Hasta pronto, Salamanca!

Today's post is a bit more melancholy than the others, because tonight's my last night in Salamanca for the foreseeable future, and Wednesday night will be my last in Spain for a few months at least.

Sigh. I hate goodbyes, those of you who know me well know that transitions are at best intense and at worst, mildly traumatic. I'm a planner and enjoy being in control so transitions can be overwhelming. I don't like to drag them out and I do most of the processing internally, but life is more complicated than what I can work through in my own head and on this trip especially, being in a position of pseudo-power/responsibility in addition to loving the heck out of most of this group means there's a lot more to FEEL than just my own silly self. And which is why I'm not going out tonight, even though many people are, because last night I was out until 6:30ish and the hours of drama leading up to the last fun 3 hours or so was too ridiculous for me to risk repeating it again tonight (I wasn't part of it but I had to co-exist with it). Remember I like being in control? And I want to remember last night as the high note, with tonight as my calm night of packing and writing in my journal and getting excited for Madrid!

The bus leaves for Madrid at 7:45 tomorrow morning, then I fly home on Thursday afternoon. Friday I (my parents) buy a new car (a blue Honda Fit!) because the Ford Focus is deader than a doornail, Saturday is a friend's sister's wedding in Amherst (my mom is my plus one!), then Sunday is move-in day. I've been here since June 23rd.

Thanks to everyone on this trip and to everyone I met and reunited with while in Salamanca (and Madrid, but I haven't said goodbye to THAT city yet, one step at a time here!). In more ways than one this has been one of the best, most memorable and most challenging experiences in my life and I wouldn't trade it or change it for the world. I had been counting down to July 1st since about November and this month has surpassed every expectation of shenanigans, fun, stress, silliness, happiness, and adventure I possibly had. I truly hope to see the UMass kids around next year and I hope that we stay in touch. I know we joked that I didn't do any "work" and I protested because YES I DID, but at the end of the day I would have done it for a couple of plane tickets and nothing more.

And if you're reading this because you're curious about Salamanca or Spain...the answer is yes, you should ABSOLUTELY visit. Or live here. Or both.

Gracias otra vez y como siempre, Salamanca. Te quiero!

Besos,

-Casey

p.s. It's cheesy/cliche but I was listening to these songs by chance before and I felt these lyrics were appropriate:

"You know that feeling you get when you don't want to leave?" from Uummannaaq Song by KT Tunstall and "I need some time to think about my life without you" from Happy Be Fine by Poliça.

Segovia y Ávila (16 de julio) 2012

Hola again!

These posts are somewhat out of order chronologically but hey, I do my best. Plus I think everyone who sees these also sees the photos on Facebook so...such is life.

On the 16th (Sunday) most of the group went to Segovia and Ávila for the day (by bus). We visited the Alcázar de Segovia, wandered the city and ate lunch near the famous roman Aqueduct before heading to Ávila with its famous wall and home to Sta. Teresa de Jesús (or Teresa of Ávila).

I'm going to TRY to keep this brief but photo-heavy, buuuuut I'm also going to try to be mildly educational, with most history courtesy of the tour of the Alcázar and everyone's friend, Wikipedia. I'm a teacher, what do you want from me?!

First stop, the Alcázar de Segovia. It was documented for the first time in 1122, although it may have existed before that (it was an Arab fortress but mostly consisted of wooden battlements in the early days). Alfonso XIII did significant work on it in the early 1200s, then Alfonso X continued his work throughout that century (building the Hall of Kings for Parliament, which you'll see in a later photo, after it was updated to show all kings from the 500s up to Ferdinand and Isabella in the 1500s). The tower you can see in my photo here was built by Juan II (who was apparently kind of a loser king, according to Wikipedia, both in personality and in his treatment of Jews) in the early 1400s.

Isabel la Católica was crowned Queen of Castilla in the Alcázar in 1474. Below is only a small section of the mural about this momentous event, but as you can see it's eery and the people depicted (Isabel being the lady in white) don't have eyes, because she was crowned on Dec. 12th, a date that belongs to St. Lucy, patron saint of the blind. The tour guide said not much is known about Isabel physically except that she had blond hair and was blue-eyed, which means that someone like me should play her in the movie of her life. Not sure if she was trying to suck up to the assistant leader or is just hilariously misguided about hair color like the rest of this country...

In the 1500s the royal court moved to Madrid and the Alcázar then served as a state prison for almost two centuries before Carlos III founded the Royal Artillery School in 1762.

It housed a military school for almost a hundred years until 1862 when a fire badly damaged the roofs and framework. By 1882 the Alcázar was rebuilt (this fact caused many moans and groans from my students who all of a sudden are history snobs, spoiled by things like the 800-year-old cathedral in Salamanca and 1st century roman bridge...). In 1896, King Alfonso XIII ordered the Alcázar to be handed over to the Ministry of War as a military college. It now serves as a historical site, Royal School of Artillery museum, and military archive. Additionally, the Alcázar was allegedly used as inspiration for Sleeping Beauty's castle (along with Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany) (not my photo). I'm pretty sure I wrote about this last time I went, in 2007. Anyway. Cool stuff.

We wandered through the streets of Segovia until we made it to the aqueduct, perhaps its most treasured monument. By the numbers, it's 93.5 feet tall at its highest point, is made of about 25,000 UNMORTARED granite blocks, and the water channel runs for about 20 miles before it arrives in this plaza in Segovia.

Some of my students friends hamming it up next to the Aqueduct.

Find the UMass student...

After we split up to eat lunch in small groups it was off to Ávila!

Now, keep it mind it was a Sunday around siesta time (read: everything is DOUBLY closed), in the summer (HOT AS HELL). The wall is about a kilometer in length and wraps completely around the old part of the city. HOOOOWEVER, we quickly discovered that one can only walk around part of the wall now, which basically killed our plans for the 2-3 hours we had there. Sooooo we made do by slowly wandering the dead streets of Ávila...

...until we ran into Carole who convinced us to check out St. Teresa's church/tomb and preserved finger. Yep. 500-year-old finger. I'm not entirely clear on her history but Wikipedia tells me this:

"She was a prominent Spanish mystic, Roman Catholic saint, Carmelite nun, and writer of the Counter Reformation, and theologian of contemplative life through mental prayer. She was a reformer of the Carmelite Order and is considered to be, along with John of the Cross, a founder of the Discalced Carmelites. In 1622, forty years after her death, she was canonized by Pope Gregory XV, and in 1970 named a Doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI."

If that doesn't impress you enough, Franco apparently kept the relic of her preserved right hand throughout his life, once he "saved" it from republicans during the Spanish Civil War...shudder.

Her church was nice enough, and we enjoyed the time in the shade, took a group photo and...

...got back onto the bus and drove the 1.5 hours back to Salamanca in time for dinner.

And that was our daytrip to Segovia and Ávila. Hasta pronto!

-Casey

Taller de Luis Mendez

Hola!

We leave Salamanca in 5 days…I’m not ready!

In her two years here our program leader Carole has made some amazing local connections that have granted our group unforgettable experiences, such as yesterday when we had the chance to visit the jewelry workshop of Luis Mendez a third generation artist, whose two brothers also continue the family tradition .

This is a photo of mine from visiting Luis yesterday:

Luis is a local artist whose family specializes in gold/silver filigree (filigrana in Spanish) work, and more specifically, variations on the botón charro, the (unofficial) symbol of Salamanca. Someone from Salamanca is a salmantino or a charro, which basically means they’re from the country. I won’t get into it here, but if you’re interested, here’s an incredibly detailed step-by-step look at all the pieces of the charro outfit.

You can see a gold botón charro charm on this (admittedly scary-looking) woman (the shortest necklace):

While I don’t have any detailed shots of Luis doing each step, you can see each of the pieces in this photo. I’ll walk you through them. (Obviously this example is with silver wire, which is flexible and forgiving, unlike gold, which apparently is more delicate and complex to use).

1: Wrap silver wire around a metal strip so each portion is the same length. When it’s unwrapped, use the kinks in the wire to guide you as you form arches. To me, they look like an aqueduct.

2: Now it looks like a bridge or “puente.” The number of arches will dictate the number of lobes on your botón. Luis said there is a myth that the ones with 12 lobes represent the calendar, but that’s not true. Personally I prefer the ones with 8 loops but that’s just me.

3: The lobes now get pinched together to form the flower shape, and then are soldered together at the center point. He uses a natural glue made from the membrillo fruit and water to coat the center point and then a tiny little watering can-like thing to sprinkle on some silver dust. He uses an indirect flame—imagine a Bunsen-burner style flame going straight up in the air, and then a small metal pipe (like a bendy straw, curved at the end) to blow air into the flame so it deflects down onto the metal resting on a glass plate.

This is a photo of him setting up the flame, but without the metal straw.

4: Once the flower is soldered, he takes a different kind of wire to make double spirals and fill in the lobes. This wire is made of two pieces of twisted wire, then flattened, so it’s slightly textured and apparently more flexible than a single strand. He fills in every lobe before soldering anything.

5: The next step isn’t shown here, but it’s taking the filled-in and soldered botón and hammering it into a domed shape. Luis says it’s kind of a metal mortar and pestle where you rest the botón in a well and then use a rounded metal rod to gently hammer it into that shape.

6: After this comes one of the most ingenious parts but it’s not shown in the image here either. He wraps wire around a small metal tube to make a spiral, then cuts them off so he has little jump rings (kind of like in making chain mail). He places them on a piece of charred pine (so they won’t roll off and so they can get spherical, which wouldn’t work if they were on glass) and then uses the indirect flame again to heat them until they MELT INTO BALLS. Luis says he’s been doing this since he was 14 and the first thing he and his brothers used to do was make the coils of wire into balls. I asked if there was a special name for the process and he kind of laughed and said “…making balls.”

7: Then he sets all the balls into the corresponding circles, paints it with the natural glue, dusts the whole thing with silver powder and then places it onto a sort of wire-nest holder called a peluca (wig!) so that the flame can cover all sides of the piece. At this point he also will solder on 2 rings of twisted wire (or just one, depending on the size of the botón). (This photo isn’t Luis and isn’t from our trip, but I believe it’s one of his brothers)

Then he lets it sit for 15-20 minutes so it can cool, dips it into acid to polish it slightly (so it looks white), uses a wire brush to shine it and then polishes it so the balls are shiny while the rest of it is sort of darkened.

Most botones charro sold in souvenir shops here are made from molds. Can you see the difference in the handmade one above and this molded keychain?

How about between these 2 rings? One of them is one I bought for about 12 euro from a souvenir shop and the other was a gift from Carole for me from Luis' shop!

Here’s his work surface, where you can see some of the filigrana crosses he was working on, too.

I hope you enjoyed this virtual tour as much as we enjoyed visiting Luis’ workshop!

I still owe you Segovia and Ávila photos as well as a write-up on Granada and an unforgettable night in Madrid. Did I mention...only 5 more days?!

-Casey

p.s. As I post this it's thunderstorming here!!!! A welcome break from the sweltering heat. I love summer storms, but this one was rather short-lived, sadly.

(Credit goes to this site for the photos that aren’t mine or from another cited site.)

Week 2 in Salamanca (according to iPhones)

Hola!

After returning from 3 days and 2 nights in Portugal (on the 6th-8th), we had a (not very) quiet week here in Salamanca. Students are getting closer while simultaneously needing to re-organize their friend groups and spend some time apart. Overall this is still a happy, energetic and generally kind/respectful group and I thank my lucky stars every day that I got the job (even if the students like to tease me about not doing any "real" work...if only they knew what went on behind the scenes!!).

On Wednesday some of us took advantage of 1 euro sandwiches at 100 Montaditos (a chain restaurant where they serve 100 small sandwiches with fillings ranging from tortilla española to chorizo to salmon to milk chocolate to brie that can normally cost anywhere from 1 euro up to about 2, but on Wednesdays all 100 are just 1 euro, as are jarras of beer and sangría, so you can basically have a filling dinner for 5 euro including a drink). I'm sad to say we're all getting a little tired of Residencia cuisine so we're going to be pulling a repeat of this tomorrow night, too.

Vicente del Bosque (the coach of La Selección, the Spanish national soccer team) just so happens to be from Salamanca, so he visited the Plaza Mayor on Thursday the 12th, greeted the cheering fans from the balcony of the Ayuntamiento, gave a little speech of gratitude for Salamanca's support not only for this championship but for the 2010 World Cup as well, and hoisted this year's EuroCup trophy for all to see. Have I mentioned I get chills every time I remember July 1st, when Spain won, or even hear just the beginning notes of the theme song for La Selección de 2012?!? I'll post more photos of him actually being there on Facebook.

The evenings when I don't go "out" aka drinking/dancing I usually spend in the Plaza Mayor with any number of students, just sitting on the warm stones and eating ice cream or just lounging around. I've decided the best part of those nights is when we're there during the transition from day to night, when the sky darkens and all the lights go on and everyone goes "aaaahhhh!" My goal is to get it on video.

One day a few students friends of mine and I wandered around the Plaza de Anaya and surrounding points of interest, including the Cueva de Salamanca and Catedral Nueva...

...as a sort of teaser before Carole led her detailed historical tour of Salamanca on Saturday, with stops at the Puente Romano, Casa Lis, Patio de las Escuelas, Fachada de la Universidad and more (I only attended about half of it).

Also on Saturday I had brunch with Polina and she had her first ensaimada (a Mallorcan treat but one of my favorite pastries everrr), then we chanced upon about 5 different weddings/wedding parties entering the old cathedral over the course of the morning. Guest outfits ranged from tasteless to ill-fitting to quite elegant, as is typical anywhere, I suppose. While on the tour with Carole as we entered the Universidad we ran into another wedding where guests were throwing confetti and rice at the bride (and then at our UMass group...), which some enjoyed more than others. The creepy mannequin thing is a 500-year-old dummy for medical students to practice bandaging. IT IS OLDER THAN MY COUNTRY. Welcome to Salamanca.

Two days ago we went to Segovia and Ávila for the day so I'll post about that next.

A little over halfway done and my heart is breaking...! I told some students that if we don't see each other at UMass in the fall I'll sing "Somebody I used to know" by Gotye to them upon return...

Besos,

-Casey

In Salamanca! (officially)

Just wanted to note that, for posterity.

Have been here since Sunday.

WHEN SPAIN WON THE EURO CUP!

It's great to be here, and while busy, it's been more fun than pain helping students get settled, and welcoming them to this city I used to call home. Even if it is filled with some ghosts from my past.

BESOS BESOS

-Casey

Last night in Madrid!!!!......for a month

Just some bits from my wanderings today.

Off to meet Fiona, fresh off the plane from the US, and then to meet Sabino and his friends (and then a likely early night, aka 1am or so....!).

Madrid, you've been good to me.

Hasta pronto!

Besos,

-Casey