Ez dakit euskaraz hitz egiten.

According to Google, that means "I don't speak Basque." I have no way of knowing if Google is right or not, but I do know that "euskara" means the Basque language.
Let's talk about Basque for a moment. Having lived in Catalunya for a good three plus months now, I am very used to the bilingualism in daily life - not understanding the advertisements, street signs, or the people talking around me; having announcements and important signs in both Catalan and Spanish; and a general confusion as to whether or not I should be understanding things. Of course, all of this has improved with the ever-so-insignificant gains in my knowledge of Catalan. But I was prepared for it to happen all over again, with renewed force and a great deal less ease in San Sebastian (also known, in Euskara, as Donostia). For one thing, Basque is the craziest language I have ever seen. It doesn't look like anything. It isn't related to anything. It is just alone in the world, doomed to a life of lunacy. Catalan is at least a Romance language that looks considerably like Spanish some of the time - Basque is... not. But from what I saw, Basque is not nearly as strong a presence as Spanish in San Sebastian. The street signs are all in Basque, and the restaurants mostly have Basque names, but as far as people speaking on the street, I only overheard Spanish. With the exception of one group of school-aged kids, I didn't hear Basque spoken at all. I was expecting a much more hardcore obsession with their native language, since the Basque country, unlike Catalunya, actually has a terrorist group demanding freedom from Spain. The Basque country seems to be more proactively seeking independence, yet Catalunya seems to not only be complaining more, but also clinging to their culture a lot more.

Donostia, in turns out, is a much lovelier city in the summer. Having been there in June of... 04? with my family, I was able to see it in full swing. The last weekend of November is considerably less exciting. A beach town is just decidedly less pleasant in 45 degree rainy weather. I should note, I have spent a good deal of time at the Oregon coast in 45 degree rainy weather, but for some reason it was ok then. Stacey and I did, however, squeeze in a great hike to the top of Monte Urgull, where a very large statue of Jesus awaited us, while the weather was good. On Saturday we went to Bilbao for the day, where we saw the Guggenheim (which was AWFUL. The entire second floor was this horrible artist, Cy Twombly, who appears to have done little more than smear canvasses with paint directly from the tube, scribble whatever thoughts he is having over them, or write out some random measurements. I was literally pained that people appeared to appreciate them. I mean, I liked a few of them. He had about thirteen pieces in the entire collection that I think were worthy of being in a museum - I don't know what the hell the Guggenheim was doing with the other ninety two. Wow, am I still inside my parentheses?). And on Sunday, we went to the Palacio de Miramar, which isn't open to the public. The guide book said it was a lovely stroll around the grounds though - perhaps. Perhaps on a nice day, when you only have ten minutes but want to see something, anything. The grounds take exactly that long. There was a nice view, and it was lovely to hear the ocean, but they were small and not very interesting. That isn't to say I didn't like San Sebastian - I did, a lot. It just wasn't that exciting.

But our meals! Oh my. For lunch on Friday we braved a pintxos menu, and after a bit of confusion as to how to order, I had tortilla and a bocadillo de jamon iberico, both of which I eat all the time, but that doesn't diminish their brilliance. Friday night we happened upon a random place in the old town, and had an excellent menu del dia which came with an entire bottle of wine, rather than just a glass. This appears to be standard in the Basque country, as it happened to us at lunch and dinner the next day as well. I had a fish cake that was good minus the fact that it was drowning in mayonnaise, and some incredible beef and potatoes, followed by an Euskara dessert. I don't remember what it was called, but the bottom layer was cuajada, a custard-y curd thing, topped with apple preserves, then whip cream, then honey, and finally walnuts. It was outstanding. The wine we had was great too. Saturday, we had lunch in Bilbao, and had another fantastic menu, where I had chicken paella and a white fish which I will never know the name of, along with a bottle of rioja. More dessert (I looove menus) - this time I had natilla, which is a way better custard than flan is. For dinner that night we went to La Perla, thanks to the recommendation of MTV Spain, which was right on the beach. It was again, FANTASTIC, and they brought us shots of pumpkin soup as an appetizer, along with delicious bread. I had an incredible hake and potatoes dish, and for dessert we had some sort of incredible lava cake with bitter orange ice cream. I pretty much died.

The hostel was kind of weird though - it was just one guy that ran it, and it felt like we were all just staying in his apartment. It was his birthday the first night we were there, and they had a huge party. The girls in our room came home reaaaally drunk and woke me up at four with "oh my god, I fell! I fell! The floor is so slippery... if only the floor wasn't so slippery. I fell, and Michael saw it all. Oh, Michael. Michael saw it all," followed by, "Shut the [fudge] up, the girls are trying to [fudging] sleep, Jesus Christ, would you just shut the [fudge] up!" And then Michael, roommate #3, turned on the television and watched for a good... hour? All of this at four am. Once he fell asleep, however, the fun was not over, since Michael snored with such power and volume that the room was practically shaking. The breakfast was a little sketchy too - there were eggs and milk - but they sat out on the "breakfast counter" 24 hours a day, unrefrigerated. Anyway the point is it was weird. But San Sebastian on the whole was cool. Bilbao was cool too, but we saw less of it.

The night before we left was Thanksgiving, what I thought would be a very sad day. NOT SO! Ana made turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes (from a box... but it's the thought), and I made a chocolate pie (which I am shocked to report actually worked out, even with the difficulty of converting to metric and finding things like vanilla extract, graham crackers, and buttermilk). Erik and Bea (cousins, 21 and 23) came over, and we had a great feast of the whole thing. First course was a noodle/meatball soup they have on Christmas (so we could combine our respective countries' holiday traditions), then the turkey + stuffing + potatoes + broccoli (way over cooked, but oh man! Broccoli! How I love thee!), and finally the pie, which we accompanied with a Catalan dessert wine. It was incredible. I have the best host family ever. I even came home on Sunday to homemade chocolate for merienda. Long live the Huergas.

So now all I have to do is pass my classes (two finals a week for the next three weeks - starting tomorrow, plus a paper and two presentations), complete my "last 20 days in Barcelona" list, and then cry with both sadness and elation at the prospect of coming home.

Vinho? Obrigado!

Those are the two words of Portuguese I know. There are some others I know by accident, because they're the same as Spanish, but pretty much the only one I ever said was "obrigado." All the time. (It means "thank you")

So Lisbon is amazing! Seriously. There's a castle, a river, the ocean, a bridge that looks suspiciously golden and gate-like (see very small picture), a boatload of references to the age of Portuguese dominance of the seas, lots of very friendly people, literally acres of Christmas decorations, and a ton of delicious food and wine. Basically a winner in my book. The majority of buildings in Lisbon are covered in colorful ceramic tiles (azulejo), which makes wandering around even more gorgeous than it is in Barcelona. Also, the city is built on seven hills (as you might have heard), which makes it more... shall we say 'heart-healthy' to get around than Barcelona, which only has a gentle slope down to the ocean, and a ferrocarril up the hill. To add to the San Francisco parallels, Lisbon is also covered with trolley tracks, and lots of both antique and new trolleys make up a good portion of the public transportation system. Basically, there wasn't anything about Lisbon I didn't like. Even our hostel was incredible - it had a kitchen we could use to cook meals (if we wanted), delicious breakfast MADE TO ORDER, linens and towels provided, free internet 24 hours a day, and the friendliest staff I have seen in any place of business in all of Europe. Plus it was on one of the main pedestrianized roads in the middle of downtown, so it was close to everything! This hostel pretty much had it all. They even had a tv room and a DVD collection. Still, the fresh eggs in the morning were my favorite.

I was traveling with Stacey, a friend of mine from IES, and her friend from high school, who is studying in Paris. They remembered their passports, so they were there on Thursday. But on Friday, when I arrived at the hostel at 8:30 am, we set off to conquer the city. We saw the castle, the remains of which date from the 13th century, which is on top of the tallest hill in Lisbon, and took in a beautiful view of the entire city. From there we happened upon a church from the 12th century, and wandered around the neighborhood of Alfama, just a few steps behind a tour group. Actually, we only followed them for about a block and a half before seeing an adorable old man playing with some dogs and had to stop to admire the picturesque-ness of the situation. We had lunch in a big praça (another Portuguese word I know, but can't pronounce, but it means plaza) which was decked out with Christmas decorations, just like nearly every street we saw. From there we were pretty beat, myself especially, since I had left my bed in Barcelona at 4:15 that morning, so we napped in our wonderful hostel before heading out. We wandered around Chiado and the Bairro Alto, and found some delicious Italian food for dinner. I had tagliolini with mascarpone and black truffle - I nearly died, it was so epicly amazing - and we tried some Portuguese vinho verde. Although that translates to green wine, it was actually white. Also, in Lisbon, restaurants put out bread bowls, butter, olives, etc, but if you eat from them, they charge you about two euros per person. Um... not cool. It's times like these when I miss America - wonderful America, with overflowing bread bowls, free water without even having to ask for it, and prompt service. Regardless, our dinner was outstanding, and our waiter did give us some free limoncello, which Stacey's friend Lekha had some trouble drinking. It also made it so we spent an extra twenty (or thirty) minutes at the table, but that's the beauty of Europe! That table is yours, no matter how many people feel like waiting for it! We felt like we ought to hit the bars, since Bairro Alto, where we were at the time, is the area to go out in, but it was still early, and so we got ice cream instead. Then we decided we were all too tired anyway, and went back to the hostel where we watched Love Actually and dreamt of Christmas.

Saturday, we went to Belém, where there is a big monastery built by King Manuel I for himself in the 16th century. It is STUNNING, but I've been to my share of old, religious buildings. Maybe someone else's share as well. I was hoping for some pretender to the Holy Grail or perhaps the body of a king, but I was denied. From there we walked to a huge monument dedicated to Portuguese sailing prowess (Monument to Discoveries) - you can sort of see it in the first picture, and you can definitely see it in the nine others on Photobucket. It's very cool - it has 30 extremely gigantic figures of important explorers and cartographers and such, all clamoring on the sides of a comically undersized ship. I don't know - I have trouble thinking of Portuguese as a huge exploratory force (even though I know they were), because the effect of the Spanish, British, and the French is so much more prominent in the sheer volume of countries they colonized. But I guess Brazil is really huge. From there we went to the Tower of Belém, a tower that is on the river, near the confluence(?) of the river with the Atlantic ocean. It used to be used for defense, and now it is a national monument. It is a really cool building but was literally empty, so it wasn't that exciting. There was a spiral staircase to the top, but it was also the staircase to the bottom, so we had a rough time getting up and then back down through all the foot traffic. From there, I nearly died of hunger, and we had some incredible falafel and batatas fritas (see, I know TONS of Portuguese), before slowly making our way back downtown. We stopped at a covered market that had closed only an hour before, where there was a dance going on upstairs! It was filled with adorable old Portuguese couples. We made it back to town, tried the traditional Portuguese pastéis de nata (cream tart), and decided we couldn't make it to dinner without a nap. Rejuvenated, we headed up to one of the many parks in the city to see the lighting of the city's giant Christmas tree! In fact, it is not a tree at all, but a 72 meter high metal and light contraption which glows green, gold, blue, or multi-colored, and also has animations (of sorts) of doves flying, and of a dove hanging a ribbon or tinsel or something around the tree. It was GREAT. The lighting was accompanied by tons of Christmas music, which was all in English. That was sort of surprising to me, but a wonderful surprise! From there we headed back to Bairro Alto and found one of the restaurants that was suggested on wikitravel (since I now get ALL of my information from wiki sites, apparently). We asked how long the wait would be, since the twelve tables were all full, and she said a table had already paid, so probably ten minutes. We decided to wait, and enjoyed a glass of wine on the street outside as we waited a good forty five minutes, never thinking to change our plans (we had wine! What were we supposed to do, leave our glasses and run?). Dinner was delicious once we were seated though, and I had the special, which was octopus served with roasted potatoes and spinach - and it was amazing. I was nervous about it being octopus, but it was delectable. For dessert, we had chocolate pudding, and then, exhausted from the wait, the meal, and the wonderful conversation, we headed back to the hostel, fighting the crowds of bar-goers (that can't be a word) who were all in the street. Apparently the good bars are too small, so you just order and stand outside all night. Not bad in Lisbon, where it was 65, but that could be rough in other places.

The next morning we once again enjoyed some freshly scrambled eggs, then headed out to do some last minute shopping before heading to the airport. I was glad to be back in Barcelona, but it is much colder than it was in Lisbon, and also I have to go to class here! That dose of Christmas was wonderful though, and I can't wait for them to turn on the lights in Barcelona! All of the Christmas lights are up, but they sit there sadly, just like me, desperate for the Christmas season to be in full swing. Only 27 days until I come home - I'm so happy to be here, but I definitely miss Portland right now. Especially knowing that a lot of my friends are home for Thanksgiving! But I have much more important things to focus on - like the term paper, the presentation, the five written exams, and the oral exam that are all due or taking place between Dec 1 and 18. Oh dear Jesus.
Sorry this one was so long - Lisbon is just THAT awesome.

With each step I am more certain

SO. Rodgers & Hammerstein are pretty much my personal heroes.
This seemingly random factoid comes to you as a way of introducing my London trip this weekend! On Saturday night, Charlotte and I (on a complete whim) bought tickets to see The Sound of Music in the London Palladium, which I SWEAR is famous somehow. I know it is the first place that the Beatles performed live on TV, but I thought maybe there was more? Anyway, it was magical (except that Captain von Trapp sort of was awful), and completely rekindled my love of all things musical theatre-related.

London!
I left Barcelona on Thursday night, immediately after my Latin Am Lit class. Unfortunately, we went on a field trip to the middle of nowhere, and I only got back to Placa Catalunya in time to catch my bus because I ran ahead of the group on the way home. I also ran across the airport to the check-in gate, where I found that the exceedingly slippery marble floors combined with my exceedingly slick black flats make for a very precarious running situation. And, just like last time I had to run to the airport, my flight was delayed. I sat next to a wonderful woman who is American but has lived in Spain on and off for the last 16 years. She lives with her daughter in a little pueblo on the beach just outside of Barcelona, and works in the city. Her mother, who is still in the states, sends them "love boxes" every month packed with US goodies that they can't get here - so we met when she turned to me and asked if I wanted anything from her giant bag of Halloween candy. Three Snickers, two Mars bars, and one Milky Way later, we were pretty much best friends. I lent her my copy of the Economist (I caved and bought it this past week because it not only had Obama, it also had a special report on Spain), we bonded over how difficult the Catalans are to befriend, and we shared the bond that only two stressed women eating chocolate together can really share.
I got to London about 40 minutes later than expected, and took a train into town from the airport, arriving just minutes after the tube closed. Weird side note: while on the train I was listening to my iPod and it froze at about a minute into "Tiny Dancer." This crushed me. I restarted my iPod, but I was desperate to hear the rest, so I went back to "Tiny Dancer," only to have it freeze again at the exact same moment! So basically I was very depressed because I had a taste of Elton but was DENIED. Anyway, I arrived at Liverpool St, David and Charlotte were there to greet me, and we began the very long and painful experience of finding our hostel. After no less than three buses, at least 40 minutes of waiting for buses, and a good 20 minutes of walking, we arrived at about 2:45 am. Char had already checked us in, and we went to bed - only to be woken again every hour by either someone coming back late or the EPIC snoring man in the bunk across from me.

The next day, David carted us around to all the touristy things, after having a delicious English breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, and tea (oh eggs!). We saw Big Ben & Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, a bunch of parks, St. Paul's cathedral, Millennium bridge, the Globe theatre, London bridge, Harrods (where we had afternoon tea), and then we absolutely died and had to have a nap post-tea. It was all cool, but both Char and I had been to London before with our families so neither of us really FREAKED OUT at seeing Big Ben or Buckingham Palace. That night, we made a delicious salad and pasta dinner in David's building (ps I miss chopping things. Weird?), and headed home so we could hopefully fall asleep before snoring man. Unfortunately, snoring man was gone and replaced by NEW snoring man, who snored less frequently but with similar intensity. I fell asleep to the dulcet tones of Amos Lee, and dreamt of Whitman in the spring.

Saturday, we went to Notting Hill, to the Portobello St market. Although I had a mission (candlesticks for Mom!), I was cut short by the impressive price tag on all of the good ones. Antiques are expensive, it seems. The market was incredible though, with basically anything old you could ever want. At the end there were some non-antique stores and food stands, and the entire thing was absolutely amazing. I would venture to say it was the best outdoor market I have ever been to. Definitely the best antique one, because I haven't been to many outdoor antique markets. I bought a gorgeous green & black pashmina, but didn't find the ideal chunky candlesticks I had in mind. I did bullshit my way through a discussion of 1870s style candlesticks, though, with a man asking 400 pounds for the candlesticks I was pretending to still be interested in after seeing the price.
From there we went to SoHo, which is DEFINTELY where I would want to live if I were to have billions of pounds. We wandered a little and had curry for lunch (so good), before discussing where exactly all our money had gone. We walked to Carnaby St, which was apparently THE place for mod people in the 60s (can people be mod? I don't really know how to use that), but now is just obscenely crowded and posh. Or yuppie. However you like. At one end though, is the Palladium, where we were enticed by the Sound of Music, and we bought tickets immediately. We asked about prices and availability, said we'd come back, and turned around before even leaving the building and decided we HAD to go. We killed some time pre-show by heading to Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square, where we had a bit of difficulty getting on the very large and slippery lions. Next we had a beer at a bar where Allison could watch the rugby game, and headed to the theatre, where Allison decided she had to see it as well. The Sound of Music just has a magical power like that. The Mother Superior was SO good, and Maria was good as well, but Georg just failed in line delivery and with his extremely nasal singing. It was the only time I have ever disliked Edelweiss. YEAH. Also, the couple next to us and their very chatty toddler had Chinese takeout and were eating it during the show! So inappropriate! It filled the entire area with the undeniable stench of noodles. After the show, we had Cornish pasties in Covent Gardens and took the tube back to West Kensington before it closed.
Another wonderful night... new snoring man - who by the way when we left that morning had been reading the paper in his bed, surrounded by sleeping people, even though there's a huge, nice lounge that was EMPTY - woke up at 4 am and started getting ready to leave, which involved turning the overhead light on and leaving it on, shaving in the room even though there is a bathroom next door, and generally making altogether too much noise. RUDE.

Sunday, we went to the British Museum, where literally the first thing we saw was the Rosetta stone. Everything else (minus Cleopatra's mummy) was kind of a let down after that. It was amazing but so so huge and we didn't have time to see everything I wanted to see, and we never got to go to the National Gallery, which is similarly huge and amazing. So basically I just want to go back to London. Museums are free there too! What is up with charging for museums? It shouldn't happen. Donations, yes. Admission, no.
We had lunch in Covent Gardens, went back to the hostel for our stuff, and headed back into town where I was told by my cab driver that trains weren't running to Stansted airport because of a breakdown! This turned out to be untrue, but certainly didn't help my Pepto Bismol-levels of stress at the time. Then I was kicked out of security for my contact solution because I didn't have a note from my doctor (airports I have declared and carried it through so far: Amsterdam, Milan, Barcelona), and I bought two little bottles which I was informed were not sterile and not appropriate for contact solution, and went back through. I got to my gate in time for final call, and made it back to Barcelona exhausted and shocked at how cold it was (55 degrees!).

My entire host family is extremely sick, and I have only three weeks until finals and only five weeks left in Spain. All of the Christmas decorations are up in the city but they aren't lit yet, so I am feeling very teased with the prospect of the holidays. Also, I went to Flash-Flash today, a bar/tortilleria where Boom writers like Garcia Marquez used to hang out when they were in Barcelona. It was all white and super mod. I think.
I'm at a weird place, because I am feeling not at all ready to leave Barcelona, but I want it to be Christmas RIGHT NOW. Going to London felt like going half-way home, since everyone spoke English and I had access to a lot more American things I can't get here, and it made me miss home, but I'm so happy to be back in Barcelona. Every time I walk to class I just die of happiness from the beauty of the city and the intense fabulousness of my life.

Day 1

Hello from Barcelona!
I got here around 9 this morning, got to my hostel around 10, and have spent the last 3 hours aimlessly wandering the city (slash reading my book), as I have to kill time until 2:30, when my room will be ready. So far - I heartily approve. I spent my morning drinking coffee and reading my book at a cafe, where I watched an old homeless woman get dragged away by the police. After about an hour and a half of that, I relocated to this big park-filled street, where I read my book at intervals between much more serious people watching. Also, I have ALREADY seen someone in a UO shirt. Small world much?

Well I don't really have news, except that I am here and safe and, as expected, extremely rusty at Spanish. No one has understood me the first time around yet. Good sign...
I sat next to the same Spanish family on both flights (weird, right?) who were very nice but their son who was next to me was sniffling the entire way. Thirteen hours of listening to a 15 year old blow his nose. Fun. But! How random! The Thin Man was one of the movies available on the plane! I had fallen asleep in front of it the night before, so I got to finish it, which was great. Um... that's all... again, I'm really just killing time, so I apologize for the boring content of this post.

[Later that day:] Well my room is fantastic - apparently "shared bathroom" means you have a sink and shower in your room but you share three toilets with the four other people in the section. And my hostel is just very cute overall. Well decorated. Kudos to Hostal Girona. It's not really hostel-y though. It's pretty much a cheap hotel. Or an expensive hostel with individual rooms? I spent the rest of the afternoon eating, wandering and napping, since I don't really know what else to do. I left around 7 to find a place to grab tapas, and ended up wandering around for so long that I have no idea where the place I ended up eating is located, and I don't think I will find it again soon. I think that I am going to call it a night, but tomorrow I meet my host family, and find the study abroad center, and start freaking out about classes and placement exams! Very exciting!