'i open at the close'

It's Sunday morning now, and I'm writing from the restaurant/bar area of a hostel in Rome called The Yellow. So maybe this post doesn't deserve so dramatic a title, but as I approach my last twenty-four hours in Europe, it feels right. Even more so, I feel like the quote captures the irony of my having visited an immense Roman aqueduct on my third day in Europe with my program's excursion to Segovia, and two days ago, while in Naples en route to Rome, Johnny and I took a tour of Napoli Sotteraneo, the Naples underground, which concluded with the ruins beneath the city of a Roman aqueduct. But maybe this is just one of those things that's only particularly interesting for me...

Anyway, since it's been awhile since I last wrote I thought I should take advantage of this little bit of down time I've got to catch you up with the adventures I've had and the people I've met over the past few days.

As I mentioned before, our last full day on Capri started off early with a hike up to Castella Barbarossa (I've since had several discussions over the proper spelling of this wonderful viewpoint, and have come to no conclusions). On the hike, we met some fellow English speakers in Ben and Emma, a couple from London, maybe about ten years my senior. Ben is the son of Tom, who lives on the island and is a good friend of my aunt and uncle, and he works in advertising - creating and explaining more effective ways for companies that are trying to modernize their appearances with sites like Twitter. Emma, though, I think had the coolest back-story. She's half Sri Lankan and so after the tsunami about six or seven years ago, she went there to volunteer. But the thing is, Emma is an artist (she describes herself as having tried to force herself to love the sciences, but it just didn't work) and she ended up setting up her own charity, face painting and teaching face painting in an orphanage down there. About two years ago, she moved back to England with Ben where she works a conglomeration of jobs ranging from stage make-up, to body-painting for Halloween costumes, teaching sewing to in-mates as a part of their parole... Truly, an incredible and interesting person to speak with, and so it was with Ben and Emma that we hiked up from La Pietra to the quaint chiesa la cetrella and then up to the ruins of Monte Solaro, free-spirited, chill and in love with the island. The Cetrella was calm and soothing, and apparently the location where the husband of my cousin Jane (Johnny's older sister) proposed to her. We chatted a bit and shared a small coffee with the amici di cetrella, the group of old men working to restore and maintain the church and its lands. Monte Solaro, on the other hand was bustling with tourists, and amidst our deep and worldly conversations, the four of us enjoyed picking out the American and English tour groups from our high and lofty posts as friends of the locals.

On Friday, we packed up and said goodbye to Capri, setting out for Naples. Johnny's parents accompanied us (thanks again for helping with the luggage!) for the boat ride over, a quick spot of lunch at a cafe we found inside a galleria across the way from the archaeology museum. I'm not the hugest of history buffs so unfortunately I don't think I can do justice to an explanation of the archaeology museum beyond describing it with adjectives: huge and breathtaking and exquisite and incredible, mostly because everything was so old and so beyond the scope of my understanding for how each artifact might have been created or preserved. From there we directionally wandered to the Piazza San Gaetano, from which runs a narrow and picturesque street where they make and sell figurines for nativity scenes (and soccer players, musicians and political figures - I suppose that nowadays, for some, these figures are more important than their religious counterparts but to each his own). Before descending to our subterranean tour, we said our goodbyes (and maybe shed a few tears) to my aunt and uncle as they headed back to the island. For dinner, and the original reason for our stop in Naples, we met up with Johnny's cousin Bruno, a math professor, and his wife Ale, from Mexico and proficient in many languages. As with Ben and Emma, our conversations with Bruno and Ale were most interesting as we took the time to learn more about each of them. Even if I hadn't known Bruno to be related to my aunt's family, after our dinner their I would've guessed it - the generosity and hospitality were out of this world.

Hmm, well writing this has taken a bit more time than I thought it would - I suppose I'll save my tales of Rome for a later time. As for now, I'm off to wake Johnny up and then head out to sightsee.

buona giornata!

Much to my delight, Bianca, my aunt's mother who grew up in Anacapri, has been doling out anecdotal history and Italian lessons to me as conversation runs its course. As we ambled back from dinner last night, she explained to me the difference between buona sera and buona serata as well as buon giorno and buona giornata. Essentially, the first two both mean good evening while the latter signify good morning or good day. Adding the suffix -ata, which in the case of good day also changes the gender of the word, adds a more complete meaning to its subject as it allows one to essentially say 'I hope you've had a good evening so far and that the rest of it passes well for you, too'. So since it is about 9a here and Johnny and I have already completed our first hike of the day, to y'all I say buona giornata!


We left Villa la Pietra at about ten till six this morning to meet up with the same folks that had walked us to il Faro earlier in the week to walk up the worn stone steps to Castello Barbarossa. I'd like to put the disclaimer in now that most of what I'll say in this post is what I was able to glean from the schpiel our guides Annarita and Giovanni gave us in Italian at the top of the castle (bearing in mind that I have only been exposed to this language for the past seven days or so and am largely resting on my knowledge of Latin roots and the Spanish language to try to understand).


This castle was built, I believe, was constructed in the 10th century and though it is named for the red-bearded Turkish pirate who didn't construct but rather helped in the destruction of the structure. It is situated on top of the grounds of Axel Munthe's Villa San Michele, but it belongs to the island. They only let people up into it on Thursdays (so anyone planning a trip to Capri, take note) and only with a guide. Other than that, it is now used largely as a point to study birds and their migratory patterns. Some advocate that this castle, from which you can spy Sorrento, Naples, Ischia and Procida, though smaller was much more strategically placed than the Villa Jovis. In its glory days, it was mostly used as a point of fortification rather than a castle for luxury, but it was destroyed in the 15th century during one of the many skirmishes between the Christians and the Ottomans. Apparently (and this is where I think my translation is most hazy), it was also during this time that the divide between Anacapri and Capri became more pronounced as the ensuing battles wreaked havoc not only on the Castello Barbarossa but also on many of the connecting buildings, roads and general structures between the upper and lower parts of the island. That being said, getting up and seeing this historic site so early this morning might be one of my favorite parts of my time here - so serene and with such a view that I had fun picking out the various places in Capri and Anacapri that I've visited in the past week.


Hopefully I'll be back to write you some more later today, my last full day in Capri - on tap we've got a hike to Monte Solaro by way of the chiesa Cetrella today before we head out for a night in Naples tomorrow and the following two in Rome. It is so hard to believe that my European adventure for the summer is coming to a close, but I can't describe how fortunate I feel to be finishing it off in the presence of such wonderful and caring family.

'sono kel-si. questo e stella'

This has become my mantra of sorts when I walk around Anacapri on my own. I try to take Stella, my aunt and uncle's yellow lab, with me whenever I go out and about the town because everyone seems to know her and then they associate me more readily with my aunt and her mother, who are both well-known and loved throughout the town.

As for Johnny and I, our days on Capri have reached a pattern of sorts, which is ironic only because each day we do something new and see something different. Well, at least new and different for me. Having returned here for at least part of most of his summers, Johnny is full of ideas and island pride - even though his reddish blonde hair prevents him from ever blending in entirely. Whenever we meet tourists or other English speakers, my behavior differs so drastically from the way it did in Spain where I was so prepared to chat and be outgoing. Instead I here defer to Johnny and allow him to impart his wisdom upon any wayward travelers we may encounter.

Most of our time is filled with walking, though I suppose you could more aptly call it hiking, exploring, wandering or adventruing. The history of the island stretches back to the times of the Roman rule with the gardens of Augustus Caesar and the ruins of the Villa Jovis, which was the emperor Tiberius's palace. I am, in fact, writing these very words by hand (to be later transcribed to this blog) from my perch at the top of Villa Jovis. Johnny naps casually beside me as we take a rest from our wanderings. We hiked this morning from Capri up to the Villa Lysis, also known, though less popularly, as the Villa Farsen. This building carries an interesting history and a well-maintained structure, both of which commemorate the wealthy Signore Farsen, a Parisian of Swedish descent who at twenty-three built this villa in the wilderness and overlooking the clarity of the ocean. His reputation, both on the island and in Paris, was largely marred by his affinity for teenage boys and his tendency to recreate old Greek and Roman statues, as well as pagan rituals. Farsen passed away in the 'Chinese Room' in his basement from an overdose of opium and cocaine at the ripe old age of forty-three. Today, the building houses an exhibit to honor the 20th anniversary of the death of Russian ballerina, choreographer, writer, composer, conductor and general artist Nueyearev (probably misspelled). The focus on the perfection of the male figure reminds of Farsen's original motifs. As we walked through the three stories of the villa, I counted five full bathrooms and a spa in the basement - all for the house of one man. He must have needed to visit the little boy's room often.

From there, we continued up a more wooded and nature-y trail up here to the ruins of Villa Jovis. Honestly, thanks to our Spanish art and culture/history class with Duke in Spain this summer, the very concept of ruins was fixed sourly in my memory. We devoted hours, both in class and on homework, to analyzing the depiction of ruins in essays, poems and paintings from the past four centuries. To call the task a little dense would be the understatement of my time abroad. But these ruins are cool. And they're breathtaking in such a way that I would imagine, if I harbored more artistic talents, that they would pluck the strings of inspiration to make one want to create something either just because of or to immortalize said ruins. Well, Johnny's up and wants to walk now - will have more thoughts for you in a bit. ~1:30pm.

3:35pm~ Now at Bagni di Piccola Marina (I'm still not sure I understand when or why the Italians precede nouns with adjectives and when the reverse is more appropriate), or the beach at the island's little marina. Again, my cousin lays napping beside me, and so again I seize upon the repose from walking and talking to put pen to paper. We have, in the past two hours, hiked back down to Capri centro for a pot of gelato at supposedly the best gelateria  of the island. They change their flavors on a daily basis (and we should know as we've not missed a chance to sample two flavors at a time on each of the past three days - so far I've tried Bignolata w/Nociatella, Angurria w/Fragola, and Liquizardi w/Cioccolata) and their waffle cones are made fresh on the spot as you order. We then continued down the winding and relatively recently restored Via Krupp to arrive here at the beach.

To recap, yesterday's main event was a long and comparatively luxurious walk along the Pizza Lungo, which took us from the elephantine Arco Naturale, past la Grotta Matermaria, and up to il Porto di Tragara. There, a kind New York lawyer who's been returning annually to that very spot for the past twenty-five years took our photo and assured us that if we sampled the linguine di fontanelina and white sangria, it'd be the best meal we eat in a year. And so, that is exactly what we did before returning home to Villa la Pietra to enjoy the sunset with wine, family and hearty conversation before dinner. It has been an interesting observation, that as travels take on more of a vacation-y feel, suddenly the daily schedule revolves around when and where we will obtain our next meal. In fact, as we chat with tourists along our walks, Johnny's instinctive follow-up question to "how long are you here for?" is "where are you planning on taking your next meal?", which he quickly follows-up with about four or five strong suggestions.

As we walk, Johnny and I have more or less adopted an unspoken formation of habit with him roughly three yards or so in front of me. It is not so much a difference in pace that dictates this order but more of a necessity. Johnny doesn't like to walk in straight lines, but instead his path slithers slightly as his flip-flops smack the stones. He carries on with conversation, side observations and anecdotes over his shoulder to me. With roads often narrower than some LF sidewalks, it's just easier for me to trail slightly. This also affords me the chance to observe more closely as we amble and I puzzle to myself over the words from a sign we've just past or the treks of the little gecko-like lizards that run rampant here. I like to fancy them the squirrels, more or less, of Capri.

into the depths of mordor! ... sort of

Ok, so maybe I'm a huge nerd, but the theme of the day for me has been Lord of the Rings. To a point. It's been a day of hiking and adventuring into the Caprescian Island wilderness.

Since arriving here in Capri, my cousin Johnny has been full of grand plans and adventurous ideas. Each day over breakfast, we've talked ambitiously over an average of three big events per day (keep in mind, that today marks only my fourth day (third morning) here). And generally, we've accomplished about one and a half. Yesterday, we accompanied my aunt Diana (Johnny's mother) and Stella to the market to purchase fresh produce from the stands and il vagabundo, the man who sells olives and mozzarella among other goods from the back of a chilled truck at the entrance of the market. The walk there took about fifteen or twenty minutes along the busier thoroughfare of the lovely city/town of Anacapri, meaning 'upper Capri.' We then prepared sandwiches for our afternoon trek down the Phoenician Steps and through the local neighborhoods to the rocky beach most favored by the locals at il Bagni Tiberio (I should ask, now, that you please excuse or at least ignore any poor translations or misspelled Italian words - I'm still fairly Spanish minded and I'm afraid the phonetics between the two languages differ slightly). Our evening yesterday was then capped off by a homemade dinner up here at the Villa la Pietra as my uncle made use of the abundance of apricots on the property to make a most delicious pork marinade before we headed out to the Villa San Michele for a mezzo-soprano and piano-forte concert. The Villa San Michele looks simple and welcoming from the exterior with its whitewashed walls and calmly creeping vines. It sits at the end of the most populous and pedestrian street in the down-town area of Anacapri, marking the end of civilization before you begin the descent along those same Phoenician steps, and it was erected as a personal palace of sorts for the Swedish doctor/philosopher/lover of the arts Axel Munthe. As I learned on our guided walk to il Faro this morning, almost every large and/or notable building on the island is somehow connected back to Mr. Munthe, and as such the island has seen in the past hundred years or so a remarkable influx of Swedish tourists. Now, his Villa is a museum and a sanctuary for artists, mostly Swedish, who feel so inspired, as Axel Munthe did, to convey the island's influence on their talents and their works.

This morning's adventures began with a mild hike from the middle of town to il Faro, the lighthouse. It was set up and guided by students working and studying at la casarossa, an aptly named red house that is home to a plethora of scattered artwork of the island. In listening to our guides rattle off in Italian, I think it's safe to say that I picked up the meaning of maybe every fifth word or so. By the time I could recognize that I understood a word, so many more had passed that I had lost my vague picture of the story being painted for us. Fortunately, one of our guides, Giovanni, spoke excellent English and offered Johnny, myself, and Gabrielle, a delightful German lady with again, impeccable English, a run-down of the most essential facts of each stop-and-schpiel we made. From our point at the peak with the lighthouse, we probably should have grabbed a food, but with snacks in our bags, sunscreen on our necks and water in our bottles, we decided to make the voyage along the coast up the Sendiero di Fortini, a hike up and down the mountainous terrain, sometimes dipping closer to the water and other times winding up to crazy heights. To stay on the path, we followed not tour guides but small red painted dots on assorted boulders and trees, the lines of the more freshly cut steps into the terrain as compared to having to find mountainous footholds, and Johnny's own memory. The trip was not without a couple of mini-adventures. As you might be able to guess from the word fortini, it was a walk connecting the now ruinous but once grand and functional forts that protected the coast. We would pause in the shade of each one, pretend to be firing cannons out the vistas and take a couple of silly cousin pictures before continuing on our way. The hike took us roughly four and a half hours (and we might have gotten slightly lost in the wilder back paths between properties and the path we wanted) before dropping us conveniently at our intended destination of the Grotta Azurra, the blue grotto. We waited about an hour or so until the tour boats had left and the water had calmed down before stripping down to our swim suits and plunging into the water after the natives. Grabbing firmly onto a chain suspended through (but not perpendicular to) the entrance, we pulled ourselves into the calm of the cave. It is rumored (though perhaps only by my cousin) that the man who made it a famous tourist spot became so enamored with the cave not only because of its eerie blue light, a reflection of the sunlight off of the clear white sand at such tremendous depths, but because, in an attempt to keep him out, locals told him the grotto was haunted. As we dried off, me sitting in the sun and Johnny resting his sunburned Scandinavian back in the shade, witnessed a true local tradition as boys, roughly around my age but maybe slightly younger, commenced a ritual of fun in jumping and flipping off of the side of the cliff and into the water at the mouth of the grotto. I was tempted to join in the fun (and Johnny did!) but fatigue and too much common sense unfortunately got the better of me today. Perhaps next time, if I can make it down there again before I leave, I'll make those boys show me how it's done.

transition

In the hecticness that was my last half week in Spain, I oscillated constantly between feeling upset at my inability to find the time to write and frustrated that there were not more hours in the day for me simply to enjoy the city of Madrid. If I were smart, I probably would have written on the plane – in fact I think I spent the first twenty minutes of my flight from Madrid to Naples serenely thinking about the words I wanted to use to describe the past few days. Instead, I watched the sea pass beneath me and made friends with the two twenty-something’s sitting in my row. I spoke in Spanish and they attempted to answer me in English. An observation that I don’t think I’ve yet made known to you is a refute of the convention I’ve often heard in the US that everybody everywhere else speaks English. While this is largely true of the folks that deal directly with tourists, and while yes, it is also true that (at least in the various Spanish cities I’ve visited) your average Spaniard knows more individual English words than the inverse of that situation, the ability to effectively and comprehensively combine phrases is somewhat lacking. It’s more like everyone has completed at least the mandatory middle school level of the language and then say they speak it. My plane mate was slightly better – he spent two months one summer studying English, of all places, at the good old U of I. Now he and his friend (whose innate fear of flying provided me and my somewhat-English-speaking friend un monton of entertainment) work in investment consulting and he has dreams of one day returning to the student lifestyle to pursue a higher degree in economics. He did, however, make a point of acknowledging that for the time being it would be foolish of him to leave a relatively high-paying and stable job. Of the young people I’ve met and had such chance conversations with, I will admit that he is indeed the first I’ve met with the kind of job that most of us Blue Devils would consider not only normal but practically guaranteed after graduation.

Our finals for the program ended up taking the form of two comprehensive essays, a blessing which, if one managed time correctly, afforded us the opportunity to enjoy extensively the culture of the Spanish botellón. In the first couple of weeks of the program, nos disfrutamos de bar-hopping, taking full advantage of our “of-age” status, but much more Spanish is the botellón. Grab a bottle of something, maybe a deck of cards, a few empty water bottles and a group of friends. Toss the smaller items in a bag and head out to your nearest park or plaza. Find enough space where you can all caber, be it sitting or standing. Open bottle and enjoy loudly and happily, preferably in Spanish. As we reached the end of our program, our studies and our budgets, the simple botellón was a great way to enjoy each others’ company and the cool night air while also happening upon others our age. Many were students but many were also ni-ni’s, which I think I’ve previously defined but just in case I haven’t, for your reference is short for ni estudia, ni trabaja meaning “neither studies nor works” (or works very minimally in a job far below his or her abilities). The same held true for the friends I made playing pick-up. When asked previously about how I saw la crisis manifested in Spain, I’d answered that I experienced it more as a conversation topic than as an event to be witnessed. However, in meeting these well-to-do and vacationing young men, I realize how much more humbled were the ones I had previously met.

Anyway, to return to the botellón, the cops would walk around our favorite haunting, Plaza de España. At first, I’d thought they were ticketing, but as I observed more closely, mingling is a better word for their actions. They would joke with the regulars they recognized, charlar with some of the sketchier types, and politely smile and nod as they walked by our louder American group. I think, through casually interacting with everyone they were more just making sure that nobody had over-stepped their own limits.

I would love to fill you in as well about our last group excursion to Córdoba because it was by far my favorite of the many cities we visited (Madrid’s home-like feel aside, of course). As it is, I have lots of pictures from there and so I think I’ll save those stories and memories until their visual partners can chance to accompany them (aka I’m being lazy). We officially finished out the Duke in Spain program with a group dinner at a restaurant within walking distance from our university, followed by a night of innocent dancing to Argentine music at Club Orange. The use of random English words to make titles and names appear more exotic continues to fascinate me as much, if not more than, the Communist influenced overuse of the word “red” in their Chinese counterparts. And so it happens that I returned home around 3:30 (having pre-packed, of course), slept until 5:30 before waking, showering and sadly despidiéndome de mis anfitriones to head to the airport. I now sit (or I did as I wrote this by hand about nine hours ago) at the dining room table of Villa la Pietra. The start of my second grand adventure of the summer hath commenced.

Oh my goodness, there are too many thoughts traversing through my mind that I almost feel as if words will never be able to capture everything. But I’ll try. I’ll try to navigate the observations of the new experience, the constant nagging to compare this form of European life with what I have so far witnessed this summer, the desire to try to understand this language but feeling utterly lost (and grateful of the family members who do speak Italian)… After two days here, I think I’m kind of getting a feel for at least understanding things, but I have no confidence to try to say anything. In fact, the first phrase, in any language, that pops into my head when asked anything in Italian is, funnily enough, wo bu zhi dao, which is not even a response in any romance language. It’s Chinese for “I don’t know”, and one of my younger brother’s favorite phrases.

Back to attempting to describe… This. Is. Island. Life. … and I am so blessed and fortunate that I get to spend these ten days on the gorgeous island of Capri, not from the vista of a hotel room but the luxury of this simple and home-like villa. It is a house that has been in the family of my mom’s sister-in-law for as long as anyone can remember. Now she and my uncle (both retired) come every summer with her parents to live the simpler, carefree life and keep up the grounds. This year, they even brought Stella, their three year-old yellow lab who is loved by all of the locals (we’re even allowed to bring her to Il Ristaurante Barbarossa, the pizza place where we’ve eaten and watched the Eurocopa semifinals the past two nights!) and whose walking needs often dictate the course of the days events. Not that my time in Madrid would ever, by any previously existing standards of mine, be considered stressful, but “without stress” seems the most accurate way to describe life here on Capri. The biggest dilemmas we’ve had to face have been which fresh fruit to eat for breakfast and deciding which of the gorgeous ocean views to see first/next. My flight from Madrid left at 9a yesterday and arrived in Naples at about 11:40a, where not a soul asked to see my passport before I passed beneath the “customs” sign to find the grinning, exhausted and (surprisingly) mustached face of my cousin Johnny. He peered at me over a handmade sign: “Kugina (kousin)”. We took one of the most daring (but somehow also very calming after the crazy atmosphere of the Neopolitan baggage claim)taxi rides to the port, where we would ferry over to “The Island” with a bunch of day tourists. My aunt keeps commenting on her, not quite disdain but, pity for these daytime tourists that only get but a brief flavor of all the island has to offer. Before I crashed for a three and a half hour long riposa, my aunt and her mother served us lunch: bread, pomodores, fresh apricots and lentils (separate but both fresh), homegrown lettuce, the obligatory olive oil and balsamic vinegar, prosciutto, ham and salami. My aunt and uncle, who have been following this blog perhaps as my most avid readers, made a point to say that I was in no way required to eat any of the foods that did not please me. My aunt gestured to the tomatoes as this was mentioned. It was only then that I realized I have indeed come, not necessarily to enjoy, but to accept tomatoes as a part of my daily diet. My host family wasn’t exactly conscious of the balanced food group pyramid that I’ve grown up with and the abundance of fresh produce here has commenced now three feeding frenzies on my part. Though I loved Ángeles’s cooking, simple fruit and veggies are a welcome change from excessive oil, potatoes and pork. So then, post-naptime, my uncle took me to my first official Island View from the property of the Villa San Michele (pronounced, as I learned in my first Italian lesson from my aunt’s mother, as mee-keh-leh) before we headed to the aforementioned Ristaurante Barbarossa to watch Spain defeat Portugal in penalties while I enjoyed my first real Italian pizza. ¡Viva la Roja!

After a lazy and fruit-filled breakfast this morning, my aunt and Stella showed me the View from il migliara (the –gl- combination pronounced like the –ll- in million) and the Philosopher’s Park. But now, (or at least it was when I first wrote this by hand) it’s time for lunch! (Actually, I’m bedward bound now – buona note!)

top 15 things that single me out as an american in spain

I've been meaning to write this simple post for awhile, and now that I've just returned to my homestay from my final class of the program (eek! time is FLYING) I figured that now is as good a time as any to offer up my observations.

1. SHOES. I don't quite know how to characterize the shoes that the Spanish people wear, but to me this is the easiest way to distinguish Americans (and a few select other nationalities) from the Spaniards. When I walk around Duke, or Lake Forest, there are about twenty or so big brands that you pretty much can't avoid. If you spot a group of girls, however flawless their Spanish may seem, sporting Sperry's, Rainbow's, Toms, Reefs, or any non-Nike, Adidas or Puma sport shoe, their American identity is instantly revealed. On top of this, branding, as far as clothing goes, has seemed to me much less apparent here.
2. HEADPHONES, or lack thereof. To be a joven out and about on your own and not tune the world out in favor of the familiar tones of your iPod is unheard of. Maybe this is true in the hearts of the more populous US cities as well, but it has stuck out to me here the effort to which people will go to ignore their surroundings.
3. COUPLES, NOT. The fact that I will travel by Metro or walk with a group of guys here and not be clinging onto one of them seems out of the norm here. I wandered around the barrio Salamanca with one of the guys in my program yesterday, and as I looked around, it seemed we were being stared at for the odd fact that we walked with a friendly amount of space between us.
4. LARGE GROUPS. Well, this one is kind of obvious. We travel in large groups, find ourselves frustrated at our inability to speak in Spanish as quickly as our thoughts are formed in English (and at the variation in our levels of Spanish proficiency) and so digress to converse in English. This trend is especially prevalent if ever we attempt to eat in public, as was the case on our overnight trips to Salamanca and Asturias. Generally, I'm relegated to sit at the end of the table nearest the kitchen/waiter to clean up any of the awkward linguistic messes our group so often tends to create.
5. SUNDRESSES, and bright colored clothing in general are staples in my summer wardrobe. Although   on my brief shopping (more like perusing, to be honest) excursions dresses and bright colors abound, as I people watch on the Metro on the way to and from school, as well as in other general public places, it seems that grays and neutral colors predominate, along with pants. And all of the pants here taper at the ankle. Bright colors however, do manifest themselves in some places - particularly these skinny pants.
6. MI MOBIL or in English, my cell phone, here is a small and cheap pay-as-you-go-phone. Spain has not evaded the smartphone craze, especially amongst the younger generations. I will, however, note that Apple does not nearly have as much of a hold here over smartphone owners as it does in the states.
7. WANDERINGS. When I walk around, whether in a group, on an excursion or on my own, I still marvel at the architecture around me and the enormous and old buildings and monuments close enough to touch. Marcos joked the first weekend when we were in Segovia that I was going to get lost from our group because I wasn't paying attention to where we were going, but rather the ornate ironwork of the balconies and street lamps. I just can't help but marvel at the fact that so many of the buildings that people rush by in their hurry to arrive at their destinations here are indeed older than the entire established country of the United States of America.
8. DIVERSITY in our group. Not only am I multi-racial, but our program of forty contains many nationalities. To see a large group of students walking down the streets of Madrid with such an array of ethnicities seems fairly atypical.
9. MENU. When sitting down para tomar algo, as I did in the Plaza Mayor yesterday when I met up with one of my former high school Spanish teachers and his wife (originally from Madrid, so they were in town to visit her parents before heading off to Salamanca for a summer course), menus are not automatically offered. If you have to ask for one in order to decide what you want, it's generally a sign that you're not familiar with the afternoon culture of a quick coffee or beer (the juxtaposition of which, I'm still having trouble getting over).
10. WATER BOTTLES. Seem to be a particularly American thing to carry around. At Duke I think you tend to see more students than not toting around a Nalgene, or other reusable water container. That's just not the case here, which further peaks my curiosity as the food has struck me as particularly salty and salient.
11. EL FUTBOL. While everyone here cheers for la seleccion, upon listening in on the conversations of women around me while watching the games, it's become more and more clear to me that it's much more of a celebrity topic for many of them. They know the faces and the names and the lifestories of all of the major players, but few other women or girls could tell you much about the strategy of the sport or the tendencies of the team. Well, maybe that's just the way that I happen to stick out, but it's an observation nonetheless.
12. METRO MAP. Despite the fact that I'm now very comfortable bajando y subiendo the Metro, I still insist on bringing my tattered Metro map with me everywhere I go. It generally makes an appearance about once every other day now, just to be sure that I know where I'm going.
13. ATHLETICISM is just not a word I would use to describe most of the girls my age here. It seems as though up until about age 12 or so, girls are just as active as the boys, but after that priorities must change, as they marginally seem to in the US as well. Especially when shopping or perusing the stores, I've noticed that girls and their clothing here don't have much wiggle room for muscled bodies - it's just not the way that most here are proportioned - clothes, especially pants, seem to be tailored based on bone structure ranging from super petite to big-boned.
14. SNACKS also don't exist here. Well, it's not that you can't buy them, but it's more or less frowned upon to eat in public. It took me a little while to catch onto this unwritten custom as I would snack on an apple or a banana I'd brought with me while waiting for the Metro after class. Haha, the stares were almost as piercing as the hunger that the fruit intended to satisfy.
15. SMOKING. I don't do it. Period. And even in my voice you can hear a distinction because it is not something I've grown up with. To be honest, this is one of those things that I think will forever single me out as an American because despite my desire to assimilate into the culture here, my resolve not to smoke remains unwavering.

Asturias

This past weekend featured the long-awaited program trip to Asturias, the northernmost region in Spain and homeland of our program director and professor, Marcos. I call it long-awaited because in every single one of his classes up until this point, Marcos had somehow managed to bring it up in lecture. To describe the land in a single word, Asturias was gorgeous. The five/six hour bus ride from Madrid, I can only compare with the scenery of driving through the Rocky Mountains in Colorado as my family used to frequent when I was younger. No offense intended towards the American mountain ranges, but even this comparison does not begin to do justice to the landscape. The mountains were enormous and dynamic, colored by a plethora of shades of bluish gray, carpets of dainty yellow flowers and trees on trees on trees. It is, I think, the mountain range in which I would picture the old Scandinavian folk stories of trolls and such. What is more, this mountain range is essentially coastal. Talk about a way to make yourself feel small and insignificant in the face of the world at large. We stayed Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights in the city of Oviedo, which our professors had described as bourgeois. While I do to some degree with the use of that adjective, in our night-time excursions of bar-hopping and the general group-style wandering that accompanies a night out with lack of a fixed destination, the parts that weren't particularly high class all carried a unified feeling of punk. Thursday's trip up to Oviedo featured a couple of stops at sea-side shanties and pueblos perched atop cliffs with breathtaking views. The juxtaposition of the farmland, mountainous terrain and sea-breeze struck me as slightly contradictory but at the same time transcendental - or maybe I'm just applying the trains of thought from today's class lecture on surrealism. Friday, though cool in temperature, was definitely the highlight of the trip as we bused about two and a half hours higher into the mountains from our urban stay in Oviedo to the isolated pueblo of Someido to hike and ride mules up the mountainside. Again, the views were incredible and this experience further gave us a chance to see the campesino side of Spain that is so easily lost when one's focus remains on the urban epicenters and major cities. On Saturday, the weather featured what I'm told is a very typical Asturian forecast: about 60 F and rainy, and it was through this weather that we trudged up and down the streets of Oviedo in a walking tour of the cities landmarks and historical features. Of course, as with all of our excursions thus far, the cathedral was the main focus of this paseo, and possibly its most interesting feature (aside from the fact that it offered us warmth and shelter from the elements) is the fact that it is a gothic-styled cathedral but only has one tower instead of two because money fell short in the middle of construction and the city has never bothered to add a second tower. We also braved the rain out into the country-side to see a 9th century chapel, which to be honest would have been a whole lot more interesting if we hadn't been so cold and wet. Sunday, our departure day, we paid a brief visit to the port-town of Gijon to continue to marvel at the sea, as well as learn a bit about the rivalry between Gijon and Oviedo, see las termas romanas (preserved ruins of a Roman bath) among other tourist sites, and grab a group lunch at a sea-side restaurant before heading back to Madrid. To this moment, our experiences with the bus remain fixed in my memory. To be honest, our driver was quite terrible, a fact reinforced by the fact that Marcos would switch from Spanish to English (something he NEVER does for us) to gossip slightly about him. Apparently, we got lost slightly on our way to Oviedo. When heading up to Someido, the driver realized, after about 80% of the trip there had been completed, that our vehicle exceeded the limits for the winding mountain roads and we had to wait about half an hour for cars from Someido to come find and ferry us up about 4-6 at a time. It was quite an adventure, though one that I'm sure my mother wouldn't quite have appreciated, and I find it a miracle that no one found themselves carsick. Within the city of Oviedo, which for the record has wider streets than any of the antiquated cities we've visited thus far, our driver was incapable of making 90 degree turns on the first try. Thank goodness the windows were tinted, because I'm pretty sure that my embarrassment at blocking the entirety of an intersection for about 10 minutes as he tried to turn us around was evident in my facial expressions. To cap things off, on the way back we were pulled over by the police. I have no idea why, as I'd been sitting in the back of the bus playing hours of the game "Contact" in a mix of perfect Spanglish with some of my classmates, but they had us detained on the side of the road for about half an hour. Our trip home ended up taking about 8 hours overall, but at least again, as with every event of this trip, it resulted in a safe and exciting adventure to remember.