On the Flight from Munich to Athens:

Not in the mood to do real work on the PhD apps, nor do I want to read Meditaciones del Quijote, my Spanish philosophy book that I’m trying to bang out over break. Not really in the mood for philosophy.

Glance at the cover of the Lufthansa magazine sitting in the pocket of the chair in front of me. And I have to laugh. It’s so German! There’s really no other word for it. The three main headlines read as follows:

“German author Julia Franck describes a magical journey”

“A Collection of enduring travel memories”

“[Philosopher] Alain de Boton on the art of travel”

I said that I wasn’t in the mood for philosophy. HA! Only a German airline magazine would devote an entire edition to philosophizing about travel. This intrigued me. In the states, airline magazines are fluff pieces: straight-up company propaganda, maybe with an interview of some celebrity to actually attract a passenger to read it, but they are very definitely not highbrow literature. Nor do they generally deal in philosophy.

However, the philosophy of travel is fascinating. Why do people travel? What do they expect to gain? Questions like this are ones that Alain de Boton, author of The Art of Travel, answers, while at the same time proposing new manners on approaching travel, especially for the travel industry. My favorite quote is as follows:

“[The biggest obstacle we face is] overcoming fantasies about travel, trying to be imaginative and breaking away from clichés. Travel is full of them: the sunny beaches of x, the beautiful mountains of y. It’s always suggested that certain destinations are good and that others do not even qualify as destinations. It’s very normal, for example, to go to New York; it’s not very normal to go to Kansas. But maybe Kansas is actually better for you. Perhaps it suits you more.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Also, now I want to read his book. Drat!

London III

Christmas Market was actually kind of creepy. I already mentioned the strange mixture of State Fair, Renaissance Fair and Santa's workshop that it was, complete with lots of crazy amusement park rides.

BUT...I forgot to mention the Halloween Haunted House aspect.

That's right. Because clearly the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Christmas is a giant skeleton in a bright red robe playing a violin. It was creepy. Christmas shouldn't be creepy (ok, well, maybe if you're Tim Burton, but I'm not him, so Christmas isn't creepy).

And then, of course, there was this.

HeHeHe

Ok, now that's just funny. Ain't nothing creepy about penguins.

London II

I say that the turkey meal was a miserable failure because, well, because...just look at it:

It was kind of a mess, and a little bit tasteless. And it lacked delicious sweet potatoes. Have you seen the recipe that my mom used this year? They were apparently fantastic. It's a pity that I wasn't there to eat them ALL UP. 

But this is what the inside of the restaurant looked like. It was a lot like Christmas, what with the tree and hall. And the fact that it was a restaurant at the Christmas Market. You know, 'cause that makes a difference.

London I

I was in London for Thanksgiving. It was awesome. Actually, it was more like I was in London for Black Friday, but same dif.

I got there Thursday night, and after a little bit of a hassle with the express train (note: an express train to Victoria Station does NOT stop at Clapham Junction), joined up with K, M and friends for a delightful dinner at The Stonehouse Restaurant (I think it was more of a gastropub).

Friday, we wandered around the city, which is my favorite thing to do in Europe. And we wandered into a lot of dessert shops, which is my favorite thing to do in life.

First up, Notting Hill, and The Hummingbird Bakery. They had whoopie pies (both chocolate AND pumpkin!)! And they had a delicious red velvet cupcake (unfortunately not as delicious as Bent Spoon, but still delicious). This was at 11 AM. Who says you shouldn't eat dessert for breakfast?

Next, we headed on over to the delightful Christmas Market in Hyde Park. It reminded me of a mixture between a State Fair, a Renaissance Fair, and Santa's playground in the mall. It had all of these cute little wooden huts all decked out with garland and holly, selling spiced cider, mulled wine, hot chocolate, fudge, candy, and bratwurst. There was a lot of bratwurst. I guess Christmas Markets were imported from Germany.

At the Christmas Market, we ducked into a little restaurant that was selling Roast Turkey with all the Trimmings in an attempt to make up for the delicious T-day meal that we had missed the day before. It failed kind of miserably, but at least it gave us a chance to sit down someplace warm and chat for a while before going back out in the cold!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's the most wonderful day of the year! Seriously. T-day is my favorite holiday...partly because it hasn't been commercialized, and partly because it is a day specifically devoted to FOOD! Other holidays also have delicious treats, but there's just nothing like T-day.

Of course, a European T-day isn't quite the same. For one thing, I actually had class today. Boooooo. At the same time, a European T-day makes me ever more grateful for the wonderful tradition of giving thanks for all the blessings in my life. For instance:

• I'm thankful that I get to go to LONDON (!) this weekend to visit my brother sister-in-law and friends. T-day isn't T-day without family.
• I'm thankful that I have awesome parents who let me come all the way to Spain for a year.
• I'm thankful for the awesome Master's program that accepted me.
• Even if I currently feel like all the work will give me a heart attack.
• I'm thankful for a whole lot more than that, but I have to get to the airport.

Hope someone somewhere eats lots of stuffing for me! and mashed potatoes! and sweet potatoes! 

Seville & Córdoba (Part II)

After Córdoba we headed down to Sevilla (which took up pretty much the rest of the day). Our hotel was a pretty sweet place, and we went out to tapas/dinner in a place kind of near the old Jewish neighborhood. Towns in Andalucia almost always have an old Jewish neighborhood (like from back before the Jews were kicked out of Spain in 1492), and it's always a pretty well-preserved example of medieval Spanish architecture. But that's beside the point...

The point is that for dinner I got a goat cheese and raspberry crepe, and it was one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten in my entire life.

It was actually a lot simpler than I had anticipated. Goat cheese. Crepe. and Raspberry sauce. I dunno...for some reason I was expecting real raspberries, not sauced ones. But it was still delicious.

The next day, we hit up the Reales Alcázares (Royal Castle-Fortress-Thingy), which were originally built by a Muslim king, but when the Christians conquered Seville, Pedro el Cruel decided to do some remodeling.

(BTW: Pedro el Cruel was probably no more evil than your average run-of-the-mill conqueror, it's just that this is the moniker that stuck).

Castles in Spain are awesome in that they have the cool little wall decoration/archer turret-things which are definitely my favorite part of castle architecture.  No matter how many arches and spires a castle has, I will always get the biggest kick out of the top of the walls.

And Pedro el Cruel really know how to get someone to spiff up a castle. The reason to visit this one is that it is one of the best examples of Mudejar architecture in Andalucia.

Mudejar architecture is the Islamic style of architecture, but built for Christian purposes. So you see a whole bunch of Islamic details, like Arabic writing or awesome capitals, or even this cool starry-golden ceiling.

And of course, castles are never complete without gardens, and gardens are never complete without mazes. (And PEACOCKS!)

Molly and Catalina are lost in Wonderland

Pretty Peacock

Seville & Córdoba

I love field trips. That said, they are only fun when you have time to do all your other work. Needless to say, instead of getting out and enjoying Seville during the two evenings we were there, I spent lots of time reading about Eva Perón's crazy propagandistic life. Which was cool, since I kind of love analyzing propaganda. But it still means I didn't get out much.

But that doesn't mean I didn't see some amazing sights. Because I totally did! And I have pictures to prove it!

We hit up some of the usual sights: The Mosque of Córdoba (did you know that it is actually a cathedral, but pretty much everyone refers to it as a mosque?), and the Cathedral/Giralda and Alcázares Reales (Royal Castle-Fortress-thing) in Seville.

My pictures of the mosque really don't do it justice. I wanted to be able to show how the inside was built to resemble a forest, but there's just no way to capture its beauty and grandeur. 

It's got some lovely intricate arches, and I would love to be to tell you what they are in English, but I only know their name in Spanish: Arcos polilobulados. If someone can tell me what that is in English, they will totes get a postcard!

But of course, the strangest, craziest part about the mosque is the part that the tourist/art history images seem to forget. Like I said, it is technically no longer a mosque, but rather a cathedral. When Fernando III (el Santo) invaded Córdoba in 1330, one of the first things he did was have the mosque sanctified as a Christian church. It's kind of the way that they did things back then. Conquest a city, convert the enemies' sacred places into your own, and then rule with an iron fist. (I kind of added that last part...but the first parts are totally true!).

Of course, as unique and wonderful as the mosque is, its architecture wasn't really in keeping with the Christian architecture of the time. So someone (I think it was an archbishop), got the idea to build a cathedral within the mosque. He hired a baroque architect and got the approval of the Pope to make the new Cathedral of Córdoba. 

And they built this:

Believe it or not, that Baroque monstrosity is actually plopped in the middle of all those beautiful striped Islamic arches. There's even proof on the arches themselves.

Apparently, King Carlos V (the king at the time of the creation of this hybridization) remarked something like this: "It's a shame that they ruined something so unique with something so mundane."

Apparently he was not a fan. 

It sure lets in a lot of light, though.  

Magic Bags

You know how car designers are always trying to make small cars seem larger than they are on the inside? I think that bag designers try to do the same thing, because I have some shoulder bags that I can fit so much into, I would swear that they are enchanted.

Like Mary Poppins' bag, but better. Because I can see what I've got in it.

Anyhow, my program took a field trip to Seville and Córdoba last weekend, and I used my two magic shoulder bags to bring all my stuff.

Granted, I've started to enjoy packing as little as possible when I travel, and it was only a three-day trip (of which large portions of 2 of the days were spent on a bus), but the brown bag is almost entirely full of homework and books.

So I basically packed the whole trip's-worth of clothes (including an extra pair of shoes!) into what is my computer bag...the beautiful Vera Bradley on the left (Pattern: Barcelona--how perfect is that for Spain?)

Pix later.
D

NYU in Madrid...in Segovia

There are 24 people total in the NYU in Madrid Master's program--11 in the Lit. and Culture track and 13 in the translation track. Not all 11 of us were in Segovia, but of the 8 who were, here are 7:

Daniella, Me, Behnaz, Kaitlin, Kristin, Lindsey, and Mary Kate

Red Tile Roofs and Narrow Alleyways

SE-GO-VIA! (Part III)

I've kind of already talked about the Roman aqueduct, but I'm going to talk about it some more, because it is awesome.

2000 years old, built without mortar or concrete, and it's still going strong, transporting potable water into the city.  Anymore, it doesn't transport enough water for the needs of the citizens, but still, it still works, and I think that's amazing. Also, according to the little bio that I have, this aqueduct has even survived earthquakes (though I'm not sure where the nearest fault line is), which is even more impressive in my book.

That picture up there is where the arches are at their tallest (≈30m). This is what it looks like when you're under an arch:

The rocks are really big, and the arches are really tall, and it's really pretty awe-inspiring. Did I mention that those stones at the top don't have anything holding them together but gravity? (gulp)

More pretty pictures!

That's what I love about Segovia. It's a pretty little Spanish city, and then BAM! Ancient Rome.

SE-GO-VIA! (Part II)

The alcazar (castle) in Segovia is super pretty.  People say that Walt Disney based Cinderella Castle in Disney World on it, although I'm fairly positive that he probably based it on a combination of about 20 different castles from Europe, of which this is only one. 

It's located on a high cliff between two rivers (perfect strategic location), so there's probably been a castle here from the beginning of time, but this specific one dates from the reign of Ferdinand and Isabel in the late 1400s -early 1500s.

Isabel was kind of a baller. Since she was the Queen of Castile, she entered her marriage with Ferdinand with a lot of power, and she made sure that he knew that. They may have been the King and Queen of Spain, but he was never the King of Castile, and when she died, he had to leave the region. You know, since he no longer had any power there. Her death had the potential to break up Spain.

Normally, queen's thrones are slightly smaller than their male counterparts, but Isabel made sure that their thrones were the exact same height...to reflect their equal power...because she was awesome.

And here are some more pretty pictures of the outside, because I think it is pretty:

SE-GO-VIA!

Is currently my favorite city in Spain. I had forgotten how cool the old town wall and the Roman aqueduct are. Also, since it has the exact same vowels as Genovia (the fictional land where Princess Mia rules in The Princess Diaries), you can totally sing it to the Genovian National anthem! ahem. moving on.

This is the cathedral from afar, with all of its cool late Gothic spires. It's kind of ginormous and has a ton of different chapels lining the inside walls, like most cathedrals. Many of the chapels, however, are Baroque, since by the time they got to building them, the architectural styles had changed.

And this is the town wall, with someone's house built right on top of it. Segovia sums up Spain perfectly, with the old and the new built right next to each other.

Or, in the case of the plaza where the Roman aqueduct intersects the town wall, it's the old and the really really old built right next to each other.

Madrid de los Austrias

The one thing that I love about the NYU program is that we do lots of group 'study' activities, like a walk through the really old part of Madrid, los Austrias. They call it los Austrias because the kings responsible for its creation were from the House of Austria.

This is the Plaza de Villa (the plaza of the town), and the big building on the right housed the mayor's offices (or perhaps housed the mayor, I can't remember).

This statue of King Felipe IV was one of the first equestrian statues where the horse is balancing on only 2 legs. Apparently Galileo came up with the way to balance out the density of the statue so that it worked and is still standing over 150 years later. 

And this is just a little view down a little alley towards a monastery, with some huge new modern building in the background. Spain juxtaposes the modern and the antique quite often, so there will probably be lots of pictures like this because I find the contrast interesting. 

Back in Action!

Spanish camp is over and I can speak English again!

Sorry for the Zorro obsession last week. Actually, I'm not sorry at all because Zorro is awesome! I was giving a presentation in a class over him and it was just so much fun that I had to share. He's my favorite superhero, mostly because he actually seems real. His skills, though honed from hours of practice, are those that someone might actually have had and developed, you know, back in the mythical California that exists in the Zorro legend. If you're looking for a connection between DNortonLand and superheroes: Zorro can exist in DNortonLand, but Batman, Superman and Spiderman are too fantastical even for that.

Flying back from VT, I stopped in Chicago to pick up my passport and visa at the Spanish consulate, so I won't be an illegal immigrant to Spain. YAY!

After the Consulate, I had some time to kill in downtown Chi-Town before I headed back to O'Hare and back to Wichita, so I decided to make my brother jealous and hit up his favorite restaurant in Chicago: Cereality.

Unfortunately for my evil little sister self, the restaurant actually looked like this:

That's right. Operation Make-Kenneth-Extremely-Jealous failed miserably because the restaurant was closed for renovations. BOOOO!

La Caja de Correos/ The Mailbox

Para enviar las cartas!

El Banco/The Bank

El Banco/The Bench

El Fuente/The Fountain

El Río/The River or El Riachuelo/The Creek