En Fin

It´s Saturday, I leave Spain early tomorrow morning, and I still haven´t packed my bags yet. Not even a sock. It´s slow going today. It´s sad, because I love Spain to death and especially in the last month I´ve been enjoying myself so much. And the house is such a clan now, an experience that´s much like the Real World without cameras. Last night the owners of the house (also the people that feed us and clean up after us) invited us to an incredible dinner in Villa, consisting of about 20 courses and lots of sangría. We left at around 3 a.m. and went out dancing and most of us made it home by around 8 this morning. I think we´re having another sort of despedida tonight at the house.

I´m looking forward to being home but I have a feeling Greensboro will always be jealous of Madrid after it knows where I´ve been and what I´ve seen. But mmmm! Campbell´s tomato soup awaits me, and a piano, and driving myself places. Exciting places, like the Teeter and SECU and Tate Street Coffee House. I have mixed emotions -- I´m already trying to figure out how I can get myself back here.

En fin, goodbye Madrid, I love you and I´ll miss you.

France

I made my way from Madrid to Paris by train last Thursday. Elisabeth and her mom picked me up and we went back to her house in a suburb of the city, on the way passing a sparkling Eiffel Tower, which blinks every hour on the hour at night. We stayed up and chatted for a while, me warming up my English. It felt nice to be in someone´s house again, a place with a mom, food accessible at all hours, two cats running around and my own little room. On Friday Elisabeth showed me around her little town which is where Claude Debussy lived, so we visited his house (now a museum, kind of boring) and I touched his conductor´s suit. That night we all (Elisabeth, her mom, her brother and I) went to the Tracy Chapman concert in Paris.

Paris is beautiful and to me looks a lot like Madrid, but a classier, more French version. Elisabeth and I spent probably as much time underneath the city as above. We skipped the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower (although both look lovely from the outside) and instead toured the catacombs and the sewers. Back in the day the cemeteries were apparently causing the spread of disease, so the bones of six million Parisians were transported to an old limestone mine 20 meters below the city and stacked into pretty little walls that seem to go on for miles. The sewers were disgusting, but I probably learned as much about the history of Paris though that tour as I would have in any other. The Pompidou modern art museum was amazing as well.

To Tours on Monday, where I stayed with my cousin Rachel at her host mom´s apartment. Tours was cute and Christmasy, with lights everywhere and a Christmas market set up down one of the streets. Rachel had school every morning, then afterwards we tromped around the city and I was in awe of all the pretty Frenchness. One day we went to a famous chateau a short train ride away, the one that was built right over a river. Thursday to Montpellier, where I met up with Audrey and stayed in her apartment (no host mom and currently no roommate there). We cooked some good French meals, saw the city, and caught up on lots of gossip. And I saw my first American TV in three months: Jerry Springer! It was the only American show not dubbed in French. The U.S. really needs to regulate the shows it exports.

I´m back in Madrid now, which I started to miss when I was in France. I could tell I was back the minute I crossed the border, the pretty white cottages stopped and all of a sudden there were ugly, stacked apartment complexes with clothes hanging on lines and tiny, red-shingled houses a century older pressed right in between them. And all of a sudden purple, orange and lime-green matched. Ahh, Spain. I missed my house too, where apparently everything happened when I was gone.

Six days till I come home.

Thanksgiving and Excursion

Thanksgiving was too much fun. First, an expensive dinner of paella with our visiting Guilford professors, which was so nice it made me nervous just sitting in the restuarant. That, and Gabe and I were under a microscope the entire time, having to talk about every aspect of our experience here so they´ll know how they can improve it next time around. Gabe and I came home around 12 a.m., walked into the houses and were pelted by about 20 flying tennis balls. A battle ensued. Most of the house was awake and we ended up moving the party downstairs, sound system and all. At one point the girls felt like dressing up all the guys, so it turned into a costume party (that would be Gabe on the left). It all died down by about 7 a.m.

On Sunday Gabe and I had our last of three excursions, going with Mercedes (the woman who accompanied me during my operation) and her boyfriend. We went north of Madrid to a bunch of tiny towns in the mountains where it was already beginning to snow, amazing rocky landscapes and old roman stone roads. We wanted to reach Ávila be night, an ancient walled city that because of elevation is the coldest in Spain. Halfway there we stopped to tour an underground stalagmite and stalactite cave, which was HUGE and beautiful and eerie. The picture doesn´t do it justice, but you can see the little walkway toward the bottom left and can imagine the dimensions. More or less the size of a cathedral. I got sick as a dog riding in those mountains with a Spaniard driving who didn´t quite understand what it meant to be carsick. At one point on the highway to Ávila we hit 120 mph. And in the curvy, snow-covered mountain roads we weren´t going much slower. We almost hit a goat.

The city of Ávila was my least favorite part of the trip -- it was beautiful and walled, like they said it would be, but also cold and snowy and everything was closed by the time we got there. But the mountains around it were incredible to see and smell. And taste, actually -- there were natural springs all over the place with fresh mountain water. I think it may be one of the most gorgeous places I´ve ever seen.

Going to France on Thursday, coming back to Spain December 11th. I may or may not get a chance to blog there. Then back to N.C. on the 18th!

Mom in Madrid

Below is Mom´s take on Madrid after visiting me for two weeks.

¨Madrid has a way of instantly feeling like home. I guess that's partly due to it's easy accessibility(Metro takes you everywhere... fast, clean and cheap), a complete feeling of personal safety and a nightlife that's as easy and pleasing as your living room. Very easy city to manuever and when you get tired, you pop into one of thousands of restuarants, bars, spots and have a caña, a small beer, and then go your merry way.

Meredith was the perfect travel partner... always ready and willing to see what was around the next corner: shoes, the Reine Sofia Modern Art Museum, Toledo, Segovia, Retiro Park, Keith Haring exhibition and jazz.

Although I had researched the music scene before I left, I was unable to uncover much. Then during the four-story walkup in my hostal, I saw a huge poster announcing the 22nd Madrid Jazz Festival.

Luck has a way of hiding itself until it needs to come out to play. And play, it did. We saw four events with musicians I've always wanted to see but rarely come to the South. First night, Joe Zawinul (Weather report) and band with a 14 piece Big Band Köln. The biggest sound... very exciting.

The next weekend: Friday night, New Orleans Allstars that ended their set with a trumpet solo of "Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?" (and yes, I do.) Then Saturday night (the highlight of my visit), we saw one of the great standup bassists, Marc Johnson, play with Niño Josele, a world famous flamenco guitarist that was unfamiliar to us, and a drummer. THEY PLAYED BILL EVANS! Imagine, a flamenco guitarist comes lone to the stage and plays subtly, softly a Miles Davis/Bill Evans tune but adds all the bravado and thrill of the Flamenco. Three shouting encores followed the set. Awesome. Never to be forgotten. Then lastly, Sunday night we saw Bill Frisell (guitarist) with Jenny Scheinman, an Amazing violinist. This night they chose to play 10 John Lennon songs. I really felt priviledged to be there among such greats... and to hear such amazing, creative music.

The other lasting memory I will take from my trip is my evenings with Mere. We would go out, eat a little something, and then go to our favorite hangout and sit and talk and laugh for hours. This was the perfect ending to every day in Madrid.¨

Short Update

Mom´s been here for the last two weeks and left Tuesday morning, which is why I haven´t written anything lately. We were mostly in Madrid, took some small trips to Toledo and Segovia, and saw lots of amazing jazz (Madrid Jazz Festival is going on). She took notes of everything we did and has digital pictures, so she said she´ll write the next entry. Just wanted to let y´all know I´m still alive and well.

It´s freezing here, classes are all right (I have to start using a camara in photography now...scary), and I´ve been hanging out a lot with the kids in my house. I currently have less than a euro in my pocket until my stupid bank sends me the money they suddenly froze in my account a few weeks ago because there´s been too much fraud going on lately in Spain. Looking forward to going to France in a few weeks. Love you all.

A Queen is Born

I love royal stuff! From BBC News (the only one I could find in English):

Spain's future queen gives birth

Princess Letizia, the future Queen of Spain, has given birth to her first child, a girl.

The newborn is second in line to the throne after her father Crown Prince Felipe, 37.
She was born about six hours after Princess Letizia was admitted to Madrid's Ruber International clinic, accompanied by her husband.
Spain's government says it wants to change the law so that females have the same succession rights as males.
The baby's name has yet to be announced by the Royal Palace. [They named her Leonor]
Photographers, television crews and the curious gathered outside the private clinic.
Under the Spanish constitution, the eldest male automatically succeeds, even if he has an older sister.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has pledged to change the law, saying it discriminates against female royals.
Prince Felipe married Letizia Ortiz, 32, in May 2004 - shortly after the Madrid train bombings. [The day before I came to Spain last summer to au pair]
The crown prince's romance with Ms Ortiz, a well-known television presenter and a divorcee, had been kept a secret.

The Operation

As it turns out, I wasn´t dying, as I thought I was last week. My lovely infection had gone down a little bit thanks to antibiotics but I still had a nice big lump right at my tailbone. Mom figured out what it was, a type of cyst that´s more or less common, but that has to be lanced or else the infection will come back when I stop taking antibiotics. The cyst remains, but I had to get the infection out.

So yesterday I went to a public hospital in Madrid to have a tiny operation. As opposed to the States, public hospitals (healthcare in Spain is free) are where the best doctors are, because apparently it´s very difficult for a doctor to get into one. There are a series of exams and trials to get into a public hospital, and the ones who don´t pass work at private hospitals. Victoria´s sister, Mercedes, accompanied me (Victoria is my international relations person). Both of them speak English, which was wonderful, because I didn´t have the slightest idea what the doctor was saying. The whole thing went more or less quickly. I sat down with the doctor at his desk, told him what was wrong while he wrote it all down, he examined the lump, and said he needed to make a small incision to get the infection out (with shots of local anesthesia, of course). I made Mercedes take pictures of everything for me. She was laughing hysterically, saying I was worse than a Japanese tourist. I already know those will be my favorite pictures from my study abroad experience.

He bandaged me and gave me some pain meds, although it already feels better today. Then he didn´t charge me anything because he said it´s his custom to never charge students. Mercedes said she would´ve rather put it through the insurance because now we have to buy him a present, and we don´t know anything about him. I suggested we get the photos developed and give him a framed copy. I´ll go back for a checkup on Thursday.