Tarragona

I spent the past few days in Tarragona and the surrounding region on a field trip through school.  Here is a map so you can see where Tarragona is located in comparison to Barcelona (look in the northeast corner).

Tarragona was a major Roman city (called Tarraco back then) so there was an ampitheatre, forum, and aqueducts.  There are still a lot of Roman remains and most of the buildings in the original part of the city are built on top of Roman ruins.

The city is right on the coast and the ampitheatre is almost directly on the beach.  Animal fights (with tigers, elephants, wolves, every animal the Romans could find) were held in the ampitheatre and since many of the animals were imported from North Africa, the ampitheatre's location made bringing in the animals easier.  Aside from having animal fights, there were also gladiator fights and executions (of criminals and of Christians).  So when the Visigoths, who were Christians, conquered Tarraco, they built a church inside the ampitheatre.

This is the view of the ampitheatre from the top of the hill.  Our hotel was located around where I took this picture from.  There was a possibility of having a really gorgeous view overlooking the beach and the ampitheatre.  My room looked out over some rooftops though which I thought was still cool because we were looking into a residential neighborhood.  [Note: the hotel was surprisingly nice, especially for a school trip.  The only bad thing was that our room smelled like sewage.  We called room service and they sprayed half a can of toothpaste-scented disinfectant in our room.  Did not work.]

To the right you can see the church that was built inside the ampitheatre.  Most of the buildings built by the people who conquered the Romans were made out of Roman building materials.  They just deconstructed what the Romans had built and made their own buildings on top of Roman foundations.  Many of the stones in these buildings have symbols marked into them.  When the stones were quarried, the laborers would put their symbol on the blocks so the foremen would know how much to pay each person at the end of the day.  The quarry we saw was amazing.  Really, really deep.  Stone was removed from the quarry with hand tools which must have been so difficult.  They would make holes in the stone and then crack them apart.   Or, in the winter, they would make holes and then pour water into them, let the water freeze and the blocks would break off.

You can still see the lines where the blocks were quarried.  Now, the quarry has trees and other plants growing inside it.   The Romans left a column of stone standing in the middle of the quarry to keep track of the depth of the quarry. 

This was the view of the city from the top of the Roman castle.  Very Mediterranean.  One really cool thing about the terrain here is that you have the ocean and then you have a city and then you have mountains and it's all so close.  The cities were designed like that for military purposes but it's nice to look at too.

I decided to take an artsy picture here (or so I thought).  See the old man towards the left?  I figured it was poetic in some way.  Can't really figure out how though... the photo is open to interpretation.  Really, I just like the blue rowboat.

We visited a monastery in Poblet.  About 30 Cistercian monks still live there.  It was really windy and freezing there.  I cannot imagine being a monk.  The ceilings in the all the rooms are vaulted and at least 30 feet high to intentionally make the rooms difficult to heat and it was quite chilly to say the least.  The monastery had a wonderful library though.  It was huge and had old, dark wooden bookcases.  The monastery used to be the center of culture (instead of an urban area serving this purpose).  After the Moors (Arabs) conquered Spain (711 AD), they translated all of the books into Arabic from ancient languages which the Spanish monks were later able to translate into Spanish so that the books could be read.

Just a note on ancient languages: we went to this Roman villa (interesting but ridiculous since we had to wear tunics-- see our guide to the right) and the whole tour was in Latin.  I took Latin for three years and never heard it spoken since it is a dead language so it was crazy to hear it aloud.  I was actually able to understand a lot of it probably because it's so similar to Spanish.  Since I mentioned the villa, here is a picture of some artwork on one of the remaining walls.  

The trip was from Thursday morning until Saturday night and we were touring from 9 until 5 or 6 every day.  I learned a lot and saw cool things but I am SO GLAD to be back in Barcelona!!!  (Only because I have missed updating this blog.)

Just for U.G. (Class synopsis)

Classes in Barcelona, as requested by my Uncle Gil.

I attend classes every day here, Monday through Friday.  My subject classes are held Monday through Thursday and Spanish is my only class on Friday.  My two most interesting classes are Catalan Cultural Perspective and Politics and Regionalism.  They're both helping me understand how Catalan culture works.



I am really enjoying my Spanish class.  It's long (three hours, three times a week) but in each class I feel like I'm learning things that are useful.  My vocabulary is getting bigger and I am learning a lot of language rules that I hadn't known.

Today I went to the post office and was able to communicate easily with the post office worker.  This was pretty cool.  Even though going to the post office at home is no big deal, here I have to figure out how to say what I want to say and on top of that, there are all kinds of little rules in Barcelona that I just don't know about.  For example, when I walked into the post office, there were a lot of people standing and sitting around but there was no line.  I stood there figuring it was just a kind of makeshift thing until a woman came in and took a ticket from a machine.  It turns out that the post office is run like a deli and you have to pick a number to get service.  One thing about the post office here and in the U.S. is the same though: the line takes a very long time to get through!!

Ireland

Little jet-setters that we are, Sarah and I took off for Ireland for the weekend.  We stayed with Dawn, Lee, Kristin, Konrad and Jamie which was so nice-- like home away from home for me.  It was sunny all three days that we were there (strange for Ireland.  Strange, as well, that the weather in Ireland was nicer than it's been in Barcelona recently).  We went into Dublin on Saturday.  We had some delicious Lebanese food and then went to a couple pubs.  It was a really fun weekend!  Here are some selected pictures (I didn't take many...).

In the airport, we had a camper-sport.

And then we had a trooper looking for signs of humanity in the empty terminal.

We were the only ones in the airport for the longest time.  Then we realized that we had to check in in that area and walk through the airport to our gate. 

Once we found our gate, we went to the bathroom where I discovered this:

They don't have these in American bathrooms.


Our flight was really easy.  We were boarded in 15 minutes and we left 5 minutes early!  Our flight arrived half an hour early and it was sunny in Ireland.

We had lunch in town.  After that, we walked around down by the river.   

On Saturday, we played basketball and wandered around the countryside for a bit.  Then we went into Dublin and got dinner and went to a couple pubs.

Pictured to the left: nuts, normal, normal.  ;)

Best job ever! (?)

The past two days, I have seen something so amazing.  This past summer, I decided that one of my life goals is to go up on a skyscraper as a window-washer.  You know those platform things that they stand on 80 storeys in the air?  Well, I want to do that.  After what I have seen these past few days, my goal is now revised.

I want to be one of them!!!  They are cleaning windows with only harnesses. 

This one is like where's Waldo.  I think he's changing lights, not cleaning windows.


Hint: look up by the letters...

This is a gas station here.  I've seen Vespas filling up but I think it'd be pretty difficult to park your car in the middle of the street where this is located.

This is just a better picture than the other one I put up here.

And it's finally sunny again!!  The cat decided Sarah's bed would be a good place for a rest.  She was not too happy about this one.

We went for a run to take advantage of this beautiful day.  My first run outside in years!  Very enjoyable until the tops of my feet started hurting...

Then we came back to our apartment and went up to the roof deck to look around.  AMAZING!  I will take pictures someday soon.  But you can see the ocean and Montjuic (mountain outside the city, translates to Mountain of the Jews or something like that because of an old Jewish cemetery located there).  It's an amazing view.  Plus there's a pool and there are some lounge chairs too.  We ate lunch out on our balcony in the sunshine.  So nice!

We leave for Ireland tomorrow morning!!

Americana in disguise

Sitting at lunch today, a guy about my age came up to me and Sarah.  He said "hello" very hesitantly so I could tell that he wasn't completely sure whether or not we were English or Spanish speakers.  I was so pleased that he thought that I was possibly Spanish that I attempted to say the absolute minimum so that he would continue to believe that I was Spanish. 

"Hello."
"Hola."
"Photo?" holding out his camera.
"Si." taking the camera.  I took the picture and then.
"Gracias."
"Si!"  Okay this was probably a bit more like a grunt.  I really wanted him to keep thinking that maybe I speak Spanish.  How pathetic!!!

En el ascensor

After class today, Sarah and I headed back to our apartment.  (We have a seven hour break in the middle of the day.)  We stepped in the elevator and pressed the button for the floor.  Nothing happened.  We pressed it again.  Nothing.  So then we pressed the buttons for all the floors and still nothing happened.  We were stuck on the first floor and the doors would not open!!

We began to consider our options: there were two buttons that had bells on them, a red buttons with a Spanish word neither of us recognized, and a speaker with a button.  We had no idea how to say that we were stuck in the elevator if we used the speaker so we pressed the bells.  We knocked on the door.  We called our other roommate hoping she was home to rescue us (she wasn't).  We thought about calling our señora but had the same language issue.  So we pounded on the door some more.

Suddenly the door was being pried open.  It opened about four inches and we saw a man's face and he said "¡hola!" and we said "¡gracias!" and suddenly the elevator was going up. 

At least we weren't like this woman: stuck in an elevator for eight days.

FYI: to say you're stuck in an elevator in Spanish, just say "atascarse en el ascensor."  The grammar may be a bit off here but the gist of the phrase is clear.

the sky's on fire

Today was the first day of class.  I really wasn't prepared to have classes and had a notepad, no notebooks, and one pen.  I was planning on getting notebooks yesterday but everything was closed so I went today after class.  I decided to go española and get the notebooks that are regular here.  They are legal-sized and graph paper!  Plus they're a cool bright orange.

I woke up this morning and the sky was this amazing color red.  Which immediately got James Taylor stuck in my head (hey babe, the sky's on fire) but I didn't take a picture.  [Just a note here: this is the second time I've mentioned James Taylor in this blog which is strange because I don't even listen to him that often.  His music just fits my life well, I guess.] 

I started my Catalan Cultural Studies and Politics and Regionalism classes today.  Catalan studies focuses on the culture here in Catalunya.  This should be really insightful because people here identify with Catalunya not Spain and I want to understand all that that entails.  The other class, Politics and Regionalism, deals a lot with nationalism and state-building.  This will provide a different insight into nationalist movements and the different social factors which are addressed (or aren't addressed) in the creation of states.

Oh, here's a cool thing that they have here.  There aren't real gas stations in the center of the city.  Instead, there are Vespa filling stations:

Ain't no stopping us now (we're on a roll!)

As of tonight, I have become a full-fledged meat eater!  I had meat that I really, really enjoyed and I figure that makes me a real meat eater now.

It may be difficult to go back to being a vegetarian after this.  I had forgotten how delicious drumsticks could be!

Today we wandered around Barri Gotic which is the old Gothic quarter of the city.  This is a cool part of the city because there are Roman remains alongside Gothic architecture.  The streets are very narrow (to deal with the hot Mediterranean climate) and there are a lot of small restaurants and shops.  Most of the shops were closed today though because it's Sunday.  (Everything closes on Sundays.  Sarah and I just spent 45 minutes wandering around our neighborhood in search an open place selling chocolate.  We were unsuccessful.  Even the grocery store is closed!!)

Anyway though, here is what Barri Gotic looks like:

I'll put a story in here to go around the pictures so it isn't just empty space.  When we were getting on the bus to go back to our apartment this afternoon, there were about fifteen kids and two adults waiting at the bus stop.  The kids were about six years old and were there for a birthday party.  They were speaking Spanish and German (we think) and we were amazed by how many languages they could speak. 

We all got onto the same bus and we were going along when the mom went up to the bus driver and talked to him for a minute.  Suddenly, the bus was pulling over and the mom picked up the youngest kid who was about three years old and ran off the bus carrying her.  We were watching, wondering what was going on because the rest of their entourage was still on the bus and the bus driver was clearly waiting for them to get back on the bus. 

 We looked out the window and the mother was holding the girl over a tree and the girl was peeing on the tree!  The mother pulled up the little girl's pants and ran back onto the bus where the duo was greeted with hysterical laughter and applause (Sarah).

That's about it for out day.  We start classes tomorrow and the days will start to feel really long and busy.  I go from 9:00 until 5:30 (with a two hour break) on Mondays and Wednesdays and Sarah has class from 10:45 until 7:30.