Ávila: St Teresa

Ávila was beautiful. It is famous for being the hometown of St Teresa de la Cruz (Not to be confused with the recently canonized Mother Teresa). St Teresa was a Catholic Mystic from the 16th century. She, along with St Juan de la Cruz (another famous mystic), reformed the cloistered convent of Encarnación within the town of Ávila.

The convent was fun, and it was interesting to see the rooms where they stayed. Cloistered means that the nuns in that particular convent had as little contact with the outside world as possible. They never left the convent, and when they would sell goods, they would be swung out on a rotating table under a screen preventing the purchaser from seeing the vendor.
This room is where St Teresa (as a nun) would have confession to the bishop, St Juan. It is also in this room where Teresa recorded that Jesus Christ appeared to her in the flesh. She had several other visions of Christ, most of which probably happened in this room where she would come to pray in isolation.

We got to see a relic collection including one of her fingers, but unfortunately, pictures were not permitted.

Temple of Debod

In Madrid there's this little Egyptian temple, called the Temple of Debod. Why, you might ask, is there an Egyptian temple in Spain? The Spanish found a temple they thought was pretty cool, fairly modest in size, and so they transported it and rebuilt it brick by brick from Egypt to Madrid. It's super fun with all the Egyptian carvings and there were helpful signs showing what all of the scenes were of.

I even saw a wildlife! The dog decided to take a swim.

 

Segovia

Segovia is a beautiful city! The cathedral here is very beautiful. The outside glows in the sunlight.

We were greeted to an amazing aqueduct. Apparently, this one is 17 km from the water source, and looks brand new. Local legends on its origin vary. Some say that the Romans built it with old school cranes and scaffolding over the course of several years, at a perfectly calculated 1 degree incline along the entire length of the aqueduct.
Others hold that a young woman grew tired of walking 17 km to get water, and one day said "I really wish I didn't have to do make that walk everyday anymore." Instantly, the devil appeared to her and offered to build an aqueduct, and made the deal that he would make it, but if he finished it before the first cock's crow, he would get her soul. She agreed, but as soon as he left, she realized that was a big mistake and stayed up all night praying constantly for mercy. Just at dawn, right as the devil was about to place the last stone in the aqueduct, a gust of wind blew him over and the rooster crowed. So they had a whole aqueduct over night minus one unimportant stone (right in the middle of it), and placed a statue of Mary there as gratitude for her saving the young woman.
Either way, I was really excited to see the aqueduct, as I believe that the real measure of a civilized society is whether they have running water- which makes sense when you realize that the Romans were the only ones at the time with running water, and called all non-Romans barbarians.

Segovia is well known for its gourmet food, especially roast piglet. We had a fancy meal with salad, a mushroom dish (and, surprisingly enough, I actually liked it!), fish stuffed peppers, fancy sausages, a giant bean soup, and our roast suckling piglets. I got a leg! It was super delicious and tender, and, best of all, we got a super fancy lava cake dessert that was absolutely fantastic.

There is a palace in Segovia which used to be the primary royal palace. It is the same place where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel met with Christopher Columbus on multiple occasions, culminating in him receiving the charter that ended in establishing contact with the Americas. That was especially exciting being Columbus day (as observed in the US- the actual date of the holiday is the 12th). It doubled as the coolest castle I've seen so far, and was full of knights, tapestries and beautiful throne rooms and decorations.

Super deep moat- hard to tell but I think it was about 80 ft deep

Medieval Festival

Apparently the largest medieval festival in all of Europe is here in Spain. It just so happens to be in honor of Miguel de Cervantes, and take place about a five minute walk from where I'm living here in Alcala de Henares. It's been so fun! There have been street markets and vendors, falconry and jousting, traditional food and artisans, camel and donkey rides, and even some period musicians

Quijote and Sancho even made an appearance!

My favorite was the jousting. We were all assigned a knight to cheer for. We were given the knight in white! It was by wherever we were sitting, and since the sun was still up when we got there, almost all of us were in that section. The poor red and blue knights had about 4 people cheering for them each. Our knight came galloping in with the white dress on his horse, his white dog with big spikes on the collar, and he was great! it took me straight back to a Knight's Tale. Our knight did great in all the events, winning one of the first three and taking second in another.

In the actual joust, he knocked his opponent (who was in first place) to the ground and we thought maybe he would take it! Unfortunately, after knocking the other guy off, they started dueling with swords. The other guy offed him despite our protests. The squires bore him off nobly, and we were left to watch in dismay as the knight who had beaten ours take first. Being at a Spanish medieval festival, what added to our disappointment in his opponent being named champion was that he was French, adding insult to injury after he beat out the other two (Spanish) knights as well.

Reina Sofia

Spain is world renowned for its incredible art and long history of innovation in the arts. Many of the 20th century art movements had their roots in Spain and among Spanish artists. In Madrid is the amazing museum El Prado-- the most important art museum in all of Spain--, and other important museums are all around the city. My favorite museum I've visited so far has been the Reina Sofia art museum. Its most important claim to fame is La Guernica, by Pablo Picasso. It's truly breathtaking. I knew it was large, but nothing prepared me for Picasso's massive masterpiece.

Other famous paintings and sculptures feature from high profile artists such as Salvador Dalí, Julio Gonzalez, Alberto Sanchez Perez, Oscar Dominguez and Gustavo Torner. I really love this museum, and I'm glad I've gotten to see such great and influential art.

Spain Thoughts

I've now been living in Spain for one month. There are many things that have been surprising, for being different or sometimes for being unexpectedly familiar. These are some of the things I've learned in my time here.

Surprisingly different:

• In the USA, we have lots of carpet in our homes. Nobody here does.
• Because of the carpet, it's considered polite and customary to remove shoes indoors to keep dirt from getting on it. Here, though, it's considered rude to remove your shoes. Feet are seen as dirty, so you should keep them covered.
• Everyone takes their siesta- meaning almost every business will close during the afternoon, and the streets are all but abandoned.
• People eat very small breakfasts, giant lunches and normal sized dinners. The times are generally 8-9 am, 2-3 pm, and 9-10 pm, respectively.
• People tend to be less likely to say hello to you, but more friendly once you start the conversation than in the USA.
• Alcohol is relatively ubiquitously accepted, and is sold in fast food restaurants.
• Pedestrians rule the road here. Need to cross a busy street? No pedestrian signal? No problem. Just find a cross walk and start across. Everyone will stop.
• A small number of dress norms are very different. Topless women at the beach are quite common.
• People LOVE books. Book stores thrive here. I haven't met anyone yet who has heard of Amazon Kindle.
• Burger King is more popular and prevalent than McDonald's,
• Everybody loves chocolate milk, but, like normal milk, have never considered drinking it cold.
• Most people don't own cars, using buses, trains, and their feet.
• The party gets started late. Most clubs don't really get going until at least 1 am. 
• People go to parks, plazas, shops, etc, just to hang out and spend the evening out of the house. Parks and plazas are full of people enjoying the evening everyday.
• School and other things are surprisingly technology free. 
• Everyone loves art, music, theater, and all the arts with a really wonderful and unique fervor.

Surprisingly familiar:

• People dress very similarly to the USA. Differences are very minimal.
• Everything runs completely on time. 
• Food tends to be about as sweet as it is in the US.
• Almost nobody likes bullfighting. It's become a bit like golf in the USA. In the USA, business men, lawyers, etc, frequently go golfing for meetings together. Here, the rich and influential attend bullfights for the same purpose.
• There's plenty of ethnic diversity- lots of African, Middle Eastern and Asian immigrants, as well as native ethnic Jews and Muslims.
• Despite that, Spain is one of the more monolingual countries in the world- more or less similar to the proportion of second language speakers in the USA (and most of them, like the US, are immigrants).
• Everyone loves french fries.

Things I have learned from Spain:

• Pineapple and mint go really well together.
• Everyone could benefit from a nap after lunch.
• Good bread is absolutely worth it.
• I used to refer to lots of kinds of bread as French bread. Not all of those kinds are baguettes (Or French).
• You shouldn't automatically rule out cold soups.
• Surprisingly, dessert is even better after lunch than after dinner.
• You'll be happier getting up early and not needing to rush to be on time.
• Cooked peppers are really quite fantastic.
• It's really important to take time to just enjoy the air and being outside with other people- even if you're not interacting with them.
• Religious freedom is an essential in society.
• Religious diversity and peaceful coexistence are possible and highly beneficial to society.
• Separation between church and state is a necessity.
• Democracy can be fragile and it's up to us to ensure we maintain the liberties we enjoy.

I have really learned so much, and I absolutely love it here. It's a beautiful country with an amazing history and a wonderful people.

Madrid Walks

For one of my classes, we're required to take several walking tours of Madrid. This past week I finished the last one. They were a great way to get familiar with the city and see lots of things, most of them to revisit when I have more time.

Street sweeper monument

Beautiful tiling on the wall of a restaurant.

Federico Garcia Lorca

Oldest standing building in Madrid

Colonel Mustard's summer home?

Old Palace

Longest continuously running restaurant in the world

Over a park near the palace

The royal palace

Up close

Super fancy clothes store

Madrid is such a beautiful city, and I'm so glad to be living so close and to be able to go visit regularly.