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!
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Friday, January 11, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
a swift update with the highlights
so, i still can´t use my own computer. before the problem was that i had to pay for internet at cafes, and now i know some free wifi (pronounced wee-fee) spots, but now i can´t charge my laptop because my power converter doesn´t support any of my electronics. por eso, i have not written any large updates for blog purposes. ok, quick run down of the high lights:
-- on saturday, anna and i watch a parade for 3 kings day where they hucked candy at us. we also received hats, gloves, and scarves from our host mom because the 3 kings bring presents on january 6 like santa does.
-- sunday, more candy was hucked at us during a lovely walking tour.
-- today, we took our placement exam and we get the results tomorrow, when classes start.
-- also, i went shopping and bought sweaters at ZARA! i thought of kaitrin. (ps kaitrin, tell jackie i visited el corte ingles and it´s basically a huuuuge jc penny type department store, and quite expensive.) hooray rebajas. (big after holiday sales). my hope is to find a reasonably priced red coat, black boots, and to buy a scarf and purse at these little tiendas with an islamic flare. i don´t know the history behind them yet, but they´re rather common so i think there must be a story behind them.
interesting and/or difficult things to adjust to here in spain/europe:
-- the apartment isn´t heated much - there are space heaters in the living room, but not in my bedroom, so my bedroom is cold. BUT, there´s a heater under the dining room table and a blanket over the table which you put over your knees, and i like that a lot.
-- there generally less water here than there, slash, it is more expensive here, so the showers (which aren´t cold, but aren´t hot the way i´m used to) are short and with little water, and we aren´t supposed to flush the toilet every time. ie, yellow is mellow but brown goes down. the flushing motion is a tough habit to break.
-- i have to wait for my señora to make lunch and dinner so i can´t really eat whenever i´m hungry. if i did, i wouldn´t be able to eat the MOUNTAINS OF FOOD she puts in front of us. at practically every meal, we have soup and salad, and i love all her soups.
-- i´m learning the city but i don´t know it yet.
-- it is not easy to do business in spanish, but it´s fun to try to speak it.
and finally, this morning we had our placement exam, as i mentioned, and we were supposed to be there at 8:45, but i set my alarm to pm instead of am so anna and i slept until 9am and then had to take a taxi to school, and we had 10 fewer minutes than everyone else for the written portion. being rushed meant that i couldn´t try to use elaborate tenses because i was just trying to get it done. and i did finish, so that´s good, and i´m pretty sure i placed in the correct level for my abilities. so yeah, that´s it for now. off to la cena!
-- on saturday, anna and i watch a parade for 3 kings day where they hucked candy at us. we also received hats, gloves, and scarves from our host mom because the 3 kings bring presents on january 6 like santa does.
-- sunday, more candy was hucked at us during a lovely walking tour.
-- today, we took our placement exam and we get the results tomorrow, when classes start.
-- also, i went shopping and bought sweaters at ZARA! i thought of kaitrin. (ps kaitrin, tell jackie i visited el corte ingles and it´s basically a huuuuge jc penny type department store, and quite expensive.) hooray rebajas. (big after holiday sales). my hope is to find a reasonably priced red coat, black boots, and to buy a scarf and purse at these little tiendas with an islamic flare. i don´t know the history behind them yet, but they´re rather common so i think there must be a story behind them.
interesting and/or difficult things to adjust to here in spain/europe:
-- the apartment isn´t heated much - there are space heaters in the living room, but not in my bedroom, so my bedroom is cold. BUT, there´s a heater under the dining room table and a blanket over the table which you put over your knees, and i like that a lot.
-- there generally less water here than there, slash, it is more expensive here, so the showers (which aren´t cold, but aren´t hot the way i´m used to) are short and with little water, and we aren´t supposed to flush the toilet every time. ie, yellow is mellow but brown goes down. the flushing motion is a tough habit to break.
-- i have to wait for my señora to make lunch and dinner so i can´t really eat whenever i´m hungry. if i did, i wouldn´t be able to eat the MOUNTAINS OF FOOD she puts in front of us. at practically every meal, we have soup and salad, and i love all her soups.
-- i´m learning the city but i don´t know it yet.
-- it is not easy to do business in spanish, but it´s fun to try to speak it.
and finally, this morning we had our placement exam, as i mentioned, and we were supposed to be there at 8:45, but i set my alarm to pm instead of am so anna and i slept until 9am and then had to take a taxi to school, and we had 10 fewer minutes than everyone else for the written portion. being rushed meant that i couldn´t try to use elaborate tenses because i was just trying to get it done. and i did finish, so that´s good, and i´m pretty sure i placed in the correct level for my abilities. so yeah, that´s it for now. off to la cena!
Friday, January 4, 2008
Arrival in Granada
estoy en granada, y segura. i´m in granada and safe. i´m hungry. and still pretty tired. i got about 3 hours of sleep between wednesday and thursday, and then thursday night i woke up every hour. it was weird. but i slept for almost the whole 5 hour bus ride from madrid so that helped. tomorrow we have an orientation at school. and that´s about all i have to report. further description to follow when i´m not being charged for the internet...
oh, ps, my host mom has an adorable puppy named coco. i love him.
oh, ps, my host mom has an adorable puppy named coco. i love him.
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