We walked around the gardens at the Alcázar and made friends with some peacocks:
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| BABY PEACOCKS! |
Thursday, October 21, 2010
old friends :-)
In other news, Maddie (my friend since lower school) came to visit Sevilla this week. She told me all about her communist/conspiracy theorist German teacher (she's studying this semester in Berlin) and even brought me ginger bread from her recent trip to Dresden.
We walked around the gardens at the Alcázar and made friends with some peacocks:
We walked around the gardens at the Alcázar and made friends with some peacocks:
Nerja Caves
Last Saturday I went on a day trip with some friends to Málaga to see the Picasso museum. The museum has some truly awesome examples of the artist's work--many small sketches, but also paintings, sculpture and even pottery. The museum also has a rotating exhibition space which currently houses an exhibit entitled "Toys of the Avant-Garde" which displays building blocks, books and puppets made by artists and toy companies from various countries in the 19th and 20th centuries. The focus of the exhibit is the relationship between art, design, play, and education.
I really enjoyed the museum, but my favorite part of the day was our trip to nearby town Nerja which is home to an incredible cave system. The caves were discovered by modern man by accident in 1959 but had been inhabited by early man from somewhere around 25,000 BC until the Bronze Age...archeologists have found skeletal remains, tools, and cave paintings from different moments in early human history.
Today, apart from being a tourist attraction, the chamber we entered is a natural amphitheater and is home to a mini concert hall used for occasional performances.
Here are some pictures:
I really enjoyed the museum, but my favorite part of the day was our trip to nearby town Nerja which is home to an incredible cave system. The caves were discovered by modern man by accident in 1959 but had been inhabited by early man from somewhere around 25,000 BC until the Bronze Age...archeologists have found skeletal remains, tools, and cave paintings from different moments in early human history.
Today, apart from being a tourist attraction, the chamber we entered is a natural amphitheater and is home to a mini concert hall used for occasional performances.
Here are some pictures:
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| This picture depicts just how huge these caves are... my friend Aisha is standing with arms outstretched at the bottom of the frame--see how small she is??!! |
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| Everywhere I looked reminded me of Fraggle Rock |
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| The base of this column is 43 ft by 23 ft and it stands 105 ft high |
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| There are crazy textures everywhere...it's hard to believe that this place isn't just a Hollywood set. |
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| Cave slime! |
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
university life
Classes started last monday and things are going pretty well so far. I am taking the following classes:
Theoretical Linguistics
I'm really enjoying this class. My professor seems very relaxed and funny. Today we discussed the history of linguistics ... starting with Socrates and his thoughts on the relationship between words and meaning.
History and Fiction in Latin America
This class is about Latin American literature and how different works reflect different periods of the region's history. Last week we read sections of a book from the early 17th century that contains the first reference to the Bermuda Triangle as a place where people disappear. Today Peruvian author Eduardo González Viaña lectured in our class about immigration in the US (the topic of most of his books).
Literature and Society in Spain
This class is about Bohemian literature in Spain at the end of the 19th c and the beginning of the 20th. It's an interesting genre to study because few of the authors are particularly famous anymore and many wrote books, plays, and poetry of somewhat questionable quality. But this community of authors and their works say a lot about society in Spain during their time. Madrid, the center not only of politics but also of art and culture in Spain, attracted young artists from all over the county. These creative types found solidarity with one another in their shared poverty, youth, struggle for recognition, and pride in their own marginality (they are the first to write artists as protagonists.) They modeled their lives around the ideal of french Bohemianism (La Boheme served as a manual for dress, behavior, etc). The only thing I don't like about this class is the number of foreign students. There are, inexplicably, around 20 Germans taking this class with me.
Anthropology of Gender
I am very excited about this class. Not only do we have something similar to a syllabus (in my other classes I just have a huge list of books to read and no indication of when I should read them) but it is incredibly interesting. We will learn about the evolution of Anthropology from a field that was predominantly interested in the men of a given society to a field that studies men, women, and their interactions. My professor mentioned as an example of the man-centric attitudes of early Anthropology a line from an pre-1970s anthropological study...it went something like this: The town was left empty, the only ones remaining were me, the women and the children.
General Sociology
This class seems a bit boring. It's a first year class for students in the education department and it's going to be pretty basic. On the plus side, all but one of my classmates are Spanish and, since they are mostly first years, they are more eager to make friends (even with a silly American).
Theoretical Linguistics
I'm really enjoying this class. My professor seems very relaxed and funny. Today we discussed the history of linguistics ... starting with Socrates and his thoughts on the relationship between words and meaning.
History and Fiction in Latin America
This class is about Latin American literature and how different works reflect different periods of the region's history. Last week we read sections of a book from the early 17th century that contains the first reference to the Bermuda Triangle as a place where people disappear. Today Peruvian author Eduardo González Viaña lectured in our class about immigration in the US (the topic of most of his books).
Literature and Society in Spain
This class is about Bohemian literature in Spain at the end of the 19th c and the beginning of the 20th. It's an interesting genre to study because few of the authors are particularly famous anymore and many wrote books, plays, and poetry of somewhat questionable quality. But this community of authors and their works say a lot about society in Spain during their time. Madrid, the center not only of politics but also of art and culture in Spain, attracted young artists from all over the county. These creative types found solidarity with one another in their shared poverty, youth, struggle for recognition, and pride in their own marginality (they are the first to write artists as protagonists.) They modeled their lives around the ideal of french Bohemianism (La Boheme served as a manual for dress, behavior, etc). The only thing I don't like about this class is the number of foreign students. There are, inexplicably, around 20 Germans taking this class with me.
Anthropology of Gender
I am very excited about this class. Not only do we have something similar to a syllabus (in my other classes I just have a huge list of books to read and no indication of when I should read them) but it is incredibly interesting. We will learn about the evolution of Anthropology from a field that was predominantly interested in the men of a given society to a field that studies men, women, and their interactions. My professor mentioned as an example of the man-centric attitudes of early Anthropology a line from an pre-1970s anthropological study...it went something like this: The town was left empty, the only ones remaining were me, the women and the children.
General Sociology
This class seems a bit boring. It's a first year class for students in the education department and it's going to be pretty basic. On the plus side, all but one of my classmates are Spanish and, since they are mostly first years, they are more eager to make friends (even with a silly American).