Chapter 7

Rizal in Europe (1882-1885)

Rizal then was at 22 when he left for Spain. It was a learning experience aboard vessel Salvadora. Most of the passengers were foreigners and Spanish employees. He noticed that they talk ill about the Philippines. He compared them to those who’re at the Philippines. His first stop was in Singapore. He stayed at Hotel de Paz. After 2 days, he boarded the vessel Djemnah and he compared it to Salvadora. He tried to speak French to the French passengers, but he noticed that what he learned isn’t enough and not understandable. When the Djemnah made stops at Point de Galle and Colombo in Ceylon, Rizal went ashore for sight-seeing. When they resumed the voyage, the Djemnah landed at the port of Aden. Rizal saw merchants selling lion skins and leopard skins. Rizal sighted the barren coast of Africa, for the first time, which he called an ‘inhospitable land but famous’. The Djemnah passed through Suez Canal then landed at port Said in Egypt. The people spoke various languages. Rizal arrived at Barcelona. He said it was dark, dirty and ugly. The people are not hospitable. He stayed at Barcelona for the summer vacation. He met with a former classmate. He then had the time to write a nationalistic essay entitled Amor Patrio which means Love of Country using his pen name Laon Laan. It appeared in Diariong Tagalog. Francisco Calvo, the editor of the news paper requested for Rizal to submit more articles. Rizal then submitted two articles. The first one is the article entitled Los Viajes and the second one is entitled Revista de Madrid. But the second article was never printed as the Diario went out of business. At the end of summer, Rizal enrolled two courses of Medicine and Philosophy at the Universidad Central de Madrid. He also studied painting, sculpture, French, German and English. He also took private lessons on