This blog post wraps up my pre-Madrid travels and introduces you to my life in España!
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| LOVE YOU! |
On one of our last days with
the Liberti’s in Kandern, Steve took us to Colmar, a cute little touristy town
in France. It rained for most of the
ride there, but as soon as we pulled into the town, the sun came out. It was a beautiful couple of hours just
walking around Colmar. We spent some time
inside the Catholic Church in the middle of the city, but we spent most of our
day exploring little antique shops and open markets in search for a cross. Theresa wants to buy a cross from each
country that she visits this semester so she can have a cross wall at her next
apartment. I can’t tell you how many
time I said, “Theresa, I’m feeling good about this store,” or “Theresa, this
store has a cross…I can feel it.” Toward
the end of our day, after countless letdowns, I was finally right! She found a cross! Steve also snapped this incredible picture of us! I think it may be one of my favorite pictures of us!
The next day, Theresa and I
attended the first half of a church service with the Liberti’s. I can’t think of a better way to have ended
the beginning of our semester than worshiping with our wonderful new
friends! It was way more difficult than
I thought it would be to say goodbye to Steve, Dawn, Bianca, and Sofia. Their hospitality helped us through what
could have been an extremely difficult transition. We felt so welcomed, so loved, and so taken
care of during our time with the Liberti’s.
Theresa said this in her blog and I’m going to echo it here…I definitely
left a piece of my heart in Kandern with them!
We woke up that morning in
Germany. We drove through France to get
to the airport. We boarded our plane in
Switzerland. We landed in Spain. Four countries, one day. Life is crazy.
It was a pretty easy flight,
especially compared to our last flight, the 8-hour monster flight from
Philadelphia to Frankfurt. As we were
about to land, I looked out my window and couldn’t believe how brown and barren
Spain looked! Theresa and I had just
spent a week and a half in the Black Forest in Germany and in the green hills
of Switzerland and we were flying into a desert!? It was not what I was expecting at all. Once we landed, Theresa and I gathered our luggage
(Woohoo! Everything made it!) and walked
outside to grab a taxi.
SO HOT. It was around 95 degrees when we landed in
Madrid and I was wearing a maxi skirt, a cardigan, AND a jacket because it was
60 degrees when we boarded the plane in Basel!
The taxi ride was miserable because there was no air conditioning in the
backseat and I didn’t know how to say “Please turn on the air conditioning or
roll down the windows because we are dying back here” in Spanish. Next thing we knew, Theresa and I were
standing in front of our apartment building.
We had no idea what to do next, so Theresa just rang the bell next to “el
conserjería” which we both [correctly] assumed meant concierge. When a woman answered speaking very fast Spanish,
Theresa and I together said something like “Hola…Sarah y Theresa…Here for Maria…Bautista…students
de la universidad San Luís…” We must
have said something right because the woman responded, “Ahhh! Sí! Sí!” and quickly came and opened the door for
us. She pointed to Maria’s door and
Theresa and I nervously approached and knocked.
The door opened and this
sweet, older woman named Maria Bautista opened the door. I smiled and laughed when she surprised
Theresa by kissing both of her cheeks. I
was more prepared having watched Theresa, and successfully completed my first
Spanish greeting. Maria and I had Skyped
one time last semester because Hannah, my friend and first roommate, stayed
with Maria last semester while she was studying abroad in Madrid. Hannah had told me many Maria stories and had given
me a lot of Maria advice including, “just smile and nod…I never knew what she
was saying to me, but she loves to talk to you.” After unpacking all of my belongings for the entire
semester and spending some time just laying on my bed, Theresa and I were
called to the kitchen for dinner. Maria
cooked us this delicious meal of spaghetti, freshly fried chicken, and fresh
bread from the bakery. Maria is a phenomenal
cook. I have been here for almost three
weeks now and have absolutely loved every meal Maria has cooked. Well, except for maybe the Spanish ham, but
she told us that most United States American students don’t like it.
After dinner, we met up with
our wonderful friends and adventure buddies Erik Hoaglund and John Ketzner. Erik and John’s host family lives just two
blocks away from Maria’s apartment. This
is incredible because we can all walk to and from classes together since campus
is about a 25-minute walk away. That
first night, we explored Parque Oeste, the park that is just a few blocks away
from our apartment. We walked around for
a little bit until we found the perfect spot on a hill to sit/lay down. Theresa and I told John and Erik about our
German adventures and we all talked about everything that we wanted to do this
semester. After walking for a little bit
longer, we stumbled upon a basketball court. I couldn't believe that John brought a
basketball with him from the U.S., but he did.
We all walked back to their
apartment so he could grab the ball to play a little 2-on-2. We played for a couple of hours in the Madrid
heat and I am proud to say that John and I took game 1. We got back to the apartment around 12:30,
and because I wasn’t thinking, I decided to take a shower. While I was trying to figure out how to get
hot water, (you can’t that late at night, the hot water gets turned off) Maria
woke up and started “talking to” Theresa about how we can’t take showers that
late. (I put the “talked to” in
quotations because Theresa was basically getting yelled at, but Hannah warned
us that Maria doesn’t yell, it’s just how she communicates.) This was the first of a couple of times when
Theresa got “talked to” about something that I did. Once I heard Maria and Theresa talking
outside of the bathroom, I turned off the water and just crawled into bed for
the night.
The next morning, I woke up
early to take the shower that I didn’t take the night before and Theresa got “talked
to” again because we are only allowed to take one shower, at night or
in the morning. Maria was under the
impression that I had showered twice, so at breakfast I had to try and
communicate to Maria that I didn't actually shower the night before. My Spanish is definitely improving very
quickly since Maria doesn't speak any English!
I think we are also getting pretty good at guessing what the other person is trying saying.
One of my favorite stories
with Maria so far is that one night, Theresa and I were going to go watch the
sunset at the park. I was trying to tell
Maria what we were going to do, but I had no idea how to say “sunset” in
Spanish. My Spanish professors in high
school and college always encouraged us to use the words that we knew in Spanish to
describe the word that we didn’t know.
Perfect! So this is what I said…
“Theresa y yo vamos a ir al parque para mirar el
sun salir el mundo.”
Theresa and I are going to go to the park to watch the sun leave the
world.
Maria’s response was, “You are
going to watch a movie?” Apparently my description
was so artistically phrased that Maria thought it was a movie title! We all laughed together and then Theresa
looked up how to say “sunset” in her dictionary.
Another fantastic Maria story
is that one morning at breakfast, I started quietly singing the traditional
Spanish song “Maria Isabel” to Theresa.
It’s a song that I learned during my junior year of high school and for
some reason, it has stayed with me.
Anyways, apparently I was not singing it as softly as I thought I was
because a huge smile spread across Maria’s face and she joined me. So on my second morning in Spain, I was
singing a traditional Spanish song with my host mom. It was a beautiful moment and Theresa couldn’t
stop laughing.
Another really awesome way
that Theresa and I communicate with Maria is through prayer before dinner. Theresa and I always try to remember to pray
before dinner and one time, we invited Maria to join us. Since then, Maria has joined us almost every night
to bless our food before we eat it. We
all hold hands and take turns offering words of thanksgiving. It is a really special moment that I enjoy
sharing with Theresa and Maria each night.
The day after we arrived in
Madrid, we had orientation at SLU-Madrid.
I’m not sure what I was expecting, but the day was relatively
uninformative. I did get to meet some
non-SLU students that were going to be studying abroad at SLU-Madrid which was
cool!
Here's our first day of school picture! John's a 4 your old and gave Theresa bunny ears!
Here’s a rundown of my classes this semester:
Cultural Anthropology of Spain
I think that this is the class
that I am most excited about. The
professor is incredible and super knowledgeable about Spain. She believes it is necessary to know the
history of a place before you can know its present, so we are going to spend a
large portion of the semester learning about the history of Spain, which seems
super interesting because of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and Franco.
Intro to Anthropology
This class is taught by the
same professor of my cultural class, and she is still awesome. She’s actually an archaeologist and an anthropologist, so I think the material of this class is closer to her
interests. It will be interesting for me
to learn more about the field of anthropology since my major is sociology and
they are in the same department at SLU.
The readings so far in this class have been super interesting and informative.
Art History: Modern Art
I only signed up for this class
because SLU requires each student to take an art class in order to fulfil a
core requirement. I am SO glad that I
signed up for this particular art history class because it seeks to analyze twentieth
century art through the lens of the political and social movements of the
time. It’s basically an art history
class about race, class, gender, revolutions, capitalism, communism, etc. It’s fantastic.
Philosophy of Karl Marx
I had really, really high
expectations for this class and I am afraid that they might have been too
high. I have LOVED the opportunity to
read Marx’s actually writings instead of just broad overgeneralizations in
sociology classes, but the class discussions thus far have been sub-par. It seems like most of the other students just
took this class to fulfill an upper-level philosophy requirement instead of having a genuine interest
in Marx, which is a bummer.
Our first weekend in Madrid
was wonderful. We visited the Prado for
the first of many trips to come because it’s FREE with our international
student ID! We spent about two hours
walking around and only scratched the surface.
I spent quite a few minutes just staring at Las Meninas by Velázquez. I
have studied and given presentations in Spanish about this painting in both
high school and college so it was super surreal to be standing in front of the
real painting.
After the Prado, we went to a
grocery store and grabbed fresh bread and cheese for lunch. Theresa and I eat this same meal for lunch at
least 5 times a week because a) it’s delicious and b) it’s super cheap.
That night, we headed to
Puerta del Sol, the center of nightlife in Madrid. Madrid is an interesting city because people
don’t really start going out until 10pm and don’t usually head home until 3am
or later. Theresa and I were fashionably
early, arriving in Sol around 6pm. Because
we were meeting up with Erik and John at 8pm to go out to dinner, Theresa and I
decided to explore Sol in search of a great restaurant. Theresa found this restaurant called Taberna
Pompeyana that she wanted to try because “the menu looked reasonable.” AKA: The sangria was super cheap. After meeting up with the guys, we all
decided that we would trust Theresa’s judgment and try Taberna Pompeyana.
Well, I think we've learned
our lesson about letting Theresa pick a restaurant! Just kidding, I just think we won’t base our restaurant choice solely on the price of sangria anymore. We walked in, sat down, and looked at the
menu. I don’t know who looked up first,
maybe John, but as soon as one of us did, we all did. The restaurant was decorated with skulls and
skeletons, Greek statues draped with the old Spanish Republic flag, torture
devices hung from the ceiling, and frescos on the walls with detailed images of
different sex scenes and positions. All
I could do was laugh and my laughter only increased as Theresa’s face got
redder. My favorite discovery of the
night was this classy painting sequence right next to Theresa’s face. Erik, John, and I have taken a vow to NEVER
let Theresa forget that she picked this restaurant.
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| Thanks John! (; |
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| YUM! |
After our super unique dinner
experience, the four of us went to San Ginés, the oldest and most famous
chocolatería in Madrid. There, we
indulged ourselves in churros and chocolate. They were incredible! John even bought me this beautiful rose!
Just kidding, he got suckered into buying it from a street vendor for 3
euros!
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| The Temple of Debod! |
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| I'm not convinced I got what I ordered... |
Sending peace and love from
España!
Sarah
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