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Student Stories from Around the World

Category: Spain (page 9 of 9)

Great Mosque of Córdoba

November 3, 2010 / / 1 Comment

Bridge to la mezquita de Córdoba. Muy bonita.

This past weekend, we had a class trip to Córdoba to see their famous Mezquita (mosque), which is now a Catholic cathedral. The history of the building is both impressive and a bit loco. The building was started sometime around the seventh century, and has traded hands between Visigoths, Romans, Muslims, and Spaniards. Thus, in this one building you can see more architectural elements than any other in Spain. I’m no architecture enthusiast, I struggle to pick out differences in Gothic and Baroque art even after taking Spanish Civilization (sorry Professor Miguel-Pueyo), but I still loved seeing it. Just walking through the different sections is like walking through a large museum, but it isn’t a museum!

The cathedral in the very middle of la mezquita

There are four Islamic sections, and then, all of a sudden,  acathedral stands in the middle, overlapping in all but one of the Islamic sections. All around the cathedral are the typical Islamic arches, certainly lending you a very odd feeling when you walk through them into the cathedral.

Oh, and did I mention the Phonecian church that’s buried underneath? That fact wasn’t passed on by word of mouth (I wonder why…) and so not many years back when some flooding occured the marble flooring needed to be replaced. Workers must have been shocked when they found out there was an entirely unexplored church below! You don’t need to hear an essay from me on this, so check out good old wikipedia for better descriptions and some good citations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Mosque_of_Córdoba

Double arches in the Islamic section. The second arches were added when massive additions were made to the building.

In closing I’ll leave you with a 3d digital video of the Mosque, somewhat hilarious, but very well done:

Spain Excursions

October 26, 2010 / / 0 Comments

A recap of my travels in Spain: Google maps

On our first free weekend we headed down to Salobreña, the closest beach to Granada, about 40 minutes via bus. After the first week of orientation it was really nice to lay out, relax, and swim. The Mediterranean ocean was very, very pure, and although I’ve heard that there are nicer beaches in Spain, the water made it a great afternoon.

At this point, I still had my cast from my karate incident prior to arriving in Spain, and so when I saw a Spaniard swimming with one arm above the water like myself, clearly, I had to go say hello.

After my trip to Morocoo, which I’ve already posted about, I had a short break before classes so I headed up to Valencia with some friends from our program. They knew a Spaniard named Miguel who came to the States last year to teach Spanish at their school, Central College. He just moved up to Valencia so we got to explore the city with him. Their science park has some of the coolest modern architecture I’ve seen here, take a look at my Picasa webalbum to see all the photos.

Two of my Valpo friends, Emily Bahr and Madeline Horvath, met me in Valencia and we headed to the Oceanografíc, the largest aquarium in Europe! Highlights were aquariums with hallways through the middle of them (so close to sharks!), an amazing dolphin show, and some really lively wetlands:

Before I headed back to Granada I decided to catch a Bullfight (corrida de toro) in Madrid. Whether you’re a fan of bull fighting or not (I’m still undecided), it’s a key part of Spanish culture that I don’t think will be going anywhere soon.

More recently still I headed up to Barcelona for a long weekend, Allie in Reutlingen has already written about our time there, check it out. One of my favorites, Mercat Boqueria, a bustling market over 400 years old. Amazing mangos:

Las clases en España

October 20, 2010 / / 0 Comments

The Spanish University system, at least the system at the Centro de Lenguas Modernas, is a little different that what I’m used to in the U.S., but I have adjusted readily, and I already enjoy it’s perks. My schedule:


Interior patio of the CLM, classrooms encircle the patio and have windows to the patio and outside!

Monday & Wednesday:

8:30 – 10:30: Gramática

10:30-12:30: Cultura Islámica en España

12:30-14:30: Introducción al Español de los Negocios

18:00-20:00: Producción Oral y Escrita (POE)

Tuesday & Thursday:

8:30 – 10:30: Literatura Hasta Siglo XVIII

I have class straight from 8:30 to 2:30 on Mondays and Wednesdays, a little intense, but it makes my Tuesdays and Thursdays much lighter. Also, Aurelio, my professor for Islamic Culture, is absolutely hilarious, so I get just as much comedy as I do lecture from 10:30 to 12:30. Every teacher usually gives you a ten minute break in the middle, and some stretch time before and after each class, which maintains levity, and keeps our eyelids open.

My classes are challenging, there’s lots of new vocabulary, but the professors know we’re here to do more than study, so we don’t have too much homework. Between my grammar and POE classes, I have already become a lot more comfortable in using the weirder tenses of Spanish, and I know I will be more fluent than ever when it’s time to head back to the States.

A closing Spanish idiom: To say someone is a huge gossip, or just doesn’t watch what they say, you say that they don´t have hairs on their tongue. That’s my favorite so far, more to come.

Morocco Exchange, I met my Morrocan self

October 5, 2010 / / 2 Comments

Of all the things I could write about after my time in Morocco I would have to choose my meeting Zakaria, a Muslim from Tangiers about my age and stage in life. Our first stop was to meet him and Kawtar, an assistant at a Women’s center, to sit down over tea (very, very good mint tea) and have a discussion about our cultures. Our group of 15 began a hold-nothing-back conversation on Islamic/Arabic and American stereotypes, the veil, and politics, and we ended up focusing a lot on marriage.

Things got pretty interesting when Zakaria and Kawtar disagreed on many fronts and weren’t afraid to say so, or even argue heatedly in front of us! That’s one thing about Moroccans, they can disagree about something and still get along great. In this instance, Kawtar wore a veil, but was generally liberal in her view of Islam and in her beliefs on gender roles in marriage. As we continued, Zakaria, a more conservative fellow, but not over the edge, defended his view of husbands, wives and arranged marriage.

Kawtar and Zakaria

Although initially masked by our presuppositions of arranged marriage, I was able to see past stereotypes to see that Zakaria’s desire for arranged marriage was not for the sake of being traditional or controlling, but with the belief in and intent of creating husbands and wives that are committed to loving each other and raising their children well. He could have used the word love a little more in my opinion (it also would have made him sound a little better to our group of mostly girls, I think), but I felt a great agreement come upon me when I began to see what he desired and how much I desired the same for my fellow Christians. Among other things, I had noticed just how similar Zakaria was to me in his personality and in the way he spoke of his faith. It was like I had met a Moroccan John Webster. So later, after our group discussion I went up to him and we ended up in a friendly but intense discussion of Islam, Christianity, and Jesus. Wow! I was really happy we were both so interested and willing to share our beliefs with each other. I was dumbfounded by how similar Islam appears to be to Christianity. Just the way he spoke about his faith was very similar to the way I do, just substitute the Allah for Jesus. One small change that changes everything.

Rather than go down the rabbit hole into this discussion, I only wish to share just how surprised I was to meet someone that should have been more different from me than anyone I had ever met, only to find that he was more similar to me than most of the people in my group of Americans. And I’m not just talking faith, this guy likes skiing (yes, in Morocco) and action movies too.

Morocco in Pictures

October 3, 2010 / / 3 Comments

Last Friday night our group of 41 (38 girls and 3 guys, but that’s a post for another time) headed out to Algeciras to stay in a hostel in preparation for our morning ferry to Tangiers (here’s a map of our entire trip). We then split into three groups (phew!) and set off with our leaders from Morocco Exchange, a fantastic organization dedicated to changing stereotypes between western society and Arabic, Islamic, societies by means of short visits to Morocco. I thought it best to share the trip with pictures, click a thumbnail to see it in full size.

Bottom line: Morrocan/Islamic/Arabic culture is not what we think it is in The States, even if you have tried to guard yourself from media stereotypes. Every Moroccan I met wants peace, dialogue, and understanding between our cultures despite our differences in religion.

Evenings in Granada

September 22, 2010 / / 1 Comment

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBBaCldMNdo]

Host Family

September 19, 2010 / / 1 Comment

One of the big perks of my program is that we stay with host families, which greatly increases the Spanish we are exposed to and forces us to speak in Spanish. Last summer I went to Chile, and while that’s where I really became fluent, I would have learned a lot more had I not been speaking English in the dorms our group stayed in.

My host mom and dad are on the elderly side, super kind, a little quiet at times, but very reasonable and communicative. At first I was concerned they weren’t going to speak to me much, but I soon learned that they are more used to students with only a few classes of Spanish experience. I have to ask them to repeat themselves often, but we understand each other pretty well most of the time. On the first day of orientation my host parents walked me and some other students that live near me to the Centro de Lenguas Modernas, which turned out to be about a 20 or 30 minute walk (Google maps). We’re all ready to have super calves by the time we leave in December.

In Spain, meals are between 8-9AM, 2-3PM, and 9-10PM. Sometimes people have a “merienda” around 6 or 7, which is usually a coffee or a beer with tapas. Lunch is the large meal of the day, dinner is lighter, usually just one plate and maybe a salad. Meals are when I interact the most with my host parents, Ascension and Miguel (I think, still haven’t gotten clear on his name…). Miguel always has the TV on during meals. While at first I found this annoying, it’s really a blessing in disguise because it’s a great source of conversation, and great exposure to the language as it’s spoken naturally. I can’t wait to be able to understand the awesome Spanish soap operas on Univision when I return to the states.


My typical lunch in Granada.

When I mentioned to my host mom that although I don’t eat red meat I do eat chicken and turkey, she of course thought I realllllly love chicken and turkey. I don’t think I’ve had a lunch or dinner without a bird in it yet!

Hot chocolate and churros: an excellent greeting

September 11, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Two flights, three subway rides, a bus, a taxi, and 24 hours later, I’m here in Granada. I was about to collapse from lack of food, so I put my things down, told my loved ones I had made it, and headed right out to find food. Apparently this city really never goes to sleep (except for siesta, which is during the day, maybe there’s a connection to the suffering economy here…) so I knew there would be lots of places open. It didn’t take me long to see Cafe Futbol, a place I had heard about many times from the Valpo group that came last year. It was hot chocolate (chocolate hecho) and Churros time. Definitely hit the spot. Chocolate hecho is so thick, it’s almost like pudding. It might have been a bit of a sugar overdose on my already tired system, so now I’m off to sleep before I start writing gibberish.

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