May 13

5-13
Hello everyone. This will probably be my last post in Spain. I know, sad, right. But the plus side is that I will be traveling all over Europe with one of my best friends and some loser who calls himself my brother. (Hehe…just kidding Brent. Don’t hurt me!) So I’ll just get caught up with what’s happened here in the last week and a half.
Last Friday (I think…the days get mixed up) I finally got to go to the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales. This is a monastery founded by one of the sisters of one of the kings of Spain. Her name was Juana, but I don’t remember now what her historical context was. All the studying I’ve done this week has pushed any unnecessary information out of my brain. Anyway, I had tried to go 3 times before and once it was closed and the other two times all the tours were full. I hadn’t realized it was such a hotspot! So this time I went right when it opened after siesta. There was a long line already, and by the time I got to the counter they were already on the last tour of the day! But I did get in! Seven euros later… I think that’s the most expensive museum I’ve been in! Oh, except for Schloss Schoenbrunn in Vienna, but that was an entire palace and gardens, not just a little monastery. Oh well. It was beautiful. It was more like a museum than a church, with rooms filled with paintings and portraits, and little chapels along the walls of the hallways. There was even an entire room of tapestries! I’ve decided I want a tapestry in my house. The fact that it can take several months to make one square yard and therefore are exceedingly expensive doesn’t faze me. When I win the lottery I’ll have enough money to buy a huge one to cover the whole wall! Of course if I won the lottery most of that money would probably go to paying off this trip….
Next I went to the Archeological Museum, which was really awesome. The first exhibit was of ancient Greece, and they had some of those orange and black clay pots with the sweet drawings on the side of hydras and various cool things. They looked like they were in almost perfect condition and they were amazing! I immediately thought of Tiffany; you did a project on them for Greek and Roman, right? You would have loved it! I was fascinated, staring with my nose an inch from the glass. They also had some coins from 200 BC that looked almost new! Well maybe not new, but in very good shape. Hard to believe they were over 2000 years old! There was also an ancient Egypt exhibit, with some religious statues and two sarcophagi. (Wow, I actually spelled that right!) Then there were some Roman marble statues, and some more coins, and a couple of big stone burial box/tomb/things with carved sides from the Middle Ages. One of my favorite things was a sedan chair (those chairs that rich people sit in and four slaves carry them on their shoulders) from the 1700s. It was glassed in and was gilded on the roof with painted sides. It was really beautiful. I think it would be fun to ride in one, although I don’t know that I would feel safe being carried on people’s shoulders.
After that I went to the Anthropological Museum, which had exhibits from Asia and Africa. There was also an America floor, but it was closed off. There were lots of religious statues and icons, and clothes that workmen wore and tools used to farm and weave and cook and stuff like that. It was kind of interesting, but not great. There was one room with a skeleton of a giant. It said it was 2 meters and 34 (?) centimeters, and I’m not exactly sure how tall that is, but it looked well over 7 feet. 2 meters would be 6’6”, so I guess that’s about right. They also had a mummified person, which was fairly disgusting with its mouth hanging open and its brown, flaky emaciated body. There was a part where its leg had cracked a bit and it looked like wood. Very strange. There was a skeleton of a chimp next to one of an early human, and they looked almost the same. No wonder they say we’re descended. And what I hoped were sculptures of the heads of three people, although one of them looked like it might have been real and just well preserved. All of this in a badly lit room with no one around. It was just a little creepy.
Saturday Rosaura told me that the Royal Theatre was going to be doing an opera in the Plaza del Oriente, which is the big garden/plaza between the theatre and the royal palace. I thought it would be pretty sweet to see some opera in the great outdoors, so I went. There was a stage set up with a piano, and I nabbed a seat on one of the cement walls near the palace. There were 5 singers who did various areas and duets and such, all from Mozart operas. They were all dressed up in period costumes, too. It was fun. I felt so learned; there were only 2 or 3 songs that I didn’t know. They did several things from Don Giovanni and Magic Flute, which were all the ones I knew. I don’t remember what other operas were represented. It was outside and noisy and in Spanish, so I didn’t hear everything that was said in each introduction. I had fun, though. Even though it was hot and sunny and the back of my neck got burned. Hrmmm.
After that I tried to go to the Museo Cerralba, which is the home of some famous duke or other who was filthy rich and had a huge art collection, but it was closed for reparations. I swear there isn’t a single place in Madrid that isn’t under construction!
That afternoon I went to the Museo del Traje, which is the clothing museum! It was very exciting for me! They had clothes from medieval times and the Renaissance, though not very many because there are so few existing examples. (Just think of all the clothes you’ve thrown away in your life because they’ve worn out. Then imagine having your clothes last for over 500 years!) They are very careful with the care of the clothes. The lighting is dim, and the brochure said clothes can’t be displayed for long periods of time. I don’t know if that means a few weeks at a time or what. Each room had a brochure with little pictures of everything in that room, and they were all there, so they must rotate out entire displays at a time. There was a lot of clothing from the 1700s and 1800s, and I’ve decided (for about the 10th time) that my research and sewing ability needs to stretch in that direction a bit. I would just love one of those great dresses with the big bustle in the back. Or maybe one of those classic Dickens-esque caroler dresses with the cape and the muff. Yep, that’s definitely on my list! They had a display of women’s undergarments, with an animation of their evolution from the plain chemise in the middle ages, through all of the corset years, with all the different kinds and shapes of corsets, up to the modern bra and underwear. It was interesting to see how the silhouettes changed with the styles and fashions. Only a costumer would have any interest in that, I know, but I found it fascinating. The actual examples they had were mostly from the late 1800s and early 1900s. The clothes went all the way up through modern times. There was a display of Christian Dior and some other more recent Spanish designers who I had never heard of. It’s surprising how some of the things people think are new and trendy fashions are really just butt-ugly. To be fair, there were some nice things, too, but mostly a lot of very strange dresses. They didn’t allow pictures in the museum, but the papers they had for people to take had little pictures of each item, so at least I’ll be reminded of what they looked like.
Sunday I went with Patricia and Jeanette on the Tren de la Fresa (Strawberry Train). It’s an old fashioned train, with the wooden bench seats and the coal-powered engine, black smoke, and classic train whistle, that goes to Aranjuez, a city an hour away from Madrid. Strawberries are the traditional food of Aranjuez (that and asparagus. What a combination!!), so on the way there they give everyone a box of strawberries to eat. The workers on the train (there were actually just two girls) were dressed up in costumes, from the late 1800s or early 1900s, I think. I was excited when I heard that they were going to be dressed up, but I was a little disappointed. I’m just not sure a stretch velvet skirt and an elastic-cinched waist are period, even in the 1900s. But it looked cool from a distance, at least. They divided us into two groups to see the Royal Palace, and we were in the second group, which meant we had the whole afternoon free. We went to the Royal Barge museum, which is this tiny little museum in the middle of a park that has a bunch of boats used by the royal family through the centuries on the river that runs through the city. Some of them were very nice, but others were just down right ostentatious! One of them was so covered in gold I wouldn’t have expected it to be able to float! And of course all of them had a little covered pavilion where the royal family sat, with carpeting and cushioned benches. And then outside the pavilion were the plain wooden benches where the oarsmen would sit, in four or five rows, all out in the baking sun, sweating away while the king and queen sit back and relax. The life of the royal, eh? After that we walked around a few parks and gardens, just enjoying the nice weather. We ate lunch sitting outside, and I had gazpacho for the first time. It’s delicious! I think I’m going to have to find a recipe and make it at home. In the afternoon we went to the Royal Palace. This was where the Royal family went when they got bored of their palace in Madrid, their palace in El Escorial, their other palace in Madrid, their palace in El Pardo, or any of the other various palaces they own in the area. It was very similar to the other palaces I’ve seen, so I won’t spend a lot of time describing it. The most interesting thing was that there was a Museo de la Vida del Palacio (palace life). This had things like the toys and cribs of the princes and princesses, military uniforms, furnishings, royal clothing, horse-drawn carriages (without the horses), and the wedding dresses of the current queen, her two daughters in law and someone else, I think. They were some of the royal wedding dresses that Patricia had seen when the weddings were televised, and we got to see them up close. They all had a huge train, but as far as the body of the dress they were almost all very simple and elegant. Not what I would have expected, but I approved. One of them had a collar that reminded me of Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, with the deep v-neck that comes up into a high standing collar. It was kind of bizarre. But the others were beautiful. The only problem with the day was that since we were the afternoon group there wasn’t enough time to go through the guided tour and then the museum before the busses left to take us back to the train station. We had to rush through the last few rooms without really getting a good look. But other than that it was fun.
This week is exam week. I had one on Monday and Tuesday, and two on Wednesday. Monday was lit, which I wasn’t really worried about. We only had two texts to worry about, and she told us the question ahead of time. The only problem was that we had only talked one day about each play, so we didn’t have time to ask questions or clarify any questions. She spent so much time on stupid poetry that we weren’t going to be tested on anyway that the actual test material was crammed into the last two days. It was badly organized. But the test itself was fairly easy. Tuesday I had lengua, which was a composite exam of everything we’ve learned this semester. It was a lot of reviewing, but I had learned almost everything before, so I wasn’t worried. I think I did well. Today (Wednesday) I had two. Estudios Culturales was this morning, and that’s the one I was most worried about. She said we were going to have 6 questions, and we needed to study everything. Everyone was really worried cuz we’ve learned a ton of stuff, but I don’t feel like we’ve really learned it very well. And she was going on about the artwork that we saw on our two field trips to the Reina Sofia museum, where she blabbered on about some things for 10 minutes, and others she just briefly mentioned, and we looked at like 15 paintings on each of our 2 trips. She gave us a list of things to mention if we were to analyze a painting, and there were like 8 or 9 different things she wanted. So everyone was freaking out. But it turned out to be fairly easy. With the paintings, she chose two of the easy ones and just said to do a comparison. She gave us 6 questions, and we only had to answer 5. I feel like I could have answered all 5 well, so I just picked one to eliminate. So that exam was a relief. My second exam today was history. It was a similar sort of thing, where the professor said study everything and we were going to get two general questions and we had to pick one. But one of the topics to describe was Francoism, and we’ve talked about that in nearly every one of my classes, so it wasn’t hard to write a summary. Now I’ve only got my cine final left, and she said it’s going to be a personal reflection on one of the eras of Spanish film (hehe I just wrote Spanich, like spinach lol), so I think that’ll be a piece of cake. I can’t believe that at this time tomorrow I’ll be done with school!!!
This afternoon I had a very frustrating escapade. Is that the right word? Whatever, I’m using it anyway. It’s a good word. So I’ve had some trouble ordering my plane ticket from Rome to Athens. First I ordered it through edreams, which is a website that searches all the airlines and finds the cheapest flights. Great, except they need me to fax or email a scan of my passport and credit card. I don’t have a fax machine or a scanner. So I scrapped that and went directly to the Olympic Airlines website. I waited a few days to make sure that edreams didn’t charge my credit card (I still haven’t heard back from them, but there’s no reservation under my account and nothing’s showed up on my card statement), so Monday I tried to buy my ticket again. Of course the cheapest tickets are all sold out and the next cheapest ones are 160 euros instead of 90. And that’s before tax. Total it’s over 200. But Brent and Danny have already bought their tickets for this flight, so I have to get this one. I enter my credit card info and it loads for a while, and then says there was a problem with your payment info. I check the numbers and try again. Same thing. Slightly freaking out, I email my parents to tell them it’s not working and to ask if they can buy it for me (I didn’t want to wait until the price went up even more!) and the credit card company to make sure there’s not a freeze on my card. That happened last week when I was buying tickets online, but fortunately I was skyping mom at the time and the bank called just after I told her my card wasn’t working so we were able to get it fixed right away. The bank emailed me back the next day saying there was no record of a freeze, so it should be working fine. Mom was at Mayo clinic with my aunt and didn’t have a secure site to order from, and Dad was at work all day but told me his card info. So today I tried my card again just in case a miracle happened, and then tried Dad’s card. Same thing. Frustrated, I called the airline, spent 20 minutes and $20 on hold, only to be told that I can make a reservation over the phone, but in order to purchase the tickets they need a copy of my credit card. Ahh!!!! This is the reason I didn’t do the other ticket! Plus, by this time I don’t have time to mail them a copy of my credit card and get a response back by the time I leave the country, even if I did feel safe mailing that info all the way to Greece. So, almost in tears because I have no idea how I’m going to get this ticket, I go back to the computer to try again, not really expecting it to work, but hoping nonetheless. Of course it doesn’t. Brent and Danny both said they didn’t have any problems when they ordered theirs, so I asked Brent to buy mine. Hopefully it’s all resolved now, but I haven’t heard if he’s done it yet or not. I’ve got my fingers crossed!
I’m not sure how much access I’ll have to the internet over the next month, but I’m not expecting it to be much if at all. So I’ll give a quick rundown of our plans now. We’re starting in Ireland with two days in Dublin, and then we’re going to spend a day each in Galway, Doolin, Killarney, Cork, and Kilkenny. Then we’re flying into Scotland; spending two days in Edinburgh, and then going north to the Isle of Skye, Cawdor, and Loch Ness. We have an overnight bus to London, and from there we’re going to straight to Glastonbury, Cornwall, and Stonehenge. Then we’re spending two days in London. We’ve got tickets to two musicals; we’re seeing Blood Brothers and we were going to see Spring Awakening, but I just got an email today that the show is going to close early, 3 days before we get to London, so we’re probably going to see Les Miserables instead. Another great play. Next we’re off to Paris for a couple days, then a day in Berlin, and down to Munich to see the Neuschwanstein castle! After that, Venice, two or three days in Florence, two or three days in Rome, and then (hopefully, depending on these stupid tickets!) flying to Greece for a couple days in Athens. Then, on June 17th we’re taking our respective flights out of Greece, the boys to London and then on to Dublin and Chicago, and me back to Madrid to pick up my maletas, I mean suitcases (that Spanish keeps rearing its head!) and the I’ll fly back on the 18th. I’ll arrive at 10 pm, which will actually be 5 am my time. That will be fun. Then a two hour drive home and I’ll be able to sleep in my own bed, with my fluffy, not-cardboard pillow! I’m so looking forward to that. And seeing my friends and family, of course! :)
I can’t believe this semester has gone so fast. But I’m glad. I’m sort of feeling like I’ve done everything there is to do in Madrid, and I want to go see new and exciting places. Only 5 more days!! And of course I’m looking forward to coming home, but as I’m getting more excited for traveling in Europe, my homesickness is taking a backseat. Plus, I’ll be with Danny and Brent, so it’ll almost be like I’m home. At least, with people I know. Traveling alone is nice, but I’ve often wished I could be with family and friends. Yay for everything! When dad first proposed the idea of staying on for a month to travel I didn’t really take him seriously, and I never thought it would work. But I’m so glad it’s happening. I don’t expect to ever have an opportunity like this again, and if I ever do get to go back to Europe it won’t be for this long, and I won’t be able to see as much. I feel so lucky that I have this opportunity! Another thing checked off of my list of lifelong dreams! There have been so many of those in the last 4 months!
So that’s my life for the next month. I’m sure I’ll have tons of stories when I get back. I’ll try not to forget them all before I can write my next blog. Maybe I should take notes in my notebook. That’s a good idea. Oh, and I’m finally caught up with my pictures on Facebook, so if you haven’t seen them yet you can check that out. Other than that, I think I’m about done. It’s almost dinner time, so I should wrap up. I love and miss you all! I look forward to seeing you when I get back in June!
Love, Bethany

May 4

Hello again
This weekend was a rather eventful one, so I’ll briefly summarize the high points. Friday was a fiesta, el Día del Trabajo. I think it’s the equivalent of Labor Day. So most of the museums and places I wanted to go to were closed. Hrmm. I went to the Iglesia de San Francisco el Grande, which was a gorgeous church covered with frescoes on the inside. There was actually a wedding going on when I was there, which was interesting. I don’t think I would have liked if people were coming and going from the church during my wedding, but there were a lot of visitors, so I didn’t feel too awkward. After that I went to the Plaza Mayor to do some touristy shopping and buy some gifts. I didn’t have anything to do that night, so I watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in Spanish. J It was my first Friday without choir, but I didn’t even think of it that night. I guess I’m not missing it too badly.
Saturday was another fiesta, 2 de mayo. It’s the day when some of the people of Madrid stood up to Napoleon’s army and were killed, or something like that. I went to Sol and ran into a parade. I saw the procession of a few different military-looking groups, and a bunch of police officers. Then there were some guys on horses that started processing down another street. I don’t know if the parade changed route in the middle of it or what, but suddenly everyone started walking over to another place. It was strange. I waited a little longer at another place where there were a bunch of people, but I got impatient and left. I wanted to get to the museum before it closed. I went to the Academia de las Bellas Artes, which is a small art museum. It was nice, and it was free, which is always a plus!
Sunday I went with Katie to the Rastro, which is that huge flea market type thing that takes up an entire neighborhood. I got a pair of purple Converse shoes for 10 euros which I’m rather excited about! While we were there we saw a bunch of the other girls from AYA. With all the hundreds of people there, it was kinda funny that we ran into each other.
Sunday night I went to a bullfight! Jen and I were the only ones who hadn’t been, since everyone else went that day I had my choir concert and Jen came to see it. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I think it was better than I thought. Yes, there was blood, but it wasn’t all over the place, and yes they killed 6 bulls, but after the first one you got kind of desensitized. There were three matadors who got 2 bulls each. The saddest thing is how much the bulls are tortured before they’re killed. First they’re stabbed by a spear in the back, then 6 little mini spears are stabbed into their backs and left there, then a sword which stays in for a while before being pulled out right before it’s killed. Once it’s actually time for the killing the matador stabs it in the neck. Once it took only one stab before it died, but one bull lived through 4 stabs before it died. There are so many rules and so much ceremony and pomp and circumstance involved. I didn’t understand a lot of it. Manuel says there’s a reason for each of the things they do to the bull, but to the uneducated eye it looks like blatant torture. Sometimes the crowd started clapping for no apparent reason. The bullfighter did something good, but it looked just like everything else to me. I think Jen hated it, but I thought it was interesting from a detached, cultural perspective. I didn’t get all freaked out about it. I videotaped a couple of the bulls, if anyone’s interested in seeing it when I get back.
Today was the beginning of the last week of school! I can hardly believe it! Today it’s exactly two weeks until I go to Dublin to meet the boys! Ahh!!
I’ll write again soon!
Bethany

April 29

4-29
Ok, so I’ve been slacking on the blog front again. Sorry. I’ve been busy, and when I do have free time I never think of writing a blog. But here I am now, so all is well.
Let’s see. Where did I leave off? I think I last talked about my concert two weekends ago. Well it’s been a busy time since then. I had a Lengua test last Wednesday, which was quite easy and only took about 40 minutes rather than the hour and a half we had allotted. In Cine on Thursday we watched a movie called “Semen, una historia de amor,” which translates to “Semen, a Love Story.” I looked at it on the syllabus and was like oh great, what kind of racy Spanish movie are we watching now? But it was a romantic comedy and it was actually pretty good. It’s about a guy who works at an artificial insemination clinic and falls in love with this girl that’s come in. He accidentally breaks the vial of sperm that’s supposed to be hers, so he replaces it with is own. It’s a completely unrealistic plot with absolutely no depth to it, but it’s funny.
Friday morning I went to the Fabrica de Tapices Reales, which is the Royal Tapestry Factory. They make tapestries and those huge ornate rugs in palaces and hotels and stuff, and they give tours. When I got there, there was a tour of American study abroad students that had just started, so I joined in with them. It was really cool seeing the huge apparatus that they set up with strings going up and down, kind of like a loom, and then they weave the crossways string by hand, changing colors according to the picture, so that it eventually comes out right. It looked super complicated. I would never have the patience for that! There were probably 50 spools of different color string hanging off the back of one that we saw that was halfway done. It was crazy. I wouldn´t know where to put what color to make it look right!
That night I had my last choir rehearsal. We don’t have classes this coming Friday, and the week after that is the weekend right before finals, so I decided I would just end it now. It was kind of sad, but on the other hand I’ll be glad not to have to travel an hour every Friday and sing for 4 hours straight. We started some new music; musical settings of the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca, a very famous Spanish poet. It’s very Spanish sounding music. Kind of reminded me of some of the stuff we’ve done in Collegium. Nuria (the director) let me keep all the music, both the new stuff and the Handel pieces, so now I can add those to my collection. I’m going to have to buy another suitcase to fit everything to bring home!
Saturday all the AYA people took the Ave train (the high speed bullet train) to Cordoba and Sevilla. It only took 2½ hours to get to Cordoba, as opposed to the 5+ hours it would take on a normal train! It was weird, cuz it didn’t seem like we were going any faster than we would have if we were on the highway. But the Aves go upwards of 150mph, so we were really flying!
We were only in Cordoba long enough to see the Mesquita, which is the mosque. It’s an incredible huge building with tons of pillars and arches, all in white with some red stripes on the arches. Instead of being destroyed when the Arabs were kicked out, like most of the mosques, it was taken over by the Christians, who built a big altar in the middle, still preserving the amazing Moorish architecture. It’s very interesting to see the contrast between the Arabic style, which is all white and simple, but with very ornate carvings, and the Christian style, which is opulent, dripping in gold and velvet. All in one building. It was beautiful.
We took a regular train on to Sevilla, and that took nearly as long as the Ave had! Sevilla is where Patricia had done her study abroad, so she knew the city well. It’s a beautiful city! Probably one of my favorites. We just sort of hung around the rest of that day. We went to a park, and the river, and walked around the city a bit. We went to the Plaza de España, which is outside this huge building where each province in Spain has a little alcove with a painting and a map of the province and some really pretty mosaicky tiles. There’s also a big fountain. It was sweet. That night the temperature dropped quite a bit. We went to three different places to get tapas for supper, and two of them only had outside seating. Jen shared her shawl with me and we sat there huddled together, shivering. Stupid coldness. It’s almost May, people!
The next morning it was raining, of course. Hrmmm. We went to the Alcázar, which is the palace fortress thingy. It was built by a Christian king, but in the Moorish style, so it had some architecture similar to the Mesquita and the Alhambra in Granada. There was a huge garden out back where we spent most of our time. There was a hedge maze. Yes, a real hedge maze. With bushes over your head and really narrow passages where you could go in and get lost. It was awesome. We didn’t go in very far cuz we didn’t want to wander around for hours, and the bushes were all wet from the rain, so we got relatively soaked as we traversed it, but it was fun nonetheless.
After the Alcázar we went and got something hot to drink, because we were all cold and wet. We did some touristy shopping before lunch, and then we ate at an Italian restaurant, of all things. It was really good, but not very Spanish . . . . By then it had stopped raining and the streets were actually almost dry already. We went to the Cathedral of Sevilla, which is the home of the world’s tallest altarpiece: over 60 feet tall! All covered in gold with little statues of the stages of Jesus’s life, culminating in the crucifixion at the top where you can barely see it. The coolest thing about the cathedral, though, was that you can climb the bell tower. There are no stairs, because they had wanted to be able to get up there with horses, so there are just ramps along each of the sides of the square tower. 34 ramps to the top. Once you get up there, there’s an amazing view of the city and all that, but also you’re right under the bells. They’re probably five feet above your head. I felt like Quasimodo or something! Just as I was getting up there one of them rang and scared the crap out of me! It was so loud! The tower pretty much made my day. It was so cool! We did some more shopping, more wandering around, and then took the Ave back to Madrid and got home before 10.
I had another exam on Monday, this one for Literature. It wasn’t too bad, although I’m not sure if I gave enough information for the last question about poetry. But I don’t care. I’m mainly just going to focus on passing the classes and not worry about grades, since they don’t count anyway. Of course I still want to do well, but I’m not going to beat myself up about it.
Today after school I went to this concert of Iberoamerican guitarists. There were two men, one from Chile and one from Argentina, who played music representative of their countries. It was in a little room at the public library, and there were about 25 people there. It was very cool. The first man was good, but the second guy was amazing. He played with so much emotion; it was spellbinding. I’ve never seen anyone hold a guitar the way he did either; he rested it on the chair between his legs and held it so that the neck was at a 45 degree angle to the floor. It was strange. But it doesn’t matter. He was great. I love classical guitar. Brent, you need to learn so you can serenade me!
I’ve been spending a lot of time planning our Europe trip. Big surprise there, I know. It’s slowly coming together. I think we may end being somewhat spontaneous, but hey, it’ll be an adventure. I probably need a little more spontaneity in my life anyway. As long as I can keep from chewing my fingernails off worrying about every little detail. I did get permission from Rosaura to leave my suitcases here for that month, which is a big relief. I could have left them at Patricia’s house, but she lives an hour outside of Madrid and my flight gets in at night and leaves in the morning, so it would have been a hassle to get out to Mejorada del Campo to collect my things. It’s much more convenient this way.
I’m just planning on doing some Madrid things this weekend, and writing another paper. Only one more week of school before exams!! I can’t believe it’s almost over! But there’s a definite sense of ‘it needs to be summer’ in the air. I’m getting more anxious to come home. I keep dreaming about going home. I can’t wait until Brent and Danny come and we start traveling. At least there’ll be something new and exciting every day then. I know that’ll fly by and then before I’m ready it’ll be time to go back to the states.
I’ve been thinking lately about things that I miss being here in Spain. Other than family and friends. I just realized the other day that I haven’t watched The Office since I got here. There’s a whole season going by without me knowing what’s going on! I haven’t seen Scrubs either. I saw the Simpsons once. I miss my shows. I also miss just plain beef. They don’t really eat beef here. There’s tons of ham, and a lot of chicken, but not very much beef. I had a hamburger at the cafeteria today and it didn’t look like beef. It looked like a turkey burger or something, I don’t know. It tasted ok, just not like what a hamburger should be. What I really want is steak on the grill. Or hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill. Basically I’ve just been craving grilled meat. Also, much as it may pain me to say it, I miss the American school system. This Spanish system is messed up. In nearly all of my classes we hadn’t had any graded homework until the last week or so. That sounds great, but then you have no idea how you’re doing in the class, and no opportunity to improve your grade. The final exam counts for at least 50% of the final grade in a lot of cases. It’s nerve-wracking! And there’s no structure. Almost all of the paper I’ve been assigned have been on any topic I choose, which is way too open ended! It actually makes it harder, cuz we don’t know what the professor expects of it! I also miss feeling like I’m learning something in my classes. I’m trying to think of something that might be useful on an exam from Cine, and I can barely think of anything! All we do is watch movies and then comment on them a bit. I don’t know if I’ve really learned anything about Spanish cinema. Hrmmmm. One last thing I miss is being able to call up anyone I want to talk to whenever I need to. Not only is it ungodly expensive to call the States ($1 a minute!), I have to worry about a 7 hour time difference. That means, in order to avoid the work or school schedules of both of us, we have to talk really early in the morning for them or really late at night for me. It’s so inconvenient! Stupid time difference.
Ok, enough venting.
Well, I think that pretty much brings us up to date. I’ll try to be a little more on top of the blogs, but I can’t promise anything. I’ll do my best. Actually, to be honest, I’ve done a lot better on the whole than I ever thought I would. I’ve tried to keep a diary before and have never gotten past 2 or 3 entries. I guess it’s different when I know other people are reading this and bugging me for more news J
Love to all,
Bethany

April 19

Hi all
I’m just sitting here playing Solitaire, so I decided I should write a blog. This has been a fairly busy weekend. On Friday did homework all morning, chipping away at the mountain of work I have to do before the end of the semester in three weeks. (!) In the afternoon I had a field trip for my Estudios Culturales class to the Museo Reina Sofía. We went once before, but this time we looked at different artwork; more modern stuff. I still didn’t really like it. I like being able to recognize what I’m looking at without extensive analysis. Not to mention all those paintings that are nothing more than a few drops of paint haphazardly splashed across the canvas. There was one work of “art” that was all crushed hay pasted to the canvas with two strips of metal making an x across it. The professor made a comment that there’s a line of thought that works like this are only considered art because they’re in a museum, but if it was out on the street no one would pay any attention to it. I would agree, and add that many of the things I saw would be considered vandalistic graffiti. I’m not showing my bias here, am I? I really enjoy going to art museums generally, but when I start seeing things that my dog could create, I get bored. I like seeing skill and talent, not unintelligible randomness. Anyway, after listening to my professor jabber on about modern art for two hours, I stopped to get a sandwich, had a half hour at home, and left for choir. We had a concert on Saturday so we were polishing up the music we had sung at our previous concert. We actually got out a little early, which is unheard of in the time I’ve been there!
Saturday I did homework again all morning. It seems like as much as I work on it, it never gets any less! I have three papers, two tests, a debate, and a project I know nothing about yet to do in the next three weeks! Not to mention an entire play to read and five final exams to study for! But I did get a good chunk done this weekend. That’s good, because I hardly did anything today!
Our choir concert was in the evening on Saturday, and we had a rehearsal before. The concert was in a church in Aranjuez, which is an hour away. We had a bus that took us there from Leganés, where the university is, at three o’clock, which meant that I had to leave home at 2. Our rehearsal was from 4 until 6:30 or so, and then we had some free time. The concert went from 8-10. It went really well. It wasn’t quite so echoy, so it was a lot easier to hear everything that was going on. It was a charity for a group of nuns who run a homeless shelter, and every one of the 400+ seats was sold! We got a standing ovation at the end and we did an encore of the last song. The crowd was very impressed with us, if I do say so myself! J It was fun. The bus left at 10, arrived in Leganés at 11, and I had to take the train home from there. So I didn’t get home until midnight. 10 hours of my day were dedicated to that concert in some way or other!
This morning I went to the Museo Thyssen-Bournemisza or something like that. I don’t know how to spell it or pronounce it. The first floor was all modern art again, so I was a little worried that it would all be like that, but the second and third floors were real art. There were a few famous paintings that I recognized, like Picasso’s Harlequin with a Mirror (from the period before Picasso went crazy), and the portrait of Giovanna someone I can’t remember that is a famous Italian renaissance portrait that I knew from all my costume research. I was surprised and excited to see it there! There was a lot of Italian renaissance art, and a bunch of landscapes and 17th century Flemish paintings, and French impressionists, and a whole bunch of things. It was a nice museum. After that, I walked over to Sol and ran into this outdoor kind of market thingy with a bunch of jewelry and scarves and things like that. I think it might have been a part of the Rastro, which is the big market they have every Sunday, but it was after the Rastro closes, and it was just a little section, so it might have been something else. I went to Sfera, which is a clothing store, in search of capris because I, in my Wisconsin state of mind, didn’t bring any summer pants, but they didn’t have any. It’s April and they didn’t have any capris or even shorts! Only long pants and skirts. I was surprised; in the States they would have started selling summer clothes a while ago. Next I went to Corte Inglés to find some little shampoo bottles for the plane. I’d had a hard time finding them; everywhere else I went they only had huge bottles. There are some normal sized bottles of shampoo and that kind of thing here, but a lot of what they sell is at least once and a half the size of the bottles in the US, if not double. On the way home I stopped and got a kabob because it was after 4 and I hadn’t eaten lunch yet.
This afternoon I worked on my Europe planning for a while. I checked my email from my phone and found out that my Grandpa is in the hospital with aspiration pneumonia. He’s been in a state of steady decline for a long time, and it’s gotten worse since he was moved to the health center at the retirement home in February (I think), so I was worried to hear that he was in the hospital. Apparently he’s doing fairly well, though. They’ve got him on an IV of antibiotic, and they’re giving him blood because he’s anemic. Poor Grandpa’s in constant pain and has almost no strength. It’s all he can do to move from the wheelchair to his armchair with help. I don’t know if he’s going to be strong enough to recover. It would almost be a relief for him to go, because he’s got such a poor quality of life. But I hope he holds on at least until I get home so I can see him again. Must think positively: he’ll recover and I will see him again. I will.
Tonight I talked with my mom and discovered she’s in Illinois at my aunt and uncle’s house! So I got to talk with them, too! I haven’t talked with my aunt since she was diagnosed with amyloidosis, so it was good to hear from her, even though we didn’t talk about it much. She starts chemo and bone marrow transplants in May, so it’ll be a tough month for her and for everyone. But mostly we talked about Spain and happy things. We only had about a half hour because they had somewhere to be that afternoon. But it was still nice to talk.
Yesterday was April 18. I leave for Dublin for my European tour with Brent and Danny on May 18, and I return home on June 18. Two months until I come home. It still sounds so long when I say it like that. Better to think that I’ve been here almost three months, and I’ve only got three weeks of school left! That sounds better.
Well it’s almost midnight so I think I’m going to go to bed. G’night!
Bethany

April 13 again

4-13 #2
Well here we are at the final blog of my spring break. It’s taken me hours to write these! Time I could have spent doing homework and writing all the papers I have to do for the end of the year. I hope you appreciate my sacrifice! J
I arrived in Milan at about quarter to nine in the morning. It was a little strange to wake up on a train. At first, I was rather disappointed in Milan. It had much more of a big city feel than I was expecting, and I had just come from Salzburg, which was, in all fairness, very hard to top. I was also not in a very good mood. I tripped going up the escalator and banged up my knee (the skin’s scratched open and there’s a huge bump and a bruise). Then I had trouble finding my hostel. The directions say get out at this metro stop and it’s 30 meters away, but they don’t say in which direction. I asked a guy (I showed him the address on my sheet so he would understand me) who asked another guy who asked another guy and I finally got directions. But it was complicated. And in Italian. They did use a little English, and I was able to understand a little of the Italian thanks to Spanish, so I understood the directions. I got in my hostel, dropped my stuff, and went exploring.
When I got out of the metro there were all these guys from Africa who were trying to hand out those little bracelets made from colored string. They were supposed to be good luck or something. This is another thing that added to my bad mood. Those men were absolutely relentless! I tried to walk past, this guy came right up to me, and I shook my head and said no. He dropped the bracelet on my shoulder. I picked it off and started walking away, intending to throw it in the nearest garbage can. He called me back, holding out his hand. So I thought maybe he wanted it back. I held it out to him and he grabbed my wrist and tried to put it on me. I said I don’t want it and he said “no, it’s ok.” I yanked my hand away saying “I don’t want it!!” and walked away. I thought that was absolutely uncalled for for him to actually grab my wrist. Not to mention it was a little frightening. I don’t think he meant to scare me, but he sure wanted me to take that bracelet. I think they give it to you and then ask for donations, but there was no way I was giving him any money, especially after that! And they weren’t just there; they were at several of the big touristy places. Though none of the ones I ran across later were that persistent. I just put on a scowl as I walked past and most of them left me alone. Most of them.
The first place I went to was the Duomo, which is the cathedral in Milan. Holy crap! I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a stunning building. There’s so much carved stone and intricate detail that whole thing looks like it’s made from lace. It’s the second biggest church in Italy, second only to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The inside is filled with huge pillars and gorgeous stained glass windows. The floor is all patterned in black and white and reddish flowery designs. It was Maundy Thursday, so there was a service going on when I was there, and the priests were singing. It sounded so cool! They had this thing outside where you can take an elevator up to the roof, so I was like: yes please!! It was so cool! We got to walk around on the roof of the Duomo, surrounded by those carved peaks and statues, looking out across the city and the roofline. It was amazing!
I decided to do the Hop on hop off tour again, since it had been so good in Budapest. But it wasn’t as good. There was a double decker bus, which was cool, but on the top there were these huge yellow bars across to keep people from falling out, but they made taking good pictures virtually impossible. But if I sat on the bottom of the bus I wouldn’t have been able to see as much of the buildings. Also, in Budapest the busses came every 20 minutes, but in Milan it was every 45 or 50 minutes. So if you wanted to hop off to look at a church or something you had to wait so much longer to get back on. But on the plus side, it was an easy way to see the city and to get from site to site.
I took the bus to the Castello Sforzesco, which is the castle where the Sforzas and Visontis lived. They were two of the major ruling families during the Renaissance. I was happy because I had learned a little bit about some of them, namely Giangaleazzo Visconti, in my Renaissance Florence history class last year. There was a drawbridge that went over what was once a moat but now it’s just grass. Inside, there were a lot of open courtyards, some with gardens. There were also a bunch of museums: decorative art, furniture, tapestries, antique weapons, and Egyptian art. There was also supposedly a museum of antique instruments, but I couldn’t find it. In the art museum, there was a da Vinci painting of Madonna and child. I don’t know the name of it, but I recognized it. On the back it said it was removed from the panel on which it was painted by da Vinci and transferred to that canvas in 1758. I don’t really know what that means; if they actually moved the painting to a different canvas, or what. Can they do that? There was also a copy of da Vinci’s “Madonna of the Rocks.” At least, I assume it was a copy, since the original is in the Louvre, right? But there were also several other Italian Renaissance paintings I recognized. It was rather exciting. They also had a Pieta statue by Michelangelo. It wasn’t the one I knew, but it was still really cool to see an original statue by Michelangelo!
Behind the castle there’s a big park with a lake (and more of those accursed bracelet guys). It was such a nice day that I walked around a bit. On the other side of the park’s the Arch of Peace, which is a big stone doorway that’s a big monument. But it was all covered with scaffolding and tarps, so I couldn’t see it well. It was disappointing.
I got back on the tour bus and rode around the rest of the circuit back to the Duomo. Then I walked to La Scala Opera House. For the few of you who have never heard of La Scala (J) it’s only one of the most important opera houses in Europe. We talked quite a bit about it in my Romantic Styles music history class. Milan was one of the four major opera cities during the 19th century. There’s a museum there that I went to. I was able to peek into the auditorium area from one of the boxes. It was a stunning theatre; all red velvet and gold. It said no pictures, but I took pictures. Of course. The museum was cool. It had everything from instruments that were played during performances over the centuries, to portraits of famous performers, to the eyeglasses of . . . of . . . oh crap, now I can’t remember whose they were. I’m thinking either Strauss or Schubert. Anyway, some famous composer’s eyeglasses. There was also a bunch of jewelry worn as costumes and posters for the various operas that have been performed. It was really cool for a music nerd like me!
I decided after that to get some gelato (I’d never had gelato before. It’s amazing!) and go back to my hostel. There was a guy staying in my room who came in a bit after I did and we started talking. He was from England, near Oxford. I told him I was going to be visiting England in May and asked if he had any suggestions of places to see. He gave me a big list of ideas and tips. Then he asked what he should see if he went to America. I realized it’s really hard to pick out some “typical” American sites. I guess there are the touristy sights like NYC and the Grand Canyon and stuff like that. But there isn’t really any one place you can go and see the “normal” America. There’s so much diversity between the people and the cities and the landscapes and stuff. I tried to give him some ideas, but I told him it really depends on what kind of thing you want to see. Not to mention that they’re all so far away. It’s not like you can hop on a train in the morning and be on the other side of the country by the afternoon or evening like in England. Or pretty much any country in Europe.
Next morning I still had a few hours left on my 24 hour bus tour, and I hadn’t seen all of the red line (there are two circuits: red and blue. I had seen the whole blue line and only half of the red the day before). So I hopped on and made my way around. I got off at one stop, the church of San Lorenzo Maggiore, which was mentioned in my research of places I should go in Milan. It was nice enough, but I was kind of disappointed. It was in a not-quite-excellent neighborhood. Not really bad, but not somewhere I would want to walk alone at night. And inside the church was small and there was paint peeling off of the paintings on the walls. It wasn’t really worth the stop and the 45 minutes of waiting for the bus to come back around. At that stop there was also supposed to be a roman amphitheatre, but I walked around and couldn’t find it. I was afraid I would get lost, and like I said, the area wasn’t the greatest, so I didn’t go out of my way to search for it. So I sat for a half hour at the bus stop and checked my email via my phone for the first time in a week. Those emails sure do pile up!
I went back to the Duomo and went in again when there wasn’t a service going on. I was able to go a little farther into the church, since it had been blocked off for mass last time. It was just as beautiful the second time!
I spent quite a while that afternoon visiting various churches. I went to San Ambrogio, San Marco, and San Maurizio. San Maurizio was also very unique. It was covered with paintings, painted directly onto the walls. Almost every inch was painted. It was beautiful. I think that was my favorite of the non-Duomo churches in Milan. San Ambrogio was also memorable. The church was nice, but what stood out was in the room just behind the altar where the relics were. Up to this point I’ve seen fingers, skulls, and various other bones of saints. But in this church there were three full skeletons dressed up in finery all the way from the crowns on their heads to the sandals on their feet. It was a little eerie. I wondered who got the job of dressing a skeleton. I think I would have passed that one right along to whoever was beneath me. Delegation is a skill worth using in some circumstances.
The last church I went to was Santa Maria delle Grazie, which is where the original of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper was painted and is displayed. I found out when I got there that you have to have reservations in advance, but I decided I’d wait in line anyway to see if there was an opening in a tour that was already going out. Then a guy came out and told all the people waiting that they were booked up for two weeks. So unless you had made a reservation two weeks ahead of time you couldn’t see the Last Supper. I wasn’t really expecting to be able to see it anyway, without a reservation, but who’s going to think to make a reservation two weeks ahead? Especially if they just find out when they get to Milan, as I did, that it’s there. It was dumb. They shouldn’t even have tours; they should just let people go in and see it on their own. It would save a lot of hassle and probably be cheaper for them. So I didn’t get to see the Last Supper. It was interesting, though; in a couple other churches there were what looked like imitations of da Vinci’s painting. One of them had the exact same setup, with the disciples and Jesus in exactly the same positions, but the style of painting was different. Their faces looked different. They weren’t as well defined or formed. I’m not sure exactly what it was about it, but it definitely looked like an inferior painter was trying to imitate da Vinci’s work.
After the church run I went to the Ambrosian art gallery, which is home to some of da Vinci’s original notebooks. It was so cool to see his sketches for inventions. And his backwards writing! There were also some of his paintings, along with those of Botticelli, Bernini, Caravaggio, and tons of others. There was even a preliminary sketch of School of Athens by Raphael (Danny, I’m thinking of you). It was in a beautiful building with stained glass and sweeping staircases. It was a very nice museum.
I had pretty much run out of things to do in Milan, so I went back to the Sforza Castle and sat in the garden for a while. Then I decided it was getting close enough to the time to head toward the airport. So I went back to my hostel and got my stuff, and went to the train station. I had to take a shuttle bus from there to the airport, which was about an hour away. Once I got there I went through all the normal airport hassle and then I only had to wait about an hour before boarding started. So I’m glad I left earlier than I had planned. I must have fallen asleep on the plane because it seemed a lot shorter than 2 hours. We actually landed 10 minutes early, but then we drove along the runway for a hundred years before actually stopping. I hopped on the metro and arrived home around 1:30am. I felt bad because I was going to have to call Rosaura and wake her up to let me in (they don’t let me take the key when I go on long trips), but they were still awake anyway. So I texted my parents to let them know I had gotten home safely and fell into bed.
The next morning was Sábado Santo, which is the Saturday right before Easter (Holy Saturday). Most of the processions for Holy Week in Spain are Thursday and Friday, but I had found a schedule and found out that there were two on Saturday. I was happy, because I didn’t want to miss everything! The first one was at 8am, which I decided wasn’t going to happen when my alarm went off at 7. The second was at 5pm, so I went to that. It was cool, but there were kind of a lot of people so it was a little hard to see. First came a drumline, and then a brass choir. Then the priests and various other church people processed out from their church, through the streets to the cathedral, and back to the church. They were all wearing those pointy hats that look like KKK outfits. Most of the ones in this procession were purple, but there were some black and red, too. After them came the statue of the Virgin Mary, all dressed up in finery, with her black cape and gold halo, surrounded by flowers. The statue was carried on a silver-encrusted thingy carried on the shoulders of four or eight men. I couldn’t see how many because there were tall people in the way. It was cool to see the Virgin coming down the narrow street, seemingly floating above the heads of the crowd. It’s funny to look at my pictures because you can see her progress coming towards me and then passing and getting farther away. So even though it was a smaller procession, I felt like I didn’t completely miss out on the traditional Spanish Holy Week celebrations.
Yesterday I went to Easter mass at the church whose procession I saw. It was the church of San Gines, which is the first Spanish church I ever saw. Rosaura took me there our first night together. It was nice to be in church on Easter, even though I didn’t understand all of the service and I didn’t know how to properly respond or when to sit, stand, or kneel. I sat near the back so I could imitate people. It was weird being away from home on Easter. It didn’t feel like Easter at all. I spent most of the day doing homework, writing blogs, and organizing my mess of pictures. I had bought a chocolate Easter bunny in Vienna that I saved and ate as a little Easter treat to myself.
Today I had off school still, and I was going to go to the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, but it’s closed on Mondays. So I walked around Madrid for a while, then went to FNAC to buy Harry Potter 3 in Spanish. I also found Golden Compass in paperback (the one I had found before was hardback and I didn’t want to buy such a big book), so I got that too. I almost wasn’t able to buy it. Last time I couldn’t use my credit card because I didn’t have proper identification. This time I brought my drivers license, which has always worked as ID before. The lady at the counter said that I needed a passport. I have no idea why. She said only a passport was acceptable. She was nice, however, and let it slide this time. So I was able to get my books. If I had been denied again I think I would never have gone to FNAC again! That’s a stupid rule, though. There’s nowhere else where I need my passport to use my credit card. But I got my books, and that’s what’s important.
I spent this afternoon writing the last two blogs and doing a bit more homework. It’s dinner time now, and I expect Rosaura will be knocking on my door any minute now. So I guess I’ll wrap up. I had an amazing spring break! And all my fears about traveling alone were completely unfounded, which was a relief. I am glad to be back, though, and glad I don’t have to worry about planning this trip anymore! Now I can focus on what needs to be done for May! And on the mountain of homework that is slowly suffocating me. I only have a month and two days until the end of exams, and a month and five days until I leave Spain!! Time is just flying by! I’m sure it’ll go even quicker now that spring break is done. Yikes! So much to do!
Oh, one more happy little thing. I came back from my walk today to find an envelope on my table. Tiff and Irene sent me an Easter card! It’s one of those ones where you can record your message, so I was able to hear their voices. It was so sweet, and it made my day. Thanks so much, you guys! I put it up on my shelf so I can look at it. I just hope it doesn’t get bumped open and scare me when it starts giggling and talking!
Well, that’s it for now. I hope you’ve actually made it through all of this without falling asleep too many times! Love you and miss you all!
Bethany

April 13

4-13
Ok, Salzburg. This was my favorite city, so brace yourselves for a long post! J
I arrived in Salzburg around 11:45 or so and went straight on to my hostel to drop my stuff. I gathered up some brochures and my map and planned a few things out as far as where I wanted to go and where they were in the city. Then I had about an hour before my first tour started, so I walked around a bit close to my hostel. There was a street nearby with a bunch of shops that I peeked into. There was one, and I saw several more later on, that sold traditional Austrian garb. There were lederhosen for the guys and those cute little dresses for the girls. Watch the music festival scene and the final scene of Sound of Music and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. It was so cool! I was so tempted to get one, but they were way too expensive. So I took pictures and I’m going to make my own! Much cheaper and much more fun that way. I also went into St. Sebastian’s church, which is where Mozart’s family is buried, if I’m not mistaken. I didn’t see the graveyard, just the sanctuary. As this was holy week, in most of the churches I went in the altars were covered with a purple cloth. Do they do that in churches in the States? I know in ours we just drape a cloth across the crosspiece of the cross, but don’t actually cover it up. Hm. I don’t know.
My first tour picked me up at the hostel at quarter to 2 and took me to the meeting place. It was a Bavarian mountains tour, and I think I was the only person on it younger than 40. Wait; there might have been one other guy who was upper 20s. There were only about 8 of us, and we were in a big van that drove up into the mountains. Not just mountains; Alps. We crossed the boarder into Germany (or rather Bavaria, since the guide told us that Bavarians don’t like to think of themselves as Germans), and spent most of the time there. It was so gorgeous. The most mountains I’ve ever seen have been in the Rockies when we went to Colorado ages and ages ago (I think I was probably about 12), but I don’t remember them being nearly as beautiful as these. As we drove closer to them, there were still patches of snow on the ground, and when we started going up there was as much as 2 feet of snow! We got out several places to admire the scenery. The tour was supposed to include a trip to the Eagle’s Nest, which was Hitler’s house in the mountains, but since it’s so early in the year we couldn’t get up there. I guess the road is very narrow and we would have had to take a shuttle bus, and I think there was still too much snow and ice on the road. But we could see it from a distance. At one place we walked out on the top of the snow to get a better view of it. There was a little stream running through the valley, filled with snowmelt, and I went up closer to get a good look at it. I was still about 4 feet away, when I went right through the snow! This was probably not quite a foot high, but it was high enough that I couldn’t get my feet out without them sinking right back in. I fell back on the snow and rolled over to get up. Everyone was like: oh, are you ok, and I was just laughing because I’m sure I looked like a fool! I’m just glad I wasn’t any closer to the stream or I would have fallen in. Or dropped my camera in. That would have been tragic!
There are so many cute little towns up in the mountains that we drove through, with houses that look like they belong in one of those Christmas villages. In at least one of the towns all the houses have names. I don’t know if it’s the name of the family living there, but on almost every house it said Haus something or other. We stopped in one town for about an hour. I wish I could remember the name of it. Something about a king, I think. All the buildings were different colors and so cute. There was one building, which was pink, which had been kept in its original state since the 1600s.
One of our stops was this beautiful glacier-fed lake with absolutely crystal clear water, surrounded by mountains. It was breathtaking. There was a bobsled track there, which I had no interest in, but our guide led us up to the top. The only interesting thing was that there was a better view from the top than from the lakeshore, but the guide seemed to have some kind of fascination with the bobsled and talked a lot about it. Anyway, the lake was so clear that I could see a log on the bottom at least 20 feet out from the shore. There was a boat tour that would take you out, and in the middle of the lake they cut the motor and play a trumpet so you can hear it echoing around all the mountains. But, of course, we couldn’t do that because we were already on a tour.
When we got back to Salzburg it was almost 6, so everything was getting ready to close. I went to the Mirabell Palace, which I thought was going to be an actual palace you can go visit. Actually, it’s where the government meets, so a visit isn’t worth it. The important thing at Mirabell is the garden right behind it. The Mirabell Gardens are like a small park with a Pegasus fountain and lots of statues. It’s the place where a lot of the scenes in Do Re Mi in the Sound of Music were filmed. (I didn’t realize that until after I took the Sound of Music tour the next day, so then of course I had to go back!) I walked around the city for a while. I saw the Kapitalplatz, and Universitatsplatz, where there’s a big market, and Residenzplatz, and a bunch of other plazas with fountains and statues. I went back to the hostel around 7 and went to their restaurant/bar for dinner. There weren’t very many people there except for me, the bartender, who was a boy a little younger than I from Australia, and a girl about my age at the bar (she was from Montana). I sat at the bar with them and talked for a couple hours about random stuff. Then I went back to my room to plan out the next day. After a while the girl from the bar came in: she was staying in my room! We talked a bit more before we went to bed.
The next morning I had the Sound of Music tour at 9, and I wanted to go see the Cathedral before then, so I got up early. The girl (whose name is Susanne, I later found out) asked me if she could tag along with me that day since she didn’t have any plans. I didn’t really have a problem with that, so she bought a ticket to the tour, which she had also wanted to do, and we set off for the Cathedral. I think I had gotten a bit spoiled from traveling alone for the past two days, because it kinda drove me nuts the way she walked a step or two behind me the whole time. I don’t know if I set a quick pace or what, but I kind a felt like I was dragging her along. But we only had about 45 minutes to walk to the Cathedral, see the inside, and be back to the hostel for the tour pick up. No time to dawdle! We got a bit turned around and walked all the way around the cathedral before we realized that’s what it was. This cathedral was a little different than others I had seen. Instead of a stone ceiling and walls, this one was broken up with paintings all the way up, surrounded by white plaster or something molded into scrolls and flowers and things.
We didn’t have time to get all the way back to the hostel for the tour pick up, so we went directly to the meeting point, which was closer anyway. Apparently the Sound of Music tour is a lot more popular than the mountain tour, because we had a huge coach bus full of people. This tour was so much fun! For those of you who don’t know, Sound of Music has always been one of my favorite movies ever. My mom likes to tell the story of when I was about 3 years old watching it. While Maria and the children were running over the mountains singing Do Re Mi I started crying. When mom asked what was wrong, I pointed at the screen and said “I want to be there.” I have always wanted to go to Austria because of the beautiful scenery in that movie. I would be lying if I said I didn’t get a little choked up when I actually was there. In fact, I’m getting a little teary even now. That’s the silly thing about fulfilling lifelong dreams: I get too emotional.
Anyway, the tour focused mostly on the sites from the movie that were filmed outside of the city center, with the assumption that we could see those ones on our own. We started out still in Salzburg, but a little farther away. Our first stop was Schloss Leopoldskron, which was the back of the Von Trapp mansion, with the lawn down to the lake. It’s private property, so we could only see it from across the lake, but it was beautiful. Seeing all these things made me realize it’s been several years since I saw Sound of Music, and I wished I had seen it more recently so it would be fresher in my mind. (The hostel shows it every day, but it’s at 10am and it’s a 3 hour movie, so that means you have to miss the prime time of day touring Salzburg to see it. Not worth it!)
We drove by Schloss Frohnberg, which is the bright yellow front of the mansion and the wall along which Maria is singing I Have Confidence when she stops at the gate at the first sight of the mansion. It was set pretty far back from the road, and, again, it’s private property, so we didn’t get to see it up close. But it was still exciting for an enthusiast like me! J
As we were driving through Salzburg the guide pointed out the mountain on which Maria is singing in the opening scene. It’s called Untersberg. Or maybe that was the one at the end when they’re fleeing to Switzerland. I can’t remember. In any case, at the beginning of the movie Maria runs down the mountain and back to the abbey in just a few minutes. In reality, that mountain is about 3 km (I think that’s what he said) away from Salzburg, so Maria would have been the fastest woman in the world! And the mountain at the end, which they’re supposedly crossing to get into Switzerland, actually boarders Germany. So they’re going in the wrong direction to escape the Nazis! Of course, none of this makes a whit of difference in how I feel about the movie. It’s just funny.
We stopped at Schloss Hellbrunn to see the famous glass gazebo. It was originally next to Leopoldskron, behind a wall. When my mom went to Salzburg the only reason she was able to see it was because she was high up on a bus and could see it over the wall. But in the intervening years they moved it because too many people were climbing over into the private property. So now it’s in Hellbrunn and we were able to go right up to it! It’s small! They used this one only for the outside shots, and then built a half gazebo for the inside shots so they could fit cameras and stuff. It’s a cute little gazebo, with, of course, the benches lining the insides. Mom asked if I went in; actually it never occurred to me. I don’t know if we could, though. No one did anyway.
The bus headed out to the town of Mondsee, which is about a half hour out of Salzburg. The church there, St. Michaels I think, is where they filmed the wedding scene. They didn’t do it in Nonnberg Abbey because it was too small and they couldn’t get all the equipment inside. So they did it there instead. We got about an hour to explore the church and the town. It’s a beautiful church. Inside, the walls are all white with pink molding, so it looks a little bit like a dollhouse. At least, it would if you took out all the churchy stuff inside. While I was in there taking pictures, my camera said there was no more room on my memory stick! I had filled it up in only 5 days!! Luckily I had another one, but 5 days!! I’m going to have to buy like 3 more for my month long trip in May!
On the way to Mondsee we stopped at what was one of the most beautiful scenes I’ve ever seen in my life. I looked back at my pictures and they just don’t do it justice. We were up on a hill looking over a valley. There was a little town in the foreground, and beyond that a lake, surrounded by snow-capped mountains. The lake was bright blue, and reflected the mountains around it. It was breathtaking. I don’t know what it had to do with Sound of Music, but I think we stopped just because it would have been a shame to miss it. Absolutely gorgeous.
That was pretty much the end of the tour, and on they way back they just played the soundtrack. Of course, a bunch of people were singing along. I remembered for the umpteenth time that I somehow don’t have the Sound of Music soundtrack on my computer. How I made such a glaring oversight, I’ll never know, but now I have to wait until I get home to correct it, and by that time I’ll probably have forgotten again. They also played a bit of a documentary about the filming of the movie 40 years later hosted by the woman who played Liesl. It showed a bunch of the places we had just seen and didn’t have too much new info, but it was interesting.
Back in Salzburg, I wanted to go see Festung Hohensalzburg, which is the Salzburg Fortress. I asked Susanne if she wanted to come along, phrasing it in such a way that she was welcome, but it was clear that I was going to do what I wanted to do whether or not she came. She decided to come, so we made our way over there. The fortress is up on a huge cliff, so you have to either walk up a very steep path or take a funicular. We chose the funicular. It was a really cool building. It’s over 900 years old, and you can walk through the galleries, the torture chamber, and state rooms. There’s a museum of more modern history, mostly about the 20th century, which I wasn’t very interested in. But they had some armor and swords and stuff that I liked better. J We could also go to the top of the tower, where there’s an amazing view of the city and the mountains. You get the added height from the tower and the mountain the fortress is on, so you’re up really high. It’s beautiful.
In the fortress complex there’s also a little church and what remains of the original chapel from hundreds of years ago. There’s also a marionette museum, which was fun to see. It was very small; just a couple of rooms with displays of plays or operas that were put on with marionettes. They had a set up from Mozart’s Magic Flute, von Weber’s Oberon, and several plays I didn’t recognize. They had a film playing of one of the shows, and it was amazing how coordinated the puppets were. I don’t know how the puppeteers get so much control over them!
After the fortress, Susanne said she wanted to go see this famous beer brewery and asked if I wanted to come. I had less than zero interest in that, so we parted. I was going to go the Residenz, which is the royal palace, but it was closed for state functions, so I couldn’t go in. Instead, I went to Mozart’s birthplace. Yep, more Mozart! It was another museum with a lot of portraits and scores and stuff. This one focused more on his family, since he only lived there until he was about 4 I believe. In the room where he was born, there’s a pendant that has a lock of Mozart’s hair. Mozart’s hair! That was cool. There were also little models of scenery for several of his operas, including Die Zauberflote and Don Giovanni. There was one room where everything was upside down. I have no idea why, but it was interesting. There was a mini model of Salzburg and the surrounding mountains on the ceiling, and stars on the floor. All the pictures of churches and buildings around Salzburg on the walls were hung upside down. It was very strange. According to the brochure it’s to reflect Mozart’s urge to turn everything upside down and see things differently. Whatever. I think maybe they just had an extra room and needed to invent something to do with it.
After that I decided to follow the little brochure they gave us on the tour with all the Sound of Music sites within the city. I went to lots of the places where they filmed parts of Do Re Mi: the Mozart foot bridge, the banks of the River Salzach, the Horse’s Pond statue, University Square, and the place in Residenz Square where you can hire horse-drawn carriage rides. I also went back to Mirabell Gardens for all the places there. There are two fountains, the Pegasus fountain and another, that they all walk around while they’re singing. There’s also the dwarf garden figures, one of which they all pat on the head as they pass, and the athletic figures, which are statues of fist fighters whose poses the children imitate. Most of these things are in such short segments that you would never remember them all if you didn’t have a specific reason. I also saw and walked through the hedge covered archway that they all dance through. And, of course, the steps they climb at the end of the song for the big finish. All little things, but still exciting for me!
I went to the fountain that Maria splashes water in during I Have Confidence, but it was all covered up for construction or restoration or something, so I couldn’t see it. I also went up to Nonnberg Abbey, which is Maria’s abbey. Visitors aren’t allowed in the abbey part, only in the church. I went in, of course. It was a very pretty little church, but I could immediately see why they didn’t film the wedding scene here, even though that was where Maria and the Captain were actually married. It was too small for all the filming equipment. When I went out I walked a little bit along the outside walls looking for the entrance gates. I was the only person around except for a teenage boy who was hanging around and looked kind of like a punk. I got a little nervous so I decided just to leave. So I’m not really sure if I saw it or not. After that I went to St. Peter’s Abbey, which houses the cemetery where the von Trapps hide from the Nazis. I didn’t actually realize it was the same place until I had already left and saw it on the list of places in my pamphlet. So I didn’t find the exact place where it was, but it doesn’t really matter.
Last on the list was the festival hall. I followed my map and found what I think was it, but it wasn’t called the same thing. At least not that I saw. So I’m not entirely sure if I was in the right place. I couldn’t go inside to see. But whatever. I saw so many things that I’m not upset if I missed one.
It was getting towards dark and I didn’t really have anything left to do, so I went back to my hostel, gathered my things, and headed off to the train station. I took a domestic train to Villach, and from there a night train on to Milan. It was a pretty sweet setup: I got a bed and I was the only one in my little (and I mean tiny!) room. There was even a little sink and a mirror, and a place to hang things up. I hadn’t intended to take a night train; I only did because it was the only time any train was available. But I’m glad I did. That way I got more time in each of the places instead of wasting a whole day traveling.
I arrived in Milan in the morning, and I’ll continue this story in the next post!

April 12

4-12
We arrived in Vienna around 2:30, and by the time we found our hostel and got all checked in and settled it was after 3. The first thing we did was go to Mozart’s house (this was my city after all, and my choice of sightseeing. Jen had Budapest). The museum was really cool; they had some original manuscripts and scores, and programs of the premieres of Mozart’s works. There were also portraits of him and his family, and some decorations of the house the way it would have been. It was exciting to see Mozart’s clavichord! They also had this really cool thing where they had the scenery of Magic Flute set up in a little glassed off stage. Then they played a movie of just the actors with no background on the ceiling, and the way it reflected off the glass it looked like the actors were holographs on the stage set up. It was really cool!
By the time we were done there it was almost 6, and most everything was getting ready to close. Wait, we didn’t spend 3 hours in there. I guess the time was taken up by traveling. Oh, and I think we explored Stephensplatz for a while, too. That’s the square where St. Stephen’s Cathedral is. We saw it from the outside but didn’t go in that first day. Anyway, since everything was closing, we decided to grab some dinner and walk around the city. I think the Viennese have some sort of fascination with colored lights, because there were lots of colored flood lights shining on the buildings, and in one building there was purple light shining out of every window. It looked pretty cool, but wasn’t anything I would have expected. We found a big fountain that changed colors, too. It was nice sitting around the edge listening to the water and feeling the spray. The only thing was that it was after dark and I was getting cold. We went back to our hostel to get an earlyish night, since Jen had to leave super early the next morning.
Jen said she would wake me when she left at 5 or 6 so that I would know she got off ok, but when I woke up she was gone. I still had this huge list of things I wanted to do in Vienna, so I had my day cut out for me. First I went to Schloss Schoenbrunn, which was the one thing I wanted to see most. It was beautiful. The outside was bright yellow, which was kind of surprising. I heard later in Salzburg that all the palaces in Austria are yellow to imitate Schoenbrunn. I got to see the state rooms where the Hapsburg emperors lived, which was cool because we just got done talking about the Spanish branch of Hapsburgs in my history class. The inside of the palace was, of course, lavishly decorated, with carpets and upholstered chairs, and paintings and the like. There was also a set of rooms that were original from the time of Empress Maria Theresa, who was responsible for expanding the palace. (Fun fact: she’s the mother of Marie Antoinette). There was one room with bright yellow and blue floral wallpaper, which looked a little like it belonged in an old-fashioned kitchen. Actually, it was faded from age, but there was a sample recreation with the original colors, and it was vibrant. One of the rooms had the most extravagantly embroidered red velvet bed I’ve ever seen. There was a tour passing through that room when I was there, and the guide was saying that no one ever actually slept in the bed. It was used for state occasions, such as after a prince or princess was born, the empress would sit on that bed with the baby to receive guests. Or if the empress was sick, she would sit there for meetings or something like that. But it was a ridiculous bed. I would have been afraid to even sit on it and ruin the embroidery.
Behind the palace were gardens, a maze, and a zoo. I didn’t go to the zoo or maze, and I only saw part of the gardens. I was on a strict schedule, after all. But there was a really cool fountain of Neptune or something like that that was just across the way that I saw.
After the palace I went to Karlskirche, which is a beautiful church with a big dome. It was really cool, because you could take an elevator all the way up to the top of the dome to get a view of the city. It was cool to be that high up inside the church. I was really close to all the frescos of the angels and cherubs; I could almost touch the walls of the dome. I was close enough to notice that what looked like red and white marble from the ground was actually just regular stone painted white and streaked with red paint. Someone was taking shortcuts and scrimping on money. J The view of the city was awesome. You could see the spires of St. Stephen’s Cathedral not too far away, and the river winding through the buildings. It was beautiful. Back down on the ground, there was a little table with pamphlets telling about the “blessed” Emperor Charles, for whom the church is named. I picked one up to read later because I thought it might have some information about the church. I finally got around to looking at it after I got home, and it was just the story of his reign and I was about to throw it away. But then I noticed on the back: “Prayer.” There is a prayer to Emperor Charles on the back of this brochure. Now I’m not one to get all high and mighty about religion, but I balked a little bit at this. This man may have been a great king, but he wasn’t a god. Not even a saint. How does anyone get away with praying to him to “intercede with God on our behalf”? That seemed beyond strange to me. Anyway, back to the task at hand.
Next I went and saw the Staatsoper, which is the opera house, and I have probably destroyed the spelling of it. It is a beautiful building, with pillars and arches all along the sides and fountains out front on either side of the main entrance. I couldn’t go in, but seeing the outside was good enough. I just love all this European architecture! Not to mention imagining how many of the composers I know and love had performed there over the centuries! (Just wait . . . the nerdulation has just begun! J)
The Hofburg palace was next on the list. It’s a complex of buildings, most of which are museums. The museum I went to was that of historical musical instruments! (See, I told you.) It went from simple drums and bells from I don’t know how many thousands of years ago up to modern instruments, including a brief explanation of12-tone theory. It was really cool to see some of the predecessors to modern day instruments. There were tons of strings—violins, cellos, gambas—and also dulcimers, guitars and lutes. There were even a couple double guitars. There were also lots of reed instruments, including the precursor to the bassoon (which I though was interesting for obvious reasons) and several of these instruments that look kind of like snaky, spiraly bassoons or something. I really want to know what they sound like. There were lots of harps of different shapes and sizes, often with cool carvings or decorations on the pillars and soundboards. And, of course, there were harpsichords, clavichords and pianos of every shape and size. There was even this one that was an experiment of a portable piano. It was shaped vaguely like a harp, with an accordion-like keyboard along the side at the bottom, and a shoulder strap. I think it was a failure, because it looked to me like it would neither be very portable nor sound anything like a piano. There was even a bagpipe in one of the cases! It was very cool and extremely interesting.
After that, I went to St. Stephen’s Cathedral to actually go inside this time. One of the towers was burned during the bombings of World War II, and it’s still under construction or refurbishment or something, so there was a big thing covering that one tower. I don’t think I’ve seen a cathedral yet that hasn’t been under construction in some way or another! But about the inside: what can I say? Another beautiful cathedral with stained glass, tall columns, lots of paintings, and cold as the stone it’s made from. I have noticed something, though. In Spain, all the cathedrals are set up the same, with the chapels all the way around the outsides, the sanctuary area in the middle, and the choir area behind the pews, walled off in its own little section. In other countries, however, they’re set up differently. Most of the ones I’ve seen have had the altar in the front, chapels on the sides, and the organ up on a balcony above the door. There are some variances to this, too. Some don’t even have chapels at all, just paintings or statues lining the sides. I wonder if all the Spanish ones are the same because of the strict unified Catholic history starting with Ferdinand and Isabella. I don’t know when the cathedrals were made in relation to their reign. That would be something interesting to find out.
Next I went to Stadtpark, which is the city park where there are statues of a bunch of composers. The most famous one is the Johann Strauss statue, but there were also Schubert, Bruckner, and Zelinka (I think that’s a composer, right?). There were several other statues of people I had never heard of and I don’t know if they were composers or not. Around the city are several other statues and monuments to composers: Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart. I also went to see the houses of Strauss, Schubert, Beethoven, and Haydn, but since it was a Monday and everything’s closed on Mondays, I couldn’t go in. I went to the Arnold Schoenberg Center, too, but it looked like an office building. I went in and in the main area there were photos of Schoenburg, and it said “Arnold Schoenburg Center 4th Floor,” but when I went up there it looked like somewhere I shouldn’t be, so I left. That’s all right. I wasn’t sure I wanted to give my patronage to the man who invented 12-tone anyway! J Just kidding. But seriously, some of that stuff just barely qualifies as music. I know there are those of you who are shaking your heads right now and disagreeing with me, but I don’t care. You can listen to your Schoenberg and Webern and Berg, and leave me to my Brahms!
I went back to my hostel exhausted that night. I had fit in what was supposed to be two days of sightseeing into one. I was up and about for over 10 hours! And my feet were killing me. So I went back before it was even dark and read until bedtime. In the morning I got up early and hopped on the train to Salzburg.
To be continued . . . .