Barcelona

Hola mis amistades,

Before I get rolling on this post, you all need to understand one thing: If you are ever in Europe you must visit Barcelona. It was one of the most interesting, beautiful, and liveliest cities I have ever been too, and I think you will know why when I finish.

The entire group, 42 of us, including an eccentric but very funny tour guide named Enrique, spent 3 days in Barcelona and 1 day in Terragona. First Terragona. Terragona is about an hour south of Barcelona on the Eastern Coast of Spain on the Mediterrean Sea. However, the real importance of the city is not its proximity to Barcelona, rather, it lies in its historical significance. Within Terragona, there is an ancient roman city, still largely intact. Many of the towers, walls, and ruins date back nearly 2000 years. We walked on a sidewalk that Romans walked on. For many of you that may not mean much, and it didn't mean much to me either until I learned about the history and architecture of the Romans. However, I won't go into detail here, as it may bore of some you. But as I have said before, I would love to describe anything to any of you if you want more of the details.

Side note: I have changed the settings for this blog so that anyone can post a comment without having to get a user name or sign in. Hooray.

Now the part you have all been anxiously waiting for. Barcelona. As I mentioned earlier, one of the coolest cities I have ever been to. Heres why.

Imaginad conmigo (imagine with me).

A dense city of 5 million people with large avenues and apartments above every store. You are merely ambling throughout the city and you can see a priceless sculpture on every corner. Like our friend Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus). Funny store about this sculpture, many people assume he is pointing towards America. INCORRECT. He is pointing towards Italy, for a reason I have not figured out yet.

You walk down las ramblas (the busiest and most famous street in Barcelona) and you have street performers trying to make a buck with music, magic acts, gymnastics, and the most interesting to me, people who dressed up in crazy costumes such as trees, aliens, or tin men . If you are fortunate to walk down there at night, you have the amazing privilege of having Packs (slang) trying to sell you beer every 10 steps.

You make it down to the oldest part of town the gothic neighborhood, where you can view this cathedral complete with gargoyles just like in the movies.

Perhaps you want to go view some of the works of Antoni Gaudi, a famous spanish Architect. When looking at these pictures, it is important to remember two things. These buildings were revolutionary at the time and Gaudi was fascinated with the interplay between nature and architecture as you can see.

Casa Mila an apartment building built for the priviledged.

Parque Guell now a public park, was meant to be developed for housing. We had lunch here, and since it is a tourist attraction there are many street vendors there. Watch out, they will try to cheat as they tried to cheat a girl in the group.

La Sagrada Familia a church started in the late 19th century and is obvioulsy still under construction. Without a doubt, the most awe-inspiring building I have ever witnessed. The maginitude and grandiose of this building cannot be put into words. I like how it looks like there is a large mouth in the center.

Now you have heard that the people of Barcelona are known for their nightlife. Rumors of bars and clubs that stay open till sunrise with 50 euro entrance fees swirling around in your head. Well let me set the record straight. POR SUPUESTO (of course). I am just going to state a fact. Spaniards dance way better then Americans. However, as amazing the nightlife is, the cab driving is not. Monday night, we were on our way back from a discotecca (basically a club, but a lot more dancing and of course, American Music), and were dropped off a good mile away from our lodging. In a foreign country, lost, and 4:30 in the morning, you can imagine there was a bit of fear running through us. Luckily, we walked for a while and got lucky enough to recognize some landmarks, 45 minutes after we were dropped off.

Lastly, a friend has told you about the wine of Spain. The best in the world according to him or her. You may want to explore a vineyard and winery to see for yourself. Try the winery Cordoniu. Lucky for Allison, Brock, and my loving father, they are going to get to try the finest cava (spanish champagne), straight from the winery itself, in the world when they come to visit.

This concludes the trip. It is my sincerest hope that you enjoyed the ride and will take a week out of your busy schedules to experience these wonders in person.

Hasta Luego

Tommy

Am I still a tourist? I think so

Friends, Michiganders, Countrymen(women too)
Lend me your ears.

Two points to whomever can name where that comes from. I will give you a hint, the author is English. Anyways, a lot has happened since my last post. I am still getting used to editing and using this blog so bear with me. The photos I posted the other day didn't format like I wanted them too, but oh well.

Now some general information.
Life in Denia has been great. Spain works at a much different pace then the states does. For instance, everyone walks very slow and I am constantly wondering why I am flying by them on the sidewalk. Also, the pace of meal times is much slower. More emphasis is placed on the social gathering and talking of a meal then the actual food. However the food here is really good. I haven't had a bad meal since I have been here. They use alot of olive oil and almost everything is fried or cooked. For instance in this past week, I have had fresh fish, rice with vegetables, a morrocan dish with cous cous and rabbit, paella and ham straight from the leg of a pig. It is quite common for families to purchase a leg of a pig and eat from it for a while. I don't like ham in the states, but this ham is so good for one reason or another.

Now the specifics.
Alright enough on that. I had a very interesting and action packed weekend. On thursday, I went out with my spanish brother and his friends. Lucky for me, one of his friends is from Wisconsin and could speak fluent english. He helped me out alot with my Spanish and understanding the finer nuances of the culture. For instance saying "entiendes" which translates to "do you understand me" has some other more sinister meanings depending on the context. Needless to say, I will be using "comprendes" from now on which translates to the same thing without the dangers of the other one.

Friday night, 20 of us from the group went over to a Spaniards house for a fiesta before we went out. Now it will be hard for you to understand just how rare and incredible this actually is for spanish culture. Spaniards don't normally have alot of people over, normally people meet at the bar to hang out. Whats even more inconceivable is that she is a 60 year old Spanish women entertaining 20 Americans who may or may not have played a version of ping pong on her roof.

Saturday night, I went to Valencia (the third largest city in Spain) with my Sister and some of her friends. They spoke too fast for me and I mentally checked out of Spanish land by about 10pm. However Valencia is much bigger and more metropolitan. I almost rather we studied there instead of Denia.

Finally, this morning I was awoken by my sister at 11 pm. Apparently I had told them I might wake up around 11. I thought time was flexible here in Spain???? But I am actually glad I woke up, because they promptly took me and the dogs to the town square for the festival of San Antonio. San Antonio is the patron saint of animals. So the entire town takes their animals to the town square to have the priest flick holy water on them. However, its more of tradition then religious now. I saw ferrets, horses, ponies, rabbits, and of course lots of dogs. It made me miss bailey a lot. However, she would not have been able to handle that many dogs as many of you can attest to.

That was my weekend, and now I need to buckle down for the rest of this week until saturday when we leave for Barcelona. If you have any questions or want me to explain anything in more detail please leave a comment (there will be a link right beneath this post) and I will respond to it. I was hoping this would allow more of a forum for conversation then would a mass email. So long mis amistades.

Tommy

Here are some pictures

I have taken a few (and by a few I mean not many) pictures that I think you all may enjoy. This first one is the view from my bedroom. I feel pretty lucky to wake up to see the mountains everday. That park you can see there is the same roundabout that the university is so you can see how close i live to the school.

This photo is of the tunnel that goes underneath the castle. I was leading the group to an irish pub and I took a wrong turn and we ended up on the wrong side of the castle. Our professor warned us never to take that tunnel especially at night, because of rumors of people getting acosted and raped in there. Ooops. We took it anyways, obviously. Hahah.

And here is a picture of my small room. It is comfy though. Its a little dirty, and my mom cleaned it today so it looks alot better then it does here. She must really like me.

Thats all for now, more to come.

Tommy

Los fines de Semana

Hola los todos,

Wow. Spain has been one crazy ride and I have only been here since monday. It still feels kind of like a vacation and I will be returning home in a week. Lots of things have happened since my last post and I will try to clue you all into at least los puntos interesantes. As you may have already been able to tell, it is getting harder for me to write in English. I am continually wanting to translate things into Spanish, so if you read something that sounds funny in english that is the likely cause.

Ayer (yesterday) we had to watch a movie at 4, which is directly after the siesta i love to take. I woke up from my nap at 430 and was like mierda! ( I will let you look that one up if you so desire). So I turned over and went back to sleep haha. After a fabulous dinner cooked by my mom, all of us decided to go out and see what Denia nightlife has to offer. I won't fill you in on the details as it may worry some of you (well probably only my mom) but it is way different than American nightlife. We didn't get back to our houses till 5 am from the bars. THey don't close at 2 like the bars in the United States. But it is considered really taboo to se pone barracho (to get drunk).

I woke up at noon today to hear my mom telling me to "levantate" which means get up tommy. I must have not understood our conversation the previous today ha. They took me to their house by the sea, where we had lunch and i played guitar with my brother. He saw the shirt i was wearing (it had kalamazoo on it) and he was like "dios mio" and he ran to grab a guitar that was surprisingly made in kalamazoo michigan. It was a heritage guitar. It really is a small world.

Once again, I forgot to bring my camera with me to the internet cafe. I promise next time to upload some pictures. Until then

Hasta Luego
Tommy

The first couple days

Hola los todos,

I have been in Spain for 3 days already. It seems like I just left yesterday. Denia, the city I am living is beautiful. I wake up to sunshine and an excellent view of the mountains surrounding Denia. I live on the same roundabout as the University and nearly get hit by a car every time (Spaniards are crazy drivers) I go to and from the school. I am beginning to get my bearings around the city. I am able to find the stores I need to find and make it home usually without any problems. Denia is not very big, but very dense. A walk from my piso (a flat, kind of like an apartment) to the mediterrean is only 10 minutes, but you pass by 100's of little stores all with apartments above them. Yesterday, we all took a tour of the city hitting the hot spots such as the castle, the catholic church on the water, a coffee shop with ruins from the moors, the port, and many others. At night, a couple of us managed to find our a way to an irish pub that played american music like the beatles, 50 cent, and the Doors. However, our waitress must of been speaking a different dialect of spanish then we were because we litterally had to show her what we wanted. Today, I got to meet my spanish brother, his name is Javi. He is a teacher and really enjoys music. At lunch we spoke about bands like radiohead and Rufus Rainright(I did not spell right). It was much easier to speak to him than my mom, so I hope he is around more often. Oh yeah, and se me rompio una taza esta manana (I broke a glass this morning). Its not easy explaining that and apologizing in spanish. Way to go Tommy.

As for the classes, they are pretty tiring. I spend all my energy trying to understand what the professor is saying in Spanish so it is hard to take notes and think deeper about the material. However, this should improve as my spanish improves (I have my fingers crossed).

I also purchased an international phone too. It was pretty cheap and will allow me to place calls to the united states for 15 cents a minute, and if i receive a call its free for me too. If you want more information about that just let me know

Thats for all now.I will put pictures up as soon as I take them ha. If you have any questions, shoot em on over.

Hasta Luego
Tommy