An Incredible Place and An Incredible Loss

This past week was marked by my most cherished memories to date - many were created by an absolutely terrific week exploring northern Tuscany, while the others were brought about by the painful loss of my Grandma Sonya, with whom I have had more wonderful moments than I even realized.  As we explored the back streets of Pisa, made homemade pasta at our house in the tiny town of Barga, rode bikes through the walled city of Lucca and bartered with the leather men in Florence, my many memorable times with Grandma were constantly on replay in my mind - a fact that was saddening at times, but uplifting at others, as I came to realize how lucky I was to have such a great relationship with such a terrific woman.

Our trip was nearly a fairytale.  It all began last Christmas when my friend Nick stole the idea of renting a house in Italy as a family vacation from his family and converted it into a Pomona "family vacation."  There are literally thousands of houses for rent in Italy and we didn't really care where we went, but somehow it got narrowed down and we ended up with a house for the first week in April in the tiny hilltop medieval walled city of Barga, which is in between Florence and Pisa on the very northern, mountainous end of Tuscany.

I flew into Bologna and after a typical got-on-the-wrong-train story, ended up finally in Florence, where I met up with my friends Andrew, who is studying in Cambridge, and Marco, who is studying in Florence for the semester.  We wandered around, snacking on a lunch of tripe sandwich (the local specialty) and a bottle of wine on the Duomo steps.  Later, we went to see the David, which was everything and more that I had expected it to be since reading Agony and Ecstasy in eighth grade.  It was here, however, that I got the news about my grandma, putting me in a whole new state of awe.  Staring at something so perfect yet so old is strange upon realizing that not everything has such fortune.

world's smallest train

That night, Marco took us for aperitivo, the Italian tradition of buying a drink and getting unlimited food for free!  We filled up on an amazing array of Italian food, and then met up with my other friend Isabelle, who is also studying in Florence for some gelato.  The next morning, Andrew and I packed up and hopped on the train to Lucca, where we transferred to the train to Barga - all one cars of it.  We hopped off 45 minutes later, and with no direct plan for getting to the house.  Apparently the buses don't run on Sundays, so we called the English-speaking cab driver, Archie, who had been recommended by the owner of the house, but he had just had back surgery so was "out for a while. Sorry 'bout that."  The lady at the little bar next to the station was kind enough to call a taxi for us, but they didn't pick up.  How did we pick this place again?  Thankfully, a guy was kind enough to offer to call the numbers on the wall in the train station, and ten minutes later, Antonio arrived, who it turns out is Barga's primary/only cab driver.  After trying to follow directions in Italian for 45 minutes, we walked by a house where an old lady was sitting on the front porch and yelled at us in Italian, which I guess meant that she was the one who had the keys to the house.  After dropping our bags and gleefully opening every door and closet in the house, we explored the town of Barga, snacking as we went.

the view from our kitchen balcony

The next day we had planned to go to Pisa to collect Cati, Nick, Sydney, and Erica, who were all coming in from various locations.  We slept in and took the morning leisurely, planning to catch the 12:05 bus to the train station, but apparently stood on the wrong side of the road, therefore missing the only bus for the next two hours.  With nothing else to do, we decided to walk the 5 kilometers down the mountain to the train station, which, despite the funny looks the cars gave us, proved to be a lovely jaunt.  The road is so narrow and windy that big cars and buses honk around every corner - it's fantastic.  We made it to Pisa in time, took some pics of the tower, wandered the streets, had a terrific dinner, and returned to Barga, friends in tow.

walking to the train station

The following day it rained, but we just explored, bought a bunch of food, and caught up on each other's lives, as studying in Europe never comes without countless stories.  Cati and I built a Grandma Sonya-worthy meat and cheese plate, and Nick made an amazing stew for dinner from a recipe on a brochure he picked up at the tiny library when we were checking our email.  We went to bed well-fed and squeaky clean (see photos), ready for our Florence expedition the next day.  We caught the bus at the right time for this trip, but it turns out that the public bus is the same as the school bus, which made for an incredibly awkward and comical situation as we boarded a bus with forty Italian people our age staring at us like, why are you here?

Florence was just as great the second time as it had been the first.  We wandered the leather markets, walked across the Ponte Vecchio, had pizza for lunch, climbed the less-popular-but-equally-tall-and-cheaper-than-the-Duomo Campanile bell tower, ate the best gelato in Florence according to Marco, saw one of the greatest views of the city from Piazzale Michelangelo, and exhaustedly hopped on the return train, having picked up Charlotte in the process.  It turns out that that was only half of the day's adventures.  Three stops from Lucca, where we had to get on the smaller train, our bigger train stayed stopped at a station for 45 minutes.  Being on the last train of the day, we were worried about not being able to get back to Barga, and I went to the front where I tried to talk with some helpful Italian guys and the not-so-helpful conductor and basically just realized that there was nothing anyone could do.  I returned to the car, where my friends had begun to sing to fill the time, earning the friendship of two nuns in the process, who offered to have us at their convent for the night were we to not be able to return to Barga.  But through a chain of phone calls via Marco, we arranged to have Antonio drive the 45 minutes to Lucca to collect us.  It was an entertaining taxi ride as Nick, who was in the front seat, tried to chat with him the entire way.

For Thursday, we planned to go to the nearby town of Bagni di Lucca (Baths of Lucca) to test out the "natural springs," but again misinterpreted the bus schedule and then learned from the girl at the library that they were very commercialized and more like a fancy spa than a series of crystalline pools as we had envisioned.  Relieved that we hadn't made it all the way there only to discover a 50€ entrance charge, we restructured our day and went on the greatest countryside walk imaginable, followed by homemade pizza night (no matter how hard I try, I can't throw pizza dough in the air like the pizza guys do).

a snapshot of our Italian countryside jaunt

Nick, Andrew, Cati & Sydney with Barga behind

Friday we went into Lucca, where we wandered the narrow streets, had another fantastic lunch, met up with Cody, Michael and Wiley who were joining us for the weekend, and rented bikes to ride around the wall around the old city.  It was a beautiful day, which we hadn't had yet on our trip, and a great city.  We caught the 5:00 bus back to Barga, though, in order to ensure enough time for our homemade pasta to dry.  Marco, whose family is Italian, taught us all how to make pasta, which it turns out is really easy. Who knew?  Cati and I topped the night off with a pretty stellar apple cobbler using the recipe of: just add more butter, sugar and cinnamon.  Come to think of it, we didn't take any pictures of the cobbler.  We must have been too excited to eat it.

The next day was our final day in Barga, and it rained quite hard most of the day, so we spent most of it inside next to the fireplace playing cards, baking bread, and just enjoying each other's company.  For dinner, we had an assortment of Italian appetizers as we played cards, including seemingly unlimited meat and cheese, prosciutto and melon, and bruschetta, plus sorbet and prosecco for dessert.  There was some sort of procession in honor of Easter, of which we had a prime view from our balconies.  Then we did a whirlwind cleaning of the house before packing and hit the hay.  The next morning, we said our goodbyes to Barga, turned in the keys to Maria the neighbor, who offered us Easter chocolates, and went to meet the cab.  It must have been Antonio's day off, because it was a different guy, but we were sad to not get to say goodbye to our old friend.

I don't think they get a lot of visitors our age to the town of Barga.  At the end of the week, we had made a pretty big impact on the town and, in addition to Maria and Antonio, the butcher, the gelato woman, the librarian, the wine shop owner, all of the grocery store employees - even the cats knew us well.  That is why traveling to such small places is so great - everyone there was incredibly friendly and helpful, despite the fact that we couldn't really even communicate (except with the gelato woman who was Scottish).  I would go back to Barga.  Despite our endless transportation woes, its obvious isolation, and poor weather, it was an unbelievably beautiful place, and an excellent way to take advantage of life at a time when I'm realizing how quickly it can end.

This was maybe the most photogenic week of my life too.  Here are the pictures if you want to see them all. Italy Album

Spring

 It's a beautiful day to be writing an essay about the public education system in Spain...

Intercambio

One of the things that our program recommends we do while in Madrid is an intercambio, which is a language exchange with a Spaniard who is trying to learn English.  The goal is for you to meet with them and talk half in English and half in Spanish in order to improve both our speaking and listening proficiency.  During the crazy apartment-hunting time at the beginning of the semester, one of our helpers mentioned that she wanted to speak English with us in order to practice, but wasn't allowed.  We got along quite well and decided to do an intercambio once the apartment madness settled down.  Now, we meet almost every week (I'm gone a lot as you may have noticed) for two hours and just chat.  It's super fun - we use it as a chance to try out new restaurants or cafés, and we have a lot in common which makes nonchalantly talking for two hours not a problem at all.

Her name is Irene (pronounced ee-ren-ay) and she is from Logroño, which is a small city in the north of Spain and she's in her last year of studying translation at a university just outside of Madrid.  Her first foreign language is French, in which she is totally fluent as far as I can tell. But she has also been studying English for quite a few years, and as a student of translation, she understands the language perfectly and in general her only hiccups come from pronunciation and fluidity in spoken language.  She is also studying Japanese now, if the three languages weren't enough.  She just got a job (which is a miracle in Spain) with a translation agency, so she has been doing that while finishing up her classes, so there are few windows in which we're both available to hang out for a couple hours.

During our conversations we talk about cultural differences between Spain and the US, grammar questions that we have, politics, school, travel, and just life in general.  You don't realize how stressed it makes you to speak Spanish all of the time until you are with someone who is on an even playing field with you, and it feels so great to ask questions that you've always thought were too dumb to say out loud, like "what is the difference between perdón and perdona?"

Being friends with Irene has been one of my favorite parts of being in Spain, because it has proven to be quite challenging to make friends with Spaniards given my lack of direct interaction with them.  I'm not sure if there are things like this in bigger cities, but they are such a great way to mix cultures, make friends, and learn a language.

Barcelona

Barcelona is magnificent. From the prevalence of the unique Gaudi architecture to the live seafood market to the fútbol pride and surely not least the beach, it is definitely not lacking in culture or things to do. I met up with my friend Dominique (and later with her friend Jalynn) who are studying in Montpellier, France for the semester for the weekend and we saw most of these things, plus a few off-the-map destinations.

Our first day, Dominique and I checked into our hostel, which was quite brilliantly located in the center of Plaça Real, a smaller-scale Plaza Mayor with palm trees, and in a wonderful location. Then we made our way to Gaudi's famous Park Güell, via the amazing food market where we got a free juice from the juice man, and wandered through his architecture-blends-with-nature haven, getting a great few of the city and lots of dirt in our shoes along the way. At a café where we stopped for coffee, I ended up talking to the friendly owner for half an hour about Catalan (the language they speak in Barcelona more than Spanish), politics, traveling, and how he could find a way to pay the fine he got last time he was in the US without being detained next time he enters the country. About halfway through the conversation, he pointed to Dominique and said, she's quite serious," thinking that she had just been super quiet the whole time, though it was just that she hasn't had Spanish in a while.

That night, we visited the Sagrada Familia, which is stunning at night, and dined on paella and sangria, Spanish specialties for Dominique.  The next morning we wandered through the Gothic Quarter, picked up Jalynn from the train station, and got the freshest churros and chocolate (xocolata as they spell it in Catalan) I've had. That evening, we headed to Montjüic, a huge park that was the Olympic center during the Barcelona Olympics and also has a castle, endless gardens, some sort of concert venue (we could hear it), and a museum of Catalunian history that serves as the backdrop to the "Magic Fountain," a colorful dancing fountain not unlike that of the Bellagio in Las Vegas.  After twenty minutes of dancing fountain, we wandered down the hill in search of dinner.  Having spent way too much money on dinner the night before due to stupid tourist syndrome, we went to a one $ restaurant on TripAdvisor that was pretty awesome.  We ordered a paella, which was for two people, and an appetizer, and were going to order more when the waiter stopped us and said that was a bad idea.  And when the paella emerged in a pan that was almost two feet in diameter, I understood.  We did our best to finish off the meal and the incredibly strong sangria, but neither could be completely consumed.

Then, considering that the Barcelona soccer game that we had hoped to catch in the bars had already ended, we shifted gears and celebrated St. Patty's day in the seemingly prolific Irish bars of Barcelona, all of which were decked out in green balloons and Irish flags, and filled with people drinking Guinness and wearing the hats that come with any order of two pints.  It was quite an experience, and we met a bunch of great people.  As our hats said, it was the "friendliest day of the year." 

Our last morning, and with little sleep, we tried to go back to the open market that was so spectacular, but it was closed!  They take Sundays quite seriously in Barcelona, as almost everything was closed, but we managed to find some coffee and churros and get to the neighrobhood of L'Eixemple, home of Gaudi's famous Casa Batllò and Casa Milà.  We parted ways that afternoon, as the other two had an earlier train, and then I headed to the Picasso Museum, which I wanted to see because we're studying him in Art History right now.  After getting lost and wandering through the narrow-streeted neighborhoods where people actually live (I was semi-relieved to see that), I came across another of the city's famous parks, which was literally chock-a-block people.  You could hardly see the grass, there were so many people enjoying picnics in the sun and playing with their kids and their dogs.  It was a great sight, and one of my first moments seeing the actual people of Barcelona rather than just the city.  Still wanting to go to the museum, though, I tried again, only to discover just a couple blocks away that the line was at least an hour long.  With only a few hours before I had to be at the train station, I sadly accepted that it wasn't going to happen and somehow found myself at the beach twenty minutes later. This town has everything, I'm telling you.  The beach area was so great - there were endless rollerbladers skating among the crowds and musicians along the boardwalk flanked on either side by a beautiful beach and seafood cafés.  It was a wonderful way to end my stay.

Internship

In place of one of our classes, we had the option of doing an internship in Madrid. There is a company called EUSA (not sure what the acronym stands for) that finds the internships for us with organizations in sectors that we have expressed interest in.  Though a larger time commitment than classes, with a 15-hour minimum work week and a 20-page parallel project due at the end of the semester, I opted for it due to the opportunity to meet more Spanish people and practice my Spanish in a work setting. Originally I was placed at a business that arranged homestays for American university students, but with such a narrow and U.S.-centered topic, plus only one lady in the office, I wasn't very excited about the internship. So I started over and EUSA found me an internship with a company called OM Premium Sports that does elite sports marketing and publishing. Most of their work involves polo (yes, it's still alive and well), golf, and sailing, plus occasionally tennis, paddle tennis, and equestrian.

My supervisor is mainly in charge of the publishing, which involves a magazine called PoloLifestyle and a mini magazine called Sports Challenge. I spend most of my time translating articles because the magazine is bilingual, but I also occasionally research (and attempt to write) updates on, say, the American Polo Season, or the Volvo Ocean Race.  The translating can get quite tedious and it's amazing how certain texts can be so much more difficult than others, but I have gotten to read and learn about most of what the company does and I have been able to do it in a way that only I can help, which is a great experience.

In addition to the magazine translations, I have translated marketing publications soliciting sponsors for international events, a job that I was at first quite hesitant about - I kept asking my supervisor of someone was going to look over my texts before they were sent out to oh, I don't know, BMW or Michael Kors marketing execs. But then again, I'm the best English speaker they have, so who could do it better? Having been given such an important role in the company, I have taken it upon myself to ask a lot of questions and reread everything a billion times, which isn't hard, as the translating duties only go so far and I spend a lot of time just anticipating a PowerPoint for a meeting on Monday from the lawyers or the review of the new Mercedes Roadster from the car writer.

This past week was when the magazine went to print and things were pretty chaotic. Though it was slightly inconvenient considering that I was traveling to Barcelona for the weekend, I was honored when my supervisor asked me if he could send me some things over the weekend. It turns out this company really needs me, and that is really the most that I could ask for from this experience.

Island Living

Have you heard of the Canary Islands? I feel like they're one of those places that you think you might have heard at one point, but you're not sure if they actually exist.  They do. I went there.  A three-hour flight from Madrid (they are in the middle of the Atlantic off of southern Morocco) took is to Tenerife, a volcano island with black beaches and strong carnaval traditions. 

I went back and forth when trying to decide whether or not to go - I have many trips planned and knew absolutely nothing about this place, but the idea of an exotic island and the fact that it was the week of my birthday made me take the leap and buy the ticket, and as we came in for landing above the clear blue water and plentiful beaches, I decided that it had been a pretty good decision.

After attempts at using public transportation to get to the hostel failed, we grabbed a cab with three Chinese girls who were also using the same, apparently faulty directions to get to our hostel.  The bright yellow hostel was in a group of vacation homes right along the beach (I think it was originally one of them), but really in the middle of nothing.  They greeted us at the gate, and welcomed us to the huge front patio, with a pool, lounge chairs and all.

It was a very laid-back place with few guests, all of whom had the same goal: hang out and enjoy the sun, which was definitely plentiful.  One guy went to Boise State (small world), one from Belgium, a few from Italy. 

We walked for ten minutes along the road to arrive at the little town of Los Abrigos (ironically, "the coats") where we got sandwiches, followed by tropical drinks (I'm legal even in the US now, so I can say that) as we looked out over the ocean. Not a bad life.  Then the boys got involved in a heated soccer match against some little boys and we all eventually made our way back. 

It turns out that I have three friends who play Spades, which I was thrilled to hear, and we had a heated hours-long game on the patio, which Dennis and I sadly lost (pretty much because of me). The next day we hopped on the bus and took the hour ride to Los Cristianos, which is one of the more touristy areas of the island, and spent the day hanging on the beach, swimming in the ocean, drinking rum and coke, eating fresh seafood for lunch, and wandering through the carnival (the Canary Islands are famous for their carnaval celebrations, which last for weeks).  We topped it off with a sunset from the boardwalk and some carnival rides, then grabbed the last bus back, where we chatted with our hostel-mates and made grilled cheese for dinner (at 12:30).

Our last day, we went to the beach across the street from the hostel, grabbed a conejo (rabbit - a specialty) lunch and some relato, and walked back to pack up and head home.  As my grandpa said the other day, there is a difference between travel and vacation and this was definitely a vacation - very little effort or thought went into it, but we all had a wonderful time.

Mi Casa

Sorry for the onslaught of blog posts! Apparently I've been writing them and not posting them...

I already wrote about the process of finding my apartment, but I have never elaborated on the actual apartment.  When I found the room that I wanted, it wasn’t available for three days, so the dueña (landlady) said that I could stay in a small room in another apartment in the same building for a few days so I didn’t have to stay in the hostel.  My first night in this small room, two of the guys who lived there were hanging out playing the guitar, and I walked in and joined them in singing everything from Lady Gaga to Guns-N-Roses.  Over these days, as I met and talked with the people in this apartment, I became more and more excited about living with Spanish students and more and more anxious about how my new apartment (we call them pisos here) would match up.

When I moved on Monday, I was sad to leave, and as they were all still asleep, I didn’t get to say goodbye, so left them a note on the table.  Upon moving into the new piso upstairs (into a room that was much bigger), I discovered that the dueña actually lived there with her family in one half of the apartment, with their own bathroom and kitchen, which they locked off from the other inhabitants.  Additionally there was a Canadian girl who was nice, but never wanted to speak Spanish, and a girl from Holland who also never wanted to speak Spanish.  As I sat in my room, there was no guitar music and no “holas” as the main door opened and closed.  Two days later, I passed my dueña in the hall and spontaneously asked her if I could move back downstairs.  I used the fact that the two girls always spoke English as my excuse (Middlebury does have a rule that we can’t live with native English speakers, though they never actually check up on it), though everyone knew that I actually just liked it down here better. 

So now here I am, in my tiny, yet adequate room, living with Alba, Joaquin, Sofia, Gabriel, Gema, and Ruben – and I love it.  The piso is very long – it’s basically one hallway with all of the rooms, including the living room and the kitchen, behind doors.  My room opens up to a big garden between a bunch of apartment buildings, which is great because it’s really quiet, as opposed to the other side, which is right on a pretty busy street.  One day I’ll try to get up pictures, but for now, use your imagination – it’s probably making it better than it is.  We do have Nintendo 64 though… and a dishwasher.  And an oven, which is apparently uncommon here.  The washer is in the kitchen, and when it’s done (after the spin cycle that sounds like it’s going to lift the whole building off the ground) I hang my clothes on a line outside the kitchen window in a little internal courtyard-type space that goes up all eight floors (being on the first floor, we don’t get a lot of sun in our kitchen).

We have two of everything: bathrooms, refrigerators, microwaves, tvs… but there are seven people that live here, so it doesn’t seem to extravagant.  Trust me, it’s not.  Let’s just say that it’s a very good thing that the dueña cleans the common area twice a week.  But alas, it’s home and every day when I walk in the main doorway and say hello to the door lady as she sits there smoking and watching Mexican soap operas, and then unlock the door to one of my roommates watching MTV or the news, I do feel that this is a great place for me.