Salamanca, pt. II

Yesterday, we spent the day in Salamanca, which is a little college town in the community of Castile and León in northwestern Spain. It’s not a huge city, perhaps the size of Columbia, Missouri, but there seems to be quite a bit going on here. We visited the university, which is the oldest in Spain, as well as the two cathedrals. Apparently it’s been historical tradition for old cathedrals to be torn down in place of new ones, but for some reason which was probably explained to me in Spanish, the old cathedral was kept standing when the new one was built.

There is so much more that I could write, but I'm running on about four hours of sleep and am consequently a bit brain dead. It's completely worth it, but I'll be very glad to finally arrive in Córdoba and to establish a regular sleep schedule.

 

The old cathedral, founded in the 1100´s

The courtyard in the university, with the domes of the new cathedral
in the background

The Plaza Mayor

Salamanca

Finally, we are in Salamanca for the night. It's been a few days since I've had a solid night's sleep and we'll be doing the majority of our exploring tomorrow, so this will be brief. To make a long story short, our flight from Philly to Madrid ended up having to turn back halfway across the Atlantic due to engine troubles last night, which means that we spent a total of about ten hours in the air, excluding the flight into Philadelphia. Needless to say, I'm still pretty tired and mentally absent, but here goes nothing:

After flying into Madrid and spending a few hours there, we hopped on a bus and drove through the countryside to Salamanca, in western Spain. This city is beautiful. Tonight, despite some rain, we went to the Plaza Mayor, this huge open plaza fringed by shops and restaurants in the middle of the city. There we found an upstairs cafe called Meson Cervantes for cheap tapas, drinks, and lively quasi-Spanish conversation before scouting out some crepes and live music nearby. On the way back to our hotel, we walked around and looked at some of the churches, all of which are beautiful and old and unbelievably enormous. It was close to 11:00 p.m. when we finally returned, though most of the locals seemed as though they were just beginning their evenings. I guess people here really do live on a much later clock.

In a perfect world, I would have photos right now, but alas, they will have to wait until tomorrow. So I apologize for the rather underwhelming blog post, and I thank you for reading. ¡Hasta mañana!

Phillin' Time

That was an incredibly poorly-constructed and -attempted pun about having an eight-hour layover in Philadelphia International Airport. I've found a perfectly acceptable sleeping-perch in Terminal A, which is delightful considering that I didn't catch a single Z last night. As one might expect, I put off packing until the last possible minute, and now I'm feeling the consequences.

But it would probably be best for all parties if I slept (or, more likely, watched several hours of Six Feet Under in an unfocused, zombie-like state) instead of continuing to attempt to write. Therefore, I conclude this post with a photo of St. John the Evangelist Church in Cambridge from late last semester. I will return promptly with dispatches from Spain, and maybe some other countries too.

A Fond Farewell

...And, just like that, my time in Kansas City has come to a close. I'm flying to Spain tomorrow morning (!) to live there (!!) for a semester (!!!). Perhaps obviously, this is extremely exciting and I feel incredibly fortunate to have this opportunity to learn a new language and to live within a different culture. That said, I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't a little anxious, or that I felt a little guilty for that anxiety. But. Then I realized that no matter how I feel, or what happens, that I'm only going to be living abroad for a finite time, so I may as well live mindfully and enjoy the experience while I can. In the words of Stevie Wonder:

-"Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing" by Stevie Wonder, from Innervisions (1973)

Entonces, mil gracias por leer, y hasta muy pronto...

Pastoral

A Sunday song.

-"Pastoral," by Moondog, from the album Moondog II (1971)

Break Photos, Pt. II

This was a roll of some cheap 400 Lomography film, shot over the last few weeks on a Minolta Freedom GT camera, which took clearer photos than I was expecting.

Juniper in the backyard

Clay-Platte Montessori

Beloved meadow-tree

Leavenworth shanty

Jamaican Farewell

Today calls for a deep breath, a bit of list-making, and a Harry Belafonte song. I'm trying to get my life into some semblance of order before I leave, which means doing things like getting my glasses fixed, going to the phone store, banging my head against the wall, cleaning my disaster of a bedroom, and all other manner of fun tasks.

I have no idea the story behind this video, but it's a compelling little peek into the televised music of the 1950's:

- "Jamaican Farewell," from Calypso by Harry Belafonte (1956)

Finally, if you are reading this, thank you.

Break Photos, Pt. I

Because I'm leaving for Spain in ten days, my winter break is almost seven weeks long. Seven. That's a bit ridiculous if you ask me, but it's also flown by very quickly. I've read a few books, practiced some guitar--though I think I'm resigned to always being hopelessly mediocre at even the simplest chord progressions--and lots of other stuff as well. One of the most fun aspects of winter break, I think, has been walking around and getting to simply look at and take photos of things: cows, clouds, surprised people who were not expecting to have their photo taken. A few weeks ago, I took my camera out for a walk down the street. Here are a few of the infinite things I love about rural Missouri.

Claude and Edouardo

 

Blue Light

I'm not very good at this consistency thing, am I?

Yesterday, when the temperature rose to a balmy thirty-three degrees (Fahrenheit, of course), I went for a walk near my parents' house and listened to So Tonight That I Might See by Mazzy Star. For whatever reason, this song hit me like a bus. May you enjoy it even half as much.

- "Blue Light" by Mazzy Star, from So Tonight That I Might See (1993)

Welty

I just finished reading As I Lay Dying, which made me think of a lot of things: Who is to define "sanity?" Where do buzzards sleep? What is the point of language?

But, more broadly, it gave me a very vivid imagined landscape, which got me thinking about a lot of photography from that era. I was thumbing through some of Dorthea Lange's über-famous photos when I found work by the writer Eudora Welty, who quietly did photography on the side. Who knew? Here is some of her work, pulled from the photography archive on her website.

That's all I've got for tonight.

Bad Mouth

Yesterday I had my wisdom teeth pulled. They put me under, but thanks to the advice of my good friend Zoë, I asked them to save my teeth before the procedure. When I woke up, groggy and confused, I found my teeth in a little envelope taped to my shirt. And, because I was still fairly affected by the anesthesia, it was a hugely triumphant moment.

Then I got home and spent the rest of my day in bed, watching Billy Wilder movies and complaining about how badly my jaw hurt and how I couldn't eat anything crunchy.

So in honor of wisdom tooth extractions and good music, I give you Fugazi.

- "Bad Mouth" by Fugazi, originally released on the EP Fugazi (1988)

Once upon a Time in the West(port)

One of the perks of coming back home, in addition to having limited Internet access and a finite water supply (more on that in a second), is being able to look through old photos and generally indulge my nostalgic nature.

While rifling through some digital photos on my parents' computer, I came across these photos I took of my mom at her office in Westport, sometime in August of 2010. She used to work on the second floor of the Harris-Kearney House, which history I was entirely uninterested in as a child. The office space itself smelled like old dust and cigarette smoke, and every aspect of the building itself seemed slightly warped, from the wrinkled floorboards to the flaking mortar in the brick walls. Occasionally, she let me come to work with her. The last time I was in that space before her office moved, I happened to bring my camera to take some photos of her because, truth be told, my mother is much more beautiful and interesting than any crumbling building.

Oh, and with regards to the whole "finite water supply" business...public water access has finally come to my parents' street! Some pipes have been laid down along the road (the construction workers even dug up our mailbox for a few hours), but they're rather small and meager, so maybe their installation won't attract a bunch of real estate developers. As for my parents, they decided to opt out of being added to the water supply, which means they will continue to haul their water from the nearest town.

And that's about as exciting as recent life has been here in rural Platte County.

Session Man

Today, I can already hope, will be a productive day. I am going to send in my final paper for the fall semester (yay!) and then I will be done with Wellesley academics until September. What a strange thought.

But that's not too enthralling, and to be quite honest my mind is still pretty focused on finishing up said essay, so instead here is a song.

-The Kinks' "Session Man," from Face to Face (1966)

Camouflage

The cons and pros of funerals:
Cons: a sense of irrevocable loss, general grieving, being overly aware of mortality, often uncomfortable clothing, ugly crying (the kind that selectively turns your face beet-red), wanting to impossibly lighten the mood
Pros: seeing people you care about, celebrating the life of someone you maybe really loved, exploring showrooms, finding camouflage-patterned urns