Granada y La Alhmabra

I went to Granada this past weekend with my program and it is another truly amazing city. I don't think it's impossible for southern Spain to disappoint in the scenery department. 

Granada was the last Muslim stronghold left in Spain and the Muslim influence is still seen in the cities arches and eclectic side streets.  La Alhambra is the city's biggest claim to fame. It is a walled city with Granada that housed royalty. Built on a high hill for better protection, the Alhambra has a 2 mile wall surrounding it, complete with 13 lookout towers. 

The rest of Granada was built in sections. The old city is likewise built higher on the hill (for protection purposes) and it beautiful. Tiny, twisty, narrow streets lead you down hills and staircases until you usually end up at a church or a cafe. 

In the lower part (a.k.a. newer part) of Granada is the current city center. We went to a tea shop here with a very Moroccan feel then went back to the same area later at night to hit up some tapas bar. The streets were full of soccer fans as one of Sevilla's 2 teams played against Granada this week. It was a great weekend and it makes me look forward to exploring this region even more. Love and miss you all! ~At

The welcoming gardens of La Alhambra. Our guide said there is always an easy way to tell if you are entering a muslin garden - the sound of water.  They wanted their gardens to resemble heaven on earth. Flowers, fruit trees, and fountains are in abundance here!

A view of Granada from La Alhambra

A terrace within Generalife (the summer castle) of La Alhambra

Washington Irving - He wrote a book named Stories of La Alhmabra. He lived here in Granada for a while and wrote stories he heard and legends of the area. I look forward to reading it when I am back stateside.

A view of La Alhambra from our walk through Old Granada

There are 3 of these iron doors connected to the oldest churches in Granada. At one point they were the only place to get fresh water in the city.

An eccletic street in new Granada, right of the city square's plaza. It is an interesting mix of Arabic tea shops, tapas bars, and street stores with knick knacks and colorful clothing and overprice leather purses (I bartered one down 10 euro, but ended up not getting it anyway...)

Gypsy caves are carved into the mountain sides. easily visible from the road, some still look inhabited with brightly decorated doors and potted plants in the "yard"  - thanks for the heads up about these Aunt Marty!!

The Sierra Nevadas  - apparently there is some pretty epic snowboarding/skiing here!

One last look at the beautiful city from atop of the Alhambra

Ps. I know that commenting on this blog seems to be the most impossible thing to do ever. So, if you do want to tell me anything, feel free to email me :)  I love getting emails so please don't be shy!  atkempf@indiana.edu

Granada this weekend, and headed to Prague in April!

I'm off to Granada tomorrow with my program. We leave Saturday at 8:30am and get back Sunday about dinner time.

In other news, I just booked a trip with my two close friends for a 6 day trip to Prague leaving 4/16/2011 and returning 4/21/2011.  From Prague it will be an easy trip to Munich, Berlin, or Vienna if we decide to venture out of the City of a thousand spires for a couple days...

Love and miss you all  <3

The Cathedral

Second to none in beauty (while technically the 3^rd in size), the Cathedral in Sevilla is a sight to behold. What first hits you when you walk in the door is the sheer size of the place. It’s massive! Soaring arched ceilings flanked with carved stone columns and adorned with intricate stained glass windows overwhelm you at the entrance. Then you get to really take your time and look at all the pain-staking detail that went into the making of such a grand cathedral. The gothic style of the main space is so impressive. The wings are flanked by individual rooms displaying paintings, statues, smaller sanctuaries, crypts, and candelabras. You name it and it’s there intricately carved out of wood and most likely painted in gold leaf. The main alter is beautiful, carved from wood and painted gold it is as intricate an altarpiece as you can find in the world, however my favorite part of the cathedral were the back rooms we got to stroll through. 

The sacristy has a 2 of the only Goya paintings with religious themes in the world. The more famous of the 2 depicts two women, the sister martyrs of Sevilla. The other is a picture of Jesus on the cross, which you see everywhere in this city. My favorite room was a circular room now used as a sort of museum that was modeled more in the enlightenment era. It was very light (a nice change from the dusky glow of the main part) and had smaller carvings on the wall columns and a low bleach-white ceiling. If you looked straight up when standing in the center under the domed ceiling, you could see into a room of windows at the top where the natural light lit up a face carved into the stone ceiling, he was smiling down at me! :)

Our last stop was quite a hike up 40 levels of ramps to the top of La Giralda (the bell tower). The bell tower was originally the minaret of the Muslim mosque that was built on the same site years before. Only the bell tower and the central patio are left from the original mosque. I enjoyed the walk up (I wanted some exercise since we eat a ton of fried food here) and once we got to the top… what a view!  You could see the entire city spread out below you. 

After this I got to go home and my senora was amazing and let me eat dinner early (7:30) because I was starving after my longest day yet. After dinner I got to relax for a hour or so then I had to go out to meet my intercambio. An intercambio is a Spaniard you can be paired with to practice your Spanish conversation skills and their English. My intercambio is awesome! His name is Javi and he is hilarious. Despite the language barrier I think we will be good friends. He had to work early the next morning and I was thankful because that meant I could leave by midnight and not feel like a lame for going home so “early.”  The concept of what is a decent time to get home here is something it’s taking me a while to get used to.  I had to interview regular Seville University students a class and one question was “when you go out, about what time do you return home?” Everyone answered after 4 in the morning. Yikes! I realized I would be the only person circling the ‘between 12 and 2’ option. Haha. It’s just one more thing to get used to. 

As far as adapting goes, I believe I’m doing well. I feel pretty decent about directions and the speaking is coming easier each day. I travel to Granada this weekend with program. We leave Saturday morning and get back about dinner time Sunday. I look forward to seeing more of southern Spain. I hope this finds you all well. I love and miss you all. -At

Gorgeous!

The main altar

The choir area

The sacristy - a little bigger than St. Chris's, Mom?

My favorite room

The guy that smiles down at you!

View from the top of the Giralda

On the way out. I love the arches.

Walk Home With Me: my attempt at a picture guide :)

This is a picture guide to my walk home from class, starting at the CIEE study center. It take about 25 minutes to walk to class but its a gorgeous 25 minutes, strolling though ancient plazas and down winding back streets where plants hang off small window balconies and the facades of apartments are all bright yellow and red. Enjoy! I love and miss you all!

The CIEE study center where I will have classes Monday and Wednesday and where I am spending these first 2 weeks studying.

One of my favorite streets. Mateo de Gatos. It's the last part of my walk to the study center, first when I go home.

My favorite plaza I have found. La Plaza de Triunfo. Its gorgeous and I get to walk through it every day! Its comprised off cafes and orange trees, the cathedral, the royal castle, and the old city wall. What more could you ask for?!?!?

Just across the bridge from river from my neighborhood. This welcomes me to the city center every morning!

The view across the river while walking home. ( My neighborhood, Los Remedios, is on the left; Triana is on the right)

View as I start my walk to class every morning. So Beautiful!

I signed up for classes

We signed up for classes today. These are for the regular session courses with start Feb 7th and end May12th. If I get all my first choices I will have class Monday through Thursday.  Monday and Wednesday I would have 2 classes, each and hour and 40 minutes long, and would be at the CIEE center from 3 until 7. Tuesday and Thurday I would have 2 classes each to 2nhours long and would be at the University of Sevilla from 5 until 9 pm.  This schedule would have me taking 2 classes each day, CIEE classes M/W, and Classes at the University T/Th.
The classes I choose are: Spanish for health professionals, academic writing and critical thinking, phonetics, and contemporary spanish-american novels.  The first 2 are the CIEE courses at the center, and the second are called classes for foreigners at the University of Sevilla and are taken with other students from different programs.
For these next 2 weeks we have an intensive grammar class (much needed!) at the CIEE center. We start monday!

Ps. fun sighting:  A little boy about 10 drinking a beer with his dad during lunch and overhearing the dad tell the kid not to tell his mom.  :)    It seemed like this wasn't their first time doing this little deception trick of theirs.

Getting the hang of it!

Hola todos!

I'm finally getting settled and am starting to know my way around the city more. We went to Las Ruinas Italicas (ancient roman ruins) this morning and it was beautiful. It's in the mid 50's here which is great, but none of the buildings have central heating so it's in the 30s inside our apartment at night. I have to take my first shower in my homestay tonight (I guess its really looked down upon to shower more often than every 2 days at least) and I'm a little nervous because when my roommate took a shower that was warm enough to create a little steam, our senora said it was too hot and we should take cold, short showers. It's all part of the culture and will just take some adapting on my part. Wish me luck!   :)
There are no veggies served yet beside a salad of solely iceberg lettuce with olive oil and tons of vinegar. It's not my cup of tea precisely but any veggie is better than none at all. I had to kind of giggle when we were served a plateful of lightly battered and fried thin chicken with a side of bread and cheese. But I spoke with my senora Ana today about how much my mom and sister loved asparagus and broccoli (my favs) and I think she said she would get asparagus soon- I'm crossing my fingers!!

Heading to my homestay

Hi. I'm off to go live with my homestay. I meet my senora and my roommate in about 20 minutes. I'll check in again soon. I most likely will not have internet where I'm living so it might take a few days. Adios amigos, love you all!

First Day in Sevilla!

Hola!

Today is my first full day in Sevilla and I love it already!  It’s beautiful. We are staying at a lovely hotel today and move into our home stays tomorrow. We got our homestay address today and I will be living with a senora and another CIEE student in the Los Remedios neighborhood, it’s across the river from the city center and the University of Seville.

I have an interview in an hour that will determine what level of classes I get to take so that’s a little nerve racking but I’ve made some great new friends (many of which were stuck at the Madrid airport with me for 16 hours) and we are going out before dinner –which is at 8 at the earliest- to explore and hopefully get cell phones so that we can all stay in touch when living at our homestays.

The city is beautiful. Honestly it is the most beautiful and colorful city I have ever seen. The buildings are an eclectic mix of old and new. The streets are narrow and some have sidewalks about a foot wide. I have no clue how to get around yet but we have to figure it out quickly because they gave us a guide today to show us around, but tomorrow after we move into our homestay we have to find our own ways to our meeting location in one of the many plazas around Seville.

Speaking of plazas, we saw some amazing ones today. The most grand of course was the Plaza de Espana. It’s gorgeous and the details in the façade are amazing. My favorite was a on a little side street we walked down (carefully, since it had the 1 foot-wide sidewalk and cars zipping down it). It was just outside a monastery and was simply called La Casa de Pilatas (no clues what Pilatas means…) There were semi-crumbly buildings and grass growing through the cobbles but it was its simple beauty that took my breath away. I’m hoping I can find it again.  I forgot to take a picture of it, but hopefully you will like some of the others J

All-in-all I love this city so far. The only part I have some trouble with is the fact that they keep telling us snacking is an American thing. To be honest my tummy is rumbling a little during the long hours between breakfast at 8am, lunch at 2pm, and a light dinner at 8pm. Tonight we are going to a flamenco concert/performance. It will be exciting to see the dance Andalusia is known for.

Ok, time for my siesta (nap) since I didn’t get to bed until 3 am. Love you all J  Peace

Details!

I leave for Sevilla on Sunday the 16th. I will arrive in Seville on Monday afternoon (Sevillano time), about 3am US time. Sevilla is 6 hours ahead of us.

I'll have my same email which I will check often (atkempf@indiana.edu). Email me whenever :)
I also have a skype account (attie.kempf) so I can video chat as well.
I most likely won't have internet access where I'm living so bear with me on the tricky timing issues.

Still in the good 'ole U S of A

Just figuring out how to do this :)     The above picture is from Christmas Break up at the Lake. It was the first time we had been up there in the winter. Beautiful!