2 weeks later...

This will be long, since I´ve got two weeks to catch people up on. Sorry for going dark for so long. I´ll start with the mundane...

Since getting back from Prague, classes have started. Originally I had five classes, scattered all around the week but none before 11:30am. Since then I´ve dropped the History of Spanish Film course, because it stunk. Honestly. The book consisted of approximately 5 pages of script excerpts, background information, original posters &c from each of the dozen or so movies we were going to watch. The basic class plan was roughly the following: 5 minutes background conversation. Watch 3-6 minute scene from film, paused repeatedly to allow teacher (who seemed to mistake our less-than-fluent Spanish for a sign of mental defects) to point things out in the frame. Lights up, 5-10 minute ´discussion´ of scene (read: teacher asking horribly obvious questions in Spanish such as "Normally when you have a gun and you want to kill someone, what do you do?"). Watch another short scene, after an explanation from the teacher of what happened in the intervening twenty minutes of movie. And on. And on. So yeah, I dropped it.

Otherwise classes are good. Actualidad Sociopolitical en España is well-taught, by a guy who bears an eery resemblance to Asif Talukder. Last thursday, instead of having a normal class session, we went to a conference room at the actual Universidad and heard a talk by the President of the Spanish Senate, which was interesting although hard to follow. This class also includes an excursion to Madrid which will include some of the sightseeing I didn´t get to do in either of my previous visits. Should have had this class today, but the teacher didn´t show up. This was probably because the teachers who are special to the Centro de Lenguas Modernas are on strike, and he didn´t want to undermine them. More on this later.

Historia de España desde Franco a la Actualidad is also interesting and fun. The teacher is a charming woman named Cristina Vara. Between the history and politics courses, I´m slowly picking up the Spanish version of classroom vocabularies with which I am so comfortable in English. Produccion Oral y Escrito (POE) is the required grammar course, and is taught by a guy named Aurelio. POE represents two things I normally hate-- requirements and grammar. He´s likeable, and the class is made up of a bunch of interesting people, two factors which make the basic thrust of the class completely bearable. Also, it turns out that a girl from Scripps who works with Laura is in that class. Small world.

The final course is Cultura Islamica en España, also very enjoyable. Several friends from the program in this class. I have trouble sometimes with the way the teacher talks about the religion itself, but since it´s more an anthropology course than a religion course I guess I should lower my expectations. After spending a semester on Intro to Islam with a woman who is versed in the academic study of religion and who is ultra-careful in her terminology and pedagogy, Barrios seems a bit rough around the edges. Nothing wrong with that, I guess.

So that´s the basic rundown of classes. Not too much work thusfar, although I certainly have homework of some sort assigned each class. Oh yeah, the strike.

I don´t know a whole lot about the situation. There are apparently several dozen teachers who are employed exclusively by the CLM. The Universidad de Granada still signs their checks, though. These teachers are highly dissatisfied with their current wages, which I understand are very low by any standard. The school has apparently refused to even sit down and negotiate this with the teachers, and so they´ve initiated a strike. It´s not a true walkout-- up until today, it hadn´t effected any of my classes. For one hour in the morning and another in the evening, this group of teachers stands together in the courtyard of the CLM with a banner and sings and chants and chatters loudly. Apparently there were newscameras there yesterday. Who knows how long it will go on, or if it will take a more severe turn. As it stands it´s more symbolic than practical, and it will be interesting to see if the relevant administrators respond to symbolism.

So that´s the boring stuff. How about travel news. Pictures? Stories?

The weekend after the Prague trip was a relaxing one. No travel in particular, just reacquainting myself with my city and its watering holes. It really did feel like coming home, which was surprising and welcome. Sebi was delighted to hear about our various trips. Eddie went to Italy-- enjoyed himself but wished he´d gone with more travel-hardy people. Bart went to London with a large group of our friends, and had a great, expensive time. As he put it, "Everything seems to be normally priced, and then in the morning you remember that one pound is two dollars."

This past weekend was much more remarkable. Friday midmorning we took a tour of the Granada Cathedral. Impressive building, impressive decorations, but really it just reminded me that I don´t particularly like cathedrals. Still, seeing the tombs of Ferdinand and Isabela was something of an experience. It´s really not difficult to draw a direct historical thread between (1) the work of those monarchs to vest political, social and economic power in the hands of state-sanctioned Hermandades (Catholic brotherhoods), (2) the impatient, near-revolutionary haste with which the government of the Second Spanish Republic tried to reform the country in the early 1930s and (3) the bloody three-year Civil War that completed the transfer of the country from Monarchy to Dictatorship. So yeah-- big church, lots of gold and silver everywhere, huge columns, impressive, intricate marblework.

Saturday was a lot of fun. About 40 people signed up to go to Ronda, myself included. Even though we spent slightly more time on the bus than in the town, it was completely worthwhile. It´s an utterly charming place, even in the cold and half-hearted rain. The place has two main claims to fame, the more well-known of which is the massive Puente Nuevo (New Bridge), one of three bridges that join the old and modern sections of town. The bridge spans a gorge approximately 500´ deep, and was completed late in the 18th century. This is a picture I took from the spot where I ate lunch with a few people. It was about a 10 minute walk down a switchback trail, and rewarded us with the best view of the bridge and gorge that we had all day.

According to Wikipedia, the same architect who built the bridge is responsible for Ronda´s other well-known landmark, the Plaza de Toros. This is the oldest still-used bullring in Spain, and also houses a small museum. Alongside full matador and picador outfits (some of them bloodstained) sits an impressive collection of art, much of it pen-and-pencil drawings by Goya-- a real treat. Our tourguide, a charming mustachioed Ronda native named Diego Martin, sat us down here at the end of our tour and gave us a smattering of information about bullfighting. At the very beginning, he took the time to tell us in english that referring to the event as a fight is, in his estimation, hideously inaccurate, since the bull has zero chance of survival. "The word corrida usually gets translated as ´bullfight´ yes? In your country you have an excellent expression for this...Bullshit." Diego Martin was a lot of fun.

So that is, more or less, my past two weeks. I´ll be more on-the-ball from here on out. I´ve just this morning booked a flight to Istanbul for Spring Break, and I could not be more excited if I was pumped full of ritalin. It´s going to be an amazing week. What´s more, I´ll have another four or five days at the end to spend either here in Granada enjoying the festivals of Semana Santa, or down on the coast enjoying the beach. Don´t cry, guys-- I´ll be ok. Here´s another pic I grabbed as my camera was dying, from the other side of the bridge. Love to all, especially the Southern Mass crew. Give hugs and kisses to Bernie from me.

Prague

Arrived in Prague on Thursday afternoon with Clare, Lauren and Cara. We hopped on a bus at the airport, hopped off at a trainstation in the Lesser Town (no offense), hopped on a subway under the Vltava River, and finally surfaced about five minutes from our hostel. The walk from the subway stop to the hostel took us through Old Town Square, ruled by two enormous churches, the larger of which is called Tyn and has two huge belltowers. The smaller of these churches is home to the Astronomical Clock, an amazing bit of fifteenth-century engineering that simultaneously tells time, the relative positions of the sun and moon, the time of sunrise and sunset that day, the zodiac month and probably some other stuff too.

(not my picture)

The other buildings of the old square are mostly shops and restaurants. It felt like we were walking through the cover photo of an architecture textbook. To get to our hostel, we wound around behind the Tyn church, ducked down a narrow cobblestone street, and hooked a left into a small complex of bar, vegetarian restaurant, spa, bookstore and hostel. At first it was disconcerting that the website we used to book the place proclaimed 'Excellent Location' as the place's lone claim to fame, but it really is an amazing place to be. We're less than ten minutes from just about everything in Prague 1/Old Town, and it would only take about fifteen to cross the Charles Bridge into Lesser Town.

We spent the evening strolling around aimlessly, sipping mulled wine and taking pictures. Dusk is a particularly beautiful time in this city. After winding around so much that we got lost and couldn't find our way back to the restaurant that had caught our collective eye, we stopped into a bookstore and got directions from a less-than-confident clerk who spoke pretty good english. On the way back to the Tyn church area, Lauren's appetite got the better of her and she hauled us into an expensive-looking restaurant. It turned out to be a great find. All four of us had a huge plate of pasta, alcohol and an appetizer for the equivalent of ten dollars apiece. What's more, it was phenomenal food. From there we found our way back and stopped in a very expensive but very cool bar and had cocktails and cigars and everything but a footrub from the waitress. Incredibly classy place, called Bar & Books, and claiming to have an operation in New York as well. Definitely worth tracking down, East-coast folk, especially if you've got someone to romance.

Our second day was committed to a four-hour walking tour, a nap, and an expensive night of drinking that ended at a 5-story club at six in the morning. Woof. I am still pretty damn exhausted as I write this. We met two Navy guys in our hostel who are on leave for a little while, and at the club we met a posse of Irishmen on vacation. It turned out to be an incredibly fun night. We may try to find the Irish crowd again tomorrow as they've invited us to a pub called Rocky O'Reilly's to watch Ireland play France in rugby. Sounds good to me...