A Spanish Sojourn

This morning, I reluctantly hopped in a 4:45 AM cab with a few roommates to Madrid's central airport only to endure a grueling morning of travel home to Rome (a 3 bus trek home from Fiumicino airport is always less than ideal).  Luckily, though I am feeling quite sleep-deprived, I am relieved to finally bask in the comfort of my own tiny twin bed after renting sheets of questionable origin from Spanish hostels for the past week.  During the weeks leading up to this one, our choice of destinations for Fall Break has seemed like such a magnanimously crucial decision.  It is almost impossible to pick a couple of spots to prioritize when I am living on a continent with a plethora of worthwhile must-sees.  After much research and back-and-forth with my suitemates, I decided on Barcelona, Madrid and Athens.  Unfortunately, when push came to shove, Athens' financial crisis and resulting strikes proved too dangerous a threat and we had to sadly give up this last leg of our itinerary.  Nonetheless, our foray to Espana was exhilarating, marked by an abundance of delicious and unique cuisine and a great balance of sight-seeing and agenda-less exploratory jaunts through the two remarkable cities. So, without further ado, a little recap of our trip!

Breathtaking Barcelona

My journey started at the crack of dawn Friday when I awoke to catch a 5 o'clock cab to Termini station, then boarded a TerraVision bus to the airport for a 9:40 plane to Barca.  If you can't tell already, I get anxious about traveling in a timely fashion, but I arrived at the airport nearly 2 hours earlier than necessary so I grabbed a John Grisham book to pass the time.  The only reason why I make mention of this little detail is that it has been such a long time since I've read for pleasure and it was really nice to have the opportunity, even on a germy metal chair by a cheap airport sundries shop.  

Fast forward to arriving at our hostel, HelloBCN.  I was very impressed from the bright color splashes of blue, red and green that adorned the walls to the high-tech wristwatch sensor keys we were handed to access our room.  After settling in (the other girls had already arrived and were scattered across the city at this point), I headed to a nearby café where I was promptly confronted with my complete inability to communicate in Spanish and the knowledge that a price of 10 euros for a traditional plate of fried unidentifiable meats and sparse avocado slices was far, far too much. Despite this little issue, the day picked up dramatically when I met Megan, Kate and Kristen at Mercat de Mercats, a fabulously wonderful annual wine and food festival that we were lucky enough to stumble upon.  We felt gloriously classy sipping on glasses of Cava, a traditional Spanish champagne, and fawning over the decadent array of sliced meats, wide variety of goat cheeses, prepared tapas platters, and piles upon piles of desserts.  From the traditional fideua (like paella, except with thin noodles, not rice) I snacked on to the sinfully sweet waffle drowned in milk chocolate from a billowing chocolate fountain, the food was an absolute hit.  We whiled away the day there and then headed back for a quick siesta before prepping for a traditional paella dinner at a restaurant by the water.  The sangria and seafood were not to be beat, although my stomach does not rest quite as easily with Spanish food as with my homey Italian cuisine.  Our night only got better when Megan found 30 euros randomly by a bus bench and then ended on a tippity top note when we proceeded to dance the night away at Opium, a glitzy beach-side club complete with a massive dance floor, an impressive international crowd and go-go dancers of all things!

Saturday, we took our time in the morning, then met Sara's cousin, who lives in Barcelona, for a tapas lunch and an informal walking tour of the city.  We strolled along Spain's equivalent of Via Del Corso, a chic, highly populated shopping street, and stopped by the fountain where Evanescence, that emo band that we all at one point listened to in middle school (don't be ashamed), shot one of their music videos.  The day's most gorgeous pitstop was La Barceloneta, Barcelona's lovely sprawling beach. The water was still warm enough for us to dip our toes in and we took the opportunity to snap the requisite cheesy jumping in mid-air photos.  By this point, we were all pretty famished so we stopped on a small side street for pinchos, small bar snacks traditionally from Northern Spain, which were absolutely out of this world.  Salmon cream cheese, croissants with sliced, cured meat and thick pieces of manchego, ham croquettes...you name it, they had it!  I was a bit deceived by the 1 euro, 80 centime price tag and went ahead to consume about five of the little delights, but hey! a hungry girl has got to eat!  Later that night, we enjoyed a tapas dinner in one of the city's wealthier districts (stuffed peppers, patatas bravas, I need to go fly back to Spain now...) and then ended our night at Sutton, a flashy nightclub popular with the locals.  We weren't back in bed until mid-morning, but you're only young and in Barcelona once, so why not go all out!

Our last full day in Barcelona was bittersweet--we certainly weren't prepared to wake up at eight the next morning and leave this young, lively city!  However, we made the best of our remaining time, meeting up with Sara's cousin for the "best hamburger in Europe" at Kiosko.  This burger did not disappoint.  It was about the size of my face, laden with caramelized onions and manchego cheese and a hefty dollop of goat cheese and accompanied by thick, juicy rustic fries.  In addition, you could try a variety of different ketchup combos and homemade chili sauce.  If you ever go to Barcelona, please don't miss Kiosko.  It is conveniently located right by a fountain that Shakira danced in last year (that's about the best I can do for you geography-wise when it comes to Spain).  After we got over the subsequent food coma, we went to see Gaudi's famous church and the most interesting houses that he designed.  This architect is particularly awesome because his work is legitimately unlike anything I've ever seen before...the pieces have a whimsical vibe that reels you in as you will see in the below photos.  I got to meet up with an Emory friend, Ali, for a quick coffee by the church which was a nice reminder of Atlanta.  Sunday night consisted of a trip to a forest-themed bar for the perfect sangria and another pinchos dinner.  After stuffing our faces, it was time to pack our things and prep for an early departure to Madrid.

Mercat de Mercats

Wares at the market

Sweet tooth? No problem.

Walking La Rambla

Another market...surprise, surprise!

By the Evanescence fountain!

The mean streets of Barca on a gorgeous day

Hola, Barceloneta!

Beach bummin'

Mmm mmm good

A classy night out

Kiosko burger

Gaudi's church

One of Gaudi's works...reminds me of Mardi gras masks!

Marvelous Madrid

After transit from Barcelona's El Prat to Madrid's Barajas airport, we zipped along the metro to Tirso de Molina, a stop just a few minutes away from Students Hostel Luis Velez, our new digs.  We quickly settled ourselves into our quaint room (complete with personal comforters and a turn-down service...we live large!) and made our way to a local plaza for a lunch of patatas bravas and ham croquettes.  While I was loving the fried goodness bite by bite, the overload of unhealthy nosh did a number on my stomach later on.  So we rested for the majority of the afternoon, then wandered over to a yummy paella joint for dinner.  The chicken and seafood were arguably inferior to Barcelona's, but the rice was creamier and richer.  I could spend all day dissecting our meals for you, but I'll spare my non-foodie friends and just say that we did pretty well on the meal front.  Our first day culminated in a 10 euro pub crawl where we visited three local bar-discos.  We enjoyed dancing to "Danza Kuduro," Europe's fave Latin jam, and also chatted up some local architecture students and a young traveler from Hong Kong.  All in all, we were not off to a bad start.

Tuesday, we decided to tackle some of our ambitious sightseeing agenda.  We purchased tickets for a "hop-on, hop-off bus" that toured the length of the city and provided audio on the informational highlights of each site.  We took our time on the bus, not rushing to get off at every turn, so that we could make a mental map of what we wanted to see later in the day.  We ended up spending a good deal of time at the Royal Palace, which provided the perfect backdrop for some classy tourist photos, and roamed the accompanying gardens, filled with symmetrically-cut greenery and regal statuettes. After another siesta (I could get used to those), we headed over to Taberna La Bola, a fire-engine red restaurant that Megan had researched.  A few of the girls got the tavern's famous stew, while Sara and I ordered ropavieja, a slightly sweet, tangy cow meat dish with fried chickpeas.  Megan knows how to pick her dinner spots!

On Wednesday, we knew not to waste our last full day in Madrid and in precious Spain so we grabbed a tasty lunch at La Finca de Susana, and then purchased tickets to the famous botanical gardens which we relished by leisurely walking around for about an hour.  From arugula to pumpkins, cabbage to blueberries, there was quite a fresh spread of edibles and an aesthetically pleasing array of colorful flowers and greenery.  After our breath of fresh air, we entered the Prado museum, which houses an awesome collection of European art from the 12th to 19th centuries, primarily Spanish paintings.  We also made our quota of church views during a quick tour of the Basilica San Francisco el Grande, a Neoclassic church that once functioned as the national Pantheon.  Still, our day of adventure was not over yet.  We enjoyed a fine red wine under the stars by the Temple of Debod, an ancient Egyptian temple that was donated to Spain in 1968 and provides the perfect overlook point of the expansive city.  The highlight of our Madrid excursion was found in the flamenco show we attended on our final night.  The singer and guitarists produced a beautiful melody to suit the dancer's impossibly fast rhythm of taps, stamps and twirls.  The experience was so pleasing and we felt we had captured a little bit of Spanish authenticity to save for always.  Later that night, we munched on stuffed trout and guzzled our last sips of wine knowing that our time was almost up.  Despite the brevity of the trip, it was an unforgettable experience and the perfect combination of tourist picks and hidden gems: I feel that we finally have the study abroad formula down in this respect.

View from our bus tour...stupid guard rail!

Love the building design here...such pretty muted colors.

The statues atop the building remind me of Roma!

Peek-a-boo view of the Prado museum

So ornate!

Palacio Real

The square by the palace...we lucked out with the weather here!

Cutest couple by the palace

A floral checkerboard at the botanical gardens

Lily pads inside the greenhouse

Love this city!

By Temple of Debod at dusk

Some intense flamenco-ing

The last few days of break await and, as I sit here under my comfy comforter in Rome, I hope that they will put me at ease with regard to navigating my own city.  Kristen, Megan and I aim to explore the international neighborhood and the Jewish ghetto tomorrow, but the promise of study abroad is that you never know what each new day will bring!

Baci,

Alexi

Trastevere and a Little Hiatus

I am sorry to part with my precious blog for a little stretch, but I am so relieved and excited to say that tomorrow morning I will be off to Barcelona!  It has been a treacherously long week of midterms, sleepless nights and to-go food eaten on the floor.  When you're eating Chinese takeout on unswept linoleum while craned over a book on the urban planning of Italy over the past 130 years, you know it's bad.  And the espresso supply in la nostra casa?  Almost nonexistent.  Needless to say, it's time for a break.  And we will be living it up in a big way with a little siesta in Espana!  After Barcelona, we'll be scooting on over to Madrid.  My third travel spot of the trip is still up in the air so we'll just see where the wind blows me.  I didn't want to leave without leaving some proper pictures though so, while this week has been primarily spent inside of a textbook, I did manage to make it over to Trastevere for a study session and capture a couple of pretty scenes along the way.  Get ready for a long fall break update in the near future!

Baci,

Alexi

Crossing the Ponte Sisto

Piazza Trilussa

Trastevere's main piazza by day

Not a shabby view!

Take a look at that street sign...?

 By the Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere

Small Triumphs

"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things." -Robert Brault

My first instincts upon getting to Roma were: Think BIG, Go BIG, Do BIG things.  I suppose that is how most people start out abroad.  You think, "Gosh, what if I don't make it to Northern France? What if I don't go to that rave that everyone and their sister is going to in that random European country where they play obscure techno music?  What will life come to?"  You want to check every country off the list, visit every tourist site that Rick Steves, Frommer's and Michelin ever recorded in their guide manuals, and you have that nagging feeling that if you aren't updating your travel journal on the daily and informing the world about your activities through social media, your trip is somehow made less significant.  Put simply, at the start, I had a superficial conception of what this experience would be like.

But, after just about six weeks here, I am starting to think that the little things are what really count on this journey.  Yes, I do still get flutters in my heart sometimes just thinking about this magnanimous eternal city.  But, I am more attuned to the fact that this isn't always some picture perfect wonderland.  For example, when we first arrived here, my suitemates and I descended upon Piazza Venezia like vultures for a photo snapping session like none another and we took about twenty snapshots in front of the Altare Della Patria, the monument to Vittorio Emanuele, thinking it was this glorious, revered landmark.  We only later realized that this statue is considered a huge eyesore by most Romans, a waste of space where the ancient remains of the Capitoline hill would be were they not destroyed to make way for the monument.  Learning the story about the "wedding cake," as the gaudy statue is often called, was one of the first signs that I was becoming an insider, not just some oblivious toursist.  This city is not a homogeneous haven for visitors either; it is a composite of affluent and disintegrating neighborhoods, of small oases of orderly planned space intermeshed with stretches of crowded, jumbled apartment buildings.  Now that I have a better handle on where I live and have peeled back the layers of touristy misconceptions, I have been able to better zone in on the details.  I enjoy finding the time to relish the small victories that each day brings.

So, without further ado, here are a few of my "small triumphs":

-Finally perfecting a carbonara recipe (well, it's at least a 7.5 on a 10 point scale so I am getting somewhere!) with the right proportions of pasta to eggs to pancetta.  Also, al dente!  Texture is so important and I never knew it before.  A bit of crunch transforms any pasta from blah to oh la la!

-Mustering up the courage (after six weeks, I admit) to use our spark igniter and light the gas stove. The tiniest feat, yet I was giving myself a big pat on the back for this one.  Sometimes you've just got to be brave and think of the final result (a yummy, homecooked meal) to help you conquer your fear (yes, lighting a flame is a large obstacle for me).

-Getting props from Susanna's friend Davide for my imitation of an overly zealous Roman party girl for my Italian oral exam.  I don't really know that I should be so excited about effectively acting like a crazy "sbronza" chick, but I have to say that I was so amused by the skit that the accent came pretty easily for this one.

-Finding a cluster of adorable cafés for aperitivi.  After my Italian final this past week, I did some café-hopping in the area with a few friends to de-stress.  We found Café Art, a striking and colorful coffee joint with a combination hipster/artsy vibe and great mocha mints, then slid over to a more old-fashioned café for an aperitivo including a drink, pizza circles and mini spanakopitas for under 5 euros.  Nice to have a few go-to spots to read or relax in after class!

-Learning how to make espresso (finally) from Susanna in Italian!  My ISC has decided that I am competent enough at the language to start speaking with her at home more regularly.  Lesson 1: how to make Italian caffé (aka straight espresso).  The tutorial was really fun, simple and incredibly useful because I often complain about my need for a caffeine IV throughout the day.

-Last, but not least, my eternal dork comes out.  Sara and I have finally found the Italian equivalent of Emory's Matheson reading room, the "Sala delle Capriate" in the library of Italy's House of Deputies. I know that this sounds completely nerdy, but total silence while studying when you're living in a small apartment with 7 girls (who I love!) can be utter bliss.

Yummy carbonara!

Aperitivo down the street from IES

Sala Capriate...c/o the Camera dei Deputati website

That's about all I have for now with midterms coming up.  We've luckily been able to steal away for a few dinners and nights out, despite the major study sessions.  I will try to post another update soon (hopefully before fall break travels ensue) and would love to hear from you as well.

Ci vediamo dopo,
Alexi

Ciao, Mondo Reale!

There is so much to soak in just going about one's day here that it is easy to forget that schoolwork is a primary component of the experience.  My three consecutive weekends of travel are long over and, with midterms right around the corner, my academic priorities have been brought to my attention...Hello, real world. With Italian and four area studies courses, my plate is full and I am definitely that anal student that typically needs to read every page of the book and freaks when the bus decides to show up 10 minutes late.  I have been fighting with the paradox of study abroad in Italy: Rome is saying "Chill out ragazza: savor the experience!" and my inner nerd is screaming, "Hit the books or pay the price!"  Recently, I've been opting for "experiential learning," but here is some concrete evidence that school is, in fact, in session:

Italian 102

I definitely lucked out with this one.  One recent class consisted of biking through the Villa Borghese, snapping photos of the food carts, gardens, and statues, and looking up some simple facts for a worksheet.  A few weeks back, we headed to the IES kitchen one day to whip up spaghetti in creamy pesto sauce and stracciatella gelato with champagne to boot.  Definitely the best language course I have taken yet!  Our teacher, Francesco, always has us on our feet whether we're creating raps using the passato prossimo, attempting to write coherent murder mysteries (we weren't too successful with that one...looks like nobody played Clue much as a child), or watching amusedly as he plays charades to improve our vocabulary, slithering around like a "ramarro" (lizard).  I haven't had very much exposure to Italian in the past so I'm glad this isn't one of those pressure-cooker language courses where you have to conjugate a million and one verbs a day.

Culture and Urban Change in Contemporary Italy

We are a function of the environment we live in.  So says my Sociology professor for this course on the evolution of modern Italian society, examined through the lenses of culture and the diverse living spaces throughout Rome.  I would never be able to take a course quite like this at home where we get to examine aspects of the amazing built environment in Roma and use a simple street or piazza as a jumping off point to analyze the minutiae of this complex people.  Our goal in this course is to start to break away from superficial assessments and observe keenly what people are doing and wearing, why a statue is here and not there, what height the buildings are, why that shop sells this, but not that.  In time, we will have lots of sociological/anthropological theory and background information to integrate with our observations.  I am excited to get a better grasp on the spectrum on individuals living in this tremendous and overwhelming city and the intricacies of the land itself.

Italy and the Mediterranean World

If I had ever seen an International Relations course in Emory's course catalogue in semesters past, I would have never even thought to consider it.  I can write a thorough research paper, but analyzing world conflict is not my typical academic foray of choice.  However, I thought I would shake things up a bit and brush up on my facts with this IR/Political Science course.  Right now, Sara and I are crossing our fingers and hoping we make it out alive.  As the midterm is stealthily approaching, it's not seeming too likely.  Luckily, our adorable professor Mattia is quite easygoing and often loses his train of thought because he thinks of a great restaurant that matches the region we are discussing and has to pause to provide us with the address and suggest a favorite dish.  Becoming well versed on Libyan history is probably a positive in the long run, but I am a little nervous about having to absorb so much historical and political information in so little time.

Rome as a Living Museum

Pier Paolo, the professor of this art history course, is the most adorable little Italian man ever.  He constantly switches from accented English to full-fledged Italian without warning which makes it hard to catch certain pieces of information.  Still, the course is a nice departure from my typical choices.  I loved being able to name the monuments pointed out by my parent's tour guide during their visit after viewing the Roman Forum earlier the same day for this class.  While the two hour field studies can drag on at points, especially when we have to name the type of tile (everything looks cosmatesque to me...what's the big difference!), I know I will be grateful for the mental map of Rome and the knowledge of its' artistic and archaeological history by the time I am through.

Ancient Rome: History and Myth

Initially, I wasn't so thrilled about taking a history course.  Memorizing 1,304,390 dates about the conquest of a random territory I would never see, learning the intricate details of the differences in military dress between Greeks and Romans...eh, I could do without it.  But, I had yet to find out that our teacher would be the sweetest, most laid-back Italian woman ever.  Valentina is the quintessential classy Roman donna.  When she has 12 kids calling her at once, frantically trying to find our field study location, running nearly an hour late, she calmly directs each student and then manages to lecture enthrallingly for a solid couple of hours.  This past Friday, we had a day trip to the Etruscan tombs at Tarquinia and Cerveteri.  Normally, I wouldn't be too thrilled about giving up a solid third of my weekend, but the trip was actually a relaxing and educational mini-adventure.  The tombs at Cerveteri were definitely the most interesting because the surrounding area was completely forested and rife with hills to climb and paths to skirt.  We were given free time at the end to explore whatever tombs we wanted.  A little weird to spend almost a whole day talking about people who have been dead for quite some time, but in good company and, hey, I'll have quite a bit to tell you about Roman and Mediterranean history upon my return to the states.

Off to study for some Italian midterms, but in the meantime, I'll leave you with a few snaps from field studies and recent events:

Fora Romano (Art History field study)

Gorgeous glimpse across the Tiber of Vatican City on
a Sociology field study

Frescoes in a Tarquinian tomb

Ciao, Cerveteri!

Valentina mid-lecture

Trajan's Column, the focus of my Art History
presentation this Wednesday...wish me luck!

Nighttime snapshots by Il Colosseo

The ladies all glammed up for Susi's 25th this past Wednesday!

I'll try not to live in a hole during midterms, but it is definitely getting to be that time of year so Skype me and make sure I'm not trapped in my room eating well beyond my Nutella quota.

A presto,

Alexi

Oh, Oktoberfest

Exhilarating and insane.  Two words that appropriately describe this weekend's Oktoberfest experience.  The Bavarian beer festival is the world's largest fair, hosting more than five million attendees each year, held at the Theresienwiese campground in Munich, Germany.  The massive 16 - 18 day celebration has been hosted since 1810 in honor of King Ludwig's marriage to Crown Princess Therese.  I sort of expected a gigantic German frat party and was thus surprised by the whirlwind of events and consequential reflections embedded in the weekend.

First of all, it is jolting to think that the site of such a popular social event was also the site of the horrible persecution and genocide of millions of Jews during the Holocaust.  I confronted this fact head-on during a three-hour bike tour of Munich.  While the city's streets were sparkling clean, its slate is not.  Many of its buildings were formerly locales where Hitler lectured, spewing the treacherous propaganda that would ultimately lead to the decimation of so many innocent people. While it was rewarding to make note of the White Rose memorial dedicated to a group of German philosophy students and their professor who resisted and protested the Nazi movement, the residual signs of Germany's oppressive dictator had the potential to overshadow the country's gems. Throughout the tour, it became abundantly clear that Germans are incredibly ashamed of Hitler's indelible stain on their country, but guilt and shame cannot erase the immense cruelty that was inflicted or the pain that was suffered and is still felt by the families of those persecuted.  My experience touring Munich reminded me that, though my religion is not always at the forefront of my mind, I am constantly bound to my cultural heritage.  I appreciated the opportunity for reflection and regret that I was not able to make it out to the Dachau concentration camp.  Still, I decided to provide myself the opportunity to explore the many sweet things that Munich does have to offer.

Moving past its past, Munich in the present day is undeniably a gorgeous and thriving city.  Tourists clearly come from far and wide to taste the magical brews from Hofbräuhaus, which my friends and I had the pleasure of sipping on during Wiesn (the German word for Oktoberfest) all day Saturday. The city is strewn with luscious green space and an abundance of orderly bicycle lanes.  It offers intriguing architectural focal points including the Glockenspiel in Marienplatz, Munich's central square, and the 500-year-old Frauenkirche dome rumored to contain the devil's footprint in its floor. Tom, our tour guide, did not fail to amuse us, incorporating visits to Munich's nudist garden and the famed river surfers, who tackle rapid currents all day, every day to tourists' chagrin.  We even made it to the world's 2nd largest beer garden for a delicious lunch of sausages, dumplings and fried potatoes, German delights I could never eat daily, but very much enjoyed for the day.  So, despite its unerasable history, I decided that there is much to appreciate in Germany and I would never be one to condemn a whole country for the actions of specific individuals in its past.

Now onto the big event of the weekend: OKTOBERFEST.  I shocked myself a bit by opting to spend 12 hours on a double decker bus to cram into a double at the Holiday Inn with five other girls in order to spend two days at a beer festival.  I'm not normally one to get that fratty (note: if you are a member of my family and/or not a college student, enter that term in Urban Dictionary), however, this is one of those absolute must-dos on the abroad checklist according to almost every traveling aficionado.  And I have to say, you can't really do this thing justice...you'll just have to head out to Germany and experience it for yourself.  The golden beer is loaded into steins bearing its brewery's logo, then dished out by the dozen by beermaids in colorful cotton and taffeta dirndls, traditional Bavarian dresses sported by every authentic Wiesn-goer.  I hoped to snag one on the cheap, but it is impossible to find a quality outfit for under 50 euro and, after Florence, I couldn't spare that kind of cash.  Nonetheless, from prost-ing (cheers-ing) steins with tons of new friends to munching on huge cheesy pretzels, singing at the top of our lungs to riding the soaring swings at the insanely expansive outdoor carnival, the trip was unbeatable.  I am glad I made it out for the insanity, despite being a little disoriented in a new city...this was one weekend I am sure I will never forget.  And who knows...maybe when Mikey gets a little bit older, I will come back for round two: family style!

Traditional Bavarian cookies worn as necklaces for Oktoberfest

Insanity inside the HB tent

The tall swings...not a good idea post beer tents, though!...

So precious!

The glockenspiel in Marienplatz

Theatine Church

Downtown on the bike tour

Prost (Cheers) with our steins!

Until we meet again, Hofbräuhaus!