We missed the first day since we were still in Morocco, but I started class on Wednesday. I have class Mon-Fri from 9am-1pm. It's longggg, and I sit in the same seat the entire time. I have two different professors who come into the class. The first 2 hrs we have Sonia and the last 2 hours we have Carmen. Sonia is a sweetheart and pretty soft spoken, and Carmen is the exact opposite. She gets in our faces and MAKES us talk. Which I mean is good I guess. I really love both of them.
The Intensive language program works in this way:
I tested into level 4.. so for the first month I took that level and then right before the month of Feb was over I took a THREE and a HALF HOUR exam. wooobaby was it forever long. It consisted of listening, speaking, grammar, and writing sections. Anyway, since I passed this exam I got to move up to level 5 which I started on Friday. So in total I will be taking levels 4, 5, and 6 while here for the intensive language part of things.
I am also doing service learning at the hospital and at a residency for severely handicapped people, a class called phonetics where we learn about the pronunciation of words (I love this class!), and Granada Seminar which is about the culture here. ...21 credits whoo!
I really love my service learning sites so far and have learned a lot from them when interacting with patients and residents.. they are so kind. I even got to go to a Flamenco concert with Huerta del Rosillas! It was literally one of the greatest experiences of my life.
Brielle and I at the concert.. it was about the size of Wells Fargo with a giant pit of people in the middle.
The crowd was lovin it!
Every Wednesday after class Kelsey, Malissa, Brielle, and I go out for Mexican Miercoles! It's our new tradition because we miss spicy food. :) There is an awesome Mexican place here that Veronica (our program leader) told us about; We had chips and salsa... then they have a lunch deal that you get 2 entrees, 1 dessert, and a drink for 9 euro. So I had a chicken quesadilla and a chile beef taco and this delishhh strawberry frozen yogurt with berries on top. Then had an orange fanta... heaven? yah.
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This was for Kelsey's 21st birthday. We all went out to eat at the Mexican Restaurant, so fun!
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There is one word to describe last month's weather: BRRRR! Granada made history. Coldest it has EVER, ever been. I saw people taking pictures of a frozen puddle when I went for my run in the park. Apparently it's a really big deal because my host parents kept stressing the fact that it's really cold outside and that I need to stay inside. (It wasn't anything like Iowa winters and ppl were bundled up like it was Antarctica). Also during dinner the news was on and literally the entire story was about how cold it was, haha.
In other news I have been running a marathon with life here and have done and experienced so many new things and places!! Our program traveled to Sevilla, Spain for a day which was a blast but was so so fast! It was a 3 hour bus ride there, then we spent 6 hours there, and then another 3 hour bus ride home. It was a gorgeous day.. about 70 degrees.. and we saw many beautiful buildings and such but I was pooped after the day of being there and I don't have much to tell you about it besides the pictures :( Although, I did see Naboo which is a scene in Star Wars.. it was filmed in Sevilla!)
Malissa and I in "Naboo"
Kelsey, me, Brielle, and Caitlyn ..what a gorgeous day!
The Cathedral in Sevilla... second largest in the world.
City Streets. We saw a wedding here... they dress so fancy for them! I loved it!
Just one of many examples :)
Megan, Anna Marie, Katie, me, Fatima, and Malissa in The Garndens Del Murillo
I just thought they were adorable <3
This could be a post card I think.
Kels and I enjoying the view of the gardens from a tower.
Me and Momma T!
This is the backside of Aurelio.. he works for our school and takes us on all of our "field trips"
That same night I went to a theatre production because my friend Brielle's host sister was in a production SO we went to that and I was really proud of myself because I could understand almost everything they said and could follow the storyline... even though it was quite dark and ominous. Yet another great culture experience :)
Reppin' Granada!!
Genvieve, Chris, myself, ad Anna Marie!
Granada vs. Real Sociedad
Opening ceremonies! I couldn't even hear myself think.. it was nuts!!
Shaking of the hands
This is my phonetics prof (Jose) on my left he is soso fun!
Oh, and Granada won 4-1 yeeehaw!
Yah, this was the view from the stadium. Whaaaat? :)
ANNDDD... we went to the Alhambra yesterday which is apparently the second most visited site in Europe and it's right here in Granada! It was gorgeous and full of a lot of history.
Kelsey, me, Holly, and Genvieve over looking Granada
Liasor and me :)
I still can't get over how intricate their architecture was way back when they made this.
This is a ceiling.. clearly it was far better in person, but still. woah.
Dungeons.
Beautiful.
So, besides doing a million fun things in Granada and Spain along with school.. we had a nice little week long break after our huge exam and Kelsey, Malissa, Brielle, and I went to Paris, France! Ahh!! It was a blast with a few well, mishaps inbetween.
We flew with Iberia and it just so happened they were on strike the day we flew to Paris and the day we came back from Paris ha sooo that caused a few problems to say the least.
It was so nice to get away for a little bit and to just relax. Every morning we played cards for about 3 hours I kid you not... I love cards! We played a game called Peanuts and then of course, Hearts :)
Malissa was clearly VERY excited to be traveling to Paris!
Brielle wanted me to strike a pose as I was boarding.. sooo I did :) haha
The Madrid Airport... I now know all the ins and outs of this place I swear.
Day one we went to the Louvre which is a famous museum in Paris and is free for students studying in Europe, bonus!! It was absolutely huge and had 3 separate wings or "periods of time." One being greek life and another was ancient Egypt (we ran out of time to visit the third :( bummer.) It was fun to see all the artifacts and sculptures and art work done from sooo long ago! I learned about lot of this stuff in 6th grade, I just wish I could remember it a lot more clearly.
Venus
I thought the statue on the right resembles Katniss from the Hunger Games... :) ha
The pyramid from the inside..
and the outside.
Sososooo many great works of art.
The Wedding Feast.
Me and the Mona Lisa :)
Egyptian life..
This random Spanish man at the museum wanted a photo with us. So, here it is.
The outside of the Louvre.
After seeing the museum we wanted to make our way to this famous arc... it was a three hour journey but the journey was through the major shopping areas... talk about pricey!wooowiie! I saw a 6 story Louis Vuitton store! ahh! We also saw many other famous buildings and pieces of art on our way. That night we ate at a delicious restaurant that served the best pasta I think I've ever tasted.
mm mm good!
We found lions! ...reminded me of our last time in KC :)
Crepes, mmmm!
This was their taxi service through the park.
I decided this was the Paris version of a cactus.
This was a giant theatre for shows and plays.
.....unreal.
The infamous arc!
Seriously... so good.
ahhhhh, it was so sweet to see in person!!
I was still in shock at this point :)
Climbin' on up to the top!
hellooooooo!
This picture is 100x more funny zoomed in.
The view from the top..
It's heavier than you would think... ;)
Day three we went to Notre Dame! This was my favorite part of the trip. I loved it for a million reasons but my number one reason was that once inside, the church was silent and illuminated by the light coming through the stain-glassed windows and the candles lit for loved ones lost. It was a very moving moment for me. After spending a lot of time there.. we went and ate at a cafe called Esmeralda (the woman in the movie Hunchback of Notre Dame) so that in itself was cool! I tried a hot dog for the first time in my life..... and hated it. I did try however!
Posing as Quasimodo from the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Inside... again it was such a moving experience.
The stories of the bible were everywhere, so sweet!
[ANNND... here is the hot dog scene.]
Really excited to be eating here!
Okay... I'll try it but I am nearly positive I don't like hotdogs.
...the girls trying to give me a pep talk.
Welp, here it goes!
Chewing it over..
Yah, hotdogs suck.
One last shot before we left Norte Dame.
Successful day :)
We met up with Malissa's friend again and her brother who was visiting (he is my age and is studying abroad in England right now). They took us to a tower that was 75 stories high and had the most incredible view of Paris from the top! Then we went out to a restaurant with all you can eat sushi. Again, before I went abroad I had never even thought about trying sushi and here I was eating a buffet of it. It was actually really good!
Brielle had to hold my hand on the way up because even though I'm trying new things.. I'm still a chicken. So, we thought it was only right to still be holding hands for the photo.
This is the view of the graveyard from up above.
Sushi buffet!
We tried to reenact Lady and the Tramp.. being as we were in Paris and all.
Day four... by this point I really really really hated riding the metro. It was just so dirty and smelled like hot BO. Not my most favorite smell that's for sure. It was also hard because a lot of beggars or homeless people stayed in the metro because it was warm so there were constantly people begging for money and well.. being a college student abroad I'm just not dripping in wealth so it was hard to turn away starving people and that really started to break me down.
We did have some fun moments tho.. this man followed us in four different cars while dancing and singing. It was really entertaining...
Anway, for the day we went to the Impressionist Museum where there were extremely well-known art works done by people such as Van Gogh and Picasso. I saw "Starry Night" in person! We weren't allowed to take pictures here... so I only took 5, oops. But it was so neat to see such famous work in person!
The most eloquent ballroom I will prolly ever see.
Unfortunately when we were getting ready to leave, we decided last second to grab some lunch at the cafe there. I sat down at a table to save spots for my 3 other friends while they waited in line. Four French women in their what looked like late 50s came over to my table and started yelling something at me in French. I obviously didn't understand and tried to explain the best I could that I had friends coming... they clearly didn't care at all and proceeded to throw my friends' coats on the floor and one especially rude woman scooted my chair out from underneath me all the while yelling. It was an extremely humbling and frustrating experience for me, and unfortunately gave me a bit of a bad taste in my mouth for the museum even though it really had nothing to do with them. A lot of people warned me about the French people being rude but I saw it as a stereotype. I still think it's false, because I met many many nice French people and just like all places... there are bound to be some rude people.
For the finale of our trip we went to the show Moulin Rouge! It was in Old Paris..which is a bit sketchy.. but WOW it was beautiful! There were people all dressed up everywhere in the streets and we felt so fancy getting in line on the red carpet leading into the show. Again, we couldn't take pictures... but I know it wouldn't do the show justice anyway. We were seated at a candlelit dinner table and were waited on hand and foot all night.. not to mention we had a great view of the show! Ah it was great!!
We wanted the Marilyn Monroe look but it didn't quite work out..
Red Carpet :))
Going in... what a great show!
All in all the trip was great and I saw some historical and really famous things I never thought I'd have the chance to see, what an experience!! The only bad parts were the rude encounter with the women and well....... our flight on the way back home.
Day 6: Dun dun dun. We must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed or something because it was just one of those days... nothing went quite right. We woke up at 5:30am to catch the metro, bus, and then plane at the Paris airport. Upon arrival to the airport Iberia was again on strike which caused another delay. When we went to Paris we took peanutbutter, jelly, nutella, toothpaste, and lotions all there just fine. This day, first round of security they took my friend's toothpaste, and lotion so that was a bummer along with the delay. Once in the air we realized there was no way we were going to catch out connecting flight at 11:5am in Madrid to Granada. So, once landed in Madrid we had to go through security again... got our peanutbutter, jelly, and face wash taken this time and proceeded to the info booth. We thought it would be possibly a few more hours til a flight went out.. but unfortunately the next flight to Granada was not until 10pm. haha Sooo we spent 10 hours in the Madrid airport passing the time walking and playing cards.. which sounds fun but after 10 hours it gets a liiiiitle repetitive. So finally it's getting to be about that time; the Madrid airport is HUGE so when we landed the first time we took a 15 min trolley from gate M to gate K. Well, the new tickets we got said our gate was M and we were sitting at K so we took the trolley back where we came from.. only to see it got changed back to K. So we kind of laughed it off considering the day we had had, and tried to go back to K. Since we crossed back to M, we had to go through security again (for no reason might I add because we had been through this exact same security earlier this day) and this time they took our Nutella. We all died laughing at this point and I think the security thought we were crazy, but it was just funny that it had made it through security all those times and then the final unneeded time through, we lost it. BUT none the less, we carried on and ..well our flight was delayed but we finally got on the runway at 10:30pm and then our engine had troubles.. it was one of those days. ha So again we waited but it was a success and we made it to Granada!! yaaaay! We landed at about 12:30pm and took the bus back to our neighborhoods. We were walking down the street thinking we were scott free.. just went a car pulled out and hit a moped carrying a guy and girl about my age. I kid you not they came skidding towards us and stopped about 3 feet from where we stood. I think we all went into shock but thankfully everyone in Spain stays up late and a ton of people came to the rescue, they were bleeding but not badly hurt.. not sure how because he wasn't even wearing a helmet. Interesting day I'll tell ya. I also lost my tracker phone on the bus from the Granada airport which was a bummer because it served as my alarm clock too! Shooots magoots.
So the last day of our trip was kind of a flop with our unplanned events... but the actual trip to Paris was a blast!!
I know I'm forgetting some things on this update... but again life is great! I love Granada and it's warm again here.. I went and read in the park yesterday and got a sun burn :) I also finished the Hunger Game series, sooo good!! ahh! This week.. coming up.. I have class everyday, my social service sites, and then Wine Tasting on Thursday which should be a fun time as well!!
I have been a tinyyy bit home sick for the first time since being here... but I'm pretty sure it's because I feel like I'm missing out. I mean, I am.. considering Ross won his second state title! WOOT! and Heather had her baby shower.... I miss my family, you guys rock and I love you so so much!!
Keep me updated on life in the states :)
...I'll try to do better with this blog and update more often.
TaTa for now --Courtney
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