Home. Granada.

"I'm walkin' through the summer nights, the jukebox playing low, yesterday everything was goin' too fast, today it's movin' too slow" - Dylan,

There is too much to say at this point about the last few days, and I don't want this blog to get repetitious, so I will give some highlights and describe where I am now living. First, today is Sunday. Saturday was an incredible day, and so was Friday.


On Friday we left Madrid and began the trip to Granada. Along the way we stopped in Toledo, and took a tour of the city. Toledo is an amazing city. It was the former capital of Spain, before Madrid, and it is really a great place. I have many photos from Toledo, but basically it is surrounded by a river on three sides, and it is located up on a hill, which is why the Romans first inhabited it. Toledo.
We left Toledo after a few hours of visiting, but I am sure that I will go back sometime in the future. The trip from Toledo to Granada was a long one, at about four hours. Along the way we passed through Castilla de La Mancha, the home of Don Quixote. Spain is a pretty place, I don't think it gets enough credit for that. We went over many mountains and flat plains as we headed south. Finally we passed over the last set of large mountains, and an area filled with olive tree after olive tree and we reached Granada. Granada. Everything I imagined. There are mountains, to the north, south, east, and west. To the North, East and South the mountains are within a few miles, 5 maybe. Granada. We got off the bus in Granada and I was really nervous to meet my host mom, but she was great. She doesn't speak English, but why do I need to speak English anyways. Although my Spanish is really rusty at this point, I look forward to the future when she and I can speak without fragmentation. Our apartment is on the seventh floor, it is really nice and on the north side of the city. What really surprises me about the area where we live is that although we are really far from the city center, our block for example has five or six restaurants and bars.

Enough about where I live. Yesterday was incredible. The beginning to Spain's version of the Tour de France was in Granada. La Vuelta a Espana as it is called is a really big deal, I knew that it was in Granada in May probably, but still I was not prepared for how big it would be. I loved it. I probably walked seven miles yesterday around the city, because I thought the race was starting around 2, when it really started at 7. Something got lost in translation there. It was fine though because I learned the streets. During the stage I saw some people jumping a fence and going to a roped off area just for the cyclists and their friends. Well, after a quick debate in my head, I decided to make the jump as well. For the next hour I was next to some of the best cyclists in the world as they warmed up for the time trial wishing them good luck, and trying not to be as big a bother as some of the people around me were to them.


It was great. I dont know what I can do that will top it. I know this was long, but I had alot to cover, hopefully I will figure out a way to not describe as much in the future, but until then you are stuck reading all of it. PS. I have an online photo area on Picasa. Here is the link. http://picasaweb.google.com/baxterburnworth

Lost in Translation

"No man should travel until he has learned the language of the country he visits. Otherwise he voluntarily makes himself a great baby-so helpless and so ridiculous." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The flight from Chicago to London was as good as an 8 hour flight with little leg room can be. We even arrived early to Heathrow, but as our pilot informed us, that is not always a good thing, as there were no spots open for us. By the time we exited the plane out in the tarmac and got on buses, it was the same time as when we were originally supposed to arrive. My second flight from London to Madrid was also good, although this time I had the bulkhead seat and was able to stretch my legs out a little bit.

Finally, I arrived in Madrid. My first reaction was that Spain was exactly how I had imagined it, with a hint of California landscape and lots of Spanish speakers. The landscape I can adjust to easily, but as my title states, the speakers were something else. It will take me a while to acclimate to speaking Spanish all the time, and listening to people speak Spanish. Right now I am watching a soccer game between two teams that are not well known, at least to me, and I can only keep up with a little of the dialogue.

Anyways, here is a brief introduction of my first 3 days in Spain. After arriving at Madrid Barajas Aeropuerto, I found my overseas studies group leader, and along with other students boarded a bus for downtown Madrid and la Puerta de Sol. The Puerta de Sol is in the center of Madrid, it is a plaza, and it is where our hotel is located. It is a beautiful area, very Spanish and very old with many winding streets. In these three days we have visited the Royal Palace,the Prado Museum (which houses many famous paintings, mainly by Spanish painters) and the monastery and palace called El Escorial. I also visited another museum in Madrid today called Renia Sofia, which houses many works by Picasso and Dali to name a few. The Renia Sofia houses the work by Picasso called Guernica, and since I had learned about this in a class I found it exciting to see in person. It was a museum that I could see my brother Thomas enjoying very much as well.
Guernica:

Now, I have just come back from dinner, at midnight. We eat very late here, but it works for the lifestyle. The other major change from America is the eating habits, as we do not snack here like we do in America. Today for example I ate three set meals and that was it. The portions are much smaller as well, although lunch is intended to be the large meal of the day, today it was not for me.

A few observations that I was able to make very soon after arriving at our hotel is that the mullet is in. The people of Spain (both men and women) are all business in the front and all party in the back. The most popular of these styles that I have seen is similar to Cristiano Ronaldo's recent haircut at the Espy's.
This picture really does not do it justice though, but you will have to take my word for it. The other great thing that I have come to learn about Spain is that cycling is on tv all the time. It's great. They also replay the olympics on a sports channel every day it seems like.
Tomorrow we leave for Toledo, the former capital of Spain, and Granada. I am excited. I will upload many pictures once I get situated in Granada, and hopefully have much more free time.

It appears we are at 4 days...

"Time is what we want most, but... what we use worst."

William Penn was right, just as I am just beginning to pack I am wondering where all the time has gone. I have wanted this trip to come for so long, that it seems like the last 4 months have been squandered overpreparing to leave. Now ready to leave, I hope to use these fourth months ahead of me better than the last. This will be my last post before I reach the new motherland, wish me luck!

Under 2 weeks

This blog is slowly taking form. I think that I will offically launch it in three weeks, but at this point it is all up in the air. Currently, I am working on my list of things to do, which includes packing and getting ready, so that I have everything in order by the time that I leave. So today I am officially 13 away.

#2

We are now 14 days away from my flight to Spain. I have many things to do in this short amount of time, but I am excited for what lies ahead.

Lets Begin

Well here is the first blog. I leave for Spain in 25 days, and this blog will be a way that you can all keep up with what I am doing. Thanks for taking a look, and I promise to have more in the future.