Climbing in the Mountains of Spain

I am so lucky to have met a Spanish local named Emilio from the climbing wall at the University, because he has been kind enough to invite me on two different climbing trips to the mountains. I would not have been able to climb outside without his generosity, because it requires a knowledge of the area's camping and climbing spots, climbing gear, and a car to go on these types of trips. The first place we went was called La Pedriza. According to a friend of mine, this is the best place to climb near Madrid and I loved it.

We did some slab climbing, which is where the wall is slanted away from you and there are nothing but tiny holds throughout. This type of climbing is really great for me, because I am light and have a long reach, so I had a ton of fun! I flashed (did it on my first try) a route that was supposedly a 6b, which is roughly equivalent to 5.10 c/d and is up there with my most difficult climbs. I got these pictures from one of the girls that went with us to climb, and although they aren't great and a lot of them aren't of me, they can give you an idea of the location and the people I was climbing with.

Jose is waving

this is Emilio

This was our view from our climbing spot. Beautiful!

After we finished climbing, we went camping near a river by the mountains and it was so beautiful. The weather was perfect so we just slept on the ground in our sleeping bags.

The last time that we went out, we went to some mountains outside of a suburb of Madrid called Gestafe. This time we did crack climbing (which is where you have to utilize a long crack in the rock as your main source of hand and foot holds). This type of climbing is really difficult for me, because it is a bit painful sometimes since you have to jam your hands and feet into the crack to support your weight. But I was really happy to be able to work on this style of climbing and I did pretty well overall. Unfortunately, I have no pictures from this excursion but hopefully, I will have more pictures from future climbing excursions to share with you. And whenever Duke gets here, we are going to have so much fun climbing in Mallorca!!!

Toledo!

I just realized that you'll think I've been wearing this brown dress every day!

 OK, so I got to go on another Friday excursion through the Institute of Franklin this week. I was really happy about this because sometimes the list fills up too fast and there isn't room on the bus to go. These excursions are so awesome because we get to go and see parts of Spain for free with guides!
Toledo, is a small city a little south of Madrid where there is a strong presence of Muslims, Jews, and Christians. It sits atop a hill and is surrounded by a river, giving it a very protected feeling.

The entrance to the City

The entire city is built as if on terraces with sharply inclining and declining, labyrinthine roads.

This street and house are so old that you can easily imagine the princesses and caballeros of Historic Toledo

There is an expression, "yo tuve una noche Toledano", which means I had a really bad night or a night without any sleep, because in historic Toledo, in its cramped streets, there were many fights on horseback, screaming from balconies, and parties, making sleep very difficult.

 The first church that we visited, la Sinogogo de la Santa María la Blanca, is highly representative of Toledo itself, because it contains the presence of the three religions. The walls and ceilings have the characteristic detail of a Muslim mosque while the floors are composed of tiled stars of David and in the far end of the room, there is a Christian addition.

facing the addition (notice the cross and the stained glass window)

The christian addition

The characteristic detail of Muslim architecture

1000 stars of David

 The Monasterio San Juan de los Reyes was the second place that we visited on our excursion. This monastery was beautiful, but I don't have much to say about it except that it is yet another demonstration of the former might of the catholic church in Spain.

The patron saint capable of giving you a boyfriend or girlfriend if you pray to it

This door is approximately 5 feet tall--People used to be so short!

an orange tree!

In between the visits to the two churches, we took a relaxing lunch in the plaza. Cierra and I bought delicious nectarines from a frutería and ate them while we tramped up the beautiful, cobblestone, winding streets and admired the random wares, including armor and swords, visible through the windows of little stores.

After a long day of walking up thousands of inclined streets, we were ready to go home.

The Political Situation in Spain

You may have heard and be interested in all of the recent protests in Spain so here is my account of what is going on.
Although people warned me about going near them, the protests are really not dangerous at all. I have seen major protests in Madrid, Valencia, and Barcelona. There was even a small one in the plaza in front of my school in Alcalá but that one has already finished while the others are ongoing.

Who are the protesters and what are they protesting?  The people who are protesting in Spain are mostly young Spaniards who cannot find work. The unemployment figure in Spain is currently 20% and most of those unemployed are young, college-educated people. However this figure is not accurate, because a lot of young Spaniards find work and are paid under the table, yet continue to receive unemployment benefits for a maximum of 2 years. This an exacerbating factor in the collapse of the Spanish economy.

Despite the fact that most of the protesters are upset and protesting due to the collapse of their economy, the things they are demanding from their government are actually non-material. Although the demands of the protesters are all somewhat different, their is one theme: more democracy, less corruption. 

 Pictures from the protests in the Puerta del Sol, Madrid

To citizens of the U.S., this may seem a bit non-specific and whiny but in Spain, there actually is a crisis of democracy and corruption. Their political system, for example, takes into account the voters much less than the political parties. An example of this is that the citizens of Spain do not actually elect their president, instead, they elect their preferred party into the congress and then the congress elects the president. Furthermore, the citizens of Spain do not elect specific members of political parties to be in the congress, instead, the members of each political party arrange themselves on a political party list of candidates in order of the most powerful and then for example, if 25% of the citizens of Spain elect the popular party to be in the congress, then the first 25% of the list of 37 political party members will then be elected to congress. One problem with this method is that there is a very strong discipline of the vote, meaning that members of a political party almost ALWAYS vote together, because they are more accountable to the each other than to the citizens that they represent.


Furthermore, it is a historic fact that Spain is home to severe political polarization. You may think that Barrack Obama is a socialist or that he is more like a communist than a republican, but the truth is that in the U.S., there actually is no political left. There WAS during the 1920's when labor unions and leftist political parties called for the protection of the worker and retribution from big businesses, but since McCarthyism, true socialism and communism have become insignificant in the U.S. political sphere. In reality, democrats and republicans share very similar ideologies and therefore, there is much more voting against one's party in the U.S. than their is in Spain. In Spain, there are a multitude of relatively popular political parties ranging from anarchists to communists (who believe in land distribution and everything) to fascists to neo-Nazists and when you have so many extremely different political parties, there can be true hate between them making civil wars and independence movements and ongoing threat in Spain. 


What could be some consequences if the Spanish economy collapsed? Something quite interesting is that while Obama has been trying to create better national healthcare for the U.S., he has also told the president of Spain, Zapatero, that he needs to eliminate Spanish social health programs. This is because Spain is in economic turmoil and is currently being bailed out by the European union, which is being bailed out by the U.S., which is being bailed out by China. Therefore, Spain will most likely be the first to lose its social health programs. Furthermore, the large rate of unemployment of the youth is also putting a huge strain on the tax income that is supposed to be for the currently retired.

Another possible consequence of an economic collapse is social unrest resulting in civil wars or the sedition of autonomous regions from Spain. This kind of severe consequence is of course less likely, however, it is worth noting that there are many regions of Spain where it is more favorable to think of oneself as part of that region as opposed to being part of the country as a whole. Therefore, people in those regions often times resist speaking Spanish and instead, speak their own languages and barter with the government for more independence. For example, the terrorist group of País Vasco, ETA (now less of a threat than in the 90's but still existent) committed unspeakable acts of murder and torture all for the sake of becoming independent from Spain. 


Despite animosity between political parties and between the states and the federal government, I have learned to appreciate the sense of unity in the U.S. Unlike in Spain, the people of the U.S. are united by the ideas present in our constitution and in the declaration of independence as well as the American dream. Happy fourth of July! 


P.S. I am curious to know more about this dangerous algae in Grand lake

Dear Pops- P.S. Happy Late Father's Day

Some Questions About Life in Spain

When do they start the day? I have not noticed a very large difference between when the Spanish start their day compared to when we start ours. I go to school at 9, which I believe is normal because I used to see lots of kids on their way to school (earlier in June). 

Something interesting about Alcalá is that there are small stores built into the first floor of the rows of apartments that line most of the streets. These stores are the ones that I pass on my way to school and they are usually closed, so I imagine that most small businesses open at about 10. Although I imagine that a big company in Madrid, for example, would start at about the same time as its equivalent in America. Another interesting thing is that opening and closing times in Spain are more flexible. Stores often open around 10 and close around 2, then they reopen around 5 and then close around 9.

I saw a McDonalds in Barcelona that was bragging about how they are open as early as 8 am! I thought that was pretty funny since McDonalds in the U.S. are usually 24 hours.

What is for b-fast, when is lunch(or dinner), do they have siesta time? I really like all of the food that my host mom feeds me. For b-fast, I always have the same thing: café con leche (mostly milk with some coffee), a yogurt and fruit. Then at 12, there is a first lunch (which I usually do not have, because I am in class) and then at 2, there is the real lunch. The food at lunch and dinner is similar. For both meals, I almost always have a salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, olive oil and vinegar and the main course. The main course is always served with bread and it can be this really yummy pasta with 3 types of crumbled meat, white bean, lentil, or mariscos soup, spanish tortilla (which is more like a quiche than the mexican tortilla), a bocadilla (a sandwich made out of a baguette shaped piece of bread) with jamón (I love jamón by the way, although a lot of the Americans don't like it at all) etc.

Do the shops close and then re-open before dinner-supper? At dinner time, it is more likely that I will have something fried or a larger portion of meat. Strangely enough, the culture of Southern cooking in the U.S. was actually heavily influenced by the Spanish style. There are these things called croquets, which are deep fried and stuffed with a light cheese and type of ham. We have fish at least once a week, but the most common meat is pork, by far. And we hardly ever eat cheese or beef.

What time do you have the last meal? Dinner is served at 9 or 10 and thankfully, I am finally used to the schedule. Before, I was getting so hungry throughout the day.

Is the water safe? The water is completely safe, although there isn't a lot of it. Spain is in a mild drought.

Does everyone drink wine? I actually don't drink wine very often at all here, but that is partly because there is a clause in the study abroad housing contract that forbids students and host families from drinking any alcohol in the house. 

But Alcohol is a lot more casual here. People are allowed to drink in the streets, I have never been asked for my ID, and a bottle of cheap wine is only 2 euros! And the culture of drinking is a lot different. Instead of those stereotypical college parties where people chug beer and try to get drunk really fast, I have been told that the Spaniards tend to pace themselves and think that it is not cool to get really drunk (but then again, I haven't spent much time in bars here and there were some SUPER drunk Spaniards at the beach on San Juan).

What are the prices like-compare to US? Everything is more expensive here (except for wine it seems). The Mcdonald's 1 euro menu, for example, has a lot less than the dollar menu and 1 euro=1.5 dollars. If I were to convert everything in my head to dollars, I would be appalled at how much I am paying for everything!

What is the weather like? It is 96F in Tulsa today, too hot to sit outside. It is really hot here, although I actually don't know how hot, because I don't know Celsius degrees very well, but the major difference is that it is not nearly as muggy (meaning no mosquitoes!). Now that it is almost July, walking home from school can get VERY hot. But I am lucky because I live in an apartment on the first floor, which are cooler than the ones on the higher floors, because hardly any buildings are air conditioned. Therefore, a lot of people carry fans with them.

P.S. If anyone has any questions that they have been wanting to ask me, you can always leave a comment! 

My Trip to Barcelona: Part 2

So after our first day in Barcelona, we were all very tired, we had been walking all day! So we returned to our hostel for a little break, but we knew that we could not call it a night at only 10 pm. In Spain, you party until it's light outside. The only way people manage to do this I think is by taking siestas (little naps) from 2-4 every day. Anyway, it was the festival of San Juan that night so whenever we went out to go hang out at the beach, the streets were packed with people. And although fireworks are usually heavily restricted, everyone was allowed to use them. They weren't as much of a show as the fireworks for the fourth of July, but it certainly was exciting. We were constantly being startled by the loud CRACKS and a lot of people were just setting them off in the middle of everyone on the street. It wasn't exactly safe.

So as we were making our way down to the beach, we randomly bumped into a group of 4 guys from Manchester, London and we ended up hanging out with them all night. It was very nice to communicate with people whose first language was English. We had so much fun laughing at all of the really drunk people on the beach, talking about all of the differences between English and American people, and buying 1 euro cervezas and mojitos. I even went in the water, although it was freezing!

The next day was much more relaxed. We all headed to see the oldest church in Barcelona and the stadium that was built for the '92 olympics. We had a nice lunch and mostly talked about the night at the beach until we had to get back on the train to Alcalá.

These pictures are from the Olympic Stadium

Cadence

Meghan

Taylor

The oldest Church (It cost money to go inside so we opted out)

 If there is anything I am getting a bit tired of, it's churches (excluding the Sangrada Familia of course).

Some weird spire at the olympics

Notice how it is written in Catalan (In Spain, there is a lot of tension between central Spain and places like Barcelona, País Vasco, Galicia, etc. because those regions prefer their own identity to that of Spain) I thinkit must have been quite a statement to the central government that they chose Catalan for the Olympic Stadium.

P.S. If you are ever considering riding the night train from Madrid to Barcelona, Don't do it! It is not fun to try and sleep in a chair obviously designed only for sitting.

My Trip to Barcelona: Part 1

This past weekend I went to Barcelona with Taylor, Meghan, Cadence and it was an incredible trip! It was only 2 days long, but we managed to fit in plenty during that time. In fact, I think we slept less than 10 hours during a period of 36 hours! The first thing on our agenda was to visit the park guell, a natural park designed by Antoni Gaudí that overlooks Barcelona.

These are some pictures of our journey to the park. Funnily enough, the map showed the park guell as being really close to a metro stop, however, as we later realized, it was actually very far UP and so it took us quite a while to reach the park. It was a beautiful walk on the way, however.

A beautiful church in the distance

Duke, isn't this cool. On a wall that looked like a giant rock, some people had installed climbing holds!

A beautiful house on the way to the park

Barcelona is actually a lot more green than you might expect!

The view from the park guell

The entrance to the park guell

Nearby where we ate our picnic (Antoni Gaudi's garden)

Antoni Gaudi designed this park with a mosaic snake that surrounded one large plaza, which was supported by large columns (see below).

The snake functions as a long winding bench in the park

Notice how Gaudi designed some of the columns to be slanted!

The photos below are of the famous "Las Ramblas", a long touristy street where there are all kinds of merchants and street art.

A human statue

gellato




This was my favorite aspect of our trip-the Sangrada Familia. It is the most inspiring, beautiful church I have ever been in. Gaudi designed it as well.

It is still under construction today

Carved into the facade of the Sangrada Familia

One of the most incredible parts of being inside the Sangrada Familia is how as you look from right to left, the entire church (with its immensely tall ceilings and complicated columns) changes from a light, clear tones to saturated oranges, purples and blues.

Inside of the Sangrada Familia

looking up at the ceiling

Something really cool about the stained glass is that it is actually designed to make it look like the light is pouring in, because in an abstract design, the center of the stained glass is actually clear.

The columns are of a different color, creating a beautiful gradient.

Carved into the facade of the back of the Sangrada Familia. I like how the sword looks like an octopus

The church is carved so that it appears a bit like a termite mound