pictures of travels

i havent really posted anythign except pictures lately.  i have been quite busy with school, travel, and working on my paper from my israel trip. 

last weekend i went to lisbon with maria, and the weekend before that i went to barcelona with some friends.  here are the links to pictures.

lisbon

http://picasaweb.google.com/jeff.meigs/Lisboa#

barcelona

http://picasaweb.google.com/jeff.meigs/Barcelona#

its been a bit

its been a while since ive posted, so i must apologize to my thousands of readers out there. ………

last weekend i went on a group trip to cordoba and granada.  here are the photos

cordoba

http://picasaweb.google.com/jeff.meigs/Cordoba#

and the alhambra (granada)

http://picasaweb.google.com/jeff.meigs/Granada#

i will surely have more pictures soon, because this weekend i am going to barcelona!  i have been very busy with school, and trying to write my research paper from my trip to israel while i am here.  once i finish that, i will post it for anyone who wishes to read it. 

l8r

 

more pictures

here are some more pics.  these are from maria and my day in sevilla when she was here.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jeff.meigs/SevillaWithMaria#

cadiz pics

i was lucky enough to have maria here this past weekend.

 

here are some pics of our time in cadiz.  we also went to sevilla for a day.  i will post those pics soon.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jeff.meigs/CadizWithMaria#

sevilla pics

i went to sevilla over the weekend, and here are some pictures.  i will post later about what i actually did.  meanwhile, you can watch my cornell west video, or read my SLAP post. 

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/jeff.meigs/WeekendInSevilla#

last week/weekend

hello.  just here to give an update of things going on.  last week i started school.  I am taking a language class, a literature class, a lit. and other arts class, and Spain in the European Union.  I am excited for these classes, because the professors seem great and everything is in spanish.  Hopefully my language will improve alot while I am here, since virtually no one speaks english, everyone has a ridiculous accent and I am living with a family.  During the week, when not in school, I have been living pretty normally, (as opposed to vacation like) which is nice because I think it helps really experience life here.  I have been mostly just getting the occasional coffee at cafes, reading Hard Times in a lovely cove that leads to a light house on the water, relaxing, talking to people back home, hanging out with my family, watching spanish tv and soccer, and trying to cope with my lack of musical instruments by drumming on my practice pad. 

It is starting to get easier being here and away from familiar things, and I am starting to feel more at home, although it is still hard being away from Maria and family and stuff.  The book I am reading, Hard Times by Dickens, is pretty interesting s far.  It has a unique writing style and plot development.  Basically it’s about this town where there is a large disparity of wealth between the haves and the have nots.  The plot quickly moves between people, and is still at this point a bit scatterbrained (only about 100 pages in), but it seems to be comparing the lives of a wealthy schoolmaster and his clothing factory owning friend with the lives of an orphan girl from a poor neighborhood, and a man who works long hours at the factory.  The rich men are portrayed as heavily concerned with facts, and very much annoyed with excuses, creativity, and wonder.  They are also very keen on expressing how far they have come, and the hardships they endured before “working their way” to the top.  It will be interesting to see how Dickens develops the story, considering he is both a novelist and a social critic. 

I got a box from my parents with some yummy Trader joe’s snacks, a shirt and Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, my next book.  I heard about it from my physics of music professor.  It won the pulitzer, and is apparently comparing the lives of JS Bach, logician Godel, and artist Escher.  He uses philosophy and science to extrapulate great meaning out of the men, their work, science, music, and art.  The cover has the description “A metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll.”  I am pretty stoked to start this one as well.

This past weekend I went to Madrid.  I met up with Maria there, which was great.  We had a great time, and saw some amazing sites such as the botanical garden, prado museum, churches, the cathedral, palacio real, plaza mayor, and much much more.  here are the pics.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jeff.meigs/MadridWeekend#

 

thats all for now.

embedding

it looks as though the videos did not embed into my blog as i would have liked. 

 

the video is split into 14 sections, each section separated by one line margin on my post.  click on either of the links in each section to get to the video.  sorry about that.

irony

just for fun, here is an incredibly ironic clip i ran across of ex-press secretary dana perino (accidently) admitting how limited democracy is in america. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mon4KvPYjng&NR=1

 

very telling.

pics of la catedral de cadiz

i took pictures inside of the cathedral in cadiz, spain where i am staying. 

you may access them here.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jeff.meigs/CadizCathedral#

enjoy!

arrival in the european union

so im officially blogging again.  the reason for my absence has been

1.  i was not doing anything very exciting for about a month.

2.  my computer broke (i will explain in a bit) and so i have been out of commission.

on august 19th, i flew to paris, to meet my girlfriend maria.  immediately after, we went to lyon, the second largest city in france to the southeast of paris.  this is where maria is spending her semester.  i stayed there for a few days, saw some sites, took lots of pictures, ate some amazing food, and enjoyed the lyonnaise thunder storms.  we were kind of scrambling to find her an apartment for the semester, which she had to find upon arriving.  It’s a pretty complicated process, especially in a new place.  Sadly, after a few days i had to leave, but on the bright side, I got to finally enter a country in which i speak the language (more or less).  I arrived in Madrid, in the late afternoon, only to leave the next morning.  After taking the metro to my hostel, I took to the town (Old Madrid) to see a few sites before I had to head out the next morning.  I saw the Plaza Mayor, where I witnessed my first flamenco experience (awesome) and also I visited the cathedral and the Palacio Real (from the outside due to it being late, but beautiful lighting none the less).  I absolutely loved my less than 24 hour visit to Madrid, and am excited to go back for a weekend soon.  I met some cool guys in the hostel (roomed with 5 random people) that I talked to about Andalucia.  The next morning I was back at the airport.  I ran into some people on the metro from UW doing the same program as me and taking te same flight to Jerez.  Upon arriving in Jerez de la Frontera from Madrid, I took a bus to my final destination (for now), Cadiz.  This is where I will be (most of the time) until mid december.  Upon arriving, I met my host mom, Paqui, whom i walked with to her house.  There I met my host Dad Neno (whom she calls El Gordo ((the fat guy))) and their son Jose and his girlfriend Carmen.  They also have three daughters.  I have been here in Cadiz since the 29th of August. 

To learn a thing or two about cadiz, or see a few pics, check out the wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadiz

Since arriving, I have been enjoying some great home cooked spanish food in my house (lots of fish, lots of seafood, lots of ham), exploring las calles (streets), going to la playa (beach), enjoying cafe cortado (espresso with splash of milk), going to orientation for school, visiting some pubs, enjoying a glass of tinto de verano (literally means summer wine, mixture of red wine and lemon soda), getting to know my family, meeting new friends both Gaditano (from Cadiz) and American (UW), eating chucherrias (world’s best candy), reading, visiting churches and the cathedral and much much more.  Cadiz is a beautful, isolated, beach town, with more history than it knows what to do with, and a unique charm and character unlike any other city I have been to.  I like the contrast from the feel of a major city, even though technically there is less to do. 

when i flew into madrid, i took my computer out only to find a sizeable dent.  In fear I opened the lid to find a large fissure stretching across the length of my mac.  gotta love checked baggage.  I turned it on, somewhat optimistic in the fact that about 3/4 of my screen worked.  After a day, it receded to one half, soon to be engulfed by the abyss of blackness and rainbow stripes.  I arrived in english-less Cadiz with no contact to the outside, and no possible of replacement or repair.  I was actually fortunate to talk to my parents, and they sent me my mom’s laptop, which goes relatively unused.  And it is with this that I am blogging with now. 

I have taken lots of pictures, which I will try and get up soon.  I have been adjusting pretty well, just missing Maria a lot, and the familiarity of family friends, seattle coffee, and my guitar.  The Gaditano accent is pretty rough.  They slur their speach, and don’t say the last syllable of any words.  My family just so happens to be the most difficult to understand that i have met, but i think it will help me in the long run.  I have met a good portion of their extended family, and in fact I am about to eat a large lunch with some of the kids, my mom’s brother and others. 

Side note:  after getting here i finished Amy/David Goodman’s book Standing Up to the Madness:  Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times, which I had signed by her at Seattle’s Green Fest.  I would highly recommend it for anyone interested in issues of dissent, activism, community organizing, and unrecognized heroes. 

I think I will be reading a lot here since on sundays most things are closed.  I found a book store that actually had a decently sized english section, most of which were not up my alley, but I found Dickens’ Hard Times.  I will be reading that to occupy myself for the next few sundays. 

 

I will try and post at least once per week with the week’s happenings, pictures, side adventures, etc. 

as for now,

hasta luego!