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| Hello Everyone,
PHS is wrapping up, and people are winding down and spending more time on the internet posting about prom and college and how I totally need a facebook, and it´s making me guilty (not to mention look very bad for never ever posting). To make up for that/pretend the whole april disappearance never happened, I am posting a very few pictures from Cordoba, and a very insufficient explanation as to why there are only four: internet Issues, with digital camera issues as a close runner up.
Anyway, enough whining. This first picture is of the Mezquita in Cordoba. You may ask "why claudia, where are the arabic influenced striped arches?" and I will tell you "well, I took pictures of them, and you know what? They look Exactly Like You Would Expect." aside from how totally cool it is to see them actually in person, all the pictures I took of the polylobed arches (yes, that´s what they´re actually called) look exactly like what you would find in any book. So instead, I uploaded a picture of the cathedral part, which they built inside the mosque. The mosque was built in the remains of the basilica of st. vincent (they make a big deal about this in the literature they hand out on site), but the muslims built about a hundred times the floor space as the what had previously been there. That was one of the things that surprised me: it was gigantic, over 20000 square meters. I think I may have actually gotten lost in a square building with only one huge room.
anyway, this next picture is a mistake. When I was uploading, I was only looking at thumbnails, and I thought I was putting up a picture of where various people were buried in the crypt, which has a similar label, but instead, I uploaded a blurry picture of the label of a picture (also blurry) of the inside of an old clock.
you´re probably wasting your time reading my xanga, aren´t you?
well, the clock is pretty cool. Here are the two pictures:
It says, (as obnoxiously translated as possible): "machine of the clock of the tower of the cathedral Manual Garcia Pinto 1747", only in all capital letters, so it´s really more like "THE MACHINERY OF THE CATHEDRAL´S TOWER CLOCK, (DESIGNED BY) MANUEL GARCIA PINTO IN 1747" thank you mezquita. no need to shout.
The insides of the clock.
Now for my next trick, here is a picture of half of my latin and lit class. I chose to take it from this sneakattack!angle, so that you can see the awesome dreadlocks that girl has (her name is Maite, which means love/loved one in Basque). I´m missing a picture of the full set of classmates (not true, I just haven´t been able to upload it), but the other two girls in this picture are both named anna, and those three, myself, and about four or five other people make up most of my classes.
I think I also have pictures of the graduation party somewhere. They´re just not uploaded yet.
Ok, now it´s your turn: send me pictures, email me, post comments, get on AIM, go on lj, do Something, because I miss you all and I am really looking forward to summer. Speaking of which, other exciting-ness: I´m going to CA to visit Ye! Of course, this will be after the Italy-SanFermin-Otakon sequence of events, and thus I will be broke, but hey. We´ll go camping; I can forage.
Also, does anyone remember that notebook Peiharn gave me with the leaves and the scientific names? The company who designed it is, called Kukuxumusu (it means kiss of the flea in Basque, and is just an over all Cool Word) is based in Pamplona. I think one of my host cousins knows the owner. I bought an outrageously expensive T-shirt with the same design. I will wear it when I return, and show you all.
Until then,
-Claudia, The Fern
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Happy Birthday to me!! Here, my birthday is no longer pi day, it's now 14.3.07. But hey, imagine how much fun this will all be when I'm in the US for my birthday in 2015? I can hardly wait. For my birthday, I had dinner with my host family, and then on saturday I went out with some kids from school. 
My host brothers (and sister-in-law) gave me this sash and scarf, which are what you're supposed to wear during San Fermin.  We spent a lot of time making anagrams out of "happy birthday". 
They threatened to look up my blog, so I'm forced to post silly pictures as preemptive retaliation. 
This is the view from a hill in a small town about half an hour away, and really has nothing to do with anything. I also took videos of various things. If anyone wants to see them, email me. and even if you don't want to see them email me. | | |
| The holiday season ends officially for me tomorrow, my first day back in school. yay (<=enthusiasm. NOT) The city had a parade on the 5th to celebrate three kings day, i.e. Epiphany. There was also a special family dinner and lunch the next day. It's awsome. yay (<=enthusiasm. real this time) 
It starts off with various bands. This particular one has teachers from the conservatory in it, (thus got special attention from my camera) 
This is the float of one of the three kings (balthazar, I think). He gets a cool snake-lion float. 
This is another of the kings, though I'm not sure which. They have some criteria to determine who is who, but I don't really remember all of it. 
The kings come from the orient/middle east/africa. This means belly dancers. yay (<= not at ALL faked enthusiasm) 
not sure, but they've got maces, so they're cool. That coat of arms you see splashed all over their costumes is the coat of arms of Navarra. 
Part of a band-with-flags thing that reminded me of our color gaurd (but actually, they didn't do as many cool tricks). The band and flag bearers are Italian and come every year for the parade. They have a reputation for being really hot, but of course, I just HAD to take a picture of the old guy.... 
This is a picture of a girl dressed up as a mail box. The two others are pages putting letters in. The living mail boxes come around before the parade and the little kids put in their letters to the three kings. It's kind of like writing to Santa, if Walt Disney were running the postal system. 
This was my new years gift, 'cause no one understands when I describe it to them. With love. Really- lots of it
-Claudia | | |
| New years was a blast. They have a tradition of dressing up in costumes and going out for the night here ("here" being only a few cities in northern spain and not the whole country). I went with some friends from school, dressed as pirates. As you can see below, we made a "pirate ship" 
There is a pirate missing here- she's taking the pictures 
I'm holding up chocolate gold coins. We handed them out to people with cool costumes in exchange for pictures! 
firefighters. They took a lot of gold coins. 
This is a kid from my class dressed up as the pope. 
Grown me dressed as chickens. oh my. 
These are BULLS. Do NOT call them cows. Seriously- they'll be mad! 
Pirates and elaphants! 
You can't tell unless you see their backs, but all these rabbits are Duracell Energizer Bunnies. No one knows who the guy on the far left is. 
The group of "mexicans" (<--that's what they called themselves) sang a song to us. 
Shipwrecked! We abandoned the cart. I hope you had a great new years eve/day. Best of luck in 2007!!! | | |
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My class at one of the two universities in Pamplona Merry Christmas everyone. And a happy new year! | | |
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