Global Colgate

European Adventures

November felt like a giant game of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Every weekend we were off in a different part of Spain or Europe, and now we have so little time remaining we can almost count the days left on two hands!

 Amidst the final papers for Art, the theatrical events we attended for Theater, and our obsession with finding places that sell Palomitas for under 0,30 euros, we had too much fun. The first weekend of November was exhausting. My cousin invited a few of us to his concert in the Sala Caracol and we made posters to cheer him on in a Battle-of-the-Bands competition. The next morning we boarded a bus to Toledo to see the original capital city of Spain, complete with the union of the three major cultures of the country over time: Arab, Jewish, and Christian. Going with our Art and Cinema professors, we were given a short tour of the town, including a preserved mezquita, the cathedral, and a converted synagogue. We also finally saw the Tajo river we read about in Poetry as well! After eating our fill of mazapán we wandered around the city a little bit. The stores catered to tourism, but specialized in impressive swords, demasking, and chocolate con churros. While it was a very, very windy day, we enjoyed our visit immensely.

Differences

This week was full of interesting conversations with friends and "family" comparing our lifestyles to those of people our age in Madrid and Spain at large. On Wednesday Kayleigh's mother was in town and invited us to dinner. Sitting across from Kayleigh's host mother we developed a conversation about politics, economics, and working. Unfortunately in Spain the current rate of unemployment is only climbing and hovers near 20% (which they often point out to us when we say we have it bad).

Searching for work here is an adventure I've seen my host sister and Nicoletta go through. Marcela's boyfriend, Alfonso, sent out 75 separate applications to jobs, and only heard back from one. Just coming away with his degree, his 9-5 job only offers him a 300-euro compensation per month; he's practically an intern. Shrugging his shoulders at the situation he told us he had to do something in the meantime. Marcela and Nicoletta are also searching for anything they can get their hands on, and Nicoletta wakes up every morning to do four hours of job-hunting before taking her house keeping post for the rest of the day.

Experimento mp3

Thursday afternoon a few of my friends and I had the pleasure of experiencing an mp3 experiment in Madrid's Retiro park. While it's slightly complicated to explain, I'll try my best. (At any rate, I have a video linked to it at the bottom for fun!)

To begin, the idea for an mp3 experiment began with the group ImprovEverywhere (from NYC) that has been responsible for various flashmobs the last few years. A flashmob is when a group of people show up at a specifc location and time to perform a spectacle that the general public shouldn't be expecting. One of their most famous events was the "freeze" at Union Station when their accomplices all timed themselves to freeze in place for three minutes, much to the surprise of their fellow commuters. So an mp3 experiment is similar in the idea that the accomplices download a specific mp3 onto their device and show up at a specific time. Wearing one of four colors upon arrival, they all hit play in unison and the mp3 gives them directions to follow.

Clases

It's fine time to talk about how classes are going at San Pablo CEU, our university here in Madrid. I've enjoyed the experience of taking both Colgate-administered classes and enrolling in authentic classes while here. This is a lucky opportunity that we have in the Madrid program: to be enrolled with fellow Madrileños. The attitudes, the classwork, and the professors here have all proven to be highly interesting as they cover a whole spectrum. Talks with my host sister and cousin have also given me more insight into how students approach universities in Madrid as a whole too.

To begin, I'm currently taking two Colgate classes: our director's, Poetry in the Golden Age of Spain, and Madrid and the Arts, taught by three different professors. Poetry is by far my favorite, with class discussions being the best part by far. We've studied poems by Garcilaso de la Vega and Quevedo, and also took a look into the first modern novel, Lazarillo de Tormes. Quevedo is my favorite poet with his hidden eroticisms masked behind story lines. Interestingly this class probably requires us to do the most work per class per week, but the minutes fly by very quickly and I can't say I've ever been bored.

Euskadi

Kaixo, irakurle! My last two weekends were spent happily in the homeland, aka the Basque Country. In the northeastern corner of Spain I spent my first weekend visiting family for the first time in years and the second on a group excursion to Bilbao and San Sebastian.

Enduring sore necks from the many hours spent on the bus commuting north, my cousin and I went "home" on the premise of Herri Eguna: fiestas of our family's town, Oñati. Donning traditional clothing, on that Saturday morning after practically inhaling an entire package of jamón jabugo for breakfast, we headed to the plaza where festivities were taking place. To someone from the US it's comparable to a county fair in that there are local goods on sale, animals placed in contests, concerts taking place, etc. The main event of the afternoon was the local sidra tasting; thirty-five different stalls were set-up in the plaza and with tickets one could try a locally-made brew. The tasting was really fun! We were full of laughs, saw people after years away, practiced our euskera a bit, and ate some amazing txorno from the food stalls. The rest of the weekend was full of barbecues, picnics, and witnessing a relatively-small downtown crowd to what felt like Noche en blanco proportions.

152 Steps

Today Jen and I took a day trip to Segovia, which is roughly an hour and some outside of Madrid. Getting there wasn't a hassle, as transportation is an easy tool in, around, and out of the city. Perhaps this will give Madrid the boost in the 2016 bid? (As a Chicagoan, I certainly hope not.) We received advice from one of our newest friends, Guillermo, to take the bus over the train, and despite forgetting my Dramamine, the trip wasn't too bad.

  Upon arriving our first concern was not having a map whatsoever. Fortunately we found  a very nice man at a tourist center who knew exactly the route we wanted. His speech was so prepared it almost felt like rush. We began our adventure walking into town and immediately saw the famous preserved Roman aqueducts. Their height was so immense craning your neck hardly did justice. An engineering friend of mine told me his own tour group drooled at the sight of it - its height, its length, and its perfection without mortar.

La familia

Perhaps the greatest highlight of studying in Madrid is staying with a host family or individual señora. Without a doubt it challenges us to find conversation topics at lunch, remember to be respectful guests, and gives us yet another opportunity to grace the Spanish lifestyle.

Personally, I adore my new family. We live in an enormous piso (a condo or an apartment) and I think there has yet to be a moment when it is empty. My mother, Maria, always insists on eating her meals with me, which I find to be the sweetest gesture. At lunch and dinner we discuss school, the news (the television in the kitchen is seldom turned off), my life at Colgate, my family back home, and how different certain customs here are for an American. On occasion the housekeeper (who also resides in the house) will chime in between cooking extra course. She deserves much more credit than I can offer for preparing some of the best patatas a la riojana I've ever had. The husband mostly keeps to himself, but was surprised to hear I'm a fan of sports and claims he never thought he'd see the day when a woman would enjoy watching a game of fútbol. While they had seven children together, only the youngest, Marcela, still lives in the house and goes to classes. Nonetheless, the other six children visit frequently, and the grandchildren that run around are absolutely precious and love impressing me with their English-speaking skills.

El museo del jamón

Among other things discovered this week, my cousin introduced a few of us to el Museo del jamón. Which, literally translated, is the museum of ham. I'm writing to give a shameless endorsement of the so-called museum.

While ideally it isn't the preferred location for a place to meet up with your vegetarian friends, the joint offers a really fun atmosphere. (And as an aside, ironically enough there is a vegetarian restaurant directly across the street, for anyone concerned.) In actuality, the museum is a bar and a carniceria (a meat store) blended into one. On one side you can stand around a deli and order some delicious meats (for example, ibérico or serrano), and along the other you can hang around an island, order a bocadillo or some tapas, and have a drink to go with it. Ideally, it's a place to eat a snack while sight-seeing, or have something to drink while waiting for your friends to catch up with you from the metro.

¡Hola!

My name is Natalie and I’m a junior at Colgate, loving the experience abroad in Madrid, Spain! Our (rather appropriate) group of thirteen piled out of the train in Santiago de Compostela the 24^th of August, and ever since we’ve been enjoying la vida española.

 

For those who don’t know, Santiago is in the northwest part of Spain in Galicia. Our first two weeks there were spent between classes, discovering the town, eating our hearts out, and frequent siestas. We started off our second day immediately thrown into three classes: History of Art in Spain, Practical Spanish, and Spanish History. These were to prepare us for Madrid; knowing a little about the political situation in Spain, appreciating the art in el Prado and the architecture around the city, and being able to communicate with everyone we would meet.