liverpool and dublin

for the majority of my spring break, i went up to the channel islands to visit my friend heather, a lovely girl i know from school back in seattle. so, on friday march 14th (pi day!) i flew up to liverpool, england. we had one of those fun airport reunions and then mostly just got settled, did a little shopping (my new favourite store is primark, oh my gosh..) and had some dinner. we did a short walking tour of liverpool and saw the university, the anglican cathedral from the outside, and the catholic cathedral from the inside. it's very modern and absolutely BEAUTIFUL! i'm glad we decided to go in.

the next day we popped down to the warf to go to the beatle's museum. just as we arrived and i was about to open the door to the museum, the fire alarm went off and they evacuated the whole building. everyone received free reentry passes, and when one woman asked us if we had received any yet, isemi-truthfully replied no, we had not - we hadn't, but we also hadn't paid to go in yet... but, she gave us passes and we waited while the firemen did their work and then we entered and got those little audio things you get at monuments and thereby saved at least ten pounds - which right now is twenty bucks. it was a neat little museum, and we made sure to buy some souveniers to give them SOME business. at any rate, the real highlight of this day was going to the liverpool-reading game. heather is a crazy big liverpool futbol fan, and i've found that i actually enjoy watching soccer. oh yeah, and liverpool won 2-1, and i already have a favourite player: 12, favio aurelio. it was a super fun afternoon, and we had a very nice dinner of indian food before we caught a bus to wales. from there we took the plushest ferry i've ever been on to dublin. it was too bad we were so exhausted, travelling through the night and all, because it was like a hotel on a boat - shopping, restaurants, rooms even. very cool.

anyhow, upon arrival in dublin (march 16 now), we SLEPT. we woke up and went to a little scone shop/cafe before continuing on to the guinness factory. on the way, heather gave me a ton of history and we stopped at trinity college, dublin castle, and cristchurch cathedral. i wish i could go back and see more... anyhow, once at the factory, we ended up waiting in line next to 4 other americans who were studying in england. one of them goes to georgetown u and has a cousin who lives in a small city near granada and does the voice over acting for the harry potter movies when they're dubbed into spanish. crazy... anyway, the factory was crazy because there were tons of bands and mimes and free food and other entertainment as preparation for paddy's day. it was lots of fun, and i learned to pull my own pint! we accidentally met up with one of heather's roommates and her friends who were visiting and we all went on a literary pub crawl. that mean that we visited 4 of the older and more historical pubs of the city which had been important to irish authors in their days, guided by two actors who told us about irish literature and who sometimes performed scenes for us. it was actually really neat! i was glad we decided to do that.

and of course, monday was st. patrick's day, regardless of the fact that the pope moved it so it wouldn't conflict with holy week. we started the day at the parade, and then grabbed some lunch before we began our tour of the bars, somewhere around 1pm. i met tons of heather's friends, and their friends, and just all kinds of people and it was so much fun! i will tell you this, dublin is extremely expensive. part of it is the exchange rate, but part of it is just dublin. yikes. good thing i was only up there for a couple days... anyhow, we ended the night with some delicious garlic cheese fries from some fast food restaurant - not healthy, probably not especially amazing, but it was just fun to get fast food again - and then took a taxi home. our driver was very nice, as per usual with cabbies from the channel islands. a fun guy.

the next day, heather and i went to kilmainham gaol (gaelic for jail) and took the tour. i got a bunch more history because that jail has held a lot of political prisoners over the years of the irish's fight for independence. we took it easy that night and made some jumbalaiah rice, watched an obama speech on race, and kicked back with some sex in the city, just like old times! it was such a great extended weekend with my girl and i was really sorry to go, but i wanted to get back to see some of spain during holy week.

as it turns out, i didn't really like spain during holy week. there are processions all day and all night throughout the whole city, but i didn't really understand them. i know they are very moving to the catholics here, and they're all about penitence, but i just found them annoying because it was hard to get anywhere. they have a lot of people wearing outfits that in the states are ONLY worn by the KKK, so i have yet to figure out what they mean exactly here. i tried to go to the beach with nora and her sister and her sister's friend who were visiting, but when we got there it started to storm and we were in beach clothes, so it was not very happy. oh well. the rest of the weekend has been rather quiet. i watched hairspray and now i want to do musicals again - surprise, surprise. my parents come to visit on thursday which will be neat. i hope i can find enough interesting things for them to do... i also hope i can find their hotel. on the map, it's somewhere amidst the tangle of streets in the albayzin, which i am constantly getting lost in.

anyhow, as per usual, tons of good times in europe. after visiting ireland, which is a lot more like american culture than mainland european culture, i really miss home and i'm looking forward to going back. but, when i was there, i really missed speaking spanish and found that my automatic responses came in spanish before english, so that made me really glad because it means i'm making progress here. oh well! i guess there's no making me happy! or everything makes me happy. maybe that's it. let's hope!

nerja for the day

today, rebecca and i went to nerja for the day and it was BEAUTIFUL! it's a little coastal town, along the costa del sol. we arrived at 11ish, bought some groceries, wandered down to the beach, swam in the medditeranean sea and then fell asleep in the sun for like 4 hours. it was aboslutely glorious, and i would love to return for a whole weekend. what a fantastic day!

unfortunately, i awoke this morning with a cold, so i'm scraping my other evening plans in lieu of going home to shower the sand and salt off my body, hop into bed, watch stardust, and sleep. mmm, a good ending to a great day!

Madrid, Segovia, Toledo

I have just returned from a 5 day trip to Madrid, Segovia, and Toledo with my program, and I loved it! We saw a ton of art in Madrid, and the other two cities were absolutely precioso, which in Spanish means beautiful in a cute way and usually refers to places that you like a lot.

On Wednesday we went to the Prado, which has a ton of famous works of art, including some Rafael and Velázquez and Goya. To be honest, it was mostly boring, but there were some art students painting copies of Velázquez works, which was really fun to watch because they were great.

Thursday took us to the Reina Sofia museum, which has mostly modern stuff that I don’t like, such as Picasso (tons of him on loan currently – unfortunate since I already went to the Picasso museum in Barcelona) and Miró and Dali, which I did actually enjoy. In the afternoon we took a historic walk with a very funny and easy to understand tour guide, Edu. Did you know that Madrid has an ancient Egyptian temple a few blocks away from the Plaza de España? Yeah, the sister to it is in New York City, and was given to Spain and the States as a thank you for helping to move another larger temple to prevent it from getting washed away by water which was being diverted by a hydro electric dam, if I understood Edu right. Anyhow, it was a great walk with lots of history, and that evening I walked to el Parque del Buen Retiro with a few girls and we took silly photos.

We headed out of Madrid on Friday to see El Escorial, a monastery an hour out of the city that houses a huge library full of books which were banned during the Inquisition, including books in Arabic and Hebrew, and some covering topics of astrology and palm reading. After that we went to El Valle de los Caídos, which is a memorial for the Spanish Civil War built by the dictator Francisco Franco, who is buried there. It was a totally strange place, because it’s a huge church built into the side of a mountain, so it’s long and dark and you can see some of the mountain rock in some areas, and as one guy in my program noted, you can totally see Harry Potter fighting the Basalisk in there. There’s a huge cross built on the top of this mountain which you can see for miles. One of the oddest parts of El Valle is that the only people buried there, and thus the only ones memorialized, are those who fought and died on Franco’s side, and there are a lot of symbols inside to remind people of the power Franco had. Very creepy, odd, and interesting location. On a happier note, we returned that night to Madrid and a few of us went searching for somewhere to eat dinner and stumbled upon a little Indian restaurant. It was a little nicer than we’d meant to eat, but we got food money from the program and we’d been having kebap for a couple days and had some extra money leftover, so it was alright. The food was delicious, and at the end of the meal, we were given free champagne for who knows what reason. It was yummy too – I don’t know what good champagne is, but this was definitely not Cook’s. Also, our waiter put on a fake mustache and asked us how the meal had been while we were drinking our champagne and we laughed with him and when we finally left, he held the door for us and shook our hands and wished us a good night. A very fun experience!

We were in Segovia for Saturday, which is architecturally a feminine city, according to Edu, who once again took us on a walking tour. I had a picnic lunch with some folks and we saw the oldest preserved aqueduct in the world, which was so totally cool – the stones are held in place by gravity, with only sand between them, no cement. We also saw a castle there which Walt Disney visited and used as the basis for the design of the castle in Snow White. Pretty neat, and very pretty! That night we watched “Jamón, Jamón” at the hotel, which stars Javier Bardem and Penelepe Cruz, and is totally weird because of the extensive and graphic love triangles, and the fact that at the end, Javier’s character kills another man with a leg of ham. We laughed a lot.

Finally, Sunday, today, we went to Toledo, which I think I liked the best of all the places we went. We focused our attention on the Jewish quarter, because Toledo seems to have one of the best preserved examples of Spanish Jewish history. Edu told us a story about the Jewish Expulsion from Spain in 1492. Apparently, some families were under the impression that the Expulsion was just temporary and that they would be invited back to Spain when it was more politically feasible. As such, they brought their house keys with them, and some families passed these keys down through the generations as they preserved the hope that they could one day return to their homes. 1992 marked the 500 year anniversary of the Jewish Expulsion, and as part of the observation of this, the Spanish government invited the decedents of the Spanish Jews to come to Spain as a symbolic returning, and one family came back to Toledo with the keys that had been passed through their family for 500 years, went to their house, unlocked the same door that had been on the house since the 15^th century and entered their house – they actually came home. It’s amazing that the keys stayed in the family, and the door of the house was never changed. No one knew where the house was, but I really wanted to visit it to see. Anyway, because of this history, a lot of the tiendas that sell souvenirs include rings of old looking keys, which I think is neat. So, we visited two synagogues, one of which included a really interesting Semetic Jew museum. We also went to a mosque which was turned into a Christian worship space, and is now kind of an active archeological dig. We walked through and we met a really nice cat in the gardens. It was lunch time, so we found a very traditional Spanish restaurant and I tried melón y jamón for the first time, which is exactly what it sounds like – melon and ham, together. Mmmm, sweet and salty! After lunch we headed home, and now I’m here, really excited to get some clean clothes!

Only two more weeks until my trip to Liverpool and Dublin to visit my friend Heather! I can’t wait!!!

Barce-ce-ce-lona

Right. Well. We had almost a whole week of just travel time after Sevilla, so Ali, Leah, Nora and I took a flight up to Barcelona on Friday. We stayed in the least luxurious hostel I’ve been in yet, which is not a critique of the hostel because it was just fine, but rather it made me realize how lucky I’ve been so far to find such great accommodations. Mostly I was just uncomfortably surprised to find that we were sharing a room with boys. Granted, they ended up being 3 of the very nicest boys I’ve ever met. They were from Brasil; Rafael spoke Portuguese, Spanish and English, JP spoke Portuguese and English, and Angelo just spoke Portuguese, so that was awkward because we couldn’t talk to him. They were really respectful of our privacy and gave us great tips on places to go in the city.

Anyway, on the first full day we walked to Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, this huge worship space that is basically a cathedral with crazy detail – figures on the outside depicting Bible stories, a ceiling like a forest canopy, and a back side that looks like it’s melting and makes you feel a little like you’re in a fishbowl or some other underwater location. It was so unreal. It’s not done yet, and they hope to start holding services there sometime this year. Then we walked to the park Gaudi designed, Guell, and ate lunch and explored the huge space. We also made the obligatory H&M visit, and were all successful.

It was really rainy the next day so we didn’t feel like doing too much, but we did make it to the Picasso museum. I don’t like Picasso much, but his early stuff was pretty cool. In the evening we went to a futbol game! It was FCBarcelona v. Oausuna (I think I spelled that right…) I don’t know anything about soccer, but it was still really exciting! With 15 minutes left in the game, it began POURING, but lucky for me and Nora, there was a lovely woman sitting behind us with her family and they had an extra umbrella, so she offered it to us and we stayed mostly dry – except all the water poured off the back of the umbrella, down my back and pooled on my chair, making me look like I’d had an accident. Whatever, it dried. In the meantime, Barcelona scored the only goal of the game so we won 1 – 0. So cool!

On Monday we went to the chocolate museum which just had the history of chocolate and its journey to Europe along with some pretty cool sculptures made from the delicious candy. It was free; that’s why we went. We then headed over to the cathedral, which wasn’t nearly as beautiful as the one in Sevilla. I think this is going to be my reaction to all cathedrals for the rest of my life, but we’ll see. In the afternoon, Leah, Nora and I walked over the Miró’s sculpture of a woman with a bird. He is another modern artist, so I didn’t really get it, but it was a nice walk and a nice day and on the way back we accidentally got all the way to the ocean, so that was cool. In the evening, we went to two more Gaudi buildings to see them lit up – the apartments that he designed and Casa Batlló, which has this gorgeous purple, green, and blue color scheme that makes it look a little like a castle for goldfish. It also has a neat curved roof.

Tuesday, our last full day, was spent in Montjuïc, which is this area on a really big hill which houses the Olympic stadium and other game fields, a fortress, and a ton of gardens and museums. We saw the stadium and then sat and ate some food we’d gotten at the market – bread, cheese, strawberries, and a chocolate croissant. Perfect! Afterwards we split into two groups and Nora and I went to the Miró museum and then sat in one of the gardens overlooking the city, where she tried to write some poetry and I tried to catch up on my journal, but we mostly just ended up chatting and sharing some of our work with each other. It was really fun. It was sunny, so there were some little lizards which joined us on the wall we were sitting on and they sunbathed with us. On the way out of Montjuïc, I noticed my bag was dripping. Turns out I hadn’t gotten the lid firmly on my water bottle and I spilled the entire thing in my bag, which means I soaked my journal and my camera, which I had put in the bag for the first time the whole trip, of course. It’s a few days later now and the camera works again, though there’s still some condensation on either the lens or the LCD screen, I can’t tell, and sometimes it decides to take photos in the negative style – like, everything that is normally light is black, and the shadows have some rainbow color to them. But it looks like it’s going to keep working for me, which is great for three reasons: 1. I love this camera. 2. It’s only a year or so old. And 3. Everything is really expensive in Europe so I was *not* looking forward to maybe having to replace it.

So anyway, I took care of that little problem and then Nora and I took the metro home (love the metro!) and got gelato (I eat WAY too much gelato here) and went to the steps of a nearby museum to eat it. We watched some little boys, probably 4 or 5 years old, kicking around an empty juice bottle until one of the museum guards, a really cute young guy, brought them a little soccer ball to play with. They promptly got it stuck up in a window with bars on it and a couple people in the area tried to help, but then the leader of the boys, a really precocious little guy who was probably older than the other two, went to get the guard who had given them the ball and the guard rescued it for them. Everyone who was watching clapped, which was cute. For our last meal, we went to this nice little pizza place the Portuguese guys had recommended which served really thin pizza. Very delicious, and reasonably priced for what it was.

The next day, we pretty much just headed home, dawdling on the way to the bus station so we could see the Arc de Triumph (no pictures due to the wet camera fiasco) and get some lunch. We took a bus to the airport in Girona, flew from Girona to Granada, and then took a bus from the airport back to downtown and were back in time for dinner! It was cool to travel and all, but it was soooo nice to be back in a city I knew and felt safe in and to be able to sleep in my own bed and eat really hearty, good food without having to PAY. Being a big city, Barcelona was really expensive. And the dollar isn’t doing well against the euro so I have to multiply everything by 1.5 to understand what I’m actually spending, and unfortunately, most of the prices are about the same here – ie, two scoops of gelato costs about 4euro, which actually translates to 6 dollars. Kinds pricey. Anyway, after I got back to Granada for even just a few minutes I realized I hadn’t enjoyed Barcelona so much because I didn’t feel secure there. Also, there were a lot of prostitutes on Las Ramblas, the main street which we were staying near, and they were really aggressive, which was kind of scary. It was also sad because they were all pretty obviously African immigrants. Social commentary much?

At any rate, classes have now started and I am crazy about one of my classes. It’s the Political System of the European Union, and the prof is really funny in a dorky kind of way, and I liked him a lot. I’m also taking Hispoamerican Literature, POE (our speaking and writing class), History of Spain from Franco to Present, and Islamic Culture in Spain. I haven’t had the last three classes yet, but I’m totally excited for both, especially Islamic Culture. It’s going to be so cool. My yoga class starts in a week too, which should be good because I’ll be in a class with other Spaniards. I hope I make some friends. All my academic classes are with other Americans. And we’ll see if it works out, but I’m trying to volunteer with a local colegio to help little Spanish kids with their homework – I think it’s English, but I don’t actually remember. I just love tutoring so I don’t really care! Today we have a tour of the cathedral here in Granada, so I hope that’s fun. I bought peanut butter yesterday and I loooove iiittt! Peanut butter and honey sandwiches, baby…

the story of sevilla

On Wednesday and Thursday our program went to Sevilla, which as it turns out has some of the most gorgeous sites ever, and I loved it. We began by visiting the Reales Alcázares, the palacio in Sevilla. It was built for a Christian king by Christian and Muslim architects, so it was a combination of the styles. I liked all the lions that were in the architecture, but overall I didn’t like the style because it wasn’t nearly as beautiful as the Alhambra. Some of the paint was left intact on the carvings, so that was kind of neat. We then had lunch together at a restaurant, which was special, especially since it was paella.

Following this, a few of us went to the cathedral during our free time, which was totally and completely mind blowing. It’s the third largest cathedral in the world, so when I walked in, my breath was literally taken away by how large it was. It was just unreal – twice as tall as my cathedral at home, at least, and with so much detail. Their high altar is enclosed by a cage, as are much of the relics and other small worship spaces it’s divided into, and it is completely red carpet and gold. It’s really unbelievable. Also, Christopher Columbus’ body is there, and I saw his sepulcher.

Connected to the cathedral is Giralda tower, which was originally constructed by the Muslims to be a tower from which the cantor called the faithful to worship, but when the Christians took over, the converted it into the bell tower. It has 34 ramps leading up it because the Muslim cantor would have to ascend the tower 5 times a day and so he rode a donkey, which is why they used ramps and not stairs. So anyway, we climbed the ramps, and the one flight of stairs at the very end to look out over the entire city. It was absolutely gorgeous. When we came back down, they were having mass in a smaller part of the cathedral, and there were so many people I couldn’t really see, but I could smell that they were using incense and that was lovely, because I love the smell of frankincense! Following the cathedral, we hit the Museo de Bellas Artes, which was nice, but I was a little tired and cranky so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I might have if I were fresh. To bed shortly after.

The next day we went to the archeological site of Itálica, an ancient Roman city just outside of Sevilla. I had no idea the Romans had made it all the way to Spain, but they did, and this was their first city. Upon returning to Sevilla, I went to el Parque de Maria Luisa with Leah, Ali, and Nora, and we poked around. Maria Luisa is the huge, gorgeous park in the middle of the city with tons of trees and lots of green, which is unusual for the Andalusia area because it doesn’t get much water. It was lovely to explore before we had lunch at another restaurant. Here is where my personal adventure started.

2 blocks into our walk from the restaurant to the Torre de Oro to take a boat tour on the river, I realized my sunglasses had fallen out of my purse when I put it down. Normally this wouldn’t be a huge deal, but Graham gave them to me for Christmas and they’re designer sunglasses and it was just so thoughtful of him that I couldn’t leave them, knowing they just had to be under my chair and we were so close. So, I thrust my jacket into Nora’s hands, told her what I was doing and ran back to get them. Found them, left again, and ran down the street as fast as I could. Now, as I was leaving the group, I saw them crossing the street at an intersection, which logically means to me that they were turning onto that street, so that’s what I did. I ran down a small winding street and found myself having to make a choice – left or right. I couldn’t see any of the group, so I asked two construction workers in Spanish if they had seen a large group of students walk by, I was looking for them. They said continue to the right, and I thanked them. I ended up at a café where I had to ask two more guys, enjoying their café con leche, if they’d seen a big group of students, and they pointed me straight ahead. This put me at a dead end and it didn’t feel quite right, so I called Nora, who told me that they hadn’t even turned on that first street, they’d just gone straight the whole way to the river. I don’t know what group of students *I* had been following, but I was now lost in Sevilla and about to miss my boat tour with my group. Nora told me to head towards the river, which felt like it might be to the left. I was right – I recognized a busy street up ahead from earlier this morning on the bus, which I knew ran right next to the river. Then I had to decide right or left, and I went left because that was the way the bus had driven that morning. I called Nora once more and they were boarding the boat and she’d tell Mark, our program director what was up. Luckily at this point I spotted the Torre de Oro between some trees, about 2 blocks away on this street, which was right next to where the boat left from. I ran and ran and ran until I got there, and I was there in time to see Nora board the boat. Mark met me and showed me the stairs to the boat, made sure I had found what I had gone back for and that I was alright. I was – just having some trouble breathing due to having athlete’s asthma and running for longer than I’m used to, which is to say, running at all. After catching my breath, which took awhile, I was able to enjoy the beautiful boat ride with commentary on the main sites in Sevilla. Did you know they had the Expo there in 92? They built some amazing buildings for it. They also have some beautiful bridges. Finally after this we visited the park once more, and the Plaza de España, both of which were very pretty, and then most of the group left for their week of vacations, and 11 of us got back on the bus to Granada. We played some Uno and slept. It was lovely.

One of my favourite parts of Sevilla, besides its beauty, was its public transportation. They have these electric trams that look like very nice trains, which run through town from one end to another. They cost a bit over a euro to ride, and we were never going very far so it didn’t make sense to ride them, but I realllllly wanted to! They also have stations with bikes all over the city that are available to rent. You put money into a machine and it allows you to borrow the corresponding bike, and then you ride it around and deposit it back at another station. All the bikes have lights and little baskets and they’re so cute!!! Everyone seems to use them too, all sorts of people. There are lots of students and tons of folks have their own bikes (mostly cruisers, so it must be a pretty flat city) which is just lovely.

Photos from my Sevilla trip can be found here: http://seattleu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2035052&l=1fcae&id=32402179

Anyhow, today I’m headed to Barcelona with Leah, Nora, and Leah. We’re going to a futbol game, and the Picasso museum and lots of Gaudi art for sure, and maybe the beach, and who knows what else. We’ll see! Updates to follow.

http://www.ijam.es/

that says a lot about spain.

so on sunday i went to the alhambra and it was totally awesome. i really wish i could have been there in the 15th century, before the christians took over, when it was even more gorgeous and colorful and full of people and basically the epitome of luxury. alas, i'll have to settle for seeing it again in the spring when the flowers are in bloom and it's even warmer than it is now! ¿que lastima, no? we spent about 4 hours there and i took over 200 pictures, but there's so much to see. i'm very lucky to have the chance to go more than once.

i am basically in love with jamon serrano, which is very thinly sliced ham, generally served in a bocadilla (sandwich) with some cheese. tonight i went to tapas with some girls after class, to a bar that serves brie and miel (brie cheese and honey). it was so yummy! the only trouble with tapas is i always want MORE, but they give you just enough for one per person per drink. they're all just so delicious! i'm excited to share the best places with the people who are going to come to visit me.

incidentally, if you give me your address, you'll get a postcard in return. i also enjoy receiving small bits of mail from time to time, so i'll post my address one more time!

Ashley Miller
c/o Elvira Fajardo Maíquez
Emperatriz Eugenia 10-5ºB
Granada 18002 SPAIN

if you want to post your address in a comment, go for it, or email me directly (ccshlee@gmail.com) or any of the many other ways to contact me. i miss everyone back home a whole lot, and i think of everyone very often, but i'm also having such a fun time here. i'm glad of that, because sometimes it takes me a long time to get settled in a place, but here fits very well so far. i signed up for yoga today! and this is our last week of intensive classes. we have a week of traveling, and then the real classes start. i'm taking islamic culture in spain, the political system of the EU and spain, history of spain from franco to present, hispoamericano literature, and a speaking and writing grammar type class. it's kind of going to be really busy, i think, but good. busy is good. and i hope to soon begin meeting more spaniards and maybe making friends with them. my spanish isn't as great as i'd like it to be, so i feel ok talking to americans, but i'm kind of intimidated to speak with locals as much. tenga confianzia, have confidence. anyway, it's almost 10 which means it's almost dinner time! woot! ¡LA PAZ!

all the spaniards have their umbrellas out right now because the street is wet, and there is some kind of hard to notice mist in the air that appears to constitute rain here. it`s quite interesting to me.

today i watched amorres perros with rick (another SU student) before my DELE practice. we couldn't get the subtitulos to work in either english or spanish, so it was pretty difficult to understand, and i only got to watch half because my class started earlier than his, but it's safe to say it's a REALLY intense movie. (oh, yeah, and my school is awesome because you can check out almost any movie ever in whatever language and watch it in the library, either in an individual booth with headphones, or on a projection screen with headphones. it rules.)

oh yeah, so my class schedule is as such, for the next 3 weeks: at 10:30 i have class for two hours with a professora named emilia, and we work mostly on grammar and structure, and it's more listening. emilia is a bit older, grey hair, and is veeeery skinny, but not in an unhealthy way. she's just petite all over (except her voice; she has a big personality and is very funny) and she wears nice clothes, which fall on her the way i want clothes to fall on me but which they never quite do. (which is usually just fine.) also, emilia´s english is reaaalllly good, except today she was giving an example with brad pitt in it and she wrote it on the board, the way it sounds when it is said with a spanish accent, ''brat pitt''. we pointed it out and she laughed so hard, and just called him señor pitt after that.

after emilia, we have a 20 minute break, and then at 12:40 or so we have another two hour class, but this time with encarna, who is fiercely independent and fun. she works with us more on vocab, and we sit around and talk a lot - entirely in spanish, because her class room has a magic door into a world where no one has heard of english. it`s totally elementary school and i love it. she is very funny and expressive, and she tells us all the best places to get tapas, or the cheap mercados, or whatever.

when encarna`s class is over, we go home for almuerzo with our mama. the walk takes me 20 or 30 minutes, depending on if i`m window shopping or booking it, and which route i take, so i usually get home by 3 or so. we eat and sometimes take a short siesta, but we don't finish eating until 4, and i have class from 5 to 6:30 to practice for the DELE exam. the stuff in that class is seriously hard. i don't understand a lot of it yet, but maria, our tutor, says she's just showing us what we need to learn in the next 5 months, and how to study, and what to expect of the test when we take it. i'm probably going to have to sit for mine in seattle on may 24, which will suck because i leave here may 21 so i'll still be jetlagged a bit. i may change things so i can stay and take the exam may 23 in granada, if i can find somewhere to stay for the 2 days between the test and the end of the program, when my mama is no longer required to house me. there's always a hostel! wé'll see.

anyway, after DELE practice i have a few hours to myself before dinner, which is at 9 or 10. it's a great time to do errands or shopping or grab a cerveza or tapas with other students. or do internet stuff! it's friday night here, so after anna and i finish up here, we'll go home and eat, and then we have plans to meet friends at 11 to get some tapas and then go to a disco once they open at 2am. not really my type of schedule, but i´m super excited to try it once because katie, the girl who's kind of getting tonight put together, suggested going to el sol, a gay disco, which supposedly plays better music and obviously diminishes severely my chances of getting hit on by a drunk spaniard, which really doesn't appeal much to me. either way, it'll be nuts to see a spanish disco, and tomorrow i'll do something more chill. there's a whole verb for ''to get tapas'' and it's tapear. yay!

things are going great, and we have a tour on sunday í'm pumped for. anna - my roommate - is having a really tough time adjusting, mostly i think because she has a boyfriend back home, and she gets really stressed out if she doesn't get to talk to him every day, when she told him she would. i'm glad i'm not in that same boat. i called home once, and i've skyped with my mom twice, and email back a lot, which so far has been plenty, though i'm quite excited for tomorrow, it being saturday, because i'm hoping to be able to either call or skype home for a nice long talk with everyone in my family, see how things are going. (watch me crash and burn in two or three weeks. :P it´s bound to be less than fun sometimes.) but i've been sleeping through the night, finally, and dreaming, and i've walked to school and back by myself twice now and been just fine, and i'm starting to learn the layout of the city near where i live. just about time to expand some! so i'd best finish up for now. i plan to stop by a bakery on my way home and buy a treat, because they are so TEMPTING, staring at me from the window like that.