A few thoughts on the last few weeks.

The count-down begins.  Well, to be honest, the count down began some time ago, but with the three weeks in between me and my eighteen hour journey of a day home, its very real.  In my head, three weeks still seems like a lifetime.  That possibly has to do with the oceans and countries, and classes and projects and exams in-between as well.  This week will be the longest though.  Once I hit two weeks, thats when time will race.  Thats when I will suddenly have to study for grammar and arabic classes, still want to get that last taste of churros, and still somewhere have time to shop for Christmas presents and never mention packing!  (Im trying to pull off a magic trick where I go home with less luggage than I came with...I'll let you know how that goes.)

But after struggling for several weeks with an irrational fear of tragedy striking and never seeing my family ever again, Mom reassured me that such fears aren't unheard of.  In fact, they are just an expression of love.  Real, deep, longing love.  And I guess I must just miss my family more than I had previously thought.  Don't get me wrong, I do love Granada, and this has been and amazing experience, but as the holiday's approach, with Thanksgiving this Thursday, the first Sunday of Advent this Sunday, and Christmas a mere four weeks away, I am feeling that missing part of my life even more keenly with each passing day.  I can also feel the Potsdam snow on my nose, and see the lights that light up Market Street.  I can smell the evergreen boughs decorating the church windows and hear the squeals of delighted children, the piping of the organ and the singing of the choir.  My brother and friends all talking at once in the din of the parish hall as we stuff our faces with food we all brought to share for Christmas Eve dinner.  I can see the twinkling fairy lights of the tree, and the furry paw of the cat trying in vain to tear ornaments from the branches.  And everywhere the whiteness of the snow that blankets the ground.

But somehow, the more I close my eyes to imagine it, the further away it seems, reminding me of one of the things I am terrible at: living in the present.  Look at the city around me!  A city that in a few weeks will be gone to me, and I surely will miss.  Live in the moment, and enjoy it, and the time will pass.  But the further ahead I look, the slower everything seems to take.  So I breathe deeply, take sip of cafe con leche, and dig into my exams, and enjoy my last few weeks.

(flash to the past...memories anyone?)

Even so...the song "I'll be home for Christmas" has an entirely new meaning for me...

Sevilla

Also this past weekend, we went to Sevilla, which might be my favorite city I've visited in Spain thus far.  We walked through the ancient Jewish neighborhood, to the city center, saw the cathedral, went to Starbucks, walked along the river and through the city, went to the Real Alcazar, and Plaza de España (affectionately, Star Wars plaza, seeing as scenes from Attack of the Clones were shot there).  So here's a photo tour through this beautiful, old city.

These pictures are the interior and exterior of the cathedral in Sevilla, also once a mosque.  Notice the difference in architecture between the tower on the right from the style on the rest of the cathedral and especially from the interior of the cathedral.  The layout of the interior was strange to me, because I couldn't immediately tell where the altar was.  Regardless it was a beautiful building.


As I said, we also had our Starbucks fix for the month, which allowed us to meander through the streets of Sevilla.  We saw street performers, a Christmas market devoted to selling only nativity scenes, and all kinds of people.  Once in Starbucks, the small group of friends I was with found about half of the other students in our program there as well.  Seems everyone had the same idea; something comforting and familiar in the still strange, and yet wondrous new world.  Then to the river it was.

It was strange, walking along palm tree lined rivers and roads, while reading Facebook statuses from home about snow, wind chills, and general cold.  Thats not to say it wasn't chilly in Sevilla, or even in Granada now for that matter (at this very moment I am curled up under multiple fleece blankets, comforter, plus my trusty Granada sweatshirt).   I also was on a clumsy streak that day, tripping over my own toes and nearly every uneven edge in the sidewalk.  Truly graceful.

We walked all over the city center, down major streets and tiny alleys.  We chatted, we laughed, we took in the sights.  Sometimes when Im traveling I prefer just walking around to straight up touring.  You get a feel for a place that way.  A feel for its culture, both present and past.  A feel for its people, for its tourists.  For its food.  (bakeries anyone?)  Sometimes I learn more from a city just walking around and looking at the people filling the sidewalks and the buildings lining the streets, using my senses, than touring.

 Some places really are worth taking the time to tour though, such as the Real Alcazar, palace and gardens.  Yet another sight where two cultures and religions come together in a single sight, seeing as both the Christians and the Muslims occupied it.  The gardens of the Alcazar are magnificent, full of palm trees, roses, bushes, streams, and man-made ponds (complete with fish).  Apparently some people get married there.  It certainly is a photogenic spot!

Inside was, again, a mixture of european and islamic culture.  For example, I once again found myself surrounded by tile art.  I can't seem to get away from it!  In the words of one of my friends in the program, "You love you some tile art!" But also there was an entire room covered with rugs depicting maps of Spain, maps of Europe, and maps of the world, as understood in the time Ferdinand and Isabella.  Also courtyard that predated and inspired the Alhambra, but then the room where the Spanish court met and talked about the Americas.  All in the same place!

Our last stop of the day was the Plaza de España.  We basically stopped to see it and take pictures.  It was beautiful, and I can see why it was used as the patio scene of planet of Nadal in Attack of the Clones (not a very good movie, but hey, its cool to see where a movie was filmed!).  And great for photos!  At the end of a busy, fun filled weekend, it was nice to watch the crowds wander around taking pictures.  One strange thing did happen.  As a group of us girls all stood together getting our picture taken, some tourists noticed, and decided they wanted to take our picture too.  Not for us.  For them......?  So, in all, Sevilla was an exciting trip and beautiful city to see.

Hey!  Its my job!  

and underground water supply
from the real alcazar
...and now wishing well

Córdoba

When I traveled to Istanbul, Turkey last March, and saw the Hagia Sofia (a museum that was first a giant Byzantine church before the Ottomans conquered Constantinople in 1453, then became a mosque), I became deeply disconcerted.  I found it disturbing that one culture could entirely take over a previous culture's worship space, scrubbing it clean of any sign of the previous faith, carving out greek lettering and crosses, white washing mosaics, removing the alter, and replacing them with entirely new symbols.  I expressed this feeling to my professors, and aware that I was going to Spain this fall.  They told me that I needed to visit the Mezquita de Córdoba, to experience the same affect, but from a different point of view.  And since then, all anyone could tell me was to go see the Mezquita de Córdoba, that it was beautiful and magnificent, but also strange, due to the presence of a baroque cathedral smack dab in the center of it.  On Saturday I finally saw the Mezquita and experienced the out of body feeling brought on by walking into a cathedral from a mosque.

There are four sections of the mosque, not including the cathedral.  Three are made of pillar after pillar holding up these red and white arches.  The enormity of it is impressive.  It just goes on and on and on.  Every direction you look, all you see are arches and pillars.  Eventually, though, it changes.  The mihrab, pointing to Mecca, the holy city of Islam, decorated in gold.  I found myself thinking about Turkey, about how this Mezquita compared to those I saw on that trip in March, how it was similar, and how entirely different.  The art, the architecture.  And yet, the same religion, coming from the same root.  They were under the auspices of what we call "the Islamic Empire", but the Ottomans, coming along a few hundred years later, were a very different culture.

And finally the moment came that people had been preparing me for since I saw the Hagia Sofia.  We walked from the shadowy reds of the ancient mosque into the white light of a small baroque cathedral, overbearing in ceiling carvings and paintings.  It was as though I had stepped into an entirely different world.  It was so different, unreal almost.  When the Christians conquered Córdoba, they didn't even build a worship space that fit within the atmosphere of the existing space.  No, this was jarring.  Discordant.  Confusing.  And I feel like I would have appreciated the cathedral more if it wasn't inserted in the middle of a former mosque.  The other parts of the mosque that are now Christian, as in side chapels used for weddings, prayers, confessions, etc, feel much more appropriate, all designed in darker stone and red velvet.  It appears very much in a tradition catholic atmosphere and yet does not clash with the ghosts of an ancient past.

My professors who led the class trip to Turkey were correct.  The Mezquita gave me a lot to think about.  More than I could in one day, and I still am processing it.  One thing that stood out strongly for me though...The Mezquita de Córdoba is a symbol of the multi-cultural history of Andalusia.  Spain isn't all about tapas or bull fighting.  Its about all of it.  And then some.

40 Days and Home

Its 40 days, 40 days left until I begin the long journey home.  And I would be lying if said that the prospect of traveling home didn't panic me sometimes.  And again, I would be lying if I said that I wouldn't miss Granada.  I will miss being able to walk everywhere, I will miss my favorite café next to school (where I happen to be now), I will miss my eccentric professors and my newfound friends.  But at the same time, I will be overjoyed to be home, which is probably why I am the only student to know the exact number of days until I return to Mom and Dad and Than.  See, its not the US that I miss.  It isn't even Potsdam or Marlboro College or Camp.  It is home.  All three of these places have been a home to me.  Together they have formed a single notion of home.  Home isn't a country.  It isn't really a place.  Home is made by the people surrounding it, by the memories created within it.  Home is both concrete and transcendent, and I don't think I appreciated the depth of home until I was so far from it.  No, until I  had to recreate home so far from it.  But if home is transcendent, part feeling, fueled by memories, than I carry it with me, wherever I go.  Perhaps I am never truly away from home.  Then again, perhaps this is exactly what made it so very hard to uproot myself and start anew in such a new environment.

In these last 40 days, I now am reflecting on the previous 60-ish.  It was indeed a challenge, but I think part of the challenge was my own stubbornness.  I didn't want to create a new home here in Granada.  There were plenty of people I loved already, people I missed so keenly that I couldn't imagine getting close to the people here, only to leave in a matter of months, never to see them again.  It wasn't a conscious choice, I don't think, but on some level I wanted to protect myself from losing a second home.  I missed everything I knew already so much, to build something new only to lose it again seemed too much to handle.  But despite my own stubbornness, my own blocks, Granada has become a surrogate home.  And for a third time, I would be lying if I said it was like the home I left behind, but finally, I would be lying if I said that I would feel the loss of this home when I do leave.

So even as I count down the 40 days until I can see the people that I love, until I can lay eyes on the snow covered, festively lit town I miss, I also dread saying goodbye.  Unlike when I said goodbye to my family and to my friends, this goodbye is, most likely, permanent.  But that doesn't mean I have to board my heart up from it like I did in the beginning.  Rather, I almost should put more of myself into this experience, because I don't get a second chance.

Bocadillo Days.

Bocadillo is the word for sandwich here, and has come to mean much more than just a sandwich.  Three of the four days I go to school, I bring a bocadillo.  I am now so attached to the word and the simple concept of a bocadillo, of making my own lunch, that I will probably continue to call sandwiches bocadillos when I return to the States.

A standard bocadillo here in Granada consists of some kind of meat (or two), usually ham, and cheese on baguette style bread.  Wrap that up in foil and throw it in your bag for school and presto! you have lunch.  However, bocadillos serve more purpose than simply lunch for school.  If, on the weekend, for example, your host mother mentions that she will be out for the evening, then that means its a bocadillo night.  So you trot off to the kitchen, take some cheese from the bridge, butter some baguette, add cheese.  Once again, bocadillos have saved the day yet again.

There is something comforting about a bocadillo that is hard to explain.  When you are studying for mid terms, eating a bocadillo curled up on your bed in inexplicably relaxing.  Perhaps it is that everything in a bocadillo can be labeled "comfort food", i.e. bread, cheese, etc.  You can rely on a bocadillo to always be there for you, and never leave.  It is entirely possible that I am placing too much of an emphasis on a bocadillo, but it is such a part of my life here, perhaps not.

With the studying of midterms, a bocadillo has come to be very important.  Those few minutes when you can put al thought of verb conjugations and vocabulary words and research topics out of your mind, and just think on the wonderful mixture of cheese and bread.  Its the simple things in life, really.

180º

Since this is a blog chronically my adventures here in Spain, it is only fair to be completely and totally honest.  So when I say I was heartbroken to leave Germany, this is entirely true.  I missed my brother and Laura and Laura's family so much, that sitting in the airport waiting to go back to Spain felt awful.  Also, as many new things as I had done, as many new things I had learned, I was having a hard time adjusting, making friends, etc.

I felt terribly lonely, and impossibly far away from everyone I loved and cared about.  It seemed to me that everyone in our study abroad group had made friends, or traveled with friends from their own university but me.  I was also struggling with being the only student from the northeast on the trip, and while that sounds silly, it made a difference from time to time.  We had different reference points, raised in totally different ways.  For example, when I reference a big city, I would reference New York, or sometimes Boston (and Ottawa...from time to time).  Most everyone else would mention Chicago.  Little things like that, but it made it harder to relate with people.  So by the time I returned to Granada, I was miserable.  I felt like only student only not meeting up with friends at night for coffee or drinks, the only one no one called to make plans with, and when I tried to make plans with anyone, they seemed to fall  through.  Marlboro, Potsdam, Camp, these places where I felt loved and full of people who meant so much to me, felt so very far away.

At night, I cried myself to sleep.  I Skyped my mom in tears, and struggled with the option of coming home.  The only reason that I didn't pack up and get on the first plane to Boston or New York or Montreal was I didn't know what it would do for my educational track.  It would set me back a semester, so I held on.

And then things began to change.  It started with a Skype video message I came home to one night early in October.  It was a message my mom organized, featuring three good friends from Camp this summer, just being funny and saying 'hello' in their own ways.  I then got to talk to a couple more friends from Camp in real time on Skype, and thats when things began to change.  Classes started, giving me direction during the day, and homework at night.  Especially Arabic.  And I began to make some new friends in these classes.  I was excited when I woke up in the morning to go to class, which was something that hadn't really happened in weeks.  Also, I started going to church in Granada, it was full of young people and lively music, and gradually things got better and better.

I started meeting up with people during the weekends, meeting up for homework study parties.  The city didn't seem quite so frightening, and I began to explore it more.  I discovered a coffee shop very close to my school, and started doing homework there.  Little by little I made a routine for myself.  And then, one day I woke up and realized that things had done a 180º turn.

Its time to prepare for next week's midterms now and I'm more than halfway through my time here in Granada.  Admittedly, I still miss friends and family more than I can say, but I also am happy to be here in Spain.  How often will I have a chance to live in Europe, to travel through Spain?  Its an adventure, and I am glad I came on it, no matter the challenges it has presented.

On the Move Again!

So...remember my track record with public transportation?  Well, I gave it yet another shot, as a mere day after I returned to Granada after Morocco, I was leaving for Germany.  We had a week break before classes officially started, and I was taking mine to visit my brother and my friend Laura in Germany.  But a city bus to the bus station, a bus to Malaga, and an airplane stood in the way of my final destination.

My host mom told me the bus stop that would get me to the bus station, and I was off.    On the bus I met two russian girls heading for Malaga.  They invited me to join them for the day, which was perfect because I was staying the night in Malaga because my flight was at 6:55 in the morning.  If I hadn't met these girls I doubt that I would have explored Malaga at all.  Since I had the chance to explore with these girls, I did.  We explored the streets, walking around the cathedral, through a garden, and eventually along the beach.  Around five in the evening I took a taxi to my hotel by the airport, had a shower, dinner, and went to bed.

The plane ride went smoothly, and by ten the next morning I was in the beautiful country of Germany.  Now the last time I had met my friend Laura, I was four.  We know each other from my mom being an exchange student host by Laura's grandmother.  Then Laura's mother, Heidi, was an exchange student and Mom's family hosted her.  In the years that have passed, Mom and Heidi have traveled across the ocean to visit each other, and Heidi's children have stayed with us in the US.  Now my brother is staying with Laura.  From the moment I found my brother, Nathaniel, and Laura at the airport, Laura and I got along famously.

We spent that first day in the city of Colonge, visiting a church, the Döm.  At the Döm, we climbed the 500 and some stairs to the top of the tower, and saw of view of the entire city.  We also explored the city, seeing a few sights, and shopping.  On the whole, I was beyond pleased to be in Germany.  In fact, I really didn't want to leave at all.

It was great to see Nathaniel.  He is my best friend, my side kick, my partner in crime, and when Im not home, one of the things I miss most.  Also, who I talk about more than anyone else.  My classmates in Spain are probably sick and tired of me going on and on about him, but what can I say?  I'm a fan of my brother.  Actually, staying Laura and Nathaniel, and Laura's parents Heidi and Adolf, felt like being home.  I mean, it was different for sure.  But it felt like family.  All through the first day there, everyone was calling me Sternchen (little star), which was what everyone called my mom (whose name is Starr).  I felt loved and cared about, which was heavenly after toughing my way through my first month, feeling impossibly far from everyone I loved and everyone who loved me.

Also, I loved the landscape of Seigen, Germany.  Everything was so green.  The mountains were not so unlike the Adirondack mountains from home.  And it was cold.  In Granada, at this point, it was still quite warm, getting into the low eighties in the afternoon.  But here, in Germany, it was cold and windy and felt like fall.  I even had to wear a jacket!  Imagine that!

Language wise, it was interesting, because I don't know German.  However, when I was little, Mom taught Nathaniel and I some, and I must have remembered more than I thought.  Laura speaks English, Heidi speaks a good amount of English, and Adolf speaks some.  Most of the time, though, when Adolf talked, it was in a mixture of a few English words, and quite a bit of German.  Surprisingly, I usually got the gist of what he was saying.  Also, we met up with Laura's friends from time to time over the course of my visit, and they would speak in German and English.  There, too, I was not nearly as lost language wise as I had expected.  So, even though I can't speak German, sometimes I can understand a bit.  And then I also got inspired to learn German, which I hope to do when I return to Marlboro in January...we'll see.


We hiked in the mountains, explored the city, ate schnitzel and rolls with nutella and Haribu gummy candies.  Also sushi, and it was pretty good sushi.  And Laura and I fell asleep watching a chick flick one night.  It was relaxing beautiful, and as the hours ticked by, closing in on "Good bye", I felt myself wanting to leave less and less and less, and altogether too soon, the time came for me to leave Germany.  As I left, I promised that I would come back, and sealed the promise with a tear.

Tales from Morocco p. 5. Wrapping up...

Chefchaoan.  Our final stop.  It is a city of white and blue nestled into the mountains.  It was once a Jewish, hence the buildings of white and blue, and until the first half of the twentieth century, no Christian was allowed with its walls.  It is a bit of a tourist city, and full of markets and venders selling leather bags, genii pants (also dubbed fun pants, fancy pants, and crazy pants by members of our group), scarfs, post cards, trinkets, and food stuffs.  Also, a myriad of adorable, but still stray, cats.  We stayed in a beautiful hostel, with a roof top that looked up into the stars at night.  We went up to the roof after dinner, and as I looked at the stars, I realized how much I had miss them.  I can't see the stars in Granada.  This is the first time I've ever lived anywhere that I couldn't see the stars.  But it the open, rugged mountains of Morocco, I could.

The next morning there was an optional hike at 7 am.  While on the one hand it was early, I also love hiking, and I opted to go.  In the morning, the sky was gray and air cool, and hardly anyone but us in sight.  Even the cats were asleep.  It was just us and the blue buildings and the mountains.  Our hike led us a little out of the city, up into the foothills to a mosque looking over the city.  It wasn't strenuous, but it was beautiful.  And now that I'm gone from Morocco, it is those mist covered mountains that I see in my mind.  It is a landscape that is both rugged and majestic in its roughness.  The people are hospitable and humble, full of hope for their country.  They are diverse in ideals and opinions and beliefs, and aren't a people or a place I will be quick to forget.  

Tales from Morocco p.4 The Rif Mountains

As I said, Moroccan Exchange was devoted to showing students the "real Morocco" and meeting "real people", therefore, on our third day in Morocco, once again we hopped on our bus and headed off to the Rif Mountains.  Our final destination was Chefchaoan, a village of white and blue in the mountains.  Along the way, however, we stopped in a village town to have lunch with a family there.  We brought one of the Moroccan students with us to serve as translator, who also promised that we could ask the family anything and not be afraid of it being offensive, because he would be the filter.  We all thought this was a bit hilarious, because this particular student we had already learned was notorious for saying literally anything without worrying of who he was offending, especially when it came to his remarkably progressive views.  Apparently that was an ability he could turn off and on as he desired.

The village was small, and unlike anywhere I had ever been. There were animals and children everywhere, running up the sandy paths.  The house of the family hosting us was bigger than I'd expected, but still rather small.  We all sat on cushioned benches, tired, hot, and hungry.  Lunch was cuzcuz, which is now one of my favorite foods.  And once again, we spent a long time in a cultural-exchange discussion. This one was different, seeing as our hosts didn't know english and we didn't know arabic (my low level of arabic really wasn't helpful at all), so it all went through our handy dandy translator.  We talked about their daily lives on their farm, because we wanted to know how these people lived.  They asked us about American wedding customs, and we asked theirs.  Our hosts seemed very interred in marriage in the US, even asking us if we all wanted to get married.  It was an awkward moment for a bit, because some of the girls in our group weren't sure, and didn't know how to express that and didn't know how our hosts would react.  Once again, our translator filtered our doubts into a way that our hosts could appreciate.

We then took a "hike" up the hills behind the house.  I say hills because we were already in the mountains, and there was only a hill in the way of the top of the mountain.  I was amazed at the balance and grace of the little children that ran up the mountain, because it was, at some points, crazy steep.  You almost had to run the path for fear of falling.  But the view was stunning, and worth a mountain goat impression or two.

About late afternoon we bid farewell to our hosts and piled into the bus, headed now for our last, but not least stop of Chefchaoan.