This weekend was a double-holiday in Spain, so we had a four-day weekend. Ally and I met her mom in Lisbon for a last little excursion before hitting the books in preparation for finals. We saw all of the sights: the Tower of Belém, the monastery, the historic Alfama district, Barrio Alto, and the castle. We ate all the famous foods: cod, port wine (ew), lamb, and the most delicious pastries I’ve tasted in my entire life (think filo dough pastry cups filled with crème brulee, served hot with cinnamon and powdered sugar on top). We took a day trip to Sintra, a gorgeous mountain town, and various places on the coast, including the westernmost point in Europe, Cabo de Roca. We even caught a fado show, where we enjoyed a delicious meal to the deep, operatic singing of traditional Portuguese music.

What we did not anticipate enjoying was a trip through Portugal’s healthcare system. I was having some stomach pains that I thought would go away alone, but on the second day I was worse and we decided it would be best to get things checked out. Of course, it was Sunday, meaning that there were no clinics open and the only option was the hospital. The woman at the front desk of the museum we were at pointed us in the direction of the nearest hospital, but when we asked for directions from a security guard, he told us to go to a different hospital because that one was crowded and not very good. So we dodged a bullet, right?

Two hours later, after having waited in three separate waiting rooms, each with fewer seats and more seriously ill people, we realized that we had not. Ally’s mom wasn’t allowed to accompany me back to the waiting area, so she pulled a James Bond and snuck into the room, where she found Ally and I huddled in a corner, standing against a wall trying to get as far as possible from a man on a stretcher with a blood clot, a wailing woman with a broken arm, and a very green-looking girl wearing about five jackets in a hot, stuffy room. It looked like I was going to have to stand around in pain for another two hours at least, based on the number of people crammed into the room, and I was wondering what sort of crazy illnesses I was going to contract simply from breathing the foul air. Luckily, Ally’s mom decided to play dumb American and found an English-speaking doctor who agreed to see me out of line. I got a quick little IV injection of something (finding out what it was from the clueless nurse who checked me out ended up being another process), a bill for $200 and exposure to a whole multitude of diseases.

Now that I’m not being forced to stand up for two hours in a dirty hospital while having stomach pains, I guess it was a way to see Portugal from a much different perspective than most tourists. Lisbon is beautiful, but it certainly is not as clean or well-kept as Madrid (it turns out the entire city of Madrid is run by OCD neat-freaks like my señora, and there really is a cultural obsession with cleanliness). Portugal is definitely much poorer and less economically developed than Spain, even though most people tend to group the two together.

But luckily we had that fourth day to take in the sites we missed in the hospital, and they really were beautiful. We spent time at the castle and then just walked around the historic neighborhoods, popping our heads into antique shops and taking what were generally very charming settings minus the rampant graffiti in Barrio Alto. It was interesting to be in a country that so many people associate with Spain but not understand any of the language. In fact, no one in Portugal even learns Spanish—the people are more likely to speak English or French—which was a bit surprising to me since the two countries share the same peninsula and even some significant common history. I guess they’re competitors to the end, just like in the 16th century. And Portuguese really is a weird language, and it sounded almost Slavic at times. But in the end, language isn’t the only way to communicate. We had a cab driver that didn’t speak any English or Spanish, but he knew we had come from the fado show so he belted out traditional tunes and recited Portuguese poetry for the entire ride home, much to our amusement. I guess if Venice has its gondoliers, Lisbon has its cabbies.

Overall, I enjoyed Lisbon and found it to be a little treasure that just needs a little work. The view of the Christmas lights along Avenida Liberdade from our hotel room were stunning, and the city looked quaint and beautiful from the top of the elevator in Barrio Alto and from the castle on the other side. But the hospital was far from charming, and the city definitely needs some cleaning up, things that will have to wait until there is a bit more money flowing into the historic port city.

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Right about now, all of you are getting ready to board planes back to Evanston after a (hopefully) relaxing Thanksgiving break. This was my first Thanksgiving away from home, and I must say that I had no idea how much I was going to miss pie. Turkey I can live without, although my señora did make chicken on Thursday, which she noted was “almost like turkey, but better.” But more than anything, Thanksgiving is about being with family, and it was definitely weird that it was such a non-event this year. Fortunately, I’ll get plenty of time with the cousins and grandparents during Chanukkah.

But, true to the abroad experience, I still managed to have a memorable, if not traditional, Thanksgiving. On Friday, my program took a day trip to Segovia, where the main sites are remarkably well-preserved Roman aqueducts and the castle that inspired Walt Disney and actually does bear a strong resemblance to the logo. However, these paled in comparison to the main event: lunch at José María, the most famous restaurant in Segovia.

We piled into the quaint yet sophisticated dining room, sat around big circular tables, and passed around a variety of appetizers and side dishes. Several students’ families had flown out to be with their kids on Thanksgiving, so our program director made a little speech about family and being grateful for our experience here. For a second, the scene resembled a traditional Thanksgiving meal. But then they started brining out the cochinillo.

Cochinillo means “little pig” in Spanish and is the José María specialty. Having been forewarned, we had our cameras ready and minds open for what was coming to our table. When the waiters brought out the little roasted pigs, they set them on a center table and gave us a little background on a tradition that began in the Middle Ages. Kings used to invite a pretty girl to the head of the table to cut the pig, and they would use only the side of a plate to demonstrate how tender it was. When they were done, they would throw the plates on the floor to show that there weren’t any blades lodged in the plates. In the spirit of tradition, they invited the girl who had the most recent birthday to join in cutting up the first pigs—and of course she had to prove her plate wasn’t full of metal. It was quite a spectacle.

The pig, by the way, was absolutely delicious. My friend Nisha gobbled hers up and was in the process of picking it clean when she flipped over a big bone and saw teeth! Turns out she had been eating the face, as had our friend Sebastian, who had the other half of the jaw. I had a leg, which was pretty safe, although some did have hooves on the end. But that’s how good this meat was: people ate around hooves and teeth and even the occasional mystery organ, literally picking the bones clean, and had no qualms about doing so because it was just so tasty.

Dessert also came with a bit of spectacle. The chef made a chocolate sauce concoction by heating up chocolate with various herbs and some alcohol that he lit on fire, while all of the November and December birthday people stood around the table staring at the flaming pot and eagerly anticipating the first taste. The sauce was poured over a plate with two flavors of ice cream, a brownie, and some sort of hard, crepe-like pastry. Once again, I licked my plate clean. And then wanted to vomit after such a huge meal. I guess that’s one thing this meal had in common with my normal Thanksgiving experience.

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After spending my free time this summer watching the Euro Cup on ESPN every day, I was pumped to finally have the chance to see some “football” in person at a Real Madrid game. Last night, I finally made it to Santiago Bernabeu stadium to see Real Madrid beat Recreativo Huelva 1-0 in a Spanish League game. And it was a blast, definitely just as fun as I had imagined from my couch this summer.

Of course, I almost didn’t make it there. My friend Shoshi and I went up to the stadium a few weeks ago to see what the deal was with buying tickets, and we were told to come back the Monday before the game. Then, when we went up there again Monday, the guy told us to come back the day before the game. So we finally made it to the ticket desk on Saturday morning, after having stood in the wrong (poorly marked) line for about twenty minutes, and got tickets in the nosebleed section for Sunday night’s game. After all, the official program and every single ticket-selling website said the game was Sunday, November 23 at 8:00 pm. It would be a safe bet to assume that’s when the game would be, right?

But this is Spain, where things like schedules are just so passé. In Spain, you wander up to the stadium sometime on the day of a game, buy your tickets (which don’t say a date or time), and then show up whenever you think or heard the game might be. Which, as we found out at 6:45 Saturday night, was at 8 pm SATURDAY night instead of Sunday. After laughing it off and breathing a sigh of relief that we had realized in time, Shosh and I grabbed a quick bottle of wine, ran to the subway, and took turns chugging it on the Metro packed with the Real Madrid faithful. When we got to the stadium, I couldn’t resist buying one of those scarves everyone has for their respective team, and Shoshi couldn’t resist buying a ridiculously loud horn. We had to fit in, right?

After scanning ourselves into the stadium and facing practically no security, which really surprised me, we made our way to the top of Santiago Bernabeu and took in the scene: the game was just starting, and the massive stadium was packed. And I mean massive; the stadium is larger than any football or baseball stadium I’ve been in at home, by far. About half of the people had the horn Shoshi had bought, and she made sure to join in the honking chorus at every appropriate (and inappropriate) juncture. Sergio Ramos and Iker Casillas (who is the man) held a weak Recreativo offense scoreless, and Wesley Sneijder scored in the first half to give Real Madrid the 1-0 win. And I loved every minute of it. Next stop, World Cup 2010? But seriously. This was hopefully just my first little taste of experiencing the world’s favorite sport in person.

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Phew! Finally a moment to myself. Although, I must say, I’m only feigning exasperation. My parents have been in Spain since Friday, and I’ve been playing tour guide basically 24/7 since then, which has been a bit time-consuming and exhausting. As my mom always says, quoting her dad: “Being a tourist is hard work.” But it really has been great having them in town, not just because I get to show off my Spanish and show them the city I’ve been living in for the past few months, but because I realized I really did miss them. Before they came, I didn’t really feel homesick and wasn’t too worried about having not seen my parents in a while. But having them here reminded me of all the comforts of home and I really have started to feel a bit homesick lately; not too much, but just enough so that I’m getting ready to go home and will definitely be ready by December 19.

I flew to Barcelona to meet them on Friday, and we visited all of the requisite Gaudi sites, as well as the historic center. Probably the coolest thing was in the Museum of the History of the City, which doesn’t sound like it holds much potential but was surprisingly awesome: The basement level was a maze of Roman ruins from ancient Barcino, as Barcelona was called in Roman days, buried underneath the building site. We literally strolled through part of the ancient Roman town, taking in sites like the wine-making facility, the bathhouse, and the place where they made a sort of fish relish out of rotten fish guts. Mmmmm.

We also found out about the Montecito, CA fire on CNN in our hotel room after a day of sightseeing: Over 200 homes burned, including those of two high school friends, and countless families I know were evacuated as the fire approached their homes. Then we heard about the LA fire, which was in The Valley, near where many of my relatives live. Scary. It’s so surreal to be across the world as things like that happen. Life goes on at home, but I feel so detached in my little foreign bubble.

Back in Madrid, we’ve been hitting the main tourist sites; it has been a really great excuse for me to do some more touring, which I sort of stopped doing after the first few weeks once I had been to most of the obvious places and wanted to stop feeling like a tourist. We took a walking tour of the old city, something I probably never would have thought to do (it’s less obvious than it is in some other European cities… much of the “old city” now houses modern businesses and homes, with historic sites interspersed throughout). We also took a day trip to nearby El Escorial and will be going to Salamanca on Friday. I also have yet to go to the Prado –let’s just say art museums aren’t my thing– so this is the perfect time to knock that off my list, and I have my dad there to commiserate with if I get bored.

But I wasn’t the only one excited about my parents’ arrival. Dorita, my senora, has been cleaning the house for weeks and insisted on having them over for dinner last night. She was so cute and cooked all sorts of tapas, which were actually decent and much better than most of what we are normally fed. My mom speaks a little Spanish so she was able to hold a conversation with a little help from me translating some of the rapid-fire Spanish coming out of Dorita’s mouth. My dad, on the other hand, had no idea what was going on.

Overall, the last few days have been full of delicious meals out, plenty of sightseeing, catching up with my parents, and lots of See’s Candy and Trader Joe’s Vanilla-Almond granola (goodies from home…I have been NEEDING my “Just the Clusters” for my yogurt). What they haven’t been filled with is studying and I had a midterm today. Fortunately, BU in Madrid is not actually anything like Northwestern. Or middle school, for that matter. So for now I will enjoy the last few days with my parents, and then I will be making the most of my last four weeks here. I can’t believe it’s almost over, but the beginning also seemed so long ago. Suddenly winters in Evanston are looking even less appealing than they were before I knew about this magical thing called study abroad in Madrid…

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Last night, as I sat in the lobby of the Gran Via Hilton drinking white wine after class with Ally and my friend Christine, who was in from Paris, I had an epiphany. Unlike most semi-drunken epiphanies, this one still held water the next day. As we discussed our study abroad experience, the trials and tribulations of living in a homestay (Christine moved out of hers because her host father was verbally abusive—and I thought it was bad enough that Dorita turned my white shirt black and feeds us 6,000 calories of terrible-tasting food daily), we reflected on how refreshing it has been to get away from Northwestern and how much we have learned about ourselves in these past months.

As I started recounting my solo adventure to Sevilla last weekend and other abroad experiences, I finally realized something really important: I’ve grown up so much here and I’m ready to graduate and take on the world, even if I don’t know exactly what I want to do with my life. School has always been a safety net and it’s so easy to get comfortable with the classes, the sorority friends, and the dive bars that dominate college life for many of us. But I feel that between living and working far from home in New York City this summer and then moving to a foreign country for fall semester, I have become so much more independent and confident in my abilities. Northwestern has been great, but I’m ready to take on a new challenge, whatever that might be. And I have no doubts that a frigid winter in Evanston will affirm these conclusions completely.

This past weekend, all of my friends were traveling to various places and I was left to my own wits. Late Thursday night, I hopped on an overnight bus to Sevilla and spent the entire next day touring the city on my own: I saw the Real Alcazar, the Gothic cathedral that is the third largest in the world, the charming Barrio de Santa Cruz (the old Judería, where the Jews lived before they were expelled), the Plaza de España, the Plaza de Toros (the second oldest in Spain), and the beautiful views along the Guadalquivir River. I fell in love with Sevilla, and while I probably would have been bored out of my mind had I chosen the study abroad program there for the semester, I definitely would have liked to spend a week there and get beyond some of the tourist stuff. Overall, though, it was a great trip and truly empowering to be out on my own, plan out an itinerary of places to see, and wander the city on my own terms without having to worry about what other people want to do and see.

The rest of the weekend was also fun and surprisingly not at all lonely: shopping all over Madrid on Saturday, a night out with two Spanish friends Saturday to practice my Spanish and eat Mexican food (I have been craving burritos and enchiladas for so long), and studying in the park on Sunday. This week, I’m jumping back into actually being social now that everyone is back in town, and then my parents are coming to Spain for a week or so. I’m meeting them in Barcelona for the weekend, and then I’ll get to show them around Madrid the next week, which will let me show off the city (and my Spanish) and give me a little taste of home right before Thanksgiving. Can’t wait! I can tell my Dad is more excited than he lets on. He insists he’s only coming to install some new memory in my laptop… but that’s just his way of saying “I miss you.”

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First, read what Marisa thought about the American election before the results started coming in.

After staying up until 5 a.m. to see Obama’s victory safely sealed, I slept through class until noon. When I woke up, the first thing I did was watch his victory speech, which made me cry. How incredible! Looking at all of the pictures from the rally made me wish I had been back in Chicago for the election, but I also noticed something else. All of the young people in the pictures were smiling and shouting, but the older people were crying. For them, this has been a long saga from the Civil Rights Movement to what many people are already calling a “post-racial America” and Obama’s election is the culmination of a long, hard-fought battle for equality.

At the same time, I was disappointed to see that my home state of California looks like it’s going to pass the ban on gay marriage, overturning the ruling made by judges in San Francisco last year. I couldn’t believe that so many people had voted for something so clearly discriminatory at the same time that they marked their ballots for the first black president of the United States. It made me realize that, just as racial prejudice was the storyline of our parents’ generation, homosexuality will likely have its own version of the Civil Rights Movement during our generation’s lifetime.

Photo by the author.

Think about it: almost all of us know people who are gay and have little problem with their sexual orientation, and many of us support gay rights such as the right to marriage even though it doesn’t affect us personally; meanwhile, people among the generations of our parents and grandparents are often the ones holding most tightly to anti-gay prejudices, just as their parents and grandparents clung to racism and fought the inevitable progress of civil rights for African Americans. Just some food for thought, I guess, on such an historic day.

In the meantime, I’m excited to see what the response will be in Spain. I already know what my uber-conservative (and pretty racist) señora is going to say. But I’d like to see what normal people are thinking and how this election might already be changing some opinions of America over here in Europe.

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Election Day is finally here, and much like all of you, we are eagerly anticipating tonight’s results from afar. Of course, they won’t really be “tonight’s results” over here because of the time difference, so I’ll either be staying up until dawn constantly refreshing CNN.com until we finally have a winner or trying to watch elections returns while crammed into a room packed with drunken Americans at a viewing party organized by a group of ex-pats near Plaza de España.

Being an American abroad during an election year has been an interesting experience. Even in notoriously apathetic Spain, I can tell that people are anxiously awaiting tomorrow morning’s front page. More so than any other time I’ve been in Europe, even during the Iraq fiasco and the beginning of supreme European Bush-hatred in 2003, I feel like I’m being viewed as a representative of my country. It’s like everyone is counting on me, like I have the responsibility to elect Obama since none of them can vote and I have that special privilege. I am anticipating either disgusted scowls or congratulatory grins tomorrow and for the next few weeks, depending on the results of the election.

But while I’m unhappy about missing the Election Night excitement back home and will be feeling pretty helpless as I cross my fingers that I’ll be receiving congratulations instead of taking abuse for the rest of my time here, I’m at least grateful that I was able to vote despite being abroad. I found out yesterday from my boyfriend, who is studying in China this fall, that no one received their absentee ballots because China screened the mail and wouldn’t let them into the country. Some of his friends’ parents had just received returned ballots in the mail with something stating that US ballots would not be admitted to the country. Others won’t even get the chance to have their parents fill out their ballots for them since they haven’t made it back home yet. Essentially, he and almost all of his friends and any other Americans living in China were disenfranchised by the decisions of a foreign country. I was shocked and horrified. Well, not really shocked; it is China, after all, and they certainly don’t have an impressive track record when it comes to civil and human rights. But I can’t even imagine how disappointed and furious I would be if that had happened to me, especially considering how upset I am as it is.

So while he makes some last minute calls to the Santa Barbara County Clerk, my job is done and all I can do is wait it out until about midnight when the results first start to come in. It’s going to be a long night…and hopefully a really bright morning.

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Spain is famous for two types of food: tapas and paella. Up until last weekend, I had consumed more than my fair share of tapas but had yet to try authentic Spanish paella. Let’s just say the crap my señora makes from frozen paella mix doesn’t really cut it, despite how “rica” she insists that it is. But on Friday I more than made up for my paella-less weeks by traveling to the city that invented it and enjoying the delicious dish for lunch and dinner.

I hopped an early-morning bus with my friend Sara, and we made it to Valencia by 11 a.m. Within the first hour we completed our quest for the Holy Grail by visiting the Cathedral of Valencia, which houses what is supposedly the chalice Jesus used at the Last Supper. After nearly dying slipping on the wet steps on the way down El Micalet, the bell tower of the Cathedral, we drank some fresh-squeezed Valencian orange juice and made our way to the tourist center for some maps and information.

The Last Supper chalice. Probably way cooler than whatever’s in your church.

And that’s when we saw it: a giant pan of incredible-looking paella, just sitting in the window of a restaurant, calling our names. How could we resist? This was Valencian-style paella, which has chicken, rabbit, wide green beans and some other unidentified legume, along with the standard rice, olive oil and saffron base. It was incredible and we had to resist literally licking our plates. Thus, our quest for the real Holy Grail of Valencia was complete by 2 pm. We were on a roll.

It looks like a spaceship, but really it’s all in the name of art. And aquariums.

Next came a visit to the Ciutat de les Artes i de les Ciències (City of Arts and Sciences), an über-modern complex featuring a planetarium, aquarium, science museum, garden/ sculpture exhibition and art museum — all housed in some of the most bizarre-looking buildings I have ever seen. We paid a brief visit to the science museum but spent most of our time in the aquarium, which is supposedly the best in Europe. It was interesting to go from the Medieval cathedral at the center of this historic city to this space-age style complex just outside it, and to see the contrast between tradition and modernity in Spain. It’s a country full of contrasts: I notice it every time I see a traditional old woman on the Metro sitting next to a teenage girl with overdone makeup, a skanky schoolgirl skirt, and the oh-so-popular (and oh-so-unattractive) lip stud.

Paella! The quest is complete!

We wrapped up our day by heading back into the historic center, taking a break to drink horchata and snack on a delicious almond pastry, and ambling through Barrio El Carmen, which is a hip neighborhood full of bars and crazy shops. Finally, we made our way south toward El Mercat and La Lonja, the huge indoor market and the silk market. This is where we found paella number two, at an arrossería (rice restaurant) near Plaza Negrito. (Yes, that means little black man. And yes, the bars and restaurants were themed as such. Odd.) This time we picked seafood paella. It was made to order for two, and was just as delicious as the first. Needless to say, we were pretty satisfied when we hopped on the 11 p.m. bus back to Madrid.

This weekend will be full of more travels, as our program is taking a trip to Córdoba and Granada in Andalucia. I’m excited to see yet another region of Spain because they really are so different. The Valencian language, for example, is almost nothing like Castilian Spanish at all. And I hear that Andalucia is completely different from Madrid. I can’t wait!

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I’m taking a quick computer break from studying for my first midterm, and suddenly it feels like I’m back at Northwestern. Well, sort of. I did about two consecutive hours of studying, which is hardly impressive, but certainly more than I’ve done all semester. And Ally just scurried into the kitchen screaming something about getting an interview at Christie’s art auctioning house for a summer internship, which reminds me that I should be doing more applications, too. So far, one is in and three more are in the process, but I’m feeling a tug of urgency to get the rest of them lined up for some reason, even though it’s only October. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that being abroad has given me a warped sense of time, or maybe it’s because I feel so disconnected from home and I’m worried that I’m forgetting about some of the humdrum things I have to get done. That might explain why I sent the International Studies department a hurried email this afternoon, essentially out of the blue and with no rational explanation, asking which quarters my remaining core classes are offered. Or perhaps I’m just feeling guilty since Northwestern has given me the Pavlovian instinct to constantly busy myself with dull tasks and reading, but I’ve been playing for the past six weeks and haven’t done more than a few scattered hours of work. I guess that’s really nothing to complain about, and I should enjoy it while I’m here and stop worrying so much. I promise I’m not completely neurotic, by the way; I’m just inexplicably stressed today.

In other news, I had a particularly Spanish weekend, filled with tapas and sangria and a long-awaited trip to El Rastro. The market was packed with people and we could barely move at some points, but I did make some good purchases. It reminded me a lot of the markets in Morocco, except that it didn’t smell like garbage and I wasn’t surrounded by cats, both of which were changes for the better, I think. This weekend, I’m going on a day trip to beautiful Valencia, where I’ll take in the old city, check out what is supposedly the Holy Grail, eat some paella in the city that invented it, and visit the largest aquarium in Europe. You have no idea how excited I am for the aquarium. In fact, Valencia has built this entire City of Arts and Sciences, which includes a massive science museum, the aquarium, a planetarium, and an art center, all housed in stunning works of modern architecture. I could literally spend days in there. Perhaps sleep next to the shark tank or under the “stars” in the planetarium? I’m such a nerd.

Speaking of which, I should maybe get back to studying. Or maybe the real test here is letting go and refusing to care about such inane things like grammar tests when I should be enjoying an exciting foreign city. So far, I’m getting about a B+ on that test, but why not aim for perfection?

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I recall writing a few weeks back that I felt like I was living in a happy bubble here in Madrid. Well, the feeling has yet to wear off, and I’m beginning to wonder if this is the happiest place on earth (next to Disneyland, of course). First of all, I’m sitting here eating a giant chocolate cake that my mom baked and mailed to me. Yes, that’s right, my mom is insane. And amazing. I thought it was ridiculous enough that she has mailed her famous “Chocolate Disaster Cake” from Santa Barbara, Calif., to Evanston for my birthday the past two years. But this last episode really, well, takes the cake (ugh, horrible, I’m sorry). While I continue gorging myself on chocolate deliciousness, I’ll recount the most recent examples of good-natured Spanish fun and festivity.

Sunday, for example, was Spain Day. It was the saint day for Pilar, the patron of Spain, and also Columbus Day: Yep, I happened to land in the only other country that celebrates it. Unfortunately, we didn’t get Monday off from school (Columbus gets no respect!). So while my Sunday afternoon activities are generally limited to waking up around 2 p.m., eating lunch, sleeping some more and catching up on the latest episode of The Office, I actually ventured out the house this Sunday to take in the festivities. People were bustling around downtown on what is normally a pretty quiet day considering stores are closed on Sundays, and the Plaza Mayor was full of café-goers, street performers and teens sitting in circles on the ground chatting. Ally and I made our way over to the Paseo del Prado, where there was a four-hour concert/parade going on in celebration of the Americas—presumably Spain’s discovery of them, but also a showcase of the diverse population here that includes immigrants from every South American country. People of all ages were singing and dancing as Spanish bands, from pop to traditional to what sounded distinctly like Blink-182 in Spanish, made their way down the street on big floats to their final concert destination in the Plaza del Prado.

That’s the other thing I love about Spain: Old people here actually get off their butts and out of the house to take in some fresh air and fun experiences! One of my teachers actually noted that people are considered “joven” (young) until the age of 70 and that you are only “mayor” (senior…never call someone “viejo”) once you’ve topped that milestone. People regularly live into their nineties and beyond here—Spain has one of the highest life expectancies globally—and I attribute it entirely to their active lifestyle. The Spanish just never tire of walking around city, meeting up with friends, going out for paella and visiting museums and parks. I feel lazy compared to my sixty-something señora; she is literally never in the house. And here I am spending a whole two hours doing reading and writing this blog post! I just love the vivacity and sense of adventure that people have here. They just love life.

People here are also a lot more open about sexuality which is slightly surprising coming from what is normally viewed as a very traditional, Catholic country. Take the National Ballet, for instance. Ally and I couldn’t help but shoot each other a quick look the first time a topless girl came onstage, but that wasn’t completely out of the norm. What I was not expecting was to see two men take off all of their clothes and do some sort of sexually charged dance fighting. This was after the first naked man had encountered a fully clothed woman (not for long!), who later had sex with a priest. All in all, it was a thoroughly enjoyable ballet, notwithstanding the nudity, and I liked how they incorporated lots of stomping/tapping in the dance to give it a certain Spanish flair. And I also learned that penises look really funny flapping around as men jeté and plié and whatever else they do in ballet. I guess it’s probably a good sign that I had no prior knowledge of this.

Anyway, the sun is still shining here, the weather relatively warm, and the bars and clubs still as crowded and fun as ever. I really had no idea how happy I would be here, but you can’t really help but be completely content in a place like this. I don’t know anyone on my program that isn’t totally in love with Madrid and already fretting that the semester is partially over. Maybe I should just move here…perhaps join the naked ballet? I’ll keep you updated.

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