Monday, March 31, 2014

In Which I Make You Incredibly Jealous

Transcript of a Facebook chat prior to spring break:

Maylen: Do you have a swimsuit?
Me: Um. Yes? Why?
Maylen: I have a surprise for you once you get to Spain. 
But it requires 25 euros. And a swimsuit.
Me: Is it worth 25 euros?
Maylen: It's worth it.

She was right. It was worth it. Maylen had been holding this secret over Jordanne and my heads for over a week. We kept quizzing her about it, "Is it like, active swimming? No?" We figured out that it wasn't a regular swimming pool and it wasn't a water park, but we had no idea what else it could be. Finally, about an hour before we went to whatever it was going to be, she told us. We were going to the baths. Like, traditional Islamic baths. The kind that involves a cycle involving three different kind of bath and a sauna. It was, needless to say, heavenly.

We were greeted at the baths by a handsome Spanish man named Fernando who explained to us that there were three baths: a huge, swimming pool type bath of warm water, a long shallow bath of hot water, and a deep, square pool of cold water. The point was to circulate throughout the three types (with occasional breaks for the sauna or tea), starting with the warm and ending with the cold. Naturally, this meant that when you jump in the cool pool you have about three minutes of complete temperature shock where you're sure you are going to die before your body adjusts. It was perfect. Our 25 euro also covered a ten minute, full body, hot oil massage, which is something I think every student should have a legal right to at least once a month.

 The best thing about the baths (after the massage, obviously) was that it's a really communal experience. Everyone is in the little groups they came in, of course, but we found ourselves going round and round the cycle with the same group of people and doing what communication we could without really sharing a language. Shrieks of surprise at the shock of cold water translate into every language.




Slightly damp but happy




Friday, March 28, 2014

Spain Recap



So I'm sitting here at the tail end of spring break, having spent the last six and a half days in Granada, Spain, trying to think about what I want to say in this blog post. As usual, I don't think I'll be able to keep it to just one blog post. It's going to be another week of me blabbing on about Spain. I would say I'm sorry…but I'm not.


So, to recap. My lovely roommate Jordanne and I flew out to Granada via Madrid last Friday to meet my friend Maylen who is studying there. Maylen served as tour guide during our stay, showing us her city. We visited the Alhambra, Albayzín, walked along the river, went to a traditional Islamic bathhouse, met (and were fed by) Maylen's host family, and ate more churros than is probably legal. I'll get more specific about certain things (the ones that I feel like writing about extensively) later in the week, in other posts.


Needless to say, the whole experience was rather spectacular. Granada is so different from London, which seems like an obvious statement, but I found that the real difference were much more subtle than I expected. It goes way beyond the fact that we speak different languages (side note: I feel like my many years of Spanish language education were somehow leading up to this, and I have to say, I performed credibly well, except teachers have lied to me my entire life about the words for "juice" and "bathroom"). Spain has a whole different pace of life. Everything is later, lunch at 2 pm, dinner at 10 pm. From 3 to 5 pm or so hardly anything is open due to siesta time. I can't imagine anyone in Spain sprinting to catch the Tube like Londoners do on a regular basis. It was great for about three days, and then I started struggling with it. First of all, I'm a morning person, so when dinner doesn't even start until I'm basically asleep, its a problem. Secondly, I don't do "slow paced" very well. I walk fast. I work hard. I'm not into taking two hours out of every day to do nothing. It was great for vacation, but not for forever.

That's a fairly vague recap, but keep a weather eye on the horizon (or this blog, whichever) for more detailed Spain posts later this week!

Friday, March 14, 2014

Bath (Not that kind of bath)


Friday our group went on a lovely day trip to Bath, a town about an hour and a half from London made famous by some Romans and Jane Austen. You can tell which one I'm more interested in. The day threatened to be miserable but managed to pull itself together and become rather beautiful instead. I have to pause a moment in this narrative to talk about how much I love trains, which we take to get everywhere. They are so much more relaxed and comfortable than airplanes. Train stations are prettier and so much nicer than airports. Abolish airports. Up with trains.

Anyway. Once in Bath we toured the beautiful ancient Bath Abbey that featured incredible high

ceilings, gorgeous stained glass, and an organ that I could actually take a photo of (PLU students will understand that joke).  As always, it was difficult to fully comprehend the age and history of the place. After the abbey we went on a miniature Jane Austen tour past the house where she (probably) lived, the royal crescent where rich people would parade themselves, and the assembly rooms that JANE HERSELF PROBABLY WENT TO BALLS IN. Needless to day, I enjoyed myself.

After a Cornish pasty break (delicious) and a trip to the river, we got to tour the actual Roman baths. I love the way the museum was designed. It was built around the baths rather than over the top of them, so you can still see how everything worked and where the water flowed to and from in the Roman days. They don't actually let you in the baths anymore (they aren't what you would call clean), but you can try to drink some of the water at the end. It isn't great. Imagine you accidentally swallowed some warm, slightly shampoo-flavored (flavoured, I guess, because England) water. That's about what it tastes like. However, I am now apparently cured of all ailments, so I guess it was worth it.

All in all a charming way to spend a day. If you think I didn't read Persuasion on the train on the way back, you are wrong. 

More pictures: 
Drinking the, um, lovely water

BATHS!

Me not going in the baths

Reading Austen in the Assembly Rooms

The Royal Crescent

Bath Abbey



Thursday, March 6, 2014

My Weekend With Maylen


There was (unfortunately) significantly less Eddie Redmayne in my weekend with Maylen than in his week with Marilyn, but it was spectacular nonetheless. Maylen is currently studying away in Grenada, Spain, and we decided to do a little inter country exchange. So she came down for the weekend and I'm headed to Spain with my roommate Jordanne for spring break.

I made sure that Maylen got the English essentials: fish and chips, tea, and a visit to a pub (the Sherlock Holmes pub, so even better). We also got up earlier than should really be technically allowed for a weekend to wait in line to get tickets to Matilda. IT WAS WORTH IT. First of all, the tickets only cost £5, so that's a steal considering the usual rate of £30+. Seeing the musical just made me remember what an important story Matilda is for children to read and see, because Roald Dahl doesn't sugar coat it. He tells it like it is. Sometimes school sucks and parents suck and people are mean. But equally, sometimes we have friends and teachers and experiences that are wonderful. Not to mention the fact that the 10 year olds in the cast were more talented than I'll ever be.

Her being here also made me really think about what I like about London, what I want to do with people when they come here, what I want to show them. Because living here it just becomes home. I go to work, I got to class, go about my daily routine without really thinking about the parts that I like or hate about London. But seeing through Maylen's eyes made me appreciate the city again, from a whole new angle than I used to. My initial love was based on wide eyed awe and the newness of being here. Now I have favorite places and don't have to look at a map and love it because it feels like home.