Even though folkadelic is on a summer hiatus you can still catch the roaming adventures of Folkahontas in her summer blog “Smoke Signals”
SMOKE SIGNAL #1
…from across the pond
So I think I’ve found my place in the world. Spain is in a word…incredible. As I walk around looking at all the beautiful mountain landscapes, ancient castles mosques and churches, loud crazy europeans yelling at each other in Spanish, and awesome graffiti for those of you who saw my facebook album I have to ask myself…Wait, what´s good about America again? And for the life of me it´s a hard question to answer when you´re in a country that has a designated nap time. The lifestyle of this place is so great. They go to work at 9, then everyone goes home to eat a huge lunch at 2:30 and it´s literally like someone comes out with a whistle and screams naptime because no one is on the street! Businesses open back up around 5 or 6 then dinner isn´t until 10. It´s taken me a few nights to believe this, but it really is true that no one goes out until 2 or 3am. The bars close at 6am. I left a discotec at 4:30 last night and people were still arriving! Spaniards are crazy!
I am staying with a family, that has been taking students in their home with LSU in Spain for 20 years. There are 6 people in the house already and me and my roomate make 8! They are a simple Spanish family, the dad is a farmer the mother stays at home and has three kids including a very rebellious 15 year old girl, and the grandpa lives there too. They are very nice and always funny and entertaining, too bad I can´t really understand them. They are so laid back I lovemy living situation. I live in an apartment on the River Genil right across from the Palacio de Congresos in Granada.
Our walk to school is about 10 minutes and is up in the hills in a very old part of town. The University of Granada, or El Centro de Las Lenguas Modernas, is the smaller of 2 universities here, and has a lot of international students so I hear a lot of English there. Sometimes I forget I´m going to school here though…I have a test tomorrow in Spanish Culture and Civilization but I also leave for Barcelona tomorrow night.
My friend Callie and I planned a trip to Barcelona and Paris this week while all the schools go on holiday for the festival de Corpus Christi. I don´t plan to eat or sleep at all on this trip but it´s cool, who needs those things anyway? Updates on this trip in my next smoke signal.
I´m only slightly homesick…but I do miss uhMurkuh a little bit. I miss being able to communicate effectively and not feeling like such a tourist. I´m working on blending in, the girls here all wear dresses and fancy shoes everyday! So me in my jorts and tank top complete with chacos and backpack with camera in hand just screams tourist. Stupid Americans. We stick out like sore thumbs. My spanish is improving I promise, but having such a big group is a really easy crutch to fall on I get to speak English all the time. Everyone on this trip is really fun and we´ve been getting into some crazy shennanigans. Including an eat and run when we got served a laughable and insulting Tapas meal of candy and nuts when every where else is Spain serves delicious cooked small meals with your drinks. Corre y come!
Well, I think my time is about up at the internet cafe, THANKS FOR READING MY SMOKE SIGNAL! I will send up another one in about a week I´m not really sure I don´t get on the computer too much here. But I love and miss you all and can´t wait to get back to Houston, BR, New Orleans, and KLSU!
Hasta Luego!
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SMOKE SIGNAL #2
…from across the pond
It’s been about ten days since my last smoke signal so I think it’s about time to let y’all know what I´ve been up to. Since my last smoke signal I’ve been to Córdoba, Barcelona and Paris. Córdoba was a organized LSU in Spain trip where we took at 2 hour bus over to Córdoba and saw the Alcazár de los Reyes Christianes, a Jewish synogague, and the Mezquita Catedral. I took a lot of amazing pictures and if you’re on facebook they are all in my most recent album. Córdoba was amazing and for a history major I was in heaven. It was a Moorish stronghold during the reconquista and the Christians surely made their mark when they took the area from the Arabs.
We had a three day break from school for the Festival deCorpus Christi so my friend Callie and I took those five days and went to Barcelona and Paris. It was an absolute whirlwind where I spent way too much money but saw too many great things. My favorites were the Louvre of course (history major…I told my parents I felt like I was walking on marshmallows barefoot with a cloud in my belly I was so happy), the Musée D’Orsay, walking around Paris until my legs physically fell off, passing out in the Tulliers garden from pure exhaustion, the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, the Picasso Museum, the Chocolate Museum (the entrance ticket was a chocolate bar!), and the Beach in Barcelona of course. We were constantly on the move, on some kind of transportation or another, or walking/running like madwomen. I barely ate, barely slept, and barely showered, but it was amazing and fantastic.
I was definitely glad to be back in Granada, I found it easier to miss this place more than America (sorry guys). We’ve discovered this beautiful park here we try to go to as often as possible. El Parque de Federico Garcia Lorca is just filled with flowers and fountains and beautifully trimmed hedges, it’s absolutely beautiful. I really missed Granada. I missed Isabel, I missed mi hermano Fernando, I missed free meals, I missed beds, I missed Spanish! Everytime I tried to speak Spanish in Barcelona I would be answered in English, and of course in Paris most people spoke English. Not that I’m that good at Spanish but it made me realize that Granada really is a small city, but I love that. Another awesome thing about Granada is the grafitti. If you’re on facebook I have another whole album of the amazing murals and grafitti art that’s all over the city here. There’s this one street called Calle Molinas that has an art school on it and the place in literally covered in the most amazing grafitti I’ve ever seen.
We visited the Alhambra yesterday and toured the Albaízyn and the Sacromonte the day before, which is the Roma, or gypsy, section of town. It’s flamenco season here and the International Music Festival of Granadais about to start at the end of the month where they have free flamenco shows at the Alhambra! We would walk past caves in the Sacromontethat had restaurants inside and we could hear Spanish guitar and castanets, I can’t wait to go see some. The history of this city is very interesting and I’m glad to be doing some touristy things while I’m here studying. The school organizes some excursions that I’ve signed up for. Tonight I tour the Jewish quarter, tomorrow I hike 2 hours to the Arab baths for a 90 minute soak and 15 minute massage, Saturday we go to Sevilla with the LSU in Spain group, and Sunday we go to the beach that is just south of here to visit some caves and hang out at the beach with some other international students at the University of Granada. Also on Monday we found a place that rents scooters and we’re planned a massivescooter race all over the city, which should be both dangerous AND fun!
Well I’m off to my Spanish grammar class, look out for another smoke signal in about a week! I promise I’ll have many more exciting adventures to tell you about!
¡Hasta Luego!
—Folkahontas
SMOKE SIGNAL #3
…from acros the pond
It’s been about eleven days since my last smoke signal so it’s time for an update! In the past eleven days I’ve traveled to Sevilla, and Faro, Portugal, as well as exploring the rest of Granada before I leave. It’s coming up so soon! I’m not ready to leave Granada! We have final exams tomorrow then we head to Madrid for a week. Then my solo traveling begins. I’m finalizing my plans today for that second leg of my trip and it’s sure to make for some good smoke signals.
I’d have to say the highlight of my past eleven days has been seeing BuenaVista Social Club play live at the Festival Med in Loulé, Portugal. My friends and I went to Portugal this weekend and on the bus there we madesome friends that told us about this show and it turned out to be a €20 cab ride from where we were staying so we hopped on over there only to have the concert sell out with 15 people in line ahead of us. But somtimessticking around and trying to hear the music from outside while looking really pathetic pays off- one of the festival workers let us in the back gates and we pushed out way up to the front to see 5 or 6 songs. I got to see an 80 year old cuban man play guitar behind his back while hundreds of angry Portuguese people pushed and pulled me like it was the Rage Against the Machine show at Voodoo or something, it was nuts!
Also while in Portugal my friends and I went to Ché, which was a bar dedicated to Ché Guevara. We got a drink and went upstairs just as a bunch of old people starting coming up and facing this empty stage. Then this guy with a guitar and his wife with a tambourine came up and started playing Portuguese folk music while everyone drunkenly sang along. There was folk music, group singing, harmonica, and tambourine so you know I was happy.
One of the low points of my past eleven days was having my bag stolen at the festival de San Juan in Almuñecar, Spain. It’s basically a huge fire, water, and pork festival. We only went for the beach fire part of it but it was basically a huge beach party with fires and bonfires and people running naked into the Mediterranean at midnight. Didn’t see many naked people though. Very fun but less fun now that I’m one ipod, one phone, and one wallet less. But they didn’t get my camera or my passport so I’ll be okay.
Other really cool things I’ve seen/done
—The biggest stalagtite in Spain. We went on an excursion with my university to Nerja and we saw the caves there which are the second biggest if not the biggest in Spain.
—Hiked up a mountain then soaked, had a massage, and drank tea in an arab bath house in Granada.
—Climbed and jumped off rocks into the Mediterranean
—Saw Transformers 2 in Spanish (you don’t need to be fluent in Spanish to appreciate robots beating up other robots)
—Went to a cooking class that turned out to be more of an eating class, not complaining
—Slept on the ground in a bus station
Well I have my final exams tomorrow and then I’m off to Madrid. I’ll be sure to send up a smoke signal before I head off on my ten day eurail adventure. Wish me luck!
Hasta Luego,
Folkahontas
Smoke Signal #4
…from across the pond
Ten days have passed since my last smoke signal and I’ve lost my big noisy group of Americans. Now it’s just one noisy American all alone in the Madrid train station waiting for a train to Paris that doesn’t leave for another five hours. Since I’ve last written I’ve been to Madrid for a week and to Barcelona for three days and now back to Madrid. It’s a long story but to sum it up, train reservations in Spain are the biggest hassle ever and try as hard as I can things keep going wrong. But I’m learning to be more flexible and take things as they come while keeping optimistic and positive. I am in Europe after all so there’s still a smile on my face despite my intense desire to kill everyone who works in the travel industry.
Madrid was great, it was fun to spend one last week with everyone without classes or curfews before everyone dispersed. The week we were in Madrid just so happened to be this big international gay festival with parades in the street and everything. The highlight of my week was definitely the Flamenco banquet on July 4th. The dancers were so graceful and almost hypnotic with the beautiful spanish guitar and impossibly complicated clapping and stomping rhythms. I’m really going to miss Spain a lot, I lovethe way they live here.
Initially my plan was to go to Lucerne, Switzerland by way of Barcelona right after the program ended. I couldn’t get a reservation until the 7th to Switzerland so I spent a few days in Barcelona. But now since I’ve failed at it twice it seems that the universe does not want me to go to Switzerland. So after crying and punching the wall a good bit in the Barcelona train station in Barcelona out of pure frustration and disappointment, I decided to scrap it all and head for big cities from now on. That meant to Madrid, to Paris, and just see from there since Paris has boucoup trains all over da place. Thus…I am in Madrid, and have a ridiculously long journey ahead of me. I head to Paris tonight, to Stuttgart tomorrow then Nurenberg then Vienna where I’m meeting up with my friend Lauren before she goes to Prague. I’m not going to plan much further since there is still a big possibility I’ll have to change them. I think it’s best for my sanity that way.
Barcelona was even better the second time around. I got to meet a lot of people in my hostel including some crazy Australians who made fun of all my American expressions like “flip-flops” and “hit the gas”. I visited the Juan Miró museum where I discovered all of his painting’s titles have something to do with women, birds, nighttime, or all three. I also saw the Olympic stadium, watched Super Troopers with some kids from Indiana, and went to a really posh discotech called Club Opium for free with my hostel.
One thing i’ve noticed recently is my Spanish really has improved! At least in that i’m able to ask questions and almost completely understand the answers. And I can help people who don’t speak Spanish at all find their hostel or order a falafel without onions. But it’s still not enough for me to not get screwed over by train people…don’t even get me started on them again.
Well I guess I’m off to wait some more. I accidentally booked a sleeper car tonight but maybe I’ll enjoy it lord knows I need some real rest. And I only have a week left! So I’ll send my final smoke signal in about a week. Wish me luck this last week is sure to be a wacky whirlwind!! Yeah…I just said wacky whirlwind…I need sleep.
Hasta Luego!
–Folkahontas
smoke signal #5…
from across the pond
That sleeper car to Paris was interesting! I spent the night in a cramped compartment with three Asian women who kept giving me candy and telling me I was pretty. That three or four days of solid traveling was intense and difficult. Once I got to Vienna I only had 14 hours there before I left for Prague with a huge group of Loyola law students. I actually met a few people from LSU in Prague and many more from New Orleans, how random?
Prague was so great I really loved it there. Two full days and a night walking around the city felt like eternity after being cramped up on trains for three straight days. While I was in Prague I got a lot of sightseeing done on my own. I went to the Wax and Prague Ghosts and Legends museums both by myself and got sufficiently creeped out at both. Why did I choose to do that to myself?? I walked in to the wax museum and swore to God those really were Hitler and Stalin in front of me. With Freddy Mercury, Ghandi, and Sigmund Freud right behind them just hanging out. It was spooky, I lightly jogged out the ghost museum with my camera in my hand trying to not be scared. I also saw Prague Castle and all the historic sections of town. I ate like 4 sausages while I was there, they were delicious.
Now I’m in Amsterdam! I had Monday night here and all day yesterday to roam around this city and get lost. This is the best city in the world to get lsot in. It reminds me a lot of New Orleans the way the streets and the buildings are but it’s absolutely different from any place I’ve ever been. I hung out with some Spanish guys last night (turns out I CAN speak Spanish!) and a Canadian girl last night and had a great time getting lost.
But to be honest I am in every sense of the word exhausted and i’m looking forward to being home tomorrow and not having to ride another train, find another hostel, or navigate another foreign city map in Dutch, Czech, or German! And just stop using my brain for a little while, I’m ready to relax! Spain seems like a distant memory to me now. My plane leaves at 10 am tomorrow and I’ll be in Houston at 1:30pm Central time tomorrow. I’ll be in Houston about a week visiting my family before I come back to Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Miss y’all a lot. Rejoice in my homecoming!!!
I miss Folkadelic so much. Thank y’all for keeping up with my smoke signals, i’ve really enjoyed writing them I hope you’ve enjoyed reading them. Assuming I get my old time slot back make sure to tune in to Folkadelic at 9pm on Sundays!
Folkahontas out.
Hasta Luego.
