Nunca Digaís Adios

This will be the last log post for my Spanish blog.  It's been a good 28 blog posts of about 17 weeks describing my life out of the country and I really want to thank everyone by saying how I've been feeling since I got back.

At our farewell dinner about three weeks ago, we were nominating people for "Most Changed". A friend of mine saw that he got several votes and said, "Wow, I've changed?  I didn't even notice."  I chuckled, but he was right.  You don't notice that you've changed.  Four months may seem like a long time, but only because it is.  I had been separated from the world I had lived in for 21 years and forced, I use it loosely, in a new one for four months. Four months of successes, four months of failures, four months of growth.  I am definitely not the same person I was at the beginning of the trip, and even though another friend of mine asked me if I had changed in a good or bad way, I honestly don't know.  Only time will tell, but as of right now, I'm happy with where I am and I'm betting on it being a good change.

About a month before I was to leave Granada, I began having flashbacks.  I saw Central Ave, I saw parts of Amherst, I saw Rosemary Pool.  Now, a week back in the US, I am having flashbacks of the Isabella and Columbus statue, I am seeing Carcel Baja, I am seeing the moment where I broke down and cried on the plane from Madrid to JFK airport.  I don't have flashbacks of the amazing people I've met, but not because I can see them on Facebook.  I have pictures of all of my favorite locations in Granada on my computer as well, so that can't be it.  I don't have flashbacks of people because I have memories and they're a lot stronger.  They will stay with me longer than the images of walking by the Isabella and Columbus statue on the way to school.  Memories that I'll be able to search for when I want to return to Marisma and remember playing quarters (with un centimo) with Spaniards or tanning in Lorca Park.

But now, what do I do with those memories?  I've already done the most that I can do with them.  I've let them become me, mold me, shape me into the changed person I am.  If I need to actually go back to them, I have my blog posts, my pictures, and this collage that I finally made.  That will be the last image you'll see on this blog.  I can close my eyes and go there, escape there, return there.

For those of you who are still living or living in Granada, remember you can always go back even if the scary part is not knowing when.  Remember all of the people who went through it with you because those are the people you can reminisce with. A lot of people here only want to hear two words about your time abroad.  But we're here.  Don't forget to remember!

Barcelona: Gratis No Significa Gratis

My last big excursion: Barcelona.  This is also probably my second to last blog post since I return to the states in 10 days.  But let's drop the countdown because life is better when you don't fixate on the future or the past and just live in the present.  That is actually similar to the ideology of Gaudi, a Spanish, Barcelonan, architect from the late 1800's.  But more on him later.

We woke up bright and early on Thursday, missed our classes, and headed to Barcelona via plane.  We made a killing, 32 € round trip.  That's unheard of anywhere else.  So we land and we take the metro, which is super easy to use, and find the street near our hostel called Las Ramblas.  This is actually one of the main streets of the city and it had lots of street vendors and La Boquería, a marketplace where they have fresh food every day at low prices.  This became our new favorite spot and I even got to try out some pitaya, or dragonfruit.  The first thing I bought was a dragonfruit slushie.

Next, we had heard about this Museo de Chocolate, or in Catalan (a dialect of Spanish) Museue de la Xocolata, or in plain English: The Chocolate Museum.  A quick side note on Catalan: Barcelona is in a section of Spain called Cataluña and their official language is actually Catalan.  This means that all of their signs are in Catalan, which I can make out some of the words because it is so similar to Spanish, but there are definitely words that threw me for a loop or two.  There was (and still is) a time when Cataluña wanted to be separate from Spain and be their own country.  Nowadays, if you see a bandera, or flag, with 4 red and yellow stripes with a blue triangle and white star, it is someone who supports the nation of Cataluña. The official flag of Cataluña is without the blue triangle and star.

Let's return to the Chocolate Museum.  Upon entry, you receive a free mini chocolate bar, which was good because I was getting tired.  Then we walked through where we found out about the manufacturing, the history, and what chocolate can be used for.  We also saw exquisite art made entirely by chocolate.  There was Spongebob, Tom and Jerry wearing the two Barcelona team shirts, and even a model of the Sagrada Familia.  We'll talk about that beautiful thing later.


After we finished in the museum, we went to their cafe and sat down and drank a coffee.  After about 20 minutes, la camarera, or the waitress, came over and brought us a pile of broken pieces of chocolate.  They were going to throw it away, but because we were there, they gave it to us.

Then we went to Park Guell, a Gaudi creation, on a hill that overlooks the entire city.  It was simply amazing.  We stayed there for hours and even made friends with a kid from New York.  We just talked and watched the shadow come over the city.  Then we took the metro back to our hostel.

That was essentially our first day.  Now, onto the free tour.

On our second day, we went to this plaza where we utilized Runner Bean tours, a "free" tour group that asks for donations at the end.  On this Friday we chose the Gaudi tour.  He is the most famous Spanish architect and has constructed plenty of the buildings in Barcelona.  Gaudi really is a genius.  At every stop your breath would escape in awe.  But the cherry on top of the cake is the Sagrada Familia, which means the Sacred Family.

The Sagrada Familia is a huge cathedral that is still in the process of being built.  Estimates say that it will be completed in 13 years for the 100th anniversary of Gaudi's death.  The reason that it has been taking so long is because Gaudi was meticulous in his execution.  There is so much detail on the outside depicting the nativity scene.  But the outside is nothing compared to the inside.  The inside has brilliant stained glass and columns that reach all the way to the top an then branch off giving a tree like sensation.  It looks so modern and is definitely the best church, and even basilica that I have ever seen.

After we saw the basilica as thoroughly as possible, we went to the pier.  Here, we started to hear music, so obviously we followed it and happened upon a free concert.  We stayed and chatted with Spaniards and listened to this alternative rock band that the audience loved.  Though we ran into two French people who thought that the band stunk.


So that was day two, and with all the walking and metro, we were exhausted.  But we still had one more full day, so we had to take advantage of it.  We did another Runner Bean tour where we explored the old part of the city.  This is where they had the cathedral and other churches and the Jewish quarter.  We saw roman ruins built right into walls of places where people currently live and, since it was wedding week in Barcelona, we saw future grooms dressed up in dresses.


After the tour, we went to the Picasso Park which is right next to the museum.  It was really relaxing, but we actually almost got attacked by a family of geese.  The little geese-lings were walking around and eating near where people were sitting and the parents were hissing at all of us and at one point it looked like they were rearing up to attack us.

When we were done with the park, we started walking back to our hostel, but we came upon a wine tasting.  For 5 € we got 6 glasses of wine from all over Spain.  It was a lot of fun and I realized that it would've stunk to have gone to Europe and not have done a wine tasting.

Later that day, we returned to Park Guell and drank some beers and played cars and looked at the city.  We met up with our friend from New York and he joined us in a game of President.  Everyone has their own rules on how to play, but mine are definitely the best.  And since they were my cards, we played my rules that have been passed down through the Cotton family.  Unfortunately, I didn't represent and the girls we were playing with were dominating, but it was still extremely fun.


We got a little tired and decided to go to the hostel to nap for an hour.  Unfortunately, we napped too long and it turned into a 9 hour sleep.  We woke up and got packed and went to the airport to fly back to Granada.

Cádiz: Muchas Personas en La Bañera

Where we last Jacob on his adventures through Spain, he had just climbed the interesting mountain El Torcal.  On his dramatic descent, he closed his eyes and went to sleep for two hours.

When I awoke, we were in Cádiz. It was 9:00 PM, and we could see the sun setting through the clouds that were covering the majority of the sky.  We had looked at the weather report before we got there and were expecting a full day of rain for the following day, Saturday.

Once we landed at our hotel, we dropped off our bags in the hotel.  Not being one to waste any time, I told me roommates we should go out on the town and find something to do.  We left in search of a place to find a beer or something and we happened upon a small pastelería, or baked good shop, that sold Cruzcampo, a beer that beer-enthusiasts wouldn't touch with a 20 foot pole.  We took our beers to the beach and found a jetty, or éspigon and climbed out to the end of it.  We drank, shot the breeze, and just relaxed.  Drops of water would bounce off of the rocks and land on us like a mini rain cloud and the waves kept the rhythm in the background.  This was a great way to start a beach vacation.

The next day can be described as RAINY.  We had a panoramic tour of the city, historically known for the only part of Spain that Napoleon could not conquer and where the first Constitución de España was signed exactly 200 years ago in 1812.  We followed the tour guide and saw some monuments while fighting some strong winds and sometimes even stronger downpours.  Half of the group opted to stay in the bus when we needed to walk around, but not I.  The first place we went to was El Museo de Cádiz, which has ruins from the Phoenician times, which was a really, really long time ago.  Before the Greeks!


After the museum, we went to the cathedral, which was definitely one of the simpler churches we've seen thus far.  They did have a crypt under the church that held two saints, so we obviously had to go down there.  What I found more interesting was the echoing.  It had a sort of whisper spot where I could here my friend whisper from across the room.

Unfortunately, after we left the museum, the rain hadn't ceased.  There were puddles everywhere that formed a layer of water.  I immediately regretted wearing shoes instead of flip flops.  We swam, practically, to the bus stop and took the bus back to the hotel.  Needless to say, we were soaked through and through, so we changed right away.

Instead of putting on actual clothes, we put on bathing suits, t shirts, and grabbed a towel.  Even though it was still raining, or should I say downpouring, we didn't want to miss a beach day.  We ran across the street to the beach and started throwing a frisbee.  We tried to keep running to keep the blood flowing, so we ran back and forth throwing the frisbee.  Then we decided that it was too cold and that there was no way that the water could have been colder. We ran full throttle into the ocean.  Turns out it wasn't unbearable at all.  We actually spent more time in the water, but we soon became cold and returned to the safety of the hotel.  Within an hour things had changed.

The sun was out, it was warm, and it was only 4:00 PM.  We returned to the beach to make the most of our day.  Slowly, people from my program joined us and tanned and just relaxed along with us.  After, we decided to actually go into the town.  There was not a cloud in the sky.  We walked along the beach and we found this tide pool where there were many starfish, sea slugs, and coral pieces.  Though marine biology isn't my forte, I had a blast playing with all of the little creatures.  We also got to see the sun set, which means it just went over to the United State because Cádiz is on the Atlantic.  It was really nice.

After the sun set, we ventured through the city to find food.  The first place we went to had fried fish, a favorite among Cadizians, but moriscos, or seafood, aren't my favorites.  Then we went to this classy burger place.  When I say classy, I mean it was nicer than five guys, but still not a 4 star restaurant.  That really quenched my hunger and we all decided to go home.  On the way, there were these fountains that changed color.  I had to stop and look due to my ADHD.

We got back to the hotel and decided we wanted to go swimming again, for the third time that day.  We got dressed in our suits and went into the water.  It was far colder, so we only ran in and then out.  Then we just sat on the beach and looked out into the ocean.

Sunday, an actual beach day.  We started the day off with a boat tour of the Cádiz Harbor which was really nice because we got to see the city from the water.  It lasted about an hour, which didn't feel like long enough.  Then we took advantage of the day and went straight to the beach.  I really didn't come to Cádiz for anything other than the beach.  I had a field day here because I found so many things wash up on the shore.  This included the remains of: una pez, a fish, un anguila, an eel, and un congrejo, a crab.  I won't show you the pictures because they are kind of disgusting.  But this was essentially our adventure through the beach paradise of Cádiz, my second favorite city of Spain thus far.  Tomorrow I leave for Barcelona, which will be my last big trip for the semester.  I'm sure you will get a long post about that as well, so keep checking back!

Playas, Cruces, y Piedra

Hi all, it's been a while since I wrote and now I have a decent amount of things to write about, so here we go.

Firstly, I went to a beach town last weekend called Nerja.  It's also known for its caves, but since this was a day trip, we didn't get a chance to see them.  Instead, we walked around the town and settled down on a beach.  Unfortunately, I fell asleep in the sun and got a pretty bad burn that has since healed.  It was still a lot of fun and it definitely has the best beaches within Granada's reach.  The sand was really fine and the weather and ocean were beautiful.  We actually took a minute and submerged ourselves in the Mediterranean.  All in all, it was a great beach day and I'm glad I can cross that off my bucket list.

Fast forward to this past week.  We had a half day on Thursday due to Día de la Cruz, a day dedicated to the cross that Jesus was hung on.  All over Granada were crosses decorated with red flowers.  Then, there would be scenes or objects or signs set up around it.  One common one was an apple, manzana, that was stabbed with tijeras, scissors.  The symbolism here is that apple is also known as pero in Andalucia, which is more commonly known as "but".  By stabbing it, the people of the church are saying that you shouldn't have anything bad to say on this day.  If you find yourself saying, es bueno pero-- you should cut yourself off.

Alhambra at night

This is also a big festival for the Albaicin, the originally Muslim area of Granada.  It feels like a big hike to get up there, but we made it up eventually and started Tapas Hopping, a term that is like bar hopping, but since tapas come with the beer we call it Tapas Hopping.  I wouldn't say that the food was better nor were the drinks cheaper, but it is something to say that you've been Tap-hopping in the Albaicin, ok I just made Tap-hopping up.

Friday, we are on the road to Cádiz, my favorite other Andalucian province besides Granada.  As you may recall, I went there for Carnaval back in February and I fell in love.  Since that's a blog post within itself, I'm going to save it for later.  However, I will talk about El Torcal, this interesting mountain range.  There is a legend that people from under the sea were banished by the sea god to live up in these mountains.  The scientific aspect is eerily similar.  Now, without going into tectonic plates, let's just say that he earth moved in such a way that pushed what used to be the sea floor up.   Since this material was softer than normal earth, the wind and rain carved a unique design that makes it appear as stacks of rock pancakes.  It was amazing and really fun to hike up.

At the end, we got to see the view of Málaga, and Andalucian province, from really high up.  We could see the capital, Málaga, and even the Mediterranean, though only faintly.  This is because the weather hadn't been too great.  We hit two patches of rain on the drive to El Torcal, but ultimately, the weather calmed itself while we were at the top.  There were a few people who slipped in the mud, me only barely, but it was still a hike worth doing.

So, that's all of the news I have for now, but expect the Cádiz post very, very soon.  It'll be worth the wait.

La Apujarrrrrrrrrrrrrras

Oye, oye, oye!  So, this last week hasn't been super exciting, but I did do a lot of things.  Firstly, I went to see the great Catedral, or Cathedral, of Granada.  It has been on my bucket list, one that I created last week, so I thought I should knock it off since it should be something I see while I'm in Granada.  I actually got in for free, it usually costs 4€ for the museum and 4€ for the actual cathedral.  I have three friends in an Art History class and I tagged along kinda not expecting to get in for free, but I did.

Anyways, we started with a small tour of the outside and the Gothic features that this cathedral possesses, all in Spanish, so I'm glad I could keep up with all of the technical terms.  Then we went inside the museum, which is actually known for the tombs that it possess.  When Granada was conquered by the Reyes Católicos, Isabel and Fernando, in 1492, los reyes decided that they wanted to be buried there.  Thus they commenced the building of the cathedral.  To this day, they are buried there with their daughter, Juana la Loca, and her husband Felipe, of Germany.  Also, Juana's brother is there, but he isn't as well known and he died alone. ¡Que Triste!

After the museum we went into the main building.  What I really liked about this cathedral is that it isn't overdone like Notre Dame or too plain like others that I've seen.  It has elegant white walls with gold trim.  It is very open and is actually used to house the processions during Semana Santa, or Easter Week.  Another cool fact about this building is that it was actually designed by a Granadian...in Spanish it's granadino.  But yeah, it was really neat.

That blue in the back is the Mediterranean...the far back

On Saturday, we went to La Apujarras, a mountain where several small towns are housed.  We drove up to the top and actually hiked down.  We from this height we could see the Mediterranean Sea, which was cool.  We also got a glimpse to a town few people go to because they are so hard to get to.  When we drove, we swerved left and right up a narrow road.  They actually have their own culture because, as stated before, Granada was conquered in 1492 and the Muslims fled up to these hills and were safe.  So a lot of these towns resemble Morocco.  It was fun, but still not the greatest excursion, I mean, we went to Rome and are going to Cádiz.

This is a long weekend here in Granada and I don't know entirely what I'm doing, but I'm hoping to see las cuevas, the caves, of Nerja.  So look forward to next week's post.

Irlanda: Donde el Guinness Prueba Mejor

My last blog post (for now) will be about my 36 Hour Power Trip to Cork, Ireland.  Not "power trip" in the sense of me becoming president of Ireland, but more along the lines of fitting as much of Cork and the surrounding areas as possible into 36 hours.  Yes, this means sleep became less of a priority, but let's get started.

We landed on Friday night and the first thing we did was get a genuine Guinness beer from the bar across the street from our bed and breakfast.  Otherwise, we were all wiped out from playing with kids on the plane that we could barely keep our heads up from the table.  We called it a night and went to bed.

The next day we awoke early to catch our included breakfast, which came along with the bed.  This turned out to be great because it was a huge meal.  We started with cereal, or really dried fruits/nuts and milk.  Then we moved on to the main course.  Yes, breakfast had a main course.  This included eggs, two slices of thick bacon, a sausage, a sweet bread, a half of tomato, and beans.  The beans felt like the odd men out, but I included them in my stomach nevertheless.  We were so full by the end that we knew we weren't going to need another meal until dinner, if then.

Next, we walked into town to see the sights, which was just a center of a small city.  Cork is really comparable to Granada, minus the cheap drinks and the food that comes with the cheap drinks, free of charge.  It had a nice small center where the majority of stores were, but instead of shopping, we went to the Tourist Office to find out what to do.  In here they told us about the Paddy Wagon, a bus tour that would take us to three different places around Cork.  She highly recommend that we go because the guide is really funny and it is a great way to experience Ireland in such little time.  We, of course, agreed and headed back to the center because the bus didn't arrive for another hour.


In the center we found the English Market, a place that the Queen of England had just gone.  It was a market with super fresh everything: fruits, vegetables, meats, and the like.  Everything looked tempting, but we were so full that smelling the food deterred our stomachs from thinking about eating more.  It was still cool to see a local place to get the freshest of goods.  After the English Market, we went into a store called Penney's.  This place had the most ridiculous deals that I have ever seen.  Sunglasses for only 3€50, bathing suits for 4€. And that was just in the guy's section.  Needless to say, I bought a bathing suit for Cádiz, a place you will hear more about in the near future.  But as soon as we were done here, we had to go and catch the Paddy Wagon.

The Paddy Wagon is where we spent most of our day.  It was going to take us two three towns: Kinsale, Blarney, and Cobh all in around 6 hours.  Our first stop was Kinsale, a small port town 20 minutes from Cork.  It didn't have anything special, but it had the feel of an Irish or British town.  I can't really explain what that is, so you can see the pictures on the side to understand what I'm trying to convey.  We walked around this town for a while and took some pictures and then headed off to Blarney.

Blarney is the major site to go to if you are anywhere near Cork because you get to kiss the infamous Blarney Stone.  This stone, said to be given to Blarney by a witch, grants the kisser the gift of gab where everyone will believe everything they say.  How's it working so far because none of this actually happened! I'm just playing with you, but let's get back to the story because Blarney Castle, which houses the stone, is my favorite part.

So, we enter the grounds and the first place that we see is the Dungeon.  Naturally, we have to check it out.  It was cool because we actually went underground, under the castle to where they likely kept the people they never wanted to see again.  There was no escape from this cave except for the way you came.  We had several people bump their heads on the low hanging rocks, and I got a small scrape from shimmying my way to the back side of the cave.  Once we got there, we looked all over the wall for there were people's names carved or written on it.  Not from the times of the Celts, but it was still pretty cool (and kind of similar to a scene on Lost).  Now that we had gone underneath the castle, it was time to go on top of it.

The climb up was a pretty treacherous one, or it would have been if they didn't give us a railing to hold on to.  It took a while, but we finally made it to the top of the tower where you could see the rolling hills of Ireland on all four sides.  There was a small line to kiss the Blarney Stone, the magical stone atop the castle.  Once you get up to the front of the line, you see an old man, with pure white hair, who holds you as you lean back over the edge of the castle to kiss this particular rock.  As you lean back you can see just how high up you are.  Soon it was my turn and I leaned back kissed the rock and came back up.  There was a guy taking my picture so I could pay 10 € later if I wanted it developed.  And that was it.  Though short-lived, I'm glad I got to do it.

We descended the castle and saw all of the rooms that it held.  There was a kitchen, dining room, murder room, etc.  The murder room was where they poured boiling liquids down on top of invading enemies.  Then we went outside and found the Poison Garden.  Now, I thought that it was just a name, but the sign told me otherwise.  It told us to not touch or smell the plants and that a child should be holding their adult's hand at all times.  This is because there were some magically toxic plants including: wormwood, wolfsbane, nightshade, and mandrake.  These are all plants that can be seen in the Harry Potter books and the signs even referenced them at times.  Marijuana actually used to be in the garden but had been removed by the government.  There were plants in cages, plants with spiky balls growing off of them, and plants that looked evil.  There were these rose-looking plants that had a dark color to bleeding into the bright color.  Me and my friend spent a good deal of time reading the signs and finding out which ones were really bad and which ones they just thought were really bad.


That was Blarney Castle in all of its glory.  I bought a couple of souvenirs and then the bus was ready to pick us up to take us to Cobh, another port town about 20 minutes away.  Cobh, pronounced Cove, is famous because it is the last port that the Titanic sailed from in 1912 before it sank.  Luckily for us, the 100th anniversary of day that it sank.  There was a giant crowd that our group leader had not expected, so he dropped us off a little further than usual and we walked into town.  Unfortunately, we didn't have time to go to the Titanic museum, so we did the next best thing.  We went to a museum about Cobh, celebrating the 100th anniversary by showing us images of what the town was like 100 years ago.  We even got to see a mini-model of the "unsinkable ship".  A cruise liner actually drove by and everyone waved because I think it was reenacting the Titanic, or something.  So we lucked out with Cobh, but after we were finished here we went back to Cork to plan out our night.

I have a friend currently Au Pair-ing around Cork and she promised to show us the real Cork at night.  We met up with her and she took us to all of the popular local bars ending at a dance club.  My goal for the night was to have one of the 3 popular stouts: Guinness, Beamish, and Murphy's.  Obviously, I completed my mission giving the title of best Irish stout to Guinness (which is indeed the best in Ireland).  The first few places that we went to were a little crowded, but they played nice, American, alternative music.  I was surprised that each place checked for ID, not that I was worried, but in Spain, I have never been carded anywhere.  Anyways, after the first few bars we ended at this place that was half dance club, half bar.  In the front were all of the older people enjoying their drink, and then in the back was the younger group dancing to music.  They played mostly American music, but there was one Spanish song that surprised me on the playlist, No Sigues Modas, which I hadn't heard until I got to Spain.

All in all, we had a great trip, I got to see beautiful Ireland in the daytime and then the night scene after dark.  Though I wish I had spent a little more time there, I think I made the most of it and saw as much as I could.  Cork is a small city, so I probably wouldn't need much more time than the 36 hours.  For the future, you should look forward to La Alpujarras, a hike that API is bringing us to on Saturday.  ¡Hasta Luego!