Sunday, November 29, 2009

Sierra NevadAHHHHH!

Saturday, November 28, 2009

3 months and counting!

Today was the trip to the Sierra Nevadas. A lot of people still weren’t feeling very good, so it was only Mirella, Daryl and I who went from Jardines. Total, there were about 25 kids of the 54 in AIFS that went. Paula went with us, which was fun to get to talk to her. She was working on the Summer AIFS Granada guide for online, so she was asking us about things like how much Shwarmas cost, entrances to Discos, books, etc. I assume she’s trying to get that ready before the study abroad advisors come on Sunday! This group includes Tim, from St. Thomas. He emailed all of us St. Thomas-ians here in Granada and offered to take us out to dinner on Tuesday. Yippee! Free food on St. Thomas!

Anyway, the Sierra Nevada trip included an hour ride through windy mountains. I guess it was a good thing that some of the people who weren’t feeling so great didn’t go. I even started to feel a bit woozy. Well, we made it to the small ski town, which is just outside of Monachil. The actual ski season doesn’t start until next week—the long weekend, so nothing was really open. Actually, there wasn’t even any snow! Paula said she hadn’t seen it that bare since 1994, the year she got married. They were just starting to make snow further up the ski runs, but I’m guessing they might have to postpone opening day if it’s still like that next weekend! That didn’t really matter. I wasn’t really planning on going skiing anyway. I just wanted to see what the mountains were like. A group of us (Jasmine, Daryl, Erika, Kara, Lauren, Paula and I) sorta walked around together for the whole time. We found these fun Alpine Slide-type things, which were a ton of fun! They weren’t exactly like the ones in Lutsen, because they were more rollercoaster-esque. They were the same cart things but attached to a rollercoaster track! Lauren didn’t want to go, so I had to convince Paula to ride with me, haha. Daryl and Jasmine were in the front cart, and then Kara and Erika, and then Paula and I in the back. Paula made me drive because she didn’t trust herself. Great. The guy at the station was trying to talk to us in very broken English, and we basically responded in Spanish. Then Paula gets up there and goes (in Spanish) “you know they all are Spanish, right?” Haha, the look on his face. We all started laughing and he caught on. Oh, Paula. Always making things awkward. Anyway, we got our carts going, and were taken up the hill on a tow-rope thing. Since everyone else was in front of us, we got to watch them head down the hill before us. That was pretty funny. Then it was mine and Paula’s turn. The signs said “despacio” (slow), but she goes “let it rip, girl”, so we go flying down the track. She starts screaming, and once we get to the bottom, everyone’s ready with their cameras, haha. She tried to jump out of the cart without unbuckling, and since it was automated, the cart kept going with her in it. Luckily I got her unbuckled before she went around for a second time, but that was pretty funny. I’m sure someone got a picture of it! After that, we went to see if the ice rink was open. It wasn’t even frozen yet, so we went to one of the few cafes that was open and sat down for some hot chocolate. It was fun just hearing about other AIFS groups Paula has been with (apparently ours is small with only 54 kids, they usually have 90!) and other details I wouldn’t have known otherwise about Spain and the AIFS programs. We ate our bocadillos there, and then went on a walk to see the view down the mountain. It was beautiful! However, it was super cold too! After a while we went back to the bus. A lot of other people had tried to hike up part of the mountain, but they said it wasn’t very interesting. Oh well! I had fun on the alpine slides and stuff, anyway! The town was really cute and fun to walk around in!

Once back at Jardines, I just worked on some homework and looked up some possible things to do next weekend for the long weekend (we don’t have class Monday or Tuesday). I think I either want to go to the town of Ronda, which is a little past Malaga, or I want to hostel-hop along the Costa del Sol. Either would be a fun way to spend the weekend!

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