24 . Jul . 09

Well, today and yesterday were interesting days. Yesterday was the end of our trip as a whole, too many good-byes, and a long bus ride to Madrid. Today has been sad as the good-byes continued, this time on my part as I continued off on my own adventure and what an adventure it has been so far. I’ll tell you all about it soon.

The bus left Santander at 10:15 on our way to the Madrid Airport. The bus was interesting in a way that I don’t think it should have been. We started talking about what types of food we would gorge ourselves on once we got back to the states. Of course, I tried not to think about it for too long since I’ll be on bread and water for the next few weeks. Haha. Anyway, we talked through most of the night about everything that we could think of, pretty much. We laughed, recapping the experience and people’s misdeeds. We all eventually fell asleep in order to conserve energy. We arrived at the Madrid Airport at an ungodly 4:30 AM. Raquel kept telling us that it was so everyone would have enough time to get to their plane…We thought it was to keep us from going out that night. Who really knows? Anywho, once in the airport, we found a little café to sit at and relax, all of us trying to stay conscious. Slowly, people started peeling off. We lost a girl named Kirsten, who was going back to Germany. Next was our director, Raquel who went back to Santander to work. After all, it was Friday and people still have to work. I was next to take my leave. The goodbyes were kind of hard, since we had all gotten to know each other pretty well.

The loneliness kicked in almost immediately. As I was walking towards the Marta station at 5:45 in the morning, I couldn’t help but think about the comments that other people from the group would have made had they been there with me. That kind of made me sad, But then, I just accepted the fact that it was time to man up and conquer this trip and my trip officially began.

I had asked Raquel to tell me what I was going to need to do in the airport in order to get to the Train station that I needed to leave from. After all, my experience with trains is VERY limited, almost exclusively to the Atlanta airport train. This meaning that my Spanish train experience is even less than that. :/ The day seemed to be going my way, because I arrived at the metro station just as it was opening and got on the first metro that would take me to the metro that I needed to get on to get to the train station. Complicated stuff, train systems. As it turns out, I deviated from the instructions that Raquel had given me almost immediately. Oh well, it’s my trip and I got to where I needed to be, cheaply. When I arrived at the Station (Atocha) I went ahead and bought my ticket to go to Zaragoza, my next stop. It all seemed easy enough, although I did have a little trouble getting out of the train station. Haha. Within the station and between stations, I’m fine. But when it comes to getting out of them, I have problems…interesting, huh? I had a few hours until my train so I milled around Madrid for a while. I wanted to run some errands, go to the Internet Café, get some food to take with me, and possibly shop for some souvenirs. To my surprise, nothing in the city of Madrid opens until 10. I thought was really funny, since they all close at 1:30. So, since all of the stores and things were closed, I just went to the park and read and made sure that all of my things were in order and whatnot. I went back to the station a couple of times over the next three hours because I really didn’t have anything to do. I had really already seen just about all of Madrid. I did eventually make it to the Internet café to check my emails and answer some questions. When time came for the train

I was really ready to get somewhere and sleep. I just want to say this now and let it be very clear. I LOVE TRAINS! I think that they are probably the best things ever. They are much faster than cars, but none of that tricky being off of the ground thing. Love them. With that, I also have to say, I hate Train Stations. I arrived safe and sound in Zaragoza. (I almost missed it because I was sleeping). I got off and checked out the station, stopped at the tourism booth to see what there was to do there, and thought that I should buy my ticket to France before I left so that I wouldn’t have to worry. This brings us to our first conflict of the trip.

Ladies and Gents, I am a planner. This is the first trip that I haven’t planned every step. All I know is when I’m supposed to go to which city and where I’m staying once I’m there. In case you’re not familiar with trains in europe, as I wasn’t, your can only buy your tickets at an actual train station. Well, I decided to buy my ticket out of Zaragoza to France as soon as I got to the station because one of my friends said that you should always know how to get out of a place (GREAT ADVICE). Well, it turns out that the train that I was planning to take out of Zaragoza into Paris wasn’t running. As in, they had completely cancelled that Line. Imagine me standing at the counter, hearing that in a foreign language and feeling an overwhelming sense of “strandedness”. Yeah, that’s kind of what was going on. So, I started going to the RENFE office(train system) to see what other options there were. I was told at that point that I could go to Barcelona and take a train from there to Paris. I figured, okay, a little out of my way, but whatever. Mind you, I’m only supposed to be in Zaragoza for two days. I get to the counter and just my luck, all of the trains from Barcelona to Paris are booked except for one overnight train that costs 70 euro. I had only planned to spend about 3 to 8 euro per train. It’s a budget. Well, I said no thanks and went back to try again. *side note – in order to be served at these station windows, you have to take a number, My beginning number was 324. So I sat down and whipped out my Map, my strain schedule and my calendar and went to work trying to find a solution. I came up with possibly going back to Madrid and taking a train from there to Paris. I figured that at least I’d make it to Paris and see a different station in Madrid. So, I took another number. By the time, I made it up to the desk, I had been sitting in front of the windows for about an hour or so. I proposed my new plan to one of the same guys that I had dealt with before. He politely informed me, once again, that Madrid to Paris was completely booked until 2 days after I needed to be there. I got smart at this point, instead of leaving, I just asked him what HE had that could get me into France. After some vigorous typing, he came up with a makeshift plan. I was to take a train out of Zaragoza to the Spain-France border, hop a train across the border to Hendaye(the city I was trying to go to initially) and then from Hendaye to Paris. I told him, fine, perfect, I’ll take it. Haha. After 3.5 additional hours in the station and going from number 324 to 494 I managed to find a way out of the city towards the direction I wanted to go.

After all of this, it was time to go to the Hostal. This was much easier, I found it with relative ease and checked in. There was some sort of Africaan wedding going on downstairs in the basement so it was kind of loud for a while but, I didn’t care…I had a bed and wireless. I sat down on the bed, relieved that I had most of my problems resolved. I say most because other problems pop up. For example, my computer. At the school, where I studied, the tech guy took my laptop to get me registered for wireless only he didn’t just give me a password, he changed a bunch of settings that wouldn’t actually allow me to get on any other network except for his. I didn’t find this out until I tried to get on the Wifi at the Hostal. Mom came up with a great idea for a solution to this. (Oh yeah, I was on the phone with her for the majority of this, updating her on the goings on). She told me to call tech support at Mercer. I NEVER would have thought to do that. I normally would have googled the answer, lol, but I was without internet, so that was a bad plan. After everything was settled, I released a HUGE sigh of relief and relaxed. I decided that I’d go exploring for a bit while the shops and things were still open. I found a couple of beautiful structures in a plaza right down the road and a giant fresh food market. I milled around the city for a few more hours before heading back to the hostal. I had an early morning the next day and didn’t want to oversleep or anything.

By the way, classes are over and I did well.

Thanks for reading. More to come from Paris. (I’m on the train now)

Akil ‘Diego’ Thomas

Rockin' Santander.

Hello All,

It has been a little while since I’ve posted anything and updated you all on my status here in Spain. Everything is going really well. I am very much enjoying my time here. When I last left you all, I was in Madrid on my way to this beach city of Santander. As soon as we arrived, we were thrown into the culture by meeting and leaving with our host moms who spoke no English. It hasn’t been a big problem for me. In fact, I prefer it that way almost. We do live very close to the place where we are attending classes which makes it very convenient. It is about .8 miles to the school and another .4 miles to the beach.

We are at the beginning of our last week here, only 4 days left until I begin my solo trip. I will try to recap these past two weeks as best I can. I effectively live in a house the size of a shoe. This is not an exaggeration. My college apartment next year is bigger than the entire area of this house. It makes my freshman dorm look like a palace. I’m not complaining, just comparing. Our host mom’s name is Julia Lama, a 56 year old Cuban who left at the height of Castro’s ascent to power. Wit that being said, she obviously has some interesting stories. Her cooking is fantastic. Not fantastic in the sense that I love everything that she cooks but in the sense that she has a lot of things that I do like. I’m not sure if I would eat it for the rest of my life . I could, mind you. It will sustain you, just not always appease the taste buds. Certain foods are more bland hear than in the States. Also on the contrary there are foods that the US has never even dreamt of coming close to. Almost anything with their chesse is fantastic because it is so rich and tasty. In Europe, a lot of Ham is used. It seems to be a VERY popular meat and rarely will you find a cut of turkey. Since I don’t eat ham, this has posed a little problem, but not much.

On the topic of school, which is after all, the reason that I am here. The classes are fairly the same as they would be in Macon, GA. We meet for 4 hours a day on Monday through Thursday and have Fridays for little excursions planned by the program. The classes are similar because, well, they are being taught by professors from Mercer. Two of the Mercer professors, Dr. Fernando Palacios and Dra. Lydia Masanet, came to Spain with us to head program and teach the classes. The first class that we take is “Real Language and Application”. This is EXACTLY what it sounds like. We sit in class and talk in Spanish. There are no tests, barely any grades, and even fewer requirements. We are asked to go out and talk to others as the homework. We also learn “colloquial” terms used by the population. In case you aren’t familiar with the term “colloquial”, it pretty much means all of the swear words and slang that a group uses to communicate effectively. As it turns out, the knowledge of these types of words is essential to communication with my generation just as it is in the States. I can now cuss with amazing efficiency in Spanish. Haha, I am just kidding ;) Along with this class we take a Spanish Culture and Civilization class which is a bit more formal. Not much, mind you, but just a bit. Here we have learned about all of the inhabitants of Spain and how they influenced the culture that we are seeing today. We see how the Catholic Kings reigned and what reforms they put in place that still remain in some form or another. You all should know by now how much I dislike history, so this class is obviously not my favourite. (I am doing well in both classes)

Throughout the trip we have had several little outings to different places around Spain, I already told you about Toledo and El Escorial and the Museums and what not so let me tell you about what we did while in Santander. It was, what appears to be two Fridays ago now that our tour guide, Raquel (I still have to tell you all about her), most of the group, and Dra. Masanet all took a bus about 2 hours or so outside of the city to a Range/park called Picos de Europa. What this is actually a giant mountain range that people can climb up and down and have a nice hike around these mountains. We didn’t get to climb the mountain, much to my chagrin. However, we did get the opportunity to hike down the mountain. To those of you who, just now, have said “well, that’s stupid” or “that’s easy”, I assure you, it was neither easy nor was it boring. When we arrived at the base of the mountains the morning of our excursion, it was about 15 or 16 degrees Celsius. Ladies, and Gentlemen, this is cold. Fortunately for us, we did not have to endure that for very long. We got into a cable sky-lift and proceeded up through the thick clouds that covered the entire summit of the mountain to an unloading station about 3/4ths of the way up the mountain. When we arrived, out of the clouds, I assure you it was one of the most intense moments of my life, visually. The entire group immediately reached in their bags and, wielding their cameras, proceeded to take as many pictures as their memory cards would allow. Our guide pointed the way and we began to climb about 200 meters to begin our descent. For four hours, we walked down these mountain ranges stopping for lunch about 1/3 of the way through.. It was an eye opening experience because, not only did I get to see the

beautiful scenery, and get fresh air, I got to know my classmates and my professor better. This was both good and bad because I found out that a few of my classmates are extremely annoying., as we all have the potential to be. Their potential, however, runs rampant through their system and erupts through their mouths, seemingly before consulting their brains. With all of this, Picos de Europa was my FAVOURITE trip, second only to Toledo. The other trip was much less appealing. I’m still not positive where we went. It was something like, Santillana del Mar, Altamira, and one other place. There was nothing too terribly special about these places. There were some okay markets in the Santillana del Mar, so while I wasn’t paying very much attention to anything, I shopped. :/

Okay, A little bit about Raquel, our jefa(boss). Raquel, is your typical Southern Spanish woman: tall, long dark hair, dark eyes, breathtakingly beautiful, funny, passionate, and sincere.

She has been with us since the moment we stepped out of the Madrid airport. She has planned our trips, has shown us around, has helped us when we needed it, and joked and laughed with us. She does speak English but prefers to speak in Spanish, naturally. It is hard to sum up Raquel in such few words and I’m sure that I’m not doing her justice but I am at a loss.

The nightlife is one of the most different things here. Santander is not a large city but come Wednesday through Sunday nights, there is an abundance of people that fill the Plaza Cañadio. This is the main plaza that conveniently sits in the middle of all of the bars and discotecas in Santander. Unlike the States, where you can go out at 11 and be back home by 2 or 3, at the latest, the bars and clubs here don’t even get good until 1. There are a number of discotecas that will not even open before 1 and don’t have people in it until 1:45. It is easy to lose track of time and stay out until 6 in the morning. This is easy because none of the clubs or bars have cover charges and so it is easy to hop from bar to bar with your friends and enjoy the music, drinks, and company of all of the establishments. In addition to this, people are very friendly at 4:30 in the morning. Outside of the bars you meet several people and wind up just standing and talking to people for hours. 4AM on the weekend is the best time to get to know someone in Spain, that is a fact. This Thursday is the last day of our stay here in Santander and I am a little sad. I have met some very interesting people hear that I will hopefully never forget.

Things that I miss: Mom, talking to Kris everyday, the gym, cooking, my king size bed, my car (although walking is good), continuous internet, movies, free water.

Things that I don't miss: paying for Gas, having nothing to do all day, torrential downpour,

Toledo

We've just landed in Toledo where our internet works. That's the reason for all of the successive posts. I have been saving them up for a little while in order to upload them all at once. Don't worry though, once we are back at school with constant internet, I will be able to keep more constant uploads with the correct timestamps. Well, anywho, we've landed in Toledo. My money is dwindling fast lol. There is nothing I can do about that, things just seem to cost more here and I wasn't fully prepared for it. Toledo is a Beautiful Pueblo with Stucco buildings and rolling mountains, and beautiful skies as far as the eye can see. Our hotel has a pool complete with Tiki bar so it looks like all of the students and I will be going down there for the afternoon to enjoy some relaxation after the long Day of museums and driving. It is interesting to see the same cars from America here only all of them are Standard shifts, even the tour bus that we are riding in. I believe that the plan is to go into town tonight for drinks and dinner but honestly, we don't really have any plans here. Everything is so fluid. There is no set schedule, only a concept of a schedule. For some that is a good thing, for others, it may be bad. I kind of like it. It can be frustrating however, when you want to plan ahead. Oh well, Viva espana!

June 28, 2009

Buenos tardes a todos. We just finished visiting El Valle de los Caidos and El Escorial. Both were interesting in their own wasy and added to the historical knowledge that we look for on this trip. El Valle de los Caidos is a monument/tomb in the side of a mountain about 45 minutes out from Madrid. It was built as a testament to Francisco and his followers “los derechos” by the people that fought against him and were taken prisoner during la Guerra civil. The monument triples as an active Catholic Church. The visitors of which, we concluded were likely supporters of Franco. He and his right hand man, Jose Antonio, are buried at the base of the crucifix in the church. To giant cast iron angels guard the entrance to the church and also the tomb of Franco. In the corridor leading to the church are 6 tapestries “tapices” depicting the apocalypse. On the ceiling are statues of some of the Catholic Virgens who also happen to be patron saints of the different branches of his military, army, navy, etc... It was an experience filled with conflict, because it was such a beautiful place but one that was built as a monument to such a horrible man by people who didn’t even like him.

After El valle de los caidos, we visited el Escorial, a monastery, library and tomb of the royal families of Spain. The library at el Escorial is to be the second best in the world second to the Vatican based on quality not quantity. 45,000 books make up the entire library. One of the most beautiful things in this place were the solid wood doors that we made into pictures when they were constructed. Using different types of natural wood, the artists made the most beautiful works of art that seemed 3 dimensional. We stood among the bones of the kings and queens of Spain in their underground family tomb. Glanced at the marble tombs of all of the royal children that died before the age of seven due to illness. An unforgettable experience, surely

Now, after a rather healthy lunch, of paella and beer, we are on the way to Toledo where we will shack up for the night and probably go out and party. ☺

Vaya con Dios.

Let the Museums Begin

June 27, 2009

Today was a HECTIC day! My roommate and I woke up a little early and went and worked out. It was nice to get a good work out in to try to cancel out the jet lag. It didn’t work so well. Probably because of all of the standing around in museums and such. So far, I have spent waay too much on food and a few souvenirs. It’s kind of a problem. I eat as little as possible but 3 meals a day tends to add up here. Anyhow. After breakfast, we met up with the group and our ISA rep led us to the jardin botanico y el museo del prado. En El Museo del Prado we saw different paintings from the 16^th, 17^th, and 18^th centuries and learned about how they depicted the goings on of Spain at the time. Our tour guide, Marisol was great! She was very informative and animated and tried to keep our attention as best she could while flying through 300 years in 1 hour.

After El Museo del Prado, we had a little free time where we could branch off and do pretty much whatever we wanted. My roommate, Paul, and I, (I figured I should give him a name since you’ll be hearing a lot from him) stopped at this little outdoor café and had some unique sandwiches. It was the first time that I had tasted a calamari sandwich and also the first time that I had tasted fried calamari without crust. And interesting lunch to say the least. After meeting up with some girls from the program and walking toward our next destination, I experienced one of the most incredible sights in my life. It’s called El Plaza Mayor. Essentially, it is just a gigantic opening in the city enclosed with buildings and garnered with extravagant archways. But inside is completely different. With, lots of little cafés and an abundance of street performers, Madrid comes to life before your eyes. From there, we went to our next tour site, which happened to be a giant Palace. El Palacio Real de Madrid. Was the palace that King Felipe II built and made Madrid the capital that it is today. The enormous marble structure is very impossible to miss. Once inside, Marisol proceeded to tell us all about the royal family and what was done with each room and the customs that came along with having an absolute monarchy.

After all of the excitement, I had to come and lay down. It has been a long day and it’s only 17:30.

Jet lag is NO fun!

33 hours and 15 minutes is how long I’ve been awake now. The sun is kinda tricky and after a couple of Sangrias and one of the best beers that I’ve ever had, I finally went to bed The sleep wasn’t the best I’ve ever had, though the bed was VERY comfortable. I think that my body was trying to revert back to Nashville time and stay awake. After falling and waking up a few times, I finally managed to stay asleep. I hope this doesn’t last too long.

Getting used to it all.

2:30 Local/ 7:30 AM Nashville

I have been up for 24 hours straight to this point.

So, I have landed here in Madrid and everything is great. It feels just like a regular city except that everyone drives a little faster and speaks only Spanish. I’ve been trying to use the Spanish that I know but everyone seems to want to speak English. With that said, I am really looking forward to getting to Santander where it is not so touristy. Once we got off of the bus, we made our way to the Hotel Paseo Del Arte, a very nice place in the heart of Downtown Madrid. After meeting in the lobby and getting rid of all of our luggage, we all took off on an excursion around the city to find some food and drinks. A few of the girls and I, Kirsten, Jill, and Ashley all stopped off for some papas and sangria. We were just hungry and wanted to drink. As of now, I’m back in the room after buying a few souvenirs desperately fighting Jetlag by writing this entry and working on some homework. We’ll see how it all works out. The plan is to go out tonight because, it’s Friday night in Madrid and we are here! What other reason is there?