Camino de Santiago

This past Saturday as a part of BU's seminar class we walked an hour of the camino de Santiago which leads to a city where Saint Jame's bones are buried near the Atlantic coast of Spain, it is one of the three holy sites for Catholics. The Camino is really imporant as far as the development of the north of Spain. Most of the towns that ran along the camino's path were built for the pilgrims in the middle ages including Burgos the town I am studying in. First we drove about twenty minutes west to a very small town which we walked through in about 5 minutes that is just there for the pilgrims there are houses, lodging, and resturants on either side of the actual road but not much else in the surround area. Then we drove another 10 minutes and got out to walk for about 1 hour to where an old hospital is located and then we drove another 15 minutes to another small camino town where we had lunch and then got a tour of the wine cellars from the resturant owner (because our director appears to know everyone). After that we got a tour of two different churchs from a priest, one of the churches was locked and he had to open the door with two super huge keys ( the really old fashion ones) and it has made me decide that I want to redo the door of whatever house I buy so they have keys like that (so I can be like "wait hold on, let me just get my very large key out" hehe). After this we drove back to Burgos.

Barcelona Barcelona

On Wednesday March 18th Michelle and I left on our epic journey to Barcelona...We got in late on Wednesday night and basically had dinner and then went out with our hostel to a very nice bar where we got a free vodka drink and champagne. I met a guy from Wisconsin and there were a bunch of other guys from MIT (in Boston like BU). Thursday we went to the Sangrada Familia, a church by Gaudi that is still being built, and then to the park he designed. Both of these sites were crazy beautiful. There were tons of little school childern on class trips in the park and they were all holding hands with their buddies and then there was one part of the park that had art on the ceiling so their teachers had them all lay down in a circle to look up at it. Super cute! In the park as we were just chilling in the pretty weather we ran into a group of French guys and one of them was dressed up as a bird. The guys dressed as a bird insited on taking a picture with Michelle and I and then after he left, him and one of his friends, who was drinking a beer, joined a jogger for about two minutes through the park. It was beyond funny! That night we went out with the hostel again to a club on the beach! It was a really nice club and actually played rap music instead of house :) There wre also these three guys that were clearly payed by the club to dance but were soo second class to anything that you would see in the US...everything was very obviously planned out but still interesting to see.
Friday we went to see one of Gaudi's houses and walked along a main road. The house was built crazy cool with the most amazing roof ever and the top floor apartment was all done up from the time period of the last owners. In the afternoon we went shopping. As we were walking we past a rather small but intense protest in front of one of the Zara stores. There were guys yelling and playing the drums and there were signs everywhere saying things like if you have any dignaty do not go into Zara today and Zara hates families. It was crazy intense but it was only in front of this store so like five blocks away there was another Zara with no one protesting. That night we saw the new Pedro Almadovar movie staring Penelope Cruz called Los Abrazos Rotos (The broken hugs). It was very good and I understood most of what was going on, although I plan to see it again and I am sure I'll get more out of it.
Saturday, we went down to the beach but it was crazy windy and very cold. We had a pinic lunch and sat by the port and then walked to the Gothic quarter of town and looked at the cathedral. That night we went out to a club that played house, salsa, and reggetone but the people that came out with the hostel that night were crazy awkward and so it was my least favorite night in Barcelona.
Sunday we went to the national art muesum, which was closed but was beautiful on the outside. Then we went and saw the Olympic stadium and another art muesum which houses exhibits, there was one painter and then an arcitect. Finally we went to the "Spanish town" which was horrible and hardly worth mentioning. Then Monday we got up and started our epic journey back to Burgos. Overall, it was a great time but because the weather wasnt as warm as I had hoped the trip was about a day too long. Although I still love Barcelona Barcelona!!!

Madrid madness

Ok so March 7th through 9th Bre and Ashleigh came to visit me. We met in Madrid. So after the longest metro ride ever and checking into the hostel, we decided to get tapas, the favorite was tortilla patas which is like a potato omelette. Then we part took in siesta since all of us had basically stayed up the entire previous night. After siesta we got up and went to Sol, which is near where a lot of shopping and resturants are. We wandered around for a while and got more tapas, and chocolate con churros. We also walked through the Plaza Mayor. On Sunday we went to the gyps flee market which was massive and amazing!! Then since it was crazy sunny and warm we went and sat near the Royal Palace and watched some street flamingo dancing. We then walked back to Sol and sat outside and had some sangria. That night we went to two different bars then hung out at the hostel waiting for Bre and Ashleigh's cab to the airport. It was a short, relaxing and crazy fun weekend with my sisters!!
The next weekend Michelle, Jill and I went to Madrid for the Fall Out Boy concert on Friday night. It turns out that the concert was sponsered by undereighteen.com so basically we were like some of the oldest people there. The first opening band was a spanish band with lots of screaming there was one member whos job it seemed to be was just scream at random intervals. After them was The Sounds who were crazy bad ass. Their lead singer was a woman and I would much rather have ran into the entire Spanish band in an alley than her. The first song they sang had a line that said "We're not living in America and we're not sorry" but the song didn't diss the US and even really talk about...it was just kind of a random and awkward song. Then Fall Out Boy played and they were pretty good, better than I expected. One of the songs all the lights went out and their guitars light up and one of the members was like SHIT FACED and kept talking to the crowd but pretty much Michelle, Jill, and I were far more entertained by his comments than anyone else and we are pretty sure that is because no one else really understood what he was saying. On Saturday we took the bus down to Toledo, which is about 1 hour north. Toledo use to be the capital of Spain, back in the day because its on a huge hill. We went to an art museum for El Greco because he lived many years of his life in Toledo. Then we went to the Cathedral and a synagogue with a small museum. We walked around a lot but Toledo is super small so it was easy to see a lot of things. Many of the tourist shops sold swords because it is a typical trade of Toledo. Mazapan is a typical dessert from Toledo and we ended up buying a small box of that, it was a very doughy cookie. For lunch we found a nice patio and had some pitchers of sangria and just sat in the sun :) Then we took the bus back to Madrid and we went to a bar that night where Michelle and I had two shots of Absinthe each. Then on Sunday we returned to Burgos!

Message for Cousin (Amanda)

Message for Big

Message for Little

Morocco Day 3 and 4

Day 3 for breakfast I had toast and tea. Then we left our host families and drove to the Rif mountains were we then walked in the mud and rain to a families house in a very rural village. There we had a snack of strawberries, apples, sandwiches with cheese and veggies and then we had lunch which was couscous without meat. We learned about what the family farmed and how they made their bread. Fun fact: black olives are just picked later than green ones, but they come from the same tree. After spending a few hours with the family we drove to Chefchaouen where we were given time to shop before dinner. For dinner I had chicken kaba (again probably spelt wrong) and a moroccan salad (diced tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions) and lots of bread and olives. We stayed in a hostel that night and it rained really hard most of the evening, night, and next morning. Because of the rain our walk to outside the city was cancelled. For breakfast we had pastries. Then we drove to Ceuta, one of the two Spanish towns in Africa and crossed the border there. We then took the ferry past the rock of Gibraltar to Algeciras and our trip was over. I traveled back the following morning by train to Madrid and by bus to Burgos. Over all I am very glad to have taken this trip and very much enjoyed Morocco!!

Morocco Day 2

On day 2, I had toast and tea for breakfast. Then we went to the University and met with a professor to talk about the "West and Islamic worlds - images about each other". It was very interesting to learn more about Islam and Morocco as I know very little about both. After that we went to the Roman ruins, Chellah, which were very beautiful with tons of plants and birds and cats. There is also a pool that has eel in it and some of the people in my group feed them eggs which is suppose to help with fertility. After the ruins we went to the Mausoleum of King Mohammed V here there is a mosque (sorry if this is spelt wrong) that King Mohammed V began buidling but during the building process there was an earthquake that knocked a bunch of it down and then the King died and it was never finished. But both him and his son were burried in a tomb right next to it. After this visit we returned to our families for couscous. It was good but not my favorite meal. Again we eat out of the same big bowl but we had spoons this time. After lunch we met up with some Moroccan University students and walked around the city for a while and then went to a pool bar and had some tea. One of the girls I talked with acutally studied in Lacrosse, Wisconsin last semester :) After meeting with the students we met with a former peace corps volunteer and a current rhodes scholar and learned about these organizations, their experiences, and how to get involved. That night my host sister took all of the girls in my group to Hammam, which is a public bath. It was definetly an experience that I'm glad I have but will not be repeating. Then we had dinner with our families. That night we had pasta with meatballs, bread, oranges, and salad.

Morocco Day 1

On Wednesday I got on a 2 1/2 hour long bus ride to Madrid and then a 5 hour long train ride to Algeciras, Spain...all in all a very uneventful trip. On Thursday morning I met with the other people in the program at 8am at the port. Unfortunately, the morning was very windy and all of the fast ferries were cancelled. We got on the 9:30 ferry at like 10am and didn't leave for another half hour and the ferry ride was something like 3 hours long. The trip over was very rocky and pretty unpleasant. There were ten people including myself in my group and another slightly smaller group. There was one leader per group. When we arrived in Tangier, Morocco we went through very lax security and then dropped over our bags in the van and changed euros for derum, 1 euro = 10 derum. After that we drove to the market to buy snacks for the first part of our trip. The market had everything from packaged goods like cookies to fresh meat (hanging from the booths of course) to olives to fruit. Any part of an animal was for sale. For example, I was some cow lungs for sale. The whole market smelled very good though because of all the spices. After loading up on food and bottled water, we went to the DARNA women's center. At the center we met a Moroccan woman who is studying for her masters in english translation and she told us about the many serivices that the center offers women. The center teaches women to read and write, if they never learned, to sew, cook, use the computer. Basically, the center gives women marketable skills so that they can find a job to support their families. We had lunch at the center and it was amazing!! It was a chicken dish with vegetables that is stewed for about an hour and it is eaten with bread. The salad had two parts these pea type vegetable that I can't remember the name of and the other was chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions. Then we had amazing tea and cookies. The center also has a shop where the women can sell their products. During lunch I had a chance to talk to the women that showed us around the center and hear aobut Morocco from her point of view. After lunch we left to drive to Rabat where we would be staying with host families. On the way to Rabat we stopped to ride camals on the beach...so sterotypical but it was still amazing :) While I was sitting on my camal waiting for the ride to start one of the babies came over and started smelling and nibbling my ear and hair, it tickled a lot hehe. Then we also stopped at Asilah and walked through the old town and went near the ocean to watch the sun set. It was soo beautiful. We finally arrived in Rabat and met our host families who we stayed with for 2 nights. There were three to a family and our family lived in an appartment right above another host family. In the building where my family lived there was a square cut out over the bottom appartment's courtyard and there was no glass or roof covering. There was like a walkway that connected all the rooms but you had to walk in a square to get to the rooms on the other side. My room which I shared with two other girls was the length of the building, long and narrow, and there were coches all around the room and on one end three different sections had blankets and sheets and those were our beds. For dinner that night we had turkey meatballs in a gravey sauce, bread, and salad. There were no utencils and just one large dish. So to eat, you break off a chuck of bread and scoop up a meatball or dip it in the gravey. It was soooooo amazing!!! That is the end of day 1 :)