Random International Update (21.10.13)

Peniche, Portugal

I left for the Barcelona airport at 4:30 AM on Friday morning not knowing what to expect from my random last minute trip to Portugal. My flight was not until 7:00 AM, but my friend Ryan had a flight at 6:00 AM, so it made sense to split one. To be honest, I do not remember much from Friday morning in Barcelona. I was running on about an hour of sleep and zero breakfast (I had a big dinner + ice cream the previous night). I figuratively crashed on the plane (because it is hard for just one person to physically crash on a commercial flight with hundreds of passengers). I then crashed figuratively again on the bus in Portugal. However. I arrived to Lisbon around 8:00 AM (it's an hour behind Barcelona) and only had 30 minutes to catch my bus to Peniche. As it turns out, the shuttle from the airport only runs every 40 minutes (sigh) so I actually barely ended up catching the 10:00 AM bus! I was still a no-sleep zombie, so this was all somewhat of a blur. I do remember that there was some confusion at the ticket office over whether my earlier bus ticket was valid for the later bus. "They" ended up deciding that it would cost 1,90€ to revalidate my ticket for the required departure time. Thankfully, English is the language of choice for all service industries in Europe. American culture and business has an enormous world-wide reach. I suppose some of its reach is due to the former British Empire. But mostly America (we are #1!). So I got the ticket sorted out, and it was off to Peniche!

Upon arrival, I only had the direction address of my friend Angelo's hotel to guide me. 

=Linguistic Note=

In Spanish, the word for address is dirección. I accidentally re-translated back to English directly from the Spanish word. Didn’t even realize the error until editing.

Peniche is a small place. But I was a little worried that Angelo wouldn’t be in his hotel room and that I would have to wait for hours (it was about 12:30 PM by the time I arrived at the hotel). I wandered through the streets of Peniche with my little suitcase, following the map at the bus station, and arrived at the hotel successfully. The gods smiled upon me, and Angelo answered the door when I knocked. In about 45 minutes, we met up with Enrique, a dude from Murcia, who had a van. The beaches were a few kilometers away. The gods had also smiled upon Angelo on his first day in Peniche (he was there for a week) when Enrique stopped to give Angelo a ride back to the hotel in exchange for a nice, hot shower. We went in Enrique’s van over to a surf shop to rent my surfboard and wetsuit (it was 40€ for two days… not too shabby!), and then we left for the beach! We stayed an hour and a half or two hours out on the big waves (I was basically a lifeguard… did not stand up on a wave all of Friday). It was also really rainy and windy. After this first session, we went over to the lovely Swiss-owned restaurant with free WiFi and had lunch with Francia. Angelo and I called the group of five French kids “Francia”. They were all on vacation for a few weeks, living out of a van and another smaller car. After lunch, we drove over to another beach, a little bit to the north. The waves were great, and the rain had stopped. Having scouted the area successfully, we returned to Francia to let them know about it. I stayed at the first beach with the other two French guys (slightly more inexperienced than I was at surfing…) to get my surfing form down while the others drove over to the new spot. After hours of surfing on the beautiful Portuguese coastline, we all reunited at our favorite Swiss-owned restaurant (called “3House”). Angelo, Enrique and I did not eat dinner with Francia; instead we returned to the hotel (now it was raining again) to shower and go eat some awesome seafood. I had some delicious codfish (I think that was what I ordered). 

Surf. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. This was the motto. Angelo and I went downstairs to get our complimentary breakfast (woo!) and saved some food for Enrique (who was arriving later in his van, where he sleeps). Enrique has a dog! Named Thea. She’s awesome. Photos to follow. We drove over to the normal beach, where Francia slept at night, to see if any of them wanted to go to Ericeira, a town about 50 km to the south of Peniche. They respectfully declined, so it was just Angelo, Enrique and myself.  And Thea. Using the amazing navigation system on iPhones that works even without cell phone service (what?!), we arrived an hour or so later, around 1:00 PM. We stopped at some overlooks to see the waves at various places, but it was quite choppy. So we went to lunch at a great little place in the center of Ericeira, and returned to Peniche afterwards. That afternoon, we met up with Francia again. With Francia following, we drove to find the beach that Angelo’s surfing application said was awesome. After many dirt roads and nearly getting lost, we arrived. The waves weren’t great, but we found an old, iron bridge structure, a big exposed deposit of clay, and caterpillars. Oh, and a beautiful beach. Just not the greatest waves (surfers are picky). After returning to the original beach (with 3House, the restaurant), I stayed there with the smaller, smoother waves and the two French guys. It was a perfect afternoon. The weather was warm, the sun was out, and the waves were just my type. I stayed on the water until the sun set off into the Atlantic behind the small village nestled on the nearby peninsula, called Baleal. I rode a full, proper wave all the way, and a few halfway. It was so cool. After surfing until exhaustion. I got a coffee at the 3House with the French guys while we waited for the others to return. Then Enrique, Angelo and I showered and went to dinner. I had some spectacular salmon and tried Angelo’s octopus, cooked with suction cups and all. Surf. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.

Actually, in between the eating and the sleeping we went to a beach bar next to 3House with Francia. It was packed full of all sorts of surfer people. The bar opens up to the beach on one side. It was so cool. We ended up getting back to the hotel and sleeping around 6:00 AM.

Sunday my arms were extremely sore. I did not surf Sunday. Instead, since Angelo really wanted to catch a few waves before our flight at 8:30 PM, I took some photos and played fetch with Thea on the beach while Angelo surfed and Enrique body-surfed.

Enrique dropped us off at the bus station around 3:30 PM. Angelo and I said our heartfelt goodbyes, and hopped on the bus to Lisbon. At the airport Angelo checked-in his surfboard (I love the Portuguese airline, TAP. Not only do they check surfboards efficiently, but they also have a newspaper/magazine stand where you can pick up a free one to read on the plane, and also they give you a free drink, sandwich, coffee, and little bottle of strawberry smoothie on the flight (which is only 1:30 long in total). We finally arrived back at the apartment complex after a shuttle bus to Plaça Catalunya + a shared taxi (with Gabi, who was coming back from Amsterdam and whom I ran into at the baggage claim). After unpacking and showering, I got some sleep in preparation for another full week of class.

Rainy Friday.

Sunny Saturday.

Adventure to the beach to the north on Friday afternoon.

This weekend was a nice break (pun very much intended).

Casual view out of the hostel window on Saturday morning.

Adventure on Saturday along dirt roads... it paid off. 

I love my iPhone's camera. It uses its 8 megapixels well.

Wrote my name & the year on the wall of clay.

Iron bridge thingy (and Thea!)

Day trip to Ericeira. Pretty choppy, as you can see.

Angelo on my right, Enrique driving. Great crew.

 Beautiful pink sunset sky on Saturday.

In the center, that's Angelo surfing. And Thea, too, looking for her fetch-rock.

Random International Update (13.10.13) <-- symmetry

Another week of classes! My Spanish literature classes are interesting, however one of the classes now only meets once a week, as opposed to twice a week, because of some sort of scheduling conflict with the professor. So, instead we have higher expectations of independent studying... we will see how that goes. My economics classes are quite difficult, but it helps that I speak English better than the teachers (many economics classes in Europe are taught in English). Now that I am officially registered in all of my classes and go to them regularly, here is the breakdown. 

Monday

Español - Avanzado

11:00 - 13:00

This is my daily dose of Spanish grammar. It is a double credit class that counts for absolutely nothing with regards to my major requirements. I am unsure what it counts for at all, actually. Maybe just credits towards graduation... but I am in no need of those after overloading classes for two years. The class is mostly American students. There is one Canadian that declared her nationality so; others might just be keeping quiet about their homeland, I am not sure. It is by far my easiest class, but the vocabulary is challenging and the grammar worthwhile. 

Language of instruction: Spanish

Pricing Policies

13:00 - 15:15

The first of my two economics classes. Pricing policies is almost purely based on microeconomics, and for this reason it is a pre-approved class for my economics major by the economics department at BC. This is quite a relief, because apparently getting classes approved is a hassle. Anywho, this class is pretty simple, and does not require oodles of work. I am not sure if there is a required textbook; the teacher seems to just upload lots of powerpoints and pdf files to the class web page. 

Language of instruction: English

Culturas Hispánicas en el Siglo de Oro: Textos y Contextos

17:00 - 19:00

The first of my two Spanish literature classes. This class provides a broad overview of Spanish literature and history since its beginning. It would be better titled "Culturas Ibéricas" because the Iberian peninsula was not really all that Hispanic, back in the day. All those Muslims and Jewish folks were ruining the Catholics purity and stuff. This class is a little slower than the others, but it is interesting most of the time and it should be able to be approved for my Hispanic Studies Major.

Language of instruction: Spanish

Tuesday

Literatura del Siglo XX 

9:00 - 11:00

Literature from Latin America. Authors include Rubén Darío, Pablo Neruda, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez, and Julio Cortázar, to name a few of the better known fellows. I say fellows because I did not see any female authors on the syllabus. The professor explains things clearly, and enunciates very well. 
Language of instruction: Spanish

Español - Avanzado

11:00 - 13:00

International Finance Economics

15:30 - 18:00

My second economics class, and by far my hardest class of all five. The class is actually one of the more difficult classes I have taken at college. At the end of every class we have a comprehensive quiz over not only the lecture but also the previous night's reading. It is quite work-intensive, and quite the opposite of the general "Spanish college" stereotype I was expecting over here. Another BC student, Ryan, takes the class with me. We seem to have a good level of understanding relative to the other students, but only time will tell how this class goes. At the moment, I cannot say.

Wednesday

Español - Avanzado

11:00 - 13:00

Thursday (long day)

Literatura del Siglo XX 

9:00 - 11:00

Español - Avanzado

11:00 - 13:00

Pricing Policies

13:00 - 13:45

International Finance Economics

15:30 - 18:00

So, those are my classes. Wish me luck!

This last weekend, my good friend Miguel visited me from Madrid. We both had a great time. I showed him a lot of the city, we went out and found some really cool restaurants and bars with an assortment of Barcelona people (some only I knew, some only he knew, some mutual friends... it always varied). If there is one this I will say, it is that making plans basically does not happen here in Spain. Things just happen. You throw your reins away to the universe and instead focus on enjoying the moments you have, rather than worrying where and how your future moments will be spent. It's a simple but unknown way of life to most Americans, I believe. And it surely has an adverse effect on productivity and economic growth. Nonetheless, there is something meaningful behind the peace of mind the culture here gives me. I certainly am not on vacation. But it would seem that if vacation were simply a state of mind free from stress and defined daily schedules, many if not most of the people here have the inveterate ability to switch between work and vacation very fluidly. I suppose the weather helps.

Las Ramblas de Catalunya, the biggest and most famous street in Barcelona. I had to take a walk this afternoon down to a restaurant that a few apartment floormates and I went to a few weeks ago because they double-charged my Visa for my meal. What a bother. The waiter was really, really, astoundingly helpful, though. He even remembered me! Because he told me to keep the receipt when I paid, because he wasn't sure if the machine just malfunctioned or if it did, in fact, pay. I was very impressed by his facial recognition abilities. But yeah. This is a touristy photo. 

Although not quite as touristy as this one! This is Plaça de Catalunya, the main square that Las Ramblas runs by. Like any big square in an international city, you can see a Hard Rock Cafe, a McDonald's, and a Burger King from its center. Disclaimer: there are a revolting amount of pigeons. 

Random International Update (7.10.13)

Munich, Germany

Friday morning I woke up early and went for a run down to the free beach gym. I also ran back. Afterwards I cooked me up a breakfast of champions (cereal, eggs, bacon, crepes + jam, banana) and took a taxi to the airport (not simultaneously). I arrived in Munich around 3:30 PM, meeting my friend Alex from BC in the central airport mall area. We went to go get some early dinner in downtown Munich while we awaited the arrivals of our other five friends. Dinner was lovely. 

The backdrop to lunch in one of the central plazas. We had our first big mug of German bier here!

But more importantly we had no working phones. We only had a general idea about where the hotel/hostel was located. We took the subway to the nearest stop and walked the wrong way for a few blocks. Then Alex performed field surgery on his cell phone, switching his French SIM card for his Brazilian one (which had a semi-functioning data plan), thus enabling us to locate ourselves and walk towards the hotel. However, we stopped in the nearby Chinese restaurant because we had no idea if Lorena or Susan or Pedro [Peter] (under whose names the room was booked) had arrived. So we had a beer and waited. One by one, they arrived at the Chinese restaurant. First, Airen walks in the door by complete coincidence. He also was without a phone, except he traveled by train and took the subway all by himself. Pretty funny how that worked out. Next, Danish Phil walked through the door about half an our later (he may have seen the SOS Facebook message Alex and I sent to the group). Eventually Susan and Lorena saw our message from the hotel WiFi and hurried over to collect us. We settled into the room (two double beds + large-ish futon couch-bed... for seven people. It was cozy!). That night we went to sleep early to get ready for Oktoberfest.

Saturday morning Susan woke up early and cooked eggs and bacon and bought German pastries. Awesome. I helped wash dishes. Everyone changed and/or showered and then we left hostel around 8:45 AM to go to the festival. We arrived around 10:00 AM. It was raining when we got there. This made everyone rush to get into beer tents for cover and beer. We waited in line for an hour at a big tent, gave up, and went to find a smaller one. Forty-five grumpy, wet, hungry minutes later, we got into a small tent named something that starts with 'Z' and contains many consonants. Classic German. What a great few hours! We stay there from about 11:30 AM to 2:00 PM, having a few big glasses of beer, making new friends at tables, and enjoying our shelter from the storm (yes, that's a Bob Dylan reference). The reason we got a table in this particular tent, however, was because they rotate tables of people every few hours, letting new customers in and making old customers leave (and making lots of €€€ in the process). So we had to leave, and we went to buy crispy half-chickens. 

Over-sized German figures can be found all over this place. Over-sized German people, as well. It must be all the carbohydrates.

Their salty, golden skin is to die for. The chickens, not the Germans. Come on, people! After refueling we headed out to other smaller places (we figured the we would save the big beer tents for Sunday, the official last day of Oktoberfest). We only managed to get into one more smaller place. And by 'we' I mean only four of our group of seven. This group was Alex, Lorena, Airen, and yours truly. I've known Alex and Lorena since the first week of college, and Airen lived with us all on Newton campus as well, so it was a really good group. We stayed long enough to get hungry again and thus, we ordered sausages. 

Guten tag. I actually ordered sausages and sauerkraut. With the irresistible Oktoberfest beverage. I actually found it all very resistible. I don't need to eat a meal anywhere similar to this for a long, long time.

By the time we left, it was almost 5:30 PM, and we were done with the beer and rain and commotion. We somehow reunited with our other half of the group and made our way back to the hostel together, after a brief adventure to the amusement park areas. It had stopped raining.

View from the top of a ride. I decided to risk my iPhone's life to take this picture, so you're welcome.

After a deeply loved siesta back home on the range, I googled "Mexican restaurants in Munich" on my iPhone/now-it's-an-iPod-because-no-cellular-data-plan and away we went! It was Lorena's 20th birthday on Saturday, and she was sick of German food (I think). So, Mexican it was. We had a lovely dinner (sans beer). I am developing a taste for Fanta. Fanta is so good. That makes two sodas I like, the original being Dr. Pepper. We again called it an early night, with an early morning awaiting us. We were determined to get into the classic big beer tents of Oktoberfest!

Sunday morning I took a refreshing shower around 6:45 AM, and we later all left the hostel around 7:45 AM. It was not raining when we arrived, nor did it rain once during the whole day. Thus, only a reasonable amount of people entered the beer tents, many instead opting to enjoy the roller coasters and chocolate-covered fruit stands. In case my hyphenated adjective was unclear, these are stands that sell chocolate-covered fruit and are not (alas) stands covered in chocolate themselves. We made our way to these activities, among others, in the afternoon. Back to the bier haus! We all get a nice table in the middle of the tent and enjoyed being in the middle of all the festivities we had planned to attend. 

The inside. The live German music started around 11:00 AM. The tradition in these bier tents is for people (not just guys, mind you) to stand up on their table and chug a liter of beer, much to the joyous cheers of the ever-more inebriated crowd. As the day progresses, people get creative. They sit on their friends' shoulders, they chug two beers instead of one, they sing the song, "Hey Baby".

The group of seven. Right to left: Alex, Pedro, Airen, Phil, Susan, Lorena, me.

I, for one, had a delicious salami and cheesy-bread sandwich with a sugar-coated pastry for breakfast. One day of beer was enough for me (I don't really like the taste, but when in Oktoberfest...) so I had maybe a liter and a half all day, and half of that at my 11:00 AM "breakfast" in this tent (very little beer in total, by Oktoberfest standards). We left our table around 1:00 PM or 2:00 PM and purchased more crispy, baked half-chickens (they were not more crispy, rather we bought additional chicken with respect to Saturday's purchases). Alex bought chocolate-covered strawberries and proceeded to immediately buy chocolate-covered bananas upon his consumption of the former. We went on a few rides together, like the Olympic-themed roller coaster with five 360-degree loops of the traditional Olympic colors. 

Oktoberfested out. Again, by around 4:00 PM or 5:00 PM everyone was noticeably exhausted and needed their siesta. We returned once again for a nap. 

But Alex and I cut the nap time short so we could see some of Munich before dinner. No one else was interested. Sleep when you're dead, we said. Grunt and complain, they responded. So off we went and saw the cool river-surfers and numerous examples of classic Gothic architecture. I have no idea what the buildings I photographed are; I just took photos of whatever caught the attention of my touristy American eyes. 

The big park that runs along the river Isar. There's a small Oracle-of-Delphi-type building on the far right, which looked kinda cool. There were five or six football fields around the park, which always warms my heart to see. America needs to step it up. 

Now this was probably the most interesting part. These people (in cold weather) go 'surfing' on the river turbulence. It is really awesome to watch. But also really... I don't know... European. 

Can't forget your smoke break in between 'waves'. I seriously need to stop second-hand smoking. It's a bad  and filthy habit.

After more than two hours of walking and subway hopping, we returned to the hostel to find the rest of our group asleep, but in their words, "Oh! We were just getting up!" Believe them if you will; all I have to say is that the lights were all off until we returned and turned them on. After various showers and changing of garments, I once again googled a restaurant, this time an Italian one, and we were off to dinner! It ended up being a lovely evening and dinner, although Airen had to leave early to catch his night train to Paris. We were down to 6. I was pretty tired when I got back to the hostel. I think everyone else was too, despite their nap, because they drank a little more than I did. We went to sleep relatively early.

Monday I woke up Alex at 6:20 AM so he could catch the subway to the train to his plane to Paris. We were now down to 5. After we checked out of the hostel and showered (~11:00 AM) we headed out to the subway where Pedro (read: Peter) left on the train to the airport. Down to 4. The rest of us made it a point to find a cafe and get coffee.

 I like the taste of coffee quite a lot now. This is surely an important stage in one's physical development. I just had a few pastries and coffee for lunch because I was still full from my shrimp spaghetti the previous night. 

After brunch, the four of us headed to the Olympic Park and BMW Museum. Unfortunately the museum is only closed on Mondays. And it was Monday. But the showroom was open, so I got to sit in an M6 and see the ugly new Mini Coopers. We walked around the Olympic Park and stopped to get some food around 4:00 PM. I had a salad, some French fries, an apple (system still in shock from non-chocolate-covered fruit/vegetable intake) and my last German bier before heading to the airport for the last goodbyes. Phil (from Denmark) left at 8:10 PM to a city starting with the letter "B" near Copenhagen and Susan, Lorena, and I soon left, all on the same flight, to Barcelona at 8:30 PM. Down to 3! The two girls are studying in Madrid and flew through Barcelona on their way back home.

Olympiapark Munchen

The diving board is so. So. So. So. So high.

Da beamer building

Can't drive stick shift (sigh)

I recently said goodbye to those two at the airport, they have an all-night layover! How terrible. I hope they turn down the brightness of the main lights in the "B" concourse... or else they might not get much sleep. And now the group is down to, and back to, 1. 

Having planned this trip over two months ago, it was really great to actually do it and see some familiar faces for a change. Also, Munich is an amazing city, they do a wonderful job hosting Oktoberfest and putting up with tourists. I bet it would be even more amazing for me if I had unlimited funds and a deep appreciation for the taste and brewing processes of beer. But I don't. My thanks to Munich for a good time, though. Adios.