Long time, no blog. I am currently writing from the comfort of my home in Hagerstown--quite a radical change of scenery! The past two months have been very busy, but now that classes have ended and I'm home, I finally have time to recap my latest escapades. In between them, I have spent on average 24 hours a week in the library: but such is the life of a grad student.
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| Sinterklass in Bruges |
In November, I toured around the 3 major cities of Flanders: Ghent, Antwerp, and Bruges. It was nice to get to see more of the region I'm staying in, to get a taste of the local culture. It quickly became obvious that an "old" building in Europe is one that was built at latest in the 12th or 13th Century. Bruges is a particularly charming medieval city. I spent a Sunday there with my Canadian friend Hilary when its Christmas Market just opened and, in a surprise to us, the day
Sinterklaas made his arrival (along with his unpolitically-correct helper,
Zwarte Piet). We had spent the previous Sunday in Antwerp for the big arrival of Sinterklaas on his boat, but made a long, painstaking detour and missed his grand docking. Making your way around European cities can be frustrating as they (at least all the ones I've been to so far) don't have street signs, instead plaques on the side of a building which are rare and inconspicuous.
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| Barcelona |
By far the most exciting thing I've done since my last post was going to Barcelona with Vinny from Friday Dec 13 to this past Monday. Leading up to it, I was completely engrossed with end-of-the-semester schoolwork and rushing to get ready to go home. As soon as we landed and I smelled the warm, fresh air, my life in Leuven evaporated. The spirit of adventure once again possessed me. We took the last train to Paseig
de Gràcia to get to our hostel. I was worried it might be a shady Eli Roth hostel since it was so cheap, but it turned out to be the nicest hostel I have ever stayed in! Very clean, nice facilities, and they even made tapas and sangria for us! We immediately made friends with several of our hostel-mates, including an enthusiastic Australian by the name of Elliot.
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| Casa Batlló |
The weather (high-60's through 70's and sunny) was a refreshing change from cold, wet, ever-gray Leuven. We made it down to the port and beach areas twice--
it was like stepping into springtime. The whole city just has a lot of good energy. We made carpe diem our call to arms that weekend. Each night we got about four hours of sleep. We made sure to get out early and enjoy the weather to see the great sights--including the astonishing works of Antoni Gaudí such as Park Güell, Casa Batlló, and, of course, Sagrada Família. By night we explored Barcelona's active nightlife, although we had to endure a tribulation of solicitors along La Rambla.
One benefit to travelling to Spain is getting the chance to practice our Spanish.While most Barcelonans primarily speak Catalan, all of them also speak Spanish (and, thankfully, a large number also speak English). All those years in Spanish class were finally put to use. Of course, with languages, confidence is almost as important as skill. Our first morning, Vinny attempted to ask a few young women on the street where a grocery store is, which merely resulted in, "¿Dóndeeeeee....... uh, do you speak English?"
While I've deeply enjoyed hopping around the world again (and I can't wait to continue hopping), I have learned a key fact of life: you can travel all over the world, but there's nothing like home with people who love you!
Merry Christmas!
