Monday March 17 - Brussels

We all took the train to Brussels today. After arriving, all seven girls went to the hotel we booked, while Michael had to go to a different hotel because ours hadn’t had enough room for him. We all dropped off our bags and then headed out into the city. It is also worth adding here that traveling with eight people through Amsterdam was a little challenging – we were always trying to figure out if we were missing anyone. So we created the sound-off: each of us claimed a number, 1-8, and periodically we would sound off so we could figure out if anyone had gotten left behind or lost.

Lunch was the first priority, and it was great. I had a sort of open-faced sandwich with tomatoes and goat cheese, which was amazing. Then we headed to the biggest public plaza in the city, Le Grand Place. It has amazing old buildings dating to the 1700s, after the French army destroyed the city in 1695. Check it out (both of these are from the Grand Place):

Since we were in the land of giant beers, cheese, waffles and chocolates, we stopped in stores that sell all of those things before settling on waffles from a little shop. They were amazing, topped with chocolate and whipped cream or fruit or basically whatever fattening additions you can think up. Here’s a photo of me, aka #2, excited about my waffle:Here’s Lauren, #3, actually unaware that she has chocolate on her face. We thought that was why she wanted her photo taken.
Then we all headed toward Mannekin Pis, the statue of a little boy peeing. The story goes that during the 14^th century, Brussels was under siege. The city had held their ground for quite some time. The attackers had thought of a plan to place explosive charges at the city walls. A little boy named Juliaanske from Brussels happened to be spying on them as they were preparing. He urinated on the burning fuse and thus saved the city. Sort of weird, but he’s really popular. So, here we are in front of Manneken Pis. Allie, #6, is taking the photo (click to make it bigger):


Then we walked to the royal palace, which is a really beautiful building with lots of pretty gardens. We saw the changing of some guard type of thing but were too far away (it’s all gated) for really good photos. It was built during the late 18^th century but was substantially expanded and refurbished around 1900.
Later we ate dinner at the cheapest place we could find and then went to an Irish pub – it was St. Patrick’s Day, after all. There was a live bagpiper there, which was by far the best part, as you can see:

Sunday March 16 - Amsterdam

Today we went to the Van Gogh museum and the Rijksmuseum, which have very different but excellent collections. Seeing Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch” at the Rijksmuseum was definitely a highlight. We took refuge from the rain/ate lunch/watched a Georgetown basketball game in a pub that afternoon. Then we headed to Centraal Station again, to get train tickets to Brussels. Afterwards we broke up into smaller groups and did our own thing for the afternoon. Dinner all together later, and then Lauren and I went to walk around that night, observing all the Coffee Shops and the many prostitutes in their windows. For obvious reasons, nobody can take photos of the windows…

On the way to the museums, I took a photo of the main government building in Dam Square:

And the less impressive-looking (although still cool) main church, also in Dam Square:

Here’s a photo of a strange hot dog statue that was in a park we walked through:

And here’s an S&M shop:

And the window of a store with an impressive array of products made with pot:

And, for good measure, a giant yellow clog:

And a pretty picture of a canal at nighttime. The whole city looks like this at night. It really looks like it's right out of the 17th century.

Saturday March 15 - Amsterdam

Got to Amsterdam without much incident. We really didn’t even go through any kind of customs or security checkpoint. Ok then.

Getting from the airport was more of an ordeal than planned, because the ticket machine is in Dutch and only accepts credit cards, but only if your name is Heidi or Beth. Otherwise you better be friends with Heidi or Beth. Then we had to locate Allie (who came to travel with us; she’s currently studying abroad in Vienna), which was fairly difficult given that her cell phone either wasn’t on or wasn’t working or something. But we found her and eventually got all the way to Centraal Station (yes, with two A’s; Dutch is awesome). We made our way to the hostel (decided to take a cab due to the rain, cold, darkness, and fact that we didn’t know which way to go. Amsterdam, for the record, does in fact have the most expensive cab fares in the known world), and went to dinner at a Greek place (naturally, right?) and went to a pub afterwards. Don’t remember what time anyone went to bed that night, but we needed sleeeeeeeep.

Saturday we went on Amsterdam’s official Free Tour. It was AMAZING. A guy named Basilio led ours, and it took over three hours, and we got to see truly just about everything the city has to offer. We almost got run over by the bajillions of bikes there, we saw the gorgeous canals (there are over 100 canals there, if I remember what Basilio said), cobblestone streets, awesome old-fashioned Dutch houses lining the canals, “Coffee Shops” (where you can buy pot, not coffee), prostitutes posing in windows trying to get customers, copies of Rembrandt’s most famous works, the national church and right next to it, the national government building (which is way bigger and prettier and nicer than the church, which really bugs the clergy), cool old name plaques hung on walls, and generally lots of really cool quaint-looking buildings and what not. We also learned that Amsterdam is pretty much the most diverse city in the world: it has over 740,000 habitants and over 172 nationalities are represented in that group.

Saturday we also met up with Lauren and Michael, giving the Vienna contingent a total of three (Allie, Lauren and Michael are all studying there). That brought our grand total to 8: the Vienna Contingent plus Beth S., Beth K., Sarah, Maggie and myself. That's a LOT of people to travel with...

That night Maggie, Beth, Lauren and I went to Ann Frank House, which was really interesting. The upstairs of that house was a very small space for so many people to live for such a long time in complete silence. Later we met up with everybody else for dinner.

Here's a cool old house along the canal (truly almost every house looks like this one. They all have big hooks at the top that were used to haul things (especially furniture) up to the top floor, because they're all narrow and super tall so it's hard to get things up their stair cases).

Here's a photo of a stone placard that used to decorate the outside of a home or business. They had symbols of either the family name or the profession of the person who worked there. Lots of these were clustered together on the sides of some buildings, because when the city has to tear down an old house (most are preserved; few are torn down), they save its placard and put it with other old ones. This one was for a family, I assume, since it has the name and picture of a mermaid on it. Unless the owner of this placard used to make mermaids, which doesn't seem very practical.This is an old arch that is known for the three X's that appear on the shield held by the goddess in the middle. The three X's are the symbol of Amsterdam, although there is some debate as to why. Some say it is because if you couldn't sign your name, you could just write three X's, but others say they stand for fire, famine and disease, the three biggest threats for residents of the city.
Here's the Canal Watch Tower, with a canal running by it. There are SO many canals in Amsterdam - during the 17th century 4 huge concentric half-circles in all, with over one hundred bridges to connect it all together. The canals are considered the outcome of exceptional early city planning.
Another canal view. Note all the cool-looking houses along its banks.
Really cool old building that was once used for a window-making guild, if I remember right.

Monday-Friday March 10-14

Nothing too exciting here in Seville. Just lots of classes. On Monday morning I noticed I wasn’t feeling well, and Tuesday I felt worse. Wednesday I couldn’t even get out of bed so I slept through my two morning classes. I had a fever and an incredible headache and was vomiting every few hours, punctuated by really painful stomach aches. I couldn’t keep any food down so I was starving and really dehydrated. On Wednesday, after sleeping through my classes, I told my host mom how sick I felt, and she gave me some medicine and made me mint tea, which was great. For lunch and dinner she made me white fish with vegetables, which she said would be “muy suave” (very mild/delicate) for my stomach. It tasted good but made me feel significantly worse, and I slept very little that night.

Thursday I was supposed to take an exam at the CIEE center, but I emailed my professor Wednesday night saying how sick I had been and that I hadn’t been able to study because of it. With that done, I pulled clothes on and dragged myself to the clinic down the street. Less than stellar doctor’s visit there: I wrote my name on an index, and I realize now that that index card is my “file” at the clinic; the doctor literally wrote my symptoms on the card and put it in a card catalog. Sketchy. She didn’t even ask me if I have allergies or any medical condition. She laid me on a table, jabbed me in the stomach (probably to make sure I didn’t have appendicitis) and proceeded to prescribe me three different medicines: one for headaches, one for stomach aches, and one for fever. Then she told me not to take all three at the same time, because that would be too much medicine and I might react badly to all of it at once. Basically I was supposed to choose which symptoms were the worse and tackle those. But the doctor was very clear about one thing: she stared me in the eyes and asked me “Is your host mother feeding you white fish with vegetables?” Confused about how she knew that, I responded that yes, I had been fed far too much fish. She solemnly looked at me and simply said “No more fish.” To emphasize the point, she put me on an all-liquid diet and gave me a list of allowable liquids, which I was to present to my host mom. I don’t think the liquids were important at all; I think the only reason she gave me the list was to ensure that I didn’t eat any more fish. She may have saved my life after all.

I still wasn’t better Friday, when I left in the afternoon with Beth S., Beth K., Maggie and Sarah for 5 days in Amsterdam and Brussels. But I guess I figured I might get better pretty quickly, and if I was too sick I could always get a quick return flight…

Sunday March 9 - Madrid

Today I woke up before everyone else in the hostel, got ready really quietly and left before anyone else. I had decided, against my better judgment, to both a) stay out really late Saturday night and b) get up really early on Sunday to go to El Escorial, the national monastery and the largest building in all of Spain, which is known for its exquisite royal apartments and artworks. El Real Monasterio de El Escorial (its full name) was built by orders of King Felipe II between 1563 and 1584. This relative short construction period (just 21 years) accounts for the building’s overall unity of style, which is instantly noticeable. The king ordered a royal monastery be built in honor of San Quentin after Spain defeated France in the battle of San Quentin in 1557. Designed by both Juan de Toledo and Juan de Herrera (though mostly by Herrera), the monastery measures over 626 ft by 528 ft. Huge.

I left the hostel in a hurry, throwing my bags into an unlocked room, which made me a little nervous. I caught the Metro to a stop on the yellow line (about 25 mins) and from there I took an hour long bus out to El Escorial. After groggily orienting myself in the town of San Lorenzo, which is where El Escorial is located, I figured out how to walk to the monastery. Truly freezing rain and howling winds that day – lovely. But it all seemed worth it as I turned the street corner and saw this (the dark figures in the bottom right corner of the photo are people, to give you an idea of how big El Escorial is. Also, check out the sky in this photo – it was so cold, and it looked like the apocalypse. Intense.

Here’s a photo from the inner courtyard, just outside of the church itself – a really imposing yet appealing exterior:
And here's a shot of the domes of the church, taken from a few hundred yards away - you can see the monastery for quite some distance.
So, funny story. I had decided to go to El Escorial despite time restrictions (I was leaving Madrid around 3 pm to return to Sevilla) and confusing directions about how to get there. I wasn’t sure I would make it out to El Escorial at all, given that I knew it required that the Metro and the bus systems run on their normal times – on a Sunday. Then I wasn’t sure I’d make it back in time to catch my train back to Sevilla, but I decided I had to go, because I really don’t know when I’ll be back in Madrid again, and train travel between Sevilla and there is more expensive than it should be. I had checked ahead of time and made absolutely sure that the monastery was open to visitors on Sundays, which surprised me, and I got ALL the way out there by myself. I was psyched. And then I walked up to the ticket office door at the monastery, and read the sign, which said:

“The monastery is closed today due to the elections. Please pardon the inconvenience.”

So despite all my planning, the monastery was closed for presidential elections. Congratulations, Zapatero. You win. Literally.

I went back to Madrid, tired and disappointed. I checked out the Plaza de España, a nice plaza with statues of Cervantes, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Here’s the main monument with fountain:

And here are Quixote and Panza: I headed back to Plaza del Sol, bought postcards and a bocadillo for lunch, got my bags from the hostel and went to the train station. Then it was back to Sevilla, but barely – I misread the departure time on my train ticket because I still haven’t mastered 24-hour military time, and I made it onto the train with literally less than a minute to spare. Overall, I have to admit Madrid was a lot more fun than I had thought it would be. It was nice to spend the weekend in a really big, bustling city. And nice to retreat back to Seville, too.

Saturday March 8 - Madrid

Today we all headed to the Prado, which is probably either the best or second-best art museum I’ve ever seen. From Las Meninas (Velasquez) to portraits of the royal family (Goya) to The Garden of Earthly Delights (Bosch), the museum has a really impressive collection. Of course, photos aren’t allowed, but here are some from the outside. This is Francisco de Goya, undoubtedly one of the finest Spanish painters ever, very well known for having inserted his own criticism and psychoanalysis into every portrait of Carlos III, Carlos IV, and Fernando VII that he painted. His portraits of the royal family are second to none, La maja vestida and La maja desnuda are enchanting and his Black Paintings and the Caprichos are some of the most disturbing works of art I’ve ever seen. In a nutshell: he’s pretty interesting.And here’s a statue of Diego Velázquez, probably most famous for painting Las meninas, with the Infanta Margarita, her ladies in waiting, the king and queen in a mirror and even Velazquez himself, painting at a huge canvas right in the middle of the painting. It’s really something to behold. In short, another very talented guy.
Here’s a photo of a café across the street from the Prado. Note the figures standing on the second floor. They’re statues from Las meninas. Sort of creepy, sort of cool.
And here’s a weird one of a sculpture of giant lips.

After the Prado we headed to the Reina Sofía, another museum, but really different from the Prado. The Reina Sofía is all modern art, including tons of Picassos. Incredibly, the museum is FREE, and it houses Picasso’s Guernica, which was painted in response to the bombing of the city of Guernica by the Germans in 1937. It’s HUGE. Really cool. Of course, no photos allowed there either.

Later we all went back to the center of town near Plaza del Sol to go to a bar with alums and students (everybody in town for John Carroll weekend) to watch a Georgetown basketball game, which we won! Fun way to end the day.

Friday March 7 - Madrid

Friday
We went to the Palacio Real (royal palace) and took the self-guided tour, in which you see the beautiful old palace built for King Felipe V between 1738 and 1755 following the original palace’s total destruction in a fire on Christmas Day in 1734. The original building was considered a Habsburg Alcázar, if two such contradictory things can even be combined in one building. The new building is Bourbon, and served as the official royal residence until 1931. Not a bad looking place from the outside:
There’s an entire wing of the building that houses royal armor, which is considered one of the most important collections in the country. There are original Francisco de Goya portraits of King Carlos IV and his wife, María Luisa de Parma, hung in a dark hallway without any indication that they’re originals. The Throne room has all its original decorations, from velvet wall hangings to its ceiling painted by Tiepolo, all dating to the reign of Carlos III. Unfortunately, you can’t take photos inside, but here’s the official palace website, where there are some good photos: http://www.patrimonionacional.es/en/preal/preal.htm. The palace also has its own royal chapel, which is humongous:
Next we headed to Plaza Mayor (Main Plaza), which was built beginning in 1619. It has been used for everything from mounted bullfights to autos da fé to proclamations by Felipe V, Fernando VI and Carlos IV. The plaza is HUGE and has some giant buildings painted with cool murals, which you can see if you look close enough:
Next it was on to the Parque del Buen Retiro – the most famous park in Madrid. It’s enormous, occupying over 300 acres, and has tons of trees and flower beds. It also has this awesome pond, where you can rent a boat and paddle around:
Afterwards everyone was pretty long day with tons of walking, but I really wanted to see the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, which has art ranging from Italian primitives from the 13^th century through Impressionist paintings by Monet and Manet. To get there, I had to walk all the way back through the park, but it was ok, because the views of the park included the following:
And that was Friday. Not bad.

Thursday March 6 - Madrid

Thursday
This weekend (March 5-9) was John Carroll Weekend, an annual event that is held in a different city every year, from Tokyo to NYC to Berlin. This year it happened to be taking place about 2 hours away from us in Madrid, so Thursday I traveled to Madrid via train after the end of my CIEE class, getting to the hostel around 7 pm. That left me with about 5 seconds to get ready to go to that night’s reception at the grand Casino de Madrid, which isn’t a casino at all but rather a really amazing private club built in 1910 which today houses works of art that are considered national treasures. If we hadn’t been part of an event there, we’d never have been allowed in. But when the prince of Asturias, Felipe II, is an alum of your school, you get to have receptions at the Casino de Madrid. And so we did. Here’s a photo of Tim, Amanda, Paul, Emilia, me, Beth S., Beth K. and Maren inside the beautiful casino. You can't see the background all that well, but trust me, it wasn't too shabby. And yes, this number of people all stayed in ONE room at the hostel.

There were tons of free drinks and endless hors d’ouvres, and then president DeGioia and Prince Felipe spoke. It was hard to actually meet the prince, but we all took really lame pictures of ourselves with him in the background, or in the case of Beth and Paul and myself, he’s in the foreground and we’re jammed into the photo around his tie. This photo came from someone else, so unfortunately it's really small. I think you can see it bigger if you click on it. Observe:

And see the expressions of sheer awe on our faces just after Beth, Paul and I took that photo:

Later we went to a club called JOY, where all of the following things happened:

1) Drinks cost like 10 Euros (over $15) apiece

2) I lost my loaned cell phone on the floor packed with like 1,000 people and somehow found it later that night

3) around 3 am, the curtain on steps where we were all dancing opened up to reveal a clearly transvestite singer with dancers dressed all in white, approximately 6 inches from our faces, which had previously been completely concealed. Fantastic. Observe Sarah and me in total shock as the show begins literally right in front of us (note the dancers dressed in white, behind us on the left):

Sunday-Wednesday March 2-5

Sunday
Nothing as cool as the Alhambra today, but we visited the oldest town in Granada (I forget its name), and the view of the Alhambra from there is really nice. Observe:Then we went to the Capilla Real (royal chapel), where Fernando of Aragon and Isabel of Castilla are buried. It’s crazy to think I saw their tombs; the Reyes Católicos were such incredibly powerful and influential rulers, so certain of their faith, so long ago…we’ve learned so much about them that I almost started to think they couldn’t have been real people. They’re mythical figures in many respects. Check out the capilla:

The huge gold altar. Look closely and you can see that Fernando and Isabel have been ever-so-humbly inserted at the right and left sides of the base of the altar. They are kneeling in prayer.
The tombs.
And here’s the actual crown that Isabel wore. It dates to the late 15^th and early 16^th centuries:
Then we wandered around for awhile, got gelato and I took a minute to teach Don Quixote how to read.
Monday-Wednesday: nothing interesting, just classes.

Saturday March 1

The CIEE Advanced Liberal Arts program (about 30 of us) headed to Granada this weekend. We left Saturday morning around 9 am from the university building. The bus took 4 hours with only one quick stop. We got to Granada around 1 pm, left our bags at the hotel, had lunch and headed straight to the Alhambra. Just to walk to the entrance took quite awhile, since the Alhambra is GIANT. It's really a grouping of different buildings, including the Nasrid palace, a palace built by King Carlos V and the Generalife building (the country estate of the Nasrid kings). The Nasrid palace is such a big attraction that you only get a 30-minute window during which you can enter it when you buy your ticket. The original structure of the Alhambra was built by Ismail I, Yusuf I and Muhammad V, caliphs of the Nasrid dynasty, which ruled Granada until 1492 (when Granada fell from Muslim control to the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabel). The many bedrooms, patios and salons of the Alhambra were begun during the early 14th century, as an attempt to show that the territory was strong and would not fall from Muslim control any time soon. The palace of Carlos V, which has a circular inner patio and perfect acoustics and which is still used today for concerts, was added in 1526. The materials used on the main structure of the Alhambra (so pretty much everything but the palace of Carlos V) are extremely plain: almost all brick, plaster and wood. It’s significant because when you see the Alhambra, it looks like it’s made of gold, with domes and decorations carved from marble. That is to say, the craftsmanship is second to none and is still dazzling more than 600 years after the Alhambra was built. So, here you go:

If you click on this to view it larger, you can see all the little teeny tiny details in the plasterwork (all the tan colored material is plaster). So pretty. This is part of the Nasrid palaces.
An insanely finely detailed ceiling in the Nasrid palaces. This is painted plasterwork. You can see it better if you open it up to a larger size.
A part of the beautiful gardens at the Generalife.
A cool view of the whole Alhambra complex, seen through arches at the Generalife building.
The circular - and acoustically flawless - inner patio of the palace of Carlos V.

Monday-Friday Feb. 25-29

Not much to report for Monday-Wednesday and Friday, besides normal classes.

Thursday was Day of Andalucia, which means schools and businesses close for the day. Beth, Dan, Amanda and I decided to go to Ronda, a nearby town, for the day. We left around 10 am and took a 2-hour bus to Ronda. First on the list of things to see there is the bullring, which was built around 1785. This bullring is, appropriately enough, the birthplace of the Ronda school of bullfighting, which is said to be more severe than that of Seville. Bullfighting isn't especially friendly to begin with, so I'm not sure what "more severe" really means. Anyway, the ring is truly beautiful, and we were able to walk all through the behind-the-scenes area, where the bulls are trained, and where they're kept before the fights. The ring is still used for fights today. Check it out:
Next we headed to Puente Nuevo (the new bridge), the name of which is deceiving. Even though it's the newest bridge in Ronda, it dates to about 1785, like the bullring. It is a feat of 18th century civil engineering, graceful and completely functional. It looks out over a beautiful gorge and surrounding countryside that looked a whole lot like Tuscany. Ronda's natural beauty and open green space were a really welcome change from the concrete and buildings of Seville. Look at the view from the top of the bridge (looking down into the gorge):
We climbed all the way down into the gorge, which was full of little yellow flowers and green green grass. On the way to the very bottom, we found another cool bridge thingy, and naturually had to climb up on it. Look at all the green around me:
Then, the breathtaking view from the bottom of the gorge. It speaks for itself:
Next we walked over to the Arab baths, only to find that they had closed about 30 mins earlier due to the holiday. Really disappointing. But then we walked all over the "other" side of Ronda and found that huge sections of its original Muslim-built wall are still intact (Seville has lost most of its wall). Unfortunately, there aren't many serious preservation efforts in Ronda (same case in many Andalucian cities), and motorcycles and cars drove right up next to beautiful old towers from the 9th century and sections of the precious wall. Makes you wonder if it will all be there in another 1,000 years.

After that it was time to get going because the bus left at 7. We walked down the main street to get back to the bus station, and I walked past a butcher's store, and saw a reassuringly familiar sight: hams:
And then we went home.