Time Off

In Spain, Spring Break is more commonly known has Holy Week Break.  The week leading up to Easter is a big deal here with all the schools closed and most stores closed or being open for less time.  Apparently there are parades at all hours of the day, every day.  I however will not be in Spain for most of the Holy Week.  Tomorrow afternoon I am leaving to meet my parents in Paris where we will spend a few days and from there visit Rome and Barcelona.  Then on Easter we'll be coming back to Granada so I can go class on Monday.  I'm really excited to see my parents and excited to visit a few new cities and see just how much Italian I've learned in the past six months. Because of traveling, I will either blog a lot in the next week or so (due to wifi in hotels) or not blog at all (due to having so much fun). So no one freak out if you don't hear from me for a week or so.  I can't wait to share all my travel experiences with you!


I am actually getting a full day head start on my Spring Break due to a general strike that is going on in Spain today.  It was up to teachers to decide to if they wanted to have class or not and all my teachers decided to participate in the strike.  I haven't done a lot of research into the new labor reforms or anything but I can tell you, the people of Spain are really mad about something. The first half the year, protest weren't really that huge of a deal.  Maybe once a month I would here about one on the news, but even then, they were rarely violent.  Starting pretty much after the election in November, protests started being more common and more often are becoming violent.  My host mom seems to think that these people are just idiots that want to cause trouble, but when every single one of my teachers is cancelling class to participate in a strike, it makes me wonder if there really is something to be angry about.  I'll need to check into that.

This morning I woke up to a big crowd of people outside of my apartment shouting "Huelga general" or general strike.  They were on their way to a large department store down the street, to try and keep the store from opening.  According to my host mom, people also shoved plastic in the key holes of banks to keep them from opening the doors and spray painted over the screens of ATMS to keep people from taking out money.  My roommate decide to walk into the city center to see what those protests were like and she said "it was pretty crazy".  I decided I would rather stay home and start packing for my trip than to go stand in the middle of a bunch of angry people. I don't know if this strike or the protest will actually change anything, but people are certainly trying to change something.

My little break

This semester I am taking a class in Spanish Literature of the 20th century. Being in a higher level of Spanish, there is a lot more required of me than there was in my literature class last semester, when most of the reading was done in class.  This semester I have to read 4 books outside of class (yes Mom, in Spanish).   After getting through two of the books, I decided that I needed a break from reading all that Spanish.  So I started reading the Hunger Game trilogy.  If you haven't read the book, stop what you're doing and read them now!  I started the first book on Wednesday night and just finished the last book about an hour ago. I'm telling you, it's not a happy subject at all and the whole time I was just thinking "Oh God, this is horrible!" but I just got so sucked in that I had to keep reading because I had to make sure that everyone was all right.  I took a couple hours after finishing the second book before starting the third and I was biting my nails from nervousness because I was so worried about whether or not Peeta was ok.  Seriously, go read the books

One thing that has really helped me with reading all the Spanish books, is being able to read them on my Kindle.  I found all of them, but one in the Kindle store and I also downloaded a Spanish Dictionary.  Having the dictionary, when I see a word I don't know all I have to do is move the curser to the word and the definition will show up at the top of the screen.  It makes reading a lot faster when I don't have to look up every single word I don't know.

Changing Seasons!

So tomorrow is the offical first day of Spring!!!!  This past weekend there was a little festival in Spain called Las Fallas.  This festival only really takes place in Valencia but Granada sure has it's own way of celebrating.  About a block away from my house there is a place called the "Botellon".  It's basically a parking lot were a bunch of people go to "hacer botellon" which means "drink in the streets".  The Botellon is the only place in Granada where it is legal to drink in the streets.  Anyway, once a year, people (mostly college students) come from all over Spain to stand in this parking lot and drink for 24 hours straight.  To me, that sounds like a good way to insure that you will suffer liver failure by the time your 40 so needless to say, I did not participate in that. Instead, my friends and I decided to celebrate spring by hiking up a mountain and having a cook out.  We had hot dogs and chicken and just spent the day enjoying each others company.

Photos!!!

March 4th- Bedside

March 5th- A Smile

March 6th - 5 pm

March 7th - Something I wore

March 8th - Window

March 9th - Red

March 10th - Loud

March 11th- Someone you talked to



International Womens Day

Before I forget, let me mention that from now on I will only be posting on days that I don't have school, so for the most part, on Saturdays.  I've been going to the gym after school so I have to take my workout stuff with me to class and there just isn't a lot of room left for a computer. I will be posting at least once a week.  I just want to let everyone know so they don't feel like they have to check the blog everyday.

Did you know that Thursday was International Women's Day?  I had no idea until my History of Music teacher told us.  We just happen to be at the point in the class where we are talking about the opera and i castrati.  I castrati are men that were castrated as little boys so that they could play the women roles in the operas when they were older. Most died before they ever got to be in an opera and even if they lived that had health problems the rest of their lives.  And they were put through all of this just because women weren't allowed to be the operas.  In this particular situation I feel more sorry for the men who had to be castrated than for the women who couldn't be opera singers but the point is that just about 300 years ago the world was going to extreme measures just because women weren't allowed to be in operas or plays or really do anything but have babies. 

Women's Day is big in Spain.  Spain has a huge problem with domestic violence and apparently the Labor Reforms of the new government pose some pretty serious threats to the rights of women ( I don't really know, I haven't looked in to exactly what the reform says,  but that's what I have been told).  So this day is a huge day for women to come together and fight for their rights and their protection. I was walking home from class on Thursday and as soon as I got to the city center, I ran into a pretty large parade in honor of Women's Day.



March On!

I can't believe it's March already.  A few more weeks and I'll be meeting my parents in Paris.  A few more months and I'll be home.  Despite the complete failure of the February Photo a day challenge, I have started the challenge for March.

March 1st - Up

This is my first toe up sock

March 2nd - Fruit

March 3rd - My Neighborhood