Barcelona!!

It’s been a great couple of weeks!!  Sorry I haven’t posted in awhile – I have been enjoying Spain / lots of homework! Our trip to Barcelona was amazing!  On Thursday we left at 7 am in a bus with 25 students from one of the local high schools – it was cool getting to know some Spanish people my age.  On the bus ride we watched Avatar in Spanish.  Our first stop was in Tarragona.  It is a beautiful city right on the coast.  We saw lots of Roman ruins (super interesting because of my three years in Latin classes in high school).  We saw an amphitheater, the aqueduct, some remains of the city walls and some drinking fountains with Roman heads on them.  It was really fun!  That afternoon after more traveling in the bus we went to the Park Guell.  That was awesome!! There were tons of colors and tile collages, animals and beautiful architecture!  Lots of pictures on facebook!  After that we went to our hostel for the weekend (El monisterio).  I stayed in a room with three other girls; we got two bunk beds and a sink. 

On Friday we went to Casa Miel, also created by Gaudi.  He was very into nature and took his inspiration from trees, flowers, shells, sand, bones, and more.  There is a museum in the top of that house that was very interesting.  The roof was like a play ground!! Lots of stairs and different platforms with tower like things on each.  After that we went to the Sagrada Familia – WOW!  Amazing!!  So beautiful and huge!  I felt like God could easily live there!  For lunch I finally had pizza – my favorite!!  After lunch we walked around town and saw the Christopher Columbus statue and went up – very high and not much room but great view!  After we walked down Las Ramblas, a street with trees on either side, tons of shops, outdoor restaurants, street acts and people painted all in silver or bronze standing very still.  There is also a very large food market there where I bought a fruit smoothie that was delicious; it was like I was drinking out of a piece of fruit!  In the hour we had before the bus came for us we went to El Corte Ingles, a department store here that is really popular.  We also went into the hard rock cafe but didn’t eat there.  We had dinner back at the hostel and then played cards / talked with some of the high school girls.  I feel like my Spanish improves ten times in one conversation with them!

On Saturday we had breakfast at the hostel, a large delicious croissant!! We took a bus tour through the city, stopping to look at the Olympic stadium from when the Olympics were in Barcelona in 1992.  That was awesome!  After that we went to the Born neighborhood to see a couple of churches in the Gothic style.  They were beautiful with lots of details, statues, and stained glass windows.  In the smaller (still massive) church I saw some graves that were dated from the 1700’s!  Here comes my favorite part of the trip!  We then went to Camp Nou – the futbol stadium for the Barcelona soccer club!  It was so amazing!! We saw the museum where they had lots of pictures, videos, newspaper articles, trophies and old jerseys, balls and cleats.  For all of the videos they had touch screens – I felt like I was on NCIS: LA!!!  We got to go in the stadium about halfway up.  We went up to the press box where they have all the people translating the games.  We also got to go down and out where the players sit.  When you walk up the stairs out onto the field that have a music recording playing of the stadium cheering when the players come out on to the field so we felt like the players coming out just before a game - that was a cool feeling!!  There is a guy in our group that knows pretty much everything about soccer - he was better than an audio guide – he told us lots of interesting information about the team and the players.  That night we walked along Las Ramblas again to see what it was like at night.  A friend and I joked that everybody in Barcelona was either smoking, kissing or shopping!    

On Sunday we went to a vineyard where we went on a super fun tour.  We got to see how they made the cava – the Catalan word for champagne.  We also took a small car train ride through all of the old bottles stored underground.  The train driver obviously loves his job as we were whipping around the caves like no other.  It was a blast!  For lunch on our long journey back to Dénia we stopped in a seaside town.  Amazing trip!! Lots and lots of pictures on facebook. 

Pictures

These two are pictures of the Baptist Church that we go to.  I love this picture as it has the cross with beautiful mountains in the background!  It is about a 30 walk up the mountain to get there.  Kindly, the church provides transportation for us down in Denia.  Already lots of the students have started walking though.  This is also the location where I will be doing my ethnographic study - at the Alpha and Omega school, helping with English in the classrooms. 

This reads Eglesia Evangelica Baptista - that is in Valenciano (the dialect)

Already made the papers!

After our group went to Javea (Xavea) last week this was in the local news paper this weekend.  It reads, "A group of American students show interest in the local culture."  This picture is taken in front of that large cathedral I talked about earlier.  I am up above on the top of the stairs, seven people in from the right, right above where the stairs meet the platform.  :)

Finals are over!! On to Barcelona!!

Hello everyone!! Today is Wednesday and I just finished my final for my interim class, regions of Spain!  This last week has been lots of class, studying, reading, and watching Spanish TV with my Spanish mama.  We watch world news and lots of game shows.  While shopping in January for my trip my mom found the third Twilight book in Spanish for me!  This was great because I have already read it twice in English so I know what should be happening.  When I started it in the car ride home it was super slow going.  I read two pages in the fifteen minutes it took to get home!  Now I am reading it with breakfast and it is so much faster and easier!  Last Saturday night I went out with a couple of girls around 11pm to go to this restaurant called “La niñeta” where at night they have salsa dancing and live music.  It was a blast!!  The Singer there was a man from Cuba who actually goes to my church here.  He and his wife both sang the duets and they had beautiful voices!  There was an area cleared away of tables where all the people could dance.  It like a scene out of Dirty Dancing Havana Nights!  There was even a cute little boy there that could really dance!!  We all got up and salsa danced the night away!  The singer asked where we were from and then played an American song and announced us as the girls form Michigan!  At church on Sunday, which lasted over two hours, the youth group preformed a skit.  The theme of sermons for the next long while is “better together” “mejor juntos.”  So the kids acted out a scene of a basketball game with cheerleaders and a coach and one of the players was trying to be the star but could never make the shots.  When they all passed together and played as a team – they won!  But the best part of this is while they were doing to (silent) skit – High School Musical’s “Get your head in the game” was playing!!  It was hysterical!  Yesterday was our last day of class where I had to recite a memorized poem in Spanish – fun, not!  Then today we had our final which was not to hard but tons of writing!!  Today we are free from studying and then tomorrow we head off super early (7am!!) to Barcelona!  We are taking a large bus with around 25 students from the local high school as their teacher is also one of our professors.  We are first going to Tarragona which has lots of Roman ruins that I am very much looking forward to seeing as I took three years of Latin in high school.  Then off to Barcelona for Friday through Sunday!!  I am looking forward to seeing a new part of Spain!  I will post lots of pictures and more on that when I get back!  Monday we start the 2^nd semester here with professors from Spain.  More to come!  I hope you are all doing well in the states!  Enjoy the snow for me J

Pictures!

There are more pictures on facebook!

Dancing and travel!

Second week of classes – only 5 more days of interim class then trip to Barcelona! I love the Spanish siesta – I usually take an hour nap after lunch – it’s great!  It’s also a good time to just relax and read a book!  This week has been very eventful so far.  Church on Sunday was a good two hours long! The sermon had 5 main points and at least 4 or 5 sub points for each main point with bullet points underneath each sub point!  It was nice because they were on a PowerPoint and we could easily read and follow along.  On Monday when I arrived home from school all of my t-shirts were hanging out on drying racks in front of the house in full view of the neighborhood! At least we have a small patio in back for some of my other clothes!  On Monday night I went to my first dance class of Flamenco!  It was a blast! There are 6 or 7 of us girls from Calvin and 3 women from Denia.  The dance studio is on the side of the castle.  The teacher was very nice and taught us about how there are two types of Flamenco dancing – mambo and fandango.  We learned steps for both and then she made routines from both and we learned them.  We learned 2 long fun dances the first day! She was really easy to follow as she called out each step as we did it.  One of my favorites was waving our pony tails as we turned in a circle :)  I'm not sure where we're going to go from there but I know we will learn tons!!  We stomped a lot with our feet as this is a dance of strong women.  Next Monday after school we are going to the marcadillo to buy flamenco skirts and some tacones (heels).  On Tuesday after school we went to a small town in the mountains called Javea.  It is beautiful!  We received a very nice greeting in the town hall and then were shown the Catholic cathedral and town museum.  At the cathedral we got to go on the roof way up high.  Since the roof is domed there were small hills on the roof.  It was fun to run around and take tons of pictures!  Ah- but the stairs were another story.  It was an enclosed spiral staircase that was no bigger than a normal shower.  The steps were steep and close together.  It was an adventure!  When we went to the visitor center the floor was glass and we could see the ruins of graves beneath us.  Evidently there are ruins everywhere around here.  The museum was neat, there were some beautiful pictures of the mountain, old scenes of homes and some old objects from excavations.  After that we went to a restaurant to have tapas (appetizers).  There were two TV’s; one with old soccer highlights and the other with the snowboarding in Colorado!  There were empanadas, potatoes, Spanish tortilla (potato filled) and much more.  For my drink I ordered orange juice (as I have unfortunately obtained a cold).  Oh my gosh!  I’m pretty sure they went out to one of the orange tree groves and picked an orange and freshly squeezed it just for me – it was delicious!!!  On the way home, the bus driver wanted to give us a better view of the mountain so we took the skinny roads on the side of the mountain, in a bus, on the side of a mountain!! I was praying the whole time J Once, we didn’t turn wide enough and hit the rock, everyone screamed, pretty scary but we are all ok!  We have been having a cold spell here – it has been in the low 50’s and gloomy.  But the weekend is soon and hopefully so is the sun!  I hope everyone is doing well back home! Hasta luego, Jenn

P.S.  The regional dialect here is Valenciano and some characteristics are that they don’t seem to finish their words and as I was just writing hasta luego someone near me said “ha lugo”.  It is very hard to understand initially as it seems they are not speaking very clearly.  Everyone here speaks both Castilian Spanish (the “proper” form) and the dialect.   

Some random things about Denia

They change classes in school here with a song instead of a bell.  When we are in class all morning for interim we can hear the music from the schools through our windows.  The streets have white lines to cross and it’s pedestrians right of way (mostly).  The cars are speeding at you and then stop (maybe) within an inch of your life.  On Friday we went on a fieldtrip in class to the marcadillo (flee market) and to the Mercado (food market).  It was super fun; it has everything from tons of shoes to flamenco dresses to purses to pictures, electronics, dishes, every type of clothing and more!  Yesterday afternoon I went to the beach with some friends.  We walked in the surf, played Frisbee and soccer.  Last night we walked all around Denia seeing the night life and ended up talking in a bar/restaurant.  Today I slept in! :) This afternoon I went shopping with some friends and in one store we met a woman from Nottinghamshire in England!  She has a daughter who is a ski instructor in Utah (I would so love to do that!!)  Evidently she also went to Switzerland one winter but likes Utah better!!  I loved listening to her accent! :)  In a lot of the shops here they play popular English (American) music! Tonight I am going to a ship exhibition of poetry and flamenco dancing!  Today during lunch I asked Maite (my Spanish mamá) what I should wear for my first day of Flamenco class and she told me what she wore (skirt and leotard) and then proceeded to dance two types of Flamenco dances right then and there, singing a song as well J 

Denia!