La Semana de Orientación (Orientation Week...)

Hi everyone!

Where to even begin…It´s been less that a week and I already feel like I´ve been thrown into the middle of a crazy, but incredibly amazing, whirlwind.  First of all, I´m going to apologize in advance for typos, bad spelling, and perhaps some accidental Spanish.  The keyboards in the Stanford center are all in Spanish (the autocorrect unfortunately changes things to Spanish and refuses to correct my English spelling) and we have officially signed two contracts requiring that we only speak in Spanish for the remainder of our stay.  That being said, I’m definitely struggling to keep up and understand all the Spanish that´s being thrown at us, including things that I actually need to know like how to call the European 911 number.  I didn´t realize how easy it is to space out to instructions and lectures in Spanish (especially when you´re jetlagged and not allowed to sleep before 2pm because ¨that´s the Spanish way¨)!!  However I´m hoping that I´ll slowly but surely begin to catch up.  I´ve already noticed myself accidentally starting to write things on Facebook in Spanish, and I keep switching around my English grammar.

Okay, back to Orientation week.  After two amazing Lufthansa flights from Seattle to Frankfurt (this airport was hilarious – sausages, chocolates, and cans of dark beer were everywhere) to Madrid, my traveling companion Alyssa and I arrived safe and sound at the Stanford center.  I was so so glad to have Alyssa with me – we survived the insanity of 36 without sleep together (we went straight into orientation after our flight) and navigated the crowded Barajas airport in Madrid where we found a taxi with surprising ease.  Once in the Stanford center, we had to quickly pack our bags for the weekend and then pack into a bus to begin our trip toward Barcelona.  We spent the night at a very strange hotel with a very typical Spanish meal: salad with slices of cheese (probably Kraft) and ham (basically bologna), chicken soaked in grease with French fries and funky dark ketchup, french bread in a sealed plastic bag, and then plain Danon yogurt (all yogurt is Danon here, and it´s literally served at every meal) with fruit for dessert.  Up in the morning for breakfast (again, bread, ham, and cheese) and then off to Barcelona where we arrived at a much nicer hotel for lunch.  The salad was the same and we still had french fries, but I was pleased to experience my first Spanish flan with chocolate sauce.  I should also note here that all of our bus rides were filled with rather complex Spanish grammar lessons – so much for siestas and catching up on that jetlag!

For your enjoyment, here's one of those delicious salads :)

As promised, Barcelona was amazing.  On our first day we went to a lecture on Catalonia “Catalunya: Emblemas de su cultura” by a professor from La Universidad Barna.  We then headed off to the Museu Nacional D’Art de Catalunya.  Our tour guide was fabulous, and I got to see my first Picasso, Gaudí, Velázquez, etc. up close.  It was amazing to see some of Picasso’s art before the crazy cubism stuff - he’s actually an incredibly diverse artist.  After the museum we had our first free time in the city.  With the help of our Spanish espressos from a gorgeous plaza by our hotel, a big group of us found a cheap tapas restaurant with, of course, free champagne for “las mujeres” (women).  I think we all fell a little bit in love with our Italian bartender Marcos who, of course, turned out to be in a relationship with the enormous male bouncer.  !Como es la vida de españa!  The next day we again loaded onto our favorite autobús to visit the Park Güell with more work by Gaudí.  Next up was the gorgeous Sagrada Familia.  Apparently they only recently finished some of the construction inside the cathedral, so it was truly a spectacular experience.

The entrance to the plaza we ate in:

...the plaza:

The Museu Nacional D’Art de Catalunya (a view from our bus...ignore the no smoking sign in the window)

A view of Barcelona

And the view from my hotel window in Barcelona

La Sagrada Familia

Our next orientation destination was Costa Brava, specifically the Pladja d’Aro.  The Pladja d’Aro is heaven.  Picture a gorgeous old white hotel on the rocks of a beach overlooking the sparkling Mediterranean.  To top it all off, Stanford treated us to gourmet 3-course meals at the hotel for the entirety of our Costa Brava stay.  I had the best fish stew I’ve ever tasted, fresh fish and bread for every meal, crème brulee, etc etc.  The next day we took a short break from the beach to see el Teatre-Museu Dalí in Figueres.  I had no idea how crazy his art was!  (I promise photos will come later).  Then for dinner, we received another stipend to explore the flavors of Spain on our own on “Stanford’s tab.”  We again dined on tapas and fresh salad this time without ham slices (hoorah!) on the sidewalk of the main street in Costa Brava.  Then, to celebrate the birthday one of the girls in the group, we all headed off to a discoteque.  This was my first discoteque experience, and it really is crazy how even the smallest towns here come to life at night.  But because people here can drink after they’re 16 years old, we’ve found that it often feels like a middle school dance…full of smoking and drinking youngsters.  I think I’m becoming a boring grown-up because my first reaction is to tell them to stay out of trouble and that smoking is bad for you!  So don’t fear, parents, we’ll stay very very far away from the Spanish men after hours J.

Our hotel in the Costa Brava.  Is this real??

The Teatre-Museu Dalí

One of the many interesting pieces of art...

The last day of our pre-Madrid trip was pretty much a long grammar-filled bus ride.  We did stop, however, at el Monasterio de Piedra, which is apparently the first place to come up with the idea of mixing sugar with chocolate (before this, the Mayans etc usually paired chocolate with savory foods).  With my sweet tooth, I think I owe this town A LOT.  Unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to sample any chocolate, but we did go on a spectacular hike through the park’s caves and waterfalls.  I literally felt like I was in a Lord of the Rings movie.  Again, pictures will come later.  We also got to watch a bird show with owls and eagles.  I couldn’t really understand too much of what they were saying (aka why this place had birds to begin with) but the show was amazing.  And a bit random…

But at the end of the day, I was most nervous for our return to Madrid and meeting my family.  Luckily I’m in love with my living situation.  My roommate and I are living with one woman and she is adorable.  She’s originally from Ecuador, but fell in love with the city when she was traveling as an art history student throughout Spain.  She speaks Spanish, French, Italian, and English and currently works as a tour guide for a well-known company around Madrid.  I’m so excited to get recommendations from her!!  Apparently she’s given tours to Sandra Bullock (Miss Congeniality), Russell Crowe, and many influential political families.  So cool!  She’s also incredibly sweet and left us chocolates in our room today because she found out we both love sweets.  She also keeps a tin of cookies in our room that she promises will always be full in case we need snacks.  Hosts here are usually very strict about food and kitchens are closed to guests, so it’s really nice of her to be this generous and flexible.  She apparently won’t be around during dinner because she works a ton, but I think it might be nice to eat just with my roommate every once in a while.  Our host mom hires a woman to do all the cooking and cleaning (this is common here), so we’ll just have what she makes us.  My roommate is great as well!  She’s on Stanford’s synchronized swimming team (which just won nationals), so she’s struggling to find a pool to practice.  In the meantime, we’ve been enjoying getting to know each other and it is REALLY nice to have a person living with me.  We have to return to our houses for lunch and dinner because lunch is the most important meal of the day, and it’s much nicer to have a traveling buddy. 

The chocolate our mom left us :)

I just got back from my first day of classes and I’m very tired but excited to begin the routine of my life in Madrid.  It feels great to unpack a bit (my roommate and I had to make two trips on the metro to get our huge suitcases to our apartment) and finally explore my neighborhood.  There’s a huge beautiful park, tons of shopping, several gorgeous churches, and basically everything we need right next to our apartment.  This morning, I went to two classes.  As always, I’m most likely going to go to almost everything, agonize about what to take, and then settle on something I’ll end up enjoying.  Of the two classes I went to I think I’m going to take one – “The Jacobean Star Way and Europe: Society, Politics, and Culture.”  The professor is absolutely wonderful and we get to walk 110 kilometers of the Jacobean Way with students from Spain at the end of the quarter.  I’m pumped.  I’m also planning on taking a class on Spanish Catholicism from our visiting Stanford professor, which will involve many fieldtrips to churches and museums around Madrid.

It’s currently 8:00pm and I’m starving but, of course, dinner isn’t until 9:15.  According to my host mom, “we’re eating a little early while you get used to our schedule here.”  Again, es la vida española.  Well I’m off to dinner, but I am very impressed with your patience if you have made it this far through my long post…brevity has never been my strong point.  I love you all and miss you tons.  Send me messages, life updates, or if you’re feeling brave you can always post on my blog!!

Until next time, xoxo

Annie