Granada and La Alhambra

Last weekend I visited Granada with two friends from my program in Sevilla, Rebecca and Camila. One of my friends from Carleton is currently studying in Granada, and the entire Carleton Madrid program was also visiting Granada, so I planned our visit to be able to meet up with everyone. Just like the previous weekend in Valencia, it was so fun to see friends from home.

Granada is a few hours from Sevilla by bus, also in the Andalucía region of Spain, and is such a cool city. Unlike Sevilla, Granada has elevation and hills, with clear views of snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains. Granada was the last Arab city in the region to be conquered by the Catholic Monarchs, and as such, retains significant Arab influence, in the form of food and art and culture. And Granada somehow seems to be more laid-back and colorful than Sevilla, with loads of street art and political graffiti (Sevilla doesn't feel very politically involved). I was really, really into the city's vibes.

I must mention the free tapas. In Granada, with every drink ordered, a free tapa (small plate of food) arrives. It's a little bit like magic. In Sevilla if you order a drink maybe you'll get some olives or something, but Granada is a whole different story. Over the course of the weekend we got chicken curry, bread with tomato spread and cheese, stuffed olives, falafel, and couscous. All with the purchase of a glass of wine or a beer. Like I said, magic.

When my friends and I first started planning our trip to Granada, my host dad told me that we absolutely had to go to La Alhambra. Not knowing anything about it and having only seen a few photos, I responded something along the lines of, "I mean we've already been to the Alcazar in Sevilla, isn't it the same thing?" My host father was visibly astonished and the entire family couldn't believe what I'd said; a very passionate and convincing discussion ensued.

Ultimately, we knew that we'd have to visit La Alhambra (a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and apparently one of the most popular tourist stops in Europe). Unfortunately, when we tried to prebook our tickets a few weeks in advance, everything was already sold out. I read online that same day tickets could be purchased if we showed up to wait in line at 6:30am, fingers crossed that they wouldn't run out. So that became our game plan for getting into La Alhambra.

Our first afternoon in Granada was spent exploring with my friend Caroline, who showed us around the city where she lives. Great food, including the best churros we've had in Spain (went back the next day). We met up with my other Carleton friends at night (Saul, Sylvie, Dallas; see previous post). At 2:30am I set my alarm for 5:55am.

Still somewhat asleep, we trekked the 20 minutes up the steep hill to la Alhambra in the pitch-black dark of the morning. It was really more of a trail than a road, with zero illumination. Very creepy. When we arrived at the top of the hill, a security guard with a flashlight explained to us that since October 1, it was no longer possible to queue in the morning for same-day tickets. Tickets had to be purchased online, and the last rush tickets had been sold an hour before. We were crushed. Once the guard realized that we spoke Spanish, he told us that the new trick was to start refreshing the ticket webpage every minute, after midnight, until we obtained tickets. So we walked back to the Airbnb, climbed into our beds, and slept for another three hours.

When we finally woke up we made a lovely egg brunch (I cooked so much kale!) and re-evaluated our day. We spent the entire day walking around Granada, seeking out street art, and enjoying the beautiful views. I loved it. We even found a tiny Colombian take-away restaurant, which was joyful for everyone involved. Most definitely could have seen myself studying in Granada.

After a dinner of free tapas with Carleton friends, Rebecca, Camila, and I spent an intense hour trying to purchase tickets to La Alhambra while walking across Granada. We gave up and resigned ourselves to missing the world-renowned Arab palace. We were only finally successful with one last attempt, once we were at the discoteca dancing ourselves silly.

Sunday morning we rolled out of bed, made more eggs, and climbed back up the hill to the Alhambra. The entire journey there was surreal, since due to the chain of events, none of us could believe that we were actually going to visit. The Alhambra was beautiful. An ancient Arab royal palace and fortress, on a hill overlooking the city, with extensive palatial gardens. Unbelievably intricate decoration and tile work. Columns, fountains, flowers, and colors. It was expanded by different Islamic rulers throughout time, each addition following the theme of paradise. (Fun fact, La Alhambra was occupied by squatters after centuries of neglect, before being rediscovered and converted to present-day World Heritage Site.) I can't at all describe it, so please look at the photos and know that it was at least 12x better than I could capture. I highly recommend. Once we'd filled up on beauty, we hiked back down into town and boarded a bus back to Sevilla.

    

Valencia, last-minute

Okay, so I've got a little bit of catching up to do. I wasn't going to blog about my trip to Valencia, but all of a sudden I decided that I want to. So here we are.

A few weeks ago my friends and I had a trip planned to Barcelona. Then things started going crazy with politics (and attempts at independence) in Cataluña, and we slowly started feeling much less confident in our trip. We were warned of strikes, military intervention, and protests, and were finally prohibited by our program from going. So we cancelled the trip, and I spent the week frantically trying to figure out what else I could do for our long weekend. Long story short, lots of plans came and went and nothing was shaking out for me. Finally, I contacted my close friend Saul who is studying in Madrid with a Carleton program. He told me that he and two friends were going to Valencia for the weekend, and that they had room for one more in their Airbnb. I checked train tickets, and after the usual (lengthy and complicated) purchasing hassle, I had tickets to Valencia for two nights. 

My trip to Valencia was on the AVE train – the high-speed, long-distance train in Spain (also the longest high speed rail network in Europe!) – and the ride took about three hours. The train home was not aboard the AVE train. The train home took eight hours. But I'll circle back to that part.

I had a lovely time on the AVE, writing blog posts and doing work on my laptop and listening to music. I ate a potato sandwich from my host mom.  **Side note: who knew I would ever be at a point in my life where I'd be excited for a potato sandwich?! Well here I am. It's actually made of sliced Spanish tortilla (a very typical, very dense, very simple, frittata-esque potato and egg dish) on two slices of crusty white bread.**  I arrived in Valencia around 10pm, where Saul and (my new friends!) Sylvie and Dallas met me at the train station. 

My weekend in Valencia was surreal in how much I enjoyed it. It was incredibly fun, and I can only describe the weekend as joyful. I have so missed Carleton people. I laughed more than I had in a while, and as I sit here typing this post I'm grinning from ear to ear at the memories.

On Friday we cooked eggs for breakfast! This was such a happy change from peanut butter toast every single morning. In Spain they don't do big breakfasts, and most people eat some variation of bread and coffee each day; I've missed the massive quantity of eggs that I normally consume daily. We put spinach in the eggs, and also enjoyed brie and chorizo and bread. We spent much of the day at the beach. Lucky for me, Saul and Dallas both play frisbee, so we played some lovely Mediterranean Sea frisbee for a long while. Only my belly button got sunburnt (still not sure how that happened.)

Mercat Central de Valencia.

Paella (the famous Spanish rice dish, full of varied seafood and meat) originates from Valencia, so we absolutely had to get paella for our late lunch. All I will say about this is that it was potentially worth going all the way to Valencia simply for paella. (I'm clearly still thinking about that lunch.)

Planning to cook dinner, we arrived at the grocery store 19 minutes before closing, with little plan of what we would prepare. We split up to race around the store and somehow decided that we'd make homemade pizza and salad. In our rush we did accidentally double up on some of the ingredients and forget others, but we found oregano in our Airbnb and everything was so yummy.

Palm trees and cool architecture.

Saturday morning we made more eggs, this time with all of the leftover pizza toppings – mushrooms, spinach, ham, and goat cheese. I was over the moon at eggs for breakfast two days in a row. Pretty soon I had to head out to the train station. On the walk I stopped at the Mercat Central, Valencia's massive indoor food market in a cool domed building. It was absolutely popping on a Saturday morning, and I do love me a good market.

All in all, I didn't actually see too much of Valencia. And normally that would be a bummer for me, but the weekend truly couldn't have been any better. Walking around I saw some of the principal parts of the city, but more than that I saw my friends and had a heart-filling weekend, which was exactly what I needed. 

When I got on the not-AVE train back to Seville, I realized what made it not the AVE. Instead of outlets and trashcans for each passenger, the seats were not in great shape and the cleanliness simply wasn't up to par with the AVE. The real kicker was that the seats were facing backwards for the entire train ride, because I guess the train didn't turn around between arriving from Sevilla and departing for Sevilla; I watched Spain pass backwards outside my window for eight hours. 

Tierra, trágame!

During my intensive Spanish class (the first few weeks of being in Sevilla), I learned an expression: Tierra, trágame! It's what people say when something so mortifying, so terrible happens that they want to vanish into the earth. It's like saying "Earth, open up and swallow me whole, right here, right now."

The pictures included in this post were chosen very carefully, to suit the mood. They are from a town called Ronda (which was, in fact, absolutely lovely.)

I'm pretty sure that my Biology professor gets a kick out of the fact that I'm in her class. I think she told me that she taught at a university in Texas for a bit. I'm the only student whose name she knows, because I am the single foreigner. The other day in class she asked a question, and students were all shouting out answers. After approximately eight incorrect answers, she said, "Eliza, do you know the answer?" I didn't even know what the question was, because class frequently flies over my head.

I want to be clear that I do really like this professor, and even though I don't understand most of what she says, I think she's an excellent teacher.

On Monday, our professor came into the classroom and announced that she would be giving the lecture in English, just as she'd promised me (I had told her to please not do that, that it was not at all necessary). Everyone groaned heavily. I wanted to duck underneath my desk and hide for a while.

There were probably 20 additional students in the classroom on Monday, because it turns out that they'd waited until a few weeks into the semester to start showing up to our class. I've heard that this is pretty common here. So, for several students, Monday was their class.

I don't think anybody really believed that my professor would give the lecture in English. We were all wrong; she was digging the chance to practice her English.

Ten minutes into the lecture a student raised his hand to ask why she was doing this. The professor explained that Eliza has to attend class every day in Spanish, and that for the visitor's sake (apparently that's me, but I thought I was a normal student?) she would lecture today in English. She went on about how this wouldn't be a problem for anyone, because the students must meet a level of English fluency before they can enroll at the university, so everyone should be able to keep up.

The student asked if this was an every day thing, and the professor explained that it was just for the day, but might happen again. She pointed out that she'd told me that she would do this for me (ugh).

No one in the room, myself included, had signed up for this. People were not into it. I was squirming in my seat.

The professor resumed lecturing. Students started packing up their things and leaving.

Tierra, trágame.

After about fifteen students had left the classroom, the professor paused her teaching. Reverting to Spanish, she asked how could it be that the students couldn't even stand one lecture in English? She went on that English is the language of science, that all of the articles and texts in Biology are in English. The students were supposed to know English, and in later years, would have to take courses in English.

So there I sat. Wanting more than anything for class to be over, and sure that no longer would I have any chance of having friends in that class.

Oh well, if nothing else, my professor seems to like me.

On Tuesday, I wiped out in the mud (surprise, it rained for the first time today) riding my Sevici bicycle (see previous post about Sevici challenges) to my Psychology class. I was covered in mud, and used the toilet paper in a Pizza Hut bathroom to clean up as best I could before class. But I was still covered in mud. And due to the events of the previous day, I decided that I couldn't show up to my Biology class that muddy - I had already lost a few too many points with my peers. So after Psychology, I went all the way home to shower before my Biology class. It turns out that I made the right move, because several students talked to me today!

The Sevilla Bike Experience

Before arriving in Sevilla, Spanish Studies Abroad recommended Sevici, the city's bike rental program. Growing up biking around the Twin Cities, I realized the value of being able to commute by bicycle. After looking into Sevici and the accessibility of the bike docking stations, as well as the tentative locations of my classes, I sat down in my Cape Town apartment and purchased a long-term Sevici subscription.

When I got to Sevilla, I saw Sevici bike stations everywhere, and quickly felt great about my membership. I also noticed bike lanes throughout the very flat city, and decided that purchasing the subscription had been a fantastic choice. To be clear, it was, and still is, a great decision. But one month later, I have a daily love-hate relationship with Sevici.

This blog post is entirely about biking in Sevilla. If you want to read a real blog about real biking (across the United States), check out my brother's blog -- it's stellar.

My local Sevici bike station, half a block from our apartment.

My Sevici membership card didn't arrive until a few weeks into my stay. As such, my inaugural bike ride was to attend my first ever Universidad de Sevilla class (Psychology). The bike ride was the most stressful part of that afternoon. To start, the Sevici bikes are quite cumbersome, to say the least. They are heavy. They are tippy and hard to maneuver. When I first got on the bike I felt as though I'd forgotten how to ride a bicycle.

The next factor was the roads. Most of the roads in the city center are cobblestone. If you've never biked on a cobblestone road, that's probably a good thing. It's sketchy. And to add to the challenge of biking on cobblestones, most of the roads appear to be one-ways, and I have yet to figure out which way each road runs. What I think I may have found, though, is that usually roughly six parallel roads run in the same direction (which seems quite counterintuitive and I don't understand in the slightest), making things frustrating when I'm trying to go in the opposite direction.

The next component is the bike lanes. Yes, they run through convenient parts of the city, but mostly through very popular areas. This means that in touristy areas, I'm constantly dinging my little bicycle bell at dozens of pedestrians wandering through my lane. Not to mention the pedestrians that stand in the bike lane to take photos. So it's a constant game of dodging oblivious people and the (very slow) tram that parallels the bike lane. This is what turns a 15-minute ride on Google maps into a 25-minute experience. (And, confession: it is what has made the bike commuter in me hate pedestrians.)

One of many cobblestone roads.

Finally, the heat is a major element of the Sevici adventure. When I arrived in Spain at the beginning of September, I heard that by October temperatures would drop from the high 90s, cooling off for the winter. I'm still waiting for that drop. This means that after every bicycle ride, no matter the time of day or the length of the journey, I always arrive dripping sweat.

Since my first Sevici ride to Psychology class three weeks ago, I've used countless bicycles. My absurd class schedule places me in three different parts of the city for twelve total class periods each week, and unfortunately for me, many of these classes just so happen to coincide with the hottest and sunniest hours of each day. For the first time in my life my backpack has developed sweat stains.

The other thing that I've learned about Sevici is that sometimes the stations run out of bikes. This happens quite frequently, actually, especially at common commuting hours and especially by the Biology campus. Also, stations are frequently full of bikes. Given that Sevici only allows 30 minutes of bike rental before charging a euro, this can be somewhat anxiety-provoking, when returning a bike and trying to arrive somewhere on time. And lastly, sometimes the bikes are broken. 

One very memorable early-morning Sevici ride consisted of renting the only bike available at the station near my house, to find that the seat was broken, and its height could not be raised. So I biked to the next closest station, but found no bikes. With my knees at chest level, I biked eight minutes to another bike station, returned the broken bike, and was timed out from taking a new bike for five minutes. I got a bike, this one with a faulty gear shift, rode it to the bus stop where I was to meet my program for a day trip, and discovered that all of the bike docks in the area were full. Unamused, I biked back several blocks, finally found a station with space for my bike, and ran to the bus stop. My friends got a kick out of the ordeal.

So that's my essay on the hate components of my love-hate relationship with Sevici. To keep the love short: it's much easier to bike to each of my classes, criss-crossing the city, than it is to walk. And it's much cheaper than taking the bus or the metro (side note: the metro runs more slowly than I bike). The bikes really are everywhere in the city, and Sevilla is flat. It also means that I can very easily meet friends who live in other parts of the city, especially when I'm not up for that 45-minute walk. And I guess the heavy and awkward bike lends itself to a bit of a workout, albeit with intense sweat. But overall, being able to hop on a bike is a game-changer.

So would I recommend Sevici? Yes. But I just have to say that it's harder than it looks. Mom and Dad, when you come to visit I'm not sure I'll let you bike; don't want any broken body parts. Jeremy, you can try it out.

The Extranjera

This past week was my first week of classes at the Universidad de Sevilla. Through Spanish Studies Abroad, I have the option to enroll as a foreign student and take whichever university classes I'd like. That's one of the main reasons I chose this program, and after months of logistical uncertainty, I'm currently enrolled in Cell Biology and Psychology of Personality and Human Diversity. I should mention that few students in my program take classes at the local university, and most of those who do take classes established specifically for foreign students. What I'm trying to say is that I'm the only foreign student in either of my two classes.

While I had hoped that it wouldn't be incredibly obvious and apparent to my peers that I am not a Spanish student, I also knew that it wouldn't be a secret. This post is about how it has since become very, very well known that I am a foreigner, an extranjera.

Because the university is so big (Wikipedia tells me 80,000 students,) it is spread throughout the city. This means that the Psychology department and the Biology department are on entirely different campuses, and so between those two classes and my classes at the Spanish Studies Abroad center, I'm all over Sevilla. I joined Sevici, the city bike share program, and have been learning how to bike in this city. But that alone probably warrants an entire blog post. Basically, I show up extremely sweaty and frazzled to all of my classes (which isn't helping me to blend in).

On Monday I arrived at the Biology campus, only to find that it was deserted and that classes actually wouldn't start until Tuesday. Oh well. On Tuesday the professor took attendance, and when she got to the one name she couldn't pronounce, she asked where I was from. I replied "Estados Unidos," and turned a nice shade of red, while everyone swiveled to look at me. So that was my first extranjera reveal. The next day a student cheerfully approached me and introduced herself, speaking English. She told me that if I ever had questions or needed help with anything I should let her know. She immediately asked for my phone number, sent me a message with her own number, offered to share her notes with me, introduced me to her friends, and invited me to go out with a group of students the next night. She even followed up later on. Even though I know it's definitely not the case, it was almost as though someone had paid her to be my friend. But it was so sweet of her and I definitely need friends, so I'm certainly not complaining.

During the seminar section of my Psychology class, we spent the entire hour discussing the group presentations for the term. With five minutes remaining, the professor announced that we needed to tell him our groups and our topics. All hour I had dreaded the moment that I knew was coming, when I would have to find a group in a class of students that all already knew one another. As students began to shout out names to the professor, a boy asked me whether or not I had a group, and did I want to be in a group with him and his friend. I replied with a massive "yes please!" and what I imagine was all-too-evident relief. Only after we had agreed to be in a group did I tell him that I was a foreign student and that this is my first time taking classes in Spain. (Or in Spanish, ever, for that matter, but I certainly didn't tell him that.) I hope he wasn't too bummed when he realized what he'd just signed up for.

During another Psychology class, my professor was explaining how to complete the online personality tests. He looked at me and asked me whether or not I was an extranjera. I replied "sí!" after which he asked whether or not my ID number has numbers in it, and, confused as usual, I told him that I did not know. Once again, lots of whispers at the public reveal of my extranjera identity. Later discussing grief therapy, the same professor asked if I was from the US. Again, I said "sí!" and when I didn't know the famous psychologist that he so appreciated, he appeared quite let down.

So now all of my classmates know that I'm the extranjera, and an American extranjera at that; oh well, I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. Class right now is really hard, and the Andalusian accent is crazy to me. Despite my desperate concentration, most of what the professors say goes straight over my head. I'm holding out hope that it'll get easier, though. On the bright side, they don't give homework here. On the less bright side, the entire grade rests on the final exam. Cross your fingers for me please!

So here are two photos of me in places where I felt more comfortable than I currently do in class! The first is at the top of the fortress in Trujillo (see previous post for more info), and the second is with friends in the bathtub of an ancient Arab bath house in Ronda.