Haunting Comfort

More of Aragón

That's Professor Cardona. He's a character.

I love the way the tree framed this church. We made a pit stop in this town when we were driving around in the bus.

Though in the middle of Aragón, this town had Sevilla style buildings. That tree is such an amazing color, it matches the building. Okay, I know I like trees.

This is Pablo. He saw me taking photos and then I asked him for his. He was happy to pose for me, though he looks very serious here. After I took the photo he made sure that I included the cane. Pablo, I hope I am as proud as you when I am your age.

That symbol on the building is a symbol of La Falange, the Fascist party of the day. It has since been requested to have that symbol removed from the building, but seeing as how there are still many fervent Fascists in Spain, they threatened to destroy the entire building if it was removed. Thus, the symbol stands. A black knick on a pristine surface.

Okay, this picture is just hilarious. It is Professor Cardona knocking nuts out of a tree with a big stick while his wife bends down to pick them up. Pilar later joined them, gathering the nuts from the ground. It was truly a sight, watching them all scamper like squirrels to gather these nuts...

Aragón

Welcome to Fuendetodos.

Population: 83

Autonomous Region: Aragón

Famous For: Goya birthplace and home

It was such a picturesque little town, Fuendetodos! Windmills, weathered walls, gorgeous skies and old stone buildings with little kids playing fútbol in the streets at night.

Had such good photos of the fútbol game, but they all got deleted. Sigh. But that's okay becaus the next day we visited Belchite, a little town near Fuendetodos. We walked through old civil war ruins.

Photos aren't as clear as I'd like. Didn't feel like lugging the big Rebel around with me. The desolate beauty of the ruins are, however, undeniable, no matter what camera you use.

The clouds were gorgeous for shooting that day. The greyish, periwinkle sky created a somber feeling. That feeling lingers still lingers in Spain, residual from four years of civil war and forty more of Franco.

I love the blue on the walls here...

More photos to come this evening, hopefully. Right now I have to go to class.

Adeu!

Sick, Studying and Peacocks

Wow, I have wanted to update this forever. Then I went to Zaragoza with the program. I ate the food there, and came back sick. I slept all day, and still was able to sleep the entire next night. Monday (yesterday), I went to class where I started to freak out about my pending midterms this week. Last night, still no appetite. Queue the yogurt!

I have no groceries. If I don't go buy something now I will have to live off raisins and peanut butter. It's a nice snack but it hardly qualifies as true sustenance. After some quick groceries (I don't feel like buying them all right now, only the basic of the basic), I must study linguistics. English linguistics can be tough, [i la lin'ɣwistika espa'ɲola 'pweɗe 'ser a'un 'mas di'fiӨil]. Not to mention that I have to prepare my essay for my history midterm, which is tomorrow as well. I wish I had time for a real update, I have some neat pictures to share with you all.

In the meantime, enjoy this photo of Carlos the peacock. We met him in Madrid in the Park de Buen Retiro. I decided he should be called Carlos.

Clubbing

The first week we arrived in Barcelona we went clubbing at Porto Olímpico. It was the first and only time I'd ever been clubbing in my life.

... hated it.

Thanks, Adam, for capturing my essence in this photo.

Excursions

On Friday we had a group excursion to Freixenet, this beautiful winery up in the mountains. Freixenet makes wine and Cava, the Catalunya version of Champagne. Of course it's called Cava because you know the French, nobody can use the word Champagne but them. Normally at this point in the post I would insert a nice phrase or two bashing the French, as to provide some comic relief. However, this one time I shall abstain from doing so, as my dear friend Sophie is from France and has informed me that she reads my blog. Thus, I'll abstain from bashing her countrymen just this one time. I can't wait to spend Christmas in Paris!

Anyway, back to discussing the photo. We had a tour of the winery and the guide took us a few stories underground where they age the wine and cava. It smelled glorious and I made a mental note that I wouldn't mind being buried there.

When we left Freixenet it was only about 11:30am and I was one of about 35 American students, tipsy from having one glass of Cava so early in the day. That's just what happens when your Blackberry wakes you up late from a dead man's sleep and you decide that descaling your new cafetera and straightening your hair is more important than eating breakfast. It doesn't matter because you'll be going to the winery later in the afternoon, you figure, and by then you'll have already eaten something anyway. Yes, you have it all figured out and then a cup of coffee and one glass of Cava later disequilibrium asserts its existence, declaring that you were indeed wrong. Nonetheless, we continued onward to Monserrat, a huge mountain in Barcelona that a lot of people hike. For lack of a better description, it was gorgeous.

Pilar suggested that we visit the church at Monserrat at 1pm to see the children's choir sing. So we did. I took a picture in the church because it was neat in all its Catholic gaudiness. I'm probably going to go to hell for taking that photo, and if not for that, for using gaudy and Catholic in the same sentence, but really that's a small price to pay for The Inferno. I'm not so sure that it's that easy to acquire invitations to the eternal night club anyway. I might have to be a Jew residing in Spain too...

We kept climbing. The sky was unbelievably blue and there was a nice breeze. Fresh air. No smoke. No noise. Just us and this old church.

I was on top of the world, or at least Barcelona.

Life is Good

I'm so happy at my new piso! The owner of the apartment is a lawyer from Peru, Marlene, who now has her Spanish citizenship. She is such a cool person. Marlene rents her apartment out to students so I live with Jorge, a master student and Chavi (can't spell his full name) who is working toward his bachelor's like me. There is a good environment in the apartment. We talk to each other, and I actually look forward to coming home at night. I don't feel like I have to lock myself in my room and I leave my door open. We all coexist and it's nice. Just thought I'd tell you all that. You know life is good when the main things you're worried about is getting a cafetera so you can satisfy your pangs for coffee and cancelling your old portable internet service because now you have WIFI. Nothing much is going on. I'm going to Parliament tomorrow to see things.

Also, I found this photo I made when I was packing for Barcelona. I never posted it, but it's worth sharing I think...