Spain - Castelldefels, Sitges, & Barcelona

I went to Barcelona for five days with another American.  Luckily she had a friend who lived nearby, in Castelldefels, so we were able to stay with her and her family.  I found Spain to be a nice culture shock, one that I was missing while in England (though it is nice to be able to return to England and have it as a sort of comfort zone while being so far from home).  Spain kind of reminded me of parts of California, and of pictures I'd seen of Mexico, but it definitely had it's own feeling to it.  I also put my language skills to the test here.  I studied Spanish for 4 years between Middle School and High School, but, having never formed a strong basis in the language, I had a hard time building on the basics I was lacking, and never got very good at speaking Spanish.  Going to Spain I realized I knew more Spanish than I thought, but it definitely helped that most people knew some English.  I also found myself answering some people's questions in Italian, which I had studied more recently (but only for a semester at college).  While I have a larger vocabulary in Spanish, my minimal Italian is stronger and was often the second language I referred to after English, and before Spanish.  After traveling throughout Spain and France, and meeting more people in my life who know two or more languages, I'm realizing I'd really love to study and become fluent in another language.  I know it would require a lot of work, but it would be fun to study how another language works and functions, and could be useful in the future (especially if I re-study Spanish and decide to live in Southern California).

Anyway, back to my travels throughout Spain.  I went to three cities while in Spain - Castelldefels, where my friend's friend and her family lived, Sitges, a small (posh) beach town, and Barcelona, where I spent most of my time.

Castelldefels

My Catalonian Thanksgiving Dinner!  (My friend and I arrived on Thursday night, Thanksgiving Day in the States.)

The meat, cheese, and tomatoes were amazing! Never thought I'd enjoy eating a tomato, but they were delicious here.

The beach at Castelldefels.  As usual in Europe, the water is much cleaner here than what I'm used to in California.

Hills & buildings behind the ocean.

Best churros I've ever had!  Chocolate dipped on the left, and regular on the right.  Got them from a churro stand near the beach - muy delicioso!

Got to see more Christmas decorations as it was late November.

Oh yeah, there is a Castle in her hometown.  No big deal.

Seafood paella that our friend's family made for us.  Words can't sum up how good it was!

Sitges

Posh beach town :)

Old Cathedral.

Inside of the cathedral.

Barcelona

The Sagrada Familia

Inside the Sagrada Familia.

View from the tower.

Backside of the cathedral.

Casa Batlló

La Pedrera

Top of La Pedrera

 

Model of La Pedrera

Old cathedral near the Gothic Quarter (can't remember the name).

Gothic Quarter.

Columbus pointing to America

Magic Fountain.  Very pretty, two of the three songs & fountain choreography are done to classical, operatic music, and the last one is a mash-up of cheesy '80's songs :)

Paella

Paella (with noodles...I forget its proper name).

Park Guell

The house Gaudi lived in at Park Guell

My last meal in Spain - tapas :)

Video Diaries I - Spain

I should really preface this by saying I am not a video person.  I can work with still images, but videos are definitely not my forte.  Having said that - my sister made the mistake of lending me her Flip Video camera to take to Europe.  I am definitely still getting used to this medium.  My videos are pretty bad - I pan too quickly, my hands shake, and I don't know how to edit anything yet.  It is with this preface that I share my first 'video diary' post of my travels.  You have been forewarned.  My videos are amateurish, but hopefully they can reach an "acceptable" quality - meaning they won't make my mother sick to watch them by how shaky they are and how quickly I move the camera - by the end of my travels.

Barcelona

(One of my first travel videos.  It is very long, drawn out, and not much changes...feel free to fast through or skip this video.  I just like the inside of the Sagrada Familia so much, it felt like it might be worth sharing.  Maybe.)

Sitges

These videos get a little better...but only slightly.  The first two are walking around Sitges, and the last one is on a train ride leaving Sitges.

Yup...that's it.  Sadly.  If anyone has any suggestions for video-making, or what they'd like to see videos of, just leave a comment and let me know :)

Literary Europe I - Platform 9 3/4 (London)

Thought it might be cute to do brief posts of the literary parts of Europe I ventured to visit, or stumbled upon.  Some might be longer than others, but most of these will be a quick photo or two.

Starting with recent literary history:

Harry Potter's Platform 9 3/4!

Kind of placed in an odd location.  While it is at King's Cross Station, it is outside of the station, closer to Platform 1 than Platform 9.  (It is to the left of what this photo shows.)

It was under construction when I went, which doesn't make for the best photo opportunity...

But I was still able to see it and get my picture by it! 
See you at Hogwarts!

Amsterdam

I went to Amsterdam in November...quite some time ago, I know.  But, I have yet to do a blog post for that beautiful city, so here it is....

Before getting to Amsterdam, I didn't really know what to expect.  All I had heard of the city was that 1) It is legal to smoke marijuana.  2)   They have a Red Light District which has women in windows whom you can pay to have sex with.  3)  An old roommate of mine studied there and loved it (but, apart from hearing about the clubs, I never heard why she liked it so much).

Not being much of a party-person (I do enjoy going out, but when traveling I'd rather see the city than a fuzzy, tipsy view of the inside of a club), I didn't know what to expect to do in Amsterdam.  Everyone on our overnight bus was partying, drinking, playing loud music, while my friends and I were trying to do coursework or sleep.  Once we got to Amsterdam, however, I could easily see why my roommate fell in love.  I keep using the word "quaint" to describe Europe, but Amsterdam felt very quaint.  It had tall, thin houses squished together overlooking canals.  Bicycles lined the fences and flew past us as we walked through the city.  It felt like a time warp, and looked like I was in another country.  That's one nice thing about Europe - every country looks different.  Some architecture and city designs are similar.  I found Barcelona and Paris (blog posts to come) to have some similar architecture and street structure, but both felt very different, and looked very different.

While in Amsterdam, I went to a few museums, walked down a lot of the streets, and ate some dutch food.  Again, photos seem the easiest way to show what I did, and to sum things up quickly, so I hope you enjoy:

Amsterdam is full of canals.  They are at the center of most main streets.  Also bicycles are the main mode of transportation.

Went to a section of FOAM - a contemporary photography museum.

Front of the Rijke Museum

One of the famous I amsterdam signs.  This one is behind the Rijke Museum.

The Van Gogh Museum was amazing.  I've always liked his work, but it was really great to see it in person, and to see some of his less famous works.

A cute cake at a cake-shop.

I'm assuming it's "Literature" in Dutch.  It's really nice seeing and hearing other languages as I go to different countries.

Sometimes artwork can be found alongside the street names...definitely something you don't see in the States (at least not where I've been in the States).

Heineken Experience.  Didn't go inside as I'm not a big beer fan, but definitely worth checking out for those beer connoisseurs out there.

I went in mid-November, so holiday decorations were up :)

Anne Frank statue near the Anne Frank House.

Top of the Anne Frank Museum

Anne Frank House museum sign.  Unfortunately, I couldn't take photos inside.  It was definitely a great, but humbling experience to see where she and the others hid.  You realize what little space they had to live in, and how quiet they had to be, as the floor creaks a lot. They also had some of her original diaries and notebooks, which was really cool to see.

Dam Square.

The Royal Palace.

Sex Museum.  Had some really interesting images from a photography standpoint.  It was also really interesting to see how different cultures express sexual behavior.  However it was 3-4 floors, and definitely became a bit overwhelming by the end of the exhibit.

Not the real Red Light District, but a sign from the Sex Museum.  The Red Light District itself wasn't as depressing as I thought it would be.  I'd heard it was really upsetting to see all the women in the windows, but really, they were just working.  They looked bored when they didn't have an audience to try to pull in, and were working when they did.  I probably sound really anti-feminist when I say this, but it wasn't as upsetting to see them in the windows as I'd been told.  It was just a different way of doing things.

One last canal photo.

And the food I ate - mostly dutch pancakes!

Yum!  (And yes, I split a Heineken with a friend.  Despite not being a big beer fan, it seemed like another need-to-do while in Amsterdam.)

Cromer, UK

Cromer is a little beach/coastal town in England, very close to Norwich.  Back in October one of my flatmates took my friend (who was visiting me from the States) and I to it for a half a day.  Unlike the lazy beach days I am used to in (Southern) California, our "day at the beach" turned into a hike, first along the sand, and then up a steep hill and along the cliffs, back into the main part of town.  Since my friend and I are both retired skaters - retired, being the key word in that sentence - we were very out of shape, and often found ourselves panting as we made our way up the hills.  However, despite being out of shape, it was a great walk to take.  The beach was beautiful, and the weather in October was chilly compared to the beaches I am used to (though I honestly prefer cold beaches to Southern California's warm, touristy ones), but it wasn't too cold to be un-enjoyable.

(Beach towns are also supposed to be some of the best places to get fish and chips.  I had a really good one here, but I'd still say the best fish 'n chips I've had so far was at the Eagle pub in Cambridge.)

The Pier.

Old cathedral.

 

 

The water is so much bluer here...it's not all brown and polluted.

Beach huts.

Halfway up the hill we climbed.

As an American I find this funny...though lots of the houses here in England have names rather than/along with numbers.

Light House.

Heading back to the Pier.

A game of cricket!

Thoughts on being home...

So...I fail at trying to post consistently here.  I want next term to be better - more posts, more trips, more to talk about, but I always seem to get busy (or feel busy) and never post anything.  I still haven't posted for my trips to Amsterdam, Spain, or Brighton, UK....I just get caught up with schoolwork, friends, or taking time out to relax, and kind of forget about, or put-off, posting here.

Being home has been weird...as I keep telling people, I experienced more culture-shock and homesickness going to San Francisco than to England.  I guess mostly because I expected everything to be different in England, so the changes caught me less off-guard.  I looked for them, delighted in the differences I found here, unlike some of my other American peers who didn't seem to take as easily to the changes they found abroad.  When I first went to San Francisco, however, I had no idea what to expect.  All the changes surprised me, and I wasn't mentally prepared for them.  It was also my first time away from home, and I found myself feeling very homesick the first year.  Now, being away from home (...I should probably define my use of the word "home" here - I usually use "home" to imply my childhood home in Southern California.  Though I also occasionally use home to describe California, or the States.  Sorry for the confusion here.  - I should also clarify, more for myself and my memories that my use of "home" doesn't really mean So. CA is my home, that this is where I want to settle down, rather it's more so just the fondest place in my memories as well as the place I have remained in the longest.  Southern California is the place I feel most comfortable calling home.)  Anyway, being away from home, or even California, has begun to feel normal, if only a temporary normalcy.  When things get bad or stressful in England, I just remind myself my time here is temporary and to enjoy the good stuff about England.  (When I stress out in SF, however, I usually feel trapped, waiting impatiently for when I can get out or escape whatever situation I am in.  When back in Southern California, my stress is even more amplified.  I feel I have no where to escape to, and when things go bad here, it feels worse than it really is.)

Upon returning home, here to Southern California (I have yet to go back to San Francisco) from England, it has felt nice to be home, but also feels kind of empty.  My first few trips returning here after going to San Francisco kind of felt surreal and like a fairy tale.  Everything enlivened my memories of Southern California and of my childhood, and coming home felt, well, like coming home, but being given a chance to see it in a fresher, newer, more exciting way.  After awhile it became the norm to be going between the two.  Coming back from England, however, has been different.  It feels more like everything is changing here.  (Never have I felt that experience of You Can't Go Home Again (Thomas Wolfe) - a book I still need to read (I have yet to read it as I've been waiting for the "right time" in my life to read it).  Steinbeck talks about it in his Travels with Charlie, how when he returns to Salinas on his trip around the States, some memories come back, but everything feels different.  Things have yet to feel so alienated for me here...though maybe if I read the book, it will make more sense in relation to my experience.)  More shops are closing, buildings are being torn down.  As the recession ages, it is finally starting to show outwardly, like plastic surgery, on the face of Orange County.  Odd scars indent the strip malls and storefronts, leaving marks no one wants to discus openly, even though they are ones that can't be ignored.  It makes me really wary to return to the US, especially So. Ca if this is where I need to live after I graduate from University in SF. 

California (apart from feeling very Californian - I am starting to realize how Californian California looks - direct sunlight, wide roads, open spaces measured by dry hills - in comparison to England (at least) - which is very tight, has winding streets in its cities, and large open spaces unmeasured by hills - just green fields rolling and stretching across the country).  Anyway, California has felt hollow after England.  I keep looking for England here, especially in the small things - hearing "Cheers" everywhere, asking for crisps instead of chips, or chips instead of fries, commenting on a stray ladybird instead of a ladybug, etc.  Also the cadence of their voices and accents - coming back to America (or even hearing some Americans speak in England) our voices sound very whiny (especially girl's voices, which is depressing to me as I'm sure I sound as whiny and valley-girlish as the rest of them).  Maybe it's just in the words and voices that I find myself missing England...it is probably in other ways, but I can't think of any other specifics at the moment.  But, overall, California feels hollow compared to England.  It has it's own charm, but not the charm I have become accustomed to.  But even England's enchantment can't last forever, and in a weird way (probably from my disillusionment with certain experiences and people in San Francisco) I am glad I only have a year in England.  I would love it to be longer, but I'm scared it would loose its magic if I stay any longer.