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I know I wrote a novel the last time, so I'll try and keep this one short. But I'm not making any promises - you know me. :-PPP
The day after I came back from Madrid we went to a 4-day trip to Andalucia. We left on the 14th and came back on the 17th. There were 4 of us: Katja, me, Marja and Radivoj (Marja is Katja's colleague at the dept. of history at our faculty and Radivoj is her boyfriend - and he is 14 years older than her. And he is a sculptor, so that he can actually drop everything and go to Spain for 6 months with his girlfriend of 1 year ?!?!). He and Marja came to Spain by car (''katrca'', to be precise) which is definitely a big plus for traveling around. So we took off at about 7 in the morning and we headed to Seville first.
Seville is wonderful. It's huge and unfortunately it's not by the sea. But that's OK, 'cause it makes up with all the architectural beauty. It has a huuuuuge castle, actually it's more like a fortress, which is called Alcazar and it was built by the Arabs. Actually all of the south of Spain is very Arab like. We got there too late to enter it, so we just took photos from the outside. It also has a humongous cathedral (where Columbus is supposedly buried), but it had a loooong line and you have to pay like 4€ to enter, so we passed that too. Which means we just took a long stroll around the city and did some sightseeing of the things that are not so famous as the Alcazar or the cathedral - the theater, Plaza de España, Plaza de toros, the Arab wall... It's a great place, Sevilla.
From there we went to a town a bit up in the hills, Arcos de la Frontera. It stretches from one hill to another, so it's really unusual to see it from afar. Also it has such narrow streets that cars and mopeds honk all the time when driving through, so that anyone coming from the other direction would know there's someone there. We went for some tapas and some drinks and then we went to find a place to sleep for the night. Me and Katja slept in the car and Marja and Radivoj had a tent and sleeping bags. But it was pouring that night, so I was freezing all night and all of their stuff were soaking wet. Yeah, camping can be like that as well. ;-)
In the morning we went for some coffee and bathroom and then we took a trip around town. It's a very interesting town, even though it seem different at first sight. We saw a few guys practicing for the evening procession (it was still Semana Santa) and they had to carry that heavy podium down some stairs! It really is a task. There were also some posters hung all around town announcing Semana Santa, but from the past years - all the way from the 70s till 2006. And every poster presented a different 'hermandad' (or brotherhood) and on one of them it said that the costaleros (the guys carrying the podium) have to get down on their knees to be able to go down one very narrow street. Even if you're not religious, you have to admire them.
From Arcos we moved on to Jerez de la Frontera, which is world famous for the sherry wine (or jerez, as it is called here in Spain). We didn't really feel like staying there for a long time, so we just went to a bodega (sort of like a wine cellar) to taste some sherry and then we went on towards the beach!
Cadiz was the next city to visit. And it happens to be my favorite city in Spain, right after my first love, Madrid. I think the beach has a lot to do with it. ;-) We hit the beach as soon as we found a parking space. It was a beautiful day, sunny and very hot, so we had no problem going for a swim. In the Atlantic Ocean, no less. But the water was fantastic. Who would've thought it was that warm in the middle of April! Then we dried are swimsuits and tried catching some sun rays. I got a weird rash on my hands and neck and apparently it came from the sun. At looked horrible and it itched, but it wasn't as bad as it looked. I just decided to stay off the sun for the next couple of days. The worst part was I couldn't take a shower all this time, so the salt and the beach sand (which was EVERYWHERE, in all of my stuff!) made the rash itch even worse. But it got better once I got back to Ciudad Real. I guess I'm just not used to the strong sun over here. And it's pretty strong!
After the beach we went around town a little. It's really precious, I loved it. I'm going back here some day, that's for sure. We had some dinner, a genuine Spanish paella (people think that paella is typically Spanish, but it's not really - paella is typical just of Andalucia, like tapas are apparently typical just of Castilla - La Mancha, 'cause in the south you don't get them) and then we went to look for a place to sleep. We slept on the beach (yes, we drove the car to the beach, with all that sand and everything), Katja and me in the car and Marja and Radivoj in their tent (and in their half-dried things). In the morning when we woke up, people started coming to the beach to take walks and to walk the dogs and stuff. We were a bit insecure, wondering if they'll say something to us, but they didn't, just 'Good morning' or 'Hello' and that was it. We washed a little (with some bottled water ;-)), we had some breakfast (forgot to mention earlier: all the time of the trip we ate stuff like salami, bread, canned tuna or mussels, nutella and marmalade, stuff that we brought with us - off the hood of the car :-P Gives a whole new meaning to 'eating on the go' ;-)) and then we went back to the city to do some more sightseeing. I was seriously thinking about buying an apartment in Cadiz, but I didn't have the 2,5 millions with me, unfortunately. ;-D When we left Cadiz, we thought about stopping at Conil de la Frontera to take one final dip in the sea before we have to say goodbye to the beach, but the wind was blowing so hard it was impossible to swim. You could tell we were approaching the most southern point of Spain. So we just picked some sea shells instead. And what sea shells! I don't know how I'll get them home and I had to throw away about half of them, because my mom will kill me if she sees all of this ('Where are we going to put all of this? Why did you have to bring this home?'). Not in a bad sense, I completely understand her, it's just... I mean, even I don't know where to put them in our house! But they're gorgeous! Pearly, yellow, round, oblong, oval... Goodbye, my shells. *sigh*
Moving on - to Tarifa. The whole world thinks that Gibraltar is on the tip of the Iberian Peninsula. Well, it's not. :-P It's Tarifa, the paradise for windsurfers, gliders, water skiers and those who like combining water skiing and gliding. It's a fabulous place. Actually, it WOULD be a fabulous place if it weren't for the wind. It blows so hard that sand is flying through the sky. For the next couple of days I had sand everywhere - in my eyes, ears, hair, shoes, even in my pockets! Unbelievable. We were making jokes that when some sand actually makes it to Slovenia, it probably isn't from the Sahara as most people think, it's from Spain. ;-PP But never mind that - I was at the most southern point of Spain, we were looking at Africa from across the sea (Morocco, to be precise) and I had the Mediterranean on my right and the Atlantic on my left. Who could ask for anything more? J
Next thing on our list was Gibraltar. We got there late in the afternoon and we had to leave the car in front of the border, in La Linea, because the line of cars waiting to enter Gibraltar was like a mile long. So we entered Gibraltar on foot, without any problems. Another thing about Gibraltar - it also has an airport. And when a plane is landing or taking off, they close off the main road that enters the city of Gibraltar. It's almost surreal - you're only like 100m away from the plane as it's taking off! I mean, where else in the world that does happen?!
But aside from that I didn't really like Gibraltar. It's like it hasn't got any character. It's not Spanish and I presume it's not very British (although I'm not the one to say, since I haven't been to Britain yet :-S), it's just... Like something in between, or neither of the two, I don't know really. All in all, I didn't like it too much, but it was interesting to see it. And I found my favorite store here, Dorothy Perkins (but of course, since it's a British mark), but since it was Sunday, it was closed, of course.
We spent a couple of hours walking through the city and then we went back to La Linea, to the car and we went towards Jimena de la Frontera. Since it was already very late when we got to Jimena, so we just tried looking for a place to sleep. Unfortunately, since it was dark and we didn't know the town, we chose a most unusual place to spend the night - on top of a small hill, with a monument of a cross. 3 of us didn't really feel all that comfortable staying there, but Radivoj insisted, so we stayed. There were some people walking around at night with flashlights, so that was a little creepy. And in the morning as we were getting ready to leave, a woman taking a walk came with two (cute) dogs. She didn't really say anything, she just said that this isn't exactly a camping place. And she talked to us in English and she knew by the license plate that we're from Slovenia. She was asking us quite a few questions and she told us that she's from Germany and that for a while she was studying in the USA, but now she's living here, but she didn't say why she's in this God forsaken place. Anyway, we got out of there as fast as we could. The only thing to see there is the castle, which really is amazing, so we took a tour of that and then we moved on.
The last thing on our list was Ronda, which is quite high up in the hills and the wind was blowing quite strongly. The park in this town is made above a cliff and if you approach the edge of the park, you can see what a long way down it is. The most famous thing in town is the bridge over the 100 meter deep abyss (scarry!) and the place is known for being the hometown of the modern corridas (bullfighting). We walked around town a little and that was it. After Ronda we decided to go back home.
We got home at around 11.30 at night on Monday and the first thing I did was take a shower!! It never felt this gooooood... The next day in the morning I washed two rounds of clothes in the washer. J And after that I went to school. ;-P
I had my first presentation in Spain 2 days later, on the 20th. It was about the writing systems of Japan. I prepared the whole thing in Power Point and tried keeping it short (you only have 10 mins), which I was more or less able to do. Everyone was sort of dumbfounded afterwards, except for the teacher. I suppose it was a little bit because of the topic and partly for my English (and I'm saying that without any intention of blowing my own horn ;-D). But it did turn out great.
Next thing on my list were two other presentations - one for Ingles aplicado a sector turistico and the other for Ingles para derecho. With the first one I had to sell a tourist destination and I chose Slovenia, the whole of it. I took all of my data off the net site of the Slovene Tourist Organization in English (which sucks, BTW, 'cause it took me more time to correct their English than write sth on my own. And some of the mistakes seemed quite familiar - from our classes of translation!) and I realized there's a lot of stuff about my country I don't know yet, so I'll probably go on a tour this summer. J I got an A+ for my work - my first A+! About a week later I had my presentation and it went really well. On the same day I had my presentation in Ingles para derecho and it was about policing (Parks police in Britain, special constabulary and such), others had topics such as MI5/6, FBI, CIA... So mine was quite boring, but I did it really well. When I was leaving the podium, the professor actually congratulated me. Why, I wouldn't really know. But all the time while I was waiting my turn, the people kept telling me how brave I am for doing this presentation myself (all the other people were in groups). But back home we usually do everything alone, so I don't get it why this it so difficult to understand here.
Another good news is that Handball Club Ciudad Real won the League of the Champions, the same thing our guys from Celje did two years ago. They were in the finals last year as well, but they lost for only one goal (against Barca, their biggest enemy). So this year they knew they have to win. And they did. The whole province was ecstatic for a few days and there was a big official celebration in Plaza Mayor where they also showed the cup and they were throwing handballs at people and stuff (they were all pretty wasted J).
On this last Friday we had a guest lecturer at our faculty, a drama teacher who's really from the Virgin Islands, but he's been working in NY for a long time and in Spain. His name is Alito Rodgers and the title of the lecture was Teaching Foreign Language Through Drama Techniques. Which basically means teaching numbers, alphabet and such stuff through games. I liked it, because he is a real motivator, he was jumping all the time, but not in this nervous manner, but more like being excited. He really seemed like he believes what he was saying. It was an interesting lecture, even though I'm still not going to be a teacher.
I'm excited about one other thing - I found a bunch of books on American Asian literature. Now all I have to do is copy them all and get them home somehow... But at least I found material for my thesis! And on Japanese American women even and I thought that will be the toughest nut to crack. So yeah, I'm quite excited about that. J
OK, I tried to keep it as short as possible considering how many things I had to say - how did I do? :-PPP