To the land of ham & olives!

Each abroad programs enjoys a wonderful orientation experience at the beginning of the quarter as well as a Bing trip (named after our generous benefactors Peter and Helen Bing) halfway through the quarter. This trip is different from the orientation site and also changes with each quarter. Students are offered another opportunity to travel, see beautiful sights, and learn more about the country that surrounds them, all on Stanford's dime.

Our Bing trip was this past weekend, where the Madrid program takes students to Extremadura during the winter quarter. We visited a couple political and religious centers of interest, including Emperor Charles I's (aka Charles V) "retirement" home and final resting place. We also visited the monastery which houses the original sculpture of la Virgen de Guadalupe, which is now considered the patroness of the Americas conquered by the Spanish, and even got to see the fountain which was used to baptize the first indigenous people brought to Spain.

A large portion of the trip was dedicated to learning about the agricultural processes which surround some of Spain's most iconic gastronomy: jamón serrano (serrano ham), jamón ibérico (iberian ham), and aceitunas (olives). We learned about various efforts to encourage sustainable agriculture and preserve some of the beautiful landscape found in this part of Spain. We visited a ham processing plant where they salt and cure the ham over the course of 1-3 years to produce the final product commonly seen hanging from meat shops all over the country.

The smell of raw meat and salt in the factory was fantastic (read: sarcasm), but if you could tolerate the smell, it was actually somewhat interesting to learn about the process. After leaving the factory and visiting a nearby farm, we got to taste various cuts of meat of both the serrano and the iberian varieties, and yes, I sampled all the ham as well - if you're interested in the specifics as to why I chose to eat meat in this case while I've remained mostly vegetarian otherwise, I'd be more than happy to discuss it but I won't bring up specifics in this post. We got to see iberian pigs afterwards! (strategic ordering of our visits, i.e. ham first, pigs second, certainly made it more tolerable to learn about the ham-making process)

We also visited an olive grove, where we learned about the process of growing and picking olives which are then processed into olive oil. We got to taste a couple varieties of olive oil (it sounds strange, and it was, because we were literally handed little plastic cups filled with oil and given instructions on how to properly "taste" it). Afterwards, we sampled different patés, pastes, and even marmalade, all made with olives and olive oil. Most of the products were too salty for my taste, but the marmalade was fabulous! And, ironically, I was quite disappointed in the actual olives.  

Award-winning olive oil products

We visited Merida, which was originally build as a place for Roman generals to retire after completing their service, so many original Roman structures remain preserved. It felt really strange seeing old ruins like those we saw in Rome in the middle of a small Spanish city!

Aqueduct!

Amphitheater!

Theater - actually used for gladiator fights and such

And even though we were in the middle-nowhere-Spain (ok, I'm exaggerating, but it seemed like it in comparison to Madrid), we were determined to celebrate Carnaval on Saturday night. A couple of bottles of wine and some questionable shots later.. I'd say we were successful :)