34 Ramps Up

October 29, 2007

Hello to All!

STARBUCKS

I had my first test this week. It was in French. He told us about it on Monday and the test was Wednesday night. I assumed a test was a test was a test. I studied and reread my notes, etc. It’s logical to think that for a test a person is required to know all the information. Well, it turns out I only needed to know about 1/8 of the information. We all took the test and then corrected it together. As long as one person in the class got it right we all got the point. I’ve yet to reach judgment on this type of test….

So in the States we have TV shows about building bigger houses and shows that give tours of celebrities’ insanely crazy houses. Here they have a show where a team of people goes into a family’s house and fills up trash barrels with cash Euros to show how much money the family is wasting in utilizes, gas, etc. My parents sent me pictures of the leaves changing in our neighborhood and I cannot tell you how much I miss the foliage. Our palm trees have browned a bit but it’s definitely not the same. It’s getting colder here. It’s in the 40ºs at night and the highest it gets during mid-day is around 68º or 70º. Sitting at home I’m always freezing. The only thing we have to heat the apartment is a small space heater, which is under a table that is covered with a heavy blanket. We turn on the heater and then pick up the blanket and put it on our laps. In a month or so when it starts getting really cold I think I’m going to sleep in the living room in my chair.

I went for a run on Friday morning. I left the apartment around 7:15ish and was back a little after 8:00. When I got home it was still pretty much completely dark. I went in shorts and a t-shirt and it was a tad chilly. Every time I breathed I could see my breath. It was exactly like Nobles ski preseason, only without the Frisbee. Call me crazy but I miss castle loops in sub-freezing temperatures.

Tangent: the Spanish word for dandruff is “caspa.” Does anyone else besides me think that Casper the friendly ghost was named after dandruff?

The other day Maravilla came in to drop some things off. When she walked in she had left both her and our front doors open and her dog wandered in after her. She sat around talking for a bit and then left. When she left the dog stayed. Now you all know I love dogs, but this thing I have issues with. It’s about half Louie’s size with hair sticking in all directions. His nose looks more like a third eye than a nose. To say he lacks a bit of intelligence would be putting it nicely. When Maravilla left he spent a good twenty minutes barking at a white wall. After he decided he had made sufficient noise in that room he went into Lorena’s room and decided to bark at her pillow. After a while Maravilla comes in a panic because she can’t find one of her cats. When she sees the dog she starts shooing it back into the hallway saying she didn’t realize he was missing. She then comes back to search for the cat. When she was satisfied the cat wasn’t there she left and went back to her apartment. Five minutes later we hear a noise and look in the hallway. She had forgot the dog in the hallway. I honestly have no clue how she’s managed to keep all these animals for such a long time.

I voted this week. I believe the elections are a week from tomorrow in the States but we absentees got our ballots this week. The ballot was just about aldermen and school committee representatives but it came with about ten pages of directions and warnings. Apparently filling out an absentee ballot when you’re not absent can cost you $10,000 or five years in jail.

Halloween is this Wednesday. It’s my favorite holiday and I’m going to miss it. There is going to be a big costume party in one of the gypsy caves but I have to miss it because I’m going to be on a bus to the north of Spain. For those of you who live near my house please take a trip past my house to make sure that we at least have jack-o-lanterns and a bowl of candy. Ahem, parents, you promised.

I’ve decided I’ll never be able to live somewhere that doesn’t have tapas bars Granada style. In Granada if you get a drink tapas are free and they are delicious. Elsewhere in Spain you have to pay for the tapas but not here! It’s totally possible to have a full dinner for 3€ .

You’ve all heard of or seen the movie The Truman Show, right? Well here they have something very similar to that concept. It’s a TV show called Gran Hermano. There is a group of about 10-15 people living in a house that is covered in cameras. The closest thing in the States would be Real World. Here’s the catch. These people live in this house and they have no access to the outside world: no phone, no Internet, no television and no fax. Instead of pre-taping it a few months ahead of airing it and editing all the juicy scenes together Gran Hermano is live. It’s aired for six hours (again, all live) on Thursday nights on regular television but there is actually a channel where it is on live twenty-fours hours a week.

I think they are finally releasing Ben Affleck’s new movie Gone Baby Gone over here. I’ve wanted to see it for a really long time but they decided not to release it in Europe because the story line is too close to the Maddie McCann disappearance.

This past weekend we went to Sevilla. We only went for two days, not even. We left Friday morning and came back Saturday night. Seville is about three hours west of Granada. I feel as if this week has been so much longer because we did so much in Seville that I feel as if that was a week in and of itself. The hotel we stayed in was called the Macarena and every time I walked in the front door I did the dance. The hotel was nice but it was on the outskirts of the city so getting around was difficult sometimes. On Friday we did a bus tour all around the city. We had easily the ugliest bus on the planet. It was yellow and purple with the two colors all faded together in the middle, which added a brownish stripe around the middle. We saw the old royal tobacco factory, which is where Carmen (from the opera Carmen) worked. The building is gigantic and is now the University of Seville. Seville has the only harbor in the interior of Spain so about 500 years ago it because the important city it is now because it’s not too far from the royal palace in Madrid so the royal family could govern the new colonies in America because the boats could leave Sevilla and take the river straight through Portugal and into the Atlantic Ocean. Seville is also where Magellan started and ended his around the world trip. Well, his crew finished in Seville given that he died during the journey.

In 1929 Seville hosted the World’s Fair so in the city centre there are many buildings that were built for the fair. Many countries built pavilions in Seville and the buildings still stand today. Most of them no pertain to the University but the Spanish Pavilion (Plaza de España) is now a government building. This building and the plaza in front of it are some of the most impressive pieces of architecture I’ve seen since being ehre. All along the wall of the building, in the plaza, are small alcoves and each is dedicated to each of the Spanish autonomous regions. They are all made of tile and on the floor is a tiled map of the area and then against the back wall is a tiled scene that pertains to the province. For example, the picture in Granada’s alcove is of the fall of Granada in 1492, when the Catholic kings expelled the Moorish king. You might recognize the Pavilion because it is where they taped scenes from Star Wars: Attack of the Clones.

Speaking of movies, Francis Ford Copola is in Spain, on the southern coast, looking for places to film his next movie.

We went to visit the royal palace in Seville. The royal family lives in Madrid but it is where they stay when they come to Seville. The palace was pretty, a Christian king built it but it seems very Arabic because the king who built it was a big fan of Arabic architecture. Apparently a lot of the Arabic writing carved on the walls is wrong because the king who had the palace built and the masons who built it didn’t know Arabic. The gardens in the palace are absolutely amazing. There is a pond in one corner. In the pond there are ducks and carps. When you throw bread or food to the ducks the carps come up and eat the food right out from under the ducks. The fish are actually pushing the ducks out of the water. It’s insanely funny. Check out the picture.

We also went to the bull fighting ring and the museum there. The ring in Seville is the most important ring in Spain. I know that I’m incredibly squeamish but I’d really like to go to a fight now that I’ve learned about the stages and the history of the sport. The season goes from the beginning of April and this year it ended October 12th so I guess I can’t go. At the end of each fight the judge decides, depending on the techniques the matador used how many trophies he receives. In the best fight the matador would receive the two ears of the bull and the tail. In bars all around Seville are the heads of bulls from the fights. You can tell how good the fight was depending on if the bull still has both ears, one ear, or no ears.

Saturday morning we visited the Cathedral of Seville. It is absolutely gorgeous. Inside the cathedral is Christopher Columbus’s tomb and the altar, I think someone said it is the biggest altar in the world. Part of the cathedral is this huge tower that you can climb to the top of. There is no elevator. In order to get to the top you need to go up thirty-four ramps. There are no stairs. I was told that there are ramps because when they built the cathedral almost a millennium ago, there was a guy, either the Pope or a Bishop or someone along those lines, who liked to ride his horse to the top of the tower. Therefore we have ramps instead of stairs. From the top of the tower there is an amazing panoramic of the city of Sevilla.

Around the cathedral is a district where you can’t drive. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around this area. We ate tapas, of course. Seville is credited with the invention of tapas. And then, and I can’t believe I’m going to say this, we went to STARBUCKS! There are only four cities in Spain that have Starbucks: Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, and Valencia. Man, that was good coffee. The Spanish Starbucks coffee is way better than the American Starbucks coffee. In the Starbucks in Seville they had a drink called “Americano” and it was coffee with water. That pretty much sums it up.

After our Starbucks Hunter, Dave, and I went to take a nap in the gardens of a really nice hotel that was built by a Duke for the world fair. After a while we got bored so we decided to find bicycles for rent to explore the city for a bit. We asked a man who had a bunch of horses and buggies where the bikes where and he said he had no idea. A few hours later when we were walking back to the bus to Granada we found the bikes. They were right behind the man’s horses.

The hotel in Granada had two things going for it. One: hot showers with pressure in which I didn’t have to hold the spigot in my hand. Two: cable television. I watched Gilmore Girls and Crossing Jordan in German as well as the first two games of the World Series in French on the Algerian channel.

As much as I loved Seville I am glad I picked Granada. Seville is a much bigger city; it’s about 3-4 times the size of Granada. Granada is a very big university town so there is a huge student population and the physical size of the city is rather small so you can get everywhere on foot. The one thing Seville has on Granada is the greenery. There are many more parks and in general, more trees throughout the city.

Driving home from Seville we stopped at a truck stop in the middle of nowhere. Spanish truck stops are defiantly not the gas station, McDonalds, TCBYs of the States. They are nice restaurants and the architecture is actually appealing to the eye.

The thing you notice about Spain while driving is how fast it goes from heavily populated city to middle of nowhere. So far everywhere I’ve driven in Andalusia goes from city directly to farm land and mountains. There are no suburbs. It’s either city or country. From the Alhambra you can look out and pinpoint the exact border of the city of Granada because there immediately is plain open space.

This past weekend was my first of five weekends being away from Granada. Travel knocks me out so Sundays are going to be sleep days. Yesterday I slept until dinner time. When I woke up we got ready and went to an Irish pub type restaurant to watch the Barça game against Almeria. Barça won and then Valencia lost to Seville so I think Barcelona has moved up to 2nd place in the league.

Until next week, Me.

Ps. I LOVE the RED SOX!

PPs. I was hanging laundry on the roof just before coming here and when I looked up, the Sierra Nevada were covered in snow.