I love chocolate and gelato. And chocolate gelato. I´ll probably refer to these a lot.
I´m not very funny but I make up for it in sarcasm.
I appreciate brutal honesty.
I laugh easily.
I am a horrible poker player.
My hand-eye coordination is sometimes questionable, as is my depth perception.
I consider myself athletic, nonetheless.

Well, I guess I´ll just leave it at that -- everything else will come out eventually.

Until I get frustrated enough to rant about something, or excited enough to wax poetic about it... Amanda

written by  achavero on October 9, 2007 from Barcelona, Spain
from the travel blog: Amanda in Barcelona
tagged Introduction and CultureShock
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The Program: I am participating in the Knox College Progam at the University of Barcelona. The director is Tim Foster, a professor at Knox College, and the assistant is Susanna "Suzie" Stone, a graduate of Knox and a former participant in this program. They are very cool people, and fortunately so because I see them on a daily basis as they help me with everything from classes to visas, residency cards to advice on what bars are worth visiting.

The School: The University of Barcelona was founded in 1450. I go to school in a castle. Pictures are forthcoming. It is located, more or less, in the heart of Barcelona. It is a very short walk from Plaza Catalunya, which is the ground zero of activity for many businesses, including tourism, and all public transportation originates, ends, or passes through this area. The department I am enrolled in is the Philology department, which is roughly equivalent to Knox´s Modern Languages department. It is mostly a commuter school, there is no 24-hour computer lab (like Founder´s lab at Knox -- which I never thought I would miss!), but there are a few courtyards and gardens, and I have yet to find any of the libraries but once I do I´m sure I´ll have a lot to say about them.

The Classes: The year is divided into trimesters, and each student takes three or four classes (one on audit), with only one required class, Syntax and Composition. I am taking four classes this trimester. And no, it´s not very difficult. They are: History of Spain, Contemporary Spain, Art History 1, and Syntax and Composition 1 (audit). The classes are all 1.5 hours long, and all of them are lecture-oriented. (The S&C class obviously has more of a participatory element, but that´s because it´s a grammar course.) All the classes are taught in Spanish.

The Professors: All are faculty of the University of Barcelona.
-Professor Bertrán is the only man I´ve ever met who´s eyes sparkle when he talks about Roman history (Barcelona is a Roman city, after all). His excitement is contagious and it makes his classes terrifically interesting (yes, an interesting history class, I know. It really exists).
-Professor Reyes is my professor for Contemporary Spain. For those of you familiar with the Knox community, he is a smaller, Spanish version of Xavier Romano, sans the bow tie and with more hair. For those of you who feel left out at that statement, he is a round, well-dressed man with a bubbly personality, a penchant for talking with his eyes closed and for making small gestures of emphasis with his hands. Their voices even sound similar.
-Professor Moreno is my professor for S&C. I know by now that she speaks English, even though we only speak Spanish with her. She has a very warm, comfortable presence in the classroom, which is good because it makes you feel less awkward as you verbally stumble around phrases in Spanish. She is even gracious enough to resist cringing at the most American of accents. (For the record, I cringe at my own accent.)
-Professor Losada is the Art History professor and is thus the most entertaining personality. His favorite tangential monologues center on the themes of love, old age versus youth (and his preference for the former), and how being old means knowing the difference between lust and love. His classes are the most philosophical in nature, and usually leave me reeling with all kinds of ideas and perspectives to think about. That is probably just because I tend to overanalyze things though. I have the feeling that other kids in the class are not so profoundly affected.
In any case, I love my professors. I even think I´ll adore them in 7 weeks, when final exams will be looming threateningly.

Part 2 will be coming next... since this was all academic, the next bit will be about "la vida cotidiana" (daily life).

written by  achavero on October 10, 2007 from Barcelona, Spain
from the travel blog: Amanda in Barcelona
tagged School, Professors and Program
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First things first, I live in the Grácia neighborhood of Barcelona. This was originally a tiny pueblo that Barcelona basically overwhelmed. As a result, the streets are narrow and tree lined, the shops are tiny and unique and there are all kinds of little plazas randomly interspersed throughout the area. Basically, its a small town in a big city. Not the suburbs, persay, but there is definitely a small town vibe, in the way that people will recognize each other on the street and its not very touristy. For those of you who can, imagine the "historic" part of Galesburg´s Main Street/Seminary Street area. Now instead of office buildings above the ground floor businesses, imagine lots of apartments, more small trees lining the (narrower) sidewalks, and lots of vespas tooling around. That´s where I live.
I am staying with a host family for the year. Wonderful people. Right now, there are four people living in the apartment -- myself, Pepita (host mother), Juan (host father), and Virginia (their daughter, 25). I have a tiny room -- just enough space for a twin bed, dresser and nightstand, but that is more than made up for by the fact that I have a private bathroom.
My host mother is a fantastic cook. There really isn´t anything more to say about that. I just plan on learning a few things before I go home in June. Given that I´m not really known for my culinary skillz, this could be... interesting. But I´m optimistic, I mean, how hard is it to mess up anything that starts with olive oil and garlic? Besides, I can boil water. And I can make good chocolate chip cookies.
What else... oh... location! If you check out a map, you´ll see that I live in what is more or less the middle of Barcelona. Parc Güell, la Sagrada Familia, the Univeristy of Barcelona and Plaza Catalunya (the heart of public transportation and businesses of the city) are all easy 30 minute walks from my front door, and they are all in totally different directions!
As for getting around, I usually take the metro. It´s fast, pretty clean and goes to pretty much every part of the city. I haven´t tried out the bus system yet. Its more extensive than the metro, so the map is more difficult to read which is why I don´t really bother with it. However, I do know that if I ever need to take the bus, I need the Blue Line, Number 55. Both the metro stop and the bus stop are around the corner from my apartment.
Anything I forgot to mention... oh yeah, I have "my" gelato place. Gelato is pretty much the most fantastic thing in the world, by the way. I was walking home one night and while I wanted gelato, I didn´t know anywhere to get it. So I got overwhelmed and headed for the metro. En route to the metro, I walked past Dino´s, saw the 20+ kinds of gelato they had and when I saw that they had mango AND kiwi, I was sold. I´ve found that the litmus test for gelato places is to try the mango. If the mango tastes like mango, then its good. At Dino´s, not only does the mango taste like mango, and the kiwi like kiwi (and the same goes for the Milk Chocolate, Black Raspberry, Dulce de Leche, BonBon, and Creme Broulee...), the one male employee hands it to you with a wink and doesn´t make you pay. Okay... well, he winks at me and doesn´t make me pay. I did at first though. But its kind of expensive there!
Along a similar theme is "my" internet cafe. Its a block from home, and has one of the "cheapest" rates (of one euro per hour). No, one euro an hour isn´t cheap by poor-college-student standards. I go there when I can´t use the University computers (on the weekends). The guy there generally doesn´t make me pay. I´m there quite a bit. Recently, I´ve insisted on paying because I realized that he seems to think that his "generosity" means I´ll go out with him.

Um...No. No way.

Sigh, I suppose I should comment on the whole Amanda-gets-free-stuff thing. At first I thought about refusing the free-ness, but I realized that I am poor, they are disillusioned and as long as I´m honest and don´t lead them on if they ask me out, I have no reason not to appreciate their kindness (even if their motives are less than pure).

That is part of not just my, but all female life here though so there´s no point in me glossing it over. I don´t like to think about why men feel entitled to stare or whistle on the street, or why some men think that they can "buy" me with free internet or gelato (neither of which is really an act of generosity because they don´t own the businesses). I could talk forever about the cultural differences of Spain and the United States, but that would just make me sound ignorant and short-sighted. I really don´t think there is any inherent difference. You just deal with it.

Finally, I think that after a month, I have struck a balance between local and foreigner. I "look" like a local -- dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin. My accent is painfully American, but there are a few phrases I can say that don´t showcase that fact. I dress more or less like I did at home, but that doesn´t make too much of a difference because anything you see in the United States can be found here. Finally, my favorite day-to-day bag is a canvas tote that is more or less an Andy Warhol tribute. It has three screen prints of the Campbell tomato soup can stitched to the canvas on one side, referring to one of Warhol´s most famous pieces. I use this bag for everything because I can fit everything in it. And when people see me, sometimes I see the recognition on their faces. It usually happens with tourists. They see my bag, but then they see me and they don´t know if I am being obnoxiously American or if I am a Spaniard that knows American culture or just happens to know Andy Warhol. It´s sort of fun.

Also fun is when people ask me for directions. At first I would give them a terrified, deer in the headlights look because I didn´t know Barcelona any better than they did. But now, I realize that they are probably asking me directions for one of three reasons.
1. They are desperate and I was the next person to walk by.
2. I look like I might speak English.
3. I look like I would actually know the answer to their question.
(And sometimes, if I´m in a bad mood and they ask me directions in English, I only answer them in Spanish. Its only happened a couple of times though.)

:)

Well, that´s pretty much it. I decided yesterday to leave for Rome tomorrow, so I need to pack tonight. The tickets were really cheap. For the record, that´s definitely the most spontaneous and momentous thing I´ve ever done. I´ll make sure to take lots of pictures and tell you about it when I get back. Ciao! :)

written by  achavero on October 16, 2007 from Barcelona, Spain
from the travel blog: Amanda in Barcelona
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So, what do I think of Rome? It´s hard to say. I felt, and feel, pretty ambivalent. Sometimes I was annoyed, sometimes I was totally enamored. Occasionally, I felt like I was stuck in an amusement park. Mostly, I was a mess. Emotionally, a mess. I managed to stand directly in front of the sculpture, Laocoon, in the Vatican museum, and seeing the anguish in his face and the veins, the tension, in his thigh brought me to tears. Seeing stones shaped and placed by people who have been dead for over 2000 years made me stop and wonder -- but it wasn´t over the craftsmanship (which was usually fantastic), it was over the idea of mortality. I´ve never felt so mortal and insignificant in my entire, if brief, life. Linguistically, a mess. Conversations that took two or three languages to get through were very common. Physically, I barely kept it together. It took two maps to get around the city, and while we occasionally allowed ourselves to wander, I had trouble letting go at first. With every step I was both exhilarated with the sights I was rewarded with and mentally recording as many details as possible so I could find my way back. But even then, I wasn´t ever totally sure of my location in time and space. Rome feels so disjointed to me. Seeing the modern, the reconstructed, and the original side-by-side, on top of and surrounding each other... after even just a day it blurs into a big... mess. For me, there is no way to successfully marry past and present. Past is past, present is present. They don´t go together. Can they complement each other? Perhaps. They just don´t fuse into a seamless entity for me.

And maybe what I felt in Rome doesn´t fall into a "normal" experience. Maybe I just took everything too seriously. But it was my experience and it was unforgettable. I have never felt so unsettled in my entire life -- physically, emotionally, mentally -- and while I never want to feel that way again, I´m glad it happened.

Leaving was also difficult. I wanted to get the hell out of there as much as I wanted to people-watch in Piazza Navona, eat pastries on the Spanish Steps, lust after purses and shoes, window shop and feel sorry for the drivers who chain-smoke while waiting for their charges to come out of Cartier, Dior and Ferragamo laden with shopping bags full of tissue-wrapped accessories, and overindulge in gelato -- which is just a small portion of what I managed to do with Erica and Jen.

But getting back, even at 2 am, was a relief. Going somewhere else and being even more awkward, foreign and out of place does wonders for making your current living situation feel more comfortable. I came back from Rome feeling much better about Barcelona. I even have a little more faith in my Spanish now because I know it works... in Italy, at least.

written by  achavero on October 22, 2007 from Roma, Italy
from the travel blog: Amanda in Barcelona
tagged Rome
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I think its funny that I had to go to Barcelona to realize that I really do like living in the back of beyond. I felt so strange in Galesburg... so out of place. I didn´t mind all of it, but there were things about it that I felt I couldn´t live with. (Bugs, for example.) I was ready for a change and I wanted, I needed, to get out. This was something I had known since high school. But I wasn´t in a hurry. I decided to go to Knox College instead of some other faraway school, and I´m still happy with that decision (even if now I´m not so sure that Knox will be the place I loved these last two years when I get back...) Anyway, now that I´ve bided by time and taken my opportunity to do something about it and get myself out of the United States, I realized that I was right about some things and wrong about the rest.

1. Barcelona, as beautiful and interesting as it is, is nowhere I can (or want to) live for the rest of my life. (Sorry ´bout your luck, Mom.) Even though the streets are clean, the air is filthy. I can feel the pollution aspirating in my throat and lungs when I breathe. Talk about depressing. The thing is, being a college student makes me feel a bit homeless, a little lost. Transient. And frankly, I´m not sad about knowing that I don´t want to live in Barcelona. The way I see it, I may not know where I will belong, but I know where I don´t (or don´t want to) belong. Wherever I live, it won´t be in the thick of the urban jungle. Simply put, I like breathing.
2. The United States isn´t perfect. But neither is the rest of the world. And I need to make more of an effort to stop referring to it as "America" because there is more than one country in "America". (Like Canada!) I will never forget how ignorant I felt when I realized what I was saying... like the United States is the only country that matters... ugh. I´m so embarrassed. But what I´m trying to get at here is that I don´t know if I´ll live in the United States or not. I´ll make that decision based on what place makes my life easier, probably. Its just a matter of what rules I want to play by.
3. Cameron, Illinois isn´t so bad! What it lacks in cultural stimulation (I can only watch tractor pulls so many times, sorry), it more than makes up for in atmosphere, ambience and SAFETY. Being afraid of a skunk down the road is something I find infinitely preferable to being afraid of the creepy drunk guy at the other end of the street. I´ve never realized just how terrified I am of being in a situation where I can´t protect myself. It is easily my biggest fear. (My second biggest fear? Well, as long as I´m pouring out my soul, it´s the fear of losing my quality of life to poor health). So little Cameron, Illinois, in all its quaint familiarity, has given me exactly what I needed the most all these years -- clean air and a safe haven. Of course I appreciated these things, but now instead of just being grateful when I found it convenient, I find these characteristics to be priceless. Who knew. (Note: I´ll never call myself a "farm girl" though. I can´t do it -- makes me feel ridiculous. It just doesn´t fit. But then I´m not a "city girl" either...)

Sigh... okay, that really is enough for now. I feel better -- I think I needed to get this out. Seeing my thoughts helps to sort everything out. And now, I don´t really feel like I´ve reached a conclusion. There isn´t really anything to conclude. These are just things I´ve observed and noted, with some surprise. Then again, I´m easily amused.

To whoever managed to read all of this: First, I´m impressed that you stuck it out. I probably would have stopped reading a while ago. :) I don´t know how this is going to register with you, but I´m sure you understand by now that this wasn´t written for you. I wrote it for my own sanity, but about halfway through I figured that since I had gone through the trouble of writing it, there wasn´t any reason I couldn´t share it.

written by  achavero on October 23, 2007 from Barcelona, Spain
from the travel blog: Amanda in Barcelona
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Maybe I should go get gelato. I haven´t had gelato since I got back from Italy. I´ve been afraid to find that it isn´t quite as good as Rome´s.

I don´t understand why I need this chocolate so badly. I´m not hungry. But right now, it´s either going to be chocolate or tylenol. Am I really having a chocolate withdrawal? Because my head hurts. Right now, I actually feel like there isn´t enough chocolate in the world; at least not enough at my disposal. I think its the weather: cool, damp feeling and cloudy. But mostly just... grey.

I´ve started reading La Colmena. In Spanish. It´s really slow going. I can read it... I only have to look up one or maybe two words per page... but I read sooooo slooooowly. i feel like i´m in second grade again. Just one step above having to say every syllable out loud. Super annoying. I know it gets better with time and I just have to keep practicing, but that doesn´t make the resulting headache go away. Thus, I need chocolate. I even just left and bought a kitkat out of the vending machine, but i´m still feeling pretty murderous.

Yeah... that´s a pretty good way to describe my mood right now... I´m feeling pretty murderous. I really just want to get a big, 150g Lindt chocolate bar and shred the wrapper to pieces until I can sit peacefully, my mouth full of gloriously melty chocolate and wait until all the stress and dreary, grey thoughts just go away. And then, I´ll break off another piece, careful not to hold it too long (it melts, you know), and when I pop that into my mouth, things will be right with the world.

Sometimes, I don´t think my "addiction" to chocolate is very healthy. However, I tell myself, at least its not cocaine (or any other horrific drug), its marginally healthy (it might not do anything good for me, but at least it doesn´t cause cancer), and its cheap. When I start getting too big for my britches, chocolate and I will have a showdown. Until then, I´m content to enjoy it.

All in all, today hasn´t been a bad day. Well, it hasn´t been a great one, but I´m not complaining. Pretty run of the mill. Woke up, got out of the house on time, listened to my mp3 player on the bus, and ate my breakfast (two small muffins that I tossed into my bag on the way out) while I waited for my first class to start. The professor was 15 minutes late (by unspoken agreement, if the professor is more than 20 minutes late, we walk out). I like him though, so I would probably give him 25. We finished the movie we started last week (La Lengua de las Mariposas, great film), and silently commiserated while we listened to "Tomcat" ask redundant questions about the rise of Franco for the remaining half hour. "Oh, Tomcat," we all say. He´s a nice kid, but he asks a lot of questions. A lot of the same questions. But no matter. And "Tomcat" is what the group collectively nicknamed him. Think about it.

The second class passed easily enough -- it was the grammar class. But today we all took turns talking about what we did this weekend. Since I did nothing terrifically interesting, I spoke the least. It was more fun listening to stories about the trips to Paris and San Sebastian, anyway. A ham sandwich and an apple later, I popped into the computer lab. I´ve been here for about an hour. At 6, I have the history class. At 8-ish, I´ll be in the grocery store under my apartment. At around nine, Pepita will serve dinner and will probably comment on how much I eat. She always says it with a smile, and only recently, but I don´t know how to take her comments. The Spanish, and especially the women, have this way of criticizing or otherwise making comments by using sarcastic or playful tones. It´s hard to know if they are being serious. Well, it´s hard for me. She´s been nothing but fantastic this entire time, though, so I don´t think she´s being mean or critical. Anyway, lately she has made comments about how much I eat, or that I have quite the appetite. This weekend she asked me if I haven´t gained any weight since I´ve been here. I said no, and she smiled, replying, "Well, I guess I didn´t either when I was your age." But... its strange. I guess I don´t really know if I´ve gained weight, but my clothes still fit. If I have, it hasn´t been much. I don´t know if I should say something. I don´t know if I should eat less. I don´t know if I should give into the insecurity that starts to rise when she says something about it.

Sigh... whatever the case, I still need chocolate. Yes, I NEED chocolate. There is no indecision about that. And tomorrow, I´ll go for my first run in Spain. Yeah, I still haven´t done that. But I guess being in a new country isn´t enough of a reason to slack off ;)

written by  achavero on November 5, 2007 from Barcelona, Spain
from the travel blog: Amanda in Barcelona
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I guess I´ll just have to start eating less chocolate.

written by  achavero on November 13, 2007 from Barcelona, Spain
from the travel blog: Amanda in Barcelona
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However, I´ll be liberated after 4:30 because I´m going to go to the Bodies Exhibit at one of the many museums in BCN. It´s a pretty pricey exhibit -- 15 euros for students (roughly 25 dollars), but my host mother got free tickets to it and she gave them to me because she was too creeped out by the idea of seeing dissected bodies on display.
____________________________________________________________________________

Okay, so I wrote that yesterday, but never posted it. Tricky, I know. I thought about trashing it, but keeping it saves me time by not having to (re)write an explanation.

So, I didn´t get anything else done with the paper. I decided two pages in three hours was sufficient for a first effort. What took the longest was translating it into Spanish! I just saved what I had, ate lunch and then walked down Las Ramblas to the Drassanes Reials Museum for the exhibition. It was... interesting. I was afraid that maybe I wouldn´t be able to handle it, seeing bodies that at one point walked and talked, etc., etc. but it wasn´t an issue. They start you out slow, with some bones. Smart thinking. Everyone has seen a bone, most of us have broken one or two. So that was okay. Then they show you an entire skeleton, then a skeleton and the tendons, a skeleton with the tendons and the major muscle groups, and so on until you get to the one female in the entire exhibition and she has pretty much every part of her intact, sans skin, of course. Wow, talking about this is really strange. I guess its just one of those things you have to see for yourself. I don´t know who sponsored the exhibit, but they definitely have an agenda. There is a section about the digestive and respiratory systems and they show you a diseased organ next to a healthy one and talk about how not smoking and avoiding fatty foods will save your life. Yes, I believe those things to be true but I didn´t come to this exhibit to be scared into living a healthier life. To each their own, I suppose. And I´m sure that there are many people who need just that sort of experience to change their lives around. It´s probably better to see how it happened to someone else than to actually have to experience it yourself, so I´ll give them credit for trying to educate the masses.

And today? I slept in, made my way over to the library. I have to leave soon though, as its only open from 11 to 2 on Saturday. Yes, I think that that is ridiculous. And yes, I´ve started excusing things I find to be absurdly inconvenient by saying, "Well, it IS Spain, after all." I´ve also noticed that I finally understand the Spanish sense of time. Everything in Barcelona takes 20 minutes to get to, no matter how far away it seems. The trick is how you are getting there -- walking, metro, bus, etc -- and how quickly you are willing to move. These Spaniards... they´re crafty.

written by  achavero on November 17, 2007 from Barcelona, Spain
from the travel blog: Amanda in Barcelona
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