First days in DC

I'm finally in DC. I did not want to pack and did a lot of whining in the days before I left, mostly because the last plane ride was so heinous and I hadn't yet recovered. This plane ride was not as exciting as the last one, but that's probably for the best.

Today, Brittany (my friend from Boston and DC roommate) and I decided to do a little exploring. We took the metro to Woodley Park in order to take a look at our residence, where we will be residing...at some point? See for yourself.

This does not bode well.

Conveniently, there was a CVS next door, where we bought our SmarTrip cards (which by the way costs $10, $5 for the card and $5 of value. We are not in Boston anymore. Boo). Then we went to Federal Triangle and walked the Mall. We saw the Washington Monument, WWII Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Korean War Memorial, White House, and Capitol. The hotel we are staying at is right near the capitol, so after grabbing lunch we headed back to recover.

WWII Memorial

Abe, no big deal.

Korean War Memorial

'Sup Obamas?

Capitol. I may or may not get to do some interning in there.

Backside of the Capitol

Tomorrow we are going to dinner with the program, and then Tuesday we start "orientation," which may or may not be a waste of four days of my life.We have the preliminary schedule, which consists of lots of taking us around to tourist sights and even on one of those trolley tours. At least BU is paying for it.

The Journey Home, or THE LONGEST DAY

A slight delay on this entry, probably because I didn't really want to relive my trip back to Eugene:

I knew going into this that my epic odyssey to get home was going to be just that: an epic odyssey. From Venice to Madrid to JFK, then switching to LaGuardia, then on to Minneapolis and finally Portland, and if all that goes well then the car ride back to Eugene. I guess that’s what you get for having adventures on the opposite side of the world.
Some statistics:
• Trip legs (or more pertinently, opportunities for lost luggage): 4
• 39 hours in airports and airplanes (from 5am Venice time to 11am Portland time)
• Total flight time (that’s time my butt spent in a coach seat): 18 hours
o Venice-Madrid 2.5 hours
o Madrid-JFK 8.5 hours
o LGA-MSP 3 hours
o MSP-PDX 4 hours
• Times through security: 3 (Venice, Madrid, LGA)
• Window seats/Aisle seats: 2 and 2
• Airport food consumed: magnum ice cream, bottle of water, peanuts, pineapple cubes, oreos, salad (with balsamic vinegar!), chai latte, yogurt, fruit cup
• Airplane food consumed: tortellini, red wine, coleslaw, lemon/chocolate cake, roll, coffee, kit-kat bar, icky fruit cup, disappointing muffin
• Passport Stamps: one leaving Madrid, one arriving in New York
• Time zones: 9

The flight from Venice to Madrid seemed longer going back, especially since a little girl was kicking the back of my seat for the entire two and a half hours. I had a 6 hour layover to recover, at least. The flight from Madrid to JFK was the one I was least looking forward to, it being 8 hours and all. On the bright side, I sat towards the front in a window seat, and next to a man I at first wanted to call Señor Body Odor (for obvious reasons), then Mister Lush (when he poured a mini bottle of vodka into his Coke light and asked me if I was going to finish my vino tinto) but finally we settled on the title of obnoxious Luxembourgian interpreter. He was a bit pompous, bragging about how Indira Gandhi was the favorite person he’d worked for and making me guess that he was from Luxembourg (I can only imagine the gloating if I’d not guessed correctly).

Our arrival in JFK was delayed slightly by the fact that we had to circle the airport for a half an hour because they only had one runway open and then we sat on the tarmac because we had no gate. Luckily, I was asleep for most of that. Unluckily, that was pretty much all the sleep I got on that flight. In LaGuardia, I sat outside security with my bags all night because they cannot check bags overnight with a few of my new closest friends and three vending machines. Unfortunately, I had zero American money and no ATMs to be found. What I did find was a nice Italian woman to talk with, and we commiserated about transatlantic flights. We were then joined by kind of a crazy woman, who proceeded to tell us in great detail about how she has visions of places and people, and feels strongly connected to Saint Francis of Assisi, and how that figures in to each and every coincidence in her life (which, of course, are not coincidences at all). The flight from New York to Minneapolis wasn’t bad; I even got some Dunkin in the airport. In Minneapolis, I was worried about connecting because our New York flight had been a little late. No need – the Minneapolis to Portland leg left an hour and a half late after a “weight issue” in which they called for volunteers to be bumped. Thankfully, Delta felt my pain and had free wifi on both flights. Well, really it was Google who sponsored it. Thanks, Google!

Then, after arriving in Portland, we still had the two hour drive home. This is why I like to fly into Eugene - once I touch down in Oregon I expect to be home pretty much right then, not have to spend two more hours sitting on my butt on I-5. But I digress - I've now been home for four days and still have 11 more before I have to get on another plane.

Varner Family Christmas 2010 – or, Get Me the Hell out of Germany; or, the World’s Longest Blog Post

Friday morning bright and early (or, not so bright but definitely early), I said goodbye to a sleepy Menchi and got to Barajas. I had the darnedest time trying to check in, since Dad bought my ticket to Venice with the credit card that I didn’t have, which apparently they require you to produce in order to confirm your identity. I ended up switching the payment method to my credit card, which means paying another 230 euro, but the original ticket should be refunded. We’ll find out.

A sneak peak of what's to come...

Get ready for my next blog post...if I ever make it back to the States!

Last days in Spain

Like many of us, I'm ready to go home. Not that I'm going home tomorrow, but the feeling remains the same. I love Spain, this semester has been amazing, I am so happy I decided to study abroad here, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Menchi has been a blessing - she is so welcoming and makes me feel so comfortable, and we get along great. I can definitely tell that my Spanish has improved, especially when I've been drinking. And, I've gotten to travel around Europe and will get to do more of that with my whole family when they get here tomorrow - none of us had ever been to Europe before.

This is one reason why I love Spain. Where else would you find these figures pooping as a Christmas decoration? They have EVERYONE - the king and the royal family, Hilary Clinton, and even the Dalai Lama. What the hell?

Also this is hanging in the hallway in our apartment and I just noticed it the other day. Apparently, Menchi's father did something worthy of getting a commendation from Franco. Huh.

And here is Menchi! Por fin, we took a photo together, using the trusty timer on my camera.

Nonetheless, I am ready to be back in the good ol' US of A. Being in Europe makes me appreciate the United States in a different way. I will miss the fantastic Madrid Metro and the high speed AVE train, but nothing can compare to not dealing with general strikes and soldiers with automatic weapons in the train stations. And like I said before, it's all about NORMANDY if you are ever feeling blue about the US. I promise, it's like the ultimate existential crisis anti-depressant.

Wednesday night the whole program went out and celebrated finishing our semester together with drinks and dancing. Thursday night, Ashleigh and I went to watch the aggressive prostitutes on Gran Vía one last time. And with that, I say hasta luego to Madrid and to Spain. I'm leaving, but I'll be back.

Hello Mother, Hello Father, Here I am at Camp Granada

As much as we enjoyed Sevilla, Granada totally blew our minds. First of all, our hostel was such an improvement. You know how you know it was classy? They gave us those Ferrero Rocher golden hazelnut chocolate balls upon check-in. Also, TV, private bath, balcony, and HEAT. Two stars well deserved.

We started out with a walk around the city, since we had nothing to do and our hostel wasn't ready yet. Paola, ever enchanted by the fountains, proceeded to take photos of almost every one we passed. Our hostel was close to the Cathedral, so we saw that, and the river, and some nice views of the Sierra Nevada mountains outside town. We walked through another Belen, found a Christmas market, and got more Spanish Christmas songs stuck in our heads (Campanas de Belen, all weekend long).

View from the river of the mountains

The Cathedral, which we walked past pretty much every day

Best. Streetlight. Ever.

On Monday, we had our tour of the Alhambra. We couldn't get regular tickets (they were all sold out for the long weekend) and so we bought the 30 euro themed guided tour (Ours was the Alhambra and Carlos I) so we could see the Alhambra anyway. Our tour guide was named Martin, and he showed us the most famous parts of the Alhambra (the Patio de los Leones, the Sala del Trono, the Washington Irving plaque) and a super secret Carlos I room, and Carlos I's unfinished palace. Then we walked back into the city, passing by the Cathedral, and went to the San Jerónimo Monastery, where Carlos I's wife (he was there on his honeymoon) stayed while he was in the Alhambra. How romantic.

Ceiling in the throne room

We had tapas for lunch because TAPAS ARE FREE in Granada! Just pay for your drink! We probably had too much to drink in the 3 days we were there just to get free tapas. Not that we ate nothing but tapas those three days, because Stacy and Laura were also in Granada with their families and we had dinner with them as well. We also walked up the Sacromonte (well, most of it) to get nice views of the Alhambra at night.

Finally, on Tuesday, we saw the cathedral, which was not as cool as I was hoping, and the Capilla Real (Royal Chapel) which had the tombs of the Reyes Católicos (Fernando and Isabel) and Juana la Loca and Felipe el Hermoso (Juana the Mad and Felipe the Handsome). No photos were allowed, but here is a taste.


We also walked back up that hellish hill that the Alhambra sits upon for the third time in three days to look at the exhibition of Matisse artwork influenced by the Alhambra, then walked back down through the Realejo neighborhood. Finally, with only 8 days left in Spain, this completely sums up my semester:

Where is? my beer, my tapa, my ham.

Sevilla, in which we froze because our hostel had no heat.

Looks like Paola and I chose the correct destination for the December Puente. After basically every flight to a destination north of Madrid cancelled (Gatwick, Amsterdam, etc) to ruin the weekends of all the kids in the program (not to mention once we got there we learned that there was an air traffic controller strike over the Puente) we decided to a) travel south to Andalucía (where it is warmer!) and b) travel on the ground (by train).

So we went on our merry way - first to Sevilla for two days, then onto Granada for three. We took the early train to Sevilla, and found our way to our hostel, which was a bargain and you could tell. We first visited the Alcázar, or old castle/fortress. We took a guided tour, and basically learned that half the palace was a bad copy of the Alhambra commissioned by a Christian king and the other half was built by Carlos I on top of the older part of the palace built by the Arabs. The gardens, however, were probably the most impressive part (it also helped that the sun came out and we were not quite so freezing as before).



Next came the cathedral, in which we wandered around the whole thing listening to our audioguía since Amalia was not there to point out all the important features. We saw Columbus' tomb, which was quite the imposing structure, and we visited the famous Patio of the Oranges, and then climbed to the top of the Giralda, or bell tower, or former minaret of the mosque that used to occupy that spot. Lovely views of the city and all we had to do was walk up 34 ramps, one on each side of the Giralda, and ten stairs.

Columbus' Tomb

The Giralda

The view

We got some other lovely views the next day from the Torre de Oro right on the river. We also had chocolate at Valor, got a teensy bit lost, got yelled at for eating pipas on a bench, bought Christmas sweets, walked through a belen (Bethlehem) market (where Paola got Spanish Christmas songs stuck in her head and, by extension, so did I), and had some DELICIOSO cous-cous with honey and balsamic vinegar at this little restaurant we stumbled upon on a street called Calle Franco.

Torre de Oro

We also saw the Plaza de España, which is about ten bazillion times cooler than Madrid's Plaza de España, because this one has a lake. The building is filled with government offices, and all around are these little tributes to major Spanish cities in tile. All the good ones are there, and there are little benches and even a map for the geographically inclined. Paola has family from Alicante, in Valencia, so she took those photos. I had to settle for Madrid, since that's the only city I can claim any sort of connection to.

Finally, we went to see the Virgen de la Macarena. We took a bus since it was on the other side of town, but it came highly recommended. It was...meh. I mean, maybe if I was any sort of Catholic I would have a bit more of a reaction. It seemed like pretty much any other Virgen, richly decorated and all, but nothing too special. I do like its name, however, and if I may make a suggestion, we could liven it up with a little song and dance number from the 90s... On the way back from the Macarena we had quite the Spanish lunch - standing at a bar eating tapas, feeling super authentic.

A bit blurry, but you get the idea.

We ended up catching the early train the next morning for Granada, because we felt like we'd seen pretty much all Sevilla had to offer. Also, we were cold and our hostel did not have heat. On to Granada!