Monos y Museos (Monkeys and Museums)

Looking back, this has been kind of a busy week even though we had a day off from school. I started my volunteering on Wednesday - I am volunteering at a hospital with an organization called Solidarios. Essentially, we just go to talk to the patients, particularly those who do not have any family members visiting. It is a really good thing and I am so excited to work with this organization. I had a pretty hard time of it at my first day. I am still lacking a lot of confidence in my conversation skills, so I really did a lot of standing and listening. The people I work with are so nice and understanding that I am not very strong in my Spanish, although I think they think i understand less than I actually do. It is a bit frustrating, but they are such good people and I think I can learn a lot from them. At the moment, it's looking like this volunteering experience is going to have to help me a bit first before I can help it. Hopefully I will feel a bit more comfortable next time. I was uncomfortable this week, really uncomfortable. But I am definitely sticking it out.

Yesterday, my interest group (kind of like a club) took us to Gibraltar! It was probably the only time I will have any reason to go to Gibraltar, but it was very interesting and quite a sight to see. Gibraltar is a British-owned territory of about 28,000 all situated on, literally, one mountain-sized rock. Since it is British, English is largely spoken there - it was kind of a nice break from Spanish. We even had a presentation in English, so I am pretty sure that for once I got all my facts right! After the presentation and a stop for fish and chips, and pastries (duh), the group went to figure out a way to climb that mountain of rock and see the infamous Gibraltarian monkeys (...I don't know how infamous they actually are, but I had definitely never heard of them before yesterday). The cheapest means we found were two men driving white vans who eventually convinced us that they were real tour guides and that the rate of 20 euro/person that they offered was our best shot (both of which were actually true, so it ended up working out really well!). Both drivers were really nice and funny and drove us up the winding roads along the mountain, giving us some history and pointing out the best places to stop and take in the sights. We stopped at the pillar of Hercules, from which you can see Africa (only 14 miles away!), where there is an identical pillar. We also went to some incredible caves (I took some pictures in these ones!) and some tunnels from back when Gibraltar was under siege. Or something. All of which was very cool. We ran into our first monkeys outside the caves (see photo below for a chronicle of how enjoyable THAT experience was. Just kidding, it was pretty cool.) It was good to have our tour guides with us for this experience, because it turns out there is a lot more to those little monkeys than meets the eye. The guides advised us to leave all plastic bags in the van, or else the monkeys would see them and get aggressive, knowing that they probably contained food. The older monkeys are also known to get jealous when humans pay attention to the little ones, and the guides knew exactly how to keep the older ones from attacking (thank god!). The monkeys were pretty nuts - they were climbing all over the vans, and we even saw one that had a bloody nose from a fight! That species is not for the faint of heart. As we went up and up and the mountain, we saw some incredible views too. I got some pictures, but I really don't think I was able to truly capture how awesome it was. After that experience, we left and headed back to the bus. Luckily it didn't rain all day, even though it was supposed to! It was a really fun, albeit random, place to travel to.

Today, I went to the contemporary art museum - that was an experience for sure. To be perfectly honest, I really did not get most of the art that was there. I liked the photography though. A lot of it actually had American captions and took place on American backdrops, with signs and things in the background all written in English. The museum was very much out in the middle of nowhere in an old monastery, but it was a nice thing to do on a Saturday afternoon!

Up next...Hmm, I don't know. Guess you'll just have to check again soon! Thanks for reading :)

ME IN GIBRALTAR WITH A MONKEY ON MY HEAD GOTTA GO BYE

I am half-inclined to offer a prize to anyone who comes up with the best caption for this photo, but that would require me to give one of you some kind of reward, and I probably would not follow through on that. Don't want to get your hopes up.

In general, Gibraltar was AWESOME. more later I promise!

When you want something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done.

From now on, I am deliberately setting out to have at least one awkward moment with Spanish a day. I am just literally going to say whatever pops into my head, talk to anyone, and ask the dumb questions that my pride has been holding back. At the end of the semester, I'll be fluent. So, that's the plan. I'll let you know how it goes. I think things are about to get a bit more interesting!

Tio Pepe, the uncle I never knew I had.

This weekend marks the annual celebration of dia de Andalucia, the region of spain that I am in. The actual holiday was yesterday (Sunday), but the Spaniards jump on any chance they get to shut things down and siesta, so everything was closed down today. The long weekend gave everyone the chance to travel, but I stuck around with a few others and am very glad that I did. I really needed the weekend to just collect myself and had the chance to go explore some parts of Sevilla that I hadn’t seen yet. My senora Yolanda and roommate were both gone all weekend, so I had the apartment all to myself! I watched movies and laid around eating for most of the weekend and it was fantastic.
On Friday, some friends and I set out to have a really Spanish day, and I think it was pretty successful! We went to the movies and saw Princess and the Frog, the new Disney movie – we figured they’d talk slower in a children’s movie. We got palomitas (popcorn!) and crowded into the theater, which oddly had assigned seats. It was a pretty good deal for the whole experience, about six euro. After that, we went to a play put on by students of the University of Sevilla. It was a two-person show about two children whose fathers had gone off to war, and the play depicted the effects of the war on the children through the way they played and interacted. I thought it was pretty clever.
Yesterday, I tried to go to mass again. I liked it a little more than last time. I went to the University mass this time around, which was all right. No singing again, which bothers me. There were cell phones going off and people talking and many other distractions, which I am beginning to suspect might just be a norm at mass here. The church itself was much less gaudy than the first one, which was nice. However, I am still looking for my church!
After mass, I had some time to kill before I met up with some friends for exploring, so I found a little park and ate there. I hung out there eating and reading for a bit, and I was even asked for directions by a Spaniard! I am sooo legitimate. So once all the eating and reading and directing was done, I found my friends and we went to the Plaza de Espana, which I think is the most impressive thing I’ve seen in Sevilla next to the Catedral. Plaza de Espana was built in the 30s-ish when Sevilla hosted the World Fair, or something like that, and it was just amazing. An enormous plaza with different tiles at least ten feet tall, each depicting a different city in Spain. Pictures soon!
Today, out of a little bit of boredom and a lot of a bit of a desire to experience a bodega (winery), Becky, Lauren, Emily and I hopped on a bus and went to Jerez, a town about an hour south of here that is considered part of the pueblos blancos. It’s known for its sherries, and the bodega we toured did not disappoint. We toured Gonzalez Byass, where Tio Pepe comes from – a type of wine (sherry? Same thing? Maybe? Clearly I learned a lot today…) Tio Pepe is one of Spain’s biggest exports, so it was a pretty big deal. The tour was a blast – we rode a train around the bodega, and the weather was beautiful, and there was a wine tasting at the end which we all very much enjoyed. We spent the rest of the day just wandering Jerez, although there was not much to do there as they were celebrating dia de Andalucia too. It was a good way to spend a day off, I think.
We have a short three-day week of classes this week, and then on Friday I am headed to Gibraltar for the day! Pictures with monkeys soon to follow.