Feelin' a bit homesick

I think that yesterday was probably the most mentally exhausting day of my life.  Around noon I headed to a barbecue in the countryside with Eva, Jorge, Eva's boyfriend Arturo, and the dog Scooby.  There were about 10 of Eva's family members at the BBQ at her dad's house.  Everyone was so nice and I had a good time.  However, it was really intimidating when an entire table of people who don't know English were trying to help me understand something but I just couldn't figure out what they were trying to say.  At one point someone asked me how long I have been studying Spanish for.  I thought that they asked how long I would be here in Granada studying Spanish for and I said 5 months.  They all gasped and were like "oh wow!" I finally figured out that I had answered the question totally wrong and that the correct response was 5 years not 5 months.

At the barbecue, the men cooked just about every kind of meat that you can image like chorizo, lamb, chicken, and sausage.  Of course there was a ton of bread to be eaten along with everything too.  Eva, knowing how much that I love her salads, brought salad to the BBQ.  I was pretty much the only one that  ate it and I thought that it was so sweet that she brought it along just for me.  When we finally got home about 6 hours later, I was so mentally and physically exhausted.  However, once again when I tried to fall asleep my mind was spinning with both English and Spanish, and it took me forever to fall asleep.

Today we had a placement exam for the intensive language course that we are taking before actual classes at the university start in February.  I thought that I really nailed the writing part, but the grammar section was questionable.  The last section was a very short speaking session.  A lot of the students were told what level they were placed into right after their oral section.  Myself, along with a few others, weren't told right away and have to wait until they post the results online tonight.  After the exam I walked home down a different street then usual and finally found a supermarket with good prices on the things that I still needed to buy. I brought some essentials such as deodorant and hair products.  Now, I am going to take a siesta and then go for a run.

I forgot to mention that the mysterious urinal/sink in the bathroom that I mentioned before is for cleaning "down there." Yeah we definitely don't have those in the U.S... Another thing that is different here is that they have little circular tables in the living room that they play a heater beneath.  They cover the table with a large blanket, a table cloth, and then a glass piece on top.  When you are cold, you just lift up the cloth/blanket and put it on your lap.  It's hard to explain but hopefully you somewhat get the picture.

I am definitely starting to miss my family and friends, as well as some of my favorite foods like Greek yogurt, ice cream, spinach leaves, soy milk, and American coffee (which is definitely different then it is in Spain).  Luckily it's so beautiful here that I can just look out the window and be reminded that I'm in an amazing city and that this is the experience of a lifetime.

a visit to the Albaycin

Did you know that there is a difference between a bar and a pub in Spain?  Well apparently there is.  A bar is a place that serves meals, alcohol, and tapas.  In a pub however, there is music, dancing, drinks, and no tapas or meals.  We started off last night in a bar, and I had my first experience with tapas.  In pretty much every Granada bar, they serve free appetizers called tapas whenever you order a drink.  We got a bowtie pasta dish and a rice dish just for ordering drinks.  From there, we aimlessly wandered the streets and ended up in a pub con muchos espanoles jovenes.  I arrived home around 2:30AM, woke up my senora when her dog went crazy, and slept til 10AM.  I woke up, ate breakfast and went on another amazing run.  At 4:30, I met up with my group at los correos and we took a trip to the Albaycin.  According to the facebook event group:

The Albaycin is the old Arab Quarter. It comprises approximately the area between the hill of the Alhambra, the hill of San Cristobal, the Sacromonte and Elvira.   

The Albaycin is like a different world within Granada. This is due to the strong Muslim influence in this area. It was the place where the first Siri court was built in the eleventh century. 

This is a district to explore. Walk through all its narrow streets and discover things that you cannot find in a guide book. No visit to the Albaycin can be complete without seeing the district from the Alhambra. 
The Albaycin is a neighbourhood where you can experience the atmosphere of its bars and terraces, and watch a red sunset over the Alhambra.


It was soooo beautiful there!  At the end of our tour, we went to a tea place and had tea and pastries.  I came back to my senoras house and she had me listen to some CD's that she had brought illegally from a street vender hahaha.  I put the CD's on my iTunes library so that I can now jam out to la musica de espana todo el tiempo.

El dia de los reyes

This morning I decided to run along the opposite direction of the river and discovered a beautiful running path.   There were a bunch of other people running and walking on it and it pretty much goes right along the Sierra Nevada!  It was such a surreal view.  When I got back from my run, my host mom had presents waiting for me.  It was like Christmas round two.  She got me socks, a cute stuffed dog, chocolates and candies.  Around 1PM, Eva's boyfriend Arturo came to get us in his car. We all went to a restaurant where the top area is circular and turns really slowly, giving you a birds eye view of the entire city.  It was amazing!  We had tapas and cerveza there.

Then we drove to a mountain top restaurant that was at the end of the Sierra Nevada National Park.  It was a beautiful day so we sat outside and ate a lunch of several different traditional Spanish dishes.  I'm not sure if this is how it is in all restaurants in Spain, but at this one you order several dishes (such as salad, the meats, sides such as potatoes, etc.) and then everyone at the table shares them.  I tried this extremely strange meat that was a blackish red color and looked somewhat like a sausage.  You had to peal back the skin and put the ground beef looking meat on bread to eat it.  It tasted...interesting.  Actually, it tasted pretty good and somewhat spicy, but I wouldn't be able to eat too much of it.  EVERYTHING is served with bread here in Spain, so of course there was a huge loaf of bread on the side.

For the third day in a row I took an amazing siesta.  After my nap, my senora and I had coffee and this traditional pastry ring thing for the dias de los reyes.  Tonight I think the plan is to go to a discotecta.  That should be an interesting experience ;)

Granada puts Chicago to shame

I have decided that Granada is the most beautiful city in the world (sorry Chicago).  With it's cobblestone side streets, the busy plaza, beautiful little parks everywhere, and the mountains in the background, I couldn't image a city having much more to offer then this one does.  Today I met up with the people from my program at our central meeting location, correos, or the post office.  We had another short orientation about the classes and extracurricular activities.  Then we took a walking tour of the city.

After the tour, I went home and my Senora made me a traditional dish of Spain called tortilla de papa.  Oh, and the dish that I had the first day was called paella.  I took a wonderful siesta and then headed back to the plaza to watch the parade de los reys.  Tomorrow is a holiday called el dia de los reys, or the day of the three kings.  It is a holiday to celebrate the arrival of the three kings (or three wise men as we call them).  The celebration begins the night before with a huge parade were they throw out handfuls of candy.  There are also designated float for each of the three kings for a reenactment of the arrival of the Three Kings into town.

While we were waiting for the parade, I began talking with an adorable old man and his wife.  Is that creepy if I post the picture that I secretly took of him? Him and his wife are from France but have been traveling all around Spain.  He was really friendly and funny.  The best was when he was talking about "bailando en la discotecas" (dancing in the clubs) and did a demonstration for us.  He also told us that while in Spain we needed to find "chicos que son guapos y ricos." (handsome and rich)

I don't think that it has hit me yet that this is going to be my home for five whole months.  I love it here, but I'm already starting to feel a bit homesick.  I also haven't been able to skype my family, or anyone else yet.  It's so hard with the time difference.  Still, I'm so happy to be here and am glad that I have been able to become friends with some of the girls already.

picturesss



This afternoon I got to meet Eva's sister, her sister's two sons, and her great aunt.  All of them and her mom, who I already met, came over for Jorge's birthday celebration.  The greatest thing was seeing Jorge's little 10 year old cousin posing for a picture with his arms crossed, trying to look ganster, wearing the Chicago bulls baseball cap that my mom brought for me to give to Jorge.  Eva's sister's 23 year old son graduated from the University of Granada last year.  El es muy guapo hahaha.  I showed the family pictures of my family and friends and they loved them. 

Eva keeps the ISU postcard that I gave her proped up on a table in the living room and always shows people when they come and explain that it's my University in the United States.  She always wants to make me food and is constantly asking me if I'm hungry, which I never am cause she is constantly feeding me massive amounts of food.  She is so cute, and nice, and I just feel so lucky to have her as a host mom.

I'm having trouble not typing/thinking things in Spanish.  Good sign!  A final thought of the night, is that strange sink/urinal thing in the bathroom some sort of sink for washing things, a urinal, or none of the above? I have no idea.

Actually another last thought: If I keep constantly being offered coffee, tea, and beer (yes, the first night I was here Eva, her mom, and I tosted to my arrival and then of course tonight we all tosted to Jorge)  I will never be properly hydrated again.

Dia numero dos en Espana

      Yes, I know that the title is lacking tildes.  Considering I am using a Spanish keyboard with a button for the Ñ, this shouldn´t be a problem.  But I still cant figure out how to get them.  I need to get wifi access so that I can Skye because I feel so disconnected from everyone and everything already. 
      Today started off great.  I woke up and ran along the river.  I even found a nice (but short) bike path near a park.  There is a park right outside my house that has work out machines and elliptical type machines! Its hilarious to see them right next to the playground.  Unfortunatly, they dont do much cause there are no weights for them.
       I got back and took a shower.  That was another experience in itself.  The shower heads are the kind that you either have to hold, or place in a little u-shaped grove above your head.  Unfortunately, I couldn´t figure out how to position it so that the spout wasn´t facing the wall.  So i had to lean again the wall to get any water.  After breakfast, my host mom Eva and I headed for the post office, where I met up with the rest of the students from my program.  We had a short orientation session and got our pictures taken for our University of Granada student IDs. 
      Apparently there was some miscommunication between me and my host mom (literally the story of my life right now) I thought she was coming to get me from the post office afterwards so I waited about 20 minutes before heading back to her house in the totally wrong direction.  After asking someone on the street, I had to go back to where I started and start again.  I got home to a smiling host mom, delicious salad, and large plate of spaghetti.  Its Eva's sons 10th birthday today.  Some of their family is coming over tonight to celebrate.

Feliz Cumpleanos a Jorge! Adios para a hora.

Kristen

I´M HEREEEE

Well, I´m in Spain! The flight went really smoothly for the most part.  Unfortunately when my family and I went to the international terminal, we were sent wayyyy back to terminal 3, where we had started out at.  After a somewhat teary goodbye, I frantially wandered around the airport, buying some apples, getting a gingerbread iced latte, and somehow only getting 60 Eros even though I wanted 100.  The lady at the currency exchange booth was so confusing so I was like whatever, just give me the 60.  I was actually able to sleep a lot on the flight, which was good since we arrived at Granada around 8AM their time.  I was fed some strange airport food during the flight of grey, slimy chicken, some sort of egg or shrimp or something salad, rice, cooked carrots and spinach, are tarimisou (I thought of you Alyssa).  Breakfast was really strange too: ham and cheese on this croissant bread thing, a cranberry muffin (tasty) juice, coffee, fruit cup and a kit kat bar.  Nothing says 7AM like a kit kat bar.  After getting off the plane in Granada, I met up with about 15 other ISU students who had been on my flight.  We all waited about two hours for a flight to Granada.  It´s so beautiful here! The city is tucked in some snow capped mountains.  It´s sunny and warm and full of life.  My host mom, Eva, has a son, a dog, and a cat.  Her and her mother picked me up from the bus stop.  She made me a delicious, traditional Spanish dish, which unfortunately I forgot the name of.  She also made a delicious, milky, pudding like dessert, which I also forgot the name of.  I´m not going to lie though, I´m scared out of my mind right now.  I honestly couldn´t understand what Eva and her mother were saying half the time.  We also can´t figure out how I can get Internet, so I'm using her son´s computer.  I just really wish I could understand more of what she is saying, because as of now I just feel confused, alone, and scared.  I know that it will only get easier though.