grata et hic in Colonia Julia Urbs Triumphalis Tarraco

(translated: Welcome to Tarragona)

Unknown. But probably some ancient tarraroman

*Boy writing weekly updates sure is tougher than I thought it would be! Going forward, if people wanna make sure they catch everything but aren’t checking my page everyday (one can hope), you can either follow my blog (RSS or other subscription) or check it on Thursdays and Sunday/Mondays, as I plan on having updated it for the week and weekend by those time. Anyways, on to the stuff you all are here for: my first weekend abroad (well, abroad from Barcelona, which is already abroad)*

Tarragona, nowadays a modern city of some 200,000 souls, began as the bastion of Roman power on the Iberian peninsula. Having spread from Italy, up and through the Gauls, and down into Iberia, Romans prized this region for its agricultural fertility and its mineral richness. Additionally, securing and building up the peninsula provided a bulwark against their dreaded enemies, the Carthaginians, to the South. So although Madrid is the biggest city in Spain today, and Barcelona the best (I’m biased), 2,000 years ago “Tarraco” was all anyone (who was anyone) cared about.

I travelled on down south to Tarragona with around 30 other people from my Study abroad program. Although it was to be a two hour bus ride, my buddy and I (Joe, seen in last week’s paella photo) were excited, because it looked like we were going to be driving down the beautiful Spanish coast the whole time. Well, looks can be deceiving, because almost immediately we took a turn that made it clear our driver preferred the inland route. Ah well, such is life. Two sleepy hours later we arrived at what we all assumed was Tarragona. It was scarce, and empty, and people quickly become unexcited about the next 36 hours. To make matters worse, it was cold – below freezing – and although some of us from Boston can bear that no sweat, the more soft UI and Kansas kids were not enjoying the weather. Our group split in two, with my half going to a bar for coffee and the other half going to a monastery for culture. Inside the bar, we got to sit down, enjoy warmth, eat a little breakfast, and drink a little hot chocolate (or coffee, if you are like everyone else but me who likes caffeine in their drinks). Properly fortified, we then switched with the monastery group. This monastery was very important and considered a big part in the founding and legitimizing of the region, as it had been around since the 1100s. We watched a video about their history, and how they accrued more and more land, power, and people, until the monastery had become a town of its own. Side note: the video was projected on the brick of an inner sanctum and shockingly brick makes an incredible projection background. We saw the workspaces where the nuns would copy books in the pursuit of preserving knowledge, as well as the apothecary where the nuns used local and cultivated plants to provide tinctures, elixirs, and potions to the nearby public. As well as pills the size of soap bars that you consumed one sliver at a time. We also saw the prayer area and crypt, where certain old spanish royals were buried, and the tour guide called up “the short one in back” to the front to help demonstrate why arches are stable. Admittedly, it was funny, though I would have preferred if I hd not been the one in question. Architecturally, the monastery was quite stunning, as it had been remodeled in parts over 500 years, and thus it was partially gothic, partially romanesque, and partially baroque. Those words may or may not be accurate to what I am trying to describe but go easy on me I am one week into an art class that is being taught in Spanish. Baby steps. For those who do know their medieval architecture, or merely want a look, here is the courtyard and tower of the monastery.

After the monastery we took a bus to Tarragona proper, where we were let off right by the beautiful coast. The next destination(s) of the Tarragona excursion was(were) the ancient Roman ruins, including their amphitheater and hippodrome. Apart from its beautiful seaside placement, the amphitheater was just a normal amphitheater, home to gladiatorial combat and executions. The hippodrome was quite cool, they had discovered it during some building remodeling years back, and it turns that that the entire hippodrome had been buried and built on top of. We also visited the upper city, where the Roman Emperor Augustus had lived and ruled from for a couple of years, and walked along the city walls that unfortunately mostly had a view of the city and not the beautiful surroundings. Roman history is alive and well in Tarragona, or at least as alive and well as anywhere else, and I definitely recommend checking out the hippodrome and it’s museum if you find yourself in Eastern Spain.

After the tour, we headed back to the hotel. After a short nap, a couple of us went out for a couple of beers, which seemed to be an idea many other spaniards had. After our pre-dinner drinks, we headed back to the hotel for a buffet dinner, and then headed back out again into Tarragona for a night on the town. Admittedly Tarragona is less of a “party city” than Barcelona, but 15 minutes of walking led us to a plaza that was full of bars and people. A couple hours passed by, occupied by bar hopping and various attempts at Spanish. Tarragona does have a fun night scene, it just is a little out of the way from the downtown area where we were staying, although the city is not so big such that anything is really “out of the way”.

The next day began for me with a late descent to breakfast only to find that most of the group wasn’t even down there yet! More people trickled in over the course of the hour, but it wasn’t till 15 minutes before departure, long after all the girls had already made it downstairs, that the guys started trickling down. Now who takes longer in the morning to get ready, eh? However, they scarfed down our breakfast buffet and it was back on to the buses for us. A short drive later, we arrived at the site of the famous Castelles, which can only be described as “human towers”, and cannot really be understood sufficiently without seeing them in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gSXQKhQBdY
Now, assuming you’ve watched that video and suddenly got a lot more worried about my safety; 1, I am writing this and thus am perfectly fine, and 2, hi mom! Unlike the trained professionals in the video (it’s only a minute, you can go back and watch it now, I won’t tell), we were only going to be making a two or three stage tower. After a historical video masquerading as instructions, the pro-castellers took us into their gym and got us appropriately dressed (no shoes if you are climbing, and everyone wraps a scarf-type thing around their waist and spin for support and to encourage proper posture). A couple of the little children (who literally were monkeys, they would just be climbing over whatever they could until a parent could get them to come over and climb on us) went around and stood on our shoulders, to get us used to the idea. Then, we did the real deal. I got to be one of the people in the 1st level (in Spain, the 1st level is above the 0th level, but to you Americans you would understand it better as the 2nd level), which meant that I climbed on top of some peers. Fancy that, huh? After walking on shoulders, I made my way to the center, where I locked arms with my partner. Unfortunately, I was standing on the wrong pair of shoulders, too far forward, and so only my toes were on them, with my arches and heels suspended over nothingness. Before I could communicate this issue, or figure out what to do, the monkeys-I mean kids-had already started climbing on us. What followed was about 30 seconds that felt like 20 minutes, as I did my best to tense my body and make sure that I would not slip off the person I was standing on, fall on classmates, bring the child currently pulling at my back and NOT HELPING MY BALANCE to the ground, and other assorted issues. Luckily, the kids were able to complete the routine quickly, and I was able to descend with style, by which I mean not make a complete fool of myself but still semi-fall into one of the pro’s arms so that he could help me down. If I were to do it again, I’d definitely want to do it with the correct posture. Cool experience though! If I had been in Spain when I was a child you could bet I would have been once of those monkeys climbing 9 tiers of people to get to the top… I’m jealous just thinking about it…

After the Castell experience, our instructors knew that we were starting to get a little hungry, a little tense, and that it was time for a good lunch. Another short bus ride to the middle of nowhere, Arizona (it really did look like Arizona), got us to our final destination of the Tarragona Trip, the famous Calçot lunch. Ah, but what is/are Calçot you ask? Why feast your eyes on what we feasted our stomachs on:

Calçots are basically leeks/green onion/scallions, and they are a super traditional Catalan dish. You toss these bad boys on the grill, stick them in a handy nearby roofing tile, and serve them up! There are two tricks to eating calçots. Trick number one is that the inside is surprisingly sweet, savory, and tender, and the way to get to it is to pinch (but not to hard) the bottom of the plant, and pull on the leaves away from your pinched fingers. This will slide the burnt and not-good-to-eat outer layer off the edible stuff like the earth slides away from a spaceship (relativity, yo! Also it’s late and that’s honestly the best metaphor I could think of). The second trick is to be liberal with the sauce. The sauces is some sort of nutty concoction that is fantastic, and everyone finished their sauce bowls by scooping it up with the unlimited amount of (good) bread we were given. You can only eat leeks for so long before it feels like you’ve had enough. They also brought out some barbecue, with special sausages that were very good (though I know not quite how they were special). After a few more adventurous souls finished table hopping to make sure all the wine had been consumed (of course we had wine with this lunch, it is Spain after all), we piled back on to our respective buses, and headed on back to Barcelona. All in all, a very successful first weekend abroad!

Join me next time for more thrills! Here is your sneak preview of the next update: Barcelona goes into game 2 of their series against Levantes, down 2-1. It’s not looking good for them, and I hope that they’ll be able to win, as I am going to the game tonight. Will they win, to much celebration and fanfare? Or will they lose, dishonoring their selves, their families, their cows? Find out next time on Adam’s Adventure’s Abroad!

There’s a whole world out there, right outside your window. You’d be a fool to miss it.

– Charlotte Eriksson

Quick note: This entry got longer than I thought it would so it mostly covers details of the first week here, and not my weekend trip to Tarragona. If you’re more interested in the exotic places then the finding-my-feet than I suggest skimming this one, because some really cool stuff happened in week one in Barcelona, and the swinging by later this week to read about the ancient Roman regional capital of Tarragona!

My journey, like all good journeys, began with leaving home. Shortly after noon on Sunday, January 6th, I boarded my ~11 hour direct flight to Barcelona. As one could imagine, the plane was filled with other college students leaving to study in Barcelona, and even a couple of professors too! Once I get settled in on my Norwegian flight, I watched a couple of movies (Crazy Rich Asians is aesthetically beautiful and a great romantic comedy I highly recommend) and caught a slight but important nap. After landing, all the IES kids found each other and then we made our way to the cafe meeting point, where we were shepherded through brief orientations and check in processes and then put in taxis and sent to our apartments and home-stays. Once I arrive I meet my wonderful hostess Anna, along with her son Carlos and her granddaughter Lily. The family is excited to meet me and have me stay with them the next four months. That they speak little to no English is exciting, as it means I really am going to be flexing my linguistic skills ever day! My roommate, a sophomore at Miami-Ohio studying SLAM (sports leadership and management) (what an acronym!), had arrived before me and had had enough time to take a little nap after his own plane ride (jealous!). As we both need SIM cards now that we have left our old lives behind, we decided to head to the local telecom store to buy a plan, having down our research before hand. Four stores later, we had given up. Turns out that what you research and read about online is not always true, even if its on the company’s website! Not to worry, however, as we were able to lift our spirits with a late-for-us-but-normal-for-Spaniards lunch at a local corner cafe. A Terra Cha was filled with old spaniards drinking beer, a couple eating croquettes, and only two people who knew how to speak any english (my roommate and I)! Our first immersive Spanish experience went as well as we could have asked for, with tasty patatas bravas and bocadillos de jamón. Post-lunch we got to explore our neighborhood a little bit, and found some more nice places to eat as well as a super cheap (and big) supermarket, so that was nice! After returning for a late siesta (6-9p) and dinner afterwords (9:30, early for spaniards but as we are Americans Anna understands we can’t always wait till 11pm), we headed to bed, exhausted by a full first day in Barcelona.

The next day started late, as we were tired from all our travel! A slow morning includes breakfast and the bestowing of gifts from home upon our hostess, which leads to her showing us photos of the many students she has hosted over the years. She is a pro at this sort of thing, we are in good hands. As we head over to our first orientation session for the abroad program, we stop by a Vodafone one more time to try to get a SIM card. No luck! Then I have to run so that I am not late for my orientation, but even though I am on time many others stagger in over the next 40 minutes. Spaniards don’t seem to stress too much about punctuality, however, so it is not even remarked on. A far cry from the strict start times of school back home! After the orientation I link up with a guy from my Spanish class as we both still need SIM cards, and, third times the charm, we succeeded! A lot of mangled Spanish (from me) interacts with a lot of quick, accented Spanish (from the salesperson), and I end up negotiating for about 30 other study abroad students from different programs as they somehow know even less Spanish than I do! However, everything turns out just as we would want. After a little more strolling around the local neighborhood, I head to the Tapas cooking class I signed up for. A couple of IES students get transported to a dark, sketchy hill next to a gate, and wonder what we have gotten ourselves into, only for the gate to open on a beautiful home and quaint kitchen. We put on aprons and cook Spanish omelette, pork with cheese and peppers, and stewed pears. Obviously the chef-teacher supplies us with beers while cooking and wine with dinner. It was a ton of fun to meet new people and cook with them, and then to eat a lovely dinner that we had prepared ourselves while discussing some of the more distinct differences between Spanish and American culture. Doesn’t that food look tasty?

Wednesday started off similar to Tuesday, with a slow morning and an early afternoon orientation session at the IES center just off of Plaza Catalonia. Pickpocketing is a big thing in Barcelona, and even though it is incredibly (and unexpectedly) safe in terms of any sort of violence, everyone warns you to keep both eyes (and hands) on your pockets. After that I went to a nice lunch with a friend from my Spanish class, where we had paella and cervezas (beer).

Then I toured the local famous market with more IES people, and came across tons of sellers of whole haunches of ham, as well as 1 euro fruit juices. Ham and fruit are big in Spain! After that we went out for churros and chocolate. By this point I was feeling well rested enough that I was ready to attempt a night out. For context, nights out in Spain are slightly different from nights out in America (at least in my experience). Often times, in Boston, the party is somewhat ending by around 4am. Here, you are leaving early if you are gone by 4am. Its normal to be at the club till 5/6 in the morning, and no one will bat an eye if you mention you saw the sunrise as you were heading home. So I grouped up with some people I had met through the program, and we headed to a bar right next to one of the most popular clubs. This bar knew what it was in for, and it had people by the door giving you tokens for free drinks and a discounted ticket to the club, if you were an abroad student. That meant that the first couple of beers and shots were on the house, and then when you consider that 10.5 litres of beer or sangria, for 30 euros, really is a good deal when split amongst 10 people, you can see how Spanish culture really does like its alcohol. As I had my first Spanish class the next day, I called it an early night, and was home by 4:30am. So don’t you worry readers, I give my classes the respect they are due!

Thursday featured the first real day of classes, and started somewhat similarly to the pattern we’ve begun to witness. A combination of a night out and lingering jet lag means that not much happens before class. The first Spanish class went well, and led right into a “Tapas Tour”. As you may know, Spain is renowned for its tapas, appetizer sized dishes meant to be shared amongst friends. The most classic of tapas is the Spanish omelette, or the tortilla España, that looks like this:

After some mussels, squid, Spanish omelette, meatballs, and a few other odds and ends, we left the tapas restaurant and started walking along the port of Barcelona. It was a clear and beautiful night, perfect for walking by the sea, and running into cool things like: the circus, a dogcart, a mall where we stopped by to shop. However, as I was leaving early for Tarragona the next morning (had to wake up by 7:30am, what a tragedy!), I called it before it got too late, and took the bus back to my apartment for a more appropriately timed Spanish dinner (10:45, of course).

Stay tuned for next post, where I talk about monasteries, amphitheaters, late nights & being on the upper level of a human tower. Hasta luego!

The truth is, most of us discover where we are heading when we arrive

Calvin & Hobbes

Hello and Welcome to my Adventures Abroad Blog! If you are here, that means you are a family member, someone who actually clicked the link I put on Facebook (good on you!), or you have really mistyped whatever site you meant to visit. Either way, I am glad you are here! Since I decided to journal during my time abroad, so that I could better remember and enjoy everything I do over the next couple of months, I also decided to share some of that with my friends and family, so that they can get in on a little of the fun I am having! Every week I will post about the events of the week (mostly school but if anything exciting pops up) but also where I traveled that weekend, and how that went! Stay tuned for many adventures – in fact, why don’t you go click on “Bienvenido a España” to read about my first couple of days in Barcelona!