Cataluña!
In my last post I wrote about going to Segovia, which
unfortunately didn’t happen, as it was very rainy and the weather would have
made for a miserable time. Instead, I spent had a large lunch with my family,
and then had a little Galentine’s celebration with some friends at a charming
café. We had extended family over for lunch that lasted for nearly three hours!
I’m usually banished from helping out with the cooking, but my host mom let me
lend a hand with lunch that day, so I chopped garlic and tomatoes, and then
watched my host dad slice ham. This sounds like a pretty menial thing, but let
me tell you that it was fascinating. The pata
negra ham that we ate was of the highest quality, and he showed me how to
cut it using a specialized knife. Once all the food was ready, we sat down to
eat. There were about 8 courses of ham, cheese, bread, stuffed bell peppers,
prawns, shrimp salad, soup, pork stew, turron
(a traditional Madrid dessert, similar to fudge), strawberries and whipped
cream, and a glass of Bailey’s I was stuffed. My host brother also offered me a
shot of absinthe, to which I gratefully declined. In addition to eating of
course, the lunch was filled with lots of conversation, mostly pertaining to
light topics such as U.S. immigration reform, climate change, gun control, and
the upcoming U.S. election. After 3 hours of intensive conversation, I feel like
my Spanish massively improved.
This past weekend the whole group headed north to Cataluña,
where I spent 10 days in the summer of 2012! It was great returning, especially
having gathered some perspective on Spanish politics. Catalans, those who
reside in Cataluña have an enormous amount of pride, and many are fighting for
independence from Spain. Everywhere you look you see flags for independence, and
many people refuse to speak in Castellano (the language that most Americans
know as typical Spanish).
After arriving in Barcelona on the high-speed AVE train on
Friday morning, we took a quick bus tour around the city, and then had free
time to eat the lunches that our families had packed. I ate my bocadillo de chorizo along the beach,
and it was absolutely perfect. I feel like I could have spent the whole day
walking along the beach and staring out into the blue Mediterranean.
Unfortunately, we had to eventually put back on our shoes and head to our
hotel, where we got settled before going out again to the Picasso Museum.
Walking through the Gothic Quarter brought back a lot of memories of my time in
Barcelona four years ago, and I remembered chasing after strangers in these
streets, asking to take their picture. The Picasso museum was fascinating; I
especially loved seeing the early “conventional” style paintings that he did as
a child and early teen, before moving outside the box. Paco told us one day
that while a lot of people say “I could’ve done that” regarding art, it doesn’t
matter, because they didn’t—some art is more about innovation than ability. We
finished the day at with a paella feast at a restaurant on the water.
Delicious!


Now I’m back in Madrid, specifically at the Mosaic
Institute, where I take classes. I’ve been doing pretty well at the “abroad”
part of studying abroad, and right now I’m procrastinating the “studying” part.
Granted, my workload is significantly less than it is when I’m at school in the
States, and everything I learn here in class helps me understand Madrid and the
overall country much better. We have midterms next week, which shocks me because I can't believe it's actually the middle of the semester. My internship continues to go well, and I’m making
a lot of international friends, which I love! We have a lot of events and
activities that provide for great opportunities to get to know each other. Tomorrow
there’s a taco get together, so I have no doubt that that will be enjoyable.
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