Seasons Changing

Springtime has hit Leeds! There is something absolutely wonderful about the first encounter with crocuses every spring. I found these on a walk to class this past week.

Here is an example of England never fully embracing winter. Those are pansies blooming above that wall.
and of course snowdrops!

Barcelona Weekend Away

Last weekend, February 13-15, I met up with Logan in Barcelona. It was my first trip to mainland Europe since I have been in England. So far, I have just been to Copenhagen and Dublin, both on islands. Because of flight times, we only had one day to tour the city, but the weather on Saturday was phenomenal -60 degrees and sunny- especially to one who has been in a cold, dark, windy, foggy, drizzly country for five months.

When we stumbled out of our hostel the first morning, we found ourselves watching a parade. We didn't know what the occasion was, but it was a lot of fun to watch. Instead of floats, they had people wearing "costumes" of 10 foot high characters, and there were marching bands of 5-55 year old musicians in matching tshirts, children in dragons made out of what appeared to be pool toys, and plenty of individuals that may have been either crowd members or part of the parade.One of the main streets in Barcelona is filled with street vendors. Among the most common were caricature artists, flower shops, mimes, and pet stores.
If you put the cute snuggly animals at the bottom, you draw in children.
A building near one of the Metro exits.
I saw this dessert in the window of a pastry shop and HAD to have it. It was packed with macadamia nuts and absolutely delicious.
The parts of Spain that I saw looked like a mix between a really nice San Diego neighborhood and a poor Mexican community with a touch of Texas attitude.
A couple from Minnesota took this picture of Logan and I. The garden was originally designed to be a gated community for wealthy individuals by Antoni Gaudi.
Parakeets in the palm trees!
I love little views into local life.
Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família or "Expiatory Temple of the Holy Family" designed by Antoni Gaudi. Construction has been in progress for 120 years.
There was a man atop this statue pointing out over the harbor. We weren't sure at what.
The docks.
While walking from the docks to find dinner (a nice little restaurant where we got delicious paella) we heard a commotion. Following the sound of music, we entered out onto a large square with an open-air concert.
The Catedral de Barcelona was situated at one end of the square holding the rock concert. There was a service going on when we visited, but you could still hear the music playing outside. It was an intriguing mix of party and God. Only in Spain.

Snow in Leeds!!

I thought I was going to go an entire winter without really seeing snow. We got a few inches one night before Christmas break, but it was all gone by noon that day. The first week of February, though, we got a blizzard! We had a decent blanket of snow on the ground for almost an entire week, getting a bit more almost every day. It made England feel more like home. :~)

This is the view walking out my front door in the morning.

The walk to campus is through a graveyard.
Even though we are in the depths of winter, summer refuses to completely give up its hold. There is ALWAYS some flower or another blooming, even under all our snow. The pansies in Hyde Park have been blooming straight on since I arrived last September. The frosts just make the leaves wither a bit and the ground feel like pudding.

Halo Nightclub takes up part of the former Trinity St Davids Congregational Church. Apparently there are separate floors for heaven, hell, and purgatory, but I have never gone to check it out.

Kirkstall Abbey

The last week of finals, the day after my last exam, my friend Kim and I ventured the two mile walk to see the Kirkstall Abbey. It was constructed early in the 12th century, used for a few hundred years, and abandoned in 1539.

The little museum was set up for children, and posters throughout the abbey used simple sentences and small facts conveyed by a cartoon monk. While I didn't learn much beyond "this is where we ate," "this was the only fire in the entire abbey," or "we prayed once an hour, even at night," there were many pretty views within the abbey.
It was also an absolultely beautiful day.

Dublin, Ireland

Home only one day after my trip to Copenhagen, I headed to my third island of break- Ireland. I met up in Dublin with a friend from Penn State (Luke is studying in Germany this year, and had sent me a message saying "I'm free for this one weekend, what shall we do??").

"Dublin" in Irish. The entire city is dubbed in Irish. Luke and I got off the bus from the airport at about midnight, tired and travel weary, but not so much that we weren't excited about all the Christmas decorations that were still up.
General Post Office- home of the 1916 Easter Rising. Much of Dublin is reminiscent of the very recent independence from England.

The Custom House, Dublin's "grandest" building. We got a little bit of sun this day!

Trinity College is a famous school in Dublin. They are a main destination point within the city, because they have the Book of Kells. Renowned as the most beautiful book in the world, the Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript from around 800.
Unfortunately, Trinity's library was closed. No Book of Kells for us. :-( Luke was sad, too.

St. Stephen's Green is the largest garden in Dublin. It was full of people, with plenty of kids throwing bread at the ducks, gulls, and swans.
One of the swans tried to eat my boot. I wish I'd had bread, too!

Happy carriage driver. Right jolly looking fellow.

St. Patrick's Cathedral was constructed around 1100.
They had memorials and tombs within, many of famous people and interesting stories. My favorite was the Door of Reconciliation. It didn't look like much- just a few old boards and a hole in the middle, but the story was good. Two families were feuding in the late 1400s, and one of the leaders decided the fighting was going too far. He went to the other family in peace, but they refused him entrance. To prove his good faith, the visitor hacked a hole in the door and put his arm through it, showing his trust that they harm his defenseless limb.

The floors were absolutely beautiful.
And the ceilings.
And the little kneeling pads.

Molly Malone is one of Dublin's famous statues. She's well known because of her scandalously low cut bodice. Apparently, it was even lower when she was first constructed, and the flounce you see now is an additional piece affixed in response to complaints.

Kilmainham Goal = lots of Irish history. The prisons in Ireland filled up in the 1840s and 1850s, people would commit petty crimes to be imprisoned. Prison life wasn't great- overcrowding meant disease and filth- but meager rations saved the lives of thousands of people during the potato famine.
One famous Irish nationalist who was imprisoned here was Joseph Plunkett. He married his sweetheart, Grace Gifford (another activist), in the Kilmainham Goal chapel only a few hours before he was executed.

"Darling Grace,
You will marry me and nobody else. I have been a damned fool and a blind imbecile but thank God I see I love you and you only and will never love anyone else.
Your love, Joe."

She never remarried. Both were important figures in the quest for Irish independence last century.

And, finally: tacky Irish gift store number 23901231. If you want a €15 sheep keychain that will fall apart next week, or a €12 Guinness mug that is already chipping, you can be quick

God Jul (Merry Christmas!)

I celebrated Christmas with Alexander's close family. His mom is a translator and loves to read, so there were little nooks like this one half way up the steps all over the house, filled with books in both English and Danish.
Many of the Danish Christmas traditions seemed quaint and old fashioned to me. There were people on many busy street corners selling trees, and it was not uncommon to see people hiking home with their new bit of holiday spirit over their shoulder.
The day before Christmas eve, we went out and bought a tree. It was the last tree the seller on the corner had, so we settled, despite it's "enormous size." It seemed like a pretty normal sized tree to me, until we had to carry it home!

We were all the way back to the front door when we realized we'd forgotten to have the seller nail a wooden cross to the bottom of the tree. They take trees down within a few days in Denmark, so they don't usually bother to water them. Instead, we borrowed a stand from the neighbors that was much too narrow for our large tree. Alexander and I spent a couple hours sawing off the bottom 8 inches of the trunk and then using that as a mallet and an axe as a chisel to taper down the rest. We then went around it several times with clippers and thinned it out- there was no room for decorations!
The decorations Alexander's family uses are fairly similar to home. They use a mix of store bought glass ornaments, things people have made throughout the year, and a few ornaments from "here and there" over the years. We pulled out paper Santas from a couple generations, and a couple times Alexander's mom would say "ah! Those were my mothers."

There were a few differences, however. Danish ornaments are often red and white, for the national colors; they dress their trees like their flags. They used candles, not lights, on the tree. They also often put tiny baskets filled with cookies or nuts on the tree, and cut out magazines or red and white paper to make little heart baskets according to the instructions here.
Christmas eve is the biggest day of celebration in Denmark, at least in the family I stayed with. We had a big dinner, lit candles on our newly decorated tree, sang carols in Danish (the language completely escapes me, but I got the "hallelujah" part!) and exchanged presents.
This is the song book I could only follow along in. I had to count syllables and listen for line pauses quite a bit.
We spent the rest of the evening playing a trivia game that Alexander's mom translated into English for my benefit. Occasionally, we looked questions up in enormous atlases for curiosity's sake.