I started this blog in the Summer of 2010 when I studied in Barcelona. It was named "Britt-Britt's Barcelonean Escapades" but now I have to rename it because I've broadened my horizons, I'm seeking new adventures, I'm traveling further, and more daringly going where I have never been before! And these are my stories....
Our host mom told us when we first got to Barcelona that we need to cook something for her that is very much a "Texas" kind of food because I'm from Texas and that Charlotte (my roommate) needs to cook something from "Georgia". So last night was the night. We decided to go with a Texas styled meal, mostly because both of us have been craving Tex-Mex and margaritas. I found in my email some recipes from my mom and enchilada casserole seemed pretty easy. So Charlotte and I set out to try to find all the ingredients. Interestingly enough Spain does not have enchilada sauce, but we found some other thing that looked similar, minus the hotness, and we couldn't find cream of chicken. There was cream of mushroom and chicken soup, but not cream of chicken. Strange. But we made due with what we found.
For the dinner line up we had enchilada casserole with chips and guacamole and margaritas and for dessert, Mexican wedding cookies. We spent a good two hours in the kitchen baking and cooking the casserole. It all turned out amazing! My host mom does not like anything spicy so I left out the chili powder that was supposed to go in the casserole. It still turned out pretty good, not exactly like Mom's but still pretty good. My host mom's boyfriend, Jose, was over for dinner and said that he liked the food too. It was a good night, we were all laughing and enjoying the food (and the tequila).
Funny thing about the baking, in order to make Mexican Wedding cookies you need cookies cutters to make the shapes. Well the only cookie cutter that my host mom had was a Texas cookie-cutter. It just added to the Texas theme of the night. And while we were baking Charlotte mentioned something about how she's never made cookies from scratch before. So I got to introduce her to the messy fun of mixing the dough with your hands. It was a lot of fun. I think that's one point for the Americans.
I love being in Europe. There's so many cool things to do for the weekend like.... oh I don't know go to Ireland! Somewhat spontaneous but totally fun. And it was perfect because I got to visit with Trish and Pamela who live there. :-)
While in Dublin I had the joy and honor to go to the National Leprechaun Museum. It was really cute and pretty interesting. It talked a lot about the mythology of Ireland and the history of Leprechauns.
And of course I made my way to the Guinness Factory. It was really cool. And at the end they taught us how to pour our own pint of Guinness and how to wait for the gas to separate and then add more beer without the gases to make a beautiful pint of Guinness. Mine is the third one from the left. And look who I found in Dublin. Meredith Zdenek! She was there to witness my first Guinness. It was rather exciting. Good times, good times
Trish and me decided to take a city tour by bus. And one of the bus tours ended up in the river. We took the regular one. The Viking tour bus was also a very loud bus. They seemed to do a viking yell every so often at random people. And they had really cool hats. I know that Trish was highly jealous of them.
Trish had enough of us so she took us to the jail. Well actually it's a museum now. It was really really cool, a bit creepy, but so interesting. It's been closed down for a long time now, but there were a bunch of people who were imprisoned and killed there who were very important for the history of Ireland. And I thought the weekend was finished for fun adventures when I got to the airport, but I was wrong. (viewer discretion advised - Mom please don't freak out or worry. Everything turned out fine) So I went through the security and I thought everything was fine so I grabbed my bag and a lady asked me "Is that bag yours?" and it was so I said "yes." And she told me there's liquids in the bottom. I totally forgot to take out my little baggy of face stuff and contact solution. Oops, my bad. The security lady made me through something away because it didn't meet the size regulations. Interestingly enough I flew to Ireland with it but they wouldn't let me fly back with it. You can figure that out. So I make my way to my gate with about an hour before boarding. Wonderful! I get a chance to eat a little snack and read a bit. The plane comes a little late but it's all good, no worries. So I get in line to board and the guy taking the boarding passes stops with mine and says "I can't let you board. You have to have your ticket stamped." OMG! "Are you serious?!?! Where do I need to go?!" I start panicking because the security area was a good 10 minute walk away. All I heard from the guy was something about the security station. So I start running (with my 20 lb. backpack). And it's literally like the movies. I'm running between people and dodging suitcases. I make it to security - out of breath- and I ask a woman working security where I need to go to get my pass stamped. She asked me when my plane was boarding and I pant in return "NOW!" And literally we walk through the scanning gates thingy and past another security guard. The woman flashes her security badge and starts a very brisk walk. We get to the desk where they check passports and then stamp your boarding pass. We bypass the entire line and the woman flashes her security badge again and pushes all my documents at the woman behind the desk. I can't believe that this woman is helping me so much. Once I get my stamp we start the brisk (meaning almost a sprint) back towards the security lines. And we just walk right by everyone and I walk straight through the metal detectors and they go crazy. She just waves me on and says good luck. WOW! What should have taken me about 45minutes just happened in 45 seconds. I thought to myself "well I may actually catch my flight" and I take off again. I really don't understand why the engineers of airports feel the need to put the entrance so far away from the gates. It doesn't make sense to me. So I'm running and dodging people again. And the gate is closed. BUT the next gate over is about to board so there's tons of airport personnel around. I run up to the desk panting and say I need to get on that plane. And this guy looks at my ticket and looks at me and I'm just trying to catch my breath. He radios the pilot and tells him that there's another passenger that needs to board. He we briskly walk back to the gate where my plane is and he opens the door so I can get to my plane. And I made it on the plane back to Spain. It was the absolute craziest 20 minutes of my life from the moment that the guy said I couldn't get on the plane to when I sat down on the plane and got buckled. Whew!
I hope that story was for your enjoyment and was not intended to worry you. Better me than you, right? Overall, Ireland was awesome!
Hola! So I realized that I haven't been talking much about the food of Barcelona/Spain. I'm not really sure why I'm not talking about it, it's not bad. Some of it is quite amazing, but some dishes have an acquired flavor. Most of the food is very bland. They don't use spices or hot sauce or anything really, so it's either bland or fried. All of the fried things I've eaten have been really good.
Let's get a little more specific. Tortillas in Spain are not tortillas in America. They're potato and egg - no vegetables, no sauce, just potato and egg. It's really good with something else, but by itself it's kinda bland. An absolutely spectacular Spanish concept is the Tapas. Tapas can be any variety of things; calamari, croquetas, mushrooms, papas bravas, bread and tomato. But if you're in Spain and you see a Tapas Bar definitely go and see what kind of tapas they have. Now, what is normally done is that a group of people will go to a restaurant and order a number of tapas, they're usually appetizer sized, and then just pick off the plates of tapas. It's absolutely wonderful and has a very laid back and casual atmosphere to it.
Here's a croqueta right before it disappears. It usually comes with 4 or 6 of these. We were hungry...
I could seriously write a book about the various sorts of tapas that I've seen/ tried, but my absolute favorite so far has been the papas bravas. It's basically fried potato wedges with a special spicy sauce on top. (FYI - American "spicy" is much hotter than Spain "spicy") Another simple tapa is "pan con tomato" or bread with tomato and that's pretty self explanatory. Tapas are usually found in the restaurants and bars, but my host mom has been cooking a different dinner for us almost every single night. And she loves her seafood. We've had squid a few times and grilled fish and mussels and snails, yes snails. I was about to eat one and then I saw the little eyes and I couldn't do it. I apologized to my host mom and she just laughed at me (in a nice way).
Here are some mussels from a restaurant. Delisioso!
Here's another dish that we ordered. It's a rice and seafood thingy. It was really good.
And here is my all time favorite drink of Spain - Sangria! It's a fruit punch with wine. A-MAZING!!! I'm determined to find out how to make it so I can have it in the states.
And me and my roommate found a wonderful little candy shop in one of the touristy neighborhoods. Spain has some really good candy.
Sorry for not blogging in such a long time. Not too much has happened. I go to school I come home, eat dinner, do homework, go to sleep and then wash, rinse, repeat.
BUT this past weekend I went to Rome to celebrate the 20th year anniversary of the Apostles of the Interior Life. And guess what I saw....
Here's the Mediterranean Sea. AWESOME!!!
Look at me!!! I'm at the VATICAN!!!!
I forgot who this is but he was a pope and now he's incorruptible, meaning his body isn't decaying like it should. I don't understand how people won't believe in God when things like this happen.
La Pieta - in person. It is such a moving statue.
If you see behind the canopy thing there is a window that's glowing. We were able to go to mass there. AMAZING!!!
Swiss guard. I asked them if I could take a picture with them and they said "No." And was like "really?!" and he just shook his head and said a little more firmly "No." So I couldn't get in the picture with him....
This is St. Peter's square and it's all ready for priest ordinations that took place on Sunday. WHOOP for vocations!
OH YEA! And here's who I went to go visit. They're absolutely crazy and totally wonderful!
And Fr. Mike Sis decided to show up since he's on vacation. GIG 'EM
In an attempt to meet some locals and to get away from the obnoxious Americans and their obsession with alcohol, Sr. Raffaella gave me some contact information with a group of women who are part of Focolare. I don't know if y'all know what that is or not, but it is a group that was started in Italy to promote and live out unity and community. They are truly an amazing group of people striving to live holy lives in whatever God is calling them to do. So I met them this past week and went to mass at the Sagrada Familia with them. It was so cool to be inside that church! AMAZING!!!
Bea, one of the women in Focolare who took me to mass, gave my number to another girl Emma who's living in Barcelona but is originally from London. Emma's been in Barcelona for about 5 months now and knows the city fairly well so she's been showing me around. And she speaks Spanish, so she's offered to help me with my homework. :) And tomorrow is the World Cup game between England and USA. It will be an interesting game to watch together....
My classes are the most ridiculously awesome classes ever. I'm taking two classes Monday through Thursday two hours each, which is only 4 hours of class a day :D, leaving much time for gallivanting around the city (which is what I did today). My first class is Spanish Art & Cultural Heritage and it starts at noon. And for this class our professor thinks it is very important for us to actually experience the art firsthand so we have class in a museum or significant church or monastery a couple of times a week. Talk about spectacular! And there is really something extraordinary about learning about buildings that were built and cultures of the people who built them 1000's of years ago and then being able to go and see these places in person. It really makes history real and tangible. I was standing in front of the Roman columns today thinking about the people who built them and how they worshiped in this temple to their gods and they build this place with their own hands. And I thought about there individual lives, full of emotions and interactions with other people and personal hardships or fears. It was strangely amazing.
And my other class is Spanish Language. I think I've learned just as much in the past week as I've learned in the years of Spanish I had in the states. Our profesora only speaks to us in Spanish and we can only talk to her in Spanish. At first most of the class thought it was because she couldn't understand English but I'm fairly sure she speaks English very well and she just wants us to learn to speak in Spanish. Someone in the class found the perfect character to parallel with our professor - Edna Mode from The Incredibles (the woman who makes Mr. Incredible's suit). It is a PERFECT match, just Spanish not English speaking. And now in class we are watching El Laberinto del Fauno - Pan's Labyrinth. It's a strange but interesting movie and I know more Spanish than I thought I did.
So I seem to be having pretty bad luck with finding a church with a mass in a language that I can understand... In Toledo I was trying to find the mass at the main cathedral but there was this huge National Eucharistic Congress going on and no one knew where or when mass was so I gave up after about an hour of looking because I had to get back to the hotel for a mandatory meeting. The mass was supposed to be in Spanish at 5pm but I couldn't find anyone to speak English and my Spanish is not very good at all. I've been looking at a few different churches online that are close to where I'm staying for Sunday mass times. And I found one in English! So I left this morning to go find this church and to go to an English mass. It took me an hour and 20 minutes to find it, and I didn't even find the church I was looking for, I found a different one in the area. I heard bells ringing and singing so I followed this guy into one of the side chapels. Everyone is standing and there's no more room in the chapel so I stand at the back. As I'm looking around trying to figure out what part of the mass we're at, I notice that every single one of the women have their heads covered.... Oops, I didn't get that memo. So I start to settle down and try to pay attention to what's going on in the mass and it's definitely not English and definitely not Spanish. Our host mom speak Catalan on the phone a lot and it didn't sound like Catalan either. And the priest wasn't facing us but the alter and he was wearing really elaborate vestments. So I figure this could be a Latin mass, but everyone is bowing a lot and crossing themselves, which is not common in the Latin mass. And everyone is crossing themselves backwards from right to left, not left to right. So I stayed for about 40 minutes standing in the back and concluded that it was probable a Greek Orthodox mass, or some other similar branch. I left and figured I could just go the the main Cathedral of Barcelona. And now I'm off to the Cathedral. On the internet it said that the Spanish mass is at 6:30pm. I'm hoping it is accurate. And these are some of the pictures I took when we were on a tour of the city.
So I was looking at my previous posts and I wanted to make a correction. Senora Pilar's son (whose name is Daniel) does not have a son, her daughter does. She laughed a lot when I asked her if her grandson was her hijo's or hija's. "OH no no. Daniel ....... *laughing." It was one of those moments that made me smile. And I asked her this because yesterday her son came over and we got to meet him briefly. He seems like a nice guy, and he speaks a little bit of English.
So ISA (the program that I'm working with for study abroad) took us to Sitges, a gorgeous little town about 45 minutes south of Barcelona. Sitges is the most beautiful beach that I have ever set foot on. And thankfully we went to the beach in Barcelona yesterday so I got to be cultured in the European style beaches where there are lots of women who feel it necessary to remove their bathing suit tops and men to walk around naked. So Sitges wasn't startling at all. But here are some of the pictures that I took while there. A bunch of people were talking about going back for a full day and renting a sail boat which would be awesome. I'll let y'all know how that goes.
So classes started on Wednesday. I'm super stoked about them. One of them is a Spanish art and cultural heritage class, and we get to go on six field trips to various churches, monasteries and museums in Barcelona (which means no lectures). And I've already learned a lot out of two class lectures. I feel like a dork but I find all that stuff really interesting, most of the other people in class are sleeping or not paying attention. And my other class is a Spanish language class. I really appreciate how they teach language over here. We can't speak English in class and we are forced to talk in Spanish to the professor. I've already found it very helpful. Sometimes I impress myself with how much Spanish I understand, but then there are times when I'm so lost that I don't really think people are speaking Spanish. But between me and my roommate we seem to be making it okay.
We had a wonderful 9.5 hour bus ride from Toledo to Barcelona today. That was very tiring yet really really beautiful. Spain is full of the most beautiful mountains that I have ever seen. I finally got to meet my "senora" and settle into my new habitacion (room). The woman who is hosting us (me and one other girl from Georgia named Charlotte) is extremely talkative and absolutely amazing. Senora Maria and her boyfriend picked us up from the bus stop and we made our way through the most beautiful city of Barcelona. Senora Maria has one son who just recently had a baby boy about 1 month ago. I'm not sure of either her son's or her grandson's names. Her son is married and this is their first child. From what I gathered from our conversations, she is from Cuba and used to be in the theater as an actress (I think). AND she has a one month old kitten who is all white with a little black smudge on its head (not gathered from the conversations, I saw him running around). His name is white but in Catalan which I forgot. For dinner Senora made us some salad and tortillas. Tortillas in Spain is not at all like tortillas in USA, it's egg and potatoes. They're a little bit bland but after a few bites it's really good. Today was a great day and tomorrow I will conquer Barthelona (that's how it is pronounced). Until then, buenas noches.
Well I made it guys!!! It is absolutely awesome and gorgeous y bonita mucha! Madrid is splendid! We went to the Museo de Prado were there are the originals of Goya, Fra Angelico, de Velazquez, y Greco. It was such a beautiful place to see. And Madrid is a really fun city. My first meal in Madrid was a bocadilla con bacon y queso which is a certain type of sandwich only found in Madrid. I also had Sangria which is a mixture of wine and fruit juice. Mucho delicioso! And the breakfast at the hotel was top notch! A variety of fresh fruit and juices, cereals, eggs and breads.
And today we came to Toledo!!!! The scenery is much more beautiful than Madrid. It's built on a mountainous terrain and the buildings are old and epic. The town of Toledo is full of shops selling swords and other armory items. And the Cathedral of Toledo is out of this world, epically spectacular!!! So beautiful! I can't even describe the detail and vastness and beauty of the Cathedral. When we got to the hotel there was a huge sign saying Congresso Eucharistica de National 2010. And there's displays of priests vestments and other things for mass through most of the lobby of the hotel. While I was waiting for my taxi to go to the Cathedral for mass, a bunch of priests were coming out of the hotel and getting on a charter bus to go somewhere. So I finally get to the Cathedral and there's are literally thousands of people in front of the Cathedral and huge signs saying Congresso Eucharistica 2010. There was a stage set up and people were up there talking, obviously in Spanish, and I had no idea what they were talking about. I figured there's bound to be someone here who speaks English, so I see a nun a ask her hablas engles? No. And she grabs me by the hand and leads me through the crowd to a group of some more nuns in habit and speaks rapid-fire Spanish. It turned out that none of them spoke any English (at all) and I was left to wander around the city to find the entrance to the cathedral and the weekend mass.
Toledo has surely been a fun adventure. I can't wait for the rest of Spain.