Off to Andalucía

This morning, I woke up when the sky was still dark and the streets were empty—5:15 am.  Fortunately, this early morning was the beginning of my weekend in Andalucía, so the lack of sleep was worth it!  All twenty students and our two professors piled onto a bus for the five-hour drive to Granada.  Interestingly, one of the laws in Spain is that professional drivers (bus drivers, truck drivers, etc.) are required to take a 30 minute break for every 3 hours of driving, so halfway through the journey, we stopped at a rest area.  Now, this was not just any old, bare-bones rest stop.  It was like a mini-mall complete with a gift shop filled with trademark Spanish goods, a store dedicated to different varieties of olive oil (it even had a tasting table set up!), and a food court.  Oh, that food court.  It offered everything from artisan pastries, to the famous Spanish ham, jamón iberico, to salads topped with brie, and gazpacho.  Something I found so amusing was that the food court offered little individual containers of olive oil, just like the coffee creamer containers in the U.S., in lieu of prepared salad dressing.  Don’t worry—there were also little containers of red wine vinegar.

An outdoor spice and tea market 

The cathedral in Granada

            

We resumed our excursion and finally arrived in Granada around 2 pm.  After that, we dropped off our bags in our hotel, took a small tour of the city, then went to see the Alhambra.  It was absolutely breathtaking.  So many intricate designs of tiles, wall carvings, and gardens fill this monument, and seeing it was worth every bit of effort exerted in climbing up its many hills and stairs.

 When we finished admiring all that the Alhambra had to offer, we returned to our hotel and rested for a bit before going out for tapas around 9.  Two friends and I went to a restaurant close to our hotel that had great reviews on Yelp, so we were excited to try it.  It was very crowded when we arrived, but we were able to snag a table.  Our waiter was fabulous.  After we asked a few questions about the menu, he told us not to worry and that he would take care of us, then left.  Spaniards speak pretty quickly, so we didn’t completely understand what was going on until he returned with two huge trays of food…one platter of assorted tapas, and one with roasted meat, goat cheese, and peppers.  There was so much food and it was all very delicious!  Once we had digested a bit, we got more food…my first sampling of authentic churros and chocolate.  They were tasty, but I expected the chocolate to be more, well, chocolaty.  From there, we headed back to the hotel and slept very well after the long day!

           

A Taste of France (in Spain!)

Beautiful macarons at Mama Framboise

Today was another day of exploring!  I found a bakery-café that I wanted to visit called Mama Framboise, so Eva and I took the Metro to the neighborhood it was in and did some window shopping.  Unfortuantely, when we arrived a lot of the shops were still closed for their siesta.  Even though many shops had signs saying they would reopen at 5 pm, they were still closed at 5:15…Spaniards love their siesta!  There was still a lot to see though.  One entertaining shop was called Global Market, and sold different types of food from all over the world.  It was a bit strange to see jars of Skippy peanut butter for sale as something “exotic” (not to mention that a small jar cost 6 euros!) as well as other prepared foods like Betty Crocker cake frosting and mix, marshmallow fluff, and Pop tarts.

Syrup, oatmeal, and pretzels...how unusual!

After walking around for a bit, we found our way to Mama Framboise and admired all of the delicious pastries and rustic French décor before ordering our snacks.  It was so hard to decide due to all of the delicious options and not knowing all of the subtle differences between the types of pastries.  The French pastry types are already so nuanced, that when you try to translate them to a different language…well, it’s a bit difficult to understand! 
     I decided to go with a “simple” chocolate croissant and a café con leche—my first taste of Spanish coffee!  This chocolate croissant was quite something.  It was a regular croissant filled with chocolate cream, enrobed in dark chocolate, and dusted with cocoa powder.  With my café con leche, it was the perfect mid-afternoon snack and so decadent!  Eva let me try some of the dulce de leche crepe that she got which was, not surprisingly, also quite scrumptious!  I plan on going back soon and trying something a bit more adventurous, and of course to take more photos.  When we left it was a bit chilly and had started to rain, so we decided to return to the apartment to being packing for the weekend in Andalucía! 

            

Cappuccino!  Spanish coffee is delicious!

Some of the adorable decor...this is a faux window that displays a lavender field swaying in the wind

May 16: Exploring Toledo

Outside the city

If you combine saffron, swords and three major world religions, what do you get?  Toledo, of course!  The first day trip of the program was to this exquisite city that is just one hour outside of Madrid.  The historic part of the city is up on top of a hill and surrounded by walls.  We went up about six escalators to reach the city from where the bus dropped us off.  Yes, there are stairs as well, but you need all of that energy for walking up and down the hills within the city! 

The escalators that take you up to the city

One of the gates into Toledo

            

One unique aspect of Toledo’s history is the period of convivencia, or the years during which Jews, Christians, and Muslims all lived peacefully alongside each other.  One of the most famous monuments in Toledo that we got to visit was the synagogue, Santa Maria la Blanca.  It was actually built for the Jewish community by the Arabic community that lived there!  This synagogue was later converted into a Catholic church, then a sanatorium, then horse stables.  Now, it is a museum dedicated to the Jewish culture run by nuns…quite a history!  We also got to see a chapel with some amazing paintings by El Greco, but my favorite site was the Grand Cathedral of Toledo.  It had some beautiful stained glass, and several pure gold artifacts that were just breathtaking. 

Inside the synagogue

Fancy sword!

Marzipan mice on magdalenas

            Another specialty of Toledo is metal-smithing…Toledo apparently is the sole provider of swords for Hollywood.  All of the swords used in the Lord of the Rings movies were made here!  Besides the swords, they also make beautiful jewelry with both Spanish designs of birds and flowers, and geometric Arabic designs.   As far as the food goes, marzipan and saffron are the things to get!  At one bakery, they had some adorable marzipan mice on top of magdalenas (a pastry similar to cupcakes).

            After the visit, it was time to get started on my trabajo del campo, a 4 page paper about the Jewish culture in Toledo, for my history class, but I can’t complain…learning about Spanish history by going to where it happened is the way to do it! 

You can see all of Toledo from up here!

May 15: ¡Feliz Día de San Isidro!

All of the events in the Plaza Mayor to celebrate San Isidro

May 15 is San Isidro Day—the feast day of the patron saint of Madrid.  All over town, people dress up as chulapos and chulapas--the traditional dress for celebration.  Men wear a vest with a newsboy cap, and women wear a polka-dot dress with a flounce on the hem, wrap a scarf around their hair, and adorn it with a red flower.  All of the little children dressed up looked so adorable!  Raquel showed me a picture of her grandson Nico in his chulapo outfit dancing with a little girl in her chulapa costume at his day care.  It was the cutest thing!

Plaza Mayor

A chulapa outfit

We didn’t have normal classes since the institute was closed due to the holiday.  Instead, Professor Ignacio gave us a tour of Madrid.  We began in the Plaza Mayor and saw the Puerta del Sol, Paseo del Prado and lots of fountains.  Apparently, when the soccer team here wins a game, they swim in these fountains that are in the middle of the street…it sounds crazy!  We also got to go to the rooftop of a theater, Circulo de Bellas Artes.  It had a beautiful view of the city.  We walked down Gran Vía—a street with great shopping—and later passed the Palacio Real and the Catedral de Madrid.  It was a lot of information for one tour, and afterwards everyone was very tired and hungry! 

This isn't actually a museum...it's a restaurant/deli that serves lots and lots of this Spanish specialty!

The Neptune Fountain--when the soccer team wins, people gather here to celebrate, and the soccer players supposedly swim in the fountain!

A view of the city from a rooftop terrace

When Eva and I arrived back at the apartment, Raquel prepared our lunch—albondigas, pasta, and salad.  Since we finished the box of Fannie May chocolates that I brought as her gift yesterday, we opened the box of Frango mints and looked through the photo book of Chicago that Eva brought.  It was fun telling Raquel all about Chicago and interesting to hear her opinions of it.

            At night, we went to see La Casa de Bernarda Alba.  I really enjoyed seeing this particular play since I studied it in my Spanish class last semester.  I felt very proud of myself for being able to follow along with all of the dialogue!  Afterwards, a few of us went out for dinner and shared some tapas!  We celebrated like true madrileñas!