Costa Brava

Hey everyone!

I just had some extra time so I thought I would update my blog! It's been a very busy week...lots of stuff due for my classes, a midterm, and a tapas contest, which my team got 2nd place in! Last weekend, I went to Costa Brava on another IES-organized trip, and it was a lot of fun. Both of my roommates came with me too, so that was awesome. I have to say though that the Basque country reigns supreme as my favorite region of Spain, despite how absolutely beautiful Costa Brava was.
For those of you who don't know, the Costa Brava ("the Wild Coast") is actually a region of Spain along the Mediterranean that goes from a little north of Barcelona all the way up into France. It's an extremely popular tourist destination during the summer, which is why it was cool to go during this time when it was nice weather but not crowded, so we were able to see everything we wanted to see! Snow on our way to France!
The weekend started out with a trip to the Museu Memorial de l'Exili in a town about two hours north of Barcelona called La Jonquera. The museum is a memorial to Spaniards who were forced into exile during Franco's regime, and to the memory of the thousands that subsequently died in the concentration camps installed by the dictator in northern Spain and France. The reason the museum is so important is because up until recently, Spain has been very hush-hush about their history, and museums like this one are not common. It was interesting to learn about the region that we were visiting and what people went through during the dictatorship of Franco.

After La Jonquera, we crossed the border into France to a small town named Perpignon for lunch. My roommate Margaux, who is half-French and speaks the language fluently, was an invaluable tool for ordering lunch and getting around! It was so cool to just be in a different country in a matter of hours and explore, since I haven't left Spain yet since I got here in January.
View of Girona
We stayed in Girona, which is a city about an hour away from Barcelona that is famous for its well-preserved medieval Jewish quarter and its distinctive Roman walls. It isn't the most 'happening' city, but it was beautiful and our hotel beds were like heaven compared to the squeaky, hard mattresses we have at our homestay!

The courtyard at the Teatro-Museo Dalí
On Saturday, we went to the Teatro-Museo Dalí in Figueres. This was definitely the highlight of the trip! Basically, Dalí bought this theatre in his hometown of Figueres and converted it into a museum for his work. He designed the entire layout of the museum and placed all of the paintings and sculptures exactly where he wanted them, which was so interesting. The museum was like a trip inside Dalí's mind, which as I am sure all of you know, is very strange! My favorite was the Mae West room, which was a portrait of the famous actress, Dalí style. Here's what it looked like:
After the museum, we drove over to Cadaqués, a town on the Mediterranean not far from Figueres. It is where Dalí spent his summers as a child, and it was a huge inspiration for him as an artist. My friends and I had lunch at an amazing little restaurant near the beach overlooking the ocean and the whole town. The sun was shining, the wine was flowing, the food was delicious, and the ocean was beautiful--all around, a great afternoon.
The beach in Cadaqués
After lunch, we walked over to Port Lligat, which is an even smaller town on the beach where Dalí had his own beach house as an adult. It looked like a normal beach house--except for the huge sculptures of eggs and two faces he put on his roof! Oh, Dalí. We didn't go inside, but we spent some time just photographing the beach and exploring.
The top of Dalí's beach house in Port Lligat
On our last day, we stayed in Girona and walked around the city. We went to the Cathedral, which is famous for having the widest nave of any cathedral in the world, behind St. Peter's in Rome. It was beautiful and since it was Sunday, we got to see some of the church service that was going on. Our next stop was the Arab Baths, which were built in Roman times as a place for the people of Girona to come and relax. It didn't look too spa-like since there was still snow on the ground from the freak snowstorm we had here two weeks ago, but they were interesting nevertheless. Finally, we visited the Jewish quarter of the city (known as the call) and went to the Jewish History Museum. I thought it was so interesting that this city had such a diverse mix of religions--Judaism, Christianity, and Muslim--all existing in the same place during the Middle Ages. A street in the Jewish call of Girona
Our last stop on our trip was to the town of Besalú, which is well-known for its stellar preservation of its medieval characteristics (bridge, towers, church, etc.). We weren't there for too long, but I managed to buy my mom a present and try some yummy local cassis liqueur!
The medieval bridge and tower in Besalú
Tomorrow I am leaving to go down to Valencia for the weekend for the festival Las Fallas, which basically involves a bunch of drunk, rowdy Spaniards making huge, flammable dolls, parading them around the city, and then lighting them on fire. We're camping on the beach too so it should be quite the interesting experience! I will make sure to blog about it as soon as I come back!

Lots of love,

Kelsey

The Basque Country

Hey everyone!

Sorry again for the late update...it's midterms week and I haven't had a spare minute to update the ol' blog! Last weekend I went to the Basque Country with IES on one of their optional field trips. I had an AMAZING time! The Basque region of Spain is by far my most favorite yet. The people were incredibly friendly (much more so than in Barcelona), the scenery was breathtaking, and, most importantly, the food was incredible!

San Sebastián

For those of you who don't know, the Basque country is located in the north of Spain and also in the south of France. Its main cities are Bilbao, San Sebastián, and Vitoria. The Basques are a very interesting and ancient people who have lived in these lands for centuries. What's even more interesting is their language...it bears NO resemblance whatsoever to Spanish or any European language, for that matter. Their language is classified as a "language isolate," meaning that it has no linguistic "family tree." It's considered to be the last remaining pre-Indo European language in Europe. The phrase "Hello. How are you?" in English is translated into Basque as "Kaixo. Zer moduz?" Pretty crazy, huh?

Yummy pintxos at the culinary school in San Sebastián

We had another jam-packed itinerary on this trip. On our first day, we visited the Chillida-Leku Museum outside of San Sebastián which houses the works of the sculptor Eduardo Chillida. It was a beautiful museum in the countryside, with Chillida's modern sculptures dotting the hillside. After that, we went to a culinary academy for lunch in San Sebastián. One of the professors there taught us how to make some pintxos, or appetizers, that are common in San Sebastián. One of them was a fish pudding served with cocktail sauce and another was stuffed octopus with spinach sauce. They were absolutely delicious! San Sebastián is gaining quite a reputation for being a culinary capital of the world, and it was a treat to be able to experience the cuisine firsthand. After our delicious lunch, we took a long walk around the beach and saw some of Chillida's sculptures named Peine de los Vientos ("Wind Combs") that he had installed on actual rocks in the ocean. The scenery was incredibly beautiful...it reminded me a lot of some of the beaches in Northern California.

View of the bridge designed by Arata Isozaki in Bilbao

On the second day, we toured around Bilbao, where our hotel was. Bilbao is an amazing city...it was once a capital of industry with a lot of factories, which I think is what prompted my host mom to describe it as "muy sucio" ("very dirty") when I told her I was going there for the weekend, but it has changed a LOT in recent years. As many of you probably know, the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Museum is a major reason for all of this change. The museum itself is incredible...the exhibits were very interesting as well. I particularly enjoyed a Richard Serra installation that involved walking through labyrinthine corridors of corrugated metal. However, there are a lot of sculptures, buildings, and bridges designed by well-known modern architects throughout the city. Its almost as if the city of Bilbao is their exhibition space or something.

My friends Amy and Ellie and I in front of the Guggenheim Museum

We had free time at lunch so we did as the Basques do and went on a pintxo tour of many different restaurants throughout the old town of the city. Pintxos are the Basque version of tapas, and tapas are the Spanish version of hors d'oeuvres, basically. In short--they were delicious! Somehow they managed to pile a bunch of different flavors on top of a teeny tiny piece of baguette and do it in a beautiful way. And of course, at night, we went out Basque-style and got cups of wine and hard cider that we drank in the street while we were socializing with Bilbao's lovely citizens.

A boat in Bermeo

The final day of our trip we spent touring around other well-known cities in the area. Our first stop was Gernika (Guernica), which most of you know as the town that inspired Picasso's famous painting. The town is also famous for an oak tree that the Basque leaders met under for hundreds of years to discuss politics and the state in general. After Gernika, we went to Mundaka, a beautiful, small fishing village along the coast and had lunch. Finally, we stopped in Bermeo, another small fishing village, where we took a long walk around the city and looked at all of the boats docked at their harbor. It was a beautiful day with clear, sunny weather and somewhat warm temperatures, too!

This weekend, my old roommates Brianna and Ariana are in town so I'll be showing them around Barcelona and just having a girls' weekend of shopping and eating! Next week I am off to the Costa Brava region of Spain for a weekend trip and I can't wait!

Lots of love,

Kelsey