...C is for Churros con chocolate

SUNDAY, September 6, 2009

We didn’t get fed today…staff had the day off. They’re probably lucky they didn’t have to deal with some of the people here. One girl didn’t come home last night (well, not until 8am), and some of the others freaked out and decided to wake everyone up to figure out where she was. Drama, drama, drama. Then another one of the girls passed out on the street, and then the police brought her home, and then she passed out on our stairs, etc.

Anyways, this morning, just to get out of the building, Will and I had breakfast in one of the nearby plazas. We got churros con chocolate, but we didn’t know how many to order. Thinking we should each just get one, we ordered 2 chocolates and 2 churros. Big mistake. And I mean BIG. Each order of churros is 5 foot long pieces of churro. Granted they aren’t very filling, they’re still HUGE. Regardless, as hungry college kids, we ate our money’s worth and downed them all. They were soooooo good…I can’t wait until next Sunday when I have an excuse to go buy breakfast.

For lunch a few of us went to the first cafeteria that we ate at the first day we were here. We ordered Cokes and were given large tapas. The first round was tortilla y baicon (sandwich with eggs and bacon), and the second was hamburguesas (mini hamburgers). Even though they were pretty filling, we still stopped at a gelato place on the way back to Jardines. I tried a new flavor called tarta de miel y canela (Spanish cake with cinnamon and honey). That was very good, yet still not as good as avellana (you guessed it…hazelnut).

There were only a few of us around today since 2 girls went to the beach, and a few others stayed in bed all day. This was quite relaxing, so the few of us who were up just sort of wandered around the entire day. I didn’t want to go to the beach this first weekend because I decided it would probably be a good idea to learn my surroundings (since I’ll be living here) before running off to other places. We go to the beach with all the AIFS kids in 2 weeks anyways! In the evening I watched some more television. Billy Madison was on…Adam Sandler sounds even funnier in Spanish. I also watched some more Disney Channel, though CNN is growing on me.

For dinner a small group of us went to the place we ate at for dinner the first night we were here (I guess today must have just been a ‘repeat’ day!) called El Cine. It’s actually an Italian themed place, but they’re always very nice. We got home pretty late from that, and all I had time left to do was finish up my homework. It was during my homework that I decided I would try and move up a level in my Spanish class. TOOOOO easy.
Well, tomorrow we have class early again. Wish me luck switching levels!
M

Gelato count: 6

A is for Alhambra. B is for Bocadillo.

This morning we got to sleep in a little bit more than usual. Breakfast wasn’t served until 9! This was lucky for some of the AIFS kids because they didn’t get back from the disco until 5:15 this morning! Crazy kids. Anyway, after breakfast we grabbed our bocadillos from Scarlet and headed towards Plaza Nueva to meet up with the rest of the group. Paula then led us up to the Alhambra for our tours. The tour lasted about 2 ½ hours, and it was REALLY cool. My group’s guide was named Robert, and he was super funny and very informative…I creeped a picture of him preaching to us about the Sultan’s summer house…check it out on Flickr sometime later today. We walked all throughout the palace and gardens. There were SO many photo ops…I think Robert started getting frustrated that we all kept stopping to take so many pictures! Haha. My favorite part was the gardens by the Sultan’s summer house. There were tall, tall bushes that were carved into arches to make a maze. It really reminded me of the 4th Harry Potter movie when they’re in the final Tri-Wizard tournament challenge (if you’ve forgotten this part, heaven forbid, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq1JxO9CnYA). The views from the towers, and just walking along the side of the palace were amazing. Every picture I took looked like it came out of a travel brochure. And I’m not even that great of a photographer.

After the tour we were left on our own to find our way back. It is SUPER close to everything, so it wasn’t hard. We found a nice bench and ate our bocadillos…which were HUGE pieces of baguette-like bread with about 2 slices of thin salami. Needless to say I needed something to drink after that. Instead, I grabbed a gelato. It was really exciting because I found a new flavor of gelato that I like! It’s called Roché and it’s made out of those Ferrero Rocher candies. I might have to go back for more tonight.

…Well it’s after “dinner” now. It’s actually 10:50 and we just got done eating our second bocadillo of the day. Apparently on Saturdays, Scarlet doesn’t want to stay to make us food, so we just pick up bocadillos. Luckily they were different than the ones we had earlier! These ones had tortillas in them (thick potato pancake-type things). So it was bread and potatoes…two of the driest things possible. HOWEVER there was a mix-up, and we didn’t even get them until almost 10. Apparently one of the girls went down around 9 (when dinner usually starts) and told Juanita, one of the ladies, that we didn’t want them…for some reason. SO when we were all waiting out in the lobby, she didn’t give us any until we actually asked. Ugh. Food is difficult on the weekends. Saturdays every store closes after siesta…so around 3 or 4. It is impossible to get something to eat, especially since our kitchen isn’t open either! I guess that’s a lesson, so we’ll have to all stock up on food from our nearby 24 hour store!

I watched more TV today…a little bit more Disney Channel and some CNN. Yup, I’m progressing, haha. Hopefully I’ll understand it ALL by the time I leave!
Time for tapas! Adios!
M

Taking it easy

The second day of class went pretty much like the first. It really doesn’t feel like four hours, but it is. Every day. Except tomorrow and Sunday, which is exciting! AIFS has built into their program some day trips, and tomorrow is one of those. We’re all going to the Alhambra for a tour. I don’t know that much about it, so it should be interesting! We had to tell our cook today that we wouldn’t be at lunch tomorrow. She’s making us bocadillos (sub sandwich-type things) for us to take with us instead. Speaking of meals, today’s menu wasn’t quite as satisfactory as the past few days. Breakfast was, once again, toast and coffee. I have a feeling that’s all it’ll ever be. No complaints. For lunch we had this odd cold soup (gazpacho?) which all of us US students sort of tried to get down as fast as we could. Then there was a sort of mushroom and pork stew with fries on the side. The fries were really good, and reminded me of the fresh French fries at the fair. Yummy! For dinner we had our more normal (hot) soup that looks and tastes like alphabet soup (actually, the first day we had it, it DID have letters in it). I’m a big fan of that. Then we got this pasta with olives and carrots mixed in. On the side there was cold ham with some sort of melted cheese on the inside. Dessert was an ice cream sandwich…haha. Over dinner, there was a new kid who came into the comedor. We had an empty seat at our table, so we offered it to him. He didn’t look like a Spaniard, but he was speaking to Scarlett pretty fluently. We started talking, and found out he’s from the southern part of Holland. His name is Thijmen (I made him write it down because I couldn’t even start to imagine how it was spelled). He speaks VERY good English with almost no accent. Apparently he decided he wanted to study Spanish here, but his university wouldn’t help him get situated, so he organized everything himself. However, one of his old teachers is now a professor at UGR, so he has been able to keep in contact with him. I’m just amazed at the different types of people we have around us.

Quite a few of the students are out and about right now. They left around 11pm for tapas and drinks, and then were going to head over to meet (a bunch of) people at one of the discos. They were planning on leaving the bar for the disco around 2am…so I decided to pass. We have our trip tomorrow that apparently has a lot of walking, so I don’t want to be too tired. Speaking of which, I should probably start getting ready for bed! Keep an eye out for all of my Alhambra pictures tomorrow! …or when I get internet fast enough to upload things. As of right now I’ve had my computer on for 3 hours and it still hasn’t uploaded my most recent 5 pictures…

Chao!
M

p.s. I have my Skype working now, and I can call any US landline or cell phone! I tried it today and it works! So crazy how that works…so if anyone wants a phone call, just let me know!

p.p.s. Gelato count: 4

MIMI'S FIRST TAPAS!

Today was the first day of our “Language Intensive” classes. We all kind of walked to the CLM building, not knowing what to expect. Some people found out their classes were actually in a different building, but I got lucky! My class actually has 2 profesores. One named Mariangeles and one named Javier. Mariangeles is VERY nice and teaches us for the first 3 hours of the day. Today was all review, so it was pretty easy…I hope it doesn’t stay this way! Javier was really funny, and he dealt with the more cultural aspect of our lesson. Class ended in him giving us the names of his top 5 bars. Homework.

Before lunch I decided to watch more Spanish TV since it really seems to help. I went downstairs to find one of the Spaniard girls down there watching what I assumed to be a rather popular comedy show. We tried talking for a bit in Spanish, and then she admitted that she had studied in the US for 2 years and spoke very good English. Tricky, tricky. Now she’s here at UGR studying pharmacy.

We had an interesting lunch today. It was fried fish (looked identical to the fish I ate in London) with a side of this bean/tomato salad. I think we all had a difficult time with this meal, but dinner was wonderful. We got sopa (soup) for starters, and then moved on to a plate with jamon (ham), juevos (eggs) and some sort of mixed vegetables. It was really good! Dessert was yogurt! I think I could get used to eating like this…

After dinner a few of us went out in search of a fun tapas bar. We brought along our new friend, Danny, from Barcelona. He’s staying at Jardines and has become quite close with a number of us. He is still a bit unfamiliar with the area, but it was nice having him along to get tips and hints from locals. Literally every bar was filled up outside, so we ended up having to sit inside. However, the door was wide open, so air (and street vendors) came in easily! It was just like being outside. Our tapas included a sort of bruschetta and mannnny olives. On Danny’s second drink he got chicken wings! Lucky. Somehow he managed to get me to talk about circus. I have kept it very quiet so far on the trip (only Merete and Will knew) just because people a lot of the time don’t understand and just assume it’s a lot weirder than it actually is. And with Danny, seeing as I can’t even explain what I do to people in ENGLISH I was quite nervous about trying it in Spanish. I think he got the gist of it! It helped that he knew what Cirque du Soleil is…it’s surprising how many people don’t! That just makes things more difficult, haha.

Tonight was a lot better in regards to going out with a group. We kept it rather small, and were actually able to fit at one table! Whoa. However, tomorrow is a kid’s birthday in the program. I heard from a reliable source that there are about30 kids going out to celebrate. Classy, chicos, classy. I hope no one ends up ‘con la policía’!

Class again early tomorrow…so I better head to bed. Merete’s already sleeping! Hope all is well!
M

Becoming a local

This morning we all got up at different times here at Jardines. The different levels of groups met at different times in the AIFS office, so some of us made it to breakfast while others decided to sleep in for the first time in a long time. Maria Julia’s pan tostada is too good to pass up, so I joined the small group down around 8:15. She always looks at me funny when I turn away café con leche (coffee with milk), but always offers me zumo (juice) instead :)

At the meeting in the AIFS office, we signed some contracts for the University of Granada and were instructed on how to decide what to register for. She suggested that based on our middle level Spanish, we should try and take all of our classes in Spanish. I hadn’t planned on it (I was only going to take 2 in Spanish out of my 4), but decided I might as well try it. She said it is VERY easy to drop and add classes so even after the first few classes it’s still possible to change to the English version…haha. After the meeting, everyone seemed to go shopping. Most of us were cell phone shopping…and BOY was that a process. We were all literally going from store to store getting info about all of the different phones and plans (all "prepago", or prepaid). Will and I decided to do this one plan with a place called "Movistar" (moh-vee-star), which is the network my T-mobile phone picked up immediately when we landed in Malaga. I've had 5 bars EVERYWHERE we have been, with no trouble...so we decided it would be a smart choice. Also, I talked with the 2 resident directors and they both said they had had issues with some of the other companies, like "Orange". Inma (Paula's helper) said she used to have to press her face against her bedroom window in order to get a signal when she had Orange. SO, I feel bad for the people who already had bought their phones and didn't spend time researching before buying. Too eager, too bad, I guess. The plan Will and I got was because we knew we would probably be contacting each other more than anyone else. We got a "Mi Favorito" which is where we chose each other as the one line that we prefered, and would get calls for .01/min and texts for .06/ea. COMPARED to Orange, Blau, Yoigo, and Vodafone which are all about .10/min for calls and .15/ea for texts. Also, to any other phone here, we have .12/min nights and weekends which was the best we found without sacrificing text prices, etc. I was pretty proud of our choice. And the girl was really nice at the store. She programmed it all for us so we wouldn't have trouble with the company. A bunch of kids got "Blau", this newer company which advertises free Blau to Blau calling and everything else is .08/each (calls, texts). HOWEVER there is a connection fee they didn't see in the fine (spanish) print... Anyway, I guess I thought this was all more exciting than it should have been. It’s just fun to go into stores and try and see how much Spanish you can get out before they figure out you have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s about 4 words for me.

This evening we ran into this kid, Alan, who is staying here at Jardines on his own from New York. He planned out his own trip...no study abroad program or anything. And surprisingly his Spanish is around my level, haha, so I commend him on his confidence to travel alone like that. I think our group here will befriend him, since he's taking similar classes at CLM, etc. I really am starting to get a feel for how in shape I will be when I get home. Everything around here is within walking distance, and right now I’m in the “exploration” mode, so I’m walking ALL the time. I think I must have walked at LEAST 15 miles today. With all the walking around we do, it really is like fat camp instead of study abroad. Haha...small portions, no sweets (except gelato), and a TON of walking. Some of that walking was while we were all trying to find phones and do some other shopping, but most of it was this evening when Will and I split off from the LARGE group of students to explore the northern side of Granada. This is one thing I’m having an issue with here. Paula, Inma, and other people who have been here before have told us numerous times that it’s not smart to go around in large groups, speaking English. That is a very American thing to do, and we don’t want to attract attention to ourselves. We tend to be louder, etc. and everyone is WELL aware that we are foreigners. I think my previous traveling experiences have helped me realize how important it is to try and act like a local in order to get a feel for the real culture. For example, while trying to find phone information, the clerks at the cell phone stores seemed a bit overwhelmed and annoyed when even more than 3 kids would go in to look at phones. Most of them are still shy and won’t ask questions (I tried to pitch in whenever I could, but Will was really on a roll today). Anyway, when we were just walking down the small streets we are obviously very much louder than the locals and people kind of stare us down. I hate feeling like that, and have suggested many times that we just split up into smaller groups. I don’t know what it is, but almost everyone seemed to think it was okay. Another example was last night when we were at the pub…Inma and Paula ended up leaving early because they didn’t want to watch the students drink just to get drunk. And that’s exactly what they did. After leaving for a bit, a few of us returned to grab a last piece of pizza, and it was shocking to see some kids from our program acting like they owned the place, yelling, dancing inappropriately, etc. I mean, have fun, but try and be respectful! When another student told them to calm down a bit, one girl replied “they expect us to act like this, we’re Americans.” Well, that’s not how I think it should be. Speaking of which, they just walked in now and I can hear them VERY clearly. It’s 1:20am. Anyway. Like I said, tonight Will and I decided to split off from the large group that was going out to a bar (and meeting even more students there for a total of about 15) to explore. It was the most fun I have had yet. We ended up on the steps of a HUGE cathedral, eating gelato (I got “Avellana”…or Hazelnut. Of course.), and watching a few locals bring out their guitars and drums and draw a small crowd. We wandered around for about 3 hours just trying to see what is around. While I didn’t want to seem rude for leaving the other group, it was VERY nice to be able to not feel like we were being stared at and judged because we’re part of a group of loud, obnoxious Americans. We were able to observe the locals by being mixed right in with them. At the gelato shop we actually were spoken to in Spanish with no notion that we didn’t understand. That was a first! So all in all, it was a wonderful evening, and I hope that other students will be able to experience Granada in this same way.

Well, classes start early tomorrow morning, so I’m going to head to bed. I took some pictures of my room (and new phone haha) for y'all to see, so they'll be up shortly! Gnight!
M

My Flickr account with PHOTOS!

Hi everyone! Here's the link to my Flickr account, so you can check out my pictures!! I don't have too many yet, but more are coming soon! They're also up on Facebook...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/78071008@N00/

Lizzards and Tests and Sangria...OH MY!

Today was quite a rough day to be honest. We got up around 7:30 and I had my first taste of our extremely low water pressure showers. I felt like I was standing beneath a leaking pipe, waiting for each drop to try and wash out the massive amount of shampoo in my hair. Everyone had a fun time with that. We ate breakfast in the Comedor together around 8. Our chef, Scarlet wasn’t there yet, but one of the other old ladies made us toast and coffee. Our resident director, Paula came and met us and we walked to meet up with all of the home stay kids at the CLM (Centro de Lenguas Modernas) for the placement test. It started with a 30 minute written question/answer test. Then we moved into the 45 minute grammar multiple choice section, specifically sorted into the four sections we are attempting to place in: beginning, intermediate, advanced and superior. It was kind of overwhelming to try and see what we are going up against on paper! The last part was an oral interview with one of the professors. I was super nervous, and really didn’t get much out of my mouth except “yo estudiado español para cuatro semestres, pero durante el verano pasado se me olvidó todo”…meaning: I have studied Spanish for 4 semesters, but during the past summer I forgot it all. That all came out...and I tried to get around explaining where I worked when she asked. FAIL. Everyone else’s interviewers told them what level they had placed into immediately. Mine decided not to…so I found out during our “welcome fiesta” tonight at the pub. It looks like I’ll be joining the beginners.

After the oral exam we went back to Jardines. We watched some TV in the common room…Spanish-dubbed The Wizards of Waverly Place (Los Magos de Waverly Place) and Boy Meets World on Disney Channel, as well as some Fresh Prince of Bel Air. We then ate lunch (at 2:30) in the Comedor, which was cooked by our chef, Scarlet. It was Spaghetti and meat sauce, which I think Paula told them to make to try and help us adjust. Regardless, it was really good! After that, we met up with everyone again at one of the (many) local plazas for a small tour of the important landmarks (AIFS office, post office, banks, etc.). The thermometer on the outside of one of the banks read 40o…go look that up. Following our walk was our "welcome fiesta" in which they ordered a LOT of pizza (from…DOMINOES!) and had it delivered to a pub. We also were given drink vouchers for either beer, sangria or coke. I felt bad for the people who had been in there before us, because there were over 50 of us, and some people got a little wild.

Well, now I’m back in my room. We have meetings with our respective class placements tomorrow morning, and then the rest of the day free to explore. I think I’ll end up buying a cell phone tomorrow…it’s cheaper than just buying a pay-as-you-go card for the phone I have now! The four main companies here are Vodafone, YoiGo, Orange and Movistar…most people have gone for Orange, but that was before Paula told us they don’t have that great of service between the tall buildings. Hmm…I’ll have to Google those.
Hope everyone is doing well!
M

p.s. I never mentioned that we had a little visitor in our room yesterday. It was a tiny lizard, about the length of my index finger. I have no idea where he went, but Merete and I are hoping he’ll come back to say hi. OH, and there’s this plaza near Jardines that is FULL of bats in the evening. You can hear them from a block away (and smell them). Regardless, it’s pretty fascinating!