Toledo

On extended trips like this one weekends are a little weird. It's difficult to do any direct Global Modules business, although I send out enough e-mails to give it the old college try. Usually one of the days is a travel day, and, typically, I'll be flying out early tomorrow morning for Vienna. That still leaves one day, and it's often the only time for some actual sight-seeing. Luckily, one of the University of Alcala professors, Carmen Flys Junquera, volunteered to drive me out to Toledo. I was planning on going out anyway, but this saved me the trouble of getting back on the Spanish train system (which wasn't a problem) and also provided me with a great tour guide.

Toledo is a beautiful city with a rich Visigothic, Jewish, Moorish and Christian history. In the Catedral de Toledo is possesses one of Europe's great cathedrals, which was great to see because Madrid does not have a great cathedral. The Catedral de Toledo took around 350 years to construct so you can see a series of architectual styles as you make you way from the back of the church to the front. There's a picture of it on top, although I didn't try to take one inside - flash photographs are forbidden and I've tried to take a lot of pictures over the years in situations like that and they never seem to work out too well. Plus, the cathedral was so incredible I would have had to take a hundred pictures anyway. It wasn't quite Notre Dame, but it's about as close as you can get.

The Monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes was also pretty spectacular. It was ordered constructed by Ferdinand and Isabella (the same Isabella from the Columbus stories). She was a very strong ruler (and put up with Ferdinand's constant womanizing) and there was a definite effort with about every square foot to emphasize her equality with him as a ruler. Remember, when they married the united and created Spain, and she wasn't just along for the ride. There's a picture above of chains on the side of the church. Apparently they were actually taken off Christian prisoners freed from the Moors and they were put on the church as a remembrance. The Monasterio also has a great central courtyard, complete with some great gargoyles.

There's not nearly enough time to talk about all there is to see in Toledo, at least not and still get packed before my flight. The streets are cobblestone and wind around the city at odd angles. Toledo rests on top of a hill and the river curls around the base of the hill on three sides so it was a natural for defense. It sort of reminded me of Fez, although the streets were not as narrow and it was not quite as insane. Unfortunately, the streets are wide enough for cars and, even though this was supposed to be a no car day in Toledo, they did buzz through the narrow streets at an alarmingly fast rate. It's a definite must-see if you're ever in Spain. It's only around an hour outside of Madrid.

OK, time to pack and get ready for the fight to Vienna. Don't know how much I'll be on, especially with pictures, in the next few days. The last time I stayed at the Hotel Wandl I had constant internet issues and could never get it to work with my laptop in my room, so I would spend hours in the lobby on the hotel computer. It's amazing that at one time I didn't want to come to Spain - now I can't wait to come back.

Tapas

Madrid really is an amazing place. Before I showed up here the first time I wasn't really that excited to go. My graduate work is in 16th century British history and I must have had some leftover Armada thing going on, but I just didn't think that I'd like Spain. It just shows how wrong you can be. I was coming back from Amman, Jordan and this was the connecting option and the price was right so this is why I ended up in Madrid. They say that politics is like making sausage, you don't really want to know how it's done. Putting together the Global Modules network sometimes feels that way. There's lot of time spent researching and planning, and there's also a lot of sheer dumb luck and adapting on the fly. If I know I'm going to fly through some place I'll quickly contact the local universities, test the waters, and then, depending up their response, decide whether or not to extend my stay. I had some real preliminary talks with the University of Alcala, they were positive, so I stretched out my initial stay in Madrid - and seriously began my campaign with the University, which has now borne fruit. It tends to work like that.

So, I decided to give Madrid a try and fell in love with it immediately. For some reason I thought the Spaniards were more dour - again, I think it's that whole English propaganda in painting the Spanish in dark colors. Instead, they are warm and fun-loving people. I know it seems like I romanticize all these other countries, and they are certainly not utopias, but in a lot of ways they simply seem a lot saner than Americans. The Spanish say that they, like the Australian claim, work hard and play hard. Well, I don't know if I've seen the work hard part yet, but they certainly play hard - or at least have a really nice balance between work and play. Yes, they don't work as many hours as Americans do, but they also don't own as much as Americans own or consume as much as Americans consume, and well, they just seem a lot happier to me than Americans do.

Central Madrid is a marvelous place to stay, even if you're stuck at the Hostal Persal. The place is honeycombed with all these fascinating cobblestone alleys heading off in different illogical directions. There must be hundreds of bars and restaurants here. It sort of reminds me of the best of New Orleans - the wonderful spirit, but without the silly, annoying excesses. Madrilenos love the late night so much that they are known as gatos (cats) because they only come out at night. As I've mentioned, dinner doesn't normally start until after 9:00 and going to a club certainly couldn't begin until at least 11:00. This is wonderful, of course, unless you're a 47 year old historian, who is heading back to the hotel as the party is getting started. One of my fondest memories is of watching the Spanish team play a world cup game in a tapas bar - the crowd was insane.

The bars here pride themselves on serving their own unique brand of tapas (hors d'oeuvres). All of them are fantastic and most of them are pretty cheap. A couple tapas makes for a perfectly fine dinner. You can just wander through the streets and find the tapas bar that fits your mood at the moment. Last night I tracked down the first tapas bar that I visited on my earlier trip to Madrid and relived my first tapas experience: one anchovy and two sardines and tomato on bread with olive oil drizzled on top (pictured above). It doesn't sound like much, but it's fantastic. After spending hours online today I was tired and wanted something quiet and quick tonight so I dropped into a little hole in the wall. The tapas were great - marinated salmon with onions and capers on bread, and then some sort of cooked crab dish - a few olives - and a couple beers - a nice meal for about ten euros. To top it off, they were playing country music. On the big screen TV they had on some dedication to Willie Nelson and I got to see him sing a duet with Lucinda Williams on her song Over Time - I'm a nut for Lucinda and that is one of my all-time favorite songs. And then I had the bizarre experience of seeing Willie sing a duet with Keith Richards on We Had It All. I figured that I must have gotten some bad tapas or something. The other thing that makes this like New Orleans is that the competition between the tapas bars is so intense that the food just has to be great or they can't stay in business - one of the few instances of capitalism actually working.

Retiro Park

Right in the center of Madrid lies Retiro Park, which is their answer to Central Park. It stretches over something like 350 acres and is a wonderful place to walk through - or get lost in. On my last visit to Madrid I had a meeting on the other side of the park with a professor and I took a bus to get there. After the meeting he told me I could just go into the park in an entrance on his side of the park and "keep walking diagonal" - with directions like that how could I get lost? Well, about two hours later I stumbled out the other side, armed with invauable directions from about ten well-meaning good samaritans and police officers. Obviously, it would help tremendously if I spoke Spanish, because Spain, unlike Sweden, is not a place where you run into a lot of folks who speak English. Nevertheless, they are unfailingly polite when dealing with idiotic monolingual Americans.

There are tennis courts and lakes and crystal palaces and running trails and restaurants. There is also a place to work out. If you enter the park by the Prado gate and walk in about fifty yards (being sure to leave bread crumbs to mark your trail) you'll find the building by the tennis court and the workout facility is in the basement - it only costs 4.1 euros. It's a wonderful place to sit of an evening with some ice cream and watch the world go by. Roller blading is still very big in Madrid so there are skaters all over the place. Also, Spaniards apparently really love dogs because they are there with their owners (read that any way you wish) by the dozens. There are also a large number of cats lurking in the darkness, which gave it a sort of spooky, Daphne du Maurier or Edgar Allen Poe feel.

Museo del Jamon

OK, so it's 2:30 and you're hungry - what do you do? In Madrid you would think about getting some lunch, although just barely because no one serves lunch before 2:00. On my previous trip to Madrid I had a late afternoon flight out and wanted to grab something before going to the airport. I wandered into a place around 1:00 and asked if I could get some lunch and the waiter gave me a look that I can only qualify as one of pity. I ended up going to Burger King instead because it was the only place serving lunch.

Now if it's actually lunchtime you could go to the Museo del Jamon. Yes, I know what you're thinking, "wait, my Spanish is a little rusty, but isn't that museum of ham?" Yes, you'd be correct. You can order things other than ham there, but they essentially say, "what a fascinating order, but have you considered ham?" (it sounds better in Spanish) You can get a ham sandwich and a Mahou (the national beer of Spain) for 2.3 euros (the olives are a comp), so it's a pretty good deal. You'll have to stand at the counter and the place is packed. This place would be Homer Simpson's alternative to Moe's.

University of Alcala

Thursday, 20 September 2007

The University of Alcala is located in Alcala de Henares, which is around thirty minutes outside of Madrid by train. Once again, I can’t say too much about the extraordinary Spanish public transportation system. The trains run on time and it is easy to find your way around (even if you don’t speak a word of Spanish). The university itself is beautiful and has a history that stretches back centuries. Oddly, it was all but dead for much of the 20th century and was brought back to life mainly by the efforts of the people of Alcala de Henares who refused to give up on their dream of breathing new life into the school. Thank goodness they did. While some of the buildings are surprisingly modern, others have the same look, on the outside anyway, that they did in the 15th century. In some places the architects have melded brand new buildings onto older structures, but even they have allowed the older buildings to dominate. Most of their buildings, even the ones five hundred years old, are wireless or soon will be – the challenge of which our own IT folks could understand. The university has something around eighteen-thousand students, but has the feel of a more intimate college.

The campus is full of beautiful old courtyards, often hidden behind five hundred year old facades. One administrative building has a façade dating back to the time of Charles V. Once you go through the gate you enter the first of three linked courtyards, each one progressively older. In one of the courtyards there is an idyllic tree-covered corner that is simply referred to as the Philosopher’s Garden (seen above) – my proposal would be that we retire David Kite and Alfonso Capone here (preferably sooner than later).

In a series of meetings that stretched over two days I met a number of faculty and administrators, including the Dean of Humanities, the Assistant Dean of Economics, the Director of International Relations, and the Chair of the Modern Languages department. All of this was organized by Carmen Flys Junquera who is a very big supporter of the GM program. Her parents are Spanish but she was raised in the states. She moved to Spain in the 1970’s and has been here ever since - her own experiences with two different cultures probably explains her fascination with the GM program. If she as good an ambassador for the GMs as she is for the university we’ll have no trouble succeeding here. Alcala is interested in embedding the Global Modules in several courses as an experiment for the upcoming spring semester, but they are already talking about signing a memorandum of understanding and expanding to more classes next year – maybe even taking the same approach that Champlain is doing and actually embed them in key courses. They also have an interesting bonus credit program where students can get one, two or three credits for taking on unique assignments, and Alcala is talking about using this approach for a one-credit course that would just be the Global Module itself. This might actually be a possible approach that Champlain could use as it explores ways to bring the GMs into the extracurricular realm. Carmen thinks that immigration would be a great GM topic because the Spanish (like a lot of European countries, and the US for that matter) are dealing with their own immigration issues.

Madrid

OK, I've made it to Madrid without too many problems, even conniving an aisle seat in the emergency row on the flight over the Atlantic. I arrived about 9:30 a.m. this morning (3:30 a.m. VT time) and have been going since. After making it out of the airport and finding the Hostal Persal I had to grab something to eat and then make my way out of the University of Alcala for the first of two days of meetings.

Getting around Madrid is easy because the Metro system is fantastic. The only problem is that there are a lot of ups and downs and you wind around from one line to another - some have escalators and others don't. It's only a problem if you happen to have just gotten off a trans-Atlantic flight and are carrying the world's biggest suitcase. You'll turn a corner and suddenly there is a climb up of forty steps followed by a climb down of thirty steps - it's sort of like Super Mario.

The Hostal Persal is OK, although the wifi actually only works in the lobby (which is where I'm sitting). I do have the smallest room in the world (it's not as big as the picture would indicate). When I opened the door I thought I had accidently entered the walk-in closet. The shower is even smaller, but it really isn't a problem unless you're one of those people who insist on having your entire body in the shower at once.

The trip out to the University of Alcala was great and they are very enthusiastic for the GM project, but I'll have more to say about that later. Right now I'm ravenous and have to go find something to eat. It's about 9:18 and that's about right because no one from Madrid would ever consider even thinking about eating before nine p.m.

Travel

I love travel, don't get me wrong. However, I think some people view it as much more romantic than it is - or at least much more romantic than my travel budget allows. You do get to see a lot of wonderful sights, although it also means weeks away from family and friends and eating a lot of meals alone (which is why I love the travel journal that my sister Beth bought me - it gives me something to do while waiting for my food) and staying in budget hotels to stretch the budget and watching a lot of TV in foreign languages (by the way, The Simpsons in Arabic doesn't translate very well). Making arrangements is troublesome, not only with the universities in regards to planning meetings but also just plane and train trips. Thank god I have the help of Rochelle from Child Travel, although I suspect she shrieks every time I send her one of my e-mails. Here's an example from earlier today:

"Rochelle,

OK, I guess we should start working out the nightmare of the Jordan-UAE-Kenya-Uganda flight (I cringe at the thought of it, although I went by the travel clinic yesterday for my yellow fever shot [and second meningitis shot] so I guess it would be silly not to follow up on it now).

Just to get the conversation started:

21 or 22 October – Burlington to Amman

30 October – Amman to Dubai

3 or 4 November – Dubai to Nairobi, Kenya

7 November – Nairobi to Eldoret, Kenya

11 November – Eldoret to Kampala, Uganda

14 November – begin trip home, probably back through Amman to take advantage of some cheap initial round trip to Amman (although there’s a chance I might stay in Uganda for a couple more days to visit Mbale, but I doubt it)

My brain hurts just thinking about it . . .

g"

And my colleagues at Champlain think I'm difficult to deal with on a daily basis . . .