Wow. So it has been 2 months since I last updated. Sorry about that. It's been an extremely busy and incredible 2 months. This update won't be nearly as detailed as if I had been keeping up, but I'll give a quick overview of what I've done, and give you the links to my facebook albums.
In Mid-February, I went to Madrid for basically a day and hit the three big museums: El Prado, La Reina Sofia, and the Thyssen. I went with a couple of friends from abroad (Kate, Johanna, Mary, and Lydia) and we met my friend who is studying in London there (Caroline). It was super fun, and I absolutely loved El Parque del Buen Retiro. It was super cool.
Later in February, my program had a trip to Cordoba. It's a smallish city in Southern Spain with the only Mosque in Spain still standing from the era of the Muslim reign. Cordoba was the seat of the Omeyan Calipha in Spain. When the Catholics seized Cordoba, they built a Baroque style cathedral within the mosque, which makes for a pretty strange yet interesting building.
I stayed in Granada pretty much for two weeks after that getting to know the area better. I took a trip to pick oranges in a nearby little town. It was absolutely beautiful. I also had my first Mediterranean Ecosystems field trip where we got to go to the Mediterranean Sea.
In mid-March, my friend Kate and I went to Dublin. It was an awesome trip. I was very surprised how international Dublin was; I felt as if I could have been in any American city for a good portion of the time. I tried Guinness for the first time. It was better than I thought it would be, but definitely pretty intense. I learned a lot about Irish history on my trip, it's extremely fascinating. My favorite part may have been our day trip to Howth which is a small fishing village around 40 minutes outside of the city. We climbed the Howth Cliff and had a wonderful view over the water.
The next big trip was a program trip to Morocco. This was probably one of the greatest trips of my life. First, we took a bus down to Gibraltar which is a UK territory at the Southern tip of Spain. It was a really bizarre city, it sort of felt like Disney Land. We then took a ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar (the 14 km of water separating Spain and Morocco) to Tangiers. We travelled next to Rabat where we spent two nights in a homestay of a Moroccan family. The language barrier was quite difficult (they spoke arabic and french while we spoke spanish and english) but it was a really great experience. There are many huge differences between our American culture or even the Spanish culture and the Moroccan culture. For that reason, it was a great learning experience. It was my first venture to an African country and it was also my first time in a Muslim country. While both these terms make Morocco seem like a different world, you can see tons of Western influence. For example, my homestay sister loved the Jonas Brothers. In Rabat, we spoke to many Moroccans including professors, students, and leaders of the feminist movement.
After we left Rabat, we went to a small village of 300 to speak to a family. We helped them cook some lunch and make tea, and got to speak to them about their lifestyle. To give you an idea about how remote the area is, when there is important national or local news the leaders of the town use the loud speakers in the minaret at the local mosque usually used for the call to prayer and broadcast the news. Town members are then expected to travel to the mosque to discuss the news and decide on a plan of action. Although we couldn't communicate that well with the people from the village, we had a translator for the adults and our smiles to use for the kids. When some little girls realized we were going for a hike to this view of the Rif Mountains, they grabbed my hand, took me down this steep slope (they moved with much more grace than I did) and started picking flowers for me. It was really sweet playing with the little girls.
We then left the village for the town of Chefchaouen. It is a town of all blue and white buildings in the Rif Mountains. This area is known for their cultivation of marijuana. Its a very touristy town with tons of artisan shops which was perfect for our souvenir and gift shopping. We debriefed in Chefchaouen and the next day, we got up early, went for a hike and then left to return to Spain.
In late March, Mom, Dad and Andrew came to visit Granada. It was really great to have them all here and show them around the city I've been living in for a couple of months. Then we all went to Vienna which was also a super cool city. We spent 6 nights there, so we got to see everything in the city at a relaxing pace.
On April 9, Mom, Dad, and Andrew went home to the States and I went on to Greece to meet up with my friends Christine, Sarah, and Chelsea. I arrived in Athens on Thursday night, and we almost immediately boarded a ferry to the island of Crete. The overnight ferry was a little crazy, but tons of fun. In Crete, we spent the first day on the beach and it was a beautiful day. That night we went out for a great seafood dinner at this place that our Cretan friend Dmitri told us about. The second day, we rented bikes and rode around the city. It was super cool. I was so happy to see my friends and we had a wonderful weekend.
This past week was all about recovering from Spring Break. Tons of traveling and walking really is quite exhausting after a while. On Friday, I had another Mediterranean Ecosystems Field Trip but this was one was to the Sierra Nevada to the site of a forest fire from 2005. Then, Chelsea, Brie and their friends Ellie and David from abroad came to visit. They were on a Southern Spain road trip and came through Granada. We went out on Friday night and then explored the city a bit on Saturday morning. They were leaving on Saturday afternoon for Alicante and I wasn't quite ready to say goodbye so I just came along for the ride. We stayed in Alicante last night, had some delicious paella and then today I took the bus back. It was super good to see Brie for the first time since January, and Chelsea too (it had only been a week, haha). I don't have those pictures uploaded yet but I'll update when I do.
Hope everyone and everything is well in the States! I'd love updates from all of you!
