more Barcelona

Barcelona

 

 

 

 

Barcelona

 

 

 

 

Futbol game

 

Here´s another cool picture.

 

 

 

 

Here´s the faro and some pictures of a park. One of these pictures is of the base of an old gun turret from the civil war. Manolita told me that the cliff on which the faro was built was the site of a mass murder of nationalists during the Spanish civil war. The Republicans came into Santander, rounded up the Nationalists and pushed them off the cliff.

 

 

 

 

Manolita and I walked out to the Faro (lighthouse) a couple weeks ago and I took a bunch of pictures.

 

This is a picture of the Cathedral of Santa Juliana in Santillana del Mar

02.11.2008

Hola,
So tonight i´m going to church. I´ve finally got a free sunday so i´m going to a church with some friends. That is going to be at six tonight.

I´m trying to decide where else i should travel. I wish i was staying for a year so that i had more time to go everywhere. Next weekend I´m going to Barcelona. The weekend after we´re going to Toledo, Burgos and Segovia. After that I´ll have two more weekends free before I come home. I really want to go to Lisbon, Portugal. And I need to decide where I should go for the other free weekend. I´m thinking Amsterdam would be really amazing. I would love to go to Dublin too. I´ve also been thinking I should go to San Sebastian in the Basque country. That´s supposed to be a really nice place. Maybe I could even see the Pyrenees. I´m thinking I´m definitely going to go to Lisbon since Portugal is so close. I need to search for flights. Ryanair is supposed to be increasing their flights after November 18 so maybe. This is kind o fa boring post I´m just thinking while I write. I´m going ot go look up flights right now.

The Other Night I Found Some Sweet Clothes in the Trash

Saturday night Manolita and I went for a walk with Nuni and we dumpster dove. We found a big bag of clothes out in the trash so manolita told me to grab the bag and we hauled it up the apartment. in the kitchen we sifted through it and i found two cazadoras (jackets) a pair of pants and three nice camisetas (t shirts). I´m glad because i didn´t bring a lot of clothes with me and i especially needed more undershirts.One of the jackets is aroto broken on the hem but i can stitch it up. anyway, yeah here in spain i´m learning how to survive in a post-apocalyptic earth because i´m learning to find good stuff in the trash and i´m also learning how to build cave man spears. I did go buy a new belt today though because the other one i had broke.

umm...what else. i´m supposed to write a 250 word essay right now that´s due thursday about a cathedral we saw in Santillana del Mar. I´m learning lots of vocabulary in my Clase de Arte y Cultura pertaining to gothic and romantic buildings like Arquivoltas, contrafuertes (kind of like a flying buttress except a little more of a general term) ábside and planta basilical. I love all the architecture here in Europe. Andrew you would love it. you need to come to Europe.

I wish that i could record videos of grammar class. my teacher is a riot. today he mimed a story about a terrorist that fails to blow up a bus full of children and we had to write an essay about it. I think my essay was something like this:

Muhammad, el terrorista, era un mal cabrón. Un buen día, construyó una bomba para que explotara un autobus lleno de niños. Pero cuando la bomba explotó, no lo destruiera. Entónces, Chuck Norris le mató para que no recibiera setenta y dos virgenes en el cielo. El Fin.

Y el traducción...

Muhammad, the terrorist, was a very bad person. One fine day, he built a bomb to blow up a bus full of children. But when the bomb exploded it didn´t destroy the bus. So, Chuck Norris killed Muhammad so that he wouldn´t recieve seventy two virgins in heaven. The End.

25.10.2008

No autumn colors here yet. but it was a beautiful sunny day today. manolita and i took the bus out towards el sardinero (the beach sort of) and we took lots of pictures of the ocean, the boats and el faro (the lighthouse). José didn´t come with us though. I guess he´s really sick. he usually stays in bed, but this morning we all walked to the store. manolita was telling me that josé is starting to get alzheimer´s. they both have diabetes too. last night on our walk, we usually always go for walks with Nuni (the dog) , and she was telling me that José used to be a heavy smoker...like a chainsmoker i guess. I´m glad they don´t smoke anymore. i was afraid i would have to live with a family that smokes but i got lucky.

Tomorrow we´re going to go to Suesa? i think it is. the little family house their family owns in the pueblo. It´s really cool. they have a bunch o f fig trees and last time we went we picked a bunch of higos (figs). I was trying to teach manolita how to say "figs" but she pronounces the word more like "fix". I guess it´s really common for families to have a little house outside of town that the extended family shares and passes down through generations so that they can have get-togethers on weekends.

I had little coffee this morning, but i think i want to go buy some. i also need to buy some more toothpaste. Thursday i went to a chinese store in santander, they call it the bazaar, and it´s a lot like the store "Big Lots". I bought a few cheap books in spanish to read. i´ve been looking for books, but they´re expensive in the little book stores. however i did find La Naranja Mecánico (A Clockwork Orange) in spanish and i want to buy it ( i couldn´t buy it at the time because it was 9€ ¡muy caro! that´s spanish for expensive,) but now that i have some money i think i´m going to go and buy it.

The books that i did buy at the chinese big lots are called "Las Babosas" (the slugs - it´s a silly horror novel about slugs that eat people) and "La Venganza del Tiburon" (the revenge of the shark - and it has a picture of a big, scary great white shark on the front). My grammar teacher told us that if we want to speak spanish we first need to be able to read it so i´m trying to find all the cheap spanish books i can.

Puente Viesgo y Altamira

17.10.2008

Hola,

Today we went to a cave in Puente Viesgo with cave paintings dating back thirteen thousand years. Then we went to Altamira and went to a museum that had a recreation of other cave paintings that date back twenty thousand years. It was fascinating. we´ve been learning about the cave paintings of Altamira in my art history class. It´s too bad we couldn´t see the real altamira paintings. They closed the cave to the public in the seventies because they were being destroyed. At least i got to see some real cave paintings at puente viesgo. The museum at altamira was pretty lame, but what was awesome was that we got to do a workshop with this guy who builds spears from flint, wood and horse tendon. He showed us how the spears were made and then we got to practice throwing the spears at some cierva (deer) and bisonte (bison) practice targets using a propulsor (a type of throwing mechanism that is still used by Australian aborigines and eskimos) to throw the spear or javelin. I didn´t hit the targets, but it made me want to go out in the woods like bear grylls and build javelins to hunt deer.

14.10.2008

Fuimos a Sevilla y Granada

Hello,

We just had a four day weekend so Dolly, Michelle, Breann and I went to Sevilla and Granada. In Sevilla we saw La Plaza de España which is huge and rivals St. Peter´s square in Rome. That was Friday. Saturday we went to Granada and saw the gardens of La Alhambra. We couldn´t go inside because those tickets were sold out. After the Alhambra we got to see a flamenco show. Sunday we returned to Sevilla. It was raining. We saw El Alcázar and I had to pay 7€ while everyone else got in for free since they had a student ID and I didn´t. We arrived in Santander last night around seven and Dolly discovered that she had lost her camera. I think it was stolen while we were on the metro in Madrid. There were so many people on the subway that day we were packed like sardines so it would have been easy for a pickpocket to reach inside her purse and grab her camera. Luckily I haven´t lost anything or had anything stolen, but I think next time I travel I´m going to take my smaller bag rather than my backpack so i can hold my belongings in front of me if I need to. I don´t really have to worry about my passport, money and things like that since those things I keep around my neck under a shirt.

My next trip I´m planning is to go to Paris on 26th of October. After that I want to return to Barcelona on November 6th and actually see La Sagrada Familia and the Gaudi Museum/Park. Hopefully I´ll get to see a futbol game too. Speaking of futbol I might be able to see a Santander game this Sunday. My host parents have also invited me to come with them to a town called Pueblo (aptly named) to visit their family. I still have a hard time understanding what they´re saying, but in school when my teachers speak I can understand them pretty well. I´m getting better at understanding spanish, but speaking it is still very slow. Hopefully I can study abroad again or go live in a spanish speaking country after I graduate so I can actually learn the language because two and a half months is not enough time to learn a language. It´s also frustrating because I haven´t really met many spanish people here in Santander aside from my host parents and their family. I was hoping to make some spanish friends that i could practice my spanish with. Making spanish friends is proving to be far more difficult than I thought at first. I want to take a cooking class through an organization through school so hopefully I´ll meet some of the spanish students through that.

07.10.2008

October Seventh, 2008

I have begun meeting with my grammar teacher´s wife, Maria, after school and we converse in Spanish and English. She is a professor of music education here at the university of cantabria and she needs to practice her english because she is part of a congress? she told me of her peers. she meets with people from other universities and they have meetings in english so she needs to practice her english just as i need to practice my spanish.

we speak in spanish for half an hour and english for another half an hour. today was my first day. I can understand pretty well but im slow of speech. im going to be meeting with her every day though so im excited that my spanish will be improving that much faster and im glad i can help her with her english.

Tomorrow my friend Dolly and I have to give a presentation in conversation class. I think we´ll either talk about the differences between the health systems of the united states and spain, or los pitufos (the smurfs). i dont really know much about the smurfs so i think we´ll talk about health care. i don´t really know much about health care either though. so im having fun, learning a lot and enjoying school. i wish i could get some pictures up here,but the computer won´t let me. im just buying more SD cards for my camera and ill probably end up uploading my pictures when i get back. ill have a ton of pictures though. not only mine but myself and Dolly, Anna, Michelle and Briann are all going to make CD copies of our pictures and share since we´re in eachother´s pictures. so im going to have a ton of pictures to show you guys when i get back.

ive really gotten into junk food being over here. don´t worry mom im brushing my teeth...but im always hungry. like for morning break i end up buying a donut with my coffee and i eat churros con chocolate with are basically huge deep fried bread things that you dip in chocolate and taste awesome and i usually get ice cream every day. i think im getting a little spoiled.

Mi clase de Gramática

In the middle of my grammar class i have a little break to go to the bathroom. since my teacher, manolo, and i are the only guys in the class he jokes saying we´re compañeros del baño (bathroom buddies) and he´s always telling me "traiga el whisky" and i say "traeré el whisky" but today "yo habría traido el whisky, pero se lo me olvidó" (bring the whisky he says and i´m supposed to say i´ll bring the whisky but today i had to say "i would have brought the whisky but i forgot it.)

Manolo is awesome. he´s an excellent grammar teacher and he is very hard on us so that we will be prepared for "puta vida real" or "fucking real life."

01.10.2008

hola. today was my second day of real classes. i have a clase de gramatica, una clase de conversación y una clase de arte y la cultura de España. my grammar teacher es de puta madre (he´s really cool). today we had to write about our first kiss. mine was when i was seven years old with a girl on our street. i said that i did it because my brothers paid me twenty five cents to do it and Manolo, my teacher, said ¡aha, prostitución! class is really run. the teachers are a lot of fun especially manolo. he´s always telling jokes and making everyone laugh. tomorrow in my conversation class i have to sit in front of the class for five minutes and speak in spanish on a topic of my choice. ithink im going to start out by syaing "hola. my name is gabriel and i am single." because im the only guy in the class. this trip is awesome because im one of only four guys in a group of twenty four...so twenty girls. ¡very nice, as my friend borat would say!

i don´t really know what ill talk about tomorrow for my presentation in class, but ill think of something tonight and tell you all about it tomorrow. tonight im going to a party at one of the bars being thrown by ERASMUS students who are all international students from around europe so i should get to meet some nice new people.

i have an upcoming four day weekend and my friend and i are thinking about going to the canary islands.

something funny: the other day i was running across the street to meet some friends and an old man said ¡Estás jodido! which means, more or less, "You are fucked". Over here it´s kind of like England in that vulgarity when speaking is pretty well accepted. it isn´t really considered vulgar. the old man was´t trying to be mean or anything he was probably just telling me i shouldn´t be running like a crazy person. In america we really are prudes. what we consider vulgar isn´t considered vulgar by the rest of the world. anyway, ill say more tomorrow. hasta mañana.

hey,sorry i haven´t written in awhile. theres too much to write i don´t know where to begin. im safely in santander. jose and manolita, my host parents, are very nice. the bus ride was fine. we watched movies and i took a cab to manolitas place. i entered the wrong building and some guy was mad at me for waking him up but i finally found their home. they´´re wonderful people. jose fell out in the street awhile ago, he´s banged up pretty bad, but hes doing fine. manolita is so nice. when i arrived i ate paella, yesterday for lunch i had paella and fillete con papas fritas (meat with french fries basiaally) and for dinner i had tortilla. she is an amazing cook. my room is so nice. its an upstairs room and i even have my own bathroom too! jose used to draw up blueprints and building plans for architects, but he is retired now since nowadays computers and CAD do all that sort of thing.
last night jose and manolitas daughter, elena, and her husband came over so i got to meet them. there´s so much write. i could sit here and write for days about all of it, luckily a journal is required for this program so i will write everything down.
i had a test this morning, i think i did okay. today i will probably go to the beach with some people because the weather is beautiful and when there´s nice weather in santander you have to t ake advantage of it.
i have a four day weekend coming up and my friend, kelley and i, were talking about going to the canary islands maybe. the four day weekend is in october.
speaking with jose and manolita is kind of rough. they can understand me for the most part. i understand what they say but when they ask me questions i can´t really understand. i fee l like im doing well though. everyone here is very nice. the teachers are awesome and i think classes are going to be really fun.
im also going to get involved in some sort of club. its required and it should be a lot of fun. the clubs are cheap because they´re subsidized and i can take a cooking class or do a sports club. for my program im required to be in a club.

right now i´m writing this post in the paraninfo of downtown Santander. yesterday i walked to find the university and i walked past the stadium when a futbol game was about to start. i couldn´t go because i didn´t have the cash on me, but i will go to a futbol game before i come home. the people here drive crazy! they park crazy too. when they´re rounding corners they have the pedal to the medal with they´re tires screeching. everyone rides little vespas too. they all park their cars up on the sidewalks ( i guess they probably have to replace their axles frequently), but anyway yesterday when i was walking home from the stadium i was the only one walking that direction. pretty much the whole city (and this isn´t a small city there´s around 200 thousand people living in santander) were ALL going to the stadium. i would have gone to the game but i didn´t have enough money and i was alone. so it´s on my to do list.