Spain is Different: Part 1

When we got here, Carlene warned us not to pitch any “zoo stories”: meaning don’t write stories about how different Europe is from America. That’s just the way it is here, and its not very compelling or interesting for readers to hear about. Luckily, this is not an article, its my blog. So without further ado, Spain is Different, Part 1:

1. Spanish people do everything later than Americans. They wake up later, go to work later, go to bed later and stay out on weekends until 6 or 7 in the morning. Its incredibly weird and awesome.
2. Their streetlights have a 30-second countdown during a red light to let cars know when its going to turn green. I guess this is supposed to make things safer, but if it existed in America people would be running red lights with 3 seconds left and probably causing accidents regularly.
3. Speaking of cars, they’re a lot smaller here. I don’t think I’ve seen more than one SUV and pickup trucks are about as commonplace as pterodactyls.
   

   Is that a…carbike?

4. They eat bread with every meal. Literally.
5. Deodorant is not a thing. I asked the person at the supermarket for some and after a lot of confusion one worker managed to show me their one “stick” of the stuff, except its not a stick its like some weird egg-shaped device that leaks out liquid deodorant on you. Its bizarre.
   

   Not impressed with your deodorant, Spain.

6. They love soccer here. Like, a lot. To an indescribable degree. Its like Americans’ love for football, baseball, hockey and basketball combined minus their hatred of soccer.
   

   Soccer rubber duckies…

7. Lastly, doorknobs. Why even have them if they don’t turn and why are they in the middle of the door?
   

   Some things you just can’t understand.

 

UEFA Final Video

Almost forgot, here’s a short video I put together from Saturday’s soccer match.

Strange and Royal Happenings

For the most part, yesterday was a great day. I was still riding high off having our news team’s article about the UEFA soccer match published in the Globe, and was looking forward to having a nice picnic in the park with Carlene and her family for her daughter Lila’s birthday. On the way there, Ian, Mackenzie, Carly and I grabbed some burritos to eat on the grass. When we left the store, we saw a girl laying spread-eagled on the sidewalk. I was ready to walk past her, writing her off as some drunk or homeless person. Thankfully, Mackenzie is a more caring person than I am and went closer. Turns out she was in the midst of a seizure. We called 911, and with the help of a couple passersby, managed to get her to come to before the ambulance arrived. It was a surreal moment, and it rattled me for a quite a while.

Luckily, that feeling went away during the birthday picnic. We had cake, pastries and watched Cal play on the playground with people from the group, who looked like they were having more fun than he was at some points. It was a great atmosphere, and its awesome when all of us can hang out together for something fun like that. It really brought my mood around after a disquieting experience earlier in the day.

Today, we took a tour inside the Royal Palace, where the Kings and Queens of Spain used to live until only two generations ago. It was absolutely beautiful. Every room was decorated with gold and silver chandeliers, marble floors, and fresco paintings on the ceiling. I can’t imagine eating my lunch in a room with portraits painted by Goya, or drinking a cup of tea in a room whose walls are made of embroidered silk. Unfortunately there was a rule against taking pictures, and nicely-dressed security guards roamed around making sure that rule was followed. Here are the few I managed to sneak in.

The Royal Palace

Portrait of Carlos III by Goya

Interior of Royal Palace–taken while being yelled at

View of Cathedral from Royal Palace Courtyard

The Madrid Derby–Day of a Lifetime

Yesterday was one of the most exciting, tiring and memorable days of my life. It started out with an excursion to Toledo, which was great. The city had amazing architecture and some of the best views I’ve seen so far on the trip.

 

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to go inside the Cathedral or take any tours due to some confusion about the need for tickets (miss you Maria). Still, it was fun walking around the shops and taking in the sights on our own. Somehow, though, it ended up being completely overshadowed by the events of the rest of the day.

Saturday was the UEFA Champions League final, the event that I wrote my very first blog post about before we left. It is a huge annual soccer tournament, and this year the two finalists were both from Madrid: Atlético and Real. To say I’ve been looking forward to covering it would be an understatement, and it did not disappoint. Our “news team”: myself, Ian, Bryan, Julia, Maria and Dylan, split up into twos and tried to cover as many important areas as possible. Ian and I headed down to Atlético’s stadium, Estadio Vincente Calderon. The scene outside was surreal. There must have been at least ten thousand people swarming the area, nearly all of them wearing the striped red and white jerseys of the team. It was like a football game tailgate on steroids. It was incredible, and a little intimidating because without any gear on we stuck out like sore thumbs. But eventually I was able to approach a bunch of people and get their opinions on the game.

                                       

At game time, most of the fans went inside the stadium to watch the game. Unlike Julia and Brian, who were able to get inside Real Madrid’s stadium, we couldn’t manage to get tickets and instead decided to head down to the Plaza Mayor. The scene there was much more relaxed, but still interesting. Fans of both sides were watching the game together in bars and at some outdoor restaurants, cheering and groaning loudly whenever something important happened. We watched the game for a little while, then headed down to the fountain area where fans celebrate after the win. While walking, we heard a loud cheer, and assumed that Atlético had won because they held a 1-0 lead.

What actually happened was a tying goal from Real in the very last minute of the game, and they went on to win in overtime. I was rooting for the underdog Atlético, so I was a little disappointed. That disappointment evaporated as soon as I saw the mobs of fans rushing towards the fountain where four of us were waiting. There was a DJ, smoke machines, light machines, and a crowd of extremely pumped Spanish soccer fans all around me. They were singing, chanting, dancing and generally just having a great time. It was one of those surreal moments I couldn’t believe I was a part of, and one that I don’t think I’ll ever forget.

                                      

The rest of the night was spent writing my article, with a big assist from the rest of team and Carlene’s husband, Geoff. After about nine hours of writing and editing, I headed home around 10am to pass out. It was an awesome story to report, and I’m happy with how it all turned out. It’s up on the home page for our group, here: northeasternuniversityjournalism2014.wordpress.com. There will be more to come, including sidebars from the rest of the news team and some video that I shot throughout the day. Hopefully that video will be my next post tomorrow.

Made it to Madrid

Salamanca is behind us and its time to start the longer and more dynamic half of our trip. I’ll admit that yesterday, my first day here, was pretty overwhelming. Madrid is a huge city, and nothing seems to be within walking distance. It makes Salamanca, a city of 160,000 people, seem quaint. I got lost more than once and was starting to get pretty frustrated. But after a day to adapt, I can tell that I’m going to love it here. For one,the Metro(the train and bus system) makes me realize how truly awful the T is in Boston. The trains are clean, fast and always on time. I haven’t had to wait more than 2 minutes for a single train yet. Plus, its obvious which line and direction you should go by looking at the map. No more B-Line, C-Line, E-Line shenanigans(seriously, is anything worse than the Green Line?). More importantly, the sights here are incredible. We’ve only gone on a couple walking tours since our arrival and already I’ve been blown away by some of the things I’ve seen. We’ve seen the Royal Palace, the Plaza Mayor and a number of beautiful churches and cathedrals–and its only been two days. Here’s a slideshow of some of my favorite sights.

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One aspect here that I’m glad is similar to Salamanca is the food. So far, it has been delicious in the few restaurants I’ve been to. But the highlight food-wise so far has to be our trip to the Mercado de San Miguel, an open market of gourmet food near the Plaza Mayor. They had a huge variety of tapas, sushi, fish, desserts and a lot of things that I have no idea how to describe. I spent about 10 euro trying a bunch of the shops 1 euro offerings. Money well spent. I’ll leave you with another gallery of photos from the market.

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Last Day in Salamanca

Clearly I was having fun, because I can’t believe how fast time has flown since we arrived in Salamanca 10 days ago. I’m feeling bittersweet because I’m excited to experience Madrid, but I know I’ll be leaving behind a place I’ve come to like so much. Salamanca is an amazing city, from the sights to the people that live here. Everyone I’ve met has been friendly and accommodating, from Maria, our tour guide, to my host family. Its the perfect size too–everything is within walking distance and so many of the people here seem to know each other. The weather, aside from the massive amounts of pollen floating in the streets, has been perfect every day since our arrival. What more can I say? Salamanca has been everything I’d imagined and more.

And what better way to properly send it off than with a gallery of pictures from its most beautiful attractions: The Cathedrals of Salamanca. A few days ago we were taken on a tour of both the new and old cathedrals of Salamanca, as well as the “Lover’s Garden” behind them, which is inspired by a love story that Shakespeare may or may not have plagiarized to make Romeo and Juliet. I hope you enjoy these sights from inside and outside the churches as I much as I did.

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First Story is Up

I finished my first article yesterday. It’s about the current government’s treatment of the film industry here in Spain. It and other stories by my colleagues can be found here. 

http://northeasternuniversityjournalism2014.wordpress.com/

 

Too Much of a Good Thing

Everyone is familiar with the phrase “too much of a good thing.” You may not know, as I didn’t before I just looked it up, that it comes from the 15th century, and is first seen in print in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. That makes a lot of sense to me, because as I walk around Salamanca now, I’m realizing that I’m becoming numb to all the ridiculously impressive sights here from that century and before. Everyday, I walk past a huge cathedral with a size and architecture that trumps anything I could possibly see back home in Boston. The first few days here, I was getting cramps from craning my neck upward to admire it all the time. Now its just…there. Don’t get me wrong, I’m loving every second of being here and I’m still impressed by all the sights, but I think its interesting that people can become accustomed to even the most beautiful things.

And on a more physical branch of too much of a good thing: chocolate. It may be my favorite food. Yesterday though, for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to eat it. It started when some of the girls from our group came into our workstation with some chocolate ice cream. It looked great, so I ran down to the plaza and grabbed myself one. We were about to head off the the Art Nouveau and Art Deco Museum here, so I figured a little snack beforehand was a good idea. I was not anticipating that we’d all be served churros and chocolate at a museum. But we were, and I’m not rude so I dipped the churros, ate them, and then promptly drank the entire cup of chocolate. Turns out it wasn’t meant for drinking, and was basically a melted down Hershey bar for dipping. Oops. A couple hours later at my homestay, what does our madre (as we call our host mom) serve us for dessert? Chocolate mousse. Never before have I not wanted chocolate mousse, but in that moment I didn’t.

I ate it though. I mean, I couldn’t be rude and refuse…now I’ll just have to take a break from chocolate for a while.

Just kidding. Carlene brought in chocolate wafers today.

University of Salamanca Gallery

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These are some photos from our trip inside the historic University of Salamanca, founded in 1218. The students today actually go to school in a separate building, these pictures are from the older one that is preserved and reserved for tourists.

Bullfighting Museum

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Yesterday we all took a trip to the Bullfighting Museum here in Salamanca. I think it’s safe to say we were all pretty awestruck by what we saw and heard. Obviously, the actual bullfight must be shocking and disturbing to watch, but the culture around the “sport” as told to us by our museum guide was shocking as well. He compared bullfighting to Formula One Racing–something that gets the adrenaline flowing when you know you’re in danger. However, it seemed to me through the descriptions of the event that the matador is in very little to no danger during the fight, thanks to a team of other people that weaken the bull with long spears from horseback before the matador enters the ring. I always pictured a bullfight as a mano y mano, one on one competition between the matador and the bull. I could almost understand that–almost. The reality is that it’s nothing like that. By the time the matador faces off against his victim, it is weak, bloodied and confused. That’s why matadors are very rarely injured in the ring.

It was interesting to hear that occasionally a bull will be spared if it is deemed to have “fought well.” This means that the bull followed all of the bullfighter’s movements and didn’t disobey when prompted to run through his cape. I asked how often this happened, and was told that it is exceptionally rare–out of 8,000 bulls, only 63 received this “honor”. Other “honors” include a being dragged around the ring for a “victory lap” after being killed if the bull fights well, or having their head mounted in a museum, like the many we saw yesterday. Unsurprisingly, the reason those few bulls are spared is not for a moral reason–they are saved in order to breed them, preserving the genetics of a “good bull”.

Bullfighting is something I just can’t understand. And from talking to some locals here, like our tour guide Maria and my host mother Marisa, many Spaniards don’t appreciate it either. Even some of the matadors my colleagues have spoken with agree that they simply have become desensitized to what they’re doing. It’s seeming more and more like an outdated custom, such as a gladiator fight. Maybe that’s why supporters of the bullfight are so upset when its compared to that ancient spectacle: it reminds them that they’re watching a barbaric event that does nothing but kill an innocent animal and fuel their bloodlust.