You knew this was coming...GRANADA!

*I finally posted pics for the previous post-check it out*

Oh man this has been a busy last week and it’s not about to stop. This week I start having English conversation classes with a few people which is great because here there are a lot of people who want to practice their English so this way I can get to know some people and make some extra money, yay! Also this week is Halloween week here so on Friday I get to dress up and walk around classrooms at the school to explain Halloween. This should be interesting since me and Esther (English program director at my school) will probably be the only ones dressed up lol. Then this weekend will be full of fun events but I’ll tell you more about that when it comes.

While we’re on the topic of Halloween- my director (Esther) - sent me an email today with a video clip she made. Here’s the link so you can check it out: http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/rfz9vMsQ4tpR9ADh . All the faces in it are of the teachers I’m working with this year…try to guess which one is me LOL (you’ll see what I mean when you check it out).

Well let me go ahead and tell you about Granada. Basically, Granada is awesome and that’s all you need to know.

Haha well I’ll go into that a little bit more. Before I headed to Granada everyone was telling me it was so amazing and that I would love it. I absolutely did love it but I think for different reasons that what the others were thinking. First of all I stayed with some amazing people and I have to say that they and my other friends that I met up with, like Carlos, MADE my trip- you guys are SO GREAT!

On Friday when I left, I got to Granada and met up with my friend Amanda (who I met at the airport in London because we both had the same flight for Malaga, Spain- AND- coincidentally she’s also doing the same program I am) around 11am. When I got to her place she was giving me the break down to who’s living in her apartment and everything. What she told me made me a little nervous…she’s living with a Mexican girl, Italian guy and French guy…common language Spanglish lol…and the roommates were all about 20 years old…and they go out (to clubs) like every night. I was thinking- “what am I getting myself into” lol. But I have to say- that group was SO much fun and by the end of the weekend I definitely didn’t want to go. I laughed so hard the entire weekend- pretty sure that I laughed more this weekend than I have in the last year…I’m serious lol... and I laugh A LOT (obviously with all my "lol"s). The mix of everyone was just so much fun and super diverse which I loved. I think the fact that in the house, at any point, you could hear someone speaking French, Spanish, English or Italian…and our conversations were usually a mix of all four (of course I only understood and spoke English and Spanish). So basically these people were amazing and I will be headed back to Granada sometime soon.

Now let’s get back to the rest of what happened in Granada. Friday was basically the day of exploration with Amanda, the French roommate (Jb) and friend (Justin)…we walked around the old neighborhood of Granada- the Albaicín. In that neighborhood there were lots of shops…Middle Eastern style I suppose… and small, pretty roads. We stopped at one point at this…what I suppose would be considered a café in the US and had some tea and crepes. SUPER YUMMY! And I felt like a pregnant woman after that because only an hour before we had eaten big sandwiches, tapas and drinks. The crepes were too yummy to not eat though. The café also had an AMAZING view of the Albaicín (neighborhood) and of the Alhambra, so, not too shabby.

This was a banana, chocolate and cream crepe

Later that night we went to a free Flamenco performance (Flamenco can be both music and/or dance- this performance was both). OMG it was amazing. I have no idea how that woman moved her feet so fast…all I can say is that I don’t think I’ll be attempting that any time soon. There were also 3 men playing the music- one on guitar and two others singing. The performance was just amazing and I’ve never seen anything like it before. I would say that if you have time, go on YouTube and look up “flamenco” so you can see what I’m talking about. It’s just hard to describe because there’s not really anything like it in the states. Remember- flamenco can be a dance or singing or both so the videos on YouTube may be a mix of any of those…

After the performance me and Amanda headed back to the apartment. The others (all her roommates and some friends) headed out to go to a botellón (I’ll explain that in a minute) and whatever else…we were just TOO tired to go out, especially since 2 out of 3 nights before Granada I only slept 4ish hours.

*Botellón- a specified place where people are allowed to drink in the street. Everyone brings their own liquor and mixer and you drink and socialize. This is super common to do before going out to clubs since drinks in clubs cost more $$$. This is really similar to what people do in the states except in the US people go to someone’s house to drink prior to going to a club/party and they call it names like pre-funk/pre-party/etc. (depending on where you’re from they call in different things). The botellón has a history lesson with is but I’m going to cram it into a sentence since this post is SUPER long. Botellón history: People used to drink in the streets long ago, citizens didn’t like it and wanted to “clean up” the town so they made designated areas where people could go and drink. Voila!

The next day I hung out with Carlos…remember him??? He’s the guy I met on couchsurfing…he’s studying in Granada so obviously couldn’t pass up the chance to allow him to be my personal tour guide. We met up around noonish and basically explored the town for the rest of the day…when I say the rest of the day- I mean the REST OF THE DAY (until about 11pm) so it was definitely a full day. We wandered around Granada and he gave me some history lessons as to past events in Spain, and Granada in particular. He really likes history so it was great for me to be able to learn about since I’ve forgotten pretty much all the Spanish history that I learned in college. We also went inside the big cathedral in Granada and it’s just STUNNING. I took pics so I recommend you check them out.

*All my Granada pics are in the Weekend and Holiday Adventures album*

We eventually went to a restaurant to eat. The theme of the restaurant: all around the world. Since it’s so easy to find food from around the world in the US you may not realize that that is pretty much impossible in Spain…this place being rare to find. Inside they have pictures of people and places from all around the world. Also their tapas there are foods from different parts of the world- the ones we had were like Indian theme and possibly Chinese (an Asian noodle dish). The food was actually pretty good and something similar to what we would think of as take-out food in the states.

*Just a little side note- Granada is known for its tapas. Why? Because whenever you order a drink (beer, juice, water, whatever) you get a tapa with it. Tapa being a small dish of food to be shared with others and of course the more people who get drinks the more food on the plates (since obviously more people will be eating). Tapas do still exist in a lot in other cities, of course- IT’S SPAIN!, but sometimes they charge you extra for it or only have tapas certain times of day.*

So after eating we went to a museum and explored there for a little bit. Afterwards we headed towards the Alhambra. Now all the tickets online for the Alhambra were booked- at least on the website i checked- (I checked on Wednesday for tickets that weekend) so we didn’t go into the main areas but there are some free parts that you can explore and those were great. Surrounding the Alhambra there is a lot of vegetation actually, not like dry land filled with olive trees that covers most of Andalucía, and it seemed very similar to some parks in Seattle. Different trees but it was pretty green actually and I even saw some mini waterfalls. The landscape surrounding the Alhambra was just beautiful and our walk down, through the town, was just as amazing. We even got to walk through a very typical European street- the really skinny ones- that you see in movies and pictures.

After all that wandering we rested for a little bit and then headed back out. There was a tour going on to show parts of Granada that aren’t very touristy. The theme of the tour this night: water. So Carlos, his girlfriend, his roommate, the roommates girlfriend (and to make it more confusing to explain, both the girlfriends are each other’s roommate haha) and me went on the tour and learned about…well, water. It actually was really interesting because we got to learn about the different methods on how people would get water WAY long along and how the water would be cleaned, like how they would get all the dirt and feces out of the water…they used turtles…now I’ve got your attention. Basically a lot of the dirt would sink but for the stuff that would float they put turtles in the water to eat it…then the turtle feces (from these particular type of turtles) would sink and people could just scoop out the water they needed. Like I said though, this was a LOOOONG time ago.

 Back to the main story- after the tour (it was a few hours) we went to a bar and had tapas and drinks. Just hanging out with those guys was so much fun and they were so nice so I really had a great time. The girls were also asking me about if the stuff they see on TV (like about prom when the guy gets the girl a corsage, the clothing style, etc.) was actually true. What’s funny is that we never really think about the fact that so many of our customs, traditions and habits just simply don’t exist in other places (like here in Spain people have no idea that in the US we don’t celebrate saints days…and if you’re not sure what a saints day is or its relevance, check out the end of my posting New Phone from Sun, Oct.17). That’s what’s great about traveling though, you are able (if you have an open mind) to take in and learn about different traditions, foods, ways of living, etc.

Las curvas! (caves)

I swear I can’t tell a story without getting sidetracked! Ok so that night I got to Amanda’s apartment at 2am-ish. We literally left right when I got there to go out to a DISCOTECA! A discoteca is pretty much a dance club…but not like any club I’ve been to in the states- EXCEPT maybe Tao when I went to Vegas a few years ago. The discotecas in Spain are just full of people dancing and this night at Camborio (the name of the club was particularly PACKED- no exaggeration. Also, just to give you some reference as to how much more awesome this club was as compared to those in the states… When you walk in you can go either into the “caves” or upstairs to the dance floor. The “caves” are actually caves where they’ve basically carved out lots of rooms where you can dance or sit (there’s a pic in my album of this!). If you instead want to go up to the dance floor you walk up some stairs (about one story) and are back outside again but this time onto like a large patio.

View from Camborio

You can sit on the patio and enjoy the amazing view of the Alhambra OR pass through the patio to go inside to the dance floor. The room with the dance floor only has glass panes for walls and also looks out to the Alhambra. On this particular night the place was packed so we had to push our way through so you couldn’t really see any view from inside. Also the music was a big variety of old and new school American music, some French, Spanish and I don’t even know what else. Basically- it was great and this wasn’t even one of the best clubs (the one we had originally planned to go to had a HUGE waiting line so we went to Camborio).

The line (at the other club)

After the club we headed home but not before making a pit stop for some Shawarmas. A shawarma is like a gyro but wrapped with like a tortilla…Mexican tortilla that is. The whole tortilla thing gets confusing here because in Spain:

Tortilla= Tortilla Española = egg omelet w/ potatoes and onions

Tortilla francesa (French)= scrambled eggs

Tortilla Americana (American)= pancakes

Tortita= what we in the states would call a tortilla

So I’m sure you can now see why that becomes a little confusing lol

Thanks guys!

So we finally got home at about 5am and we all went to bed. I didn’t get out of bed until 2pm the next day. It was a pretty mellow day so lucky for you I don’t have much more to write haha. We (all the roommates, Amanda and me) went to lunch-5pm lol- where we ate WAY too much and had WAY too many laughs. Like I said before, everyone is crazy in that apartment so even doing things like eating lunch was really fun lol. I had to leave though not long after that (my bus left at 8pm). So basically I’m already thinking about when I have time and $ to go back to Granada. END OF STORY.

So thanks everyone for a great weekend! I had so much fun and will be coming back!!! Oh and shout out to Francesca :) Love you!