Just in time

For those of you who read my moms blog you probably already know that I got in a little later than expected.  Long story short I ended up getting home a full day later than planned and my luggage didn'tmake it until a day after that.  At the time I was feeling pretty stressed out but now I'm just happy that I got home in time for Christmas. 

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas

Oh there's no place like home for the holidays

For no matter how far away you roam

When you long for the sunshine of a friendly gaze

For the holidays you can't beat home, sweet home

Tomorrow morning I will be on my way home for my winter break.  This year I did roam quite far away from home and as much as I really hate to admit it, I am really really really excited to go home.  Of course I might just be excited because it's Christmas time or because I know I'm coming back to Granada in February, but right now I am literally bouncing off the walls, looking for something to do to keep myself entertained until 6:30 tomorrow morning.

Last night, I went by the ISA buses to say goodbye to some friends.  I thought I was only going to stay there for like 15-30 minutes, say goodbye to some of my good friends and be done with it.  No, I was standing outside in the cold for an hour and 30 minutes hugging just about all hundred people getting on the bus (some I swear I've never seen before even though they's been in my study abroad group all semester). 

My roommate, Greta, left this morning to spend Christmas in the Netherlands with her sister (in grad school there). So now it's just me. My bags are packed and I'm ready to go, with the small exception that I'm about a day early. 



Chats with Carmen

The other day, my roommate couldn't make it home for lunch so it was just me and Carmen and it was pretty quite.  After a couple of minutes of lagging conversation Carmen begins the conversation of relationships.  This is generally how that conversation went.

Carmen: Grace, I don't understand why you don't have a boyfriend.  You're pretty, smart, funny, nice.  Why don't you have a boyfriend?

Grace:  I don't know.  I guess I just haven't found anyone I really want to be with.

Carmen:  Well you're young, you have plenty of time.  But girls in America get married so young, like 24 or 25 years old, right?  You only have like 4 more years.

Grace : Yes, but America also has like the highest divorce rate in the world right now.  I think I would rather be closer to 30 year old when I get married and know that I'm marrying the right person, then get married in 4 years and end up getting divorced.

Carmen:  Oh, you are so smart!  You should try to find yourself a Spanish boyfriend.  Spanish boys are very nice and much better looking than American boys.

Grace: Do you know anyone my age?

Carmen:  No, all my siblings and friends children are either 14 years old or 30 years old.  Maybe ISA can find you an intercambio that can be your boyfriend.

Busy Busy Busy

Wow this past week has been crazy.  I got back from Barcelona and immediately thrown into "Finals Week".  I had to write a paper on Pablo Picasso due Tuesday morning, had two tests on Wednesday and two more test on Thursday and then Thursday night, right after my last test, I had an ISA Farewell dinner. Everything went very well this week and I feel really good about my tests, just wish I had had a little more time.  Now that this crazy week is done, there's really not much left until I go home for the holidays.  I have one more test on Tuesday, maybe do a little bit more Christmas shopping and pack my bags and then I will be on my way home.

Barcelona

I just got home from a 6 day trip to Barcelona and man it was crazy.  First of all, you really don't need 6 days to see all of Barcelona so it was kind of a long drawn out week but I had a good time and saw a lot of amazing things.  I got to see three buildings designed by an amazing Spanish arcitect Antoni Gaudi (which are actually going to be on my history of art exam next week) and Park Guell which is also designed by Gaudi.

After that we decided to see how Barcelona does Christmas

Then we went to check out the Olympic Stadium.

I have many many more pictures.  It's really too bad I can't just have a blog with 200 pictures.

A que estoy Escuchando!

Here's another one courtesy of my History of Art professor. He sings this in class, really loud, just about every day.  The other day someone actually had to come in and tell him to be quite.


Hace Calor - Los Rodriguez

Sevilla and Cordoba

Last weekend was the last ISA excursion and we went to Sevilla and Cordoba.  I've been to both cities before and pretty much saw the same stuff than but it was cool to get to see it again.  About half way through the trip I started thinking how much fun it's going to be to compare my pictures from this trip to my pictures from last time I was in Spain when I get home.  We got to Sevilla Friday night and went straight to Plaza de Espana

Look familliar?

You've probabaly seen it in Star Wars...episode 2 I believe.

Saturday we took tours of The Reales Alcazares which are a pair of palaces, one arab and on catholic.

For lunch, my friends and I were sneeky and made sandwiches at the breakfast buffet and then shoved them in my purse so we didn't have to pay for food. But I did stop by one of the 5 Starbucks in Sevilla for a Christmas beverage.  They didn't have the gingerbread latte but the toffee nut latte was a good substitute.  They even wrote my name in Spanish on my cup.

After lunch we went on a tour of the Cathedral.  That was cool be cause we had learned about this cathedral in my History of Art class.  I was pointing out all sorts of artistic features of the building, but I only know how to talk about art in Spanish.  I don't know any of the words in English.  Other cool facts about the cathedral:  It's the 3rd largest in the world, Christopher Columbus is buried there, and Chritopher Columbus's illegitimate son is buried there.

The next day we went to Cordoba to see the Mezquita (Mosque).  It's the largest mosque in Spain and the 3rd largest in the world but it's not really a mosque anymore. It was a Romen temple to some Romen God (I can't remember which one).  Then the Arabs took it over and turned it into a mosque and then the catholics conquered Cordaba and turned it into a cathedral.  But all the Catholics really did was added some altars and some crosses so it still looks pretty much like a mosque.  Last time I was here, my camera had broken so I couldn't take pictures.

A que estoy escuchando - Thanksgiving edition!

Living in a country that doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving has not stopped me from being in the Holiday Spirit. I even have a Thanksgiving playlist on my Ipod.  So this week I'm sharing what I'm listening to for the holiday.  All these songs are American so you aren't learning much about what music Spaniards listen to this week.

Give Thanks and Praises - Bob Marely

The Thanksgiving Song - Adam Sandler

I've got Plenty to be Thankful for - Bing Crosby

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

Thanksgiving in Spain

Thanksgiving is kind of an awkward time being in a foreign country thousands of miles away from your family and home. It’s really easy to complain about not being able to go home and not being able to spend the holiday with your family and friends. In my opinion, that is completely pointless. Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful for what you have and not a time to complain about what you don’t have or what you can’t do. So instead of wishing you could be with your family, be thankful you have a family missing you, loving you, supporting you and waiting for you to come home. There are many people in the world who don’t have that. When I signed up to be in Spain for a year, I knew that I would be missing out on birthdays and holidays and I decide that it would be worth it and, honestly, so far it is worth it. I am so fortunate to be where I am, with the people I’m with and I am very thankful for this opportunity. Here is what I’m thankful for this year:

A comer mi nina!

Calabazin Relleno

The first time we had this meal, I thought it was a chili relleno so I was really excited to be having something spicy.  Well, it’s a zucchini and we’re in Spain so it was definitely not spicy.  For anyone out there who might think Spanish food is the same as Mexican food, there is one HUGE difference.  Spicy food does not exist in Spain. Even when Carmen makes Mexican food (she makes fajitas about once a week) it’s not even as spicy as the mildest Mexican food I’ve had.  I had never even heard of anyone stuffing a zucchini before, but once you get use to the idea of it being a zucchini and get over the disappointment of it not being spicy, it’s actually very good.  It’s another one of my favorites (I think I say that about everything Carmen cooks).  It’s stuffed with ground pork, tomato, more zucchini and lots of cheese.

Las Alpujarras

This past weekend I went on an ISA trip to La Alpujarras.  Las Alpujarras are cluster of small towns in the Sierra Nevadas.  We left on Saturday morning and as soon as we got to the town we were staying at we left for a hike.  I can't tell you how far we hiked but it was a good 5 or 6 hours.  The mountains where gorgeous but it was a little wet and slippery and with my like of balance (my mom must have some sense of humor naming me Grace) I fell a few times.  But the few bruises I have are definitely worth it.  Besides the hike, we just had free time to walk around the town or hang out in the hotel.  The town really was extremely tiny.  It took about 10 minutes to walk from one side of the town to the other. 

Exams

This past 2 weeks I’ve had midterms. I only had three tests and I feel like they all went pretty well.  I had a test in Literature, History of Art and Grammar.  The only grade I’ve gotten back so far is my Literature test.  The grading is a little different here.  You get a grade form 1 – 10 so you would think it would be like 10 is perfect, 9 is an A, 8 is a B, 7- C, 6-D and anything below that is an F, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the way it works.  A 5 and above is passing and apparently a 7 is equal to a B in the States. I got an 8 on my test so apparently that’s pretty good. The next round of exams is a little less than a month away, the week of the 12-16 of December.

Para Practicar

I’ve always been pretty good at finding “free time” to do things I enjoy, but here, I actually have a lot of free time.  Outside of being in class for a minimum of 20 hours a week, there isn’t a lot I have to do for school.  The only consistent homework I have is Grammar and Italian which combined takes no more than 30 minutes. Every once in a while, I’ll have to write a one page paper about my personality or something easy like that, or I’ll have to read something for my Literature class.  Other than that, I have a lot of free time to decide what to do with, so I’ve been trying to find things that I’ll enjoy but can also help me improve my Spanish.  I’ve been reading Twilight in Spanish and I just finished that. Now don’t be too impressed.  I’ve already read Twilight in English so I already knew the story pretty well.  And also, it’s Twilight. It’s not exactly the hardest Spanish to understand.  It was interesting reading an English book translated into Spanish because I actually found a few mistakes in the translation.  There are quite a few phrases in both English and Spanish that, if translated directly, make absolutely no sense.  Like “I’m sick of it” if translate to Spanish is “Estoy enferma de esto” and if you say that to a Spaniard they will literally think you are sick with something.  The way you say “I’m sick of it” in Spanish is “Estoy hasta la nariz” which translated to English is “I’m up to the nose”.  There were quite a few little mistakes like this in the Twilight.

Now that I’m done with Twilight, I’m reading this book called La Celestina.  I read a little bit of it for my Literature class and I really liked it so I thought it would be cool to read the whole thing.  I’ve only gotten through the prologue so far.  It’s going to be a little hard to understand then Twilight was.  I have to keep my Spanish dictionary out while I’m reading because I pretty much have to look up every other word.

A que estoy escuchando!

Granada

There is this opera song about Granada. My History of Art professor plays it for us at the beginning of every class and printed of the lyrics for us and has us sing along. By the time this class is over I should be able to sing the whole song.

A comer mi nina!

Lentejas

Ok, I cannot believe I haven’t blogged about this one yet.  This is one of my absolute favorite things Carmen cooks for us.  It’s a lentil stew sort of thing with potatoes, carrots, spinach and chorizo.  It’s so delicious and it is even better now that it’s getting cold.  

A que estoy escuchando

Bebe y Los Delinquentes - Despues

This is a song we listened to in my grammar class because it has a lot of examples of a certain type of verb conjugation that we are working on in class right now.  The way these people sing is a perfect example of how hard it is to understand Spanish people from Andalucia. The Andalucia accent is like the Southern accent of Spain. The band, Los Delinquentes, is fromCadiz and they are almost impossible to understand.  The first time I listened to this song, I could barely pick out a single word.

Another month done

Well, another month has gone by. It feels like it was just a week ago when I wrote the blog recapping the first month, but it has in fact been a whole month!

I’m still waiting for “culture shock”.  I have a feeling that if it’s been 2 months and I haven’t had any problems with it, then it probably just isn’t going to happen for me, and I am fine with that.  I know quite a few people have had problems with not adapting to the culture very well.  But I’ve always been a person who just adapts to different situations pretty fast.  Another thing I think helped me a lot in avoiding culture shock is that I already knew a lot about Spanish culture before I got here.  From talking to other people, I get the idea that my high school did a much better job teaching us about the culture of Spain and other Spanish speaking countries then a lot of other high schools did.  Most people only learned about Spanish artists, and I’m all for learning about art, but being able to list off 10 of Pablo Picasso’s most famous paintings isn’t going to help you when you are living in Spain.  What will help you is knowing typical foods, meal times and mannerisms. It surprises me a lot that other students didn’t know this kind of stuff before, because I spent so much time learning all that in high school.

After being here for 2 months, I am a much more active person.  We walk everywhere here.  Last year, I complained about having to walk 20 minutes, 2 times a week, for 1 class.  This year, all my classes are in the same building which is at least a 20 if not 30 minute walk from where I live and I usually walk to and from class 2 times a day.  That’s 2 hours of walking right there.  If I decide to go out later, that’s another hour or two. And on top of all that I’ve been running 3 times a week for 30 minutes and that would NEVER happen in Lexington.

Probably the biggest change I’ve made is my reliance on technology.  In the State, I could literally be on the internet for 1-4 hours.  Yes, hours.  Now, I can barely figure out what to do for 10 minutes.  Not having internet access at home has made me completely forget how to waste time on line, and that’s probably a good thing.  Now, when I do get internet access, I’m like sitting there with a stop watch like “Facebook, email, blog. TIME! New high score, fastest time yet!” I’ve also gotten a lot less attached to my cell phone.   In October, I only sent like 6 text messages. If I was in America, I probably would have sent 6 texts every day in October. The thing is, I’m paying the bill on this phone, and international text messages are expensive.  When I first got my phone, the way I would control how many texts I sent was to ask myself “Is this text message important enough that I am willing to spend the money it takes to send?” If the answer was yes, I would send it.  If the answer was no, and it pretty much always was no, I wouldn’t.  Now I don’t even think about texting, I just don’t do it.

A que estoy escuchando

Lucio Battisti - E penso a te

So this song is actually Italian.  My Italian professor played it for us they other day in class because it uses a lot of the vocabulary and grammar we have been learning in class. Believe it or not,  I can actually understand what this song is saying!!!  Well most of it.  It about being so in love with a woman that you can't eat or sleep or work, all you do is think of her. This is actually a pretty old song, I think it's from 1970 or 1971.

Enjoy!

La Casa de las Locas!!

So it has been brought to my attention that, after being in Spain for almost 2 months, I still not blogged about the apartment I am living in.  It's a pretty wild and crazy place sometimes.  Greta, my "roommate", and I live with a single 60 year old woman named Carmen, which seems like it would be a pretty calm place but oh no.  Between the grandaughter, the daughter, niece, nephew, sister, and all the other visitors we have all time, it get's a little crazy in our little apartment.



Greta and I did get very lucky, and we each have our own rooms, though they are very small rooms, just big enough for a bed and a desk.

We also have a little kitchen, where we eat our meals.  The kitchen isn't big enough for a table so we eat at a little bar with stools.

It's a little cozy, but it's perfect for just the three of us

A comer mi nina!

Chipirones en su tinta

While I was in Málaga I just had to eat seafood and I wanted to try something new so I ordered up a tapa size portion of Chimpirones en su tinta or Cuttlefish in its ink.  I honestly chose to try this because I saw an episode of the Travel Channels show, Bizarre Foods, when Andrew Zimmer goes to Spain and ate octopus in its own ink and I wanted to try something similar. When the dish came out I got to admit, it looked pretty gross. Kind of like a baby squid swimming in tar or oil.  But it actually it was delicious.  It tasted a lot like calamari and the ink didn’t really taste that much like anything, it just had a very strong seafood, salty flavor. I would definitely  get it again sometime.

Rain in Granada??? Just doesn't seem right.

So it has been raining...for the past three days.  Saturday morning when I woke up for my morning jog there was something wet falling from the sky.  It took me a little while to realize it was actually raining.  Then Sunday I got woken up around 10am (after being out until 4am) to a thunderstorm.  Yes, a thunderstorm. Of course, being the heavy sleeper I am, I basically just acknowledged the sound and went back to sleep for a few hours. And yet again, today has just been a drizzly, cold, dreary day.  I'm starting to believe that October might actually be the start of the "rainy season" in Granada.  It has also been quite chilly compared to what we're use to here. I might even have to buy a coat sometime.  The weather change is actually kind of nice.  It's really getting me into the Halloween mood.  The stores here actually have Halloween costumes and Halloween candy. This weekend, because the weather was so gross, Greta and had a little movie fest.  We watch Nightmare Before Christmas, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Misery. And now that I have my Halloween pillow cases, I am really set for this holiday weekend.

A que estoy escuchando

Anni b Sweet

Well, since I just went to Malaga, why not talk about a musicain from Malaga. Even though she's Spanish she mostly sings in English.  She's a relatively new artist.  She just got signed to Subterfuge Records (Spain's largest idependent label) in 2007. 

This is her song Lalala. 

Cathedral and Royal Chapel

Today I took a little walk through the Cathedral and the Royal Chapel with a small group from ISA.  The chapel is where The Catholic Queen and King, Isabel and Fernando are buried.  They are called the Catholics because they were the first catholics to have control over all of Spain.  They took control of Granada from the Moors in 1492, the same year they sent Columbus to find a way to India.  The Chapel and tomb are extremely elaborate, what else can you expect from the first official Queen of Spain.  It's pretty unique that they are buried in Granada.  Almost every other King or Queen of Spain is buried in El Escorial en Segovia but Isabel wanted to be buried in Granada.  Sometime in November, I'm going back to both places with my History of Art class to focus more on the architecture and the art work in the Cathedral and Chapel.

Malaga and Ronda

This weekend we went on an excursion offered through ISA to the cities of Ronda and Málaga.  Our first stop was Ronda.  It was about a 3 hour bus ride from Granada. We didn’t have a lot of time in Ronda, just a 2 hour walking tour and about an hour and a half for lunch, but the walking tour gave us a pretty good idea of what the city is like. Ronda is a smaller city surrounded by mountains and vineyards.  Like every city in Andalucía, it was at one point under Arab rule and got taken over by Isabel and Fernando so there is a huge Muslim influence and most of the important buildings like the Cathedral, were originally constructed by the Muslims.   We ended the tour by going to see the old Muslim baths.  We watched a video about the whole process of bathing and it was really interesting because they literally spent hours bathing.

After lunch we got back on the bus for an hour or so and went to Málaga.  Málaga was much more my style because it’s a coastal city that actually reminds me a lot of Charleston, SC. Once we got there we just had free time the whole night so my friends and I went to the beach for a while and went to a few bars for tapas. The next morning we took a tour of the city.  My favorite part of the whole weekend was going to the Pablo Picasso museum.  Picasso was born in Málaga and the have a pretty good museum of nothing but Picasso painting, sculptures and drawings.

A comer mi nina!

Animalitos

Our typical Friday night dinner is what Carmen calls animalitos.  They are animal shaped chicken nuggets or fish sticks.  Greta and I both agree that the chicken animals are better than the fish.  It’s pretty funny because most of the time these animals don’t look anything like animals.  Like the big blob shaped chicken nugget in the lower right hand corner of the plate….That’s suppose to be an elephant.

Something New

My new classes started this passed Thursday.  I had some trouble getting my schedule to actually work out but now I finally got a working schedule with all the classes I wanted.  I have 5 classes and each class meets two times a week for 2 hours.  I have class every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and some Fridays (basically when we don’t have class for because there’s a festival or a holiday then we have to make it up on a Friday). The classes I’m taking this semester are Spanish literature through the 18^th century, History of Spanish Art, Grammar, Speaking and Writing, and Italian. So far everything is going great. The professors are all pretty nice and the classes don’t seem too hard. I'll definitely be a little more busy than I was before but it will be nice to have more to do.

A que estoy escuchando

Bebe - Malo

So from what I hear, Spain has a huge problem with domestic violence. In 2010, 73 women were killed by their sposes.  Bebe is a Spanish actor and singer whose song "Malo" is about domestice violence.  It is sung from the perspective of a women in an abusive relationship.  Some of the lyrics translate to : You appeared on a cold night smelling of dirty tobacco and gin. The fear returned to me while I crossed my fingers against the door.

There is the video if you would like to check it out.

Quite Weekend at Home

This past weekend was a long weekend for us here in Granada. Our intensive month classes ended on Friday and our other classes just started today.  So pretty much everyone decided to go to cool places like Rome or Paris, but because I decided to take an Italian class and those classes started a week earlier than the rest, I stayed in Granada. It was a pretty quite weekend since my roommate went to Madrid and the rest of my friends were in Paris, but I found ways to keep myself entertained.

Saturday I did a bit of shopping at some of the more popular stores in Spain like Zara and H&M.  I even bought a pair of green pants.  Colored pants are a very popular style here so I decided I would give it a try.

On Sunday in Spain, pretty much every store is closed because it's Sunday and you should stay at home and rest, So I took a little walk around town to see some of the sites.  I went to the Cathedral of Granada and paid the 3.5 euros it cost to go in and look around.  It was totally worth the price.  It was so pretty inside.  After the cathedral, I went for a walk in the Albayzin, which is the oldest part of the city.  It has skinny streets that there are some street that I (even with the short arms on my short body) can touch the building on both sides of the street.

That's pretty much all I did with my weekend, besides reading and knitting.  Classes started today so I'm going to be a little bit busier now.

A comer mi nina!

Pizza!

So Greta and I have started to notice a pattern in what foods we eat on which nights.  Wednesday night is pizza night.  It's just a frozen pizza but it is really delicious.  Usually we have a Bacon(jamon), cheese and mushroom pizza but sometimes we get some other types of veggies or meats. 

One Month

Well, I’ve officially been live in Spain for a month now.  Half of me can’t believe that I’ve already been here that long and the other half feels like I’ve lived here for much much longer.   This month is just the start of my time here.  I still have 8 more months left.  At the beginning of the month, when I told people I would be here for a year, I got a lot of “Seriously, how are you doing that, aren’t you going to miss the State?” Now when I tell people I’m here for a year, I get “You are so lucky, I wish I could be here for a year.”  Honestly, I feel pretty lucky.   When I went through the program’s orientation, I was told horror stories about people getting culture shock 2- 4 weeks into their time here and people missing America so much, they actually go home early.  Well, I’m still waiting to meet this mythical “Culture Shock”.  I have settled into the culture and lifestyle of Spain extremely well.  There are a few things that are still going to take a little getting used to but for the most part I fit right in.

Things I’ve grown to love in my first month in Spain:

1.       Siesta- In America I only slept during the day if I was extremely tired.  In Spain, I take a 30min-1 hour nap every day no matter how much I slept the night before.  However, if I sleep for more than an hour I tend to have really weird dreams.

2.       Walking- When I first got here, I was told it would be a 15-20 minute walk from my house to my school. It’s a 40 min walk.  At first, I hated having to walk that far but now I really enjoy walking to and from school.  Basically every day I spend about 2 hours just walking.

3.       Staying out late – In America, I was always home by midnight, usually in bed by then too.  Well, in Spain, most of the bars and clubs don’t start getting exciting until about 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning.  I think the earliest my roommate and I have gotten home on a weekend   is 1 o’clock.

Things I still need to get used to:

1.       Mopeds – The people on mopeds here seem to feel like they always have the right of way because they’re cute and little and speedy.  They will even drive on the sidewalks if they feel like it.  That just seems a little dangerous to me.

2.       Dogs without owners – There are little tiny stray dogs running everywhere in the city.  I pretty much trip over one every day.  One of my teachers told me that a lot of the stray dogs in Spain are dogs that people have just left somewhere because they can’t afford to keep them anymore. Isn’t that just sad????

It’s been a great month and this is only the beginning.  I still have 8 great months to go.

Is it really October???

When I picked Granada as the place I would study abroad, a big deciding factor was the weather. It doesn't really get cold in Granada and while that is something I really enjoy, I am kind of missing fall weather.  If I didn't just look at a calander I would think it's August here.  About this time of year in Kentucky, I would be pulling out my sweaters and scarfs and hats and all those things I spend so much time knitting.  Here, I am wearing tank tops and sandles.  It's kind of uncomfortable to be wearing sweaters when it's 85 degrees during the day.  In fact, it might not even be the weather I miss, but the clothes.

Another Fall time thing I'm missing is football.  And I mean American football, not "futbol". The first thing I do every Sunday morning is walk down to the internet cafe and check the football scores from the day before.  It's probably a good thing I don't have internet in my house because if I did, I would probably spend all Saturday night in front of my computer watching football games online instead of going out and actually experiencing Spanish nightlife.

Yarn Store!

I found a yarn store! Knitting isn't really a popular hobby in this area of Spain because it never really gets that cold so I was extremely happy to find this little store. I found a pattern for a scarf I want to make for my friends Tony and Josiah so I walked in today after my class was over and I got to say, the whole experience kind of crushed my confidence in my Spanish speaking skills.  Knitting terminology is something that I never thought to learn in Spanish and then with the difference beween the metric system and the needle sizes, I was totally lost.  It took me a good 15-20 minutes to figure out how to tell the man working that I needed needles let alone what size I need.  Thankfully he was really nice and helpful and I eventually got all the supplies I needed.

A comer mi nina!

Jamon, jamon, jamon!


Ham is really big here.   I'm pretty sure that Carmen calls anything that comes from a pig, ham.  Last night we had eat this for dinner:

It's pork, tomato, and onions all on top of mashed potatos. It was quite delicious.

We also eat soup at the beginning of every dinner.   It's pretty much always a chicken broth based soup with some type of shaped noodles and vegetables.

Italiano - Italian

This semester I'm taking a class in Italian along with all my Spanish classes.  Italian was suppose to start today but it is at the same time as my intensive month class, that doesn't end until Friday, so I'll have to miss the first 2 days of class.  I will actually be taking my Italian class in Spanish so that could be a little challenging but I'm sure I'll be able to work it out.  I've always wanted to learn Italian, having sung in Italian many many times, but I would never have to time at UK.  Here I have the time, so I figured why not go for it.

Italian is also a lot more useful in Spain than it is is America.  There are a lot of turist from Italy who come to Granada. About a week ago a man stopped my friends and I and asked if you spoke Italian and if we could tell him how to get to the cathedral.  Italian and Spanish are similar enough that we could at least point him in the right direction. 

Bull Fights are NOT Vegan

Yesturday I went to a bull fight with Greta.  All our guy friends chickened out so it was just us.  It took us about 40 minutes to walk over to the Plaza de Toros and our tickets were 5 euros each. It was definitely worth it for the experience.

I don't know how much you guys know about bull fights but they aren't exactly the most animal friendly event and the are definitely not for the sqwimish. I won't go into all the details but I will say it is quite bloody.  I spent a lot of time in my high school Spanish studying bull fights so I knew exactly what I was getting myself into.        I can't really say the same for the girls around us.  I've actually talked to people who didn't know that the bull is killed at the end. You can imagine how shocking it would be to think that you're just going to watch some men in funny suits wave a cape in front of a bull and then...well like I said, the bull is killed. I was the calm and collected person who was like "It's going to get gruesome now, you might want to close your eyes."  In my opinion, what made this bull fight particular harsh, is that the matadors were not professionals yet and they were really inexperienced.  If you are watching a really good matador the bull dies so fast that it barely has to suffer.  The matador we saw had to stab the bull 3 different times and that just causes even more unnecessary suffering for the bull.

While a bull fight isn't exactly something you say you enjoyed,  I did actually kind of like it.  It's a really interesting tradition to me.  For followers of bull fights, it's considered a fine art and not a sport.  I don't necessarily agree that it's an art, but I think I know enough about the history of bull fights that I can at least appreciate them for what they are.  Bull fights go back to a time of bull worship and sacrifice.  It is suppose to be considered a great honor for the bull to die in the bull fight.  I would definitely spend money to go see another one.  I would really like to participate in the traditional audience roles.  Traditional audience members have a panuelo blanco or a white handkerchief and at the end of the fight, if they liked the matador they wave their handkerchief.  The amount of handkerchiefs being wave determines the price the matador recieves. They either get nothing, one ear, both ears, or both ears and the tail.

Here's a little video you to watch if you want a taste of what a bullfight's like.  This matador is Cayetano Ordonez.  He is one of the most famous matadors currently.  He's also an Armani model.

A que estoy escuchando

David Bisbal - Ave Maria

So my teacher only really showed us this video because she thinks it's funny.  According to her this guy is really popular in America, but I've never heard of him.  She also says he is a huge sex symbol in Spain.  I let you decide what you think.

Rain?!?

So of course the day after I post a blog about how great the weather is and how it never rains, it's going to be a overcast and actually rain.  Greta and I were going to go sit in a plaza and use internet there that is not only free but we don't have to buy a drink to sit there, but as soon as we left the house it started drizzling and now I'm sitting in a cafe eatting churros and chocolate. Well I guess it had to rain sometime.

Hace bien tiempo todo el tiempo

The weather in Granada has been absolutely perfect...all the time.  My title translates to "It's good weather all the time".  This morning I saw the first cloud I've seen since I got here. I actually read in the new paper yesturday that it hasn't rained in Granada since June 7th, or 105 days.  It's part of the reason that water prices here are so high, but I am willing to only take a two minute shower if I can have weather like this all the time.  Carmen told me that October can be pretty rain, but I don't really believe her.  It gets pretty hot here too, like mid 30's for celsius or mind 90's in fahrenheit.   It is starting to cool down a little though. Tomorrow it's only suppose to be an nice fall like  28(82) degrees.  It's almost time to break out the sweaters.

A que estoy escuchando - What I am listening to

I have a teacher who plays us a different CD every day.  I've really enjoyed learning about all these different Spanish artist and O've really liked everything she played for us.  So I think I'm going to try to write a weekly post about one of the artist we heard that week.

The artist of the week is a band called Macaco from Barcelona. Most of their songs are in Spanish or Catalan but they also sing in Portuguese, French, English and Italian. This song was pretty famous here a few years ago.  I really like the video because it features a lot of other famous Spanish speaking people like Javier Bardem and Juanes.

La Alhambra

Last Wednesday, I got to take a tour of La Alhambra when I came to Spain in high school, Granada was my favorite city out of the six we visited and the main reason it was my favorite is La Alhambra. It is this incredible palace that was built in the mid 14^th century by the Moors, who had control over this area of Spain at the time.  It was conquered by Isabella and Ferdinand (the same ones who gave Columbus the money to sail the ocean blue) in 1492 (when Columbus sailed the ocean blue).  Two of the most important parts of La Alhambra are The Hall of Ambassadors and the Court of Loins.  The Hall of Ambassadors is the room in which Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand gave Columbus their support to sail to the New World.  The Court of Loins is probably the most famous part of La Alhambra.  It’s a large patio with a fountain that has 12 lions surrounding.  In Spain, lions are very symbolic of strength and courage.  Loins are pretty much everywhere here. The fountain is being renovated right now so we couldn’t see it so I took this picture from Wikipedia.  The walls of the palace are covered in stucco carvings.  One Arabic phrase is repeated many times throughout the whole palace. It means “No winner besides God.”

It’s really hard to describe the feeling you get when you walk through a place like La Alhambra. It’s just like to think about everything that has happened where you are standing makes you feel so insignificant and really lucky at the same time. The first thing that ran through my head was “Wow, this building is 700 hundred years old and I’m 19.  That’s like 30 something times my age.”  I really never felt so young and inexperienced in my life.  Then the next thought I had was “I am so lucky to be here. So many people will never get to experience this.  I am standing in the same place as Christopher Columbus!!!” I feel like I am the luckiest person in the world to be here.

One of the first nights I was in Granada I was walking around the city with some friends and someone asked if we would ever get use to living in a place like this and one of my friends said “I don’t think I’ll ever get use to beauty.” I made so much fun of him when he said that, but I get it now.   I went into the Alhambra tour expecting to be a little bored because I’ve already seen, I have the pictures, I know the history and I was completely wrong.  I learned so many new things that I didn’t hear last time and the beauty of a place like La Alhambra is something that you really don’t ever get use to.  Pictures can never even begin to show how beautiful it really is.  I will probably get use to living here eventually but I will never get use to the beauty of Granda.

A comer mi nina!

Every meal, Greta and I get called to the table by Carmen yell "A comer mi nina." I'm pretty sure that I've mentioned that Carmen is an amazing cook, but I going to say it again.  Carmen is a really really good cook. And her food is pretty healthy too.  We eat a lot of vegetables, chicken and eggs.  I am going to try to do a weekly post called "A comer mi nina" with some pictures of what we are eatting. We'll see if I can remember to do that.

This is mine and Greta's favorite meal so far.  We've eaten this for lunch at least once a week since we've gotten here.  If I remember correctly it's called Pixta.  It's zuchini, onions and poblano peppers.  She always serves it with a fried egg, but I'm not really sure if that is the traditional Spanish way of eatting this dish or if that's just a Carmen thing. She seems to serve fried eggs with just about everything we eat for lunch. It is really good with bread dipped in it.  I have already started writing a list of all the recipes I want before I go back to the States and this is definitely on the top.

I think I also mentioned that Carmen really likes her fruit.  We have fruit for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And we take a piece of fruit with us to class as a snack.  Everytime she goes to the grocery store, she comes back with 3 grocery bags filled with different types of fruit and I always think that there is no way we will be able to eat all of it before it goes bad, but we alway do. 

If you give a 2 year old a camera...

My host mother, Carmen, has a two year old grand daughter, also named Carmen. Baby Carmen spends every week day at our little house while her parents are at work so every day when I get home from class she comes running up to me say "Juega conmigo Grace, Juega conmigo" or "Play with me Grace!" Her favorite thing to play with is "plati" or playdoh.  She also really enjoys taking pictures and playing with my Ipod.  I played her this song and now she just wants to listen to it over and over again.  This is what happened last time I let her play with my camera.