Episode 33 --Trip to Spain (2) Granada/Nerja/Sevilla/Madrid

As a continuation of my last post, I will go on writing down my journey to Spain. After my first stop at Barcelona, we also went to Granada to visit Alhambra, and we watched an authentic Flamenco dance show in Sacramento. 
One exciting thing about going to Granada was that I was able to overlook the Barcelona's coastline through the window on the plane. The plane kept flying at a relatively low altitude, and it was so beautiful when I saw that the sea and the sky somehow linked together, making it a harmonious scene. 

I'd say that Alhambra was not as majestic as I expected (only my personal view), probably because I have seen similar places before, such as Imperial Palaces in Beijing and Potala Palace in Tibet. Therefore, the whole view of Alhambra did not strike me as breath-taking. However, it is still a must-see place of interest in Granada as the tickets are usually sold out very quickly and the lines to get into the palace were crazy long. 

 

This is a bird's eye view of the city Granada. 

Inside the main building of Alhambra, we'll see.....

The third stop was Nerja, which is a small city near Malaga that a lot of visitors don't go, but we made a wise choice to take to bus there and check it out. To anyone who is interested in visiting Spain, Nerja won't let you down! It is a city to chill out, enjoying the sea view and have a bottle of wine. 

After spending a cheerful afternoon in Nerja, we took a train to Sevilla. Sevilla is my another favorite city in Spain, second to Barcelona. What is amazing about Sevilla is that it is just like a magnified painting, full of bright colors and vitality. The orange trees are everywhere; the horse carriages are busy with carrying the visitors around several main scenic spots. We stopped by Catedral de Sevilla and Plaza de Espana, and we lived within the Barrio de Santa Cruz, which all made my stay at Sevilla unforgettable. 

The cathedral in Sevilla does not pale in comparison with Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. In fact, it seems to me that the main lobby is much bigger than Sagrada Familia, and it took more time to explore the whole cathedral. 

It was a lot fun riding on the horse carriage to tour around a part of the city, especially when the horse took you to the street with cars and buses running past by. 

It is the square in front of the Catedral de Sevilla.  

We rode the horse carriage to Plaza de Espana. It is another piece of architecture that fascinated me. 

Look at the cloud! 

Finally, since our hotel is very close to the Cathedral, we went to the terrace to see its night view.  

Madrid was the last stop we chose to cap off our wonderful 10-day trip to Spain. Royal Palace of Madrid became the deepest impression that I had about this capital city. From my personal aesthetic point of view, I tend to choose the palace in Madrid over the one in Granada. 

Also, we explored the famous Plaze de Toros de Las Ventas. Since it is winter, there is no event scheduled during that season. But when it comes to spring, people will be flocking to the plaza to witness the performance of matador. 

So that is pretty much about my trip to Spain. Even now, I can still feel this Spanish hangover as I browse these pictures. It is such a wonderful trip and an amazing country. I'd love to go there again if there is a chance. 

Episode 32—Trip to Spain (1) Barcelona

Hey guys, I am writing my blog about my traveling on the plane back to Philadelphia. Traveling to Spain and United Kingdom, the two amazing countries in the world, have been an eye-opening experience for me. Everything was a bit different from the United States, and I was greatly relishing in these inexhaustible varieties that the world can offer to those explorers.

While I was on vacation, I was thinking about how I should recap the places that I had been to, given that I am not a kind of person who would write travel journals. On one hand, I would like to share with you what an amazing country Spain is. On the other hand, considering that I am not an expert of writing beautiful descriptions, especially those paragraphs you will see in the travel magazine, I am afraid that what I am going to write will not do enough justice to the real scenes I have seen. Therefore, as always, I would love to share pictures with you, and my feelings about them—architecture, food, people and the culture.

So for Spain, my 10-day itinerary follows like this: Barcelona, Granada, Nerja, Sevilla, Madrid. Barcelona was the first stop to kick off the trip. It is a city of art, architecture, and delicate cuisine. It may not be those cities that would come off the top of your mind when you think about the best or the most dynamic city in the world. But it would blow your mind in its own way. 

One cannot talk about Barcelona without mentioning Gaudi, a form of art expression created by Antoni Gaudi. His works have become an inseparable element of Barcelona, considering most of the famously built architecture, buildings, or parks all belong to Gaudi, as an art form. By visiting the spectacular Sagrada Familia, Casa Batillo, La Pedrera, Park Guell etc, I couldn't help but fall in love with this type of art. 

 This is the exterior designing of Sagrada Familia. An interesting thing about it is that it is an unfinished masterpiece, and it is still under construction. However, it does not blemish its reputation of being one of the greatest basilicas in the world. Visitors from all over the world come here to appreciate the artistic works of Gaudi.

A close-up will better reveal the delicate design of Sagrada Familia. The figures sculpted tell the story of Jesus's born. 

This is La Pedrera, also known as Casa Mila. It shows the early form of Gaudi. 

The Casa Batillo represents how Gaudi uses his unique art form in interior design. 

Also, Gaudi's works can be greatly appreciated in Park Guell. 

Besides Gaudi, Barcelona is also famous for its food. It is where you can taste authentic Spanish dishes. From my personal view, Chinese people are more likely to fall for Spanish dishes because the food tastes similarly, and probably they have overlap in cooking. I really like the way they make seafood. ( My boyfriend and I are both seafood lovers, so for every meal, we ordered at least one fish dish--the perk of living in a city that has coastline.) Oh, don't forget Tapas, if you'd go to Spain. It is a typical spanish dish that serves a small amount of food, and you can choose different contents for your Tapas.

A sample Tapas looks like this. But it varies according to different restaurants.

We tried the authentic Paella (with Lobster!), and it was really really tasty! We dined at this restaurant twice, and ordered the lobster Paella twice. I can still remember how it tastes by looking at the picture.

Some pictures of fish.....I am hungry.....(Fish always comes with potatoes. )

Some street views in Barcelona that might tell you more about the city and its vibe. 

Episode 31--Reflections on the fall semester

Considering it is a time between the end of all my finals and the start of my beautiful vacation, I wanted to take the time to do little self-reflections on what I have done during the past few months. Although grades have not been posted yet, I’d like to say something about what I thought I did well and what I thought I could make improvements for the next semester.

For a starter, I think that I did a good job at time managing. It is a very important skill, especially when you are a graduate student. Penn has a reputation for hosting various events and activities for both undergrads and grads, and you are not so good at time managing, you might probably get occupied with all the parties, social-gathering while leaving no time for your study. And that’s a no-no for grad study at GSE because no matter what program you are in, you probably will have tons of readings, assignments, papers to work on. But that does not mean you have to sacrifice your leisure time. In this respect, I was really glad that I was able to juggle the assignments, assistantship, and other campus or non-campus events. On one hand, life became too dull if you’d be stuck at dorm doing school works all day long; on the other hand, too much commitment to events, parties or any non-academic work might make the whole grad study meaningless. Therefore, find a balance, make a good plan for both of your work and play is my suggestion, and I felt pretty good when I got all my papers or assignments done in a timely manner, without any rush or pulling all-nighters while at the same time, tried to be involved in any activities or events that I was interested in.

Also, about my graduate assistantship, I really enjoyed working as a part of GSE admission office. If it counts as a job, then it is the very first job that I ever had in US, and I felt so honored and glad that I could be awarded this as part of my admission package. The work was not hard, but it still took time and my heart to doing it. For example, the first time I took a prospective student out for a campus tour, I spent 45 minutes looking at our campus tour notes, trying to remember the things that were worth mentioning. (Because Penn campus is not small. Except for a couple of regular places that I would go to, other buildings did not seem very familiar to me. And I would spend time remembering the services, facilities they provide in order to give students a better idea of what Penn has to offer.) That is to say that every person working at GSE admission office is really committed to what they are doing, and they are striving to provide students with assistance as best as they can. So for this assistantship, I’d also like to give everyone and myself a round of applause, and I will definitely work as hard, and even harder next semester.

What I think I could improve is that perhaps I can be more expressive in class. The frequency of me saying anything in-class was less than I expected. As an international student, it might be a common thing—not speaking up in fron of the class. As I tried to overcome this bad “habit”, I felt that sometimes I was still remain silent, not because I didn’t have anything in my brain, but because I just didn’t want to say it. (That’s weird) So I will be working on it and trying to be more open about what I have to say and stop being hesitant about speaking it out. It is a good opportunity for international students to get rid of their fear of speaking English and help them restore confidence.

I guess this is my way to say goodbye to my fall semester. And if you’d like to take a pry at what I am going to do for the winter break, I will be updating my blogs, just like usual, and the contents are all travel-related, if you’re interested in reading them. 

Thanks for reading my blogs for the past few months. Hope that you can continue reading them during the winter break and spring semester.

Have a nice weekend and holiday!