vida sin aventura no es vida

music fits the mood

2012-02-15T00:24:00.000-08:00

Music can do wonders. I have always been a fan of music.

Evidence:

Church choir from way back when
Lead in church musical in 5th grade (or sometime a long, long time ago)
Elementary school choir
Band nerd for 7 years
Fluent in saxophonian and currently studying guitarish
More diverse iTunes library than you have probably ever seen
Addiction to free iTunes downloads of the week
Etc.

Point being: I love music.

It calms me.

It angers me.

It pumps me up.

It makes me happy.

It relaxes me.

It puts me to sleep.

It helps me focus.

Lyrics of the week that have caught my attention:

Details in the fabric, Jason Mraz

Hold your own
Know your name
And go your own way
And everything will be fine

We are young, Fun feat. someone else

Tonight
We are young
So let's set the world on fire
We can burn brighter
than the sun

the somber truth

2011-12-16T06:46:00.000-08:00

Please don't read the following post unless you have the time to. It is a bit long, and very impactful, and deserves your time and attention.

The following is a reblog from my friend Katheryn Hoerster, who is currently serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia, Africa. Moral of the story that I want you guys to see is that traveling is not always fun & games. Escaping the United States and your life back home does not mean you escape hardships and worries and fears. Traveling impacts you in many ways, some of which you never know until the worst has happened.

I think this is a beautiful story. The events that happen within it are not happy, but it displays raw emotion, the connections you see between people, and the eminent truth that we are all human and all over the world we suffer from the same human senses as everybody else. Beautifully written. Thank you Katheryn. Thinking of you.

The Tail End of a Life Changing Experience – Final Days of Training

Dec14

by katherynhoerster

Hello from Addis Ababa, everyone! This morning I said goodbye to my host family and left for the city. Despite my insistence that I’ll be back in March to visit, they all shed tears. Training is officially over and tomorrow we have “Addis Day,” when we get to shop for any materials we might need at our permanent sites. Friday we swear in as official PCVs and Saturday we head out for the “real thing.” More about that later, though. For now, I want to describe an experience I had just a week ago; One that I will remember for the rest of my life.

When I came from school last Monday my youngest sister was very sick. I spent the afternoon sitting with her and other women in our family. As time passed, little Sara’s condition seemed to worsen. My family smeared holy ash on her and our grandmother prayed over her. Late in the evening a car arrived to take them all to the hospital in Addis. They packed in the small, cold van with what seemed like hundreds of blankets and scarves and before I could even say a proper goodbye, they were gone.
The following is my journal entry from Tuesday, December 6^th. I usually write blogs separately from journals, choosing to keep some things to myself, but I want to share exactly what happened and how I was feeling on one of the hardest days of my life.

The Tangible Pain of an Ethiopian Funeral

Pain has a sound. It has faces and it even has a smell. Today I watched, heard and smelled the tangible pain of an Ethiopian funeral. I’ll never forget.

I was brazenly awakened at 4:45 by the start of the wailing and pounding on the ground. Even before my eyes opened I knew exactly what had happened. Little Sara hadn’t made it through the night. As I lay in bed I could hear the gate opening and closing and the screaming getting louder. I wanted so badly to stay in my little cocoon of blankets and go back to sleep and pretend everything was ok, but I knew I would have to leave my room eventually. The first thing I did was call Bridget. She said all the right things, bless her heart. I called Girma as the wails increased to a pitch that made it hard to hear his voice. “Even for Ethiopians this process can be disturbing,” he told me, “so go somewhere else if you need to. They will understand.”

As I stepped out of bed I peeked out the window. In near darkness women covered in traditional white shawls had already begun to clear the vegetation from our yard to make room for benches and a tent. In Ethiopia there are no funeral homes. The home of the dead is where the funeral is held. I didn’t think I had it in me, but I bravely opened my door, still dressed in my pajamas. Sobs racked my body and tears poured down my face as I witnessed my now youngest sister hugging the floor, a high-pitched wail streaming from her lips. She would not meet my gaze. Everywhere there were scenes like this – of emotional pain manifesting in a very physical way. Not one person in our house was silent, not one was standing upright.

Almost as quickly as I opened my door I slammed it shut. The scene outside was as overwhelming as anything else I’ll ever experience. I dressed quickly in warm clothes, grabbed my things and escaped into the cold, dim morning, passing my sisters and mother on the way out. I didn’t know where I was going, but I had to get away from the singular sound of wailing. Bridget called just as I was wandering by her road and told me she was dressing and that she would be out in a moment. I was so glad for her hug. She let me use her phone to call my parents in the states, who called back on my phone. As I talked with them, Bridget and I walked along in the cold, up the hill and towards the school. Not one kid harassed us! They were all still sleeping.

We returned to Bridget’s house where there was breakfast and tea waiting for us. It wasn’t long before several of the Peace Corps staff arrived and accompanied us back to my house. All of the furniture had been removed and replaced with benches. The wailing had not stopped. We all took a seat, bowing our heads low and keeping our hair covered with our scarves. My sisters and mother were inconsolable. After gathering my things for school and going back to the van, I asked if I could have just a few more minutes with them. I went back inside and found Hewan, my middle sister on the ground in the hall. I collapsed next to her and held her hand until she told me “school, school.”

Thankfully the day’s work included mostly review. Just a few hours after starting we stopped so that we could all walk back to my house for the funeral procession. All the volunteers in Menagasha and many of the PC staff came with me. Almost as soon as we arrived, several men picked up the tiny casket from our living room floor and the procession began. TayTay, my mother, was dragged along, barely able to stand on her own two feet. At the top of the hill everyone found a place on pre-arranged rides that ranged from lorys to minibuses. All the attendants were carted to Marion, the tiny village on the hill where Sara’s father had been buried just two years prior. The wailing had not stopped.

When we reached the church, everyone got off the crowded, miserable bus and entered the churchyard. The casket had been placed in front of the door where the family was kneeling and pounding on the ground, screaming and yelling. Their faces showed grief like I have never experienced, and hope I never do have to experience. Priests dressed in traditional, beaded garb walked in carrying a large incense burner spouting potent smelling frankincense. All of the women gathered around, the corners of the white shawls covering their mouths, as if they were the only thing keeping their souls from following Sara to the grave.

Before ever entering the church, Sara was moved to the cemetery. I couldn’t tell what was going on because my attention was on my other sisters, who had to be restrained and kept up by their closest friends. Their screams pierced the still, eerie air. Before it began, it was over. The crowd walked back to the steps of the church where everyone listened to a brief word from the priest and then got back on the buses.

Back at home, a meal of potatoes and lentils was served to all of the guests. The others ate silently, but I didn’t have much of an appetite. We took our leave and Bridget and I returned to her house where she fed me peanut butter and gave me her bed to lay in. After food and rest I felt much better – even ready for the mock LPI that I asked not be postponed. I spent the rest of the afternoon in language and then later returned to my house to pack my things. Everyone knew that it would be a burden to my family if I stayed, so I’ll be spending the next few days with Bridget. My house was still full of the sounds and faces of pain, something that won’t change for days. When things have settled back down I’ll certainly move back – I already miss my own room and my sisters.

This has been one of the most emotionally taxing days of my life. At once I am both in the middle of the situation because they are my family, I live in their house and I loved Sara, but also removed from the situation because I am not truly family and because I don’t really understand what is going on. It seems like days ago that I cried to Girma, asking him what I should do. I’m so thankful for Bridget and the PC staff who are going out of their way to make sure I’m ok and comfortable. Without them I would still be listening to the wailing, which is surely continuing. It is customary for the cries to last several days at least, maybe even lasting through the night. But tonight I’ll sleep well knowing I have a quiet bed and some great friends taking care of me.

it was bound to happen

2011-12-14T11:30:00.000-08:00

I have never had difficulties switching foods while traveling.
I have never gotten a fever, been extremely sick, or even had anything more than my allergies acting up.
I have never fallen or broken anything during my adventures with hang gliding, rock climbing, bungee jumping, or any other activity.
I have never even stepped into a hospital or doctor's office as a patient while abroad.

After flaunting my travel skills so much, it was bound to happen that something would go wrong with my body.

Today (December 14, 2011) I had a potential bout with appendicitis. During my first class of the day I got a splitting pain in my side, pretty much right where the appendix resides. At first I just thought I had to use the restroom and it was a bad reaction to something causing my bowels to hurt more than normal (sorry if that grosses you out). However, after thirty minutes in the bathroom, an empty toilet and continuing pain, I began to realize that was not the issue.

I finally emerged and found the first friend I knew. The pain continued to grow, so she ran to tell the office and get a doctor to look at it. Within the next 30 minutes I had 4 office workers, my program director and a paramedic surrounding me. They shuttled me off into an ambulance and I spent the next 5 hours getting tests and exams.

Unfortunately, the timing couldn't have been worse (or better depending on how you look at it), because I had two presentations to give that afternoon. And this is all happening right before finals for the next two days.

The preliminary diagnostic was appendicitis. And yet even after telling me this, they made me sit in a waiting room of a Spanish hospital for over an hour before having someone consult with me. The pain was so intense that I could barely talk, let alone think of anything but cutting my body open myself and yanking the appendix out to ease the pain. Or asking them to go ahead and put me under anesthetics, so if I had to wait for surgery, I would at least be asleep and pain free.

However, finally, almost two hours after the pain started, it began to subside. Little by little the pain disappeared. Therefore, by the time they ran all the exams in tests, everything appeared normal and I felt 100 times better... and slightly stupid because after being in so much pain, by the time I saw a real doctor I was my normal self again. The only discrepancy in my tests was that my white blood cell count was really low. As it should have been... because their final diagnostic is that it was inflammation in the appendix, but it wasn't as severe as it could have been and my white blood cells were able to fight off the infection.

I thought to myself, duh!... of course they are low... they just spent the better part of two hours fighting off the worst infection my body has probably ever seen.

R.I.P. white blood cells. You did well and died nobly.

Side note: did you know the appendix has no functional use in the body whatsoever. NONE. So basically it sits there waiting for the day it can get inflamed in hopes of escaping all the fast food we Americans shove down our throats.

Wikipedia (the greatest sourec ever, no matter what my English teachers tell me) even states:

The human appendix is a vestigial structure. A vestigial structure is a structure that has lost all or most of its original function through the process of evolution. The vermiform appendage is the shrunken remainder of the cecum that was found in a remote ancestor of humans. Ceca, which are found in the digestive tracts of many extant herbivores, house mutualistic bacteria which help animals digest the cellulose molecules that are found in plants.[4] As the human appendix no longer houses a significant amount of these bacteria, and humans are no longer capable of digesting more than a minimal amount of cellulose per day,[5] the human appendix is considered a vestigial structure.

Now, I am told to rest and relax to hopefully heal completely. However, there is a good chance the pain could come back, at which case I will be required to rush back to the hospital, this time most likely for surgery. Cross your fingers for me that I get better.

Will this stop me from going to Barcelona this Saturday? No.
Will this stop me from going to Turkey next week? Definitely not.
Will it stop me from partying it up on my last night here in Spain in Madrid for New Years with Liz Welsh? Absolutely not.

Worst comes to worse, I know I will remain in big cities with legitimate hospitals and can easily have an appendectomy there.

Home Sweet Texas

2011-12-12T13:19:00.000-08:00

Yes, Texans tend to be a bit proud.
Yes, Texans sometimes have some radical ideas (which I may or may not always support... ex: Rick Perry's new campaign video does not get my approval)
Yes, Texans are often stereotyped (for good reason) and can easily be made fun of.

However, I will love Texas and my home state until the day I die.

BUT, I must admit, I did find it funny how far our pride goes. I'm sure there are many examples of how proud we are of our state, but I am specifically talking about our food.

Some states have a state fruit.
Some states have a state vegetable.
Some states even go so far as to have a state dish.
However, Texas has elected to have nine... yes 9... different state foods.

They are as follows:

State bread - pan de campo (2005)

State dish - chile con carne (1977)

State fruit - Texas red grapefruit (1993)

State health nut - native pecan (2001)

State pastries - la sopapilla and the strudel (2003 & 2005)

State pepper - jalapeño (1995)

State native pepper - chiltepin (1997)

State snack - tortilla chips & salsa (2003)

State vegetable - sweet onion (1997)

words to live by

2011-12-11T05:47:00.001-08:00

"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a

new and different sun.

Reblog from Liz Welsh

Original words by Christopher McCandless

REBLOG: 3 reasons to travel while young

2011-12-06T06:00:00.001-08:00

This is a reblog from Jeff Goins... check out his full blog at http://goinswriter.com/... however pictures are all mine.

The other night, I had a conversation with a young woman who had a number of decisions ahead of her, one of which was whether she should go to grad school or travel the world.

I told her to travel. Hands down. No excuse. Just go.

She sighed.

“Yeah, but…”

Never were more fatal words spoken.

Yeah, but… what about debt? Yeah, but… what about my job? Yeah, but… what about my boyfriend (or dog or car or whatever)?

“Yeah, but…” is pernicious. Because it makes it sound like we have the best of intentions when really we are just too scared to do what we should.

It allows us to be cowards, while sounding noble.

Most people I know who waited to travel the world never did. Conversely, plenty of people who waited for grad school or a steady job and traveled still did those things — eventually.

Be careful of the yeah-but. The yeah-but will kill your dreams.

I was so stirred by this conversation that I shared it with a group of about thirty young adults last night, many of which were asking these very questions.

The life you’ve always wanted

When you get older, life seems to just sort of happen to you. Your youth is a time of total empowerment.

You get to do what you want. As you mature and gain new responsibilities, you have to be very intentional about making sure you don’t lose sight of what’s important.

So if you still have a reasonable amount of control over your circumstances, you should do what really matters. Because life won’t always be just about you.

During early adulthood, your worldview is still being formed. It’s important to steward this time — to give yourself opportunities to grow. A good way to do that is to travel.

So, young person, travel.

Travel wide and far.
Travel boldly.
Travel with full abandon.

You will regret few risks you take, when it comes to this. I promise you.

There are three reasons to travel while you’re young:

1. Traveling teaches you to live an adventure

When you look back on your life, you will have moments of which you are proud and maybe a few you regret. It’s likely that the following won’t be on the latter list:

Bicycled across the Golden Gate Bridge.
Appeared on Italian TV.
Hiked a Mayan ruin.
Learned Spanish in three months.
Toured Europe by train.

They’re not on mine (fun fact: I’ve done all of the above).

What, then, will be?

Holding back.
Being afraid.
Making excuses.
Not taking more risks.
Waiting.

While you’re young, you should travel.

You should take the time to see the world and taste the fullness of life. It’s worth whatever investment or money or sacrifice of time required on your part.

It’s not about being a tourist. It’s about experiencing true risk and adventure so you don’t have to live in fear for the rest of your life.

2. Traveling helps you encounter compassion

In your youth, you will make choices that will define you. The disciplines you begin now will be with you for the rest of your life.

Traveling will change you like little else can. It will put you in places that will force you to care for issues that are bigger than you.

If you go to southeast Asia, you may encounter the slave trade. If eastern Europe, you may see the effects of genocide and religious persecution. If Haiti, you’ll witness the the ugly side Western paternalism.

Your heart will break.

You will begin to understand that the world is both a big and small place. You will have a new-found respect for the pain and suffering that over half of the world takes for granted on a daily basis. And you will feel more connected to your fellow human beings in a deep and lasting way.

You will learn to care.

3. Traveling allows you to get some culture

While you’re still young, you should get cultured. Get to know the world and the magnificent people that fill it.

There’s nothing quite like walking alongside the Coliseum or seeing Michelangelo’s David in person. I can describe the city of San Juan and its amazing beaches and historic sites to you, but you really have to see it for yourself to experience it. You can read all the books in the world about the Great Wall of China or The Louvre, but being there is a different story.

The world is a stunning place, full of outstanding works of art. See it.

Do this while you’re still young. Do not squander this time. You will never have it again.

You have a crucial opportunity to invest in the next season of your life now. Whatever you sow, you will eventually reap.

Please. For your sake, do this.

You won’t always be young. And life won’t always be just about you. So travel. Experience the world for all it’s worth. Become a person of culture, adventure, and compassion.

“What if I’m not young?”

Travel, anyway. It may not be easy to do, but find a way to get out of your comfort zone. It’s really never too late.

But if you haven’t gotten sucked into the routine of life yet, I implore you — travel. It willnever be easier than it is right now for you to do that which really matters.

If you’re young, have you traveled yet? Have you seen what the world has to offer and how it can change you? What’s holding you back?

If you’re older, did you travel when you were young? What regrets do you have?

Join the discussion in the comments.

Reading material

If you’re ready to step off the beaten path, here are a few travel companions I recommend:

The Frequent Flyer Master by Chris Guillebeau
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Through Painted Deserts by Donald Miller
The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo

déjà vu

2011-12-04T06:21:00.001-08:00

This past weekend I returned to Barcelona, Spain for the first time since my study abroad with Mays Business School over 2 years ago. The trip had a lot of instances of déjà vu as I made the rounds to the same bars and restaurants I grew to love the first time I was there. Granted I was with a new group of people, and did participate in different activities throughout the trip, but there was also something comforting about already being familiar with a city before traveling there. I realized that this is the first time in my life I have traveled back to the same city... ever... with the exception of Panama, however, the time I spend there is so short that I never have time to get my bearings. I was also able to see my good friend Bianca.

Bianca and I before going out one night.

Yes, this is a bar. And yes, it is in a metro. Win for Barcelona.

Old activities redone:

L'Ovella Negra (La Oveja Negra) - a personal favorite bar right off the streets of Las Ramblas... looks slightly shady from the outside but inside opens up into a medieval cavernous bar where the beer is sold by the liter (or 5 liters) and the sangria tastes like juicy juice. Here we spent an evening drinking and learning a bit too much about each other, as tends to happen.
Maoz - two years ago I had my first experience with falafel at Maoz in Barcelona, and have never looked back. For those who don't know, falafel is balls of ground chickpeas, breaded and then fried/grilled. Maoz simply sells pita filled with falafel and hummus with a vegetable bar to complete your order. One of the most delicious and healthy forms of fast food I have ever had. The U.S. has some in New York and Chicago, but I hope they soon spread to other locations. I had at least one falafel-filled-pita a day while in Barcelona on this trip

Picture stolen from a trip to New York but used to help display the food.

Organic - a vegetarian's paradise, and a delicious restaurant to boot. One location with a full salad bar and menu... another location in the middle of the central market with more on-the-go options. Glad my friends on this trip discovered this wonderful food without my help!
Las Ramblas - nobody can visit Barcelona without visiting this main pedestrian stretch of shops, restaurants, hotels, plazas, booths, street actors/musicians, and museums. However, this was my first time to see the street lit up for Christmas and it was beautiful!

Crowded Las Ramblas at night (iPhone photo quality)

La Boquería - the main market off of Las Ramblas... perhaps one of the largest markets I have been to in Spain. More options of fish, fruits, vegetables, wine, beef, pork, and miscellaneous crap than you can imagine. Personal favorites are the fresh fruit juices they make and sell for about 1 Euro each... go near closing time when they want to get rid of their extras cups and you might get 2 or 3 juices for the price of 1.

New activities (now joining the list of personal favorites):

La Taguara - a Venezuelan arepas restaurant away from the main area of Barcelona. A great find by my friend Bianca and a great, fast lunch. A simple arepa filled with meat/cheese/vegetables of your choosing with an array of sauces on the table to utilize. I will definitely return to this place during my next trip to Barcelona.

La Taguara restaurant's unassuming entrance

A few of the delicious sauces offered to top off your arepa

Belgious - a crepería also away from the crowds. I never knew crepes could be an actual meal... the only time I eat crepes is for dessert covered in fruit or chocolate or sugar or all-the-above. However, this place proved that theory wrong. I had a delicious crepe named after the wonderful city I was in, Barcelona, filled with ham, cheese, spinach, raisins, and pine nuts. Intersting? Yes. Delicious? Also, yes. Bianca partook in a wonderful salmon and cream cheese filled crepe which also has my mouth watering as I type. Dessert was waffles covered in cinnamon and sugar or strawberries and whipped cream. These too did not disappoint. This place definitely confused my eating norms though: dessert for lunch and breakfast for dessert. When in Barca.

Gofre (waffle) con fresas y nata (with strawberries and whipped cream)

FC Barcelona - one of my biggest regrets the last time I was in Spain was not attending an authentic, crazy, fan-filled, noisy fútbol game. This time I made up for that. On the Saturday night of our trip we drop a few bucks to experience an undoubtedly awesome time in the stadium of FC Barcelona, where we watched the team destroy the team from Levante with a score of 5-0. I even bought a scarf and proudly displayed my love of the city of Barcelona, even though my host family is all about Real Madrid... oops.

Close-up of players on field

Semi-empty stadium after game ended

FC Barcelona

Més que un club ("more than a club" in Catalan)

Starbucks - now I don't want to hear people backlash against this addition to the blog, but I have missed Starbucks greatly. And in the smaller city of Granada, there is not a Starbucks to be seen. So when I realized we would be in Barcelona, a city where I know there are plenty of Starbucks, I got excited and made sure too get my fill before returning to Granada. This resulted in multiple peppermint mochas, peppermint white chocolate mochas, peppermint white chocolate mocha frappachinos, and peppermint mocha frappachinos... all of which we have aptly dubbed "Christmas in a cup".

Bianca and I enjoying Christmas-in-a-cup in Plaça Real

Christmas-in-a-cup close-up

Miscellaneous:

Cacatío - so apparently in Catalunia there is a very... unique... tradition that takes place instead of the typical arrival of Santa Claus. Instead, there is a log that sits in the main family area of the house/apartment. Throughout December, the family "feeds" this log... then lo-and-behold, on Christmas Day the log "poops" out presents. You think that is weird...? Just wait. This has become such a recognized tradition at Christmas that they have incorporated a figure to represent the Cacatío into their traditional nativity scenes... and the figurine in the scene is none other than a pooping man. Examples below.

Cacatío in Santa costume

Cacatío in nativity scene looking at Baby Jesus

Park Güell - the famous tiled park created by Goudi. Although I did not visit this park again (I went there 2 years ago) I wanted to include some beautiful photos of the park by my friend, Kate Sabo.

Houses built by Gaudi - pretty self-explanatory. More of the "art" left behind by Goudi to adorn the city of Barcelona.

La Sagrada Familia - Goudi's arguably most famous work, that is still under construction. This church has been under construction now for over 100 years I believe... and isn't expected to be completed until 2040 or 2050. Something ridiculous like that.

Nights out on the town - we went out a couple nights to clubs. I specifically will mention Shoko, which was a bit too "clubby" and "ritzy" for my taste. Drinks for 10 euros... no thanks. We spent most of that night wandering around on the beach instead of in the club itself. Another night we went to Razzmatazz... which proved to be well worth the lack of sleep that ensued. A warehouse-based club with 3 or 4 stories and a rooftop. The night we went it was also featuring a live band and we definitely may have done some crowd-surfing/fist pumping/stage jumping antics.

Stuck in Barcelona - to end the trip on a funny, and in a typical Scott-like fashion, I ended up stuck in Barcelona. Bianca, who had kindly hidden my passport in her purse the nght before, left the next morning for a day of shopping and walking around with her friends. I got up later, showered, and headed to the airport... only to quickly realize I did not have my passport. Panic was my immediate reaction, and after tearing apart Bianca's room in search for the passport, I came to the conclusion it was still in the purse she was carrying with her. Issues:

Can't find passport
Need passport to get on plane
Bianca is out shopping and has passport
Bianca has no mobile in Spain, therefore I have no way to contact her
I also have boarding pass for another friend, Charles
Flight leaves at 3 PM
I have no clue when Bianca will return home
I can't leave Bianca's room for fear of missing her return
Long story short - I miss my flight, Bianca returns, we enjoy another few hours together (and one last falafel-filled-pita/Christmas-in-a-cup) before I take a night train. I must admit though, the night train was fairly comfortable and I got a full night's sleep while traveling.

Barcelona, te quiero demasiado. Regresaré pronto. Hasta la próxima.

a much needed weekend

2011-11-30T09:44:00.000-08:00

As much as I love traveling, talk incessantly about traveling, and devise ways to live and work and travel abroad, there are times where I miss my old friends and life back in the United States/Texas. This trip to Spain has been my longest consecutive time away from the United States, and as excited as I still am to be here experiencing it, there came a point about 2 weeks ago where I got my first twinge of homesickness. And not just my first twinge on this trip, but the first time I have ever felt a bit of homesickness in all my years of traveling.

So that is why my weekend in Florence, Italy was a much-needed break from my new Spanish life. In Italy, I was able to meet up with two friends, both from Texas A&M, both from Texas (or close enough), both currently living in Europe as well, and both people I enjoy hanging out with a lot.

Liz Welsh:

worked in the Business Honors office at Texas A&M with me for several years
graduated in 2010 and now travels the world while working from her computer
currently living in Germany with her family
countries we have been in together: USA, Argentina, Italy, soon-to-be Spain? (TBA)

Carolina Saenz:

also studies business at Texas A&M
will graduate this upcoming May with me
potentially working in Dallas after graduation, same as me
currently studying an hour south of Florence, Italy
countries we have been in together: USA, Panama, Italy

So as you can see, I go way back with both people in various ways. So spending a carefree weekend with them in the beautiful city of Florence, Italy was enough to cure my homesickness and enjoy to the fullest extent my last few weeks here in Spain.

The weekend flew by, and I will admit that we spent a lot less time doing the "touristy" stuff of Florence than a typical group of travelers would do with onl y three days time. However, the weekend was more about enjoying the company of each other.

I can pretty much define the trip in these words: pizza, pasta, wine, Twice, ----------, --------, art/statues, ------------, and bathrobes.

Explanations:

Pizza:

Whether or not Italy invented pizza, I will remain silent on, however, there is no doubt that the pizza in Italy is delicious! On our first night there, we decided to get pizza for dinner at a small place called Mr. Pizza's. Little did we know that Mr. Pizza would become one of our best friends of the whole trip.
I believe we visited Mr. Pizza's pizzeria 3 different times in 3 short days: a dinner, 4 AM, and a to-go dinner.
Salomino is the name for pepperoni pizza, however they will get upset if you actually call it pepperoni, claiming that it is different (it isn't).
They have a deliciously spicy olive oil sauce that Carolina put on so much of it burned my mouth... still delicious.

Pasta:

Not to be cliché but there was a ton of pasta to eat in Italy. I refrained from eating it EVERY meal, but I couldn't resist slipping in a good pasta with homemade pesto sauce one night and a tortellini dish for another lunch.

Wine:

There is a type of red wine called Chianti (sp?) that is known in the Tuscany/Florence area of Italy, I think. I'm not great with data points on wine, but I do know that it was pretty delicious.
It comes in a bottle that is shaped differently than the normal, cylindrical bottles of California and most other vineyards. The bottle is very bottom-heavy with a huge, rounded base almost forming a sphere, leading up to the practically normal bottleneck.
We finished several bottles during our weekend.

Twice:

The name of a club in Florence that we, ironcially, visited twice. Our first night out, Carolina managed to rally the weary troops (troops being Liz and I) and we ended up having a blast dancing and exploring the nightlife of Florence.
As exhausted as we were after the first night, we somehow managed to go out again the next night. Although we originally wanted to try the other main club, Space, we realized very quickly we would not likely get in, so we returned to Twice for even more fun than the night before.

Art/statues:

Florence is known for its art and statues.
We visited the famour Orfizzi (sp?) museum full of renaissance art. Liz and I enjoy the first 20 minutes or so, but after a while the museum got very old. All the art and all the statues were in the same style, so the rooms became very repetitive. There is no denying that the works are wonderful, but I can only handle so much of the same thing.
We also visited the separate museum that houses the statue of David. This is the one piece of art I have been wanting to see for a long time. It did not disappoint. The size alone makes your jaw drop. I always envisioned that statue as a life-sized man, however, it is about three times the size of a 6-foot man. Aside from its size, the detail with which Michelangelo was able to carve this piece of marble is incredible. Although 10 euros was a steep price to see this much smaller museum, it was totally worth it.

Florence itself is also a work of art. With the markets, the river, the plazas, the buildings... everything fits into a picturesque Tuscany image you might see on a postcard of coffee table book.

Bathrobes:

Thanks to my points with Starwood hotels, we spent a fancy night in the St. Regis Florence hotel... and what a hotel it was. Long story short, we had a view of the river, a room that had frescoes on the walls and a king sized bed, personal butler service, and, best of all, the most comfortable bathrobes in the world. We definitely spent the majority of our time in the room in bathrobes. St. Regis Florence... you are missed.

Miscellaneous:

Liz was originally supposed to run a marathon, however, due to a photo-jumping injury, was unable to participate. I was impressed to see the number of people runing around Florence on Sunday morning who did complete over 26 miles. I am in awe that so many people put int he dedication to do this... something I have neither the time nor patience to do.
I never knew that Florence was such a hot spot for leather sales. The markets were full of leather purses, jackets, wallets, etc. You name it, it was there.
More may be added later...

*All photos courtesy of Facebook and/or Google, more photos will be added once Liz Welsh finally posts them/sends them to me.

future inspiration

2011-11-13T16:03:00.001-08:00

So I know I promised to have some new blogs up to tell about my trip to Morocco... well to be honest, I was super lazy today and that did not happen. I apologize for this because:

some of you use my blogs to distract you from studying,
some of you like to live vicariously through my travels abroad,
some of you want to check up and make sure I haven't killed myself or gone off and married a foreigner,
some of you enjoy viewing the pictures that are posted,
and some of you are genuinely just interested in what I have been up to.

So to help you with this, I will instead tell you what I did today instead of blogging about Morocco. I instead decided to spend about 5 hours catching up on my podcast of TEDTalks. In case you aren't aware of TED (Technology Entertainment and Design), it is essentially a global set of conferences formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading". So basically, I have spent the past 5 hours listening to ideas that could shape the future of our planet and getting inspiration or learning something new. I figure inspiration is something everybody could use a little more of, so I have posted some of my favorite videos below.

¡Disfruta!

Bill Ford - A future beyond traffic gridlock

Good ideas for the future or cars, roads, and environment-friendly transportation.

Emiliano Salinas (in Spanish) - A civil response to violence (regarding Mexico)

Hopefully you understand Spanish if you are watching this... but discusses the issues with Mexico, and how the true issues aren't the names and people we see flashed in headlines or hear news of everyday, but lies more in the complacency and fear of the people themselves.

Robert Hammond - Building a park in the sky

I will definitely be visiting this in March when I return to NYC! An awesome idea to raise money for the city's economy/debts, create a usable and friendly space out a of previously abandoned space, and a creative way to express and artistic side and soften the cityscape of NYC.

Adam Ostrow - After your final status update

Creepy and something we should all think about as we become more and more immersed in a social and interconnected world. It is not necessarily a bad thing, but something that will change the way we are remembered in the future.

Charlie Todd - The shared experience of absurdity

I subscribe to Improv Everywhere on YouTube, and greatly enjoy their skits. The simple act of harmless "pranks" or events can brighten a day and relieve stress.

Janet Echelman - Taking imagination seriously

Another beautiful way to soften and bring art to the people. I get bored in museums... they are stuffy, and tend to be boring as you walk from one room to another. But there is something to be said about bringing art to the people, to the public, out in the open. This is a great starting and I hope to see more of these in cities soon.

Yasheng Huang - Does democracy stifle economic growth?

For all you business/economics majors out there... interesting stuff. China vs. India. Might surprise you what he argues.

excitement rising

2011-11-11T08:00:00.000-08:00

So the last post was probably a bit disappointing, and a bit depressing, talking about all the things I am missing. It probably makes me sound ungrateful for being over here in Spain, which is not at all the image I want to portray. As such, I am going to do a quick post to update you on things I am excited for that are coming up within the next year!

Tomorrow I will be hiking in the Alpujarras... I might even look as cool as these guys doing it.

Next weekend I will returnt to the mountain town of El Chorro for a more rigorous, crash course in climbing from teh one and only Kate Sabo... I KNOW I won't look as cool as this guy doing it.

The following weekend (right after Thanksgiving) I will be traveling to Florence, Italy:

Liz Welsh will be running in her first marathon and I will be at the starting line to cheer her on, and at the finish line with a cold beer and shoulder to lean on!

Carolina Saenz better come visit me since she is only an hour away, studying in Castiglion Florentino, or something like that.

2 awesome people = 1 awesome weekend in Italy

Finishing up classes in Spain and enjoying a few weekends wrapping things up in Granada, Spain... a place that has truly become my home over the past few months, and a place I hope to return to someday soon. It will be hard to say goodbye to it in less than 2 months from now.

Christmas in Turkey!!! A new and exciting adventure to round out my time in Europe. Also, I can never get enough time with Kate Sabo, Katie Schou, or Samantha Erdmann.

Spending even more time with Liz Welsh for New Year's in Madrid, Spain
After flying home, I immediately hop on another plane and travel back to Panama for my 4th brigade with Global Business Brigades!

We will be following up with the same community of Tortí Abajo as our last brigade, which will be exciting to see what changes have been made since May of 2011.
We will also be staying 4 days late in order to travel back up to Rio Oeste where we did our first 2 brigades with a developing chocolate business... word on the internet is that they now have a functioning chocolate tour for tourists twice a day!

Getting back to Texas A&M University for my final semester. I am excited about my classes for the spring semester and to finish up with school. Although, I am glad I stayed a 5th year, I am getting anxious to finish up for a little while... especially since grad school will be here before I know it.

Whatever travels may occur this upcoming summer.

Possibilities include:

Argentina/Chile
Panama
Spain
Ghana & Ethiopia (Africa)
USA roadtrip (Colorado, Utah, California, Oregon, up to Canada)
Apartment searching in Dallas

Strangely, I am extremely excited to start work with Bain & Company. I say "strangely" not because I don't enjoy the company or the work, but because I keep flip-flopping on how I feel about the future. Most days here in Spain have made me want to give up working and simply travel and learn new languages, not to be a bum, but to have the experience of seeing and learning so much. I wish I could speak Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and so many other languages fluently. I wish I could learn how business functions in every single country. I want to push myself physically and climb mountains or surf waves. And I get worried that I will be so busy at work, a lot of my passions will be lost. However, today I randomly got the strongest urge to start work... to look for apartments in Dallas, to have a place to call my own for more than a year, to join a rock-climbing gym, to find Spanish classes for the weekends, to learn through experience in the working world rather than a classroom, to further my relationship with Global Brigades on a professional level, and to continue traveling when the time comes.

things i miss

2011-11-11T07:05:00.000-08:00

Things I miss right now/will be missing this semester:

Barbeque sauce/barbeque
Ranch dressing

Mexican food

Tortas from El Tio's
Raspas y enchiladas huastecas from El Payasito
Any and all Tex-Mex related foods
Chips and salsa and queso and guacamole
Horchata

Peanut butter

Pumpkin spiced drinks from Starbucks

Friends & family
Shiner Bock - although a solid replacement has been Alhambra 1925 ("una milno")

Netflix movies

Buffalo Wild Wings

My car, and being able to drive to another city at will, not having to figure out train schedules, bus schedules, and taxis
Wurstfest in New Braunfels, TX

Wassail on a cold fall/winter night

November 5th, V for Vendetta watching party

Aggie football games (although not when we choke)

I'm sure there are plenty more things, but these are the immediate things. Also I haven't eaten today so most of them turned out to be food. Don't judge.

I also know that I have found equivalents/better things here than the things listed, but it doesn't mean I can't miss them/have guilty pleasures every once in a while.

Morocco update coming soon...

my amazing race

2011-10-18T11:04:00.000-07:00

The all-too-wise uncle of my friend, Kate Sabo, once told me about this study done on the human perspective; specifically, about group decisions. Although I can't remember the details of the study, the essence was that when in a group, people are more likely to make rash decisions and take more risky routes because they feel comfort in numbers and in group members' encouragement. However, given the same choice alone, they typically would take a different, more conservative approach.

It is this precise type of "group-think" (reference to 1984) that started our journey to Morocco. While sitting in a café in Spain, trying to make plans for Halloween, Katie Schou, Charles Escalante, and myself booked a one-way flight to Marrakesh, Morocco, Africa. Halloween in Morocco. The intention of the trip was to not only explore this northern African country, but to challenge ourselves to find our own way back to Spain via land. An adventure indeed. Our own miniature amazing race, if you will.

I have had the pleasure of having many friends abroad this semester as well. To name a couple, My friend Carolina Saenz is studying abroad in Castiglion, Italy and my friend Liz Welsh is living in Ramstein, Germany for a while. However, as coincidence would have it, Liz is traveling to Italy in November to run a marathon, so I am now planning a trip to visit both Liz and Carolina while we are all in Europe. This happens to be the weekend of Thanksgiving as well. Another holiday, another country. Thanksgiving in Italy. (still a little TBA).

However, the rash decisions did not end their. While searching for cheap flights to Morocco, we started having fun finding cheap flights all across the world. Long story short, 2 days after booking a trip to Morocco, we have now decided to spend Christmas in Istanbul, Turkey. 3 holidays, 3 countries. Literally, the flight is already booked.

As I am forced to finish out my travels in time to return to the United States for the spring semester, it makes sense to finish the year in Europe in the country I have come to love: Spain. Seeing as my flight back home leaves the morning of January 1sy from Madrid, it only makes sense to spend New Years Eve in Madrid, Spain. Go out with a bang before going home to Texas.

What a life I live.

To end with a quote I borrowed from the Facebook of Mark Stanley (whose birthday is today):

"Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul." - Samuel Ullman

Transcendentalism, anybody?

2011-10-15T05:48:00.000-07:00

Definitely in a Ralph Waldo Emerson kind of mood today.

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

"A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us."

"A man in debt is so far a slave."

"A man is what he thinks about all day long. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better."

"An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory."

"For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."

"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."

"I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching."

"Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be."

"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail."

"The best effort of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence."

"The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common."

"This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it."

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."

"To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."

"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year."

"We are always getting ready to live but never living."

A liter of light

2011-10-14T15:09:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the simple ideas are the best ones.

How does recycling plastic bottles bring light to hundreds (and soon maybe thousands) of people living in the Phillipines? Mira.

The simple solutions are sometimes the most effective. I strive to be this creative and conscientious with everything I do, both at Bain & Company and in my volunteer activities with organizations such as Global Brigades.

I do study in Spain

2011-10-13T10:35:00.000-07:00

Apologies in advance for a semi-dull blog update, but some people do want to know what I am actually doing/studying here in Spain. Nothing nearly as exciting as my weekend adventures, but hopefully worthwhile to some of you.

So as much as my blog may make my life appear like pie in the sky, easy-peasy, uninhibited, and carefree... I do study here as well. See my schedule below:

La historia del cine español:

A study of Spanish cinema. Honestly, I wanted this to be a class where we simply watch movies some days and discuss the movies other days (all in Spanish of course). However, we actually are learning the "history" of the Spanish cinema. Boring! But good news, we will likely be watching a movie once a week once the course picks up.

We also have NO EXAMS, but instead a final group project where each group researches and presents on a Spanish director. Our group was assigned Pedro Almodóvar. If you don't know who he is, look him up. I have seen two of his movies, Abrazos Rotos and La Piel que Habito, and both are veru... unusual, to be conservative in my description. He is openly gay and his movies always focus on themes of sexual exploration, whether homosexual or heterosexual, including his newest movie which has the protagonist kidnap a young man who caused the death of his daughter, surgically turn him into a woman that resembled his daughter to a degree, and then sleep with him/her later. Like I said... unusual is a conservative description. However, he is an icon in Spanish cinema and is possibly the most well-known director to come from this country, especially to Americans.

Literatura hispanoamericanas:

Literature is not my favorite subject... which is my way of saying it is actually one of my least favorite subjects. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE to read, and will gladly discuss books and meanings with people. But, this is not the reason I am studying Spanish. I want to speak it and understand it fluently... and so wasting my time by learning how to analyze a poem and the literary techniques behind a novel don't satisfy this desire. Sure I learn new words, but I would rather focus more time studying the grammar and more practical vocabulary. However, this class is necessary for my Spanish degree.

Ironically, the entire first week we have been analyzing a movie we watched and haven't read more than a paragraph of literature... more like what I expected to do in my cinema class. I actually checked my schedule to make sure I was in the class I thought I was in.

NO EXAMS! Our profesora believes that exams do not reflect education very well. She wants to teach us to think for ourselves, not what to think or know. Therefore, she doesn't want to test us over authors and dates and other boring parts of literature, but instead teach us to form opinions on a topic discussed in literature. I agree with her completely, both in the serious sense of educational convictions, and because I don't want to take a test. ;) This class may be better than expected.

Civilización y cultura hispanoamericana:

This class has gotten off to a rough start, mostly because he is going over very simple topics, such as the geography of South America. When 30 minutes of class is spent discussing the Latin America essentially has every type of topography and climate, I feel that time is wasted and could have been said in 5 minutes. And if this information was setting the scene for a different lesson, I would get on board. Instead, after the entire lecture he comments that we won't have to know any of this for the exam or even for anything else we learn this semester. Then was it really necessary? We also spent about an hour discussing the difference between "latin america", "hispanic america", and how to define the various names these collective countries are called. End result: there really is no official definiteion on what these names are based on and will be used interchangeably... thanks for wasting my time.

Español de negocios:

Actually a very useful class! I am not actually learning any business concepts that I didn't already know, but learning a ton of new vocabulary that could be extremely useful if/when I get assigned to an international case with Bain & Company in the future... (Mexico, Argentina, Spain, here I come).

Producción oral y escrito:

This class is purely meant to improve your written and spoken Spanish skills. My professor, Aurelio Rios, is a heavyset, balding, aging man who is out of breath by the time he makes it to our third-floor classroom everyday. I immediately dreaded the future of this class, however, Aurelio turned out to be a hilariously awesome teacher. His sense of humor keeps us at ease and gets us talking, which is the point of his class! We discuss anything and everything from the origin of our names, to controversial social topics, to psychological tests, to brainteasers. This class, in conjunction with my business class, keep me sane.

NO EXAMS! Aurelio believes that speaking in class is better than a written exam. AKA, as long as we participate in class, we will do fine in the class.

Hopefully the other classes improve soon.

material possessions cleanse

2011-10-11T06:21:00.000-07:00

I have begun to realize this semester in Spain is turning into a sort of "material possessions cleanse", whether subconsciously instigated by me or against my will.

During my first week in Spain, I was staying at a hostel. While there, I was using my trusty pack-light, travel towel. However, one day I went to take a shower and realized my towel was gone. I can only assume it was taken (hopefully inadvertently) by another resident at the time. Lost item #1.

As most of you know, if you have read my blog about Portugal, I lost my Aggie ring while cliff-jumping. Great story, sad news. Lost item #2.

Many of you have also read my travel story from a week ago, where I had an awesome time hiking, climbing and swimming in the mountains of Spain. However, I saved the sad story from this trip for another post, so as not to damage the good feelings associated with that trip. However, when returning to Granada from our moutainous hideaway, we had a layover at the bus station in Málaga. While waiting, my camera bag and backpack were under the bench we were sitting on. However, due to shifting and lack of attention, my camera bag was pushed further under the bench than I realized. When we got up to head to the bus, I grabbed my backpack and saw nothing else, so I headed to the bus.

RIP Sony a200 DSLR camera

After about 2 minutes the bus left the station, and literally before we had gone 5 blocks from the station, I realized my mistake. After an initial panic, I ran to the front, asked the bus driver to let me off, and ran back to the station as quickly as possible. By the time I returned to our resting place from earlier, no more than 10 full minutes had passed, however, my camera bag (and the camera, of course) were gone. Lost item #3.

The worst feeling for me, more than losing the camera, was losing all the pictures. I hadn't uploaded anything form my trip yet, therefore ever photo I have taken up til now in Spain is gone. This is also the reason my blogs from the climbing trip was only photos borrowed from friends.

Also, the worst part of losing the camera bag was that it contained a few more items, I quickly realized. For some reason I decided on that day to use it as my wallet. Aka, the bag also contained:

My University of Granada I.D.
My Texas driver's license
About 50 Euros in cash
My Wells Fargo debit card
and my Capital One credit card

Lost items #4, #5, #6, #7 and #8.

I have probably lost more than this too, but haven't realized it yet. I will update you on my cleanse if I do.

a mi me da igual

2011-10-06T13:38:00.000-07:00

All photos in the following blog are courtesy of Katie Schou, Kate Sabo and Alicia Jones. To understand why, wait for the following blog post.

Background

This past weekend was incrediible. I cannot speak highly enough of Granada as a city... but the key part of that comment is the last part: as a city. However, for those of you who know me pretty well, as much as I love Chicago, New York City, and even Dallas or Austin, the one thing that drives me crazy is going too long without being outside and doing some kind of physical activity.

Here in Granada I was going a bit stir-crazy. Everyday my life consisted of going to class and sitting, eating lunch and sitting, taking a nap and/or sitting, eating dinner and sitting, going to get tapas and drinks while sitting, sitting, sitting and more sitting.

So it comes as no surprise that, as awesome as they are, traveling to Madrid or Barcelona or London or Paris just wasn't going to cut it this time. I needed to be outside of the city doing something active to relieve the stress of daily life (haha, not that I have much stress here in Spain compared to my life back in the United States).

The solution came via another student in our program, Kate Sabo.

Kate enjoys all sorts of outdoor activities, and has promised to teach me the basics of climbing.
She conveniently has a grandfather* who has retired in the mountains of southern Spain.
We had a 5 day break from school before we started our new classes.
There are several good climbing/hiking/outdoor activities nearby her grandfather's house.
Kate has "connections"that gave us free harnesses and ropes, etc. to go climbing equally an overall VERY inexpensive trip.

*For those business people out there, cool side story. Kate's grandfather is actually the former CEO of HSBC Bank. So yes, this past weekend I stayed at the Spanish residence of the former CEO of a global bank... no big deal. I got connections.

With all these reasons combined, our weekend trip was easily planned to visit the small town of Álora and the corresponding mountainous area known as El Chorro. Thus, I set out with Kate, Katie, and Alicia for the adventure of a lifetime!

Accomodations

What does the residence of a former CEO of HSBC Bank retired in the Spanish mountainside look like, you ask? Let me show you. I don't have a ton of pictures, but hopefully the pictures I have, with a description are enough for you to imagine.

In short this house was basically like the letter "O" with three buildings making up three sides of a square, and a fourth side made up of a wall and outdoor terraces/patios. In the middle of the structure was an open-air courtyard with beautiful cobblestone floors and an atmosphere great for family dinners outside during Christmas/Thanksgiving/summer days. All sides of the house had two stories. Rundown own the rooms:

kitchen
2 living rooms
pantry
dining room
sitting room/office
2 complete apartments (bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living room)
3 other bedrooms with bathrooms
attic that doubled as four different living rooms/game rooms/library in one
courtyard in the middle
upper level outdoor terrace
double patio/garden out the back
outdoor cobblestone pathway/courtyard behind the garden
pool area behind the courtyard

The "apartment" that 4 of us crashed in. Had its own living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. We definitely pushed the two twins beds together and made a huge pallet on the floor with poolside cushions to make one large sleeping area.

Creating games in the pool. I definitely won this one.

Doorway between garden and courtyard/pool area. Picture taken as if walking back towards the house.

Undisturbed pool area. Look at that view!

The side door to the house (there is also a front door, and a back door, and probably several secret entryways). Looks completely unopposing but holds behind it a wonderful house.

El Camino del Rey

After a wonderful first night at the house of swimming, talking, eating, and several bottles of wine, we got up the next day to embark upon our first adventure: El Camino del Rey. For those of you who haven't heard of this, there is some great history behind this walk, most of which I have forgotten and would bore you anyways. However, the gist of it is that there was a walkway made for some useful purpose and the King of Spain at the time came and walked on it or something, and now it is called the King's Walk. History as told by J. Scott Perry.

Basically, this walk is an old sidewalk constructed on the side of a cliff. Some parts are simple and allow you to walk as normal, however other sections have fallen away throughout the years causing you to balance precariously on a rusty metal bar, and at other times, literally cling to the cliff and traverse to the next section. To some it is known as "the Most Dangerous Walk in the World". Not completely true now that it has a wire throughout the entire walk that you can harness yourself in to, but still dangerous if you wish it to be.

All in all the walk was fairly stress free and offered some great views... but pictures are worth 1,000 words as they say. To write enough words that encompass the same impact of about 200 photos would require more than 200,000 words. I have neither the time nor patience or literary proficiency to write this many words so the pictures below should help.

Alicia rounding the first corner after a treacherous initial climb.

Caught: pausing for more photos. What else is new?

Preparing for the journey via painting.

Initial and worst part of the walk... literally standing on those metal "pegs" or bars that you see below me; nothing else. Katie is in the middle of leaving the last metal peg and tracersing the cliff until some solid rock appears.

Inching my way across the metal bar where the path has fallen to its death many years earlier.

Kate getting artsy on me.

Caught again taking photos.

Initial part of the walk, better perspective.

Looking down.

Look at that pro. I've been doing this for years.

Alicia knows how to angle her crossings. Almost a perfect 90 degrees.

Preserving our names on the inside of a deserted house at the end of the walk.

Crossing a river after completing the Camino del Rey. I may or may not have fallen in.

Definitely going to pick up climbing on this trip. Kate is going to show me the basics and help me pick out my initial gear: harness, ropes, shoes, etc.

Hiking around El Chorro

After the eventful Camino del Rey, we went hom, swam, ate, and relaxed again. We had to prepare ourselves for the next adventure: hiking around El Chorro.

Since I don't know the geography of Spain or every name of every mountain, and you likely would have no clue what I am talking about even if I did, I will resort to better descriptions of this walk that include length and time.

Basically, Kate's uncle, Charles, decided to take us on a "4-hour hike". This hike was perhaps the most intense hike I have done in my life, including the Swiss Alps, the Pyrenees, and various hikes throughout Central/South America. In total, the hike was only about 8 or 9 km (5-6 miles). However, the terrain was not friendly. About 3/4 of the time, we were walking uphill at an angle between 15-45 degrees off the ground.

We walked on top of mountains.

We walked around mountains.

We walked through valleys.

We climbed rocks.

We saw goats.

We free-climbed The Needle (famous climbing rock).

We slid down cliffsides.

We stood at the top of the world looking down on lakes, cities, valleys, and the natural beauty of this earth.

Not much more can be said about a hike, so again, enjoy the photos below:

Panoramic #1

Climbing

Panoramic #2

Panoramic #3

Spanish country side

Kate and I atop The Needle

Looking down into a valley

More Spanish countryside

Peace

Trekking through a gorge

Goats

Setting off

Piles of rocks used to guide people down from the mountaintop... we got lost soon after.

This hike was so exhausting that after 5 hours of intense hiking and climbing, we headed home. Oh, what's that Kate? You want to run? No big deal... after 5 hours of walking, a half-mile run is exactly what I need. (And that's exactly what we did... ran the half-mile or so back to the house.)

Let's just say this trip was amazing and definitely cured my itch for the outdoors... or worsened it. I am already to go back to the countryside and learn more about climbing from Kate. Hopefully, Team Awesome (Me, Kate, Katie, and Alicia) will all join again.

And of course, no trip in Spain in the warm weather is complete without a good glass of Tinto de Verano!

¡Hasta luego!

Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

2011-10-06T07:34:00.000-07:00

I am undoubtedly one of the people in this world fondly called "Macheads" or "Apple lovers", and sometimes referred to by the others as "Apple snob". I accept all these titles gladly, to commemorate one of the greatest innovators I have seen within my short life.

However, I do not wish to mourn and remain sad about his death, although it is undoubtedly a life that will be missed. Instead, I prefer to celebrate what his life meant to us and reflect on the ways he has improved and changed our world. Think about everything he has done and created. I doubt there is anybody who can say that Apple has not entered their life in some way.

Things I could not imagine my life without:

Macbook Pro
iPhone
older iPods
iTunes
the various other technologies/products that have been invented or spurred off of Apple products/ideas

All this, thanks to the one and only Steve Jobs.

Below is his commencement speech given at the Stanford University graduation in 2005. If you have yet to hear this speech, now is the time. Many words of wisdom.

My favorite parts:

"...you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."
"Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle."
"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

No need for me to dwell on this too much. I will keep his family in my thoughts and hope for the continued success of the company he created.

new post preview

2011-10-05T14:33:00.000-07:00

This photo is a rough preview of what the past weekend was like. The true blog will be coming shortly. Hold your horses.

deadly dancers

2011-10-04T05:06:00.000-07:00

So about a week ago, we decided to attend a bullfight at the Plaza de Toros here in Granada. I was in Spain about two years ago studying with Mays Business School in Barcelona, Spain, but never made it out to a bullfight while I was there. I was determined not to miss it this time for several reasons:

Be as compassionate as you want with animals and be outraged if need be, but the idea of the bullfight is deeply tied to the Spanish culture and is something worth experiencing if you are truly trying to immerse yourself into the culture and community.
Catalunia has already banned bullfighting and it could soon spread to other regions of Spain. Soon, bullfighting may be something Spanish schoolchildren only learn about in history books.
The particular fight we attended was the last fight of the season here in Granada... aka our options were limited.

Let me first state that here in Spain they dislike the term "bullfight". I am not sure whether this is a recent development based on outrage at the treatment of animals or simply has always been true, but they prefer the term "corrido de toro", literally translated as a "bull run". Definitely sounds a lot less fatal.

After seeing a bullfight, I will completely agree that the performance is completely brutal. The first time that a bull gets stabbed I was a bit shocked. But, after reflecting on the event a bit, I must admit there is a certain beaty to the murderous actions. A lot of the performance is much like a fatal dance. It demonstrates the struggle of man versus nature. It shows the defeat of obstacles in our life. It can reflect and uplift many who look at the event beyond the base killing of the animal.

Now that I have given my high-level, philosophical support of the event, I must admit that overall I do not condone the actions that occurred. I am not some proactive animal-rights activist who will immediately shout for the condemnation of all bullfights henceforth, but I must say I have no strong desire to attend another performance. I respect it, but dislike it at the same time.

The details are a bit gory but here are the steps of the "dance" for you to visualize.

First, the bull is released and comes charging into the ring. Several "fluffers" are around the ring to rile up the giant animal and entertain the audience for a few minutes.
After this goes on for a few minutes, three other men come into the ring who I have dubbed "boppers". These boppers have a stick in each hand with a poking device at the end. They brace themselves somewhere in the ring, pose, and yell to the bull. As the bull starts to charge them, they run perpendicular to the bull's path. As soon as it look like the bull will gore them, they lift the sticks high in the air, and bring them down forcefully on the bull's back. It looks a bit comical honestly, almost as if they are simply bopping the bull on the head. However, the poking device on the bottom of the stick somehow lodgees into the bull's back and the colorful sticks are left dangling as decoration from the body of the beast.
After this has occurred three times, the matador himself comes out. The matador spends a lot of time riling the already-enraged animal up even more. He entices him with the classic red cloak, and gracefully avoids a goring every single time. There is a lot of bravado and machismo and posing associated with the character of the matador. However, when it comes down to the end of the fight, the power of the matador truly shows.
The matador ends his dance with the bull in a deadly display of aggression. He lifts the sword around head level, levels it with the floor and aims for the bull's forehead area. As the bull barrels down upon the seemingly doomed human, the matador yells and thrusts the sword into the upper back behind the bull's head. Sometimes this takes several attempts, but the best atador's are successful on round one. The 3 foot sword is often entirely driven inside the body of the bull, and sometimes it is taken and and shoved in again if the bull still seems particularly aggressive.
The end result is that the bull eventually decides to lie down and die. Sometimes the bull is violently vomiting blood. Other times the bull seemed to be peacefully going to sleep without any blood in sight. Once he has acepted his fate, another man run behind him, and takes a dagger to his brain through the back of the head, jerking it violently, to ensure the animal is done.

A violent act indeed. Beautiful but deadly. Cultural and yet something to be abhorred. An experience I am glad to have had, yet will gladly never participate in again.

Escuela: Curso Intensive de Español

2011-09-27T16:28:00.000-07:00

We have almost completed the first portion of our education here in Spain. The entire month of September is simply an intensive course on Spanish grammar. On our first day, we took a level test to get placed in the correct class difficulty. I placed at a level 7 out of a possible 9... much higher than anticipated. This is probably because it wasn't based on oral ability. The test was mostly written comprehension and grammar abilities. My speaking ability is at a much lower level.

Class has been good though. I am glad I decided to take the intensive Spanish portion first... it has been a good refresher for me. I have also learned many phrases specific to Spain, and even Granada. My favorite Granadian phrase is no pasa nada which, literally translated, means "nothing happens" but is used as a local phrase for "don't worry"... and truly embodies how Granadians live life. They don't stress that much, take life as it is, and have a friendly, social atmosphere with friends and family.

Below is a typical day with school:

Around 9:30 AM I eat breakfast with my host mother
Class from 10 AM to 2 PM every day
Eating times are later here, so I take lunch around 3 PM every day with my host mom, brother and sister and my roommate
Lunch is almost always followed by a siesta that lasts until about 5 or 6 PM
Afterwords I choose to do my homework for the next day so I can enjoy my evening doing whatever I choose
By 10 PM, we typically have made plans to go get tapas, see a movie, study together, or just relax and watch some episodes of Modern Family at home... all depends on the day and our energy level
The nights that we choose to go out we have usually found ourselves at one of three places, although there are more we intend to try:

Granada 10 - because girls get in free on Wednesday nights
Bar Reca - because the tapas are delicious and we have befriended the bartenders
Canborio - an awesome club in some caves up in the Albaicin on the mountain and overlooks the Alhambra

Bedtime seems to coincide around 2 AM on average... although this too varies by day

Earliest tends to be midnight
Latest has been 8 AM to date (don't worry parents, I always make it to class)

Somebody like you

2011-09-26T16:54:00.000-07:00

Now available in iTunes!

Every once in a while, there is a song that just touches me. Sometimes the lyrics relate to the current events of my life. Sometimes the beat speaks to my mood and makes me want to dance or laugh or relax or cry. And sometimes the passion of the singers and the honest simplicity of their abilities makes the song appeal to me on an artistic level. This is the case with the video below.

The song "Someone Like You" by Adele could have many appropriate situations for listening to... ok, pretty much just one situation. When thinking about a past love or ex-partner, this song would be good to go along with the emotions that sometimes follow. However, for those of you who know me, this is not particularly relevant to my current life.

But, as mentioned earlier, the video reached my on an emotional level due to the simple beauty with which Emily Luther sings, accompanied by Charlie Puth. It is not often that I enjoy alterations to a piece of work, and I already enjoyed Adele's original song version, however, I must admit that this cover of her song completely outdoes the original in my opinion. Some may disagree, because this version is slowed down and has a different tempo... and to each their own... but this remake is simply... the right word escapes me for now.

I hope to hear more from Emily Luther in the near future and for those of you who want to listen to more Charlie Puth, he has songs available on iTunes and an entire YouTube page.

¡Disfruta!

You should sit back and listen to the music first, but if you are somebody who gets caught up in the music like I do and all you want is to sing along, I have provided the lyrics below:

Someone Like You

I heard that you're settled down,

That you found a girl and you're married now,

I heard that your dreams came true,

Guess she gave you things I didn't give to you,

Old friend, why are you so shy?

Ain't like you to hold back or hide from the light,


I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited,
But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it,
I had hoped you'd see my face,
And that you'd be reminded that for me it isn't over,

Never mind, I'll find someone like you,
I wish nothing but the best for you, too,
Don't forget me, I beg,
I remember you said,
"Sometimes it lasts in love,
But sometimes it hurts instead,"
Sometimes it lasts in love,
But sometimes it hurts instead, yeah,

You know how the time flies,
Only yesterday was the time of our lives,
We were born and raised in a summer haze,
Bound by the surprise of our glory days,

I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited,
But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it,
I had hoped you'd see my face,
And that you'd be reminded that for me it isn't over,

Never mind, I'll find someone like you,
I wish nothing but the best for you, too,
Don't forget me, I beg,
I remember you said,
"Sometimes it lasts in love,
But sometimes it hurts instead,"

Nothing compares,
No worries or cares,
Regrets and mistakes, they're memories made,
Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?

Nevermind, I'll find someone like you,
I wish nothing but the best for you,
Don't forget me, I beg,
I remember you said,
"Sometimes it lasts in love,
But sometimes it hurts instead,"

Nevermind, I'll find someone like you,
I wish nothing but the best for you, too,
Don't forget me, I beg,
I remember you said,
"Sometimes it lasts in love,
But sometimes it hurts instead,"
Sometimes it lasts in love,
But sometimes it hurts instead.

Soler Facebook

2011-09-25T15:05:00.001-07:00

First off, apologies for this being the first post in about 2 weeks, or something like that. Second, apologies in advance because I will likely post about 3 posts within the next few hours. It happens.

I realized that up to now, I had only blogged about my time here in Spain BEFORE school started. Now that I have been in school several weeks, I should probably reorient you guys on who I am with on a daily basis, and also update you guys on what the "student" life is like here.

To start off with, I have created a "Facebook" of my fellow Solers (people who are also studying here in Spain with Sol Education Abroad, a term coined by the one and only Kate Sabo). And I mean a Facebook like they use to be with a simple photo and name to introduce you to the people who will be in my future blogs/stories.

This will be updated throughout the semester as I meet more people and have more stories. For now, anybody mentioned in my stories should be included in this blog though.

To make it more interesting, I went modern-day Facebook stalking to find some good pictures. Here goes:

Lynsey Bakkum

Molly Caton

Samantha Erdmann

Charles Escalante

Alicia Jones

Aemilii Melby

Georgia Morff

Amy Noll

Stephanie Perez

Kate Sabo

Katie Schou

Mark Stanley

Como se diz "Portugal" em português?

2011-09-20T09:02:00.000-07:00

So our first excursion outside of the city of Granada was fairly impromptu. We stumbled across this organization called Discover Granada, a subset of the company Discover Granada... both of which are ironic names because form my understanding, all they do is organize trips for students to Portugal and Morocco. So really they should be called Don't Discover Granada or Leave Sevilla. I guess that wouldn't be as catchy and there is a reason I don't make up companies' names.

Video from DiscoverGranada; I am in the video twice:

Zipping up my wetsuit before surfing

Walking with my surfboard on the beach

Anyways, we left on a Thursday and headed to Sevilla. The bus would leave for Lagos, Portugal from Sevilla, Spain on Friday, but we decided to go a day early to explore Sevilla a little bit. After a rough night on Wednesday leaving us with only 3 hours of sleep, we awoke and headed to the bus station at 7 AM. Some people may consider that ridiculous and need 7 hours of sleep a night. Others tend to live by the phrase "I can sleep when I'm dead". I choose to live by the phrase "I can sleep while riding on buses/planes".

Our day/night in Sevilla was very chill. We had no intention of going all out and exploring the touristy sites because we will be returning to Sevilla at a later date this semester with our program. We simply wanted to walk around and enjoy a day in a new city.

Side note: we stayed at the Oasis Palace Hostel in Sevilla (or something like that) and it was awesome! The hostel was four stories, complete with rooftop terrace that has a pool and bar. Plenty of internet stations and WiFi in certain areas. Beds were comfy and rooms/bathrooms were very clean. I don't often promote the places I am staying in, but I would stay in this hostel again in a heartbeat. Above all, the price was right! (cheap).

View from the rooftop terrace of our hostel

Covered streets of Sevilla, rustic and serene

A couple issues arose as I discussed our time thus far in Spain with Kate and Katie.

We missed healthy food. Not that our food with our host families isn't delicious! (because it is) but they often lack raw vegetables and some lighter, healthier options. As such, we began to crave nothing more than a nice, big salad with tons of vegetables.
We realized how expensive traveling can get. This isn't a new concept to any of us, mostly we were grumpy and complaining. However, in conjunction with number one, we decided to eat in that night and cook our own healthy dinner in the hostel.

The result was a delicious dinner of:

Stir fry of grilled chicken, bell peppers, onion, tomato, and garlic
White rice
Salad of spinach, avocado, tomato, cucumber, carrot, and probably other stuff with a makeshift oil & vinegar dressing
Fresh fruit salad of nectarines, apples, kiwi, and banana

People say food always tastes better when you make it yourself. Combine that with our hunger and cravings for fresh, healthy food, and that meal seemed more delicious than anything else we had eaten in Spain thus far.

Dinner in the hostel

After dinner we did some more exploring. Aka: we walked around the old city aimlessly and had a failed attempt at getting dessert. Churros place closed, gelato was undiscoverable, ice cream was unsatisfiable, and we returned home, content to sleep off the stress of the day that comes when traveling with a large amount of people.

Important tower

With Sam in front of something I am sure is important in Sevilla

After a good night's sleep in Sevilla, we were up and off to Lagos, Portugal. Again, I slept the whole ride there. Something about travel in a car/train/plane/bus/etc. just lulls me to sleep. Definitely got me rested so when we arrived in Portugal I was ready to go!

The hotel we stayed in was literally on the beach front. A group of us decided to spend the day on the beach, but of course I can only suntan for so long. Soon I was in the ocean swimming and exploring. We swam out to a huge rock (remnants of an old cliff face) and did some free climbing to the top before jumping off into the ocean.

Beautiful Lagos, Portugal from hotel window

Alas, here comes the first sad tale within the beginning of an awesome semester. What could be bad about cliff-jumping? Nothing in my opinion, assuming that there aren't rocks of shallow water areas below. So I did not think twice about throwing myself off these cliffs into the Atlantic Ocean. However, very quickly my hand felt weird. Now before you start freaking out, I don't mean weird in the sense that I somehow injured myself, but just like my hand was off balance in a way... maybe lighter?

If you haven't guessed it by now, the sad result was that in the midst of my cliff-jumping excitement, I lost my precious Aggie ring. Ironically, I believe it was on the same day that a new batch of Aggies were receiving their rings back in College Station, TX. Luckily, i appreciate ironies even in the midst of being on the darker side. Strangely though, this loss did not effect me too much. Yes, I just lost almost $1,000 worth of my own hard-earned money. Yes, I lost something that is close to my heart and reflects a time in my life that defines who I am today. Yes, I lost the symbol of the university that has done so much for me and given me so many opportunities. However, I quickly came to peace with the unfortunate event that had unfolded. Not that it is a thought that I have dwelled on much, but of all the ways to lose my Aggie ring, cliff-jumping into the Altantic Ocean in Lagos, Portugal is not a bad way. There are too many experiences and things to do in life than to fret over something material such as that ring. One day I will replace that ring, but until then I will continue living my life and be satisfied that somewhere off the coast of Portugal, I left a little piece of treasure that may have its own story of discovery one day in the future. RIP Aggie ring.

Somewhere within the ocean of this picture lies my Aggie ring

Day two in Portugal was just as lazy/eventful as day one. We again spent the intire day on the beach, sometimes laying around, sometimes swimming, and sometimes exploring. Not much to write abotu for the daytime. Beaches are beaches and the sun is the sun. We did get to explore some grottos near the coast, but overall, the day was very similar to any other day on the beach in the U.S.

Our group about to explore the grotto

That evening proved to have a little more adventure. Our group went to a location in Lagos known as El Fin del Mundo (The End of the World). Literally, you drive to the edge of these cliffs and all that seems to surround you is ocean. Not only that, but the wind comes rushing up the cliffside from the sea with such force that you are able to lean OVER the cliff edge without falling. Literally. The force of the wind keeps you lifted! Sounds scary but was an awesome experience. We watched the sun set here and the day ended in peace. I always feel at home in nature and environments such as this.

Sitting at the edge of the world

Kate feeling the wind blow her back

Day 3 in Portugal was no less exciting than the other days. I spent the whole day on another beach (go figure) taking surfing lessons! Surfing is something I have never tried before, and honestly, I have always been intimidated by the thought of. But when presented with the opportunity, my adventurous side made it hard to pass up. I am thankful I didn't miss out... because I loved surfing! I am not a natural surfer by any standards, and it was a struggle... but the struggle was fun. It was a challenge that I enjoyed taking on, much like my recent endeavors to start rock climbing. Although I was never able to stand up for more than 10 seconds at a time, a was able to stand up (victory #1) and the feeling during those 10 seconds was well worth the hour of failed attempts (supporting argument to victory #1). I now have plans to try surfing again while in Spain. There is a great city near the Straight of Gibraltor known for is surfing scene and Kate, Lynsey, Georgia and I plan on traveling there at least once this semester.

Can you say surfer dude?

Yes, I get to hang out with pretty girls all day, #sorrynotsorry

Photographed while photographing at the surfing beach

After a long day of surfing, we piled back onto the bus and started the 9 hour or so journey back to Granada. Home sweet home. That was the thought that came to my mind when we entered Granada. It is amazing how much at home I feel here already. I amazed at how much I have fallen in love with this city. Is it my favorite city? No. But the friends and environment in this city definitely have offered me one of the best experiences of my traveling life than I can remember any other city having.

Cheers to Granada! And to a full semester to come still left unexplored.

Shameless Promotion #sorrynotsorry

2011-09-04T07:59:00.000-07:00

For those of you who read my blog, I will make today's entry a shameless promotion for one of the most awesome organizations ever! You should apply for Global Business Brigades!

The website below has the application and important dates for you to remember! Check it out!

http://gbb.tamu.edu/

Also, for those of you who may not have read it yet, let me refer you to one of my earliest entries regarding the last brigade I took to Panama with this organization. It might encourage some of you to apply!

http://jscottperry11.blogspot.com/2011/05/el-choque.html

For questions, feel free to email any of the people below:

Myself, Addicted supporter - jscott.perry11@gmail.com
GBB email - gbb@tamu.edu
Jennifer Ly, President - jenniferly@tamu.edu
Jami Holland, Vice-President - jamidh12@gmail.com
Scott Schuelke, Vice-President - sss101789@neo.tamu.edu
Logan Roby, Vice-President - lroby1@neo.tamu.edu
Young Kim, Enthusiast - yjkim227@gmail.com

Pictures form previous brigades in case you are more inspired visually than with words.

cuentos a través de canciones

2011-09-03T12:46:00.000-07:00

Warning: This blog contains some sexual and drug related references. Although not graphic, the words "naked", "condom", "sex" and "marijuana", among others, all appear in various contexts (not related to me personally). If you are reading this blog with a younger audience (since my blog is so popular that I am sure people read it to their siblings and children and classrooms of students all the time) please note that these themes are discussed. If this is the case, then simply be selective in which stories you share, or be ready to explain certain topics to them earlier than planned.

So although I have blogged a couple times recently, I haven't really listed the stories of what events have actually taken place in the past week. Some good. Some bad. Some interesting. Here they are... enjoy!

To make it more interesting, I will base the stories around song lyrics. Just think of it as my "Top 10" list. Except they aren't my favorite songs. And there are only 6. Ok, so instead just think of it as my "Not Top 6" list.

#1 - I'll be there for you, 'cause you're there for me too - The Rembrandts, Friends theme song

So let me first tell you about the friends I have made in Granada thus far. Although I have met many people in the hostel, two people stick out as somebody I would actually call a friend. I have also enjoyed my first 24 hours with my roommate for the semester and will throw him into this blog as well.

Cloé Devlins

Origin: Paris, France

Gender: Female

Age: almost 20

Language spoken: French, English, learning Spanish, and a few German words

Reason in Granada: studying political science at the University of Granada for a full year through the ERASMUS program

Experiences we have shared:

Hot springs
Market
Hippie hike
Hostel room awkwardness
Comedians via YouTube
Tapas tour
Struggling through Spanish books
Chupitos de la Chupitería

Kim Park

Origin: London, United Kingdom

Gender: Female

Age: 23

Language spoken: English, Spanish, French, German

Reason in Granada: traveling through Spain on vacation until she starts her Master's degree in London this fall

Experiences we have shared:

Market
Hippie hike
Hostel room awkwardness
Comedians via YouTube
Tapas tour
Chupitos de la Chupitería
Siestas

Charles Escalante

Origin: Los Angeles, California, USA

Gender: Male

Age: 21

Language spoken: English, Spanish, learning Portuguese

Reason in Granada: studying for the semester in El Centro de Linguas Modernas with Sol Education Abroad

Experiences we have shared:

Host family introductions
Tapas tour
Chupitos de la Chupitería
Siestas

Kim and Cloé on our hippie hike

#2 - It's getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes - Nelly

So I finally decided to quit being lazy... and by "decided" I mean Cloé convinced me to do more than just walk around aimlessly all day. Our hostel at the time offered a trip to some natural hot springs nearby at night. We decided to take a relaxing evening and let the thermal waters soothe our weary bodies. Slowly but surely, as the events of the night unfolded, this trip got more and more sketchy... which definitely makes things more interesting.

Let me describe the group to you. Besides me, the group consisted of Cloé (from France), two German girls from our hostel, a Spanish couple who I believe live in Granada, and... Pepe. Oh Pepe... you will here more about him in the other stories as well. Pepe is about 50 years old and seems to have an undefined business arrangement with the hostel. He comes once a week to pick up a group of travelers and go to the hot springs. Upon his arrival, we all piled into a large, albeit slightly shady van.

The springs were about 20 minutes outside of the city. But the further we got from the city, the more confused I felt about the trip. After about 10 minutes, Pepe turns off the highway onto a dirt road. Even the term "dirt road" is used loosely... perhaps "off-roading" would be more appropriate in this situation. He drove his van through terrain it was definitely not built to handle, and we gripped the seats in an effort to keep our bodies from rattling around and turning into life-sized bobbleheads.

Finally, he stopped in the middle of nowhere, literally, and we gladly jumped out of the van. The spring in front of us was about the size of a normal household swimming pool. At one end, a large pipe was spraying out water into this hole in the ground... and at that point the term "natural" hot springs definitely became questionable. Either way, we eased into the spring and were immediately rewarded with a great jacuzzi. In fact, the water was so warm, we had to continuously stand out of the water to cool off our bodies. Plus, since the trip happened at night, and we were well outside of the city and its lights, we were able to stare up and see thousands of starts in the night sky. Quite an amazing view and location.

Due to the intensity of the heat, Pepe mentioned that there was another springs about 5 minutes away that was slightly cooler in temperature. We decided to check it out. As we walked toward our new destination, Pepe rambled on about the springs and slipped in a comment about how people often get naked in these springs. We took that and filed it away, not really worried because thus far we had seen nobody else at these springs. However, as if to spite us for throwing away that knowledge so quickly, we arrived at the second springs and were greeted with 7 or 8 men... most of whom were very naked.

We edged into the pool and formed our own little circle on the opposite side from these men. Still wanting to enjoy ourselves, we looked past this turn of events and focused on other topics besides nude people. However, as Pepe continued talking, he again sneaks in a comment that made the situation a lot more clear. Apparently, the springs are also a place for gay men to "meet"...

As if to taunt us with this shocking revelation, Cloé suddenly felt something brush past her in the water. She picked up the floating object, only to realize it was a condom-wrapper, missing its contents inside. Yep, it was an interesting experience.

#3 - Please excuse me I don't mean to be rude, but tonight I'm loving you" - Ludacris

After Kim joined our little gang of adventurers, she told Cloé and I that she was planning to go to a market the next morning, but that it seemed a little sketchy. Immediately curious, we inquired more about the trip. Kim has asked the front desk abotu bus tickets to the markets outside of the city. They instead convinced her to call some guy who apparently goes to the market every Thursday and would gladly take her with him... well who does this generous man turn out to be? None other than our beloved Pepe!

As we start off the next morning to the market we are already expecting surprises along the way. With Pepe, things like that seemed to happen quite frequently. The market was in a little village outside of the city about 30 minutes (it seems nothing we do with Pepe will never actually take place in Granada). It was a small market but seemed to have everything you could possibly want. Most notably, the majority of the clothing booths seemed eager to sell you undergarments of every type imaginable. I'm not so sure I want to buy my underwear in front of crowds of people and bargain down the price at the same time. Maybe that's just me.

Better yet was the table that, among other things, offered us the chance to buy "Love Dice". Apparently, you roll the dice and whatever it shows, you and your significant other must do. After Kim, Cloé and I make a few funny, albeit slightly immature, comments about the dice we move on. After making a circle around the market, we met up with Pepe and ended up at the same table so Cloé could find a bracelet. Let's jsut say, the whole time we were at the table, Pepe was VERY interested in only one product... the dice.

As if to confirm his desires, we found ourselves in the truck, about to head back to Granada, when Kim sees a book in the front seat that peaked her interest. As we further investigated this literature, we discovered the title to be La Salud a través del Sexo. For you non-Spanish speakers, this is roughly translated.. ok literally translated... as Health Through Sex. Oh Pepe...

On the drive back, Pepe rambled on as usual and at one point suddenly stopped and said he wanted to show us something. The three of us took a collective breath of apprehension as his hand reached straight for the book... no offense to Pepe but that was not the topic we would have picked for a drive back to Granada. Luckily, he simply fished out a CD buried underneath the book. Awkward conversation averted.

#4 - Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high - Afroman

So on the way back from the market to Granada, we thought Pepe was done with surprises for the day, but we were very wrong. About halfway back, he suddenly turns off the main road onto another dirt road that seemed to lead further into the mountain and away from the city. This certainly was not in the plans and confused us all again, especially knowing some of his tendencies now, but we decided there wasn't much else to do, so we trusted him.

We ended up in a hippie community hidden away in the mountains, and when I say hippie, I mean true hippie. Not the Austin, TX hippies that grow dreadlocks and eat organic food and play guitars on the street and wear their fashionable, yet worn out and rugged clothing in the comfort of the city. No, these were true hippies giving up many modern conveniences and living in communities across the mountain.

There seemed to be three styles of architecture in this community.

Busted down automobiles and vans that served as beds, stores, and sometimes and entire "house".
Tents and teepees, typically for the less-permanent hippies in the community.
Hand-made houses from clay and stone on the surrounding mountains.

This communtiy grew their own fruits and vegetables, seemed to use the natural water flows for cleaning themselves and their property, and only went into town to buy the items they couldn't produce themselves, or to sell their artisan crafts as their income.

Needless to say, arts and crafts may not be their ONLY source of income. Something Pepe seemed very quick to point out was the abundance of marijuana plants dispersed among the gardens of the community members. Although mainly used for personal pleasure, I had the feeling that the marijuana is also used to suppplement their financial needs at times.

Now the way the guidebooks mention these communities, the members are described as "new age hippies". Not sure what that means? Well, let's just say they aren't willing to give up EVERY modern convenience. This became very evident when we passed a small hut constructed for the sole purpose of making an internet connection. Even when trying to distance themselves from the world, they must stay connected.

Apparently, Pepe was disappointed because there was a lack of people in the community. Although most the guys in the area were shirtless, he mentioned that the women usually were too... and was confused as to why we hadn't seen any yet. Pepe only seems to have one thing on his mind. Dirty old man. We love him.

This mountainous hike did afford us with some good views.

#5 - Shot... shot... shot, shot, shot... EVERYBODY - LMFAO

The word for a shot in Spain is chupito. One of the popular places to go out in Spain is the Chupitería... aka shot bar. These are common in the USA as well, and for those of you at A&M, this will bring back memories of The Dry Bean for most of you guys. However, the shot bar here goes above and beyond by allowing you to collect points. For every shot you take, you get one point, and you can turn in these points for prizes. Anything from a keychain for 10 points, to a sweatshirt for 70 points. Add on a fooseball table and some classic dance music to the atmosphere and you have a fun place to go out!

#6 - Tonight's gonna be a good night - Black Eyed Peas

Tapas are great here! Tapas are small portions of food that come free (if you know the right places to go) with any drink you order. So we can go to a place, sit down and order a beer or glass of wine or even a soda or juice, and then shortly after they bring us sandwiches or curry or fish or tortilla or cheese... and then we do that all night. You move from one place to the next, drinking and eating free food, and enjoying the evening and the company of friends. One of the best ideas ever! I will miss this. For about 8 Euros (about 12 dollars) I can have about 5 drinks and more food than I want.

Touché Spain. You may be in a bad way economically, but combine tapas with the siesta and you might have the best lifestyle situation ever.

blog de mi familia española

2011-09-02T08:47:00.000-07:00

Today I moved in with my host family. After about a week of relaxing and doing nothing (and a week where I honestly was pretty sheltered from speaking Spanish since the students in the hostel all use English to communicate), I am now forced to enter the reality that is the education and practice of the Spanish language.

Let me tell you about my family. Marisa Serrano is my mother (hereinafter referred to as my "madre", so you don't confuse my stories with my stateside mother). She has two kids, Marisa (great, not confusing at all) and Rafael (called Rafa by his friends). Rafa is 15 and Marisa is 16. The apartment is actually fairly large! From my tour, it seems to be 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, kitchen, living room, and some other undefined rooms. Pretty impressive for an apartment in the middle of the downtown area of Granada. Oh, I can't forget the dog! They have a very docile black labrador named Tasca (sp?).

The Spanish spoken here isn't the fastest Spanish I've heard, but they blend a lot of words together. As you can imagine, this makes it very difficult for somebody learning the language to distinguish each individual word. It would be hard enough for me to understand even if every word were laid out for me to process and translate, much less thrown together like a heap of dirty laundry for me to sort out. But, this is why I am here... I am not here to travel around Europe (although I will do some traveling), I am not here to drink sangría or eat paella or meet pretty women (although those are all good bonuses)... but I am here to immerse myself in the Spanish language as much as possible and come back much stonger in my "fluency" (I use the term very loosely).

I have picked up some kep phrases that legitimize my Spanish in the eyes of the Granadians.

"granaino" = Granadian (the actual word is "granadino" but the locals shorten it)
"Dame una milno." = Give me an Alhambra 1925 beer
"mas o menos" = more or less (but pronounced "ma o meno" by dropping the s's... true local colloquialism)

So where I lack in total comprehension of the language, I will make up for it with these local phrases to impress the granainos.

Hasta luego.

blog que falta un tema

2011-08-28T16:51:00.000-07:00

THis blog has no specific theme... jsut more musings based on photos I took throughout the day.

SIDE NOTE: Photos put on my blog thus far were all taken from my iPhone. Better quality pictures from my camera will be added when I get a chance, but less frequently.

Perhaps the best street musicians I have ever heard. Not that I listen to classical music enough to tell you song titles or composers, but these three guys were playing music that I knew to be very well-renowned and tough pieces. I was in band for 7 years... I know tough music when I hear it. And something about listening to string instruments on a cool night while sipping wine and reading a good book... perfection.

I don't think there has ever been a city with more plazas per square mile than Granada. Seriously, ever time there is an intersection with four corners large enough to put a statue or a fountain or even just a sign... it instantly becomes a "plaza". Typically, in most cities were plazas are less common, I use them to orient me as to my location... but here it is nearly impossible to remember the eleven plazas surrounding my hostel, much less the dozens of plazas across the city. Luckily, some are pretty awesome, such as the one below.

Granada is reppin' the old school Apple-lovers! Pretty sure there wasn't even a store here anymore, but the sign still hangs there, nevertheless, as a sign of hope for technology in the future!

The only thing I have to say about this photo is that my future family better get ready to travel in style, like these people. They better be ready to travel adventurously... and perhaps not in the most luxurious places. Just a forewarning to my future wife, or those girls out there interested in me.

Random graffiti and unused fountain. Thought it looked cool. That's it. Christina Sattler and Bailey Radley understand my infatuation with tasteful graffiti.

One of the best things about Granada... they have these tarps that stretch across the apartments to shade the walkways and roads below! The weather is already nice, but when you don't have to worry about the sun beating down on you as you stroll leisurely through whimsical lanes, life gets good.

I honestly think the city is most beautiful at night. There is something about buildings and architecture that I admire greatly. But the truly great architects know not only how to make a building or sculpture beautiful from all angles in the daytime, but to transform into a beacon of the night as well with a careful blend of its structures with lights.

Sorry that creativity failed me tonight. I told you it comes and goes. ¡Hasta luego!

Blog de gelato

2011-08-28T08:38:00.000-07:00

This will be my "gelato" blog and will be updated every time I try a new flavor... listed in order with the newest flavor on top. Also, I will keep a tally of how many times I eat each flavor to determine my favorite by the end of the semester. So far, Snickers is definitely the clear winner.

If you happen to count how many days I've been here and how many gelatos I've already had... you might realize how bad this could get...

Stracciatella (chocolate chip, basically) - |
Piña (pineapple) - |
Sandía (watermelon) - |
Vainilla (can you guess it? Vanilla!) - |
Huevo Kinder (Kinder egg, a chocolate candy popular in Europe) - ||
Manzana (green apple) - |

Tarta de miel y canela (cinnamon-honey) - |
Snickers (yes, like the candy bar) - ||||
Plátano (banana) - |

blog de números

2011-08-26T10:03:00.000-07:00

A blog based on numbers... because I can.

1
The ONE thing I could get used to most of all... and unfortunately already have... are siestas! It is so nice that right when that lull hits you mid-afternoon around 3 PM... it hits everybody else too! And instead of fighting through it for the sake of productivity and profit... people here simple give in and rest. Amazing!

2

There are TWO O's in the word Smöoy. Although gelato is definitely the ice cream-like dessert of choice here in Granada, the fro-yo craze has managed to penetrate the market a little. Enter Smöoy (pronounced like "gooey").

There are also TWO hands that create TWO door handles on the door that creeped me out the most today during my wanderings.

Ironically, there were also TWO items to discuss under the number TWO within my numbers blog.

I have now been lost THREE times since my arrival in Granada.

Consequently, I have now discovered THREE different spots that I have enjoyed relaxing by that were not mentioned in my guidebook... the benefits of wandering aimlessly.

This also happens to be day number THREE in Granada for me; as well blog number THREE posted on THREE subsequent days.

I have now tried FOUR different flavors of gelato. Don't believe me? Flavors are listed:

Manzana (apple - pictured below)
Tarta de miel y canela (cinnamon-honey)
Snickers (yes, Snickers candy bar... and my favorite so far I might add)
Plátano (banana)

The diet here in Spain is wonderful, as you can tell.

There were FIVE different colored entryways in a row, and these were not an isolated incident. From my experience, Hispanic cultures love colors! In Panamá, Costa Rica, and other Hispanic-based cultures I have visited also enjoy painting their restaurants, houses, businesses, schools, etc. with bright, bold colors. I feel that expressive decorating in this fashion would not be socially allowed in the United States... at least not on the outside of buildings. In terms of exterior design, we tend to like conservative and/or modern designs that blend in.

I also did some stalking today to find out where my host family is housed... even though I haven't met them yet. I simply put their address into Google maps and discovered they were only a few blocks away from my hostel. It's crazy to think I may have passed my host mom, brother, or sister many times over these past few days and never known. Not to shy away from my numbers theme too much, their building has FIVE stories.

Now that I have entertained myself for about SIXty minutes (ok a bit of a stretch... I know), I'm off for round SIX of tapas!

dos días, dos entradas del blog

2011-08-25T11:58:00.000-07:00

2 days. 2 blog entries. Don't get used to this.

Day one in Spain. Today was a very relaxing day. After sleeping in and showering and making sure everything was in order via email/Facebook, I set off with no real intentions for the day other than to wander the streets of Granada.

I will never be able to express fully in words the feelings you get from the sights and smells and sounds of traveling, nor will I be able to define how much the little things effect me in a story. So instead I will have to be content with sharing stories with you via pictures and simply sharing small and unimportant, but hopefully informative and/or funny bits about the day.

Maybe throughout the semester, the avant-garde lifestyle and freedom of the European culture will inspire my creative juices. Until then, this is what you get:

Finally found a place that I can go to when I get homesick... and by homesick I mean when I get Mexican food cravings. Literally only 2 blocks away from my hostel and about 10 feet from where my host family is located.

Yes, in Spain the Disney Store exists... however, it is known here as The Fantasy Store. Sounds a lot less kid-friendly and a lot more "dirty".

Location of my lunchtime adventures. It took me forever to find a place to eat. Not because of lack of options. Not because of a language barrier. Simply because I realized I don't like to eat alone. I feel awkward sitting at a restaurant by myself that isn't fast food or at a bar. But, I persevered and enjoyed it a lot. Plus, fresh-squeezed pineapple juice eased my apprehension.

Definitely got completely lost while wandering around. Sometimes getting lost allows you to discover little plazas such as this one that were perfect for an early-afternoon rest/reading break.

SIDE NOTE: I recently got the Barnes & Noble NOOK (kin to the Amazon Kindle) and absolutely love it. It was hard because I assumed I would always want the feel and smell and texture of books, which I love, but there is something so efficient and lightweight and simple about the NOOK that its positives for sure outweigh its negatives. And for somebody who travels as much as me, and will be traveling a lot with my future job, I could ask for no better solution to my book-carrying needs.

Found the school I will be studying at. ¡El Centro de Linguas Modernas! Tucked away in a tiny alley that took me about an hour to find. I have come to love the winding alleyways, and so-called "streets" of Granada. Reminds me a lot of Rome. It is fun to follow random pathways and stumble upon hidden restaurants and stores that you wouldn't know about otherwise.

¡Llegué!

2011-08-24T10:50:00.000-07:00

I have arrived!

Current location:

After several days of non-stop travel (literally, I will list it out below) I have made it to Granada, Spain!

Friday - finished up work in the Houston office for Bain and drove to Dallas to pack up my apartment
Saturday - drove to New Braunfels with everything from Dallas and unloaded it in my parents' house
Sunday - drove to College Station for some meetings on Sunday/Monday
Monday - drove back to New Braunfels after my meetings to finish packing for Spain
Tuesday - woke up early to head to San Antonio airport and take the first of 3 flights
Wednesday - arrive in Madrid and miss final flight to Granada due to delays... so spent some lovely time in the Madrid airport... but finally arrived at my hostel in Granada!

Needless to say, the traveling has worn me out. I am spending the night in the hostel simply resting and deciding on my plan of attack for city exploration. I have 9 days before my program officially starts... so I will be relaxing, acclimating to the Spanish language again, reading, walking, and in general giving myself a small vacation this summer before school starts up.

Please feel free to Skype me this semester! (jscott.perry) and I promise, anytime my laptop is on, I will have Skype running... although keep in mind I am 7 hours ahead of you ;)

Adiós por ahora!

life as an intern

2011-07-25T08:45:00.000-07:00

Prelude/current misery

As I sit here in the DFW airport, I realize I have just been given the wonderful gift of time to contemplate about anything and everything I want. How did I get this gift? Let me tell you.

As I booked travel to Philadelphia this week, I arranged for the earliest flight possible on Monday morning. We are working from our client's headquarters in Philly for the entire week, and have both a large factbase presentation and innovation workshop. My wonderful flight time of choice was 6:10 AM. So I dutifully, and grudgingly, pull myself out of bed around 4:30 AM... get dressed in business casual... ensure I have enough stuff to get me through 4 days in a hotel... and set off for DFW.

Now in the past, I have flown out of DAL using Southwest for direct flights to Houston. As such, I became accustomed to the efficient lines, and general lack of urgency needed to make a flight. I should have remembered this is not true of all airports. As I pull up to DFW about 45 minutes before my flight, and see the security line, I get my first wave of fear. But at that point, all I can do is wait. By the time I actually get to the security checkpoint, it is 6:00 AM... and with 10 minutes to spare, my chances of making my flight were getting much slimmer. Then, of all times, my bag is chosen to be inspected further... and I am taken to the side and asked to open the bag to a security guard. Thanks TSA.

By the time I prove I am not a terrorist that is going to hijack the plane, it is literally 6:07 AM. As I book it through the terminal to my gate, my panic rises. Finally, as I run up to the gate counter at 6:11 AM, out of breath, I see nobody around and tell the airport worker "I think I jsut missed my flight". He checks for me by looking up my flight and says, "Your flight doesn't leave for another 5 hours"...

Somewhere between the travel I booked and the boarding pass I was given, there was a disconnect. As such, I have been sitting in the DFW airport since 6:15 AM, waiting for my now 11:25 AM flight. And as such, I now am updating you all on my internship experience.

To give you further insight into my intership, I will give you a brief overview of what I am working on. I have also been sending out a "What I learned at work today" Tweet when creativity hits me, so I have posted these below with the stories to go with them. ENJOY!

Overview of my work

So although my work at Bain must be kept confidential, I am allowed to use broad general terms to describe what I do. After two weeks of thrilling training, we were finally given our client work. My case involves the downstream portion of the oil & gas indutsry. A little more specifically, I am working on a retail strategy case, whcih means I am learning more about gas stations and convenience stores than I ever thought possible. The cool parts of my case are that:

This is a new client, so I have been with the case since its inception, and have seen how a case builds up from the beginning.
I am getting to travel a lot, from Dallas to Houston to Philadelphia.
I am working on a pure strategy case, which means we can actually affect the way this company will operate and compete in the next few years.
I can now tell you where every single gas station is in the United States... and yes there are over 130,000.

What I learned at work today (transcribed from Twitter... follow me! @jscottperry):

It doesn't matter how late you work, when followed by Rihanna concert box seats.

As one of our "intern events", Bain decided to buy us box seats to the Rihanna concert at the American Airlines Center. Personally, I am not a huge Rihanna fan, but who can say no to that offer? Let's juat say the experience proved to be... "interesting". The show itself was a blur of bright lights, shameless outfits, and practically a stripper/sex show on stage. However, the most exciting part occurred near the end. After one of the better, less controversial songs, some fireworks lit up the stage: LITERALLY. The back of the stage somehow caught on fire! At first, it was a small flame that we joked about, but it grew, and Grew, and GREW! Until finally smoke filled the center and we were all forced to evacuate. An eventful end to an interesting night.

How to create pivot tables with 130,000 rows of data without crashing Excel.

When working with data on every single gas station in the USA, Excel becomes very hostile to any kind of function... most notably VLOOKUP and Pivot Tables. However, the power of ALT + E + S + V has saved me many times. It now takes my Excel model 30 seconds to run what used to take 45 minutes, literally. Thank you Microsoft for understanding the issues we consultants have.

The BSD (Blue Screen of Death) is the reason I don't voluntarily use Dell computers.

I will always be a Machead (aka Apple fan) for life. And this summer has not changed that opinion whatsoever. Our work laptops are definitely NOT Macs, and as such they have pros and cons. When working in Microsoft Excel and Powerpoint (which is literally all I do, I have not opened Microsoft Word once) the shortcuts and ease with which the software and hardware work together is amazing. However, I still don't think these newfound abilities in any way can compare with my love for Apple products. Yes, I know we tend to be "snobby" about our products, and I can't help that. But when I was given an error message 3 times in my first week of client work, had my hard drive "wiped" twice and already had to clean out 5 viruses/bugs from my computer, I know that I am snobby for a reason. #sorrynotsorry

You can get a callus on your index finger by using the trackball too much.

So according to one of our trainers, the trackpad on a laptop is for nubes. To survive as a consultant, it is all about the trackball in the middle of the keyboard. It makes work more efficient because you don't have to move your hand the 2 inches it would take to go down to the trackpad. Apparently the few seconds it saves adds up over time. Only a consultant would think like this. Of course, to prove ourselves, we decided to go into the computer settings and turn off the trackpad, so we are forced to use the trackball. Yes, we are overachieving interns and I now find myself reaching for the nonexistent trackball on my Macbook... #frustrating. I am sorry Steve Jobs... forgive me.

Having a field day for homeless children is better than researching analyst reports and industry databases.

Twice a year, Bain gives every employee the day off to volunteer at some community organization. My particular task was to assist with a field day for a daycare-type center for children of homeless families. The term "field day" may be a stretch, and the term "extended recess" may be more appropriate, seeing as we pretty much played on the playground the whole time. However, these kids were precious! I met the future Lebron James... seriously, it was embarassing to see a 4-year old with better form and precision than myself. A sponge race turned into pouring water on as many of the volunteers as possible. Some sassy 5-year old girls kicked me out of the girls-only clubhouse :(. Overall, this was a nice break from hours of reading industry and analyst reports and Googling oil & gas terms I was unfamiliar with.

It doesn't matter what your answer is as long as your slides are pretty.

We put so much thought into our slide creation it is insane! But necessary. My task may be something as simple as, "Scott, how many gas stations does each major competitor have in the U.S.". Since I already have the data, it will take me less than 30 minutes to find all the answers, but it will then take me 3 hours to create a single slide to show this information. Typically, I create it, it gets reviewed, I redo it with the edits, it is decided a different chart type would be better, I redo it with the new style, it is decided that the information isn't the best way to prove our point, I research some new data and redo the slide, it is decided the slide really doesn't help answer our question, my slide gets saved forever... unused. #RIP

But, serious side note... the slides are super important because they are the manifestations of our knowledge ina simple and succinct form for the client. If we can't express and share what we want the client to take from our presentation, we have not done our job.

Goldfish crackers and frosted mini wheats are all you need for a nutritious meal.

The breakroom at Bain offices are deadly. There is an endless supply of snacks jsut waiting to be eaten. I have a habit in college of taking breaks from studying/working to go and get food. Now food has become synonomous with break time. Aka, everytime I need to stretch my legs and get up from my desk... I wander over to the breakroom and grab a bowl of cereal or a handful of goldfish or whatever other treat may be left in the room. I think I should devise a practice case interview for students to estimate how many goldfish I ate during my summer internship.

When YouTube is buffering, you can play snake with the buffering circle.

Some of you may have known this wonderful news already, but if you are waiting for a video to upload and get annoyed with staring at the loading circle going around and around and around, then simply hit the arrow keys and a game of Snake ensues. Not that I get on YouTube while at work.

El Choque

2011-05-25T14:04:00.000-07:00

Texas A&M Global Business Brigades just arrived back in the United States after an amazing week in Tortí Abajo, Panama.

I titled this post "El Choque" for several reasons:

This is the name of the newest dance we all learned on the trip. Imagine the traditional "bump and grind" dance... now subtract the "grind"... and add any body part you want... you have the Choque. Try it out next time you hit up Northgate!

For your viewing pleasure, El Choque: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKZr-YrFkI8&oref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fresults%3Fsearch_query%3Dchoque%2Bdance%26aq%3D1%26oq%3Dchoque&has_verified=1

Choque can have several meanings in Spanish, and one of the most literal translations is "shock". This trip has definitely shocked me in many ways, both good and bad.

I was shocked at the amazing bond 31 people were able to form. Our brigades in the past have been 18 and 11 students, respectively, and both times we had two brigade leaders from Global Brigades. This trip consisted of 25 Aggies, one professional brigader from Apple, and 5 Global Brigades staff members! And yet, there is not a single person I did not get to know about. Granted you always get to know the people you are surrounded by the best, but every person made an effort to gain a level of intimacy with every other person on the trip.

I was shocked at the success of Global Brigades newest model. It's not often that an organization can completely reinvent itself, and do so successfully. However, Global Business Brigades has done just that. With an emphasis on the community and individual family goals/needs, GB has truly implemented a model that defines sustainable development. Instead of allowing the simple act of giving a physical object define our work, we learned to focus on the intangibles such as education on savings, budgets, loans, project planning, business organization, and co-operative assistance. In the long run, this knowledge is what can bring this community economic growth and can create an independence that will benefit its members in the long-run.

I was shocked that I now see a long-term relationship for myself and Global Brigades. In the past, I considered each brigade to be my last, and then the trip would change me in some way, and I would convince myself to go on another one. After my third brigade this past week, I truly thought this would end my time with Texas A&M GBB and Global Brigades at large. It was just an organization that I participated in during college, and amazing as it was, nothing more. However, this trip has opened up a truly remarkable plan for my life that I cannot wait to embark upon. I was taken aside by the GB staff members on the trip and literally told that this cannot be the end of my relationship with GB. Whether I come back on another brigade, come back as a translator for a summer, or as a member of the GB staff, I want to remain involved. I would take a job with GB in a heartbeat! Although, logistically there are some things to work out, it is amazing to know what kind of career opportunity could await for me with such a worthwhile organization.

Special thanks to these staff members for all their hard work!

Adriana

Christina

Demetri

Greg

Michelle

I was shocked at the parallels I drew between my future internship and the work in Panama. This summer I will be interning with Bain & Company. I remember preparing for the case interviews and spending countless hours addressing business problems and strategic plans and assessing issues, etc. Case interviews I was presented with included anything from qualitative marketing issues to quantitative mergers & acquisitions. For example, I had one case that was about how to open up a car rental business. In the interview, I looked at potential revenue streams, the market available for such a venture, the various fixed and variable costs associated with this project, and came to a conclusion on the reasonableness of this idea. WE DID THE EXACT SAME THING IN PANAMA! However, instead of looking at things on a corporate level, we addressed issues on an entrepreneurial level. For example, one of our families wanted to start a chicken business, and we helped him assess all the startup costs and continuation costs, his potential sales, and devised a plan for him to take out a micro-loan with the upcoming cooperative. Truly astounding, the parallels that can be found.

See more photos of our trip on the Global Brigades Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/GlobalBrigades

I was shocked at the amount of stuff I personally learned. Ask me about chicken farming, planting yucca, or Coca-Cola distribution in Panama and I can tell you almost everything you need to know!

I was shocked to realize that my love of international development work and my awesome opportunity with Bain & Company at the corporate level can actually go hand in hand. With the newly implemented idea of Professional Brigades, I can actually taken my passion for Global Brigades with me to Bain and hopefully implement some kind of partnership. In the long run, I would love to have Bain become a major partner in Global Brigades work, where each time a university across the nation goes abroad on a brigade, we send any willing Bain employee with them to give more business expertise to the work being done. I was skeptical at the thought of mixing professionals with students' brigades at first, but after having an employee of Apple from California assist us on this past brigade, I have nothing but high hopes for this idea!

This information does not even begin to cover all the small and minor details and stories that make this trip unbelievably amazing!

Chasing frogs around at 4 AM
Late night sessions crunching numbers for a community member
Dancing to Spanish music and learning moves I didn't know were possible
Learning that every single member in the community is probably related to each other
TEAM CHARLIE BROWN!

Experiencing the joy of seeing the excitement of a community member when they finalized realized the benefits of the information we taught them
Volleyball in the rain in Panama with indigenous Embera

Embera language classes... BE NASALLY!
Dance raves on the bus
Getting turned away at the Darien border
Eating a freshly killed deer at the urging of one of our familes
Softball game with the community
Late night conversations about life, our future, our pasts, relationships, and sometimes a bit to much information being shared
Haircuts from the future community salon owner

Pow-wow where we expressed our feelings about the trip and Carolina almost made me cry
Hot seat, never have I ever, and other awkward conversation starters
Group hot conversation (inside joke)
and much, Much, MUCH more!

Support us on Facebook by "liking" our organization's page at Texas A&M: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Texas-AM-Global-Business-Brigades/163794213640252

I know this blog is long, but if you read through everything, I hope you can see the awesomeness that this trip is. Each time gets better than the last. Feel free to call/text/email/Facebook/Twiiter/Skype me and I will tell you so much more about it!

You can always make fun of the Nazis...

2011-05-08T13:11:00.000-07:00

Although this blog was meant to be dedicated to my adventures and travels outside of College Station, it seems appropriate that I should write about one of the greatest adventures I have been a part of within College Station this year: Fellows.

Last night was the end of the year banquet for Group XXIX. Although I could go into detail about everything that happened, I will simply give you the highlights and best parts.

Om Chitale called out by GVA to sing in front of everyone
Kelsey Hooten dancing to Om's rendition of Earth Angel
GVA whipping the backup singers into shape and performing a falsetto I have never heard from him before
Speeches by Eric Newman, Om Chitale, and Stephanie Wells... sincere, humorous, and very touching
"You can always make fun of the Nazis, and nobody will care"
The impressive slideshow by Jean Marie Ellwood highlighting Fellows throughout the year
Dinner with Anita Van Alstyne... always a treat
Last round of coordinator pictures with "the best staff" GVA has ever worked with...
Caveat
Realizing the relationships that have formed and will continue into the future
Meeting the parents of so many awesome students/friends/fellow Fellows
Stressfully running around all afternoon with Tara Romero and having an accidental SATDOF
Finally understanding that all mistakes aside, this year of Fellows has been amazing!

There is something to be said about Fellows and the impact it has made on me. Some ways are very realizable and tangible: Fellows taught me about the consulting industry and led me to gain my internship from the summer, Fellows taught me to follow my passions and set priorities in life, Fellows gave me experience in working with highly motivated people within the business school and various industries.

However, it is the less tangible and more emotional aspects that I truly enjoy about Fellows: the friendships I have made, the students who have inspired me, and the personal connections I have made with the coordinators and GVA.

From dinners each week, to random hangouts with Fellows, to the NYC trip and best bonding experience ever, to weekly coordinator meetings with GVA; this semester has been unforgettable. When else will I have a $1,300 dinner at Christopher's in the company of such wonderful people?

There is no way to truly express how much Fellows has meant to me; however, as I sat there at the banquet watching Tara Romero tear up and see other people refuse to accept the end of their time with Fellows, I realized how grateful I am to spend another year with GVA and a wonderful new set of coordinators.

So hopefully all my posts are not this serious, but HERE'S TO FELLOWS!

Greenlight on the new blog

2011-04-30T12:26:00.000-07:00

Starting a new blog. No promises that it will always be witty or even interesting, but if you want to keep up with info on my internship/travels this summer, and my semester in Spain, this is the place to be.

When I can't think of something humorous, I might just post a photo or something. I know, I'm so creative.