Classes Start

Tomorrow will mark my first offical day of classes here in Granada Spain. im excited and nervous. 

Africa!

I never thought I would be able to say that I have been to Africa!! Well guess what????? This Chica has been to Africa! My group traveled to Morocco, which is the northern tip of Africa (More info about Morocco to come)! It was so crazy to step of the 45 min ferry ride and all of the sudden see "Welcome to Africa!" on a sign above the exit of the ship. I honeslty can't even describe the feeling I had inside at that moment, all I can say is I could not help but smiling and my head was constantly moving back and fourth making sure to not miss anything.

  

Hannah Montana 2

Well i was in Morocco a couple weeks ago and i got caalled Hannah Montana again... lol 

only this time it was from across a park. 

i really need to start signing autographs... maybe i can get a job in disney world next summer. 

crazy, different countries, same reaction.. lol 

Tapas Girl

today my friend Frances and i were walking home from school when we saw a 20something girl struggling to carry some art supplies and 3 huge canvases. We offered to help her and she said she had it, well then she dropped everything and after that she let us help her. She said she was brinnging them to a tapas bar down the street. wee had no where to be so we followed her. after wee got there we decided to stay and order a drink. After about 3 mins of sittinng and drinking 5 different tapas came out to our table.... tapas is normal, one tapa per drink ordered, not 5... while frances and i are sitting there enjoying the most amazing tapas we have ever had and feeling like princesses, we could not help but wonder how much  this was going to cost us.... so the time came to ask for the bill, they wouldnt give it to us. 

It turned out that the girl we helped owned the bar with her family and she gave us our drinks and tapas for free, as her way of saying thank you for our help. We insited more than once to pay but we didnt get anywhere. However we promised to bring our friends there some day in the near future. 

frances and i walked away so happy and with smiles on our faces not because we got free food, but becuase amzing people like this girl exist in this world. they are far and few between but they are there. 

"Las Copas" will always hold a special memory for me in Granada Spain. 

El Flamenco

Tonight i came home to find my host mom in the living room watching a youtube video of the Flamenco and the table pushed aside. I asked her what she was doing, and she laughed and responded with "trato el Flamenco" (i am trying the Flamenco).

I went to go take a shower and came  back and asked her how it went, she burst out laughing... and told me she didn't have enough enegry tonight to practice more. Her and i continued to talk about the different dances here in Spain and also in Mexico, I got a small demonstration of each one from her. It was the cutest thing! And after she was all done and she sat back in her chair she laughed for about 5 minutes. This was my favorite moment with her thus yet. 

Tonight I also had to help her to understand her computer. She wanted to know how to watch a DVD on her computer and how to open the disc drive. She said "can you help me my son never helps me with this kind of stuff..." typical 20something son right? lol So i showed her and helped her and she was so excited. It was a DVD about the place she traveled to during the summer. 

She is so adorable.  

 

The Switch

It is amazing when you are learning a different language your brain has to "switch" when you want to go to the other language. It is so amazing when your brain gets "like" stuck in spanish. Its like a feeling of accomplishment. It kinda like that "high" feeling you get after a really good workout. I love it just as much as when I have a dream in spanish.  

i notice it when I go to update my blog or to send a text message to someone... I have to switch my brain over to english. Sometimes it takes me a good 7 mintues to change totally, and even more time when i am watching spanish TV and typing. The most common thing that happens is I have a couple of words that really get "stuck" in spanish... 

It sounds horrible, but in reality is amazing!! 

(this is the river that I live on) 

intercambio

Tonight we had an intercambio. An intercambio is when we have a meeting with a native student of the University of Granada. The student  from the university is studying english and they want to improve their english and we want  to improve our spainsh. For example tonight we went for tapas and during the taps we spoke half the time in spanish and the other half in english. Intercambios are a great way to experance the culture and dive into the lanuage, becuase if you struggle with a sentance or tense in spanish... when they talk in english they struggle to so its a meeting with no judging. It a meetinng for growing. 

Hannah Montana

The other night my friends from the program and i went out to get some tapas. We went to this bar and I walked around the corner before the others and all of the sudden this whole table of men started talking about me. "Hannah Montana!!!" I am not kidding. They were convinced to the dime that i looked  exactly like Hannah Montana. (which I dont at all) I had a man ask to take a picture with me for his daughter... Well after that the whole bar wanted pictures with me, I would say by the end of night I had taken about 6-8 pictures with people as Hannah Montana. I had one ask for a kiss from Hannah Montana... yeah that was odd and uncomfortable I simply laughed at his request and contiuned to eat tapas with my friends. They contiunned to bother me the whole night, but it was funny and they were harmless. 

The manager of the bar took a picture with me and said he is going to add it to their wall of famous people that have visited their bar. He also wanted to put it on the website. 

By the end of night the whole Bar was calling me Hannah Montana... good lord 

Not going to lie it was kinda fun to be a famous person for a night. 

My Host Family!

As most of you know the thing i was the most scared about was my host family. Well thank you evryone for your prayer and support becuase i got a good one. Something to keep in mind, when you think family you are probably thinking husband, wife, children and a pet... Well the reality of a family like that being able to have room and time for an exchange student pretty much doesn't exist here. All the families are composed of an older women and maybe a older host sibling and maybe a dog or cat if your lucky. 

Well my host mom's name is Paqui, I dont know how old she is, she looks young, but i know she is older than she looks, and i cant ask her becuase that is rude. My host brother's name is Danoi its short for something common in spain... i can't remember what though... but i do know that he is 26 and studing political science. That age sounds old to still be in school in the states, but here he is right on track. 

So far there has only been one meal that Paqui has made that i didnt like, it was some weird chicken thing... I was like in this interesting sauce that tasted like beef and then in had grapes and figs in it... and they stirred in frenchh fries... I pretty much only at the french fries that night. 

If you have been following my blog from the start you should remember that i said i brought my own peanut butter with me to spain because they dont have it here... Well this is a funny story... So I showed and explained the peanut butter to my host mom, while i was explaining it she was making a weird face.. she didn't like the idea of it. Well when I left the kitchen i accidently left the peanut butter in there and i went to my room to get something. i came back no more than 2 minutes later and she had put the peanut butter in the hall... 

Hmm what else to tell you about...? 

I live on the river in an apratment building that is a 10-15 minute walk from the school. 

(the river, my buliding is parallel to the river.) 

Two other girls fromthe program live close to me; one in the same building and the other the building over: Frances and  Danielle, we walk to school everyday together. 

Frances's host mom and mine are friends, so for the first night the 4 of us all went out for drinks and tapas. This was really cool becuase a lot of the other kid's families just made them dinner and then went to bed. I really liked how they spent extra time with us and showed us the town. I found it to be more respectful and I think it bridge the "awkwardness" gap a lot faster. 

I got really lucky! 

Planes taxies buses oh my!

I want to apoligize in advance for not capitalizing my "I"s or the starting letter of the sentance. i am typing on my ipad and it doesnt correct those automaticly and frankly i don't have to go and fix all of them, and to fix them while i type would ttake me to long to type something. so this is how it will be most of the time. i hope you understand.  

Hola todos. I am sorry i was not able to write sooner i have been really busy lately  and when i have free time i have been napping, because my internal clock is still off track a little bit. Also I only have internet at home... and i'm not home often, and when i do go home its for a meal or to sleep and then i'm out the door running off to the next thing. 

 

(me with my parents before getting on the plane... i look really bad here becuase i didnt want to do my make or hair for the long travels i had ahead of me.. my parents lookk good though in this picture) 

ok so for starters the plane ride was ok. it was 7 hours long... they had free movies that were just released, and really good food (dinner and breakfast) the only complaints i have about it was that it was nearly impossible for me to fall asleep and because we were flying through storms it was not the smoothest of rides.. lol 

 

(this is the plane or better know as the "air bus" by my family. it is huge compared to the other planes on the platform)

i met an older women and her husband on the plane. she had studied aboard in Spain when she was in college and now this was her 15th time back the the country. she was adorable, she told me a couple of stories about her experience and how she still talks to everyone that was on the trip with her at that time, and actually her reason for returning this time was to attend a wedding of someone's kid that was on the trip with her. 

I also met another girl on the plane, she had done the same program that i am doing right now a couple years back (pienso que hace 4 años) and now she is going to grad school in Spain and has lived her for 3 or 4 years now. This is her last year of grad school and she doesn't know where she wants to live after that... in Spain or in the U.S.

after the plan i took a taxi to the bus station. the bus ride was 5 and a half hours long... Oh my gosh... it was horrible. worse than the plane ride. the surroundings were beautiful, i had never seen so many olive trees in my life, but the bus ride was just too long after a 7 hour plane ride. Also i spent the longest time having to go to the bathroom really bad and being scared to ask the bus driver to stop for me. "i didn't want to make the whole bus stop for me, the stupid american.." well we were 2 and a half hours in and i couldn't take it anymore so i asked the girl next to me what a person does of they need to go to the bathroom... she told me they go down the stairs and use the bathroom... wow... I don't think i have moved faster in my life. "stairs? really? ok!" well sure enough i went down the 3 short stairs and used the bathroom. 

 

then after the bus i took a taxi to the hotel, which was beautiful by the way! i went for a sandwich and was off to bed way early that night. in the morning started the beginning of a program i will never 

forget. 

(my view for the hotel room) 

 

(i wanted to share this interresting thing with all of you. Ok so this is the entrance of my hotel room. In order for all the light to work in the room i needed to have my keycard in that holder type thing pictured on the top left. also the other squares are the light switches, this is hhow almost all the swtiches look here. Also for most of the places here the swtich is outside the room that you are in. for example that switch on the right is for the bathroom, its right next to the door before you enter the bathroom. it really funny how they do that.) 

Packing

So the packing craziness has been in full swing... I have been using Pinterest packing active on how to make multiple outfits with few articles of clothing. I'm trying my best. I really think shoes will be my biggest challenge. 

The other night I woke up in a sweat and shaking... I had nightmare about packing.. Oh boy! 

My mom's advice for it all. "Well you'll find the laundry place fast. And just think everyone else in your group is doing the same  

P.s I have to pack my own Peanut butter because they don't have that in Spain. :)