Lets try this again...

Well, one thing I certainly learned this past month is that I am horrible at blogging. I have had every intention of writing about my trip but there is so much more to do here. Plus, maybe not surprisingly to some of you, I got a virus on my computer so it’s been a little difficult to use it. Its been over a month since I got here and seeing that my first post was in the first week there is so much I could talk about (could being the key word). Classes started and are the most boring classes I have ever taken. We don’t talk much Spanish and in most of them, I do worksheets and crossword puzzles out of stupid workbooks. I feel like I’m back in grade school. I have class from 8:30 to 2:30 Mondays and Wednesdays and then class 8:30-10:30, 12:20-2:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Thankfully I don’t have classes on Fridays. Oh except for the extra classes I take because my program signed me up for 45 hours in each class instead of 40 hours like most other students have…just fantastic!

I’ve also been able to travel quite a lot here. The first trip I took was with the program to San Jose and Cabo de Gata. It is a beautiful small city on the Mediterranean. Caba de Gata is considered the only desert in Spain at this time. However, I disagree with that. All of southern Spain is turning into a desert. There is very little water here (every time I travel and we cross a bridge there will be a sign indicating what river we are crossing. But look down and it’s just land…) and it has stayed pretty warm this year. Last year at this time there was snow in Spain. This year, it’s still in the 70s. (Yes, be jealous). Anyway, San Jose was a very nice relaxing weekend. I spent most of it on the beach swimming and laying out in the sun. However, a bunch of us girls did climb a fairly large mountain in our swimsuits and flip flops. The view from the top was amazing! However, we did have quite a few battle wounds from the dangerous hike.
One long weekend, we had planned to go to Portugal with some other people in the program. Trains and buses were a little expensive so we planned on renting a car but sadly that didn’t work out. So basically Friday morning, my roommate and I decided to go somewhere else. We planned to leave for Torremolinos, a small town outside of Malaga, the next morning at 7am. We spent Saturday and Sunday in Torremolinos on the beach and then at an Irish pub at night watching a bunch of soccer matches. The water in Torremolinos was freezing (in San Jose it was really warm but we still had a wonderful time…it is going to take me a little while to get used to the fact that most beaches here are nude beaches or partially nude beaches (it’s a little awkward at times.) On Monday, we went into Malaga and just walked around the city. We then took the bus back to Granada and decided to walk hope from the bus station. It was only a 10 min taxi ride so it couldn’t be that far….but it was and it took us a whole hour to walk home. But we did save some money :)

This past weekend, I went to Seville with my program. On the way there, we stopped at a national park with a bunch of really old rocks (fascinating I know.) We got to Seville late Friday night so didn’t really do much. On Saturday, we toured the cathedral in Seville and took a 2 hour bike tour of the city (which was the best part). That night, we went out to mix and mingle with other students in the streets of Seville. Sunday, we all got up an hour early because no one told us it was daylight savings time in Spain. Then we toured some castle thing and gardens (it was pretty but not really exciting) and had 4 hours of free time during siesta (which means everything was closed so there was nothing to do). I enjoyed Seville but I was definitely glad to be back in Granada.

When I’m not traveling, I’m either doing my homework (I actually have a lot more than I thought I would) or enjoying the night life :) I’ve been able to practice my Spanish a lot at some local pubs, I’ve danced salsa, went to a Spanish movie, and had some intercambios (most of which were unsuccessful). I’m also on a basketball team here. It has been really fun to play again even though our team is mostly small girls and really short guys and we lose all of our games. Haha oh well. This weekend is another long weekend because there is a holiday on Monday in Andalucia. I’m spending it in Granada instead of traveling but I have a lot of trips coming up. I’m going to Barcelona to watch a FC Barcelona game, then I’m going to Morocco, I might take a trip to Ireland or the Canary Islands the weekend after, and then I’m going to Paris with my program! I’m so excited!!!

So that’s about it. The only bad thing about Granada right now is that they are installing a metro system so there is a ton of construction and the city smells really bad (it’s not very pleasant). I definitely condensed this post better than the last one. Haha Hopefully I will be able to write more often instead of once a month. If you ever get bored you can send me an email or real mail (my address is Maria Jose Romero Fernandez c/o Emily Hansel, Ribera de Genil 12-1A, 18005 Granada Spain :) ) I haven’t really been able to talk with many people back in the states so it would be great to hear from anyone! I hope you are all doing well and not being plagued by the swine flu, or as they call it here Gripe A (which gets really confusing because I always think they are talking about Influenza A). Until next time…