Salsa and Choir

11th day, Monday 4oct

School - I'm still figuring out my schedule - is starting in baby steps as opposed to school back home (which starts in Ghita Muresan steps). I'm almost ashamed to admit that seminars (practicas) will start in two weeks time in some asignaturas and next week in others. Algoritmica is most certainly interesting and engaging, as the teacher lectures with a velocity of 400 words/second - it's so fast that most words convert into amorph sounds stressed by a hitched breath here and there. That's Andalusian, gentlemen.

Just for the record, Andalusian is the dialect (it is not a dialect strictly speaking though, it's a way of speech specific to the South) spoken here in Granada - it consists in spitting words at amazing rates, not pronounciating the final "s"-es and joining words so that you can't tell when a sentence finishes and another one begins.

Castilian is the literary form of Spanish - the one you hear at the TV - and is fairly musical and clear.

Catalun from Cataluna is a dialect - this one really is and it is spoken in the East of the Spain. It's a mixture of French and Spanish which is an understandable phenomenon for all borderline regions.

Euskara...that's a different animal all together. I suppose you are familiar with ETA - el vasco, la lengua vasca or el euskera is the language of the Basque people that live in the northeastern regions - Spanish people view them as their own but there are many bombs diplomatic tensions as the Basque people require autonomy - I think they already have autonomous government of some sort. The Euskara is the only language in Spain (from what I've been told) that survived the Romanization process. I view it as Etruscan for Italian.

12th day, Tuesday 5oct

School - of course I went back and forth to the faculty only to be announced each time that practicas for a specific asignaturas haven't started yet.

13th day, Wednesday 6oct

This is the day we went to the Comedor or the canteen in the faculty. You have to pay 3 euros and you receive a ticket with which you can receive the day's menu. You can't choose plates - you have an entree, a main course and a salad. Optionally, a glass of red wine. The salad was terrific though - it had a sweet juice, nuts, apple, letuce, tomatoes, onions and so on. We met Alvaro who is somehow in charge of Erasmus students and trips for ETSIIT (Escuela de Telecomunication y Sistemas = our faculty) but all we could get from him (even now, sporadically on messenger) is this [very limited] collection of phrases [csv format follows]: "You don't go drinking at night? You're so boring", "Come to my place, we're having karaoke, me and my buddy, we'll let you go home at 4am", "Let's go drinking", "Let's go to the disco", "You don't know what you're missing".

14th day, Thursday 7oct

I finally got to go to the choir! I picked up a flyer that said the rehearsals were each Thursday, from 5pm till 8pm and all three of us decided to go. It's the choir of the Facultad de Ciencias and it consists of amateurs - pretty much like my choir back home - but I was wondering, why the long rehearsal? Well, it is indeed like my choir - they are pretty experimented, I had to read 5 score sheets (first encounter with the songs) and sing at the same time. The conductor is a young and very enthusiastic person and was really glad that we came. We're already invited to tour with them - and tour we will - on the 16th, 17th and 18th of December. We'll sing in Sevilla too ergo I'll get to see Sevilla and in the same time, keep an upbeat with my voice training so I don't lag behind my choir back home while I'm gone. Perfect!

15th day, Friday 8oct

I only had a lecture, Programacion Declarativa (Prolog) which I find interesting: the sintax is pretty intuitive and it seems that you can do a lot in terms of demonstrations and knowledge representation although I'm not sure if it will be of any use regarding the BA. Nonetheless, I will be familiar with all three main ways of programming - imperative (java, as3, c++ etc.), functional (haskell) and finally declarative (prolog).

This was also the "paying the dues" day - we called Mr. Julio (we always refer to him as "Mos Julio") and paid the rent for October - we nearly paid three rents: one as a guarantee (we'll get these 370 euros back when we leave), for September (well, half of it), and for October. We spent the day shopping - we went shopping with the suitcase. Let me tell you how it works: you take one giant suitcase, buy stuff to last you two weeks (12 cartons of milk, kilos of cereals, potatoes, tomatoes, olives, cheese, cookies, eggplants etc.), put them in the suitcase in an orderly manner, and rip your hands off your torso trying to trudge it to the nearest taxi in a blistering heat.

16th day, Saturday 9oct

It was an interesting day as it rained. I welcomed the rain naturally, and the  wind. It was a quiet day: the girls slept through the afternoon, I started research to implement AES in Qt (I haven't programmed in C++ in a while so it's hard in the beginning) and figured a minimal design, but the Qt part also poses problems (I also haven't used Qt in a while).

It was a quiet day, until 11pm. Then, we went out - sorry George, I know you told me before I left "You'll see, you'll go out dancing salsa at midnight" and I was always like "get behind me Satan". But sadly, you were right. We made a friend here - guess what his name is - Jose (equivalent of Joseph or Iosif in Romanian) who is surprisingly smart (and smart people seem hard to find even at a Computer Science faculty which by definition should be packed with us nerds) and has an English girlfriend, ergo speaks English!

He's really a nice friendly guy and seems to see in us a nice way to practice English. He also slanders his own people a lot. We went dancing - well, I and Oana danced, Anca swayed in a very crisp and restrained manner (I think she was a bit sad about something), only at times being more at ease when she saw us having fun. We were most duly taken home and slept a nice deep sleep. I should not forget to tell you that people here are night miscreants - the streets are empty during the day because most of the people are at work, or simply sleep and have their siesta but they ALL go out during the night. It's like it's a festival every god damned day, only they get out to eat. The town is suffused with kebap and food smells at 12 o'clock in the night and it gets so crowded that you bump into people. Sorry George, you were right.

Let's eat

9th day, Saturday

Saturday was "doing chores" day - we washed clothes (they dried in 1 hour because the sun is relentless here), we had our basin in the bath repaired and paid the rent (half, for September) to the landlord. Very conscientious indeed. I am most certain that the landlord noticed how the air in the apartment now smells like jasmin and soap, and not dust and cigarette smoke.

Before us, some girls lived in the apartment - but I can't fathom how! The washing machine and the oven hadn't been used - neither the shower for that matter - supposedly they sent everything to their mothers for washing and only ate pizza but still, we had to use gloves in the beginning.

In the evening, we went downtown and marveled at the numerous Chinese bazaar/stores that basically had the same products but many customers. I bought myself a Chinese gown (I think I have a ball dress for this year's BA graduation party) and - Silviu, writhe in pain - it is pink (other colours were much more adequate as to what I like but the sizes were either too big or too small). A blonde makes do with pink, how cliché.

PS (#1): It turns out that the truck with gasoline cylinders comes today, not Thursdays how we expected (this is how we get hot water and fire granted that the apartment is older than my dad by a considerable amount of years). You basically have to get out to the balcony when you hear the ruckus they make and yell "1 (2) bombones aqui" - you pay them 1 euro and they bring the cylinders to the piso where you live. We have 3 full cylinders right now, so we're good.

10th day, Sunday

Today, the most incredible thing happened! The wind blew all day and the sky actually tried hard to be cloudy. I also noticed that if it were really cold, I would freeze in my room, because the window is not tightly closed and it lets wind in.

Meals have consisted so far in vegetarian soups, vegetable salads, cereals and mils and fruit. We decided to go wild today since it's  Saturday and spent the morning doing pancakes with finetti (yummy:)) and spaghetti with chicken meat, champignons and grated cheese.

In the evening we went to the Catedral Real located downtown and attended the shortest service in my life. It lasted only 30 minutes. Many old people and no choir but peaceful nonetheless. I think next Sunday I'll go back to the neighbourhood church "Nuestra Senora de la Consolacion" though.

I have put together a faculty schedule and it looks very bad - they emphasize here more the teoricos and so far, less the practicas. I have 6 subjects to attend, each with at least 2 teoricos (lectures) and only one practica (lab). For instance, IA is packed with 4h of lecture and 2h of practica.

I just have to get through 8h of Spanish classes tomorrow.

Vivimos aqui sub pod.

7th day, Thursday

I had Sistemas Multimedia for the 1st time (since we missed Tuesday's lecture). The teacher is young and nice but we were nervous nonetheless. Well, that ceased the moment he started asking the whole class "Savez por que es el cielo azul?" and ultimately "Que es el sonido?". Silence. Either the rest of the students were being slow (I said the definition as I remembered it and the teacher was pleased *insert bewildered emoticon here*). He had to resort to a very plastic analogy as to make them understand what exactly is sound - "imagine you have a room full of gelatin and if I punch it - bam! - it will shake and be wobbly-wobbly" (we learned about sound 7-8 years ago and without such metaphors).

This is when depression hit me for the first time since I left home.

Afterwards, the teacher surprisingly made a smooth transition from "wobbly-wobbly" onomatopoeia to Fast Fourier Transform definitions and  algorithm to analyze sound. I felt better.

The girls went out in the evening, but I had to go to a 2h lecture from 7pm till 9pm which I thought was Logic Programming. Instead it was Programming Languages and it was tremendously easy (characteristics of all programming languages, a bit of C, a bit of Haskell). This confusion occured naturally because their schedule  has the subjects abbreviated. I stayed anyway - I was the only girl, and there were 6 boys too.

I got depressed again. I got really mad, however, when one of them asked me something about lists, trying to convince me not to drop the whole course. I understood "Lisp" and I told him "No, I don't know Lisp yet, I hope I'll learn it soon". He  only understood "No" (obviously never heard of Lisp) and started to enumerate fast in Spanish "areyes, matrices, pero no Matrix, no la pelicula".

Concluzion: he took me for a stupid girl who never even heard of lists, and the only matrix there is would be the one in the eponymous movie.

I can't understand Spanish perfectly and I certainly can't express myself correctly (right now) in Spanish. English is useless.

I had no way of getting through to him, he was already feeling smug. How could I tell the idiot that last year I implemented in C++ the entire DSA and RSA cryptosystem, including attacks? Nevermind that, how could a third year in Computer Science ask someone about such basic concepts? It's like asking a painter if he knows what is a chevalet.

I slept with a headache, and I woke up with it. 

8th day, Friday

Today was a better day - firstly because I finally found the schedule for Logic Programming and secondly because I started doing tutorials for Processing. It even has OpenGL. I'm wondering how the GUI will come up for the BA paper & application, using Processing and Java but I am looking forward to it. I think I'll start making the designs after I figure out the RDFa and the Ontology parts.

In the evening, we went out (we all do it in threes) and met with Linah, a Flemish girl that lives in Belgium  and was born in Africa (she told me that people living in Flanders hate French and consider themselves Dutch). It was fun to see the town at night time (teeming with people).

PS (#1): We're known around the campus as the blonde, the redhead and the brunette Erasmus students, me incidentally being the blonde, Anca the redhead and Oana the brunette. That is indeed something I would like recognition for, I bet everyone back home envies me.

PS (#2): Sometimes at the TV they show gypsies that claim they're Romanian and recount how vile the Romanian government is, how they don't receive any help (and money for free like they do in Spain) - "Vivimos aqui sub pod", "Nostra casa - ne-am carat-o cu roaba - patru cinco", "Nimeni nu s-ar intoarce in Romania de buna voie" ("Nobody would willingly come back in Romania").

I am very tolerant, but how can I agree with a minority that slanders my country everywhere and compromises it internationally beyond any hope of redemption? When in Romania, most of them say they're not Romanian - they don't have a sense of belonging to Romanian culture - they're Roma. I wish my country were not slandered, and foreigners wouldn't confuse Romanians for Roma gypsies.

PS (#3): Oana calls every Spanish person "Rodriguez". How was the Artificial Intelligence teacher called? Rodriguez. How was the guy to your left called? Rodriguez. How is the landlord called? Rodriguez. And she takes a photo of every single God damned graffiti :) .

The rains (girls) in Spain stay mainly on the plains (in house, cleaning)

5th day Tuesday

Yesterday school began, at least officially. I, Anca and Oana managed to attend only one lecture, Artificial Intelligence. The second lecture *would have* been Multimedia Systems, if it weren't for us running like crazy people around the campus, searching for the classroom. The timetable changed, and we didn't know. Go figure.

First of all, Artificial Intelligence was fairly well understood - about 50% which is more than i can ask right now - and the teacher seemed very nice and open to dialogue with the students. There were few girls, but as it goes in computer science, each "asignatura" or subject is frequented by a trendy crowd that consists of 85% boys and 15% girls.

At the final of the lecture, we asked the teacher (in Spanglish) whether we could hand in the projects in English. He said (in Spanglish) that we should be able to learn Spanish until the Convocatorias (final exams). That oughta make it clear for us.

Afterwards we went to AI (Artificial Intelligence) laboratory but the room was empty. Only today did we find out that in the first week there are no laboratories because the plataforma no es lista (the faculty's working platform is not configured yet).

In the afternoon we went to apartment-hunt, to see if we could find something cheaper and newer - we didn't so we decided to make Calle Artemisa our permanent (squeeky clean) home for the next 4.7 months.

6th day Wednesday

We had to call Mr. Julio (he always seems to have the same shirt when coming round) to fix stuff in the apartment. Because Dan left today (he returned home in Valencia), we received a strict 101 regarding the gas recipients (the Spanish call them "bombones"), how to change a lightbulb - how many Erasmus student girls do you need to change a lightbulb ? (ha, ha.) - and if we have any question/problem at all, we can call the old man night and day. Hm, that didn't sound right.

School-wise: after I went to User Interface Design, and Oana and Anca went to New Programming Technologies (successfully managed to obtain msn and mail from Spanish girl in class) - and Dan left - what did you think we did (three 21-aged girls, alone in an apartment)?

We cleaned the hell out of it. Again.


At the end of the day (two hours ago) Oana and I went jogging and mine-field testing - we returned safely therefore we hope that jogging will be a habit. We drank a tea, we blogged a bit...good night.

Alhambra and Arab culture

3rd day

Today is Sunday (I'm having problems blogging because on the TV, three very enthusiastic persons sing time and again a stupid song "Spaghetti y tortilla! Tortilla voy a hacer!"). One however could make right guesses whether it is a weekday or a weekend judging by: how late people get up (window shutters open, el barrio fills with all sorts of food fragrances), how many empty beer cans are on the streets (our area is quite quiet though) and how people gather around the churches starting with 13 o'clock (there are services earlier, but few people go).

Dan, Anca, Oana and I went to a nearby Catholic church (I wanted to find one so that I could maintain the habit) and we stayed the entire service. It lasted less than back at home - only 45 minutes. Their choir (adolescents) had about 6 guitars (many guitars, many schools of flamenco, flamenco dresses and shows..., guitar courses and shows...in Andalucia especially) and were very huggy-huggy and kissy-kissy. After the service ended, we decided to go to the Banos Arabes de Albaicin and Alfar Romano de Cartuja - Arab Baths. We searched a lot, but the GPS (such a nice lady "Gira a la izquierda. Entonces, gira a la derecha.") - took us to the Emergency Hospital and to the Granada prison. Very nice. We gave up on the whole idea and we came home and ate a bit before going out again, by foot, in Granada.

That was a very helpful experience, since we have to manage alone. We walked, we saw the main avenues, the tiendas - stores - the streets were teeming with baby buggies, moms, young people and old people, foreigners. By 9 o'clock, we barely had space to move throughout the crowds!

We were lucky, we dropped into a fiesta - some sort of march of the town officials - much like "Sfanta Paraschiva" in Iasi. The crowds and the lights made it seem like an Ibiza look-alike. After all, Granada has *many* foreigners. The area of Andalucia in general has a tourism-oriented economy and it offers the necessary "panem et circum".

4th day

Getting up at 7 o'clock is nearly impossible when everyone around you gets up at at least 9. We had to go to the Extranjeria (Bureau of Immigration and Foreign Affaires) to make a residence card.

You need a residence card (for limited or permanent stay) to be able to make an account at a bank in Spain, to rent something and to be given the so-called N.I.E - an id given to foreigners (existence is greatly improved and you're able to move more freely). We went an hour earlier but it still wasn't enough - the queue was endless. It advanced fast. We were given numbers of order to be called in(they should implement this system in Romania...) and when the panel in the waiting room displayed it, we went there only to be annouced that the "lines" didn't work. The phone or something. The nice lady gave us a special number of order for tomorrow so that we could get immediately in and solve our issue. I hope it'll be okay.

Afterwards, from 14 to 20 we went to Alhambra. We explored every nook and cranny. Almost. But we saw everything that we couldn't two days ago, now that we had a pass everywhere.

Arab culture in  all its splendour - the gardens, the ingenious irigation systems that made a sky-high tuya grow out of infertile terra rossa, 400m high, in the palace premises...the intricate etchings in the walls and the secret passages.
We were programmed to visit "El Palacio de Nazaries" (the main location) at 19:00 (if you are late, you can't go in, and you are llowed to stay and visit only an hour). Therefore, from 14 until 19, we visited the Generalife area with its gardens and its towers.

Once perched high up, Albaicin - the neighbourhood that was at the feet of the Alhambra palace - appeared as a set of inordinate, irregular white and deep-green dots (houses and trees). Alhambra palace is a town by itself by the way.

So much patience, so much endurance and quiet beauty. My feet hurt, but the day is unforgettable.

School starts tomorrow.