Jo'Burg!

This weekend, we went on our Bing trip to Johannesburg, which was awesome. Cape Town is really just a big beach town, pretty slow and spread out, but Johannesburg is a CITY. We stayed in Melville, the "trendy" area, which I loved because it had a vintage shop, several used book stores, and a cupcake place. I could stay in Melville forever.
We're all required to take a class about the way that memories are preserved in monuments, museums, etc in South Africa and our trip focused on cramming as many "sites of memory" in as possible:The Constitutional Court is built from the bricks of the prison that used to stand there and says "Constitutional Court" on the front in all 11 official languages.

A property outside of JoBurg called "Lilliesleaf" where Nelson Mandela (and other freedom fighters) stayed while underground and the former headquarters of Umkhonto we Sizwe(MK), the ANC's paramilitary wing. In 1963 a police raid found all of their documents, captured 19 ANC and MK leaders and used the evidence to convict them, including Mandela, to life in prison for sabotage.

This monstrosity is the Voortrekker Monument, built by the apartheid government to honor the Voortrekkers, Afrikaners who left the Cape Colony in the 1830s to settle (read: take the land of people who were already living there, and kill them if necessary) the interior.

The monument is ripe with distrubing images of savage Zulu warriors attacking the innocent Afrikaners, but the most disturbing part for me was the resemblance to the stories of the pioneers in America, wagon trains and all.

Isivivane at Freedom Park. It's supposed to be a "resting place for the spirits of those who have died in the struggles for humanity and freedom." The boulders come from each of the regions of South Africa and are reminiscent of the heaps of stones that used to bring fortune to long-distant travelers.

"World on its Hind Legs" outside of the exit of the Apartheid Museum.

Lots of learning.

Wish you were here

I traveled very little outside of Madrid during the quarter, and I wondered if that was the right choice for me. And, yes, it definitely was.

I don't like being a tourist. A number 1, it makes me cranky.
More importantly, it is just not a good way to travel. You can do tourism many different ways, but I feel like its all about seeing things. It doesn't matter what country the things are in.

My dad photocopied some pages for me out of his book "1000 Things to See Before You Die" and there are 1000 (and obviously more) AMAZING things in the world.
I also want to see books called "1000 Ways to Celebrate", "1000 Fantastic Gastronomic Traditions to Try", "1000 Things You Take For Granted, But You Should Go Without Here", "1000 Amazing Traditions in Hospitality", "1000 Things That Are Illegal in the US, But Not Here", etc. Maybe not titled exactly like these.

For me the beauty is in different cultures and wisdoms you can learn, beyond what you can see.

Anyway, I'm glad I really chose to LIVE in Madrid and I'm glad that I'm traveling now because I get to see these cool things:(Toledo and Toledo)

(Granada, Granada, and Granada) (Love you, oxford comma)

You're it

I've added tags to all of my old posts now. I know it will make a big difference in your user experience.

I'm back in Madrid now, but I will still show you this picture from Barcelona:

Barcelona definitely has better graffiti than Madrid. It seemed, overall, a younger, more cosmopolitan city.

Gaudy does not come from Gaudí

Here I am in Barcelona! And I'm 21! Joy all around!

Today we went around to lots of Gaudí things and they were all amazing.

There was a book about Gaudí in Ms Messinger's room at Gunn, and ever since I looked through it in 10th grade I've been waiting to go see his stuff in person. And it did not disappoint.

Parc Güell:Rooftop at Casa Mila/Pedrera (this double name thing is unnecessarily confusing)Sagrada Familia!
Apparently they just finished the inside a couple of months ago, and it is incredible. I was thinking, "Man, this God guy must be really great to have people make all this." This picture fails entirely to capture it.
Detail on the outside (dove and stars)The family was being adorable:
Old men play bocce ball outside of the Sagrada Familia. Oh, Europe. I'm gonna miss you.
If you know any trivia about Gaudí, you know that he was killed crossing the street in Barcelona. After a couple days here I can tell you this does not surprise me.

NO DO

I went to Sevilla! It is very pretty and I took almost no pictures of the pretty.

I took these from inside the Giralda (what was a minaret, but when the Catholics came they built a cathedral where the mosque had been and made it into a bell tower)

We saw lots of beautiful old buildings and a flamenco show! This was also my first real time staying in a hostel and I felt very much like a 20 year old American traveling in Europe, which is not entirely a bad thing.

Bing!

I've mostly dry and entirely-terroist attack free from Basque Country. Good for you and for me.

I took photos on the trip. These are some of them.

We went to the Guggenheim Bilbao!We stayed in hotels! The weather was not as bad as it had threatened to be!We went to San Sebastian! It was beautiful!
They eat these things in San Sebastian. They are called pinchos and they are awesome.

We went to a vineyard/bodega/wine museum/winetasting.

My camera died before the Bing dinner. It was also delicious. (The dinner, not the camera)

Now that I am back with the homework and whatnot, the official end-of-Spain is approaching faster than ever, complete with thousands of Spanish words to write.

Segovia

On Wednesday we took a big old group trip to Segovia. We took a tour of the University, my film professor gave a lecture, we went on a bus tour, and then walked about for an hour ALL while freezing our patooties off. Stanford students are so good at multi-tasking.

Here are some of my standard below-standard photos.

Aquaduct:

This is the castle in Segovia that supposedly inspired Walt Disney for Sleeping Beauty's castle.
The large majority of my pictures came out incredibly fuzzy. Bus tours are silly. Looking at this one makes me seasick. So I thought I should share.


I've decided that studying abroad is a little like knowing you're going to die in 6 months. You're presented with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and you know exactly when its going to end. We end up listening to the id a bit too much -- always have seconds and deserts and going out.
Lately, it's been stressing me out, because we've crossed the half-way point and I think I have to make the most of every second. It's resulted in a lot less sleeping this past week.

In the North

Our orientation trip traveled through the North, from the Cathedral at Burgos (I take really bad pictures, sorry):

To the beach town of Comillas:


To Leon:
This first picture is our hotel!!! The second is the Cathedral in Leon, an amazing piece of gothic architecture.


I pretty much lost any interest in taking pictures after Burgos, but other things on our trip were: lots of clouds, Spanish history lessons, only speaking Spanish, lots of wine, LOTS of jamon/anything pig, Tapas in Leon's Barrio Humedo, los Picos de Europa (Beautiful mountains that were actually freezing. Walking in the clouds sounds awesome, but chills you to the bone), almuerzo in a cave, churros y chocolate in our director's tiny home town.


I've caught some kind of cold and I'm off to the Farmacia now. My antifitriona (host mom) taught me how to say "I have lots of mucus".

Hello, World.

Hola! Acabo de conectar la red en casa y quiero mostrar todo que me pasó aquí. Pero, ahora, lo que quiero mostrarles es esta foto de como me perdí hace unos días. Estaba tratando de ir hasta punto B (el Instituto Internacional) a punto A (mi casa). No tuve miedo y no me preocupaba, porque tuve la opción de tomar el metro, pero decidí gozar la ciudad.

I've just gotten the Internet hooked up in my house, and I definitely want to share photos, etc. But first I wanted to share this little picture of how I got lost the other day. I was trying to go from point B (el Instituto Internacional) a point A (mi casa). I wasn't super worried, because I went by several metros, and I could have taken them home, instead I just sort of wandered about. I think it's very Family Circus.