I mean, they're both trails, right...?

So, here I am, on the eve of my admittedly foreshortened spring break, to update you good people up to now. Where did I leave off last? Oh yeah, I was feeling REALLY homesick after having a fantastic weekend in Sevilla with Mary, Kate, and TJ. Good times...followed by bad times, but I'm sure none of you want to hear anymore whining about that. Onward!

The following weekend was one of the few I'd decided I would stay in Toledo. Granted, this stay-at-home weekend came with a Friday day-trip sponsored by the Fund, but I'll count it as wanting to get to know my city better. We left from the Fund about 9:30 Friday morning to board a bus that would take us around the Ruta de Quixote, a collection of sites throughout Castilla La Mancha (the region of Spain from which Miguel de Cervantes' legendary knight Don Quixote hails.)

[Cue music from "Man of La Mancha"]

We would be accompanied by Miguel and José Luis, two of the program coordinators from the Fund who usually come with us on these trips. But this trip we had a special guest: Professor Rafael Fuentes Mollá, of Siglo XX and Cine fame. As a lit. professor, this guy knew a thing or two about Don Quixote and la Ruta. Unfortunately, as a lit. professor, he loves to hear himself talk, and thus would sit on the bus mic for half an hour explaining the rolling hills drove through as a powerful symbol for something or other. I'll be honest, I can't remember many of the names of the towns we stopped in, and those names I DO remember are just names (i.e. I can't place the names with the stops to which they pertain or the order in which we saw them) so I'm just going to pretend you all know which towns/landmarks I'm talking about and go with it, okay? Cool.

We started in a town with a plaza of some kind that apparently is representative of the kind of plaza that Don Quixote left at the beginning of his epic journey to fight evil and earn his knighthood. This stop essentially consisted of us listening (attentively, of course) to Prof. Fuentes lecture us for a few minutes on the significance of this plaza, followed by free time, during which Michael and I wandered aimlessly before ending up in the same café as everyone else on the trip. Not a great way to start the day, but hey, at least the coffee was good, right?

Our next stop was a similarly small town that seemed to be similarly devoid of people (I forgot to mention that this was Spanish Fathers' Day, so everyone was, presumably, wherever Spaniards go to honor their fathers). Professor Fuentes again stood in the middle of a plaza and explained to us its significance (I think this time it was the doorway that was similar to the one Quixote might've ridden through at the beginning of his journey...or something...) and we were again given free time. Thankfully, this town (indeed, this plaza) had a little more to offer than the last one. For one thing, there was an old wooden wagon (think covered but, well, without the cover) in the middle of the plaza. So what did we do, you ask? Damn right we took pictures of ourselves as horses. What would you do?

This town was also a lot more fun when I realized that basically everything building was whitewashed with a blue accent. The same seemed to go for the signs and pictures around the outsides of the buildings - mainly white, but with bits of blue. For those of you who have been reading attentively and/or looking at my pictures on Facebook from the semester, you know what comes next. For those of you who haven't (and you ought to be ashamed), I have two words for you: color accent. It's a setting on my camera that allows me to pick one color from the environment to highlight while everything else is rendered black and white. Thus began my Picasso-esque Blue period for the day. If I do say so myself, I think I got some pretty sweet pictures, like this one of one of the shops near the aforementioned plaza.

After wandering around the town's center for another ten minutes (and taking the obligatory pictures with all the Quixote/Sancho Panza statues and silhouettes) we loaded the bus up again and headed to what I think was the town of Consuegra. Here, we listened to Fuentes drone on about las molinas de viento (windmills) that were such a famous part of the Quixote epic. For those not familiar with the story, this old guy has basically been driven mad by spending all his time reading stories of brave and chivalrous knights of old and, despite his old age, goes out into the world to imitate them by fighting what he perceives as evil. These windmills represent one such evil (he sees one and thinks it's a giant, so he attacks it...doesn't work out so well). They may also represent a Middle Ages mind confronting the new technologies of the Renaissance, but I'm sure you don't want to hear about any of that. The point is, we took some pictures next to some really old windmills and everyone had a lovely time and no one was accidentally beheaded by one of the blades. I mean...what...?

Anyway, enough about Jason. It was time for lunch. I'm not sure how they found this place, but it kind of reminded me of a hotel dining room; ridiculously long tables with fresh white tablecloths and, of course, fantastic food. I may or may not have had some meat lasagna on a Friday during Lent. It's okay, though, I'm pretty sure I'm damned anyway. Oh well.

After lunch, we got back on the bus and drove another forty-five minutes to a castle that was apparently representative of Quixote's time (ya know, if fictional characters can have "times"). The tour, of course, was guided. If you're a good fan of this blog, you know how I feel about guided tours. That, combined with the fact that the caffeine had worn off, made me rather unhappy. But hey, got some pictures in a castle and we got back to Toledo by 6. Woohoo.

While at home, I spent most of my time updating everybody my pictures and finally blogging about the previous two weekends (hopefully you all enjoyed). But, alas, it got to around 11 and I got bored with this and went out. I met Karinna (of guerrilla photo war fame), Liz, Sarah, and Diana at the Fund where we decided we would try to find a cool bar outside the Casco. Yeah, I was rolling with four girls, what up?

We picked Santa Teresa, one of the neighborhoods just outside the city walls, to begin our search. This is also, conveniently, where Michael lives, so we got to meet him. Yay.

We first tried a new Australian-themed bar (Foster's, anyone?) where I had a bit of a scare. I set my jacket down next to a few others on a table in the corner, but a few minutes later, when I looked back, it was gone. This wouldn't have been an issue, except that my camera was in one of the pockets. Yeah, I wasn't happy. Good thing Karinna was there to speak Spanish to the bartender...

My camera recovered, the girls wanted some tapas. It was midnight, so we figured most places would be closed. Luckily we found one, but when we ordered our beers, no tapas followed. Thankfully, we were with a few girls who knew their way around the block and flirted until we got a fantastic plate of tapas. Yay for girls.

Then, of course, we ended up at O'Brien's, but with a twist...turned out a few of the girls had never played that glorious game known as Kings (a.k.a. King's Cup, Waterfall, Circle of Death, etc.). Naturally, we took it upon ourselves to teach them how to play, and much merriment was had by all. Then it came time for me to learn a new game called Presidents and Assholes. If you haven't played it, learn; it's fun. But not fun enough to keep us entertained much past 2 a.m. With that, we bid Emilio or usual farewell and headed home.

Saturday was pretty uneventful for me. I spent the day (after I woke up well past noon, of course) putzing around my house doing things that I honestly can't remember, so I just won't report anything. That night I was ready to go out to botellon when a perfect storm of things happened that prevented it. First, I'd temporarily forgotten how to get to the botellon park. Second, I didn't know when everyone was going, so if I did find it there was a chance I might be sipping on a 40 all alone. Third, I had very little money on my phone, so I couldn't get to anyone to figure any of this out. There were a few intermediate steps involving going to O'Brien's to meet Michael and some of the Puerto Ricans and them not being there, so eventually I grabbed a can of Pringles, a Coke, and a chocolate bar and spent the night in my room watching Miracle (great flick).

Sunday, unfortunately, was dedicated almost entirely to work as I had an essay and a presentation due the following week. Poems were read, English translations were Googled, DVDs were ripped, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

Oh, I forgot to mention why ELSE this week would be an important one. For those of you for whom this blog is the only update you have to my daily life, I decided recently that I would run for President of the Notre Dame Glee Club. This is interesting in and of itself because, as far as I know, no one has ever run for this position from abroad. Previously, it was impossible to do so (one of the requirements is that you be present for Grills, a kind of town-hall type meeting in which all of the candidates are "grilled" by the other members of Club), but with the advent of Skype it looked like I might have a shot. Luckily, the Constitution is silent on a lot of this, so it was up to the current Executive Cabinet to decide my fate, and after a vote they allowed me to run. This meant preparing for Grills on Tuesday as well as getting a bribe together for our Campaign Party the following Friday. All from over 4,000 miles away. Yeah, fun. Fortunately, my good friend Murph stepped up to help me out and we were in business.

The first obstacle was the fact that Tuesday would, of course, be the one night of the year when I couldn't guarantee being at my computer at 11 p.m. local time to Skype in for the presidential portion of Grills; Michael and I are in a Spanish theatre class that would be watching a play in Madrid that night and weren't sure when we would be back. Made for a nice heart attack on the ride home, lemme tell ya. Thankfully, though, I made it back with plenty of time and endured the somewhat painful but always enjoyable ritual of Grills.

From there, I set to work planning my bribe. I'll explain: the weekend before the election, the candidates put on a Campaign Party at which they attempt to "bribe" people to vote for them using all kinds of goodies. Some people bring pizza, one guy last year did Bagel Bites...good times all around. I decided to go with sangria, the traditional Spanish wine (with sparkling grape juice for the young 'uns, of course), served by Erin and Angie, two fantastic volunteers who were apparently very convincing to a few of the guys (though that may've been the sangria talking). I also got Murph to bring his computer along so that I could Skype in. Now, this doesn't seem like much, but with the party starting around 10 and going until around 2 a.m., I would have to be online until about 7 a.m. local time. Guess I gotta thank my lucky stars for being nocturnal, huh? All in all, it was a great time, but by the end of it I was ready to crawl into bed and pass out.

As tired as I was, Saturday and Sunday were pretty uneventful; basically everyone had left for their Spring Break trips around Europe, so I was left to hang around Toledo until Tuesday, when I would leave for London. I basically did small stuff; got my haircut (finally), picked up AVE tickets to Sevilla for when my mom comes in early April, etc. etc. And so, here I am, on the cusp of what promises to be a fantastic trip.

I'll start off tomorrow evening in London where I'll, among other things, meet up with TJ and find out the (hopefully favorable) election results. From there...who knows? I do know at some point I want to hit St. Paul's Cathedral to check off the world's second largest Christian church from my list, and I also would be pretty disappointed if I didn't see the London production of Les Miserables, thought not as disappointed as Mac would be, I imagine.

Then, at noon Thursday, TJ and I will fly to Berlin, where we will spend two days (and our only night in a hostel) before traveling to Munich and finally Frankfurt for Easter. Yeah, it's gonna be epic. Plus it'll give me a lot to blog about, which is great for you guys, right? It's okay, just nod your heads. It'll all be over soon.

Right, that's pretty much it. I suppose I should also mention that yesterday, almost exactly one month after starting, I have completely caught myself up on ever heretofore aired episode of How I Met Your Mother. I know, I have no life. But damn it, NPH rules.

That's all for now, folks. See you on the other side of Lent!

Nos vemos,

Griff

Reunited

So...I should probably be spending this time working on the presentation I have to give Tuesday morning or the essay I have due Wednesday, but, well, that's just no fun. Besides, you all want to hear about what's probably been my favorite week/weekend in Spain, right? That's what I thought.

It started with what would've been a hectic Monday without the visitors I had coming to town. I had two papers due in my two classes for the day (taught by the same professor, no less) as well as the required discussions that go along with each. Needless to say attendance was required. This was made more interesting by these aforementioned visitors. As I may or may not have mentioned to some of you, my good friend Mary (a senior at St. Mary's) had come to Spain the previous weekend to spend her spring break here. Seems like a rather odd (albeit sweet) destination for a spring break, no? Fear not, there's a story...

It starts two springs ago, when Mary arrived in Spain to study through the SMC program in Sevilla (a city for which I've already professed my love in this blog). I've talked to her about it a lot, especially after I got accepted to ND's Toledo program, and from all I've heard it was truly a life-changing experience for her. So, when our good friend (and her roommate) Kate got accepted to spend her sophomore spring in Sevilla as well, Mary got pretty darn excited. Fast forward a little bit, and she finds out her younger brother Bobby will be studying in Madrid the same semester. With those three fantastically awesome people in the country she loves, all at the same time, it was just too much to resist. So she spent the first weekend chilling in Madrid with her brother (Kate joined her too), and then they, along with Bobby and his girlfriend Katie, came to Toledo on this fine Monday morning to visit little old me. Right, back to the story.

I was actually pleasantly surprised at how early I finished that second essay (3 a.m. Monday morning), which was lucky, because I got a relatively good amount of sleep before waking up two hours before class to meet everybody for some coffee. It was great to see everyone again. There were hugs, a couple of tears, and, of course, churros (though no chocolate this time...quite disappointing). Sadly, though, I had to run back to class at 11:30, so I left everyone wandering the city for a few hours.

After essay number one of the day had been turned in, I tracked the crew down and took them to one of the many great views Toledo has to offer; the Puente de San Martín (St. Martin Bridge) on the eastern side of the city. From there, we walked around the outer walls, everyone just catching up about who was where and what was what. Good stuff, I assure you. About that time, everyone got hungry, so we tracked down a place to eat. I had a great authentic Spanish meal...of steak and eggs. Hey, leave me alone; at least it wasn't Katie's pizza or Bobby's hamburger. At this point, it was about 3:15, meaning I had to run back and turn in my second essay of the day.

My academic day finished, I met up with the group and attempted to find the mythical Pride Rock, which supposedly gave a fantastic view of Toledo from above. It involved, from what I'd heard, leaving the city, crossing the other major bridge opposite San Martín and climbing the hills outside the city. We could go either left or right once we crossed. I chose left. Turned out I was wrong, and we just ended up walking up a hill for a while and not finding a view. But hey, we all know I'm directionally retarded, right? Thankfully, no one was too upset about anything, so we headed back home and introduced them quickly to the family (and, of course, the puppies) before seeing them off to the bus station.

My Tuesday was considerably less interesting, but Wednesday things got fun again as TJ rolled into town to finish off his spring break in Spain. Of course, he chose my busiest day (four classes) to show up. What a guy, huh? When I finally did finish up, I took him out to O'Brien's introduced him to a few people. Fun times. After my one class Thursday, we walked around Toledo as I showed him basically the same things I'd shown Mary, Kate, Bobby, and Katie. What can I say? I'm lazy. Afterward I brought him home and introduced him to everyone (he managed to win at both ping-pong and FIFA against my brothers) we left to catch the 1 a.m. bus to Sevilla where we would be reunited with Kate and Mary for a weekend of warm sunny fun.

The bus ride was, well, the same as it was the first time...long and full of lots of light sleeping. When we arrived, we worked out by trial and a little error to orient ourselves and set out in the direction of Kate's host family's house. Of course, it was only a twenty minute walk so when we got to the general area it was still 8:30 a.m. and thus way too early to a) check into our hostel or b) call the girls to tell them we were in town. Luckily TJ, as he was a bit too happy to point out, has learned a lot this semester about how to waste time. So we did just that, killing a solid two hours enjoying the surprisingly warm Sevilla morning. The girls finally did call us back...and told us to wait an hour and a half while they got ready. I won't say it, but y'all know I'm thinkin it.

We got to the church a few minutes before our 12:45 meeting time and waited patiently. About ten minutes in, TJ proposed a bet: over/under 12:55 they'd show up. I took the under...the over won when they finally did get there just past one. This would be a recurring theme (love you girls, mean it...).

My third time being reunited with friends this week was again a fantastic event. More tears, more hugs, and, if I remember right, at least one hiccup. Wait, no, that was another time. Never mind. Anyway, the girls decided to show us the school all the SMC-ers go to in Sevilla, and that was cool. Classrooms, computers, the usual bells and whistles...good times. Then we stopped by the local indoor market and got smacked in the face with the smell of freshly gutted fish. I was still kind of tired from the bus ride at that point, but I'll tell ya, that sure woke me up. We also found a shop selling all three flags TJ was looking for (Spain, Andalucia, and Sevilla)...only they were doing it for 18 Euro a pop. Yeah, we'll keep on shopping, thanks.

From there, we went to the Plaza de Toros to check out what's up. More on that when I go back again in April...Mom, get ready. Then we chilled by the river for a while and a good old-fashioned guerrilla photo war started. God, I love these things. I love it even more when all parties enjoy participating and don't have to be forced. As it got on to about 2:30, Mary and Kate told us they had to be getting back home for lunch, so we headed back in the direction of our hostel/their house. On the way, something random and seemingly impossible happened. As we walked, I looked down and my eyes caught a quiver of blue among the brown of the sidewalk. Then, literally at the same moment, Kate and I pointed and made some sort of noise of excitement, and then I took advantage of my long arms reached down and snagged the two 20-Euro notes sitting there on the ground. After a momentary victory dance, I agreed to split the 40 with Kate as she had clearly seen it too. TJ claimed to have as well, but I was skeptical. Still, I said I'd spot him ten, as I was footing his bill the entire weekend (there'd been some confusion on fund transfers with his folks, so he was running short at the moment). What a benevolent soul I am.

For lunch, TJ and I decided we'd try a place called 100 Montaditos, a place that lets you pick from a list of 100 little finger sandwiches with anything from ham and cheese to sausage and Brie to melted chocolate and almonds. Yeah, it was good. REEEEEAAALLY good. We later met up with the girls and took TJ toward the really touristy area of town. We were going to go into the Catedral, but it ended up being closed (nice planning, Kate), so we took TJ to my favorite place in Sevilla: the Plaza de España. Unfortunately, we took the long way (I'm blaming Mary this time, to be fair to both locals), but got there nonetheless. I was disappointed to find that construction had grown and now not only could I not see the Toledo section of the wall, the fountain in the middle was gone too. Stupid Sevilla. I made the girls promise we'd come back tomorrow.

Tired and hungry, we went to a favorite place of Mary's for some dinner. On the way, we saw a Scottish pub called The Clan, of which TJ and I made a mental note. When we got to the place, I was pretty starving, as I assumed were the others. Of course, TJ and I ordered dinner, the girls split a milkshake; I guess we didn't understand that real dinner for them would be at home in about half an hour...we were confused when they finished the shake and got up to leave. Oh well, at least my cheeseburger was good. Having some time to kill before we had to meet Mary and Kate to go out, TJ and I went back to the hostel to chill for a while. I almost napped, then decided it would be better to just lay there for a while. I'm weird, leave me alone.

We met up with the girls at around 11:30 (over/under bet was set at 11:15) and caught a bus to get us near to a bar we'd be going to to meet a few Spanish friends Mary made when she was here. They took us to O'Neill's, possibly the most American pub we'd seen in Sevilla. The group of Spaniards we met (eventually five of 'em) spoke varying degrees of English, so the whole night was a very confusing jumble of the two languages. I did feel kinda bad for TJ, being the only one to have not taken a Spanish class since high school. By the end of the night, though, he didn't need much help as he, Kate, and I talked in a corner while the Spaniards all surrounded Mary while she told what I guess was a VERY long joke. We gave her her moment gladly though...she was just basking in the glory of speaking Spanish again. One nice consolation for TJ, though: his second pint of Murphy's (yeah, we're creatures of habit) came in a sweet Guinness glass with a logo that called it "An Official Guinness Pub." He and I had almost the exact same thought at the exact same time: "Oh yeah, this pines to be stolen." Dude's turned me into a klepto.

As it got on to 3 a.m. we all felt tired, so we bid the Spaniards farewell and, after our hopes of an open kebab place were dashed, we walked home and went to bed. Originally the girls had told us they wanted to meet at 9:30 the following morning. We scoffed, but were still a bit nervous. By the time we got them home, though, they'd given us 11. We set the over/under for the actual meeting time at 11:30. Betcha can't guess which side won...

When we finally did meet up the following morning (*cough* afternoon *cough*) we decided we'd give the Catedral another go. Having been in there once, I didn't really do much besides walk around and appreciate once again just how friggin' big the thing is. It was cool to have TJ there, though...he was now able to check off the third largest Christian church in the world, leaving only number two: Saint Paul's Cathedral. I'm not sure why he hasn't managed to visit the one in his proverbial backyard, but hey, who am I to question?

After we'd taken a good amount of pictures on the ground floor, we (read: Mary and Kate) decided it was time to climb the Giralda tower and get a badass view of the city. Here we encountered a bit of an odd sequence of events. As I walked up the ramps to the top of the tower, I didn't give much though to the windows on my right because I knew that none of those views were anywhere near as cool as the one I'd get at the top. Somewhere along the line, I passed everyone and was at the top for about ten minutes looking for them (keep in mind this thing is about 100 square feet). Finally, I got a frantic call from Kate asking where I was. "I'm at the top," I said, "where the hell are you guys?" Right about then the emerged from the staircase, completely confused as to what had happened.

Okay, not as funny as it was in my head. But it was pretty funny in the moment, I promise.

Anyway, we spent the next half an hour or so snapping pictures (some traditional, others guerrilla) and enjoying the magnificent views of Sevilla. Finally, though, hunger won out and we descended into the beautiful mid-afternoon sun. Apparently Kate had never been to 100 Montaditos, so we figured since TJ and I hadn't hated it we'd hit it up again. Turns out melted chocolate and almonds on a little bun is just as amazing the second time...go figure. Once we'd filled ourselves up (and the girls had taken a page from our book and snagged some really cool Pepsi glasses), we parted ways; the girls wanted to go shopping for a bit and we, well, didn't feel that same need. Shocker.

I went back to the Plaza to embrace the food coma I felt coming on. TJ went off to do some errand that I can't remember, but I think it involved flags. Anyway, I walked into the Plaza, found a great bench in the sun and passed out with my iPod going. It was glorious. About 45 minutes later I woke up as TJ entered the plaza and took his own nap. I tried to fall back asleep, but when I couldn't, I just sat up and took funny pictures of TJ using weird settings on my camera (like this one...cool stuff, huh?). Once we'd both rested up enough, we went to a park nearby and grabbed some ice cream. When we'd finished and the girls still hadn't told us where they were, we grabbed some more ice cream (hell, we weren't complainin'). Finally, they told us that they'd gone home and that we were to call them "later".

Now TJ, smartass that he is, wanted me to call them and say "Hey, Later, it's Griff. What's up?" Yeah, I'm sure that would've gone over well. Regardless, we gave them half an hour and at 7 called them back. They told us they had some time before dinner, so we decided we'd meet for some churros con chocolate at a local cafe. Oh and how glorious those churros were. Kate certainly enjoyed them, anyway. Afterward, we let them get back home for dinner and we walked around a while, finally landing at (what else?) a kebab place for our final Sevillan meal. Since it was 9 at this point, we still had about three hours to get to the bus station, so we decided we'd track down that Scottish pub we'd seen the day before and grab a pint. And wouldn't ya know it...they had Murphy's! God, I love Spain.

Unfortunately, even drinking at a Spanish pace as I've learned to do, we finished with about two and a half hours to kill. What else was there to do but to find another bar with another pint? We eventually settled on P. Flaherty's because, well, we saw the Guinness and Murphy's signs above the door. Good times. Now two pints deep, we realized that it was 10:15 and, while we could probably have a third, we should probably not risk forgetting where the bus station was. And so we arrived around 11 and killed the next hour waiting for the girls to meet us. For some reason there was a little horse ride in the corner that kept playing "O Susana" and had I not been so tired I might've gotten up and kicked it. TJ, of course, found this very amusing. Finally, the girls arrived and we said our tearful goodbyes to Kate. At 1, we boarded our bus to Madrid and passed out. Once we arrived, I said goodbye to Mary as she boarded the bus to the airport, and then to TJ as he took the Metro to that same airport (methinks we could've planned that better, no?). An hour and a half later, I arrived in Toledo happy to be back with most of Sunday to recover, but also feeling the worst bout of homesickness I've felt since getting here. It wouldn't go away 'til Tuesday.

That's where I'll leave you guys for now. You're now just about caught up with real time (and that'll happen soon; I didn't go anywhere this weekend so there's not a ton to report). In the mean time, I need some sleep.

Paz y amor,

Griff

What? We're in a hotel!?

Alright, seriously, I just spent last night tagging, captioning, and posting over 250 photos, and damnit, I will update this blog by the end of this weekend or so help me God...

Well, you get the idea.

I'd now like for you to gather 'round while I regale you with another of my European adventures, this one taking place in Córdoba and Granada, two cities in Andalucía, the southernmost province of Spain. Probably the best part of this trip (which was run through our school) was that the week we arrived in Toledo we found out that because the Notre Dame Study Abroad program still made us pay full University tuition (which was apparently far greater than the tuition we would pay for the Fundación), ND students would be allowed to take this 200-Euro trip for free. Makes ya wonder where all that money goes...

Anyway, we were scheduled to leave for Córdoba via bus at 5:30 a.m. Friday morning. Having nothing to do Thursday afternoon and evening I locked myself in my room until I'd finished one of the two essays I had due the following Monday (from the same professor, no less). Once I finally finished that sucker up around 11, it had long since been decided in my mind that I wouldn't be going out for the evening. Naturally, I decided that rather than go to sleep at a reasonable hour so that I would be fairly well rested for the bus ride ahead, I booted up Ocean's 13 on my computer and watched that until, oh, 3 a.m. or so. Yeah, sometimes I think I'm stupid too.

So after my two hour...ahem..."sleep" I rolled out of bed and trudged through the empty streets to the Fund and then to the bus where I immediately fell asleep. This would become a pattern over the course of this weekend. We rode for about four hours until we reached Córdoba, which I imagine would have been quite the hopping little city had it not been for the unseasonable rain that continues to plague this semester of ours. After a while you really get tired of hearing, "Really, it's usually beautiful...this is the most rain we've had in years." But I digress.

As we got off the bus, we were broken up into two groups and met our respective guides. I don't remember our guide's name, I do know that, by the look of him, he'd speak with a British accent if he ever spoke English. I know that means nothing to most of you, but anyone who was there would probably agree. He first took us through the Judería, Córdoba's Jewish quarter. It was a pretty cool walk-through as we were surrounded on all sides by brightly white-washed buildings. We stopped into the old synagogue which, despite the build-up we'd gotten from our guide, ended up just being a huge room with a menorah and some cool designs on the walls. Guess ya can't win 'em all.

It continued to rain throughout our walk through the Judería until we reached Córdoba's cathedral which, it turns out, was converted from a mosque at some point in history that I forget at the moment. Either way, the convergence of the two cultures, Muslim and Christian, was apparent from the second we entered the courtyard. The place was full of an odd mixture of Moorish arches and ridiculous crosses...crazy stuff, really. But that was nothing compared to the inside. It's hard to describe, really, but I'll do my best.

The whole thing is essentially divided into two distinct halves. The first is clearly the remainder of the old mosque, with plenty of space for all the highest ranking Muslims in Córdoba to kneel and pray five times a day. This portion of the building has a lot of Christian artwork and a few small chapels around the outside, but for the most part the Muslim basis shines through, from the incredible double arches to the large doors through which the caliph and his family would enter for prayer.

The other half, of course, is a typical Christian cathedral, complete with ridiculously high ceilings and even more ridiculously detailed artwork in just about every corner of the place. My favorite portion, of course, was the choral section, but then I'm sure you could've all guessed that. Michael and I got our obligatory picture, yadda yadda yadda.

I'll pause here to note that, while I really did enjoy this tour, one thing I did NOT enjoy was the fact that it was guided. I didn't really know it until this semester, but I much prefer exploring tourist sites for myself – going at my own pace and stopping to read or ask questions when I feel like it – rather than being dragged along like a two-year-old, stopping every twenty feet to talk for fifteen minutes. Turns out this would not be my weekend in that respect, but like I said, I still enjoyed myself.

Right, enough of my bitching. After we got through the Catedral, we slowly made our way back through the courtyard and toward the bus. Despite feeling tired, hungry, and a little sick, this walk included what ended up being one of my favorite moments of the weekend. It started when we took a quick side-trip to a small plaza where our guide rambled for five minutes about God-knows-what. The important thing was that, in the course of my typical guerrilla-esque style of photography, I got a few funny pictures of my friend Karinna. She then retaliated and told me her pictures were better. Yeah, big mistake. I thus declared a candid shot war and spent the better part of the next half hour snapping as many shots as I could of her from every angle. Her battery died soon thereafter, so she tried to call a truce, to which I reluctantly agreed, but it would make for a fun little theme throughout the weekend.

We reached this temporary agreement just as we were about to board the bus for lunch. It was good to get some food in me, but even better was the fact that we would soon be at our hotel (no, not hostel...HOTEL) in Granada. After lunch, Michael and I killed about half an hour walking around doing whatever it is that we do, at which point we finally boarded the bus for Granada. I, of course, remember nothing of this ride as I fell asleep almost immediately. Guess sleeping for two hours before this trip wasn't too stupid after all, huh?

What? It still was, you say? Okay, fine, you're right.

We got to our hotel and I, of course, walked right up to our room and collapsed for another two hours. I ended up rolling out of bed just in time to catch the bus to a flamenco show, something I'd been looking to catch since I'd neglected to do so while in Sevilla. This was one of the cooler cultural portions of the weekend, for sure. The bus drove us up to the top of one of the many hills in and around Granada, to the gypsy area of town. We entered a bar and walked through a lobby and into a long, narrow room in which the show would take place. As a waiter came to ask us for our drink orders, I again got excited thinking that maybe someone in Spain would know what a 7 and 7 was. Once again, those hopes were dashed, and I ended up getting a Granadian drink that tasted like green NyQuil. Oh well, I guess that helped my sore throat out some, right?

While the drink left a lot to be desired, the show was nothing short of spectacular. For those of you who haven't seen one of these before (and if you ever get the opportunity, take it), I'll try to explain. The whole thing consisted of two separate "acts" involving two different sets of performers; a guitarist, a singer, and three to four dancers, mostly women. One at a time, the dancers would each get up to perform a solo dance while the guitarist and singer did their thing and the other dancers clapped along in rhythm, occasionally throwing in a cry of "¡Olé!" for effect. Probably the coolest thing about this show – aside from the ridiculous rhythmic control each performer possessed (I've never seen anyone move their feet so gracefully while making that much noise) – was that you never really knew when or where the song or dance would start. Sometimes the guitarist would pluck out a few chords and the dancer would follow his rhythm. Other times the singer would choose a style that would, in turn, dictate the speed and type of dance would make sense. Sometimes the dancer would just tap out a rhythm and go to town. I got the feeling none of us knew where the song would start, but each of the performers were so in sync that they were completely on point the entire time. Truly amazing stuff.

There was a small bit of unintentional comedy, though, when a dancer who had to be at least 65 years old stepped up to perform. As had been the case all night, cameras were flashing from the moment she stood up. But while the other dancers had performed without seeming to notice that there were other people even in the room, this woman was giving an admittedly scary death glare to everyone in the room taking a picture. She literally shook her finger at some people and still a few of these continued snapping away. Needless to say when she sat down she looked very upset. It was a shame too; she really could move and had put on a great show. Oh well, leave it to the American tourists, I guess.

Thoroughly amazed by what we had seen, we moved to the second portion of this little side-trip which was a brief tour of the rest of the Gypsy quarter, including a sweet night-time vista of La Alhambra, which we would visit the following morning. We snapped our fair share of pictures and when we finally got on the bus everyone was still talking about how awesome the flamenco show had been. Meanwhile, my truce with Karinna ended (she'd charged her batteries while I was napping) and the battle began anew. I've spared her the embarrassment of posting most of the pictures I have, but I'm considering a separate album dedicated to her...lemme know what you think.

We arrived back at the hotel and prepared to go out. It turned out that one of Michael's best friends from home, a guy named Nick, was studying in Granada for the semester and had offered to show all of us around. Gotta love having a friend who's a local, I s'pose. Nick met us at the hotel and took us around to a series of bars that were all very distinct (and a few obviously touristy) but nonetheless very fun. We finally arrived at a quiet pub around 2, but I, still being a bit under the weather, offered to be the first escort to anyone who wanted to go home early. Sarah and Karinna, being exhausted themselves, happily obliged and we said our goodbyes to the rest of the group. On our way home, I made what was perhaps the best decision I had in a while; I finally caved and got a Doner Kebab. For those of you who have never been drunk and hungry in Europe, this is the European version of Taco Bell at 3 a.m. on Friday. A kebab is basically just lamb meat in a pita with some sauce and toppings, but that night it was so much more than that. Thoroughly satisfied, the girls and I headed back to the hotel and hit the hay.

The next morning, I awoke happy to find that I felt much better. I guess alcohol really DOES have medicinal qualities...

Anyway, we all gathered in the lobby and waited for the bus to come pick us up for what would be the coup d' gras of the weekend: a tour of La Alhambra. This gigantic combination of fortresses and gardens was built by the Moors in the 14th Century and is allegedly the most visited tourist site in all of Spain. Pretty cool stuff, no? Needless to say I was pretty excited (read: my camera trigger finger was itchin'). That excitement did take a blow, however, when we found out that this, too, would be a guided tour. To quote my dear friend Jacques, le sigh.

Despite the unfavorable weather, the garden portion of the tour was pretty darn cool. We got some great views of Granada (La Alhambra is built on a bit of a hill) and got to walk through a labyrinth-ish courtyard full of hedges, bushes, and really cool little fountains. And yes, for those of you wondering, I did go camera crazy here.

After the gardens, we made our way inside to the fortress itself, which consists of a huge network of stone buildings that served any number of purposes when first the Moors and then the Christians inhabited Granada. We got to see some really ridiculous stuff, including a massive reception chamber, the walls of which were covered with the history of the Moorish occupation of Granada etched in Arabic. Unfortunately, our journey around the inside of La Alhambra was also where the guide element of the tour took a turn for the worse. It wouldn't have been so bad if the woman we had didn't feel the need to make us stop for inordinately long breaks (45 minutes in one spot!?) while she told us every minute detail about whatever room we happened to be in. But I'm bitching, and no one wants to hear that, right?

The rest of the tour passed without incident, and it began to drizzle just as we boarded the bus back to the hotel. Yay impeccable timing. On the ride back, a bunch of us hatched a bit of a plan that included *gasp* a Mexican restaurant not far from our hotel and *second gasp* exploring the Arabic neighborhood of Granada. It's a bit sad, I know, but I was most excited for the burrito at the front end of the trip (and yes, it was good). Still, the rest of the plan was pretty fun too. I'll admit it might've been more fun if we hadn't confused the Arabic neighborhood with the Gypsy neighborhood we'd been in the previous night, but that's just me. We DID run into a curious collection of people on this misguided journey, including a group of ten guys celebrating a bachelor party who were all...well...let's just say that if it was 6 p.m. at this point, I wouldn't want any of them driving a car until at least 11. The following morning. Yeah, it was like that.

When we finally did find the Arabic neighborhood, we tried getting into any of the dozen teahouse/hookah bars that lined the narrow streets, finally finding a spot after entering and leaving about four. I was very close to trying hookah for the first time, but some combination of the smoke, the dim lighting, and a day of walking around combined to suddenly make me very tired, so I headed back to the hotel where I (you guessed it) took a nice long nap.

I woke up to Michael changing clothes to go out. His plan was to break away from the group and go to Granada's botellon with his friend Nick. This sounded pretty good to me, so I asked to join them and, after much deliberation, they decided I was worthy. Since it was too early to get to the botellon just yet, we stopped first at a local pub and grabbed a pint to warm ourselves up. After that, we set out to find our 40s, an important ingredient for any successful Spanish botellon. At this point we ran into a rather odd situation in which we entered a convenience store, paid for and received our 40s, and then, before we could walk out, were told to give them back because "Cops hang out here all the time and we're not supposed to sell alcohol past 10." Understandable, but still a bit annoying. Luckily Nick knew of a few other places with a little less respect for the law, so we finally got to the botellon park, 40s in hand, around 11:30.

Nick's friends finally arrived around 1, after we'd all but finished our 40s. Luckily, they brought beer that they offered us, so we were once again happy. Michael and I also had a nice small-world moment in which we met a girl (whose name escapes me at the moment...I wanna say Anna?) who had gone to high school with Matt Callanan, a friend of ours from the Glee Club. That made for a good half hour of small talk, let me tell ya. Nick's friends continued to filter in slowly until about 2:30, at which point Michael and I had one of those moments where you turn to your buddy and you both have that "I kinda wanna go home" look on your faces. Thankfully, Nick offered to walk us back (we'd have been completely lost otherwise). Of course, we made our now obligatory stop-off at a kebab place and then got to our hotel where we said our good-byes to Nick. Let's just say it was a good thing check-out wasn't until 11 the following morning...

When I finally did wake up, I realized that I still had yet to buy my shot glass for Granada (I'd snuck away from our tour of the Judería to get one in Córdoba), not to mention a flag of Andalucía. Since there would definitely be shopping in the general area of the cathedral, I figured I may as well kill the hour and a half before lunch and catch a mid-day mass while doing the American tourist shopping thing. We got to the cathedral just in time for what we thought was the noon mass...turned out it wasn't until 12:30. I took advantage by exploring a pretty cool market (with a sweet system of tarps sheltering the street from the rain) and finding my shot glass and flag, as well as snapping a few cool pictures, including this one. Yes, that's Sarah's eye in the corner, and no, it wasn't intentional. Still turned out pretty cool though, I think.

Mass was...well...mass. Still don't know exactly what they're saying, but whaddya gonna do? After a nice lunch at the hotel, we boarded the bus for our six-hour journey home. Lots of sleep and a Spanish-dubbed version of Top Gun (yeah, that was interesting) later, we arrived back in Toledo just in time for me to start my second paper of the weekend, this one on a fantastic piece of literature called Bodas de Sangre, a play by Federico Garcia Lorca. Alright, I admit I read it in English, but damn it, I was tired. I finished the paper about 3 a.m. and went to sleep in preparation for what would be one of the best weeks I've had here so far.

But that, dear friends, is a story for another time (hopefully tomorrow afternoon). For now, I've got dinner waiting and my stomach has been rumbling since before I started writing this thing. Hope you've enjoyed part one of Operation Catch-Up. I'll be back for round two before the weekend is out.

Ciao,

Griff

Hangin' around Toledo

So after five straight weekends of traveling to destinations ranging from Madrid to Lisbon to Dublin, I figured it was finally time to give my body (and my wallet) a rest for once, so I spent my time two weekends ago [insert apology for lack of updates here] bumming around Toledo. I told myself I would dedicate my weekend to exploring the city some and figuring out just what the hell's going on around here. I also told myself I'd be a little productive and maybe get some reading done. You can all imagine how that little endeavor went.

Perhaps the best part of my weekend was that, with basically the entire ND crew out of town, I got a chance to hang out with my fellow Fund kids from other schools, which ended up being a really good time. Thank God I'd become friends with a few of the Minnesota kids, Liz and Abbey in particular, because without them I'd probably have sat in my house literally all weekend doing nothing. As it was, I took my one remaining midterm exam Thursday morning and came back to my house to relax for the day. When it got to that magical hour of about 7 o'clock I realized I still had no idea what I was doing that night, so I got on the horn to my Fund buddies and found out that they'd be meeting in one of the dorms to teach a few of the Puerto Ricans a fantastic game called Kings. It goes by many names - Waterfall, Circle of Death, King's Cup, to name a few - but all in all it's fantastic, as our island friends soon found out.

From there, we went the place that EVERYONE goes when they're bored on a Thursday night in Toledo (oh yeah, and they're under 25 and are American)...O'Brien's Pub. We had a great time there with our buddy Emilio, as per usual, before heading out to one of the many hopping discotecas in the old city.

Did ya sense the sarcasm there? No? Oh well.

Yeah, the club thing was a bust, but I was in a comfortable state at this point, so I did the natural thing and went home and slept until 1 the following afternoon. Yeah, I love non-traveling weekends. Around 4 I again decided it was time to call in the troops and figure out what to do. Turned out the Minnesota folks (all of whom were pretty darn cool based on my experience the previous night) were going to do the American thing and find some pizza. I, naturally, was 100% down for that. Unfortunately, our trusty guides (read: Liz and Abbey) didn't know when the place they wanted to go to actually opened. Yeah...

The girls decided they wanted to wait it out while we guys, being guys, had mentally prepared ourselves for food and thus needed to eat something immediately. We scoured a bit and, amid growls from our respective stomachs, managed to find a tapas bar that was open at 7. We quickly sat and each enjoyed a hearty sandwich and a beer...ya know...as an appetizer. Our stomachs sufficiently full (at least for the trip back to the pizza place) we left and walked back into the heart of the city.

Of course, when we returned to this pizza place we'd heard so much about the girls were nowhere to be found. The important thing, though, was that this place was open, so we figured rather than call them we'd just sit down and order. I distinctly remember hearing someone say, "Eh, whatever...they'll show up eventually." Sure enough, as we got our pizzas who should arrive but Liz, Abby, and Lindsay. Yeah, small booya there.

After we'd all had our fill of what turned out to be pretty darn good pizza, the conversation turned to what we should do for the evening. "Drink heavily" was thrown out several times, but we all agreed we should go back to the Fund first and if nothing else let this fantastic food settle. Then naturally talk turned to grabbing 40s on the way back, and as soon as someone mentioned "external hard drives" and "music sharing" things took a turn.

Now those of you who know me know that few things are more fun for me than stealing copious amounts of music from peoples' computers and laughing in the face of copyright laws while doing so. Something I enjoy even more than that is doing so with someone who is, as I am, a stand-up comedy nut. Turns out Flynn, a guy from Minnesota, is just such a man. After going back and forth about everyone from Louis C.K. to Mitch Hedberg (R.I.P.) to Patton Oswalt, we finally got around to copying each other's music. And no, that's not a euphemism for something else...there were girls in the room and that would've just been weird.

Soon thereafter, someone suggested we watch a movie. I was all for it...but for some reason, when Fern Gully was the movie of choice I kind of decided I might be a tad tired and would call it an early night. By this I mean I came home at 1:30 and mindlessly surfed the web until 4. What can I say? I'm nocturnal to a fault.

After waking up past noon again (is it redundant to say I love weekends where I don't travel?) I putzed around the house until, you guessed it, it was time to go out again. This time I was fashionably late to the Fund pre-game and thus had to play catch-up...never fun, but definitely necessary. This time we decided we'd go to another area of Toledo, where we started the eve...

[The remainder of this post has been deleted for your safety. Its content was both offensive and dangerous to you and your family (read: nothing too interesting happens...bars were visited, clubs were considered and rejected, etc.). This message will self destruct in 3...2...1...]

BOOM.

*Through a cloud of smoke, we see Griff emerge from a hastily constructed bomb shelter relatively unscathed*

Good thing I'm handy with a Swiss Army Knife, some sticky tack, and a handful of spoons, huh, folks?

But seriously, the most interesting part of the evening happened after I left whatever bar/club I was at with a rather eclectic group of four: myself, Liz, my buddy Zach, and Laura, a girl I'd met that evening. We all decided that rather than go home we wanted to take a walk down by the River Tajo. Yeah, kids do weird things when they're in a city with an average age of 55 and it's 2 a.m. Even better than the walk by the river, though, was the fact that during the walk we got into quite the deep discussion about the social benefits of religion. I can't say everything we said was incredibly profound and intellectual, but hey, a good talk is a good talk, am I right? Once God got old, though, we seriously decided it was time for bed. And yes, for those of you keeping score at home, I did indeed keep my streak of sleeping past 1 alive the following day. Who's the man?

Sunday passed without much incident. I finally did get out into the city and took a few pictures, but I figure I'll compile them into an album for the end...Random Toledo Pictures or something creative like that. For now, I'll leave you. Maybe if you're lucky I'll be bored tonight and rather than watching more of Season 2 of How I Met Your Mother I'll update you on what happened this past weekend in Andalucia. We'll see how that goes.

Ciao,

Griff