Sevilla

A few weekends ago I visited Sevilla, my most favorite city thus far in Spain. Located about 6 hours south of here my friends and I took the high velocity train, stopped for the afternoon in the city of Cordoba, and then continued to Sevilla. (more on cordoba in the next blog post).

Sevilla, or Seville, in English in a warmer climate than madrid and the streets are lined with palm and orange trees ... talk about heaven for me! although it downpoured the entire time we were there we still went on some walking tours and saw the sights. I even conquered my fear of heights and climbed up to the top bell tower of the largest cathedral in Europe to check out the view. The church was really fascinating on the inside as well -- Christopher Columbus is buried there.

After the church we went to Alcazar, a palace in Sevilla with history dating back to the Moors who lived in Spain before the Spanish inquisition when the catholics drove them out. To me, the palace was kind of boring but the immense gardens that stretched for miles were unbelievable. They even had a winding labyrinth of 6 foot bushes ... it was pretty fun to get lost in those.

After that we stopped at a bar where at 3pm they serve up free Paella ... a traditional spanish dish to all of the guests. The paella takes 4 hours to cook in a large pan ... which they cooked outside as to lure in guests -- worked for us!

while the people in Sevilla were very nice their accent was SOOOO hard to understand. They do not pronounce the S's that appear on ends of words .. much like Bostonian's drop R's at the ends of their words. but when I barely understand spanish as is, when you switch up the language and skip letters in words ... you totally lose me!

i've decided to upload my photos to a new website so you can see whole albums and not just a few select photos. to see photos from sevilla (bare with the 40 random photos I took of Oranges) copy and paste this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/48700314@N08/sets/

i'm still trying to work out the kinks so please email me de.leblanc17@gmail.com if it doesn't load properly.

in this album .. of over 170 photos you'll find about 40 of oranges. 3 of a random couple i stalked because I thought they were adorable, about 20 of the view from the tall tower, and other random things I find adorable.

hope you enjoy!

check back this week!

hello all!

i finally figured out how to get my old pictures onto my new computer. once i'm done editing them ... that's right, none of my edits saved ... ive taken 900 photos since i got here ....

so, once i re-edit my 900 photos i will start posting my blogs again. i hope to have one up by tomorrow night and one every night after that until i'm thru.

thanks for being patient!

love,

Deanna

computer no more

well, it´s official '--- my comptuer has just used up its 9th life. no more turning on, no more functioning, at least ... no more annoying problems? anyways, luckily my awesome family and friends in the USA are ordering and sending me a Mac in just a few days. It´s really hard to be without a computer when it´s you´re only form of communication with home -- and what´s worse is the computer lab at my university is down, too. right now i´m in the comp lab at my residencia but there´s a 30 minute time limit.... ughhh!

so, check back in about 2 weeks and I´ll have updated everything:
1. celia´s birthday party
2. toledo
3. cordoba
4. sevilla
5. matt´s visit
6. amy´s visit

did i mention my boyfriend and my best friend are visiting in the same week???? couldn´t be more excited!!

well, enjoy owning personal computers while I go back to the time of 10 years ago when computers were for sharing.

chao chao!

chinese observations

As I've mentioned before, I take classes with a countless number of Asians --- mostly Chinese but also a few Japanese. (Chinos y Japoneses -- in Spanish) I've observed many things about them and apparently they've observed many things about me. Sunday night I attended a birthday party for one of my classmates, who's Spanish name is Celia -- her Chinese name is symbols and I don't have any idea how to pronounce it! During the party we shared observations we learned about each other and here they are:

1. Celia knows some English. She thinks its okay to call everyone "baby" and to slap them on the butt. Every morning she slaps me on the butt and says "HOLA BABY!" and every day at the end of class she says "See you later baby" (in english) followed by another slap. I had to explain to her why this wasn't okay -- she said she had seen it in movies.

2. Celia loves to watch Friends -- subtitled in Japonese and does not find any of the men attractive. In China, muscles are not attractive. Also in China, you do not want a handsome boyfriend. If he is handsome, he will cheat on you. Celia thinks her boyfriend is very ugly but very nice. She also told me he is very fat and has "chest like woman" -- aka man boobs however i met him at her party and he was very nice and very thin! When i asked her about this she said "no he has a gut, ill lift up his shirt and show you!" i had to tell her that would be rude.

3. the Chinese never ask questions in class if they are confused.

4. the Chinese giggle quietly to themselves because they do not like to make scenes. Celia is the exception. I don't know if she was raised in a liberal household or what but this girl has Gumption! she cracks me up she isn't afraid to ask questions, to call people out if they say something stupid and she even jokes around. Just the other day she told my friend Kristin "Kristin you have a pretty face but you walk like a man!"

5. my other chinese friends told me "Deanna your hair is very rare!" I assumed they meant because it's blonde. but when I asked why they said -- because some days its pretty and straight but other days its ugly and curly and pulled back! I explained to them that my hair isn't naturally straight and I'm far too lazy to wake up early every morning to straighten it. They did not understand why. oh well.

6. Asians do not drink -- with some exceptions of course. But the girls at the party did not know how to use a wine opener and when they bought wine because Americans were visiting the party -- they pushed the cork into the bottle with a knife.

7. I am very tall.

8. I ask too many questions in class.

9. I am thin, but I am only thin because I am tall. they say if i were short I'd be fat - I don't know what they mean, but they are very obsessive about their weight.

10. the chinese have been taking classes for 2 trimesters and yet speak far better Spanish than I do -- when I tell them I've been taking it for 6 years they nearly fall over and cannot figure out how I am not fluent -- it was hard to explain that I only studied it 3 hours per week at Maryland since here we take classes 6 hours a day.

11. Celia and I made powerpoint presentations to share with eachother about what is considered attractive in our respective countries. The men she showed me looked like women in my mind, but to them that is attractive -- if men have muscles it means they are manual laborers and are not rich -- not okay in China!

12. In China, you wear red to your wedding. The groom's parents pay for everything and the Bride's parents give the groom a gift -- usually, depending on their income, furniture, a car, or a house.

anyways, these girls crack me up! this past weekend they even invited me to a party! (details to come!)

Su Ordenador es de mierda!

translation: "your computer is sh**!"

who said this? not me! but the very kind Dell Technician who came to fix one of my many computer problems. If I havent called, emailed or facebooked you in a while, I apologize. my computer has been playing lots of tricks on me including not letting me add photos, not recognizing when my camera is plugged in, not playing sound out of my speakers, not allowing me to use the mouse, not recognizing if I plug in an external mouse, muting my microphone without a command to do so, not allowing my itunes to function, and the list goes on and on.

The dell technician came and installed a new mother board -- however that only fixed the worst problem -- my computer blue screening and shutting down once about every three hours. he cannot fix the software problems but mutltiple phone calls and countless hours on the phone with microsoft have fixed a few.

so, apologies that I haven't blogged in a while. however today my computer is in a good mood and thus far has allowed me to add pictures so look out for some new blog posts!

however i would like to go ahead and give myself a pat on the back for communicating with the Dell technician. Don't forget that I'm in Spain and therefore the computer nerds here speak only Spanish. he knew some french, and only simple american phrases. I know enough Spanish to get by, but I know nothing about how to translate computer vocabulary. Luckily he was able to understand me enough to tell me that my fan belt was full of lint! apparently you are supposed to spray compressed air into your vents (WHEN THE COMPUTER IS OFF!) every 1-2 months. if not, your computer fan will not function properly and your computer will overheat and shut down frequently -- in the 3 years I've had this computer I've never once cleaned the fan! well, at least I targeted one of the problems!

love,

Deanna

Carneval in Cadiz

This past weekend we took a group trip to Cadiz, about 8 hours south of where we live. About 100 college students, both spanish and american, loaded onto two coach buses for a weekend of "Carneval" or, as our tour guide said in broken English "To Make Party". Carneval is essentially Mardis Gras -- it's a 2 week celebration leading up to Lent but the largest fiestas are on the weekends. Cadiz is the most famous place to celebrate Carneval in all of Europe!

our itinerary was as follows:

Friday:

12 pm leave Alcala for Madrid

2 pm board busses in Madrid for Cadiz

-- realized i sat next to a bunch of kids from Amherst College who think my dad is really cool and they don't even know him. They think I'm cooler because I know part of the Amherst fight song. I, however, did not think they were that cool.

10pm arrive in Cadiz, check into hotel

11pm board busses for Downtown Cadiz. Friday isn't the big fiesta night but our tour guide arranged with a bar to let us all in for 12 euro and 2 drink passes -- it was essentially like being at an american bar becuase it was with my american bus.

4:00am leave for the busses.

4:30 am arrive at hotel.

**side note, i'm not a party animal -- it's very normal in Spain to stay out as late as 6am**

Saturday:

10 am: wake up for the free breakfast at the hotel

10:30 am: went back to bed

2:00 pm: my friends and I woke up for the day, spent some time back in Cadiz shopping and looking around, worked on some homework.

9:30 pm: boarded the bus for Cadiz

9:30-4:45 am -- crazy crazy Carneval in Cadiz. It is what is called "botellon" -- party in the streets. 10s of thousands of people partying, completely in costume. it wasn't just young kids either. the ages ranged from about 18-65. the bars closed their doors and opened their windows. they served drinks into the streets and food vendors were everywhere selling ham, hot dogs, sausage, nuts, candied apples, etc.

Sunday

we boarded the bus around 1pm and arrived back in Madrid at 9:30 then hopped on the train back to Alcala -- where we witnessed pickpocketing for the first time!! it was a group of four people, one tried to touch my purse but I kicked her in the stomach! i'm always alert ha-ha. Unfortunately for the American tourist next to me, they took $300 out of his pocket.

Before:

After

we asked him for directions, he seemed to know where he was going!

table of wigs and masks for sale by gypsies!

one of my fav. costumes of the night -- matadors with their "bull". (their carrage was full of Mahao -- spanish beer)

some classmates

it's difficult to see but this is a huge plaza crowded with people.

notice -- doors of bar closed, but alcohol for sale outside.

every street was as crowded as this one!

a marching band of clowns -- to some people, a very scary nightmare.

-- a very old tradition of carneval, choruses performing satirical songs about the national government and poking fun at recent news. However, the accent in Cadiz is very different from Madrid and I really couldn't understand them!

again it's a little hard to see, but this street goes uphill. The carenval starts at the bottom of one hill, goes up the top and down the bottom again (on the opposite side) and ends at the beach. this street is PACKED with people playing music, singing, etc.

anyone want a midnight snack?

El Escorial

A few weekends ago my friends and I visited the palace called San Lorenzo del Escorial. It was the palace of King Philip II (El Rey Felipe II). This palace was COMLETLEY different from El Palacio Real. Nothing about this palace was ornate, except the monestary where the kings are buried, the library, and the church. This is because Felipe II was a control freak, who had terrible difficulty delegating tasks and dedicated 20 hours of his day to working. He had no time nor desire for ornate luxuries, but as always, the royal family and God came first -- thus those rooms were ornately decorated. Per ususal we were not allowed to take pictures inside the palace, so the ones you will see are from outside. However, my friends snapped a few photos inside while I stood as teh lookout so I'm copy and pasting some photos they took as well.

One cool thing about this castle is it's about 2 hours away from Madrid in a tiny little sleepy town. Felipe preferred this because he had fewer distractions and could focus on his work. However, imagine if you were a messenger from the city and had to travel to El Escorial -- it would take a full day! The town really looks like it's stuck in a time warp. It's very small, mountainous and cold!! you can check out more about the town here: http://www.sanlorenzoturismo.org/ingles/default2.htm

The palace is at the base of a mountain but at the top of a hill ... if that makes sense. it was about a 2km walk up hill from the train station to get to the palace and we had to walk up the path of the prince -- it looked like something right out of a shrek movie!

walking up the path ... wishing we had super powers to get us there more quickly.

buried in the monestary is Don Juan, Felipe's brother. THE DON JUAN. the don juan all other don juan references regarding womanizing and chivalry have related back to. he's just been chillin' inside that box in the basement of the unused palace -- for the past 400 years. oh did i mention the palace was ABSOLUTELY FREEZING. i forgot insulation did not exist in the 1500s.

part of the monastery -- this is as ornate as the decorations get. Like the marble floors? built by hand circa 500 years ago.

the bottom of the path. playing with the close - up feature on my camera. The tree bark was very unusual! also the trees leaned to the left. as you will see in the next few pictures.

looking back from the top of the path.

quite a view!

i took these pics from a 2nd story window -- look how far you can see ... even on a cloudy day!

and finally ...

these were taken from the patio in front of the palace ... as you can see everything starts climbing up the mountain behind the palace.

one thing Felipe did quite like was Art. Velazquez was his private painter and among the palace are works of art from many many famous spanish artists. Some works of Goya, Velazquez and others are not originals though, those hang in the Prado which I also visited last weekend, but I'll save that for another post.