Exploring Spain: La Caseria

Hello. A few days ago, my host family told me we were going to a vacation home for a week. I was expecting a normal house just on a beach, but oh was I mistaken. We were driving up and then they start pointing and saying "There it is!" and I look and I see this:

This looks like a small castle but it is officially called a fortified house. It was built in the early to mid sixteenth century on top of another structure. They have found Roman artifacts and parts of the foundation dating back to the second century. It has been used throughout history as an extension of an estate, barracks, animal and farm tool storage, and then was abandoned. It was redone throughout a period of 10 years by a couple, a lawyer from England and an artist. It won an award from Europa Nostra in 2009, which selects the best buildings that were restored. Inside the house, they had pictures of what it was like before, and it was literally in ruins. All of the roofs were caved in, the walls were in really bad shape, and everything had fallen apart. If you look at the picture of the church below, there was absolutley no roof, it was really just walls that were half as tall as they were supposed to be.

This is what it looks like inside (some of the rooms and the walled-in part)

I tried to find more pictures of the inside online, but I couldn´t. I´m going to keep on searching though. 

I also found this plant while I was walking around. It was literally in the middle of nowhere in a dried up fountain.

Another picture that has no educational value: I found real grass!

Bathrooms (The Stalls)

There is a large difference in bathrooms between the United States and the parts of Europe I've been to. (Slovakia, Germany, Spain, Vienna (Austria) and also Japan. There are two main differences: the bathroom stalls themselves, and the toilets. First up, the stalls. Comment which stall style is in your country.

        The stalls in the United States (and maybe other countries I haven't been to) you can pretty much see everything that is happening inside the stall by looking through the crack between the stall door and the divider part.

I know it does not look like much of a problem, but it soon becomes one. As you walk by, even if you don't want to, you get an angle view of what is going on. It ruins your privacy. On top of that, the bottom and top part of the door are cut off, leaving you with a foot, (30cm) of sight of your feet and at times the top of your head when you stand up. So if anything embarrassing drops on the floor we all see it. Thank you public and school bathroom stalls.

                                   

http://www.robertbrooke.com/images/Public-Restroom-Partitions-Parts-and-Accessories.jpg

        Now the ones in the countries I mentioned are a luxury of privacy compared to these. Most of 

the time they completely shut with this nice rubber seal, so no one can see through the crack, and they also usually skim the bottom of the floor, so no one can see your pants and embarrassing underwear. 

http://ciee.typepad.com/.a/6a010536fa9ded970b017d3cfb4651970c-pi

I'm sorry about the blurriness, but this was one of the best ones on Google that shows what I'm trying to say. Also I couldn't take a picture of a bathroom because it would be very awkward for the people inside. 

Granada

I traveled to the city of Granada in Spain. It is a tourist hotspot because of its rich history dating back to the 8th century. It was originally inhabited by the Iberians but was then conquered by the moors, which is the more renowned part of their history. They have many buildings one of which is the Alhambra. It is also famous for being the last Arabic city to surrender to the Christians during the reconquista of Spain. Just a little fun fact, Washington Irving did a lot of his writing there.

Photos of the Alhambra:

http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/00/13/19/5a/the-alhambra.jpg


                                       


http://patternity.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/PATTERNITY_GW4_GranadaThe-Alhambra.jpg

http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/91/5a/23/the-alhambra.jpg

Spain trip!

Hi! I just flew to Spain two days ago and am currently with my host family. The trip was long but I love plane flights where I just sit and watch movies. The food was fine although they had some type of squid salad that made me feel a little weird. Now having my first impression of southern Spain, here are some aspects I have observed.

1. They go to bed late and wake up late. To put it in perspective, they stay up until 2, and them wake up around 11-12:30.

2. With the time a bit diferent, so are the meals. Breakfast is at around 12 in the afternoon, lunch is around 3, and dinner is at around 10:30.

3. They don't have air conditioning. Instead they have a lot of open windows and areas so as to give air flow. But no air conditioning.

4. In the area where I am it is 90% there to being a complete desert, which means fake grass, because real grass is too hard to grow.

5. They are more relaxed about clothing, especially on beaches.

6. The common thing to do when saying hello and goodbye is to give one air kiss on one cheek and then one on the other, and this applies to everyone including strangers you may have just been introduced to 5 seconds ago. (Personal experience) Here's a picture if my explanation didn't make a lot of sense.