Time flies

Hello again and another apology for the lack of activity in my blog as of late. In the past two weeks I have had over ten pages of spanish papers to write, a test, and two quizzes not to mention I have to figure out about another ten page paper and prepare for final exams. Its no excuse, i'm two entries behind and I know its my duty, since I am more or less impossible to contact, to at least send you guys a few messages to let you know I haven't fallen seriously ill, or joined a rebel army or any of the other things that young people abroad seem to fall victim too. Right now I am quite well, I am sitting by the pool on the island of Santorini in Greece, trying not to get too terrible of a sun burn, I have already watched two of the more lovely sunsets i can remember and everywhere I look are cliffs defiantly rising out of the water challenging its vastness and size with pure determination. Its really very beautiful. But this post is not about greece as I am far too behind to jump forward. First morocco!

I would describe morocco as two different places coexisting simultaneously. the two first cities that we visited were the old imperial cities, Fez and Marakash, and these cities are both quite famous for their medinas, a labyrinth of winding streets, many times without an exit, filled with shops and the general din of commerce. Of course this is not the United States so prices in Morocco mean virtually nothing, you are forced to play a repetitive and often exhausting game where they treat you like a king to create a feeling of obligation in you so you are forced to buy something then the give you a price that is outrageous, even in a western store, and you are transformed from a king to a warrior, battling your sense of obligation to get a price that is at least fair, if not a bargain. Certainly you can get bargains by this method of battle-buying, but it is tiring and the constant transformation of people from friends into fierce hustlers is emotionally effective and leaves you feeling a bit like the commodity the sellers are peddling. Still it is a sight to see, which is most likely the reason that hundreds of thousands of tourist flood these places to see this culture, which seems so foreign, in its natural habitat.
And here is where we find a duality; just outside of these medinas, these hearts of ancient arabic culture are skyscrapers and sky rise hotels, a modern city as western as any here in the united states and nicer and newer than many that I have seen in Europe. Even as you walk down the street you see two women walk past and one is dressed in a traditional burka and the other is wearing guess jeans, gucci sunglasses, and high heels. Its as if there are two cultures one must choose from, one antique, poor, traditional, one modern, flashy, and totally foreign, with no connection to their antique cultures. In marrakash there is a square, I posted some pictures of it in my last entry, which is filled with snake charmers, story tellers, food, almost out of a movie depicting medieval arabia, but when you look closely the mouths of the snakes are sewn shut, only tourist gather at the hundreds of food stalls. The food, which seems so exotic, is all the same, all just a show for tourists. And you begin to wonder how much of these peoples way of life is a show for us? How much of this antiquity, this culture, is just being preserved to bring in more money and build the real cities, the cities that are just like every other city in the world.
Besides these musings the country is very interesting, again you find duality with the people because half of them are as I described above, interested in only making a few bucks at your expense, the other half is genuinely warm, loving welcoming, and happy to show kindness to any stranger. The trick is you don't really know which one is which, who wants your money and who wants to help, and you end up treating every one with suspicion, even those who are genuinely kind. Bad people ruin the world for the good people, such a simple realization but true, and good people make the world livable, create a possibility for trust to be broken. A shame.
I don't necessarily trust myself to describe adequately the sights and sounds and smells, the smoke rising from the fires cooking food in the square in marrakash, the smell of the man sitting next to me for four hours as six people were jammed into a taxi to take us from Meknes to Chefchauen. Chefchauen, the blue city, halfway between a fairy tale and a water park, a city of cement painted blue to make it aesthetically pleasing at the base of a mountain you can hike up and see the electric blue starkly against the green countryside. Its honestly too much to describe, but I will try to post more pictures and keep people up to date this way.
I will be sending an email to you soon Grandma, I'm sorry again for not keeping up with this thing. To all the rest of you I love you and will see you in about a month, not much time. Isaac finally sent me an email and we have made amends. I hope all are well and will write again soon. My next entry will be about semana santa (holy week), then greece.

Pictures

Hello all, a special hello to Grandma, I know you've probably been worried but i returned safe and sound from morocco. My digestion has been on a bit of a roller coaster, but roller coasters are fun! And all in all i'm doing very well. Thanks also to any and all for the birthday wishes, if anyone see's matthew tell him I wish i was with him and I hope he's having the happiest birthday he can muster (I think this is the first birthday we haven't been together and it feels wrong). And also if anyone see's Isaac tell him he's a rat fink! He still hasn't contacted me so I can talk to him about being an uncle and that hurts my heart, but I'll probably have to cave and talk to him myself. Anywho I have a big test tomorrow as always and more work than I care to speak about so I'll make this a bit of a picture tour and write about it all soon. Promise. Grandma I love you tons and I'm sorry for being so late with the post. Talk to you all soon.

Granada

Every one who goes to granada feels the need to mention the alhambra. Specifically the nazareen palaces, which were sort of palaces for the moorish kings then kinda where emperor Carlos V stayed once or twice, then really just the place where thieves and vagabonds from the city spent there time and planned their crimes and cried when they were heartbroken and did all the things that people always have done and always will do. Only 400 people an hour are let into the nazareen palaces so theoretically, given about 16 hours of being open less than 7000 people a day are allowed to see them. Which isn´t really that much considering its one of the top five most visited palaces in the world. Its impressive. Most impressive are the fine plaster carvings that cover every wall in the complex. Mixtures of arabic writing from the Quran, the most delicate calligraphy I´ve ever seen except more important because a sixth of the world think its god speaking just for them, and geometric designs that are so well integrated into the caligraphy you can´t tell where one ends and the other begins.
Its perfunctory to discuss these palaces, they are impressive, yet as you move from one spectacularly decorated room to the next spectacularly decorated room it is difficult to keep up your excitement, you begin to feel as if it you have seen it all before, and at least for me i remember being a small child and thinking about heaven and how even something perfect would lose its splender if thats all I had and I started looking for something different, even something ugly to reground me so I could appreciate the beauty around me which was so like the beauty that was around me in the room previous.
For me, my favorite part was not the palaces. Next to the palace is a fort, its soul purpose was to fight against invading christians, who were constantly invading as Granada was the last muslim stronghold on the iberian peninsula. It was not made to be beautiful, or even kinda pretty. It is a blocky structure full of stone passagways and dank holes to hide and wait for enemies. It is where hot oil was dropped on invaders and where cannons crushed archers hidden in their turrets. It was impressive in every way that the palaces were not. We climbed to the main patio of the fort where all the towers where connected then to the top of the highest tower we could find. The torre de vista. The tower of the sight. It was a sight. Below us stretched all of granada and beyond mountains, some naked and defiant, others guarding their form with snow, giving them a look of purity that doesn´t exist outside of nature and children. I stood there and looked from one side to the next, then back, and around again hoping to ingrain it in my memory. After the ugliness of the fort this view was so much more spectacular than the palaces. It was our payoff, our reward for enduring the haphazard stones. It was the only heaven I´ve ever known, fleeting and only visible after seeing everything that heaven is not.
I´m probably writing in an even more melodramatic fashion than usual, mostly because I feel more emotionally confused than I usually do. A friend of mine at UNC was shot and killed on a street off of franklin street, our main road at UNC. Her name was Eve Carson and she was 22 years old. She laughed with her whole body if you were lucky enough to make her laugh. She started by leaning back slightly than the force of her would bring her forward, doubling her up as she laughed in a way that would make any prisoner feel free if only for a moment. She was the first person I met at UNC. She was the first person to remember my name. She wasn´t my closest friend, but she was many peoples closest friend and there is no fairness or justice or silver lining to her departure except that there is a chance that now we are hurting more than she. But I don´t understand death and dying enough to know what more to say. I hope if heaven exists it is better than I imagine it. I hate that she is gone because I selfishly don´t want to have to think about no one ever seeing her again. I don´t have any more words.
Sorry for this somber ending. As always I love you grandma and I hope that you are well. I´ll be going to morocco soon and I´ve taken every precaution I can think of to keep me safe. I have no desire to get sick or injured, I just want to see whatever I can while theres still time to see it. Everyone take care of yourselves. I love you all. I miss you all. I wish you all to smile even at innapropriate times. See you soon.

Madrid

"!Un euro! !un eurounerouneuor!" This was the call of the street vendors as I walked through the largest flea market in all of spain, my friends had left me, choosing the comfy and significantly more expensive high speed train to return to sevilla while I had elected to take the six hour bus ride. I walked from stall to stall looking through the assorted antique spanish books and half finished coloring books for anything that might actually be worth something.
"its very nice!" said a particularly ambitious salesman with a designer coat that didn't match his pants. "yes" I said "very". "Five euros, for something so nice it is a good price" he bellowed, smiling all the time. His teeth didn't match. "I agree" I replied. "for a girl you love?" he ventured. A swing and a miss, I am currently quite single and being reminded of it isn't the way to sell me anything. My face soured as I brooded over the lack of romance in my life. His moment was slipping away, he had made the wrong move. Quickly, another tactic "for your mother?". Ah, the guilt sell. After all my mother has done for me, birthing me and clothing me and putting more money in my account if it gets to low which it will soon so heads up and sorry in advance, how could I not buy this obviously high quality...um...I didn't know what it was. Maybe an earing tied to a shoe lace? " Sorry"I said, "its fine but I don't actually know what I'm looking at and I have a rule about buying things that may or may not be a keychain wrapped in chicken wire. Adios."
Each vendor had their own knick knack to sell, some were really quite lovely, others were torn barbie heads reattached to a plastic fish. There was something for everyone I guess.
The flea market marked the end of a very relaxing trip to madrid. I went with four other very nice, very southern kids from my program and we all stayed together in a cute little apartment in madrid, very close to the center of the city. I arrived with much enthusiasm ready to make the most of my few days, but I was soon overpowered by the lackadaisical dispositions of my southern companions. We would set off in the morning with the intent of seeing three museums, a place and a show and would return to the apartment at lunch time having done only one of the things we had planned and chat about this or that until we had forgotten all the things we had already missed our opportunity to do. It sounds a bit wasteful of our time i know, but it was actually very relaxing and I did get to see a few museums before all was said and done, including the museo de reina sofia, which houses the largest collection of works of Picasso in the world and is also home to guernica, a massive ten by 18 foot masterpiece depicting the destruction of guernica with the exaggerated impartation of pain that makes picassos almost cartoonish style so moving. The whole thing is in black and white and the figures are very unrealistic, but the faces and the hands are so clearly expressive that one can fall headlong into the work, into the characters who can show the pain every one of us has known but don't have the power to convey because our faces are bound by the rules of physics.
All in all madrid was very nice, but not the most impressive city I've eve seen. It would certainly be an interesting place to study as they have more theater, dance, art, and political goings on than the rest of spain combined, but it was just a bit too new for my taste. Everything seemed a bit sterile without the spirit of history that is so characteristic of other places in spain. Still it is worth seeing, and the live version of beauty and the beast is playing there (in spanish) so if you go soon you can catch that, though I'm a big fan of the movie.

You're a joy grandma!! Thanks for the email again, I'm glad you are enjoying the blog. There actually was a lot of political unrest in madrid when we were there. A group of rioters staged a rally outside of our window and shot of fireworks into the plaza. There were riot police around and everything, though it never got too out of hand. Regardless we were all safe as can be and we are always very careful when we travel. My brother is going to have a baby, which is insane! so I will soon be and uncle and grandma will soon be a great grandma, though she's already pretty swell as she is. Otherwise all is well. I'm going to granada next weekend and after that north africa which should be amazing. I know I will get six emails telling me north africa is dangerous and I shouldn't go and if I do I BETTER be VERY careful, which I am and will continue to be. It is a trip that others have told me is really fun and not dangerous as long as you stay with your group so I will be just fine and I promise the pictures will be worth any risk. Take care all, especially you grandma, I'll be back with more soon.

Help Me Rhonda

Gorges are the product of natures infinite patience. There is little urgency when you have no goal, no clear start or finish. Nature acts because the laws that govern it require it to and will continue to do so until movement becomes more painful then stillness. Chemically speaking stillness is impossible wherever energy exists, particles must move as long as the have energy to lose, so perhaps the patience of nature is not necessarily a lack of urgency as we know it with patience in humans, but an abundance of energy. Without fear of losing energy to stillness, as all humans are born with, nature can sit patiently and allow its movements, the slight pressure of water, wind, and moving earth, and with those movements it can create structures more grand and fabulous than any humans have ever been able to, with all of our attempts. With all of our urgency.
Rhonda is a city situated on two sides of a gorge. On one side is the old city, apparently named so because, well because its older, and on the other side is the new city. The two sides are connected by two bridges aptly named the old bridge and the new bridge for similar reasons as specified above. The city itself is quaint, full of little shops and neighborhoods with old men who sit and talk about when the old city was the only city and th new city was no city and how both bridges are older than the old city and it should really be thought of as oldest bridge, old bridge, not as old city, and really pretty new city and so on and so forth forever and ever amen. The city is interesting but unspectacular except of course for the land around and under it. The gorge under the new bridge is over 100 km deep (300 ft and change) and the bridge extends all the way to its bottom stopping just short of a waterfall where jets of water stream out like a fountain made by man and nature in one of their few cooperative efforts. The hills to the side are covered in flowers that bloom all year long so the beauty of the greenery is contrasted by the bleak and barren walls of the canyon.
We walked down into the canyon (you have a to pay a nice man about a dollar to walk through his yard but it really is worth it and he seems like a nice guy) and were surprised by how different the little city looked from the bottom of the gorge. From the bridge the town appears to spread out endlessly around the gorge, challenging it to expand into the thriving community that had mastered it with its bridges, but from the bottom the town was all but invisible. The gorge seemed to take no notice of them, as if it were more of a passive acquiescent then a conquered prisoner, not caring one way or the other what went on above it, waiting patiently as only nature with its boundless energy can.
We walked out of the city into the surrounding hills and were impressed by the view of the mountains to one side and the valleys with other little villages to our other side. As we looked on at these seemingly quaint little places we thought about how different they really were than any other place in spain or anywhere else. Inside those quaint houses they were probabl watching dubbed american tv, while their kids played the newest playstation games. They probably new as much about what was going on around the world from the news as an new yorker or businessman in tokyo. It made me look at the villages differently, part of their innocence and naivety was gone. Maybe that is the price of being connected to the world around you, a little bit of your individuality, your naivety, is released as well. Still I wonder if the miss the simplicity of ignorance. Not knowing about wars in africa or terrorism in the north of spain. I just don't know. I've never known a world without those things.
Sorry again for m long absence, i've been a bit swamped at school lately and have been trying to figure out some traveling, of which there will be much very soon. By the way I do have new glasses and a cell phone here (thanks mom for reminding me I hadn't mentioned that yet) and they are both working pretty well especially considering how inexpensive they were. This weekend I'm planning on going to madrid, which is apparently the capital of this place and will have lots of museums and culture and other boring stuff that I'm supposed to experience (just kidding, I love culture, ask anyone!) I also have to begin a ten page paper in spanish about theater in modern spain which wouldn't be too bad if I was familiar with theater in spain and I spoke spanish, but both of those are really not the case so it might be a grueling couple of weeks. A special thanks as always to me Grandma who sends me kind emails and tells me nice things. I love you more than kittens, and I love kittens a bunch, I hope you are well and that the weather is starting to normalize a little bit more. Much love to all and I will write again soon. Pinky promise. My next entry will either be about madrid, or Jerez the birthplace of sherry. I guess you'll just have to wait and see. Ta ta for now.

Cathedrals

This is not my first time in Europe, a few years ago My twin brother matthew, my friend Ryan, and I all traveled from london to berlin, stopping in france, italy, austria and other places in germany to see the sights and eat cheap delicious bread and be treated rudely by the french and really quite kindly by the rest of the world. So I've seen a few cathedrals in my day, the cathedral of notre dame in paris, the duomos of florence and milan, a basillica dedicated to saint peter in the vatcan, but no matter how many times you've seen gargantuan and lavishly decorated churches you still have to stand and wonder when you walk in and look up at the ceiling hundreds of feet above, the wood carvings as large as small houses, enclosing pipe organs whose arrangement is in itself a work of inspired creativity, the pulpits with images of biblical stories depicted with gold and silver and all around people of the worlds most advanced age wondering at the things that we have lost.
Interesting things about this cathedral. It was all about the benjamins (money), no surprise there. As in the mequita of cordoba, wealthy families would pay probably vast sums of money to be able to secure for themselves small sections of the cathedral for their own personal sanctuaries. The arrangement of these sections were like small chapels with a pulpit and grand art work, but they also served as a burial ground. As a caveat I have never understood peoples obsession with the meat left over when they pass on. Whatever is eternal and unique in each person is not kept in their fingernails or hair which will soon be devoured by creatures with twelve cell nervous systems, so paying absurd sums of money to protect a shell of ones self seems like a poor investment. Better to spend it on something that might affect the part of you that's eternal by enriching your life which is marked by the presence of a soul or your life's affect on others which is souls reciprocally affecting one another. But I'm off on an opinionated tangent, the point I meant to make is people with money could own what they desired, the church, the state, other human beings which is and was terrible but resulted in some of the most beautiful architecture and artwork ever commissioned. So its another mixture, a hypocrisy, something else to keep things interesting.
At the end of the tour we climbed thirty flights of stairs to the top of the tower known as the giralda and looked down on the city and we felt like the angels carved into the tower, looking down on the city and appreciating how hard it is to see beyond the wall in front of you when you are confined to the ground. Maybe this was a taste of the clarity with which god sees the world, the whole picture at once with the knowledge that everything fits together like a puzzle, but even with clarity of height I found myself nostalgic for the ground, the big picture is too vast. I'd rather let god handle that.

Thanks for the valentines day wishes from mom (I love you too, and don't say it enough) and Grandma (thanks also for the pictures, you live in a meteorological wacky land), Sorry i use this blog to reply rather than with email, I get easily sidetracked from emails but i will try to be better. Happy belated valentines day to all those I did not talk to. I hope everyone is well and felt loved that day.
My next entry will deal with the city of Ronda. Take care, I love you guys and will be in touch again soon. (Pictures are coming.)

And Another Story Too

The entry about the castle is below but I just finished revising this other "story" that is based on a memory from when I was very young and is also written in the first person as a child. No need to read if you don't want and the real entry is below but if you care to its here.

So I finally got to go to the state fair and I’m really excited and I’m looking at this yellow and red striped tent and its really big. Really, really, real big and I want to just go see it ‘cause dad is always saying stay close and I say there’s nothing cool close. Everything cool is far, there’s always big red and yellow striped tents and stuffed animals and trucks that can change into robots that shoot missiles out of their arms and I always have to stay close and they stay far away and that’s how it is.

So I’m not trying to be bad, ‘cause I’m really good, really, really, real good and everyone always says, “you are just like a little grown up” and I make my face look like a grown up; I turn my head a little and pretend like I got something sour in my mouth so my face puckers up all serious like and they look and smile and their teeth are bigger than mine and fill their mouths and I use my tongue to feel the gaps where there are no teeth and its soft and it hurts when I press hard but I press anyway because I don’t know why and then I remember I’m being a little grown up and I squinch up my face again and press with my tongue when they aren’t looking.

So this tent has a high counter and I can’t see over it but I want to so I walk backwards and then I see over the counter and there are balloons and a man and people throwing pointed nerf missiles and the balloons pop. Pop!! And it makes me jump a little and I look around to make sure no one saw ‘cause Matthew makes fun of me and calls me a girl when I get scared and dad says don’t say that but he does when dad’s not there ‘cause he’s a jerk and I call him a fart face when Michael and I are playing ninjas and Matthew’s not allowed too play with us but one time Matthew hit me so hard I started to cry and he saw me and I tried to pretend I wasn’t crying but he saw and said I didn’t mean to he started to cry and I didn’t know why he was but I would have given him my plastic Siberian Tiger to keep forever if he would just stop and I hugged him and he hugged back and we didn’t know why but we kept on crying.

So I kept moving back and watched the balloons pop and they were red and green and yellow and a color that looked like my moms car she used to drive before she moved away to Colony Lake and got a new car. And I look around to tell Matthew ‘cause he really likes balloons and wants to be a clown and can do magic and everything, except he’s not there and neither is dad or Isaac or anyone and I don’t know where they are ‘cause everyone is walking really fast and I can’t see their faces ‘cause they’re all bigger than me and they look like this one movie I saw when I wasn’t supposed to be watching tv and no one had faces and I went to bed and had nightmares and it was like that and I am real scared like really, really, really, really, real scared and I start feeling that feeling before you cry when your throat gets really hard and you can’t breath right and I cry and try not to talk to anyone ‘cause I’m not supposed to talk to strangers especially if they have candy, but people keep asking where’s my parents and I don’t know where my dad is and my mom is in Colony Lakes and I just can’t stop crying and then my dad says “David” and he’s running toward me so fast but I know its him because his hair is the color of metal and his voice is only his and he picks me up and I hug him and I would hug Matthew and Isaac too, but Dad won’t let me go and I don’t care I just keep holding him and I’m still crying and he’s crying too and I didn’t know why he’s crying ‘cause I’m not lost anymore but it doesn’t matter and we cry there and I hold him and he smells like cotton and trees and I’m more happy than I’ve ever been just to hug him and cry without knowing why.

The Castle of Sevilla

Containing four distinct sections from four different centuries, a massive garden with fountains and of course orange trees, and more history than a library at Cambridge, the Alcazar de los Reyes (the Palace of Kings) is one of the largest and most visited sites in Sevilla. It sits next to the university of Sevilla, another excessively daunting building where students in spain learn about spanish things I suppose.
The first section was gardens, there was of course the standard sea of green leaved orange trees punctuated with color as Orange trees tend to be in this season, but beyond that is a patio of stone with flowers creeping out of every wall and surface and covering others completely. It also contained a fountain with greedy ducks acting playful only to secure a bit of bread or cracker and a full hedge maze ("like in harry potter" says fernando, our professor and tour guide, named after a king and with all the presence of one) As we walk into the anteroom we are greeted by enormous paintings of rulers and an office that s still used to great dignitaries and royalty and other people born into importance. I touched the walls (not supposed to do that) and realized they were covered in plaster carvings in the style of arabic mosques. It was of course not made by arabs, only a cheap immitation, but still impressive and fragile and really shouldn't be touched thank you very much.
We walked into another courtyard and under an old and decaying wall. "This courtyard has four sides" bellows our guide and pointing to each in turn he says "19th century, 17th century, 16th century, 9th century, original arabic" So we looked around at 10 centuries of architecture which is a thousand years or over 3 times the age of our nation, twice as old as spain, and just about 50 times as old as the small group of invincible young people gawking at its age.
We walked into the main entrance of the palace and saw gold, on every wall and ceiling (people made some nice ceilings when they had unlimited money and enslaved other human beings) This was the room the king would greet ambassadors and was designed reflect light so that shone from behind and bounce of the gold to dazzle the foreigner and provide backlight for the king who was standing on a raised platform to give him the illusion of height and
god-like power.
We then saw the room of the god, hidden away behind doors and corridors which would be filled with slaves who were to protect the king and be killed first were their an invasion. The irony of a king that fancies himself a god hiding like a scared child was certainly obvious, but we live in a world of hypocrisies and perhaps thats what keep things interesting.
The last thing I will describe was my favorite part of the palace. Below the surface of the earth were cells for prisoners as the palace functioned as a courthouse as well, but at some point the queen decided she wanted a gift for herself so she made an enormous pool in the same underground space that could be filled with different kinds of water and scents and what not. But it was also designed to perfectly reflect all light giving it the appearance of an enormous mirror. So on some days the space was used to hold prisoners awaiting execution, on others the queen would use it to bathe and admire herself. Hypocrisy? No, just something else to keep things interesting.

Thanks again for the email grandma, I can't believe there were so many tornadoes! Kentucky should lend some of its tornadoes to states with nothing in them like north dakota in return for some pleasant days that are wasted on the few. Regardless I'm glad you are safe and well. If you find any of my mom's old writing I would be happy to post them on here as she would be terribly embarrassed by that and have no way to stop me since I'm thousands of miles away. In other news I just booked tickets to greece for april which should be wonderful. We are spending 7 days there and all the flights and places to stay are only about $400 which is pretty good for plane tickets and housing. I plan to go a beautiful town close to here with gorges and cliffs next weekend so Im sure you will here about that soon. As always stay well and i will post again soon, this time about the cathedral of spain, and as always here are some pictures.

Something a little different

I know I promised an entry about the castle of sevilla, and don't you worry its coming, but I thought since I'm more or less sharing what I'm doing in sevilla I'd share a little something different as well. I enjoy writing and being in spain where I have many fewer demands on my time has given me some energy to try writing different things (like this blog), so I'm going to post a short story that is a revision of one I began in a creative writing class, its about a man named gregory stanton, and its in the first person. Let me know what you think and sorry again for delaying the real meat of what I'm doing in Spain. Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

They say sitting all day is hard on your back. Or is it standing. I don’t remember. I know they say sitting all day will make you fat, which is true, but I don’t Mind. The seats seem more inviting. I walk up the little stairs onto the bus and see a seat and it looks like cake and ice cream to me so I just sit and sit and sit.

All the bus drivers know me of course; I don’t want to get on no one’s bad side. Soon as I walk on a bus with a driver I don’t know I step forward and introduce myself right there.

“Hi sir. My Name is Gregory and I’m gonna sit on this bus today if you don’t mind. I got no where to be and no one to see, so I‘m just gonna sit on this bus today if you don’t mind.”

I usually get a rise out of them because I always say the same thing and there’s a little rhyme in there and its pretty clever if you think about it so they usually laugh and say “Sure” and I say ”God bless you sir,” and I get on the bus and I sit.

I don’t know if I like sitting in busses I know really well the best, or if I like sitting in ones I don’t know at all the best. I step onto the 112 bus and I know everyone. Grocery man with the big face and sad eyes, the pretty girls who are older then their clothes, old hat man with a smile on his face like he’s hiding something and I bet he is. I just sit and I watch and I listen and everyone chats about this and that or they do nothing and sit there. That’s when I know them the most. When they think no one’s watching. That’s when I see their grins straighten, or eyes brighten, or lips mouth words no one but me can hear. That’s when they are the most beautiful. Right when they think no one can see them.

The 62 bus I don’t know at all. I save that one for special days because it’s always new. Some days there is a girl with little pony tails that can’t make up her mind on a green candy or a purple candy and I know she should pick the purple but I just smile when she picks the green. Sometimes I see parents with kids. Sometimes the kids misbehave and the parents have to be sharp with them, which is not as fun to watch but I know they have to do it.

It’s more fun to watch parents and little kids when the kid is too curious to misbehave. I once watched a little girl with curls that didn’t ever stop and she would ask her dad why the streets were the color of coal and he would answer because lots of things is the same color and asphalt is the color of coal and she was learning, and I was learning too but I was also watching and the little girl got bright in her eyes every time she got an answer and I bet I did too.

My best memory on the bus was one time I was sitting in the back, as always, watching and watching and this man came on the bus and walked toward a seat and as he walked a hand reached out and grabbed him on the arm and he turned all startled like he was gonna fight and hurt someone, but as he turned he sees this little baby and it is holding him by the arm and he is looking at it and he loves this child for no good reason and I can see it. And the mother says “I’m so sorry” but the man doesn’t even care. He is just looking at this child and loving him and then the kid lets go and the man sits down and its over. I sometimes think about if I had walked by after if I would have gotten the same thing, if I would have loved the child, but I know that’s not why I’m here. I’m just here to watch. I just watch and sit and sit and sit.

Thanks for the lovely picture grandma, as always I enjoy the correspondence. Check back a bit later for a real entry about what I'm doing here.

I'm sensing a shift in the way those around me approach their time in Spain. The first days of our program were filled with meetings and small adventures to get us excited about living in spain, the next with learning to adjust to our rooms, our room mates, the language and everything else that is foreign and intimidating and exhilarating about a new place filled with the unknown. But I feel as time passes and the magic of newness fades a bit, those around me are realizing that there are obstacles to face, classes to struggle through, and no parents or friends close at hand.
This was the first week of midterms and papers and the instinct to do only the very best is alive and fighting in all of us. As we do our best to take notes and exams in a language we do not understand and in a system that is designed to be a challenge to spaniards I find those around me beginning to feel more like students than vacationers. Of course it is better to understand that we are here to learn, both in school and in our other experiences, but I hope that we are able to keep our wonder at the beautiful things around us and the opportunity we have to experience it.
Today I saw a man picking oranges from the orange trees that line the street, a child dressed in a suit walking with his father who wore jeans and a sweater, I saw a flock of doves, white wisps like cloud pieces painting pictures in unison in the sky, I saw a woman sitting against a grey stone wall holding her hands to her face so passers by couldn't see her red eyes and damp cheeks, and I saw flowers that don't grow in the united states, purple with alternating ascending and descending petals creating a purple throne on each side of the flower. Look and see what is a blessing to your eyes, its a pretty world full of pretty things. My next entry will be about the castle of Sevilla, until then take care grandma, I hope its not too cold in kentucky these days and to all who may be reading remember to vote in your local primaries, its your right as an american. Adios.

Street Fairs and other tragedies

I apologize for my long absence, I try to write something new every couple of days and I think it has been about a week since my last post; I don't presume to think that anyone cannot live without my ramblings, but I do enjoy sharing my experience and my mind so thanks for your patience (grandma).
The city of Cadiz is about an hour and a half to the east of Sevilla, it sits on the coast facing the atlantic ocean and I've heard is one of the most beautiful places in the world to watch the sunset. Its an old city, older than most, founded by the Phoenicians before Rome conquered the world or Christ spoke of a god who loves us forever and ever, amen. Cadiz is also the sight of one of the biggest festivals in Spain, the festival of Carnival. Most places in the world believe that one day is enough for a party, thank you very much, but in Spain a day is barely enough time to get the food on the table and get everyone assembled so parties in Spain, especially ones like carnival that involve hundreds of thousands of people and elaborate costumes, go on for a least a week.
Usually things don't get too out of hand until 9 or 10 o'clock on the first day.
I arrived at 4:30, ready for anything on the day of the biggest party in spain and braced myself for the costumed ruffians that would great me. I walked off the bus and spotted them, there playing on a jungle jim were ten or so children all dressed as the cutest creatures god has blessed us with. One was a kitten, another a chipmunk, another was a baby dressed as a BABY! What is cuter that a baby? Regardless we found the city to be rather charming, a beautiful view of the ocean, a few well meaning costumed men singing songs for the children. This was no grand party, it was a halmark card and we were loving it. We strolled around for a little while longer enjoying the day, snacking on bits of fried dough that are present everywhere in the world but are called by different names. My friends were getting ready to head back to the train station when we saw a bit of commotion behind us. We looked toward the noise and saw that a parade was coming our way and leading the procession were a horde of adorable four year olds playing instruments and dressed as pirates. Now as a man I have a high threshold for cute things, I can see some pretty cute stuff and walk away from it unphased. My female friends on the other hand were in trouble . I turned to look at them and they began regressing before my eyes. My once intelligent strong young friends were on there knees trying to communicate in baby babble we men can not understand. "Whoooseee a cuuuttie booyyyy. Uuuusa cuuuttie boooyyy" and other nonsense like it. Luckily the parade was over soon and they were able to recover in time to catch their train. As I waved goodbye to them I prepared myself for a night of more of the same; charming costumes, children laughing, a few pieces of fried dough. I turned to leave and as I walked a horde of European teenagers yelping and blowing fog horns raced from the bus beside me, and as they stumbled by I realized my evening would be anything but pleasant and charming.
I won't bore you with the monotony of boorish behaviors I was witness to as the evening progressed and the streets filled with five hundred thousand lolligaggers, but it culminated in some upstanding young chap flinging his arms wildly and knocking my glasses to the ground to be crushed by thousands of other oblivious and decidedly un-charming folk. I have since decided that street fairs are fine, and may even be fun under some circumstances, but much more appealing are walks along the ocean with friends in a small town by the coast and the disarming charm of a child.

Anecdotes

Having given a basic overview of the majority of the events and some basics about my life here I have decided this would be a good place to share a few anecdotes about moments lost in translation and various notes about life in a country where no one understands you.
Firstly, everyone is always making fun of you. At least I assume, who knows what they are really saying, certainly not me, but I feel like every time I go out and order a cafe con leche (coffee with milk) I see a slight twinkle in the eye of the patron as if to say, "nice try buster, you may know two words but you are about as spanish as japanimation or ice water" (don't ask for it here, they'll look at you funny and spit in your face. Alright not really, that was exaggeration for comic affect). I try to keep my chin up when possible (also because I'd rather look at the sky then the street, which is routinely covered with preprocessed dog digestables (feces) which disgusts me but also makes me smile to myself (America may not do everything right but if there is dog refuse on the street someone is going to pay, and pay dearly.)
I've been running a few time and realized that no one really works out here in spain, and really the spanish peoples health confuses me completely the more I learn about it. Half the population smokes, they never exercise, and they only thing they consume more than wine is olive oil, which they drink by the gallon and bath in daily. Alright that last bit was hyperbole too, but they do fry a lot of fish in it and they have a longer life expectancy than in the united states, higher standard of living, and lower obesity and coronary disease than almost anywhere. My theory is that the spanish are all secretly witches and have used their evil magical powers to grant themselves health and long life at the expense of Americans who have been cursed with the opposite. I have no basis for this theory except a hunch and the fact that I have seen my senora use a broom at least twice. For flying! Ok that wasn't true either, and the health stuff is probably by virtue of the fact that they eat very few saturated fats. Though i remain sceptical. I might begin Inquiries to whether witch craft is present here in spain, perhaps I will give it a clever name like the Inquisition of witchcraft in the lands controlled by the Spanish people. Yeah spain needs one of those. (There's a hidden message there that references spain's past if you look closely)
Anywho, there isn't too much more new to say about spain these days. As much as I joke I do feel like I am picking up a few things and actually using the past tense if I'm feeling adventurous. One strange thing is I sometimes feel like I am less able to speak in english after i've been trying to understand spanish for a while, as if my brain can only hold one language at a time, but I am certainly improving, though very absurdly, painfully slowly. I hope you are well as always grandma keep me posted on any fun family stuff and I'll try to keep these posts regular. Sorry for the silly jokes and references to refuse, I try to keep my posts informative and classy, but sometimes my youth and immaturity get the best of me. This is a picture I took from the bridge near my house. The buildings here really are quite lovely.

Cordoba

Our second excursion of my time in spain was to a city about an hour and a half away from sevilla named Cordoba. Cordoba was the Moorish, or islamic capital of spain beween about 750 a.c.e. and 950 a.c.e; the first 200 or so years that the islamic caliphate controlled the iberian peninsula. We got up at 7:30 in the morning when the sun was still just an idea and begin our bus ride, which was surprisingly scenic. The spanish country side is made up of endless rolling grassland of a very particular bright green that seems as if it was manufactured, painted on by an enthusiastic artist trying hyperbolize real country side.
We arrived in Cordoba and Made our first stop at the Meseta, a 10th century mosque that has since been converted into a catholic church. It is an interesting picture of spain, filled with Christian icons and artwork only just covering the geometric designs and arabic script that decorated the building for centuries before. The design of the building demonstrates in someways certain precepts of the islamic faith. Islam is based on the premise of a very personal connection with alah, therefor there were no pews or anything to separate one believer from the next or anyone from Alah. There weren't places for clergy, because clergy as we know them in the Christian church did not exist. Instead there was an imam, a holy teacher who read from the Koran and led the people in prayer. As it was transformed it became filled with pews and sections for the rich and devout, embracing the Model of the christian churches but never losing the initial grand design left by the muslim empire.
In the middle of the wide open mosque is a pulpit in the boroque style. Mosques were made for utility not to flaunt wealth or demonstrate the power of the church as was the case with many christian churches in the middle ages. Though beautiful in parts, the mosque was not heavily adorned accept in the christian pulpit which is decorated with hundreds of angels carved out of ivory surrounding and emphasizing the mahogany pulpit adorned with precious pretty things. This church, which both demonstrated the vastness of the muslim empire through its size and utility, and the artistry of the christian empires through the various paintings and sculptures, reminded me that everything, no matter how foreign has a beautiful quality to it and that faith in all forms can create things of beauty. It also reminded me that beauty is universal. Every person has the capacity to look at a flower and marvel that god was so generous as to provide a small reflection of his person on earth. Every person as well has the capacity to be heartbreakingly gorgeous. My mother when she sees one of us walk in after being away too long or my brother when I've said something that isn't funny and he laughs anyway. In each I see a reflection of a reflection of perfection. God in all his glory smiling at a knock knock joke.

I took some pictures and I will post them all at the same time because its easier. Thanks to both grandma and mom for your emails and copyediting. I will do my best to remember my english grammar while constantly forgetting spanish.

Italica

Our first excursion outside the walls (figurative walls, walls around cities went out of style some 200 years ago) of sevilla. It was not a excursion of grand length, it lasted only two hours and we could see the city from where we were exploring but still a new place and a somewhat interesting one at that.
Italica is the remains of a roman city that once occupied the land around modern day sevilla. Spain, like all of europe and some of africa and other places as well I'm sure was under roman control for some six hundred years or some other number whose vastness means nothing in the modern blur of time. Our professor told us that we would have to use our imaginations heavily as much of the ruins were, well ruins, and I must say it was hard to imagine a sprawling roman metropolis while tying not too look at the blinking red neon sign advertising local beer at the gas station across the street. Still my imagination is strong from years of being a weird loner of a child and it was interesting to picture walls growing in my minds eye around the foundations that were left and imagine the people (50,000 or so I think) going to bake bread or repair the sewer (oh yeah they had sewers) or just walking enjoying the day as we were almost 2000 years later.
















Here of course are a few pictures. This one is simply the road that went through the city. The long down the road shot was prettier in gladiator but I never claimed to be a photographer. Each of these blocks along the side would have been a pillar in roman times and would have connected with the houses to make a covered walkway to protect citizens from sun and rain and keep them out of the road so carts could move. Pretty clever eh? Yeah, I know.
















This is one of the many foundations of the houses in italica. All of them are these lovely murals and they all had themes that reflected what the person who owned the house liked or didn't like as it may be. Apparently this fellow liked neptune, god of the sea, but didn't like the back half of horses and decided to replace them with something more going with the sea theme.
















This was probably the neatest thing we saw. This is a hallway in the roman amphitheater where gladiators would wait, listening to the snarls of lions that they were about to face in battle (lions are notorious being awesome at eating gladiators). I imagine if I was about to face a lion I might try to quickly befriend it, but my lion is worse than my spanish and I haven't been able charm many spaniards just yet. So i'd probably be toast. Thats all. Thanks for the picture grandma, the guys are all quite handsome and really tall, a genetic quality my brothers and I are still a little short on (get it?) but I'm glad to see they are well and i will continue to be about to send you a better email soon. Cheers.

School

The perfunctory message about how school is going may not be my most interesting post, but it is at least necessary to understanding the way days go here. School is set up much like an elementary school, or at best a remedial high school. We have small classes every day and homework each day that we turn in for a check. We have a few big tests throughout the semester and quizzes whenever our professors are bored or couldn't finish a lesson plan for the day.
Of course everything is in Spanish so the teachers speak slowly and clearly, making sure to enunciate well accept for one teacher who more sounds more like she's auctioning horses than teaching literature but who is so attractive and thin for a 30 year old with two kids that no one can stay mad at her. Two kids, she must bowflex all the time.
I'm sure I would hate every minute of my classes if the teachers were not so darn talented as educators. Each one is so knowledgeable on the topics they teach and so capable at conveying them that even though I despise the workload and the endless reading in spanish, I find myself impressed and interested in the material and content to complain to my peers and learn much more than I care to.
Thats my short bit about school. My next entry will be about the roman ruins of italica that we visited recently. I'm glad you liked my last entry grandma, I will try to get pictures up soon and thanks again for the emails. Hasta luego.

Fountains

I'm not sure why it is that fountains are so mesmerizing. It could be the fact that that so many things are not as they should be. Water, a thing whose natural state is to be uncontrollable, is contained and mastered, defying gravity, and molded into unnatural forms simply because we tell it to.
There is a fountain in a plaza called the Plaza de Espana which may be my favorite place in the city so far. It is often obscured by various large tents set up to house this or that equipment for cleaning or broadcasting some presentation set to take place there, but even in the midst of these attempts to dampen its impact, the plaza is breathtaking. A semicircular wall of arabic inspired architecture with a fountain placed in the center and surrounded by pathways of white and black stone arranged into geometric designs. The fountain itself is unique as well. While most fountains try to maintain a perfect symmetry, this one is set up like a spiral staircase; each side grows in height until it winds its way into the center which is the pinnacle.
I was first struck by the fountain when i walked through the plaza on my way to class and saw a little boy staring up at the fountain. Speechless and still. I looked at the fountain myself, but my eyes kept returning to the boy. I tried to imagine what it would be like to see a fountain for the first time and have this massive stairway of water greet you. I like this image of myself as a boy, looking into the fountain, speechless and still, thinking about how many things I don´t understand. And not so much has changed, accept of course my ability to appreciate my own smallness. The my next entry will deal with silly school. Thanks for the email Grandma, I will reply more personally soon. Until then do take care.

Host Family

A word about host families. The idea of a host family is a bit peculiar; the thought that someone who does not speak your language and has never met you before will welcome you into their home, cook you meals, and provide the love we all so desperately need from a mother figure seems absurd in some ways. Its sort of like taking in a stray dog who can talk and has opposable thumbs to more easily steal things, but as strange as it seems in concept this is exactly what we are receiving.
Maria Jose, our lady of the house was born to be a mother. I can only imagine her as a child, jealous of her own mother for having a child to care for. We try to help with things and she refuses to let us. We have problems with a shop owner she threatens him with a spanking. She is the most maternal of mothers I have encountered and she is incredibly sweet. She lives alone, but is visited often by her son, the most cynical little man I've met in my short time on this planet. He's 16 and loves paris hilton, but is a most wonderful guy and has little problem mocking us for any number of our small idiocies (the words for "to do" and "to be" are surprisingly similar and it is very strange to speak of doing thirsty). I of course can't speak at all and Maria tries to sit with rapt attention while I stutter for 15 minutes trying to say one sentence in the wrong tense but I will hopefully improve and it is at least a comfort that I can understand most of what's going on even if I can't speak as well. Thats all for now, the next entry will deal with the city itself. For now hasta luego. As always I hope you are well grandma.

Cell Phones

In spain, as in the united states, there are a number of options for purchasing a cell phone. If you live in a place, you can buy a contract and get a phone for free, but if you are visiting for, say, four months and some change then what you want is a pre paid phone. In this case, you by a phone for about forty or fifty euros and they give you a sim card with a phone number that you can put money on and which they remove money from when you talk on your phone. Its complicated and a bit expensive but as foreigners we have few options and its better than being tortured or killed as they did in the roman times, did you know spain was one of rome's most most important colonies. A spanish man told me and why would would he lie? Anyway While buying a phone I realized three things.

1. If use my old phone I brought I can save money by only having to by a new sim card, a card with a number and which connects me to a service provider

2. My phone is locked and only works with my american provider so #1 is impossible

3. If I buy a new phone I can use it in the states with a cingular sim card and I can justify the cost of a few euro for a phone

These were the realizations but the order of the realizations was, unfortunately #3, #1, and lastly #2. So the events were as follows. David buys phone to use in spain, david realizes he can save money by using his old phone and sells his phone to a friend for less than he paid for it, david realizes his plan is flawed because his phone is locked and he just lost money instead of saving it. David finally hurls himself into the river because that is what desperate and stupid people do.

One of those did not actually occur and I leave it to your discretion to decide which. My next post will discuss my host family, which is really wonderful, but this is too long already so we will save it for another day. Hey grandma, I hope you are well, they feed me a lot and pity me for my stupidity. Hasta luego

A Quick Recap

January 8^th

In the last 24 hours I have spent 10 hours in a plane, 6 hours waiting for a plane, 5 hours in a bus station with a Romanian construction worker, 3 hours on a bus I wasn’t sure would bring me to Sevilla until I got off the and saw the name of the station, been propositioned by a gypsy,which took very little time to decline, and realized that the only Spanish I know is the names of various items in a living room and how to use them one at a time in the present tense. I am at least encouraged by the fact that when I address someone in Spanish they reply in Spanish unlike in France where my attempts were always met with a scoff and a broken English variation of “what you want?”. Whether that has to do with my illusion of a grasp of the language or the fact that the Spanish know less English than the French, I can’t say. Perhaps no one can. All I know is that I definitely can’t speak Romanian and I’m sorry to Georsh (maybe?) who really wanted me to. More to come as time forces things to happen.

~David Greenslade

First Things First

It should be noted that this blog is, for the most part at least, for my mother, grandma, and the rest of my family who are absurdly sweet and love to hear about what I am doing when I am not around, no matter how banal or incomprehensible it might be. Therefor this blog is dedicated to my grandma who supports me emotionally and financially regardless of how infrequently we see each other. I hope you enjoy reading about Spain as much as I enjoy not being able to order coffee (its cafe' apparently, and don´t pay up front they´ll bring it to the table). Bienvenidos.