Postcard: John Fredland
O
n June 4, I hopped on a
trans-Atlantic flight and left
the assorted joys and pains of my suburban summer existence in favor of the
Iberian Peninsula. There I joined 43 other intrepid American students, two Rice
professors and a grad student for Rice's Summer in Spain program.
For the next six weeks, we took in samples of the country, from the urban bustle of Madrid and Seville to the pastoral holiness of Santiago de Compostela, with a challenging weekend in Portugal. It wasn't all frivolity, though -- each of us took classes from Dr. Urrutibeheity, Dr. Maria Teresa Leal and graduate student Lourdes Verde.
We experienced a dazzling array of historical attractions: the Alhambra, the last stronghold of the Moors; the Rock of Gibraltar; El Greco's "The Burial of the Count of Orgaz," in Toledo; and the cathedral of Santiago, the endpoint of pilgrimages for over a millennium.
We also had equally memorable moments: mastering temperature conversions in order to quantify the hot afternoons, hearing my linguistically confused roommate tell our host family that he "ate [his] mother on the telephone" and luring a monkey onto my head in Gibraltar.
Our instructors said we were the best group they had taken to Spain; whether that lofty claim was true or not, it was a wonderful way to spend a summer.
-- John Fredland, Brown '97
This item appeared in the Features section of the September 13, 1996 issue.
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