La Primera Semana

The first week here in Granada was great. During the day, we have intensive Spanish classes from 9-2. It's kind of a long class, but we also get to walk around the city a bit which is nice. Then, we walk home for lunch with our homestay families. The walk is about 30 minutes but its a nice walk down one of the main shopping streets. Lunch is always great. It's a good meal with the whole family, and we sit and talk and eat. Directly after lunch, my homestay family all sit down to watch Fama! a bailar which is this absurd dance competition on TV. I have never seen anything like it. 

After the show, I usually nap and then head out around 9 or 10 for tapas and drinks. The whole tapas bar for dinner thing is really great. Drinks are usually a little under 2 euros and the bar then gives you tapas for free. It's usually a really fun atmosphere.

I'm still adjusting to the Spanish schedule. I really like that everyone is out and about late at night, including children, but I'm tired all the time because class is still quite early. 

Yesterday, we went to las Alpujarras which is a group of villages on a mountain about an hour and a half from Granada. The white houses are all built quite close to each other in each village due to the steepness of the mountain. Anyway, the villages were built on one mountain and then the farms for the villagers were built on the adjacent mountains. The two areas are separated by a ravine and a river. We hiked from one village, down into the ravine, and back up the mountain to the next village and then repeated the procedure to get to the final village. It was absolutely gorgeous but all exhausting. While the Alpujarras were once populated by grain farmers,  that industry has since left the area. Now, the old farms on the non-village side of the mountain are being bought up by people looking for country homes while the villages are entirely populated by hippies and artists. It's pretty sweet. I tried to attach pictures below, but it's proving difficult. I think the file may be large to upload it to the blog.

Last night was the first night we went to a discoteca. We went to one called Granada 10. It was sort of empty because we got there at around 2:30 which is a bit early for them. The discotecas usually close at 7 and are most populated around 5ish I think. We still had a ton of fun though. 

This week we're continuing orientation with Spanish classes and enrollment stuff. Also, we're taking tours of certain parts of the city. I'm going to the Sacremonte tomorrow which is a hillside full of caves in which many gypsies live. I can't wait, it should be pretty cool. I'll write again soon!

Arrival

Hola!

Just wanted to write to let everyone know that I made it to Granada to my homestay seamlessly. I met a couple of kids from my program in Newark Airport before we boarded, so we all hung out during the layover and they all seem really cool. We were in Malaga overnight last night and just got into Granada this afternoon. Malaga is a sort of vacation spot in the south of Spain where Picasso was born. We went out last night and walked around the decidedly Spanish Malaga streets and found a place for dinner; they were beautiful. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera. The dinner was delicious and I had the first of the many kebabs I will eat during my semester abroad. 

We took a bus to Granada this afternoon after some orientation-type activities. The trip was beautiful as we went from the coast to the mountains. All the coastal cities appeared to have all white little houses built on a hillside. As we neared Granada, we could see the Sierra Nevada mountains covered in snow. They were beautiful. In a lot of ways, Granada reminded me of Bogota, but I just saw it briefly. It had some similar architecture and a constant backdrop of the mountains. 

As soon as we arrived in Granada, I met my host mother and she is the sweetest. Her apartment is really great. I don't have a roommate like many of the students, but there are about six other students living in my building and I think not having a roommate will only be better for my spanish. The senora, Maria Rosa, is an artist along with everyone else in her family. The entire apartment is covered in her paintings, and they're really good. I'm impressed. Fittingly, there was a copy of a Klimt hanging in my room when I arrived, similar to the one I had in my room last fall. I met Maria Rosa's mother, who is very old, but very sweet. I also met my homestay brother, Oscar, and he is great. He seems incredibly nice and fun. Dinner was naturally awkward for about 10 minutes, and then conversation flowed really easily. You can tell they love to talk about everything they can think of. We had about a ten minute talk about the Basque country and their exclusivity, another one about Obama, and a final one about Agatha Christie. I think I'm really going to enjoy their company. 

Tomorrow, we have intensive language classes from 9-2 and our senoras are walking us over to the IES building so we'll get to see more of the city. I'll try to remember to bring my camera so I can start documenting the trip. 

Alright, well I'll update again when I get to see the city more. Hopefully I can find a way to post some of my pictures up on this blog. Oh! and please skype me. My skype name is lsinnenberg. Hopefully I'll talk to you soon!