Semana Santa Part I, aka family European takeover :)

 (you can see more pictures here: photo album)

So, world, it actually happened...after months of planning and deciding, my parents got passports for the first time since their honeymoon, they decided to let Adam and Adina in on the fun and everyone hopped on the plane to Europe! I went to pick them up from the airport on that Friday afternoon, when Spring Break had started, gave them a quick Spain lesson (some history, the fact that people do not say any form of excuse me and will just stand there in front of you looking ridiculous, other useful tidbits) while we were on the metro to the Atocha area where my parents and Adam were staying in this second-floor cute little guesthouse I found randomly (Adina stayed with me since Eliana had already left for Spring Break on Thursday), had them put their stuff down and we went out on the town. (I do not believe in jet-lag! hehe just gotta keep going until it's nighttime in your new place..) I took them to Museo de Jamon for some wine, we went to the huge indoor market called Mercado San Miguel for some tapas, had churros con chocolate, and walked around Sol and Plaza Mayor. That was night 1!

By the time my family arrived my friends had all left for their Spring Break trips, so even though they didn't get to meet everyone (except Amy who travelled with us to France) they did meet my host mom and saw our apartment and a lot of Madrid! We spent Saturday walking around the city, and it was fun taking them to all my favorite places. We went to the Prado, the park, met up with a daughter of my mom's coworker who is also studying in Madrid, and lots more. The city has started to feel smaller and smaller to me (it actually is kind of small), and the nice thing about that is being able to see a LOT in a relatively short amount of time. On Sunday they came over to meet Gloria, and I translated between them for a bit before we headed to catch a bus to Ávila, a small town in the Segovia province about an hour outside the city. I love how the landscape changes within minutes of being on the bus, and the countryside is so beautiful in every direction you can leave the city.

On that bus ride I met Sofia, a woman who immigrated to Ávila from Romania, as there is now a high population of Romanian immigrants in Spain since they recently joined the European Union, making movement between countries relatively easy and more like state-to-state travel. I don't get passport stamps when going from between countries here, because we have a Spanish visa. She told me about her family, how she thinks Madrid is too big and noisy, and about moving to Spain and learning Spanish. She also told me that while her husband and son live in Spain with her now, one of her sons still lives in Romania, as well as most of her family. She chose to live in Ávila because it is calmer than Madrid, and more like her hometown. We spent that afternoon walking around the town, which is very small, climbing the cool thousand-year-old Roman wall, and then headed back to Madrid that night.

Reunited and strollin' down Atocha.

 

Goofin' on the Roman wall in Ávila.

On Monday, we explored a bit more and then met up with Amy in the afternoon to head to the airport! We got to Paris and met up with Colleen, my friend from Wash U who is studying in Paris, then went to an Italian restaurant where I met a waiter who forgot my food, then gave me this to make up for it (you have to click cause it's not letting me put pictures at the moment, who knows why!):

my french boo 

While I was the translator in Spain, I immediately lost all of those abilities and transferred them to my mom/Adam upon arrival in France. After dinner Colleen took Amy and I to the Eiffel Tower, where we saw the last glittery light-up session of the evening at midnight, which was oh-so sparkly and exciting!! Some French man roller-bladed into Amy and then told her she "wasn't very clever" for standing ON the sidewalk (really he was just mad at himself because he didn't maneuver his 'blades' in time..people can be so ridic), but we just laughed it off and kept enjoying. We spent the night at Colleen's host family's and in the morning Amy and I walked along the Champs-Elysees to meet up with my family, then spent the day walking a ton around the Seine, to Notre Dame, down a street called St. Michel, and all around Montmartre, a cool neighborhood and old artist community and the basilica Sacre Couer at the top of the neighborhood where people come to rub St. Peter's foot. We survived the downpours with Colleen as our tour guide, even having some hilarious times at our pitstop in a Montmartre laundromat for sanctuary.

At night, all of us and Amy (who is now totally part of the fam) went to a Passover seder at my mom's friends, the Benhamous. She met Laurance when they were my age, when my mom was spending the year in Caen. We saw her husband and four children, and went to their Sephardic, orthodox, French seder at their house and were amazed at how different things can be within the same holiday/religion--it was Amy's first seder and I was at times as unfamiliar with it as her--yet there's still always familiar words and tunes. I hadn't seen Laurance and her husband since my Bat Mitzvah, and one of their sons has visited our house in Chicago, and it was cool to have both of our entire families together for the first time. Amy and I spent the night there, and on Wednesday we went to the Musee L'orangerie which had amazing Monet waterlilies pieces done for the space, and then the Louvre, where we met up with Michael Chen (who is studying in Oxford but was on a 6-week break between terms/backpack time through Europe). The Louvre was immense and overwhelming; we didn't stay tooo long but still got a good feel.

We headed to the train station for our next stop, Caen, which is in Normandy. We arrived at the house of my mom's friends/surrogate parents from her time in Caen, Claude and Michele Bazin, with its beautiful viney walls, fireplace, pictures of their four children and many grandchildren, and two of the nicest, smartest, most family-oriented people who live inside it. Their house felt magical, as we sat and talked, looked at their pictures, listened to the fire, and ate delicious food. It was interesting how in France the salad comes after a main course, and then before dessert, there was cheese. One of my favorite moments of the whole trip was when Claude told us (translated from French) "A meal without cheese is like a kiss without a moustache". Although Michele now has Parkinsons, she was still able to communicate slowly and show us many pictures from their many trips, their children's weddings, etc. She told us how they met as young doctors working at a hospital in Paris and got married the next year, even humming a song that has lyrics about knowing love when they found it..so precious. They took us to the American soldiers' landing beaches from WWII, which they say they like showing to their visitors, and the American cemetery and memorial. Because Michele no longer drives, my dad drove a stick shift for the first time in 25+ years, which was very entertaining.

I couldn't believe my mom was my exact age when she would go over to their house for dinner, play piano with their musical children and walk around with Michele when she put the kids to bed. It was hard to watch them standing on the platform as we pulled away, but it is wonderful that we all got to go and see them. We took the train back into Paris, and parted ways as Amy and I headed to the airport for our next stop: Germany.

Marzo en Madrid

The week or two before Spring Break were really fun. I spent nearly the whole month of March in Madrid, going to school, going to teach the girls English, etc. The last 2 weekends I got to tour-guide my new city, first during Darcy's visit, and then my family's! It was fun taking them to the park, Plaza Mayor, Sol, museums (when Darcy was here we saw a Miquel Barceló exhibit at the Caixa Forum that was really good), a club, my favorite jazz bar, and more.

During these few weeks, Eliana and I realized that our host mom is pretty outrageous. There were a few incidents that just really disillusioned us, and while we know she is smart and cares about us--and we're still very respectful toward her--we also know to take what she says with a grain of salt. She loves to analyze, give opinions and say anything she thinks, many times without thinking how they might be received. Daniella is precious and smart as ever, and she definitely keeps her mama in check, haha. The tooth-mouse came for her again, and brought her a book and some euros. He even responded to her note in tiny handwriting (mice can only hold a pen so big!) and told her about his baby mice!

I talked to my host sister from last summer in Chile, who has been doing some relief work since the earthquake at the end of February. I also talked to the girl from Wash U who is currently staying with the fam, so she told me stories and asked me some more questions, and it made me miss them so much! I always felt like such a part of the family there, whether from taking turns doing the dishes, learning guitar from Juan Pablo, or going to visit my host mom Angélica's mom and making sopaipillas. I think once I had a host family experience like that one, it is hard to live up to it :) However, I am grateful to have both of the experiences, and know that I am learning a lot from both.

Outside the Palacio de Crystal in Parque Retiro

There is a corner of Plaza Mayor (the main plaza in Madrid) that is home to the man commonly and  fondly known as "Fat Spiderman". He is there at all hours of the day, in the same exact ripped up costume, ready and excited to be in pictures. The best part is that he leads you through a little photo shoot, saying "Fly with me now! Fly!" or "Sexy now", in English with a heavy Spanish accent. Clearly I had to introduce Darcy to this phenomenon.

Darcy got to meet the girls I teach! They're precious/hilarious. Victoria (on the left) is 8, and Jimena just turned 7. Working with their notebooks where we draw pictures, write vocab words, etc. 

The Carlos III campus. There is such a different attitude toward college, and really very little on-campus social life. People come to class and then go back into Madrid! Also, most people still live at home, so it's understandable.

Our fave sandwich place near campus. It is the most insanely decorated place I have every seen, and all those signs are personalized sandwiches their customers have made. It is owned by two sisters, who are some of the nicest and happiest people ever. Each sandwich takes so long to make because they make sure they get it just right while saying "si, cariño?" (basically "sweetie") a million times. 

Also, one night, Eliana, Ben and I saw a hilarious play called "Sexos". We had been seeing it advertised around the city, and when we were walking around El Rastro, the huge street market that goes up every Sunday, we passed by the theater where it was playing and decided to get student tickets for that week. It has 5 actors in the whole show (one of the women is in a comedy show that Bobby watches at his host fam's, who is great). It was about two dysfunctional couples, and a crazy woman who at different points during the show ends up with both of the men in the relationships. It was loud and outrageous and hilarious, and funny hearing our newly-acquired slang (both appropriate and not) used a million times throughout the show. I love seeing theater in a new place, sitting and laughing with people who have lived here all their lives.

Such a funny show. 

I recently found out that I will for sure be going back to St. Louis in June for the summer, working with recently arrived refugees at and internship with the International Institute. I'll be working in Child Services, pairing children with compatible schools and daycares, accompanying the families to the registration and other events, and registering families with young children for a government-subsidized nutrition program. I'm very excited and definitely looking forward to it!

Where's the bus?..adventures in Andalucía

A few weekends ago, Eliana, Bobby, Stef and I made our return to southern Spain when went on the Erasmus trip to Córdoba y Sevilla. Erasmus is the European Union's study abroad network, making it easy and accessible for university students in the European Union to spend a semester or a year at another European school. However, they open up their activities and trips to any student at our school (Carlos III) so we signed up to go. It definitely turned out to be more of an adventure than we had bargained for! 

It all started when we got to the bus at 7:30 am Friday morning, just like the one short email we received about the trip the day before we left told us to do. We waited outside of Atocha (the main train station, near where I live) for the bus that would take us on the 6-hour drive south to Córdoba. After waiting about 45 minutes, a guy finally announced himself as the leader, explaining that we had about 20 minutes until the bus left in case we wanted to go get coffee, or do whatever we needed to do. My friends and I, as well as a girl from one of my classes who had come on her own and actually said she needed someone to hang out with until she 'made friends' (thanks! remember this comment later), put our backpacks under the bus, then went into the cafe directly behind where we were standing, to get out of the cold for a few minutes. When we peered out the window about 7 minutes later, our traveller's nightmare began..the bus was very much not there. Gone.

The ridiculousness began here. The five of us went outside, looked all up and down the street, and realized the bus really had left us. We also realized that a) our stuff was under the bus, b) because the information they sent about the trip was so informal, we had absolutely no way to contact the trip leader (a student at Carlos III) nor anyone on the bus. The ONLY thing we knew was that our group was taking a tour of the mosque at 2:30 p.m. We had one of those moments where we all just looked around at each other in disbelief for a few seconds before realizing we needed to act. Luckily, we were right across the street from Madrid's huge main train station, so we ran inside, dashing from room to room for the right counter, and found an Ave (high-speed) train that was leaving for Córdoba at 9 am. It was 8:54. 

We quickly bought the tickets, ran down the escalators, through the fake jungle in the middle of the train station (ok, so we didn't run through it, but I just wanted to note that there IS a fake jungle in there. porque? no tengo idea.), to the platform and onto the train. We acknowledged that there was nothing we could do about the situation until we got there, so we found some seats, settled in to watch "He's Just Not That Into You" in español, and began to have the moment where you realize the situation is funny. Really funny. Also, they aren't kidding about high-speed trains. We were in Córdoba one hour, 45 minutes later--aka before the end of the movie where guy that works at the bar admits that he IS into her, and they are happy. The five of us got off the train, headed to the old city, and did some great walking and exploring. Saw the old Jewish quarter, the Roman bridge, and more. 

Around 2, we headed inside the walls of the mosque to make sure we could be there when the group arrived, and I realized that at the sign that said "Groups" they would probably have a contact number from our group. Our 5th lost-group-member spent most of the time talking about what she would do if her bag was gone forever. After a morning of unsuccessfully calling anyone at the school that we could to try and get a number of someone who was on that bus, or knew someone who knew someone who was on that bus, we finally got a number.  At this point, however, it was futile, and we soon saw our "leader" with an intense unibrow appear with the group. When we approached him and explained la situación, the verrrryy first thing he said was, "Why didn't you call someone?" We finally found out his name (Pierro) and that he was Colombian, and apparently the bus had had to pull away early because a cop told it to. Not that they had made sure everyone was there, checked any list, etc. The second thing he told us was that he had seen the random (our) bags under the bus when they arrived, taken them out, and left them in the street (!) The third thing he told us was that they had checked into the hostel, and after 'recalculating' on the bus, there wasn't room at the same one. I think you can imagine the looks on our faces at that moment.

Apparently, and luckily for us, there were some diplomats visiting Córdoba that day. Because of that, there were lots of police officers controlling cars on the tiny streets. I guess they saw our bags when Pierro took them out, and told him they would take them to their office. Yes, there is only one local police office in Córdoba. We took our tour of the mosque, and afterward headed to the policia de Córdoba..but the journey did not end there. We were asking cops in the street, who were controlling the streets for the diplomat, to call and make sure it was at their station, to which the dispatcher said they weren't. We headed over there anyway, and at first, they told us our bags were in their lost and found, and the man who runs the lost and found--and therefore was in possession of the ONE (yes really, the only) key that exists for said lost and found--had left to go home since it was Friday afternoon..and would not be returning until Monday morning. I was perplexed. What if lost-and-found man gets sick? Wants to take a nice family vacay? Guess he can't, since he possesses the key. The nice, bored policemen at the station helped us out, and called their one desk they have in the national police's office next to the mosque. He told us we were in luck, our bags were sitting next to that one desk. We trekked back to where we came from, chatted with the policeman for a few minutes about how he found our bags in the street, and how Córdoba is competing to become the "capital Europea de la culura" (capital of European culture) for 2016, then got our backpacks, which were just chilling on the floor. 

Once this was all worked out, everything was groovy. We found the hostel affiliated with the one everyone else was staying, where they had found us rooms. It turned out to be a really cool place, and we put down our stuff, went out for some delicious tapas (my favorite was goat cheese and honey) and wine, and left in the morning for Sevilla, which is such a romantic, beautiful city.

Córdoba: mezcla de las tres grandes culturas

The Roman bridge in Córdoba, from the 1st century BC.

The mezquita (mosque) in Córdoba (aka Candyland?).

Jammin' in the tiny streets of Cordoba.

Kids on a field trip to the mezquita.

In one of the many patios.

Patio at our hostel.

Outside walls of the mezquita

Sevilla!

Patio de los Naranjos at the Catedral en Sevilla.

A little boy wanted to join in this street performer's fun. So adorable. Note the little ponytails in the boy's hair.

Men practicing and weight training prepare for the parade with a giant statute of the Virigin Mary during Holy Week.

Plaza de España

Dusk in Sevilla was my favorite...I think it's made for this time of day!

Midsummer Night's Dream?

Eliana and I had our very first gofre con helado yum yum

That night in Sevilla we met up with Ali from our program, and Cristina who is studying abroad in Paris, and we all went to a Flamenco bar. 

Sunday morning, before heading back to Madrid we went to the Alcazar: palace and beautiful gardens from the Arab rulers of the 700s-1200s

Stef, me, Bobby, Eli

Spinning, lalala

After the madness, it really did turn out to be a great weekend. I am so happy I got to see these two cities, and it was fun to talk to and people-watch on our trip of kids from all over Europe and South America. Sevilla especially has such an amazing feeling, and I would love to go back someday!