Starting to Wind Down

Well, we're officially reaching the end of the study abroad road. This is SO exciting!

I started cleaning out my room last night and was getting kind of nostalgic! I ran across my orientation packet, my receipt for WiFi at the hostel we stayed at the first few nights, the cards I read on the plane ride over here... it's so weird that I got all those things FOUR MONTHS ago!

I'm getting more and more excited about the thought of having completed this. My sense of accomplishment grows every day and I know that getting on that plane is going to be the best feeling in the world. I will get on that plane knowing that I did something that I really didn't think I could do, and that's pretty exciting.

The girls and I have started planning out our last weekend here, and it should be pretty fun. We're considering maybe going to the beach on Friday and then spending Saturday walking around the city, shopping, having one last botellón, and hitting up all of our favorite spots one last time. We just can't believe it's our last weekend in Granada! Kristin will have two more weekends in Europe after that, and Alli and Breezy will have three (they're staying to travel), but they said it's still so bizarre that none of them are in Granada. 

I am one edited essay, one final interview, and two final exams away from being done! Just gotta keep trucking through this last chunk of classes :-)

Hanging out with 1,700 of my closest Spanish friends...

So yesterday was the big party for Granada students that Vega invited us to. Oh. My. Gosh.

Let me start by saying that it was definitely one of the best cultural experiences I've had so far. It was a really cool insight into the lives of 18-23 year olds in Spain. 

So, Breezy, Vega and I met up at 11:30am to go to this party. We had to wait at a gas station for a guy to come and sell us our tickets for the party, and once we got our tickets we went to the Hipercor (a big store) to wait for the bus to come pick us up. I expected there to be maybe 200 people there. Nope. 1700. One thousand, seven hundred people all waiting to get on busses to travel 20 minutes to a discoteca for this party. It was a madhouse! 

People were literally elbowing each other in the face to get on the busses. It was like sorority/fraternity barndances on steroids. Vega, Breezy, and I all locked hands in an attempt to stay together, but we were bombarded so fast that we lost each other for a few minutes... very intense! We ended up realizing that we were either going to get trampled trying to get on a bus or were going to have to wait three hours to get on one, so one of Vega's friends told us to follow him. He said he was going to call a taxi for us. After about five minutes on the phone, he told us he couldn't get a taxi but his grandpa would drive us. We got a ride to a discoteca in the middle of an olive field from this guy's grandpa. I love Spanish people.

So, we got to this discoteca (in the shape of a castle) and it was HUUUGE! It turns out it is the biggest disco in Andalucía (the region we're in). And the place was absolutely mobbed. It was wall-to-wall people, all dancing and singing and drinking and talking. 

We hung out with Vega, her brother Ezekiel (pronounced: eh-thee-KEEL), his girlfriend Laura (pronounced like Lawry's Steakhouse with an -uh at the end instead of the -ees), and all of their friends. Everyone was so nice and welcoming and we got to do a LOT of Spanish practicing! 

All in all, it was a really fun day and a really good experience. I'm so glad I got to see a party from the perspective of a Spanish person... Breezy and I were probably the only two Americans in the whole place and we felt like we were fitting in well. Usually, we all get targeted as Americans and are subject to people coming up to us and going "oh my GAWD" (seriously, happens all the time. Very clever.), but this time we were totally blending in. It was such a cool perspective to have for a day. Check out this video of the madness: 

A mí me gusta mucho ir al cine

Today was a really fun day because Breezy, Vega (the Spanish girl who is Breezy's intercambio), and I went to the movies! Breezy and I have been talking about wanting to see a movie for awhile now, and it was a perfect day to do it. 

Walking into the movie theatre was one of the biggest reminders of home I've had so far. Seriously, aside from everything being in Spanish, it easily could have been an American movie theatre. It's fun that the schema is just so similar. The smell of popcorn, the obscenely large boxes of candy, the overpriced soft drinks... all of it!

We saw a Spanish movie called Al Final del Camino, which was about two journalists (who hate each other) who have to go undercover to do a story about a retreat for couples with marital problems. It was really cute, and, of course, the journalists fall in love at the end. Very textbook romantic comedy :-)

Vega invited us to go to a big party tomorrow. It apparently starts at noon and goes the whole day and a TON of Spanish students will be there. I heard "room full of Spanish people to talk to" and I was THERE! I will make sure to take lots of pictures and blog about it tomorrow!

Things I Will and Won't Miss

So, my friend Gina did this on her blog and I thought it was a great idea so I'm going to copy :-)

THINGS I WILL MISS ABOUT SPAIN:

-My host family. I was really, really, really blessed being placed in this homestay. God was looking out for me.

-The walking! I loooove that it takes me a half hour to walk to school and a half hour to walk home. The exercise is great and it's really fun to people watch

-Tapas bars. Seriously, where else in the world can you go and get free dinner with your drinks?

-Alé from BADos. Alé was just one of the best Spaniards we met here. Such a great guy, always looked out for us, so welcoming to our visitors, knew our orders, always handing out the free chupitos.

-Tortilla Española, or Spanish potato omelette. SO tasty!

-Being able to people watch at any time of the day. People are always in the streets and it's so fun to watch how they live

-Fountains everywhere! There's just something really cool about all of them

-Sra. Pan, the lady who sells tortas de chocolate

-Botellón

-Listening to Spanish people try to sing American songs (i.e. Carlos' version of "Stayin' Alive" or Rosario's (male) friend's version of Beyoncé's "If I were a Boy")

-Siesta! How it's perfectly acceptable to take a nap in the middle of the day

-The weather!! It's soooo nice

-Being able to see the Sierra Nevada on my walk to school

-My CEGRI friends, but I'll still get to see them all the time back home <3

THINGS I WON'T MISS:

-Being woken up every morning by Carlos crying. I still can't figure out what he's screaming about, but it's a daily occurrence

-Not having control over when or what I eat! It's really nice to have someone cook for you, and Rosario cooks very well, but it's frustrating having no control

-Julia, the grammar teacher

-Having to download TV shows off of iTunes

-How sloooooooowly people walk. Seriously, molasses in January. These people just stroll everywhere. I get that they're just laid back and are enjoying their walk, but I walk with a purpose! The worst? Older couples who hold hands and walk like that. You can't get around them!

-The fact that cars honk CONSTANTLY here. If there is a traffic jam, you can bet that 85% of the cars will be laying on their horn. 

-And, of course, being this far away from the people I love. I've always been a pretty ooey-gooey-I-love-my-family-and-friends-and-boyfriend-la-la-la kind of girl, but being separated for this long has really made me realize that it doesn't matter where you are, it just matters who you're with. I'm SO lucky to have made such great friends here and I'm not trying to minimize that at all, but being away from everyone back home has just been tough! Thinking about all of the reunions I get to have (SO SOON!) is so exciting.

THINGS I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO:

-Seeing everyone!! This is the longest I've gone without seeing my mom in my whole life! It's just going to be so great to see all the people I've missed so much.

-American food!

-Baking

-DRIVING! I haven't driven in 4 months!!

-Kam's (both going there for fun and working!)

-Meeting Nina! I have a whole new family member.... crazy!

-My week at school after I get back

-Being able to spend Mother's Day with my fam

-Hot, good showers for as loooong as I want

-My own bed

-Being able to lay on the couch and watch TV!

This is a great city and it has been one of the best study abroad experiences I could have asked for, but I'm definitely counting down the days until all of those things! Can't wait to see everyone :-) It's getting closer and closer

Good News :-)

Oh my goodness, Tuesday is almost over. I swear, the school weeks here absolutely fly by. This week's been pretty good so far! I had my big literature paper due on Monday and was having a lot of trouble thinking about what to write about on Sunday night, but I ended up having one of those lightbulb moments early Monday morning (the paper wasn't due until the afternoon), so I think I did okay on it!

It's just been a pretty normal week! I've been watching a lot of my Office DVDs... that's fun! We have a lot of stuff to do in all of our classes these next two and a half weeks of school, so it's just a lot of homework and a lot of studying. My favorite teacher is Yanira (I have her for both literature and conversation) and she has been so understanding about us having so much to do. We were supposed to have conversation presentations next week, but she came into class today and said that they weren't important and she wanted to take away some of our stress so we don't have to do them. I love her!

We all had a ton of fun for Laura's birthday on Saturday. We botellóned a little bit by our favorite "juice bar" (it's actually a café with slot machines called a salón de juego (game room) but someone thought it said salón de jugo (juice bar) the first week and the name stuck). After that, we went to a bar near our pisos, then to both of our favorite chupiterias, and then a discoteca that's built into a cave. It was the coolest disco ever-- literally the walls are just cave. It was a ton of fun and a great way to celebrate Laura's birthday.

I'm just kind of working on homework and putting some stuff together these next few weeks... it's so weird that my time here is winding down! I remember in January when I literally thought April would never come, and now it's almost May!

Oh... and did I mention... 

... Remember that little plan I had cooking up circa two posts ago? It just came to fruition. See everyone in time for Mother's Day :-) 

Weekend!

It's been a pretty decent weekend so far! I realized yesterday when I was talking to Matt that this is my first full down weekend since right after my dad left... how weird is that? I've been feeling a little antsy and jittery and I think the uncharacteristic amount of downtime is a good explanation. 

Tapas on Thursday were good-- Vega told me that I speak Spanish very well, so my confidence came back up a little bit for that test. Yesterday I slept in reaaaaally late for the first time in a loooooong time, so that was awesome! After I got up and took a walk, then just came back and relaxed all day. It was great to re-charge after so much crazy traveling last week. Rosario came home for lunch and was really excited because she passed statistics (she's going back to school to become a nurse) and so we had a huge lunch with wine to celebrate. The kids and I hung out for a little bit after lunch. My friend Caitlin sent me the song "Hoedown Throwdown" from the Hannah Montana movie and I played it for Maria. She was completely beside herself because she said that nobody here has been able to hear it yet because the CD isn't out (things take much longer here... for a reference point, we just started to see advertisements for Marley and Me). Apparently Maria's going to be very cool at school on Monday :-). Thanks, Cait!

I spent the afternoon just chatting with people, relaxing, and watching the new episode of The Office. I was going to meet up with Gina for churros con chocolate after dinner but had to reschedule because Rosario was M.I.A. She ended up getting home at 10:45 and served dinner at 11:00... she's a busy lady! I was bummed I didn't get to see Gina, but we're gonna go one day this week! I met up with Breezy, Alli, and Kristin around midnight and we just got a few drinks and had a very chill night.

It's my friend Laura's birthday today, so I think we're going to all go out to celebrate tonight. It should be fun!!

Hope everyone in Champaign is having a great moms' weekend!

Three Weeks Left of School?!

It's so hard to believe that it's the weekend and I only have THREE WEEKS left of school. WOW. The school weeks here go by so fast. I'll get the "oh my gosh it's only Monday?" feeling on Monday and then it feels like I blink and it's Thursday already.

It's been a pretty good week at school. We had a short little paper to do for Literature and watched a movie in Law that I have to write a paper on this weekend. The movie was called Mar Adentro and was about this guy Ramón Sampedro who was a quadriplegic and wanted an assisted suicide in the '80s. We have to write a paper with our reactions to the movie, so I have to think of something more than that I cried through the entire second half :-). The movie is really good (very sad), and I recommend it. It stars Javier Bardem as Ramón and won the 2004 Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Check it out! I also have a big Literature paper due on Monday, so that will be taking up a lot of the weekend. 

Tonight, Breezy, Alli, Kristin and I are going to meet up with some Spanish girls for tapas. We have this program called intercambio where our school can set you up with a student from the University of Granada who is studying English and you can get together and practice your languages with native speakers. Breezy's intercambio is a girl named Vega so we're meeting up with Vega and her friends to practice. I'm still a little under the weather from traveling but am so excited about this possibility to practice Spanish so I'm going to go for sure. My proficiency test is in four weeks!! Yiiiiikes.

Rosario had a few friends over at lunch today and I was trying to practice with them, but it was pretty difficult. Between ten days of speaking English last week and the fact that they were speaking a mile a minute and eating at the same time, I was having a lot of trouble understanding and getting a little discouraged. I think (and hope!) that tonight will help bring my confidence up a little more. That test is looming!

Other than that, I'm just kind of relaxing back into life in the piso and getting so excited about my return home. I've got a little something up my sleeve that I don't want to spill too much of yet in case it doesn't come to fruition, but it would be really exciting. I should find out in the next few days if it's going to happen... cross your fingers!!

Eurotrip 2009

Guinness Factory!

Buckingham Palace

WOW it's been a long time since my last post! I apologize!! I promise promise promise that's the longest I'll go for the rest of my stay here. 

Lauren and I had a great time this past week on our little Eurotrip. We started out on Friday night and caught a night plane from Granada to London. It was Lauren's first experience with Ryanair, which is the shantiest of all shanty airlines but will get you from Granada to London for DIRT cheap. Highly recommend it to anybody traveling in Europe... it's worth the lack of complimentary drink and the strict baggage requirements. We made it into London around 1am and caught a train into the city center. We were completely exhausted and got to our hostel and just crashed. 

The next morning, we got up and started out to sightsee. We saw Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the Thames River, and the London Eye. I found myself quoting European Vacation that entire day... "Hey look, kids! There's Big Ben and there's Parliament!"... "Kids, Big Ben. Parliament." If you don't know what I'm talking about, you have to watch this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFsDjmceuDo. After conquering that area of town, we decided to venture over to Buckingham Palace. We took a veeeeery long route to get there which ended up being great because we were able to see some of the really cute residential areas. I, of course, decided that they all looked like they were out of The Parent Trap.

At Buckingham Palace, we saw the guards and the palace from in front and then took a walk through the gardens and through St. James' Park. After that we took the tube to Harrods, the ENORMOUS department store in London. We looked around Harrods for awhile, bought some mini-cupcakes (I had missed cupcakes!) and then wandered that area for awhile. We ended up getting lunch at a pub and then heading back to the hostel to nap and get ready for our evening. 

We had gotten tickets for Spring Awakening, which is one of my top three favorite musicals of all time. I'd seen it twice in New York and was really excited to see the West End's new version. It did not disappoint-- such a phenomenal show! And the box office even bumped our seats up because the theatre wasn't full-- so we had an amazing view! As a side note, Spring Awakening is coming to Chicago this summer and if anyone is looking for a good musical to see, go see it. I will put out the warning that it's very edgy and artsy and isn't your typical "family musical", but it's very thought-provoking and deep and has incredible music. Go to www.broadwayinchicago.com for more info :-)

After the show, we went to dinner in the Covent Garden area, which was so cute and I fell in love with. It was like if New York's theatre district was in the Village... so great! We then made our way to Piccadilly Circus to try to meet up with Lauren's friends from school but ended up needing to catch the tube back to the hostel before we could meet them. 

The next day, we checked out of the hostel and explored more. We tried to make it to Westminster Abbey for Palm Sunday mass but narrowly missed it because of a tube snafu. Bummer! We ended up walking around a lot and meeting Lauren's friends for lunch, which was really fun. Then we headed back to the hostel, got our stuff, and got on a train to the airport for our flight to Dublin.

We got to Dublin around 10pm and were able to find our hostel pretty easily. We checked in, got settled, used the internet there to send emails home, and crashed for the night. The next day, we slept in and then made our way over to the Guinness Storehouse for a tour and a free pint, which was a lot of fun. We discovered that Irish people are SO nice! Everyone was so great the whole time we were there. That night, we went on a little pub crawl to experience Temple Bar. My friends Meg and Caitlin studied in Dublin last summer and had a lot of great places for us to go. It was a very fun night. We spent most of Tuesday walking around and doing some shopping. We saw a lot of Dublin and then turned in early so we could get up for our flight the next morning. 

On Wednesday morning, we were up dark and early (think 2:45am) to catch our plane to Tenerife. It was a veeeery early flight but so worth it to get to the Canaries! The island was absolutely gorgeous and we had a great time hanging out with my friends and just relaxing on the beach. We both managed to get a little tan and it was definitely rejuvenating. 

One of my favorite moments in the Canaries was when we went into this little sandwich shop to get sandwiches to go one night. There were two older men behind the bar and they made our sandwiches and asked if they were to go or to eat there. When we said to go, they kept asking why and said we should stay there and talk to them. With my proficiency test in four weeks and one day, I'm in no position to turn down a conversation with a native speaker, and these men looked very un-creepy, so we stayed. They ended up giving us each a few free beers and shots of Ron Miel (honey rum... SO. GOOD.) and I got to practice my Spanish for over an hour, which was definitely needed after a five days of non-stop English. They told me I speak very well and when they asked if my parents were Spanish, I just about leaned over the bar to hug them. It was definitely a needed ego-boost. I know my Spanish has gotten better since being here, but just to hear people that I don't know and that don't deal with American students on a regular basis give me good feedback makes me feel a lot better about this test. 

We got back to Granada yesterday morning after a looooong trip home (7 hours in the Tenerife airport, 2 hours on a plane, a hostel stay, and a 2 hour bus ride). It was a great trip, but it's so great to be back in my routine and back to what I know. I'm someone who loves the familiar :-)

A big milestone happened while I was gone. Saturday was my one more month mark. I'm now officially into my last month. It's such a weird feeling and such a great feeling. I keep kind of going back and forth between "that's still kind of a long time" and "that's NOTHING!" I just am so happy that I've gotten this far and am looking SO forward to the rest of my time here and especially to my return home!! I CANNOT wait to see everyone!

cheers. lift. spit spot. supercalifragilsticexpialidocious.

Just a SUPER quick update to let everyone know that Lauren and I had a great time in London. We're at an internet cafe in the Gatwick airport grabbing a little bit of internet really fast before we check in for our flight to Dublin tonight. Having so much fun and promise to update more later!

Lauren's Here!!

YAY!! Lauren made it!! I went to the airport at around 4:40 yesterday and was able to meet her as soon as she got through baggage claim. It was so great to see her and we had SUCH a great time yesterday.

We got her settled into her hostel, then just took a little walking tour of my favorite parts of Granada (Cathedral, a few plazas, the ice cream shop that Matt and I were obsessed with, school, etc.). When it was about 8:00 we headed over to the Mercadona to pick up some sangria and botellón by the river at sunset. It was so relaxing and so great to catch up. After that, we went over to BADos (obviously!) for a tapas dinner and some more drinks. Lauren got to meet Alé and Moha (our two favorites), as well as bartender #3, whose name I don't know but gave me the two-kiss Spanish thing and asked where Matt was and then said that I have a lot of visitors and that I'm very lucky because my dad, boyfriend, and cousin all came. I told him I know-- I'm a VERY lucky girl to be able to have all three of them come.

Lauren loved the dinner (as I knew she would) and we started getting pretty tired right after. I took her to Dolce Vita for one shot and then back to her hostel to crash. I hopped in a cab (figured I'd throw that detail in for you, Mom-- I don't walk alone at night! ) and got back to my piso, chatted with my mom and dad and Matt and Sarah, and then turned in for the night. 

Now I'm just going to finish packing, head over to Lauren's hostel, spend the day sightseeing, and then we're off to London tonight!! :-) 

Happy April :-)

WOOHOOO! We made it to April!! So exciting! I love the first day of the month here. It just makes me feel like I'm making progress and that I've accomplished something, like "I successfully lived in Spain for the ENTIRE month of March." Might sound crazy, but it's the little things haha. 

April should fly by pretty fast, too! I've got Lauren coming TOMORROW (!!!!!!) and we've got our 10-day vacation, and then we'll come back to Granada for two days and when Lauren leaves it's the 14th already! SO nuts! Then I'll have one free weekend, one weekend in London again, another free weekend, then the weekend with the farewell dinner/packing/saying goodbye. Absolutely nuts.

Yesterday was pretty good! Highlights included taking a four-hour nap, getting served an entire frozen pizza for lunch (when I ate a third of it, Rosario came into my room and said she thought I liked pizza and asked if I wanted something else. I explained to her that, yes, I loooove pizza, but there was no way I could eat an entire frozen one), and mysterious hypnotist baby-daddy coming over for dinner. He's actually very nice and we had a long, very interesting discussion about religion. I like having in-depth talks like that because it helps me hone my Spanish. If I have something to contribute, I will want to contribute it, and It's kind of that being thrown into the fire of an intense conversation thing. 

I've got a law test tonight and then it should be smooth sailing for the rest of the week!