Lisbon: Rehashed

The first place that Laura and I went was back to Lisbon! It was really fun to go back to a place I really loved and be able to tell Laura a few things I already learned about it, but also to take more time and get in a little deeper to where we went, and go a few places I hadn't been yet. Laura is great at using the Rick Steve's manuals and as a result we went on some great walking tours and got some more contextual and historical background to the places we visited!

When I went to Lisbon the first time, it was really warm and sunny but this time it was really cold and pouring rain. We did our best to find dry things to do, since that day we had planned on walking tours for most of the day. Eventually we found somewhere dry to eat codfish, the most traditional Portuguese food.

You may remember me mentioning the AMAZING gelatto place in Lisbon. Laura and I went every day and between the two of us tried every single one of the approximately 40 flavors. Our "favorites" were pistachio, pear, "chocolate chip", and marmalade. Our real favorites were Cream, Strawberry, Pineapple, Passion fruit, and mango.

Laura arrives

Laura came to meet me at the end of my program! It was so fun to be with her and explore Iberia on our adventure! The first day we went around all of the sights in Alcala de Henares, introduced her to my host family and prepared to leave for Portugal the next morning.

End of the Program

Unfortunately, all good things come to an end. I absolutely loved my time in Spain and so appreciated my host family and teachers and everyone who contributed to me having the absolute time of my life. After returning from Andalusia, we had finals (yes, believe it or not, I did fit just a little bit of schooling into all this fun!) and an official end to the program.

We were able to hear from a prolific politician before the end who helped during the transition from the dictatorship to democracy, had a karaoke night, and a fun lunch together with all the students to tie it all up. We had a brief graduation ceremony and had a little bit of time to enjoy the end of our time in Alcala.

Calle Mayor in Alcala is where most of the night scene is in the town where I lived. It also happens to be the longest porticoed walkway in Spain and is also one of the largest single lines of ancient columns.

The bear with the madrileño tree is the symbol for Madrid and this statue is found in the Puerta del Sol in the historic heart of the city.

The last night before my friends left we all went in a row boat together in the famous parque de retiro, a massive park with a lake in the middle of it.

I loved every day in Spain and it was so fun. I was sad to see my friends go, but really excited that just the next morning my sister was coming to meet up with me!

Jaén

Jaen is home to one of the largest olive oil producers in the world. We went to visit one of the olive farms in Ubeda, which alone produces about one fifth of the world's olive oil. Andalusia (the southern region of Spain), as a whole, produces about 60% of the world's olive oil.
It was really interesting! The farm we went to is home to 66 million olive trees. That's right. 66,000,000, or about 50% more olive trees than there are people in Spain. Or about the same number of people as live in the top 40 most populous cities in North America (including NYC, LA and Mexico City) combined. That is a massive number of trees.
The oil. So olive oil can come in a few different flavors right? I have always been puzzled when I've gone to the store and seen things like "Extra virgin", "pure", "refined", and "virgin" olive oil, and I never knew what those terms really meant. There seemed to be no discernible difference in the product. And, unfortunately, as far as the USA is concerned, that may be largely correct.
In the USA, additionally, olive oil is sometimes labeled as "extra virgin" if it has some extra virgin olive oil, even if it's mostly virgin or refined.
Here's how the differences work when you get the real stuff:
Extra virgin- the very first oil to come out of the oil press. Strong, robust flavors, not for frying or high heat cooking, but for putting on top of pasta, salads, breads and other foods.
Virgin- still great oil, can be a little bit acidic, and is ideal for frying and high heat cooking. Less flavorful and pure.
Pure, refined, etc- Extracted chemically from the seeds rather than pressed mechanically. Can be much more acidic, have impurities and is treated to make it fit for human consumption.

So why is olive oil supposedly so much better for you than other oils?
Olive oil, unlike any other oil, is juice. It is mechanically separated or pressed from the olives, rather than chemically treated and extracted. It is all unsaturated fat.
What's the big deal about extra virgin olive oil?
Extra virgin olive oil, the real stuff, is amazingly flavorful, unique and distinctly Mediterranean. It can add fantastic flavors to salads, sandwiches, pastas, soups, and pretty much anything. It is stocked with antioxidants and is supposedly one of the reasons for the long life spans of Mediterraneans.
So how do they decide if something is extra virgin?
They have professional olive oil tasters who rate the oil on flavor, smell, texture. It's a blind test, and many different taste testers try the oils, and if all of them agree, it is rated as extra virgin.
 What makes it high quality, and how can they tell?
Well to start with, extra virgin olive oil should smell like olives. The stuff here in the USA from the grocery store often smells rancid or like canola oil. Positive scents are ones reminiscent of olives, strawberries, apples, grass and tomato. It should be a little bit spicy and pleasantly bitter, but have zero after taste. There's a very specific procedure performed to test the oil. It is placed in a blue glass where the color cannot be discerned. It is smelled, then tasted, and kept in the mouth for several seconds, kind of swishing it around. They then swallow, smack their lips a few times and check for any after taste. They use a sheet much like this one here.

So since modern technology is now used in olive pressing, is it lower quality or "less natural" than it used to be?
Actually, with the advent of modern mechanics and pneumatic machinery, the best olive oil is now better quality than ever, and there is more of it.
Is olive oil made with green olives or black olives?
It depends. Generally, green olives are used more often, but black olives give a unique flavor. There are several different varieties of olives, just like with apples and oranges, and the most common variety used is named picual.

They gave us a great tour of the facility, as well as some old style oil presses to demonstrate how the process has changed over the centuries.

So some tips for finding good olive oil?

Look for oil with the name of the variety of olive on the olive, the origin, and never buy anything but extra virgin unless you're using the oil for high heat frying or baking. Spain and Italy both have world renowned olive oil, but oil from other places can be high quality, but if the producer is willing to stand behind the product and tell you at least what province or city the oil comes from on the label, that's a good sign.

After learning so much about olive oil and tasting about 20 different oils, we went for a nice lunch in the town, and I loved my plate of rabbit with salmorejo soup (like gazpacho but with meat and hard boiled eggs in it.

Granada

The Alhambra was certainly the main attraction in Granada, but I loved the city! It had such a fun feel to it, and I really liked visiting the cathedral where the Catholic Kings Ferdinand and Isabel are buried. I have a hard time thinking of anybody who seemed to have a deeper impact on Spanish culture and history than Ferdinand and Isabel, especially before the 20th Century. We couldn't take any pictures but the Cathedral is small and solemn, but has a few very notable paintings inside, including an original of the one below.

Granada is famed for its night scene, and so we went bar hopping that night, or, as I like to call it, tapa hopping (It's fun to say tapa-hoppin really fast). In Spain, it's customary that if you order a drink, they'll bring out a tapa. (Like an appetizer, it literally means lid, since it traditionally came on top of the drink you were served). As Spain has a special flavor of lemon flavored Fanta (Which is amazing and almost tastes like natural lemonade but bubbly), a group of us went to a few different places, got our fantas and our tapas for dinner.

It was super fun and really delicious. The different bars we went to had very different atmospheres- one was refined, one was like a sports bar, and another had the feel of a soup and salad place.

 The food was good and it was really fun to do something that most modern Spaniards do and is an integral part of modern Spanish culture.

The Alhambra

The Alhambra is the incredible Moorish castle of Washington Irving fame. It is absolutely incredible. When Carlos V assumed power in Spain as both Holy Roman Emperor and Emperor of Spain, he spent his honeymoon here and commissioned a massive addition to the already breathtaking palace. Alhambra means "The Redness" is Arabic.

This is the addition built for Carlos V and his queen in which they stayed their honeymoon. The bricks are designed to look like pillows, and this structure, though I didn't explore it as much as the other areas, is really interesting.

When we visited the Alhambra, the director of the entire place gave us a fantastic presentation on the epigraphs of the Alhambra. The motto of the Kings of Granada was "No hay vencedor sino Alá" or "There is no conqueror but Allah". From his presentation I learned to recognize that phrase in arabic and I saw it absolutely everywhere in the Alhambra.

Some of the writing is really easy to pick out like the stuff in the center of this flower motif. However, much of the art in the palace consists of the epigraphs and is much more difficult to recognize, since it takes the "cursive" form and is elongated into practically abstract shapes.

This is a picture that's easy to demonstrate what I mean. In the medallion style circles near the top, there is some clear writing in this picture below. However, if you trace the lines on the sides of it down to where they curl like and loop back, you'll notice that the lines forming the medallions are letters as well and that some of the letters are stretched incredibly tall and loop back to look like knots.

The Arabic people were fantastic at geometry, and the design below can be completely constructed from interlocking circles.

Originally the whole palace would have been incredibly colored. Look at the picture below. The deep areas would have been blue, the mid depth spots red, and the lettering and overlay would have been covered in gold leaf.

After their honeymoon, Carlos V and his wife never returned to the Alhambra. It gradually fell into disrepair and was left somewhat forgotten. However, Washington Irving came and stayed in the Alhambra for months to learn more about its history stories and legends, and wrote his famous Tales from the Alhambra. After the book's release, the Alhambra became an instant tourist attraction and has been visited by the thousands every year since.

The gardens were really beautiful, and I can only imagine what they would have looked like earlier in the season.

The Alhambra was one of my favorite things I visited in Spain. It's absolutely beautiful, and I think I gained a much deeper appreciation for the religion of Islam during my stay in Spain. While I still don't understand many of the beliefs and key tenets of the religion, I love the architectural symbolism and the devotion and faith I saw woven and engraved into the Moorish and mozarabe buildings.