. He told me to continue on though, and so I went ahead, and was able to just catch some setting sun as well as the beautiful twilight that settled over Prague.

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After our long day of sightseeing, mostly at my direction, I knew that we needed a break and that Joey, the hero he was, deserved a treat. Walking away from the park, we noticed how pretty it was that all the light up buildings reflected unto the still river. It was shocking how dark it had gotten by 5:30, considering the above pictures were taken after 5. After just a short thirty minutes of walking, we arrived at our reward – the famed Choco Cafe. Feeling that we had earned ourselves a sweet treat (or two), Joey and I ordered enough sugar to recharge our batteries and rouse our spirits for the rest of the night. Although it was tough at times to persevere, and there were moment that I worried we would not make it, in the end we were successfully able to vanquish- I mean consume the desserts that we had ordered.

The river all lit up at night, chocolate, pork knuckle (knee), drinks in tiki head, Vysehrad?, Letna Park, Petrin Hill,

After a nap/sugar coma/chance to drop our day gear off in our rooms, we headed out to dinner. This was another location recommended by a friend, and he’d gone so far as to even advise us on what to order. Arriving at Malostranske Namesti (https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g274707-d1092815-Reviews-Malostranska_Beseda-Prague_Bohemia.html), we ordered a pair of dark beers to nurse while we looked at the menu. I already knew what I was getting though; the reccomended Pork Knuckle. This huge cut of meat is actual the knee of a pig? Or so I was told? Anyways, served along cabbage after my .5L of beer meant that I was certainly full at the end of that meal. Of course, this was just the beginning of our night. After walking up and down Charles Bridge and the surrounding neighborhoods, and getting into a fit with a crepe-like dessert seller (listen, Joey had very clearly asked for something else and when they gave him what he didn’t want and demanded he pay for it and that they would not make instead what he had actually requested, he was in the right but let’s not get into that) we decided to try out a different bar. This night’s venue was a cool place that served our drinks in ceramic tiki heads, and had lots of cool Art Nouveau interior design.

The next morning we slept in, and then rolled out of our room for a midday brunch of omelette (for me) and eggs with bacon (for Joey). Much to our surprise, overnight the city had been carpeted in snow! Saturday had ended a beautifully clear day, but Sunday painted the entire landscape – city and sky – with a thick brush of white. We made our way back to Prague Castle, this time with many hours before it closed, and explored the royal wing as well as the inside of the cathedral, which featured some truly stunning stained glass. Although not as abundant as La Sagrada Familia, the richness of color and design really made these windows stand out. As part of the complex, we got to visit the Royal Treasury, which culminated in getting to see the orb, scepter, and crown of the king. There is something about large gems that looks incredibly fake, actually, so I wonder if the crown we saw was actually the royal crown and this was just a quirk of the lighting or it was a replica. We also got to swing by the armory, which featured tons of swords as well as medieval torture devices, like a spike-studded chair you were cinched into, a rack/stretcher, and other assorted… tools. Lastly, although this chronologically happened as we were entering, I got to snap a photo with the royal guard. Like many ceremonial troops, they were no doubt instructed not to react to the tourists, but luckily for use they allow us to stand pretty close to get photos, and I think my guard was a big softie because he is totally looking at the camera in this pic. On our way out of the palace complex, we walked through the Garden on the Ramparts, which was a lot whiter than green, but offered a nice view of the city.

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Our destination after the Prague Castle was Vysehard, a fort built on the other side of the city so as to offer encompassing protection to the vassals of the King. I tried to make a snow angel almost immediately, my California-born self wanting to take advantage of the unique circumstances, but was unpleasantly surprised – after I full committed to falling backwards – that there was only a thing layer of snow on top of a thick layer of ground. After much coughing, we explored the grounds of the fort, which featured another church, some play-structures for the children, and catacombs. Unfortunately, yet AGAIN we were too late to take the catacomb tour, arriving just minutes after the last one had been scheduled to leave, but I was able to take us into getting the initial part of said tour, which involves a 20 minutes presentation about the history of Prague using a 3d map of the entire city to indicate it’s expansion over the centuries. After a long hour of exploring the fort, the cold and weariness from carrying all our stuff got to us, and so we said our goodbyes to our last tourist destination and went to go find a nice dinner.

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Speaking of a nice dinner, if there is one less-expected thing I miss from being abroad (obviously the travel and new experiences are the biggest part of it), it is the amazing food I had over those four months. Not only was I consistently enjoying my food, but the range of cuisines and dishes I got to try was nothing short of magnificent. As we were walking back to dinner, it actually started snowing again. By the time we had made it to the restaurant, it had turned into full blown snowfall, just short of a blizzard! We were happy to get inside, take off your sodden coats, and get a drink. Seeking a change of pace, I got mulled wine. I figured I loved hot spiced cider so much that the hot spiced wine would be good! It was not, much too bitter and full bodied for me, but it was warm. Joey got a really good chicken and I went a little rogue by ordering duck, served with carrots and turnips, with a balsamic glaze sauce. It was positively scrumptious. Once we had finished our meal, we headed back out into the blizzard conditions. I had gotten all my layers out of my backpack, and so was fine to walk by the river a little before we got our taxi to the airport, but soon enough the conditions convinced us that extra time would be better spent indoors, so we drove to the airport to catch our flight back to Barcelona.

And that was that, for my first trip out of Spain! I had been so nervous about traveling on my semester abroad: how the travel would go, who I would do it with, arranging all the details… I am glad to say that it turned out all that stress was unnecessary, because I had such a great time in Prague. I knew then that I was going to try to travel as much as I could, and really take advantage of the opportunity I had been granted. Join me next time for the week back in Barcelona, including an art museum trip and a visit to Gaudi’s Palau Guell, and then my solo trip to Lisbon rife with unexpected surprises, difficulties, and friends!

For bet than never is late

Chaucer

Turns out that when I said I’d see you again soon (in two days) I was mistaken! I am not updating “this Thursday”, because that would have been February 21^st, and it is May January of 2020 now. But that is not interesting, you are here for my excursions (not my excuses), so lets get to it.

The nice thing about traveling within Spain is that it is very easy. Getting back from Arcos and Jerez was a leisurely affair that got me home before midnight, and awake Monday morning no problem. Fortunately (or not) by this point, academics had truly settled into its rhythm, with mixed results. 8:30 am Monday morning class was not and continued to not be the most enjoyable, and 10am Developmental Psychology bounced back and forth between interesting and not, but afternoon Spanish was practically always enjoyable and informative. As for my University classes, Barcelona (Modern Metropolis) turned out to be kinda lame, whereas Arte en Espana turned out to be such a rewarding addition to my schedule. This week in class we studied the painters Velazquez and Murillo, two famous Spanish painters of the Renaissance era. I also got to do a couple of fun excursions this week! One, an adventure of my own making, was to a really cool ramen place just a couple of blocks from my program. A hole in the wall, with a spray-painted aluminum outside, I had walked by this place during my weekend in Barcelona and seen a huge line going out of it, so I was excited to give it a shot for lunch. It totally delivered. Not only was the ramen good, but the space inside was large and decorated in a really cool way. The tables and flooring inside were made to look as if they were sitting out in a Tokyo alleyway, with lanterns and street style art decorating the inner walls. With cool shade-like lighting and a combination of red/black interior decorating on top of the wooden tables, it truly felt like you had walked into dusk in an urban Japanese downtown district. Catalonia (the region where within lies Barcelona) and Japan have a strong connection, for reasons that I never truly could understand, but it was great because it meant that whenever I was in the mood for ramen there were plenty of places to pick from.

After my fun Ramen lunch Tuesday, I headed to my first of multiple field trips this week. Spanish class took us on occasional cultural field trips to various barrios (neighborhoods) of Barcelona, which is a real cool aspect of studying abroad. These field trips in particular were always great, because the combination of my small class, the engaged teacher, and the interesting environment meant it was hard not to have a good time. This particular trip took us around the Old Town, and its two parts: El Raval and El Barrio Gotico. Raval is the cool lively cultural heart of the city, and where all the locals go at night when they want to drink and eat and enjoy themselves. The Gothic quarter is the historical heart of the city, featuring many old schools and churches and museums. Afterward I went to my history class where we talked about the Roman founding of Barcelona (then Barcino) and were told we were going on a field trip to the Barcelona Cathedral Thursday. Between cultural field trips, historical fields trips, and art ones, I was going to get to see a whole chunk of this city!

The next day, Wednesday, was a Barcelona game day. Although I wasn’t going to this game, I did watch it in the apartment with my roommate and host mother, who is a big Barca fan but does not like the way the game become political when it is Barcelona playing (and beating) Real Madrid. This game, however, was against Sevilla, and you can view all of Barca’s beautiful goals in their dominating 6-1 victory at this 1:31 minute video. It is worth watching for their 6th goal alone, a masterful display of footwork which reminds you why this team is one of the best in the world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBugTcbRI5o

That night I went on a wine tasting. It ended up being me and six girls, along with the host. Amoung the 8 of us we finished 6 bottles of wine, which did not seem like that much in the moment but now writing about it I am slightly surprised that we averaged 3/4 a bottle a person, although that does explain why we were all ….kinda…. tipsy afterwards. It was a really fun experience, and over the 90 minutes I learned a lot about the six bottles we consumed. Here’s a quick overview. Cava is a Spanish name used for sparkling wine, similar to champagne. Although we often refer to it as bubbly, or containing bubbles, those are properly referred to as pearls, and the better the quality of your wine the smaller the pearls (bubbles) will be. Additionally, in younger wine the pearls will rise to the top faster than if it was an older vintage. If the pearls go to edge of the glass instead of rising straight up and evenly, then that means you have a denser wine. Not sure what that entails for quality or flavor, but presumably that affects the mouthfeel? Cava is generally good with paella and fish. Next was a sweet white wine using parayada grapes, which are sweet and not particularly potent. Some wines use egg whites or milk proteins to enhance their flavor and feel, and this white used egg while the brut-like cava used milk proteins like many other bruts. We then transitioned from whites to a rosada, from the southern region of Tarragona, that was organic and strawberry scented. As a strawberry lover, I was quite appreciative of that, although sadly it did not taste as strawberry. Here we learned that white wines often smell like white fruit (grapefruit, lemon, peach etc), red wines like dark fruit (blackberry, blueberry, plum etc), and rosé like red fruits (strawberry, cherry, raspberry etc). Also, when you swirl a wine, such as to look fancy or oxygenate it before drinking, the trails of wine alongside the glass are properly refereed to as legs, or tears. The viscosity of the tears and how smooth they are also varies amongst wines but like the pearls and density I do not recall what specifically it says about wine quality. After that we went to our final three wines, all of them red and one of them a dessert wine. When it comes to red wines, many in Spain are made from the Garnacha grape. The color of the wine is important, as though we call all of them “red” wines, the specific hue is indicative of how long the wine has been aged. A deep dark violet or purple color says that the wine is young, if it is ruby red or like a garnet than that means it is middling, whereas the oldest of reds will actually begin to look rather orangish. For the “Adaras” wine, and maybe others, there is a specific three part process of creation that occurs after the grapes have been picked. They alone are fermented for 5 days, and then go through and 8 day maceration process, and then the in bottle fermentation happens for at least 14 months. Disclaimer for that last bit because this was at the end of the evening 11 months ago and so I am not sure if I understand exactly what the timeline was supposed to be. That being said it was a very instructional and rather classy evening!

From the perspective of the budgeting college student, the wine tasting was also very cost effective, as it left me in a very pleasant buzz to arrive at the bar where friends and I were meeting to go out. This bar was called Dow Jones and had the quirk where the drinks would change prices minute to minute like stocks, with occasional market falls where everything was cheap, which was interesting at first but not when I realized it just meant that some drinks could be expensive and others really expensive and that would make the first one’s look cheap. It’s like the black friday trick of raising prices and then putting them on “sale” because people want things when they get cheaper even if they are not cheap. Anyways my friends all had to buy cheap (quality, not price) shots to bet drunk but I was already in a great place! That being said don’t drink just to get drunk kids it’s not good for you and it’s the biggest thing that sets Americans off from Europeans. It’s always immediately recognizable who is a tourist and who is not because Europeans tend to drink casually, or at least over a long period of time (link my wine night), whereas Americans go to bars and get bunches of shots. Anyways, after everyone was pretty tipsy, we crossed the street and went over to this night’s club, Sutton. The club was packed with people, there was hardly any space to have to yourself. That being said, it was pretty cool, and had the best internal decorations of any of the Barcelona clubs I went to. Partway through the night people dressed up as aliens and spacemen came out with laser guns and the night got vibrantly colorful. All in all a fun experience, with pretty decent house music.

The next day I went on a guided tour of Barcelona Cathedral with my history class. Known also as the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, it is the only cathedral in Barcelona (a cathedral is the seat of a bishop), as the Sagrada Familia is only a church, though it is cathedral-sized. The more jew know! The Cathedral is an old building, having been around since the 14th century, although it’s facade is beautiful and relativly untouched as it was restored at the turn of the 20th century (turn of the 19th? 21st? Whatever the time period it is that describes 1880-1920) for the two World Fairs that Barcelona hosted. As usual for this class I walked over with my friend Joey, and we actually stopped outside the cathedral to grab gelato before going in, as it was a nice sunny day and the weather had began to change from cold January! There are a lot of snack and gelato stalls littered around the cathedral plaza, which makes sense as it is a thriving tourist and local destination. People just hang out here, and there are weekly flea markets. In classic gelato fashion the ice cream came like a blooming rose with different petals of cookies and cream, which passed the time nicely as we waited for the rest of the class to arrive. Making our way inside the cathedral, the teacher began to inform us of its rich history. People still get married in this cathedral, and it is said to be good luck, although the teacher was dismissive of that as she knew many people divorced after their cathedral weddings.

One of the first things you see when you enter is that it is a church of many sections. There are clear large alcoves to the side that are reasonably sized chapels for smaller services or private prayer. There is a front section containing its own walled and enclosed meeting space, and a back section that has a beautiful large dome and a staircase down to a tomb. To the side are multiple entrances to the adjoining gated garden and nunnery area. The church is adorned on top with a statue of St. Helena, the mother of Constantine and the women who discovered the location of the holy cross. The inside of the cathedral dates back to the 13-15th centuries, as work and expansions went on for quite a long time. The stunningly decorated chairs above were decorated with the sigils of the various nights that would come to this cathedral to meet; the order of the Golden Fleece. Everything is very well preserved and the painting in red, green, and golden gilt is very well done and especially pretty in person.

As mentioned above, the latter half of the cathedral features both an alter and large cross but also the staircase down to the lower tomb, which is yet another prayer space, this one covered with red curtains and carpeting. Inside a saint is entombed, although not St Helena. Just out of sight of the picture above is the organ of this Cathedral, which (possibly) has 285 different pipes! “Possibly” is because some reports say there are 287, and also because past Adam did not realize how long present Adam (future Adam?) would put off writing these blog posts so I think that is what those numbers meant but am not 100% positive. Once we made our way out of the main cathedral area (after a short pause for prayer inside one of the chapels because are teacher is, like many Barcelonians, quite Catholic), we entered the garden/cloister area. Within the central fenced off area lie 13 geese. The saint that is buried in this cathedral was a martyr that was 13 when she died, and so these 13 white geese are considered sacred in recognition of that. This space was also the pseudo-Nunnery because around the courtyard are rooms the nuns would reside in.

What we did not notice at first was that the walkways we use in the 21st century were actually used as grave spaces in the previous centuries. Many of the guilds honored important members with burial in the cathedral, and so we were told to as best we could avoid stepping on any stone with a sigil as those were burial markers. Each guild obviously used a different symbol relating to their specific profession. As we were exiting the cathedral the teacher pointed out two portals on the 3rd story of the cathedral and the fort across the narrow alleyway. These portals are closed doorways with gaps underneath and between them made to fit a bridge, so that if the royal family was ever trapped of confronted while in the cathedral they could quickly and safely get over to protection without being followed. Once our cathedral field trip was over we were done with the class, but the teacher mentioned to us Also nearby this cathedral is the oldest temple in Barcelona, something almost as old as the city itself. The Roman Temple of Augustus in Barcelona is not much to look at anymore, as it is just four 10 meter tall pillars clearly weathered, but back when it was built in the 1st century BCE it was an elegant rectangular temple with 11 pillars on either side, and one of the major landmarks in the forum of the roman city Barcino. Even today it is considered the temporal heart of the old town, even though it is tucked away and not particularly popular.

And that is it for the week! As usual, I was headed abroad (abroad abroad? Perhaps because I was traveling every weekend but Barcelona very much became home base for me) that weekend, this time to Prague. Because we were leaving early Friday morning, I stayed in Thursday night, and prepared for my first “international” trip. Join me next time – and I promise it will be sooner than 11 months – to learn about my trip to the capitol of the Czech Republic.

Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work

Stephen King

Originally I was going to write a lot more here, but then I found this quote and I think it boils it down well. I was gone but now I’m back. I’m here to share my fun travels with y’all and that’s what I’m going to do! Be prepared for shorter during-the-week updates, for feasibilities sake. Also, following up on last post’s question, in Nicaragua they gesture direction with their lips, by pouting or pursing them in a certain direction, contrary to their elbows, as many people guessed. Thanks for playing! Lastly, I am on Instagram this week and this week only (possibly), so go and checkout HarvardOIE there to follow my adventures this week. I’ll put a link for it at the bottom of this post. Now let’s get to the main event!

Cadiz is both a region and a city. This weekend I flew down to the region Cadiz to visit a friend of mine from home, who is currently teaching English in the small pueblo (town) of Arcos. We also hung our and visited some of his friends in the nearby larger town of Jerez. My trip begins with catching the train to the airport, and proceeding to try to check in the entirely wrong terminal. Whoops! Luckily, I had budgeted enough time for my first independent travel excursion, and it was easy to catch the shuttle bus, get to the correct terminal, and board my 12:30 to Jerez de la Frontera. Jerez (de la Frontera) and Arcos (de la Frontera) are both named such because they were locations of conflict during the 700+ year Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula by the Spanish and Portuguese, or rather the Christians taking back their land from the Muslim Moors. This conflict lasted from 711, when the Moors came up from Africa and conquered what is nowadays South Spain, until 1491, months before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Arcos and Jerez were both towns fought over (and in), once the conflict had moved down to Southern Spain.

My invasion was a lot simpler. After landing, I caught a taxi to the town center to get some lunch. After a bit of difficulty, I was able to get some good dish recommendations from my taxi drive. It turns out that in the south they don’t believe too much in pronouncing “s” or “r” sounds, or really enunciating at all. It is a very laidback culture. The communication difficulty extended to lunch, where I slowly become accustomed to the local dialect, but not before a matronly café owner had started just referring to me as “Chico” and bringing me various (cheap and tasty) foodstuffs after I had explained that I wanted lunch. I feasted on Spanish omelet and some type of seafood pasta. I may have not known what was going on, but good food and beer makes up for a lot, and you do not need to make a lot of hard choices when the person behind the counter takes you under their wing. After lunch I walked over to the local Muslim stronghold (a sort of less famous Alhambra) only for it to be unexpectedly closed, as google maps and it’s own signage indicated that it should have been open for hours yet. Unfortunate! Instead I went to Jerez’s cathedral, a beautiful building featuring many historical and religious artifacts. I also went to the Bodega de Tio Pepe, perhaps the most famous Southern Spain wine shop, and joined a wine tour completely in Spanish. I learned a lot of interesting facts about the fermenting of various alcohols, insomuch that I was not able to fully comprehend everything our guide was telling us.

Time for an impromptu class on wine production in Southern Spain. Did you know that the wet Atlantic winds combine with the generally warm climate to create an environment particularly suited to growing grapes? You do now! Okay lesson over.

It was cool to walk through this compound and get to see (and sample) their various products. El Bodégo de Tío Pepe is particularly known for there brandies, some of which are fermented for upwards of 15 years before they are even sold. Additionally, they are known for the Sherry, but really every wine producer in Jerez is known for sherry. Just as Champagne (the region) is famous for producing champagne (the drink), Jerez is the region responsible for the initial creation of sherry (although the name changed a little more). We saw barrels that had been used hundreds of years ago to ferment alcohol, as well as more modern ones that had been autographed by celebrity visitors (like Steven Spielberg!). In the big wine production warehouse, one small cup of wine is traditionally left out, with a small ladder leaning on it, so that even the mice can join in on the fun (and presumably stay away from the barrels at large). The tour finished up with a tasting of tapas and four different wines (none of them that good tbh), and then I was off to meet my friend!

After a bit of searching and mutual location clarifying, I met up with Michael, my teacher friend from home. It was great to see him and talk (in Spanish too!), as we had not caught up since last summer. He had left to start teaching in July, shortly after he and I had been pulled over for riding a bird scooter without a helmet (I’m not not still bitter). He had a ton to catch me up on, and I him, and we decided that the perfect way to relax and catch up was to follow the inspiration Rome and Arabia, which meant going to the local Arab baths. For those of you who have not gone to an Arab bath, it is a wonderful experience that includes about 2 hours alternating between a hot pool, a freezing pool, and a lukewarm pool, broken up by a 15 minute massage and a break for Moroccan tea. It could not have been nicer to relax and chat in this setting. The lukewarm bath really does not feel like much at first, and the hot bath does not start off all that hot, but 10 minutes in you are really feeling it. At that point you go to the cold bath, which is frigid, and force yourself to stay in for at least 15 seconds, or up to a minute. When you rotate back to the lukewarm pool, you experience this sensation where your core temperature is warm, cold has permeated into your body, and lukewarm is lapping at your skin. It is a really pleasant sensation and it is much more enjoyable to relax in the lukewarm pool once you have started the rotation.

After our bathing, we proceeded to the central plaza of Jerez, where we met up with three of Michael’s fellow teachers (and friends). We all walked together to dinner, where we enjoyed a classic Jerez meal. My dinner consisted of a couple glasses of Clara (beer mixed with lemonade: a lighter, sweeter drink perfect for the balmy south) and Aneto, a Jerez classic that is breaded chicken stuffed with cheese and ham, and doused with a vinegary mushroom sauce. Very tasty, I promise! The table was full of conversation, all in Spanish, which was a really enjoyable aspect. Even as it become harder to follow the exchanges and compose my own thoughts (I still need to think in English and then translate to Spanish before I speak), two of Michael’s friends were English teachers, so they were always able to help me if I couldn’t find the word I was looking for. After dinner we sauntered over to a Karaoke Bar, where Michael dazzled everyone with his vocal enthusiasm, and I realized that Florence + the Machine is unfortunately out of my range. A couple hours there was enough to run me out of gas, at which point we went our separate ways, and Michael and I drove 40 minutes to his apartment in Arcos.

The next morning, after enjoying a breakfast of Nutella + local bread (decent) and local oranges (incredibly sweet and good), we set out to explore Arcos. Saturday was bright and clear, and thus a perfect day for exploring a pueblo blanco (named so because most if not all of the buildings in these smaller towns are white). Exciting the apartment, we turned uphill, and walked on that street all the way to the top of Arcos. Arcos is spread out on a hill, which the two major neighborhoods on the flat ground on either side of the old town, which is elevated and in the middle. Along the way to the old town we stopped and talked with some of Michael’s local merchants, like the olive oil man who has taken Michael to his orchard (he also sells the bread and oranges we had had for breakfast) and the straw-weaver who makes hat, purses, and chairs, that Michael likes. We checked out the cathedral at the top of town, and then started going down the other side, passing out of the gated old town (remember, this was where Spaniards fought against Moors) and down into the other neighborhood, where we got lunch. My lunch consisted of a whole chicken from a famous chicken place (it was very very good even if eating only chicken left me feeling a little weird) while Michael tried and failed to eat vegetarian (the vegetable soup they finally brought him had bacon in it but at that point he just wanted to eat). We took the other way back to his apartment, which meant hiking out of the town and along the river, basically doing the “C” part of a (backwards) “D” route, whereas the morning had consisted of the “I” part of the “D” route, even if its profile looks more like a “/\”. Anyways, we hiked a curved route back through some beautiful parkland, only occasionally taking the wrong path or having to dodge electric bikers.

After a well-deserved siesta, Michael and I hiked back up to the old town for dinner. Unfortunately his favorite restaurant was closed for reservations, but we find a nice place offering quite the dinner special. Not only did it include traditional Arcos starters and entrees, and a whole bottle of wine for us to share, but we also had the entire restaurant to ourselves! Apparently Saturday night is not this business’s time, but judging from the fact that by the end of our long dinner only three more groups had arrived I’m not sure how this place is staying in business. Good food though! We strolled around a little more after that, and returned to the streets by our apartment. Although Arcos is a small town, it has about two streets of nightlife, and coincidentally we just happened to be staying on one of those! We checked out a capable of bars (one was very popular and also American-comics themed which made me happy but also slightly confused) and enjoyed the scene for a brief time, but the adventures of the day had gotten to us, so we decided to have a chiller night. Back in his apartment he hooked up his computer to the TV and we started the well known Spanish show Casa de Papel. American readers may know this show as “Money House”, on Netflix. It follows a group of thieves attempting to rob the Spanish Mint. I am not really able to give further details as the version we had access to was only in Spanish with no English subtitle option, and they talked very quickly, so although I was able to follow along it was not the easiest. After a thrilling first episode, I was more than ready for bed, so we called it a night. Sunday morning was quick, as I had to make sure I got to the airport in time. Another breakfast of amazing oranges and Nutella transitioned into Michael walking me to the bus station, where we said our goodbyes. From the bus station to the airport I had to choose if I took the cheap but longer train or the quick but expensive taxi, and I choose the taxi. To this day I regret that decision as I totally had time to catch the train but such is life. After a short flight back to Barcelona and an incredibly long time finding my way back to my residencia (I took multiple wrong busses and trains, this was my first time returning from the airport not in a taxi, I have since mastered it), I finally did make it back to my room, and that marks the end of my trip to Arcos and Jerez! I had an amazing weekend, a lovely time in the south of Spain. It was great to visit my friend, and get to do so much fun stuff with locals. Stay tuned for a week of wine tastings and Cathedral visits, and then a weekend in Prague! I’ll see you back here Thursday.

But also remember to check out photos from Morocco, Spain, and Copenhagen this week on instagram from this account (linked is my initial photo, I do not know how to share an instagram account link, but you can just look at the other photos shared by that account/grandparents don’t worry I’ll send you all the photos): https://instagram.com/p/BuBOSwKHK1Y/

“If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.”

Anthony Bourdain

*Bit of a shorter writeup now that my weeks have become regular school. This is a quick one; look forward to a longer writeup about my travels to Cadiz on Sunday/Monday*

My third week here started with a civic wakeup call, as the taxi drivers were in full-fledged (and very conscientious) strike mode, filling the main street of Gran Vie de Los Cortes with their cars (leaving the bus lanes empty, as I had already mentioned) and filling the main center of Plaza Catalunya with neon yellow strike vests.

As I was not following Spanish news, I had no idea how the strike was proceeding or how it was expected to last, all my one news app would tell me was to “expect continued disruption”. Now that classes have gotten past their first week, school proceeds as expected, and I am not going to bore my readers (nor drive any of my double-digit readership away) by talking about each class in excessive detail. I am lucky enough (or farsighted enough?) that many of my classes go on field trips to different locations in Barcelona, and since those are cool I’ll make sure to talk about them. So, suffice to say that I had comparative culture psychology in the morning (we sat on the floor the whole time to experience learning in a different cultural/geographical setting, 10/10 I have bad posture) and Spanish in the afternoon (I have two quizzes coming up, every time I start to think I don’t need to think about the academics they spring those on you!). Feeling a little cross-cultural after my morning’s class, I went to lunch at a custom empanadas cafeteria with my friend Joey, where we indulged in food of a little more Hispanic origin.

We also discussed some details and firmed up our trip to Prague in a couple of weeks (I’m actually departing tomorrow, from day of publication). An interesting little idiomatic quirk to Spain is that “café” or “cafes” refer to the drink so many of my friends seem to be addicted to, whereas “cafeteria” is the place you go to buy coffee or pastries, even though in English we call that place a “café” and a “cafeteria” means something quite different! Aren’t languages interesting? After a post lunch nap- I mean, after the afternoon siesta and a little homework, I headed out for a jog and meet up with some classmates for a bit of pick up soccer. As it was on hard court with 9 players, it was a little more like Futsal than Fútbol, but it was still plenty fun. It’s been a while since I’ve put on cleats (and I didn’t wear cleats this time, but metaphorically), and it was great to get on the pitch (hard court) and make some plays! Unfortunately the Spaniards who had been playing before us couldn’t stay, as we could have had a great large court 9 on 9 game, but something tells me they would have blown us away, so maybe we save that one for next time?

Tuesday was the day of my first real academic deadline, as I was slotted to give a presentation on the importance of culture in human development and youth achievement. Luckily this proved a little more chill than prior teaching presentations I’ve had to do, and my game of cultural jeopardy proved a big hit! Here’s a question than neither team got right, take a guess and see next post if you got it right, but no cheating: In Nicaragua what body part do they use to point things out and gesture directions with?

Apart from my presentation, Tuesday was a normal day. Now that I’ve settled down a little, I expect to see more of those, and my weeks transition from Explore Barcelona to Do Schoolwork. Alas, such is life. The rest of the day was occupied by Spanish class, History of Barcelona, and Spanish art, where we learned about the Spanish painter Velázquez. That was a long enough day that I was more than happy to go home, nap, eat dinner, hang out around the house, and make sure I got enough sleep for class early on Wednesday.

And what a Wednesday it was! After the now truly traditional classes and siesta of the morning, I took advantage of a promotion to get a free bus tour around Barcelona. We visited sites like the Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, and Gaudi’s Iron Dragon Gates. Unfortunately we never stopped at any of these destinations to disembark, so it was just driving by them from the outside, and so the bus tour was really not that great. Although I can not truly say I regret it, because it was both free and it’s not like I would have been doing anything particularly else during that time, I would not do it again and it would not have been worth it had it not been literally free. Afterwards though I was able to swing by my place and then go off to meet a friend for evening tapas. It is crazy that around 8-8:30 the restaurants are empty, practically abandoned, but these taps bars are full of people with lines out the door. Anyways, we didn’t go for anything to crazy, but indulged in the classics: calamari, croquets, tomato bread, artichokes, garlic shrimp, and cerveza to wash it all down. Another crazy aspect of it is that you spend a couple hours talking and picking at food, and then you go back to your apartment (or house or home or whatever) and then you have dinner proper! I was stuffed, but luckily I had a little time to digest before I went out for the night. This week was Otto Zutz, a disco club that not only was walking distance from me (que Guay!) but also was having Wednesday night open bar from 1-2am, as well as the entire night being Drake themed. This consisted of Drake songs playing (ok pretty normal for a nightclub), a limited amount of “Drake Night at Otto Zutz” tshirts being given out (yours truly received one so I guess that’s the prize for whoever gets the culture question above correct?), and also Drake full-face masks for everyone to wear (and those were weird). It was a fun night at with friends at a slightly smaller and more chill club then other evenings, so I enjoyed it and would totally return.

Thursday may have been a full day of (now routine) class, but there was one cool thing that went on. In my Barcelona History class we took a field trip to the Barcelona history museum. This cool building is located right next to Barcelona’s cathedral, which I’ll include a picture of so that there are some visuals in this post (I actually visited the Cathedral today, Jan 31, and it is very nice). The museum is actually built right on top of old roman and visigoth ruins, such that when you descend in the elevator you are “traveling back in time”, and you get to walk among the streets and workshops of Barcino, the small town of ~2000 people from over 2000 years ago! We learned that Barcino (Barcelona), as a coastal town, was known for its seafood and for its wine. Maritime products were also used in dying and cleaning clothing, interestingly enough, but the big delicacy of Barcelona was Garum. This fermented fish sauce was stewed in vast clay cauldrons and contained all the inedible parts of the fish, the ones that normally would have gone to waste, like the eyes, bones, and guts. Sounds tasty no? Regarding wine, I actually was able to fill in a lot of my thoughts about Roman wine usage. I had know that they drank a ton, and often watered it down, but what I did not know is that even though adult romans would consume at least a bottle of wine a day, the “wine” they were drinking was fermented for less than 20-30% of the time that wine today is fermented, meaning that they were not consuming nearly as much alcohol as someone who drank a whole bottle of wine today would be. That’s the reason why they could serve so much watered down wine to their kids, at that point it was basically just grape juice. I also learned that our tradition of bringing wine as a gift to someone who is hosting you is derived from the Roman tradition where individuals would bring wine to a dinner if they had been invited by someone of superior standing. Because wine had more religious connotations back in the day, as it was the libation to the Pantheon & Jupiter, it was considered kind of a sacred act to bring wine to show your appreciation that someone higher than you was doing this nice thing for you. After that tour, I returned back to the casa, to pack and prepare for my trip to Cadiz (a region in southern Spain) to visit my friend who is an English teacher in Arcos (a city in Cadiz). Read all about that in just a couple of days!

The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way

Dale Carnegie

This weekend I decided to spend some time in Barcelona, exploring this awesome city! This will not be my only weekend in Barcelona (as indicated by the title), and when I repeat a lot of the things I tried to do this weekend they will go a lot better (as indicated by the epigraph)! Don’t get me wrong, I had a good weekend; I just also learned to there are (much) better ways to do some of the things I attempted this weekend, so now I get the pleasure of learning from my mistakes! Let’s dive right in, shall we?

Friday morning dawned bright an early at the crack of 10am, when I checked in with a friend of mine to see if we were still doing a day trip to Montserrat. He confirmed that it would be happening, but a little later, so I took that as a suggestion to make sure I was… sufficiently rested, so to speak, for the day’s adventures. That is to say, Friday’s adventures dusked bright and early-by-US-hours at the crack of 1:30pm, when I left the house to meet up with a crew at the Plaza España train station, where we would be catching a the train to Montserrat. Unfortunately, I ran into a small hiccup, getting to the plaza was not as simple as catching one of the many (usually) driving about taxis. You see, unbeknowedst to me, the taxis drivers of Spain had unanimously agreed to strike in protest of the (perceived) government favoring of riding apps like Uber and Cabifi.

As a brief aside, Spain is a bit more of a collectivist country than the United States, and the unions here are established and powerful. The taxi drivers parked their cars all in the main lanes of the main street in Barcelona, leaving only the bus lanes on either end unblocked. They occupied the Plaza Catalunya, donning vests and rallying. All this was done with the permission or at least understanding of the government, who did not seem to seek to crack down on the strikers.

Back to me. Plaza España is too far for me to walk to, and I am near no metro lines that would enable public transit to get me there. I call an uber but it says that it is 15 minutes away and that would be too late. So I am running around, trying to catch a taxi, but struggling because I am only seeing a few and none of them are stopping for me. Finally, after I have started running to the plaza, I manage to get a taxi to pull over and let me in. After a burst of rapid fire Spanish, I reply “Plaza España, por favor”. The taxi driver looks at me, starts driving, and then asks me if I had seen the news. I plead ignorance, and he gestures to the paper at my feet, where I finally found out that the taxi drivers were striking. He jokes around with me, but was nice enough to take me to the plaza before he goes to park his car in the street and join the strike. Once I meet up with my friends, we end up waiting for a last person who was running even later than me. I probably could have walked to the station after all, but hindsight is 20/20. We grab a brief snack, then go to buy tickets for the train, as Montserrat is a little under two hours away and so not on our 90-day Barcelona rail passes. As this is the third time I’ve mentioned Montserrat, I think I will now take the time to explain what it is. Named for its distinctive appearance, the mountain range (more of a hill range with rocks) features many small jagged points, almost like a giant saw blade. What people mean when they say they are going to Montserrat (serrated mountain), however, is that they are visiting the monastery nestled up between the crags. This monastery, and the beautiful hiking around it, are a popular tourist and local destination.

We ran into a couple of hiccups in the course of our Montserrat expedition/excursion. As we were catching the train out into the countryside, it was unclear if our tickets would work for this destination. I mentioned this above, so hopefully it hadn’t already slipped your mind, but if you were skimming quickly… well now you know! When we went to buy tickets, we found that the combined train & cable car fair was unavailable (this is foreshadowing). In a huff, we decided to use our regular tickets, and they worked just fine (or so we thought). 90 minutes later, we got off the train at the cable car stop, only to find out that the cable car up to Montserrat (a shorter, cheaper ride than the train up the mountain, with better views) was closed until January 25 (that’s why the ticket machine said we couldn’t buy the combined ticket! I don’t believe in foreshadowing that fore…ward?). This meant that we were stuck at this train stop, short of our destination, in the cold, and middle of nowhere. Alas, 30ish minutes later another train came round and we boarded this one to get to the main Montserrat station. However, a couple of ticket inspectors immediately came to us and asked to see our tickets. Turns out the Barcelona tickets don’t work out here! And it also turns out there is a 100 euro fine for riding the rials without a proper ticket (he pointed to the many places inside the train where it said so). Luckily, we came off as so haplessly American (alternatively, this is Spain so they don’t really enforce those rules) that he let us buy a normal ticket from the portable dispenser they carry around, and once we got to the final stop he also helped us buy and validate the proper tickets to get up to Montserrat and then get back to Barcelona.

The next hiccup comes as we look at the trains going to, but more importantly, returning from, Montserrat. By this time, due to our late departure and our overly hasty disembarking, it was around 4. The last train down the mountain left at six. Because we had come all this way, we decided to press on, but it was cold and getting dark and we had not brought food. Next time I do Montserrat sandwiches and other picnic foods will be brought, and I will make sure that I go early and on a sunny day so that I can take part in the (supposedly) beautiful hiking. As it was, we got to look around the monastery itself, which is very pretty, and the views from on top of the mountain are splendid. We got to see a pretty cathedral, and basically can treat it as a “practice run”. Returning to Barcelona went a lot smoother, and now that I knew there was a taxi strike going on I was able to take the metro a little closer to my apartment rather than having as long a walk.

On Saturday, after again making sure I was getting sufficient rest, I played in the Magic the Gathering prerelease. For those of you who do not know what this is, click HERE to read about it or watch THIS quick video. Now, if you have heard about it, or just read those articles and want to know why I was choosing to do this on a Saturday in Barcelona, you should read THIS article and also look at THAT one as well. I’m not the only one who’s getting assigned readings over the weekends! Anyways, I went to a local game store fairly close to my program to play in the “prerelease”, when all the new cards for that season’s set come out and a bunch of players come out of the woodwork to play with them. Its a very fun event, a tournament that’s designed to not be too competitive, and to be very welcoming to anyone who is interested. I’ve done a couple of them before, but this was special, because in this one I was surrounded by my Spanish peers. Kids, other students, working adults… I’m used to playing MtG around these types of people, but I’m not used to hearing zero english spoken while doing so. It was a great experience to practice immersion in a normal (for me) scenario, and it was really cool to me to interact with something so familiar in an unfamiliar way. I am used to helping younger kids or people new to the game build their decks, as it can be a little confusing which of the new cards are good or fun to play with, and though I did the same here, it was funny for me to have to ask the seven year old I was helping if I was saying these words right, even as he was asking me if he should be playing this card (it wasn’t in his colors, so obviously he shouldn’t have been, and you all understand what that means now that you’ve done your reading right?). It was tough, in a good way, to open my packs and see cards that I remember from looking at the spoilers of the new set, but having to reread and use them when all the text was in Spanish. Luckily, I opened a good Rakdos pool (that’s English btw) and got to play with very pleasant opponents. They chatted with me in Spanish, taught me the transliterations of phrases I’m used to saying unconsciously (pass the turn becomes “a ti”, literally “to you”), and reacted as nicely as one could hope after they lost (I can have fun even when I don’t win, but I do prefer to win). All in all, something that I normally do 2-3 times a year (and thoroughly enjoy) became a uniquely special event, as it was both exactly what I was used to and like nothing I had ever done before.

Sunday’s do-better-next-time activity was visiting La Sagrada Familia. 5/6 years ago, when I was in Barcelona for a couple of days on a high-school spring break field trip, Sagrada Familia (an immense cathedral designed by Gaudi) was the highlight of my time in Spain, and I still remember the brilliance of the stained glass on that day. This go around, though Sagrada Familia was still fantastic, it was not as good as it could be, due to three simple mistakes I made. First, I forgot to bring my glasses, and though I can see without them I can see better with them, and this cathedral deserves to be seen as clearly as possible. Second, because I had bought my tickets in advance (you have to buy your tickets at least a day in advance otherwise you get stuck waiting in a long line), I had not anticipated that it would be raining, and thus there was no brilliant sun shining through the stained glass windows, but rather a dreary grey glow. Third, I went in the afternoon, when it is much more crowded. Next time I do Sagrada Familia, I will do it on a sunny morning with corrective lenses, and it will be everything I want it to be. I should mention, too, that even getting to the cathedral had it’s difficulties. When I went to catch the bus, I stood on the wrong side of the street (basically the bus line going in the away direction), and so ended up watching the bus I wanted pull up to the stop not 20 feet from me, take on some people, and depart, before I realized my stupidity. What followed was a full on sprint as I hoped to be able to catch the bus it it’s next stop, before the stamina of an internal combustion engine beat the stamina of a me. Although it quickly pulled ahead, it caught a read light right before its stop, and so I was able to sprint down the street, jump in front of the (stopped) cars, and be at the stop when the bus pulled up. A thrilling city chase, witnessed by no one, but I know of my accomplishment (and now you all do to). I definitely could not have gone two stops though.

Even though there were some not ideal aspects of this excursion, I want to make clear that I had a great time checking out the cathedral. It is so pretty! This go around, I spent a lot of time in the museum below the church, reading about it’s history. Sagrada Familia went through a lot of iterations, and originally going to look like any old cathedral, until Gaudi was hired and he brought his nature-inspired designs into reality.

I learned that the stained glass I loved so much was actually done by Joan Vila-Grau, and so I now have a new idol.

And the last big thing I found out was that La Sagrada Familia, which is also famous for still being under construction, is expected to be finished in 2026. I’ll definitely be going back sometime in the next few weeks, but I’ll also be returning sometime in the next decade or two as well! As I was leaving the cathedral, I slipped into a local Jamon shop, where some tour group was getting an explanation and tasting of the famous Iberian ham. That definitely was an unexpected but nice event, as I was able to get a little taste of the good stuff, and snap a photo to share with y’all as well!

Suffice to say, I enjoyed my weekend in Barcelona, and I look forward to spending more time in this lovely city. Stay tuned for Thursday’s update, when I talk about my attempt at a bus tour, and visiting Barcelona’s own ancient roman ruins! And now, as many people have asked about, I would like to announce the caption contest winner from last week’s Castelles photo. Though I received many great submissions, the award has to go to Charles Hirschhorn with “My understanding of team handball is quite different!”. A special shoutout as well to Jason Hirschhorn, the very close runner up. Thank you to everyone who submitted captions, I am loving your participation! That’s all for now, hasta luego!

Not all classrooms have four walls

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After my first weekend abroad, I was excited to be traveling more the next couple of months. I rendezvoused with new friends I’d made within the program, and friends I had in Europe, to star organizing a lot more excursions. Prague, Cadiz, London, Amsterdam, Morocco, Berlin… I was excited to take advantage of cheap flights and my European home base! So much so that I almost forget that I was still going to school over the course of this semester (desafortunadamente). However, not only am I taking interesting courses I wouldn’t have taken back at Harvard (such as Spanish art history taught in Spanish), but I am also still in Barcelona, which means theres a lot I can do during the hours I am not in class.

My first class began bright and early, 8:30am Monday morning. In theory, my morning routine is to get up, get ready for school, have a quick breakfast of cereal and tea, walk to the metro, and arrive at class on time. In practice, it’s been a lot less having breakfast and a lot more running, but there’s plenty of time to fix that! My classes work on a Monday & Wednesday / Tuesday & Thursday schedule, so I really just have two distinct days. Mondays I have Cultural Perspectives of Psychology from 8:30-10:05, and then Spanish from 1:40-2:40. Tuesdays I have Developmental Psychology from 10:15-11:50, Spanish from 1:40-2:40 (Spanish is an hour every day), Barcelona: The Modern Metropolis from 3:30-5:00, and then Arte de España (Art History course taught in Spanish) from 5:00-6:30.

So, Monday morning was an early wakeup and then my first real class. After 95 rough minutes (the class is great, but no student was prepared for an early morning), I headed back towards the casa for a nice midday nap, which was quite the good move in my mind. After a nice two hour siesta, it was back to the school for some cultural practice in Spanish, learning phrases and words that local Barcelonians actual use for restaurants, taxis, and tiendas, rather than using translations of English phrases that do not end up translation perfectly well. Walking back to my casa from the program, I ran into quite the situation in Plaza Catalunya. Although it was basically empty in the morning, once it gets a little closer to eleven or noon in the morning, the plaza starts to be filled with thousands and thousands of birds. The mosaic of the plaza is carpeted in pigeons, and when people are dropping bread crumbs to attract them, the space around them literally becomes pure-pigeon. Even so, walking across the plaza is a test of hygienic courage, as you have to deal with the pigeons flying around your face and must try to react like a local (that is, by not reacting).

That night, after doing a little work and chatting with my roommate, I met up with a friend and headed out to a karaoke bar. Although the drinks were pricy and the space small, there were some really talented singers at that bar (for some reason), and it was a ton of fun. I’ve yet to find my karaoke song, and after trying a couple of tunes that I love but are not in my range, I know I need to buckle down and make sure that the next time I do karaoke I am doing my singing background proud. We happened to be sharing the small space with a group of local spaniards and a group of American business man, which was fun, for as the night wound on everyone started dancing and chatting and jumping in on each other’s songs (except for Annette, the supremely talented singer who kept having other people buy songs for here to sing, as she could do Adele, Aretha Franklin, and many other artists as if she had their voices). After making friendly with the GE employees who were headed up to Madrid the next day, we headed to the discoteca called Opium, right on the shore. Like last week’s Razzmataz, Opium is dark, packed full of college kids, pulsing with flashing lights and loud music, and doused in cheap alcohol. It was fine but I preferred Razzmataz, as Opium was so crowded that it felt moshpit-y. After departing the club and declining offers of cheap drugs (when you are by the port, there are a bunch of people who are trying to sell you what they claim is weed, though who really knows what it is you would be buying), I managed to catch the bus and get home pretty easily.

I took advantage of my extra hour to sleep on Tuesday, and appreciated it after the night out. Tuesdays (and Thursdays) are long days, as I have class basically from 10am to 7pm, with only two breaks for rest or eating. What with the late eating hours of Spain, but the normal/early waking hours, I have ended up taking some sort of nap most days, even if it is just 30 minutes on the beanbags in the student lounge, as I did on Tuesday between Psychology and Spanish. After Spanish I headed over to la Universitat de Barcelona, where I am taking by civic and art classes, though at this point in time I had not yet signed up for the art class. On the way there I stopped at la Sana Vida (roughly: the healthy life) for a burrito, as that fast-casual restaurant is like the mix of a chipotle and a sweetgreen, and quite tasty! After an interesting class on Barcelona, with a really fun and likable professor, I was going to head back to IES to take my Organizational Psychology course, when I learned that the professor was also teaching an art history course, but in Spanish. After sitting in on it for a little while, I realized that not only could I keep up, but that this would be a fun and interesting way to continue to improve my Spanish. I left early and went to my previously scheduled course at IES, but the professor could not have been less interesting or engaging, so it was an easy decisions to switch around my schedule once the office opened up the next day.

Speaking of Wednesdays, Wednesday! Wednesday having class begin at 8:30 in the morning means I am not going out the night before, but having only an hour of class after 10am means that I have plenty of time to chill and work (and chill). After another nap and Spanish class (you’re beginning to see the pattern, right? Good.) I met up with my friend Joey and went to have the Wednesday special at chain sandwich restaurant Cien Montaditos, famous for selling 100 different types of tiny sandwiches. Wednesdays and Sundays are one euro sandwiches, so we got a couple plates of different options, a beer to wash it down, and had a nice lunch full of variety (between bread).

Wednesday night was another chill night. When my roommate told me he was going to the Barca game the next day, though, I realized I had yet to see the wonderful FC (futbol club) play, and after asking him and his friends, decided to accompany them to the game. With tickets purchased (and a lot learned about Camp Nou, FC Barcelona’s stadium), we were ready for dinner. People have also asked about my host-family and my roommate, and for those readers (and by the transitive property of the internet, everyone in the world), here is a nice photo of me, my roommate, and my homestay-mother. See if you can figure out who’s who, because I’m not giving you captions!

Finally, like a long awaited book sequel, or food that you ordered in hours ago, or the year 3000 (you’re welcome), Thursday arrived! Now that I had my new schedule (the one I posted up above), I was ready to rumble. I crushed Developmental Psychology, in the sense that I was a good student who participated and took notes. The professor is a character, in a good way, and sprinkled between lessons and theories proposed by old psychologists like Piaget, Vgotsky, and the like were modern diatribes on the perils of developmental psychology, such as raising children, through parent-prank youtube clips and a George Carlin bit. He does a good job of keeping you engaged in the class. Spanish class was also good, as we finished up local language week with a talk on the different ways people ask for things, and when to use the (translated) equivalents of “I want this, I would like this, bring me this, give me this, can I have this, etc”. Barcelona History class did a broad dive through 2000 years of history, giving us an outline that the rest of the course will start to fill in, and Spanish Art introduced us to notable periods of Spanish art such as los Surrealistas (como Joan Miro), los Borrocos, y el Rococo. After many hours of class, I headed back to the apartment, where Matt and I had a quick and early “dinner”. As it was before 7:30, it doesn’t really count as dinner, but we wanted to make sure we ate something before we headed to the game.

And oh, the game! Things start with us catching the bus to the Stadium, and leaving fairly early so we had time to grab a beer at a nearby bar with some other fútbol fans. Of course, on the bus, we run into other Barca fans, because as the clock ticks ever closer to 9:30, the city transitions into one giant conglomerate of soccer-lovers. Once we got to the stadium, we walked directly away from it, until we quite literally stumbled into a dinky little two room bar filled with medium to old men drinking bear and wine and watching soccer on a small box tv. It was perfect. Matt and I got our beers (1.30 euro), managed to snag the only two open seats left, and watched a little of last night’s Copa del Rey game (not featuring Barcelona), before we headed back to the stadium. We weren’t drinking beer to get drunk, obviously, as we wanted to be present for every part of the game, but it is totally the Spanish thing to grab a beer before the game, and you cannot do it inside the stadium as they do not sell or allow alcohol inside. Once we made it through security and around the stadium to our section, we went down to our seats. We were on the lowest level, though not the section closest to the field, and pretty much right behind the goal. Though the seats may not have been ideal for watching action at the far end of the field, they were perfect for watching the players when they were making (or defending) attempts on the near goal. We also got to sit right behind the fan section. This is the section closest to the field, right behind the goal, where there are presumably seats but everyone is on their feet for the entire 90+ minutes of play. They have a guy with a microphone, a drummer, and are constantly singing and chanting. They do a good job of keeping sightlines clear when the ball is in play, but whenever views of the field are not necessary flags pop out from the section and are waved aloft, be they classic flag sized flags (you tell me how to describe those dimensions better) or the huge 20 x 30 flags that you are shocked someone is able to even wave about. After Matt’s friends trickled in, we all rose for the National Anthem, and then sat down for the game to being. And what a game it was! FC Barcelona was playing Levantes, who had beat them 2-1 in the previous game. FC Barcelona needed to win this game by at least two goals if they wanted a clear and indisputable victory in the series. Within about 5 minutes, it was clear that FC Barcelona had it in the bag. Everyone on the field is truly amazing at fútbol, but the players in red and blue are on another level. Especially that tiny player, number 10, who seems to just be strolling around the field until the ball gets passed to him, in which case he gets by two men, dodges a third, and lays the ball off to the somehow open man on the top of the box. Of course, if he is to score, like he did early in the second half by ensuring a tippy shot over the goalie made it into the goal, then the crowds will jump to their feet and cheer for “MESSI!”. As I said, Barcelona dominated the game, scoring two goals in minutes 25-30, and then extending that lead in the second half. They make it look easy. Watching the game, with the amazing players, the enthusiastic audience, and the exuberant cheering sections, has been one of my highlights of my time abroad, if not the current highlight. I know that I will be going back to see them play again, and I can’t wait to cheer again for the boys in red and blue. That’s all for my second week abroad (but the first real week of studying abroad), and stay tuned for my weekend, which I spent doing cool things in and around Barcelona!