domingo, 16 de mayo de 2010
Campo.
Yesterday, my family invited me to go with them to the campo. My senor is an olive farmer, so they have a house and a farm in a pueblo outside the city. They own a large amount of land and quite a few horses, so I got a chance to ride one of their horses. Considering I had only done it maybe once before in my life, it was kinda scary, but really cool. It is a really cool place. It was a festival in the pueblo yesterday, so the entire family was there pretty much. Jaime has 12 brothers and sisters, so I was pretty overwhelmed with all of the people. Also, my senora Maria and my senor Jaime are pretty awkward to begin with. I felt like I was just standing around in the way for the first hour because Maria didn't tell me what we were doing. I got a lot more comfortable as the day went on and talked a little more. The only problem is, all they talk about is farming, horses, and inside jokes, so it's kind of hard for me to participate. I enjoy just listening sometimes, though, because it is good practice for me. During the day, I ate better food and more food than I have the entire time I have been here. I should have gone to the campo more often! I feel like they were all trying to get me drunk with the bottomless glass of sangria they were feeding me all day haha. (Maria told me I had to drink up so that I could dance later haha) I got to see their festival where they have a live band and the people of the pueblo go to dance and socialize. A lot of them were dressed in gypsy clothing (traditional flamenco dresses). It was really cool. I feel like Maria talked to me more yesterday than ever before and I actually saw she has a personality haha. Seeing the way the family acts in the campo makes me feel like I was wrong about them, but then the second they are alone with us, they are immediately quiet and awkward. It is the weirdest thing ever. I wish we would have tried to go to the campo more times than we did because we would have probably gotten closer to them and felt more comfortable, but who knows. The day in the campo was really fun for me even though Maria is convinced I didn't have fun because I didn't talk much. I just don't have the vocabulary to talk about farming techniques is all lol I am really glad they took me. I got to have one last experience of the true spanish culture!
lunes, 10 de mayo de 2010
PORTUGAL!
My FINAL trip of the semester has already come and gone!! It was quite the adventure. Five of us decided to rent a car and drive to Portimao, Portugal for the weekend. Driving was quite the experience, but we made it all in one piece and nobody got any tickets (unlike others who tried before us). We rented out an apartment that was VERY close to the beach and we had a kitchen so we could cook!! It was a much needed, relaxing weekend. The only stressful part of the trip was the birds on our terrace. There were these crazy sea gulls that had a nest on our terrace. Every time we went out on it, they would start squawking and try to attack us. So much for eating dinner and watching the sunset lol.
viernes, 30 de abril de 2010
Corrido de Toros...BULL FIGHT!!
I was SO excited to hear that there was going to be a bullfight in Granada! I have been learning a lot about it since I have been here. It is actually pretty controversial out here. I mean, they do kill 6 bulls in about 4 hours, so I understand why some people would be opposed. There were some protestors outside the plaza de toros when we got there, but nothing too exciting. Anyways, I loved it. I see it more as a cultural tradition, and they use the bulls for meat anyways so where's the harm? Yea, I know, I have no soul. Or as my father would say, I'm "just looking at them like giant burger" lol Thank you, dad. I feel like the bull fights here are like baseball games back home.
Paris!!

So...I have officially decided that volcanoes are the most selfish landforms on earth. They just try to make everything about them and take everything good from everybody else. All of the skys in northern europe were closed for over a week because of a stupid volcano in Iceland. Iceland? Really? I had tons of friends that missed out on their trips that they had planned to Munich, Amsterdam, London, etc. because of the volcano and even some stuck in places like Italy and Paris with no way back to Granada. Or trip to Paris was the following weekend and we were pretty nervous that we weren't going to get to go, BUT they opened up all of the flights on the day we were flying out of Madrid!

Las lobas de las Alpujarras

Just about 3 days after I got back from spring break, we left for the Alpujarras Mountains with ISA. It was our final ISA trip, and my favorite by far. The day before, a few of the girls and I came up with a completely ridiculous idea to dress up like indian warriors for the hike. So, we met early the next morning, bought some spears at the nearest euro tent, and painted our faces with war paint. It was pretty cool in our eyes, but probably completely ridiculous to everybody else hahaha. (kind of the point) We decided to call ourselves las lobas (she wolves). Everyone had a tribal name and a matching wristband. And yes, we are all over 20 years old, but who doesn't want to be in 6th grade forever? I felt it was very appropriate for the task at hand. During the hike, we would capture people and paint their faces (red=death; blue=joined our tribe).

jueves, 29 de abril de 2010
Spring Break FINALLY!!
Wow! It has already been over a month since I went on my spring break trip! I can't believe how fast the time is going out here. I traveled to Dublin to meet up with the love of my life, Danielle, and then we were off to London, Prague, and Rome for spring break. It was the best spring break ever!! We started out going to London for a few days. I loved it in London! Since Danielle had been there before, she was able to show me some of the things that she liked best the last time she was there. On the first day, we went to Buckingham Palace and accidentally saw the changing of the guards. Que suerte no? This meant that I couldn't take obnoxious pictures with the guards, but that probably ended up better for everyone involved. That day, we saw the westminster abbey, big ben, london eye, millennium bridge, london bridge, and the cathedral. While we were walking by the river, we passed by a lot of street performers and one of them was a lady with over 6,000 piercings! SICK! In case you are wondering, yes, I did give her money so I could take a picture with her haha. I think my favorite thing that we did while we were in London was Camden Town. It was this huge marketplace where people sold anything and everything you could think of. You could walk around there and look at things for hours. We actually ended up getting lost in the middle, SURPRISE! The people around Camden Town were nuts! They were all dressed in crazy clothes and had spiked crazy hair with diff colors. It was an interesting sight to say the least. Oh geeze I almost forgot! On the way to Camden Town, we stopped at the train station so that I could go to platform 9 3/4.

domingo, 21 de marzo de 2010
Tapas and Gypsy caves.
After all of my traveling, I have finally gotten to spend a couple straight weeks in Granada and it has been so amazing! I FINALLY got to experience what the city has to offer. My favorite thing in the entire world is now tapas. Tapas are food that come with drinks you order at a bar. They can range from just a few peanuts to an entire hamburger. In every other city in Spain, you have to pay for tapas, but in Granada, they are GRATIS (free)! You can go out and spend less than 5 euro on a couple glasses of wine and eat an entire meal with it for free (if you know the right places to go to). I have found quite a few of my favorite places lately. Also, we have been going to our favorite tea shop for tea and cachimba (hookah). There is a little tea shop up the street I like to call moroccan ally where there are a lot of morroccan shops and tea shops. We go so much that we are pretty much friends with the guy that owns it ha! Every week my friends and I go there fore tea and cachimba and just hang out. One of my favorite things to do (especially when it's raining)
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