Sue in Seville: Mrs. Berger comes to visit

So, in the last post I said I would post a little more about Paris, although there really isn't much more to tell, so here are some pictures from the trip. It kind of stinks travelling by yourself because you can never get anyone to take your picture for you:

Notre Dame across the Seine

The Louvre


Me trying to get the Eiffel Tower in the background

So this past week, my mom came to visit Seville. Her hotel was quite a ways from the center of the city, but working with that and around my class schedule, we still managed to do quite a bit. We visited the Cathedral, the Royal Gardens, several streets, stores, plazas, etc. It was great to see her after being here for 3 months. It was also great because she brought me some more sweaters, since it it getting colder here. Down into the 50's. Ahh!!!

It was interesting that she noticed a lot of the cultural things that I've just gotten used to over my time here. For example, I guess I forgot how strange it was that most restaurants here just have ham hocks hanging in the windows. Even just the little habits that people have.

We also had lunch at Loli's while we were here. My 2 mothers, however, did not speak a word of each others' languages, so I had a lot of fast translating to do, especially since Loli didn't seem to slow down at all or pause between sentences.

Here are my 2 mothers, my real mom, Sue, on the left, and host mother, Loli, on the right (and me in the center, in case you couldn't tell):

So, less than a month left. And getting down into the paper and exam time. I will still try to update this when I can and let you know how stressed I am ;)

Till next time, besos!

Belgium and Paris

Wow, I'm horrible at updating this.

So this past weekend, I decided to make an extended weekend and go to Brussels and Paris.

The original plan was to meet Guillaume, another foreign exchange student from high school, in Brussels on Thursday, but he was in the United States right before that. So, I met a friend of his, Florianne.




So a couple of her friends came over and we made spaghetti. We then went out for a night out:



So after a night out with this motley crew, I spent the night at Florianne's apartment. I was really tired from a long day of travelling and a night out. So I slept in till about 12:30 the next morning. Florianne had an exam that morning...not sure why she went out the night before. Welcome to Belgium????

Guillaume came at about 2, and we went out and did a speed tour of Belgium in about 3 hours. This included the "big arc-y thing" (-Guillaume), the Church of San Michelle, the Grand Plaza, and just walking down some cool streets.










The reason we had to hurry: Because Guillaume had a Boy Scout trip that weekend!


So, I went as a leader on this Boy Scout trip. The problem was, I speak English, which is the 4th most common language in Belgium. All of the other leaders (all between 18-23, because that's how they do in Belgium) spoke English at varying degrees, some extremely well. Of the kids (all between 8-12), the one who had lived in Ohio for 2 years knew English, but he was the only one. About the only English the other kids knew was the song "American Boy" by Estelle.

So the other leaders would translate for me. Most of the kids didn't know my name and I became "le amerikan". To the leaders I became "American dude".

So, some pictures from that:












So, after this fun weekend with the Belgian Scouts, I left for Paris by train. My hostal in Paris was pretty cool, except that I was on the eighth floor with no elevator and had to climb a steep and narrow staircase to get there.



Since I was only there for one day, so I really had to book it to all the sights. It took me about an hour to find the Seine, but once I did, it was easy, since most of the attractions are right along it. Notre Dame was amazing!!! I didn't go into the Louvre, but I saw the outside of it. I didn't quite make it to the Eiffel Tower, but I got some pictures from far away from it.



So I've already spent 2 days writing this blog entry, so I will continue with Paris in the next entry.



Also next entry: SUE IN SEVILLE! Mrs. Berger comes to visit!


Besos!

Halloween and Africa

So, I apologize to all that I don't have many pictures of this weekend. It was raining a lot and was not quite conducive to picture taking.

So Halloween does exist in Spain. There are a decent amount of people that dressed up. But, unlike the US, teenagers dress somewhat conservatively, mainly as scary things. In fact, a lot of girls dressed up in the same costumes as their friends, so there were sometimes 3-4 people wearing the exact same costume. Scandalous!

Also, trick-or-treating. Kind of exists, but in a very different form. Either that or I encountered an exception. But anyways, it was about 11:oo pm and I was walking down the street, when from around the corner comes this mob of about 20 children between the ages of 6-10. Once they see me, they rush up around me and start screeching "Roberto! Roberto! Un caramelo! Un caramelo! Por favor! Un Caramelo!" I think this may be how they trick or treat, although I'm not sure how my name became Roberto...

So once they figured out that I didn't have any candy, they mobbed another guy about my age who was carrying a skateboard. But he was terrified of them, and rushed across 4 lanes of moving traffic to get away from them. When the mob left my sight, they were pounding on the windows of a bus at a stoplight, still screeching.

The next morning, I left for Tarifa, a city on the Spanish side of the Straights of Gibraltar. It's kind of a surf town, famous for its windsurfing. It's also kind of like every other Spanish city, in that it's old and has some old ruins:

An old fortress:

An old catapult:

A cool frog fountain:

The ferry to Morocco was a little more than a half hour over the Straits of Gibraltar. On the way we met some cool Canadians, who said they were just going to Africa for 3 weeks without any real plans. That seems to be a common attitude here in Europe.

Once we got off the ferry, about 10 people rushed into the crowd offering to be guides. They are very forceful, but after telling several of them no, we made it off the port. Tangiers (the city we went to) is a very market driven city, with lots of little shops filled with knick-knacks. It also has very specific shops. We passed one that sold nothing but thread, another that sold nothing but eggs. I guess it is the 5th largest city in Morocco. That's saying something! (?)

We meant to make it up to the Kasbah (an old famous fortress) but it was far away and we didn't want to get lost, so we stopped for some Moroccan tea instead (which was very good).

So, some pictures from Morocco (again, not many, because it rained the whole time):

The city of Tangiers:

A cool archway in the old town:

Chickens, and other meat beyond it:

Tea wares:

The tea place we stopped at:

This coming weekend: Brussels, Paris

Besos!

Granada and another week

First off, there was definitely a protest last week in the streets:

It was cold and rainy, but these kids were out there anyways. The European countries want to radically change the education system to make better graduates, but for a lot of people it means a massive increase in tuition as well as having to tack on graduate school, which is already somewhat private and also has a higher tuition. They were completely blocking traffic on one of the main streets. They go all out on their protests here.

In other news, I took a trip to Granada this past weekend. It was beautiful. There is a lot of Arab influence, especially in the marketplaces, teahouses, architecture, etc. We stayed at a fairly nice hotel as well. It was really a city to experience rather than tell about, so I will let the pictures tell the story:

A memorial to the Reyes Catolicos

A view of Granada from the Alhambra

A random guy playing a didgeridoo type instrument

Some of the Arabic architecture in the Alhambra

A fountain in some gardens

A fountain inside the Alhambra

For those who may be wondering, the Alhambra was a combination military stronghold/religious place/ dwelling place/all purpose place for the rulers during several hundreds of years of Granada history and is one of the most visited tourist spots in Europe.

So in the spirit of the mediteranean food I had in Granada, Loli decided to make some falafel for us today. However, even though she followed the recipe from the internet exactly, they still didn't come out too good. She was fairly upset at the internet, but she's going to talk to some people and try it again some other time.

Adventure for this coming weekend: Morroco! Will let you know how that goes!

Besos!

Figaro Figaro Figaro

So, it has been a pretty uneventful week. Some of you though may have guessed from the title of this entry, yes, I finally went to see the barber of Seville, not the opera, but an actual barber. They do haircuts a little differently here, mainly because they don't use the electric razor on the sides and neck to trim up to the hairline...they definitely use a straight razor. So that was interesting. I went with a friend so I didn't feel so stupid being the only American in there, although two different people asked me if I was from England while I was in there. I guess I look British.

I have now passed the halfway point in my trip. In 62 days, I will be back on U.S. soil. Yikes!

I went to see Burn After Reading today (in English with Spanish subtitles). It was an interesting movie and I really liked it. Although a lot of the slang/cursing in that movie didn't translate well into the subtitles, especially when in the movie they said "five" and the subtitles definitely said "ocho". For some reason a flag went up in my mind that said...umm, I don't think that's right, just a thought.

So, I have been to several cafes while I've been here, but this week I was craving Starbucks, and so I went. Two odd things:

-They play American music at the Starbucks' here, and when I walked in on that 75-80 degree day, they were playing "Baby, it's cold outside". Riddle me that.

-My cup. Apparently I have a secret admirer that works at the Starbucks on Avenida Constitucion in Seville
















Hasta Luego

La Fuerza sea con Usted

So, first off, as I'm writing this it's pouring down rain. Seriously, this is the most it's rained since I've been here. And the persiana (the metallic shades that stop the sun from coming in during early afternoon) was rattling all night because of the wind.

So, back to the title (May the Force be with you). I was walking down the street Wednesday. Just walking, when suddenly I am passed by four Storm Troopers who are on a mission to get somewhere. Yes. Storm Troopers. I thought this was a little weird, until they were closely followed by a couple Jedis and Princess Leia. I was slightly confused. But after asking a few people, they said it was part of a mentorship program that was being advertised throughout the city.






Luke Skywalker would have been another Luke Skywalker if it hadn't been for Obi-Wan.

We all have someone who we give thanks to for who we are.










So, yeah, that was interesting.

Also, I thought I should mention this. In downtown Seville, there is a photography display in the street. The collection is called "Mil Besos" (1000 kisses), I'm thinking based on the Catullus poem "Da mi Basia Mile". It's some of the scariest photography I've ever seen. Seriously, how would you like to be walking down the street and have this woman stare at you.



















That's scary stuff!

So, more cool stuff about Spain. We are required to take a class at our program center here, and I chose one called Historias de Amor, which deals with love stories and literature as they progress through time. There are only four people in the class, so yesterday, the professor just took us out to an outdoors cafe/bar and we had class there with coffee, beer, whatever. And the professor bought the drinks! Amazing! Classes in the US need to do that too. Seriously.

That's all for now. Hasta Luego-
Marcus

What? You're making me go to class?

Yes, classes started this week. Finally. I was really getting used to just kind of hanging out in Seville. I'm taking a class on the history of love literature, hispanoamerican short stories, descriptive linguistics, Andalucian sociolinguistics, and vulgar latin. Come to find out about halfway through this week that I'm taking one class too many, so it looks like I'm dropping vulgar latin.

I caught the last 2 minutes of the Wisconsin game last weekend. Great thing to here!

I don't know if I have talked about my senora's cat yet, and it deserves mentioning. There is a word in Spanish that describes it great: antipatico. Think the greek "pathos", then think the exact opposite. This is Chispi. Petting Chispi is not allowed, it will hiss at you. Sometimes it also just randomly starts mewing very loudly at odd times during the day. But he loves my Spanish brother and likes to play around in his hair...what a strange animal.

I also finally got a camera cord, so here are some pictures that have been missing for a while:

My bedroom (and my roomate's)

Eagle eye view of Cadiz

The Royal Gardens in Seville

Maria Sabugal!!! She studied at my HS 4 years ago. She showed me around Madrid.

Also, we went on a trip to Ronda today, here are some pictures from that:

A (sideways) bridge in Ronda that Hemingway used in several of his books

A beautiful view from the edge of the city

A real, live bull-fight in the Plaza de Toros

Sorry to bombard you with pics. Besos- Marcus

Flamenco, Cordoba, and a pretty uneventful week

So, I've been pretty lazy about updating this, so here we go again

Last Thursday was the end of our opening cultural seminar class, and so the entire program went to a Flamenco show in downtown Seville. For those unfamiliar, Flamenco is an art form in the 19th and 20th century Spain which includes a cantor, a guitarrist, and a dancer. It's very expressive with lots of anguish in it. Ver interesting!

The following morning we took a trip to Cordoba. We took a tour of the Cathedral there (there are lots of Cathedrals in Spain) and basically just spent the day walking around the city. It's really pretty and has lots of very old buildings, including an old wooden waterwheel that didn't look like it had been used in the past 200 years.

Since then I really have just been working on the final papers for our cultural seminar. I've started one class, but there's only a little bit of homework so far. Other classes start Monday, so we'll see what my work load is then. That's all for now, I'll try to update a little more often.

Besos-
Marcus

Madrid y mas!

It's been a week since I last updated, so here we go:

In a nutshell, we took a trip to Madrid this weekend. We travelled by AVE, which is a super fast train that just travels in Spain.

When we arrived in Spain, we took a tour of the Prado, a pretty famous art museum containing many works of Velazquez, Goya, and El Greco. It was pretty cool, especially since we've been studying Spanish art for the past week before that and it was pretty cool to actually see things in person.

Saturday afternoon, I met up with Maria Sabugal, a foreign exchange student at Charlotte during my junior year in high school. She showed me around Madrid and we talked about cultural differences...It was really kind of cool to see her again with me being the foreigner this time.

Saturday night was "La Noche en Blanco" (the night in white), a festival held in a few major cities in Europe where they completely block off all the roads to the center of town and just have tons of things going on all night. Theatres are open for backstage tours, museums stay open late, there are circuses, wine tastings, street performers...tons of stuff. There was even going to be a tight rope walker who was going to walk a line over a major street, but chickened out at the last minute because it was too windy. I was a little upset after waiting for 40 minutes to see it.

Sunday, we took a walking tour of the city. It was pretty boring and talked too much about architecture that was all the same. We were supposed to see the Royal Palace, but that trip was cancelled for some reason.

On my way to the train station to get back, there was a Mickey Mouse outside of a park who was handing out balloon animals. This conversation followed (in Spanish of course):

Mickey: Do you want an balloon animal little boy?
Little Boy: How much does it cost?

It was hilarious!

Since we got back not much has happened. We have a grammar test on Thursday and real classes start on Monday. This weekend we go to Cordoba for a day, but for now, some more pictures I stole from other people:

Dinner on Calle Betis

Outside the Royal Palace!

Waiting in a restaurant in Madrid

Hanging out in the Prado

That's all for now!

Besos- Marcus

Spain: A whale stranded on the coast of Europe

So, I found this quote online and thought it was pretty funny. Not anything against Spain, it's just, when you look at a map, that's kind of what it looks like.

Also, in hopes that my camera cord is currently on it's way, for now I am stealing pictures from Maureen and Lauren so that I have something to post on this blog. So, here are a few photos from the trip to Cadiz:

That's the Cathedral in Cadiz way in the back on the left. Seriously, a Cathedral on the beach!!!

p.s. ATLANTIC OCEAN!!!!

Since we last left our hero, he actually took a tour of the Cathedral here in Seville. It was actually really cool and HUGE! I'm pretty sure they said it was the 2nd largest Cathedral area-wise in the world. And of course it was the day when my camera was....not with me. Sad sauce...

Cultural classes have been basically a history class for the past week and I think we are finally done learning about Franco and his 30+ year dictatorship. Class selection for the actual University is on Monday, so I'll actually be taking classes that interest me. Yay!

So, not really much else to report for now. Besos!

The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain...

So, it rained yesterday. The first hint of precipitation since I have been here. Which meant that it was cooler yesterday, but also much muggier. At least it was a change.

Also, apparently parents here who have more than one child of the same gender love to dress them the same. Just an observation.

This morning was also very interesting. A friend and I went to go to mass at the Cathedral, however I guess they miscommunicate times just to fool tourists, so we missed the mass. We did go inside the Cathedral though, and it was beautiful!

After coming out of there, this gypsy woman came up to me and handed me a little sprig of some herb and said it was a gift. She then read my palm and told me to pay her, so I gave her ten cents and walked away.

And to top it all off, when we were walking back, there was a group of college age students coming down the street with signs saying "ABRAZOS GRATIS!" (free hugs). These were actually free, so I got a free hug from a comlete stranger on my way home this morning. It's been an interesting day!

Abrazos for all of you too!
-Marcus

¿Vamos a la playa?

So, I have encountered a problem. I cannot upload photos from my trip onto this blog because I am lacking the cord to do so. I am trying to get that worked out and will post pictures on here when I do.

So, yesterday we took a trip to Cadiz, a little town on the beach of the Atlantic Ocean just north of the Straits of Gibraltar. We took a tour of the city, and of the cathedral (which was amazing, it's right next to the ocean), and spent a few hours on the beach. I am slightly sunburned, but it's not bad.

This weekend I start looking at classes I want to take. Classes don't actually start here until September 22. We're still doing cultural and grammatical acclimation classes. Once classes get started, though, I imagine I will be fairly busy.

So, more about Spain. If you ever have a craving for public displays of affection, make a trip here. It's ridiculous! People kissing left and right. And to think, their marriage rate is down and their divorce rate is up...Riddle me that!

Next weekend we take a trip to Madrid. Will most likely post again before that, but just a heads up. Today I plan on being extremely lazy, maybe sitting down for a while at a cafe (which in Spain also double as bars).

Until next time-
Marcus

Audi, Armani, and Another day in Seville

And so, dear reader, to keep you informed of the goings-on here, some more peculiarities.

I would never drive a car in Seville. The lanes are really just suggestions, as are red lights, turnsignals, and sometimes (in the case of motorcycles) so are roads. And yet somehow, there are very few accidents. Riddle me that.

In adding to the fashion world of Spain, they do not sag their pants. However, they do wear them just low enough so that you can read the designer name on the band. I mean, what's the point in wearing expensive underwear if nobody knows it?

I saw some mimes today, but then they talked and bummed some cigarettes off of some guy, so I gave up and left. I guess they weren't very good mimes.

We took a bus tour of the city today. It was great to finally be able to act like a tourist and take loads of pictures. We are currently studying the art and architecture of Spain from about the 14th to the 20th centuries. Not really as fun as it sounds. But I have a hunch that Gaudi (19th-20th century architect) might have done some of the plans for the Cheesecake Factory in downtown Chicago...

This will have to do for now. More reading about Gaudi awaits!

Abrazos y Besos-
Marcus

Ode to the Peculiarities of Spain

So, life continues to go well, I continue to be overfed by my host mother, and I just thought I would share a few of the interesting things I have come across this weekend:

-On the TV in a cafe: a pop/soul/half-spanish remix of killing me softly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwmj5nK3udU&feature=related

-The Dark Knight...IN Spanish (El Caballero Oscuro)

-A 8-9 month pregnant woman on the street wearing sweatpants and a bra. But it's ok, her back was covered by the wide-open vest she was wearing.

-A young, 5-6 year old British kid walking calmly down the street screaming "Mother of Pearl!"

-Man-prees...Everywhere!

So that has been this weekend's experience. I can't wait to see what future weeks have in store for me...

Abrazos y Besos y chilis con Quesos-
Marcus

First Day with the New Fam

So, my host mother is Loli Sanchez, and she is amazing! I am rooming with Matt Henry from Cornell. We were lucky enough to get a family with an air conditioner, wireless, hot water for showers, and a wonderful cook. Seriously, Loli knows how to cook. She also has one son that still lives with her, but we haven't seen him yet. We've seen the one that doesn't live here a couple of times, though...riddle me that.

I'm a little bit far away from campus, so I'll have to go out exploring later today to find out where the right roads are. But that will have to be after siesta (an amazing concept that Americans have yet to catch on to). Seriously, nothing is open during siesta.

PS, if anyone wants to mail me anything, the address is (and please don't write "underlined degree sign", just make a small superscript zero and underline it):

Marcus Berger
Centro Michigan-Cornell-Penn
Paseo de las Delicias 3, 2(underlined degree sign) derecha,
41001 Sevilla, Espana

Hasta luego-
Marcus

Playing Catch-up

So, I have been in Spain since Sunday the 24th, but I just now decided to start the blog. To catch up, my trip started out at the Detroit airport, where a woman completely biffed at the end of one ofthose moving walkways and was all distraught because she had no cluewhere she was going anyways, so I (and some others) helped her out.

Lufthansa is an amazing airline, on which I flew from Detroit to Frankfurt. Comfortable seats, more legroom than normal. Each seat has their own screen and you can watch like 20 movies, a few popular TV shows, check on the status of the flight, all in like 10 different languages, and the flight attendants speak fluent German and English.

In Frankfurt, I talked with a woman who was a high school Spanish teacher in Madrid and the person who was sitting next to her on the previous flight, a 20 year-old Danish kid who was just coming back from doing conservation work in Arizona. She didn't speak English. He did, but he didn't speak any Spanish. Very interesting.

My flight to Madrid was actually operated by Spanair...Yikes! But I made it. It took me a while to figure out in Madrid that my flight was leaving from a completely different terminal. But I still made it with 2 and a half hours to spare. They don't even announce what gate you're at until an hour before the flight.

So that was my amazing travel story. There are 32 other kids here from the Universities of Michigan, Penn, and Cornell. Only 9 guys total, though. We have been staying at the Hotel Becquer. It’s a nice place. It really is. My roommate here is Daniel Wong, who is actually Brazilian. Weird…yes!

We have cultural and grammar classes everyday. Juan Munoz teaches them both, but our cultural discussion is led by Ana, who is 26 and has a very strong accent. Pretty much everyone is Seville has quite the accent that leaves out a few letters or syllables every now and then.

The food here is pretty good. Tapas are good and cheap. We’ll see what the host family cooks though (it should be better than these restaurants).

We meet our host families tomorrow. Mine’s name is Loli Sanchez. Can’t wait to meet her!

Abrazos y besos-
Marcus