Karen Marcotte's Notes from Spain

As some of you may be aware, Karen Marcotte and Javier Aguirre have taken 19 ACCD students to Spain as part of PAC’s Study Abroad Program! Karen will be sending me emails regarding the student’s experiences during their time Spain. Below are Karen’s first two emails:

Wednesday, May 21:

The Palo Alto College Study Abroad Program has landed and is in full swing! There are 22 participants representing the ACC as we study in Spain. The two faculty members are Professor Javier Aguirre and Professor Karen Marcotte. Professor Sheryd Jackson from the SAC nursing program is also a participant. The 19 students represent PAC (16), NLV (1), SAC (1) and the University of the Incarnate Word (1). Each student is taking two courses from the following list: Hist 2321 (World Civ. I), hist 2322 (World Civ II), Huma 1301 Intro to Humanities or Huma 2323 (World Cultures and Global Issues).

We all arrived safely and so did all the luggage. From Madrid, we went directly to Toledo, the old Iberian capital of Spain. This ancient and modern city of @ 55,000 is a perfect first stop. Small and full of human history, the students have already enjoyed walking the narrow streets, admiring the Feast of Corpus Christi decorations and watching people from a sidewalk cafe. Our guide, Gary Enriquez, fondly remembers the PAC group from last year and we are already old friends. Today we will visit the Cathedral, the ancient Roman walls which still ring this city on a hill and a synagogue. The classes have been meeting since February and the students are quite eager to move from the theoretical to the empirical. They are prepared to learn and are excited about doing so. For many, this is their first trip abroad. Two had never flown before! They are ready for the experience of a life time!

Thursday, May 22:

The PAC Study Abroad group spent a full and delightful day in the city of Toledo. Our day began with a talk on the three cultures of this part of Spain: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Note that the expression is the three cultures, not the three religions. The interaction of these faiths is only part of their history here. Our first on site discussion was at the Toledo Cathedral. We (even those of us who had visited here before) were amazed (again)! The students could not look enough, ask enough questions or hear enough information from our guide. They were all thrilled with the beauty, the size, the various forms of art from various artistic time periods and the significance of this human creation. A special treat was the many activities going on associated with the major feast of Corpus Christi here. The host will be carried around town in a 200 kilo gold monstrance. As we left the Cathedral yesterday, groups of children were bringing flowers and practicing for the procession today. We will miss the major procession but we have been participating in the prior activities such as the parade yesterday with huge statues of important figures in Toledo´s history. Leading the parade was Queen Isabella; King Ferdinand was next followed by bishops and other characters. The statues were at least ten feet tall. A band kept everyone moving to the beat and it was very much a Fiesta atmosphere but on a smaller scale.

We continued on to a synagogue that had been built by Muslim craftsmen so the feel was that of a mosque. The local mosque is under renovation so there was limited time there. In our free afternoon, we did a little shopping, attending other events such as patio competitions with the best garden, the Santa Cruz museum and one of my favorite, plaza sitting and watching people!

Today we head to Consuegra to visit the windmills of Don Quixote fame. We will quiz the students over their reading of Don Quixote and then on to Granada. More later !

Karen Marcotte
PAC Study Abroad
Toledo, Spain