2 Weeks of School Down

Allright, just finished the second week of school! I have to say that having class makes Monday-Thursday go by extremely fast. Today was my first day of my new grammar class, too. We're doing a pretty intense study of the differences between the preterite, imperfect, and pluscaumperfecto, so it's challenging but definitely doable. It's going to help me a lot in becoming more confident and fluent with my grammar. The teacher, Julia, is very nice but has no problem being blunt. Today, she had us each tell a story in the past tense and then had everyone discuss each mistake we made and why it was wrong. Also, if you make a minor error when you're talking, she'll stop you and talk you through why what you said was incorrect. It's not like any instruction I've ever had before, but it's definitely going to make me better, which will be extremely beneficial... especially in May when I have to take my proficiency test!

After siesta today, I decided to wander Camino de Ronda a little bit. I needed a few things, so I figured it would be a good time to go get them. I got a converter for my camera charger, flip flops to wear in the shower at the hostel, a clutch, highlighters, a deck of cards, and paperclips. Big day :-) I also decided to venture to the grocery store that's on the ground floor of my building (for those who don't know, I LOVE grocery shopping. Absolutely LOVE it!). It was cool to go in there but definitely made me miss home food. I ended up getting some granola bars for our trip tomorrow... you gotta have bus snacks, right?

Right now, Carlos is sitting on my floor telling me about horseback riding in Morocco and apparently there's something about a door that looks like a tiger (a la Aladdin). I'll make sure to look for that next weekend when we head to Morocco :-)

Long Wednesday and Pictures of the Piso

Maria and Carlos

My closet... Dane's T-shirt displayed where I can see it every day :-)

My nightstand and bed (haha yes, I brought my stuffed polar bear to Spain. As Kate Gosselin would say, it's my "comfort item")

Lobby of the apartment building

My building from the street... I'm the balcony above the one with the plant

My street (Camino de Ronda)

I realized that I never put pictures on the blog, so I'm going to try to keep adding more :-)

Today was busy! I had class from 11:15-2:45, then ate my bocadillo in the CEGRI computer lab, left with Julia at 3:30 to get to the school we volunteer at by 4:00, then volunteered from 4-6, then walked back to CEGRI for class from 6:30-8:15 and came home to dinner on the table. Crazy!

I did get switched out of my grammar class today. Funny/slightly embarrassing/very humbling story is that I got placed in the lowest level of grammar classes based on my placement test. I would like to defend myself and point out that I was extremely homesick and jetlagged the day we had to take them (our second day here) and the topic for the essay was "write about your trip to Granada". The absolute last thing I wanted to do was relive the whole leaving process (I'm far enough away from it now to admit to all of you that I sobbed through security at O'Hare). So, long story short is that I only managed to squeeze out a few sentences for my essay and my test had teardrop stains all over it (Don't worry! I'm better now!). In any event, my teacher today switched me into the class that I should be in as a Spanish Education major. So now instead of having three classes Monday and Wednesday and one class Tuesday and Thursday, I'll have two classes each day. That'll be a nice change of pace on my busy days.

Volunteering today was so much fun. We played soccer again, and it seriously cracks me up how into the sport these kids are. They know all about it and are all phenomenal players. Today, Ana got frustrated and touched the ball with her hand and all of a sudden ten voices started screaming "¡MANO! ¡MANO!" (Hand! Hand!). They are very, very, very competitive little kiddos. 

Tonight is just a chill night. Going to work on my essay for Literature and rest up for our weekend in Madrid!

Exciting Day

Today was a pretty eventful and exciting day! I'll go in order from least exciting to most exciting to keep everyone's attention

4.) The internet man came today because Rosario decided to switch providers. She said that the internet was very slow before. I beg to differ. The internet was remarkably fast before and is now kind of dragging. However, I have ZERO room to complain because I am still SO lucky to have WiFi! So as long as I have working internet I will be a happy camper.

3.) My life was changed today when I was introduced to torta de chocolate, which is an incredible Spanish pastry. There's a little pastry stand in the plaza by our school and Miguel Angel raved about the pastries during orientation. I had a little time to kill after I worked out so I decided to give it a shot. HOLY. COW. I can't even describe how good this thing was. It's going to be difficult to make this a "sometimes food" :-)

2.) At our favorite tapas bar, which we have decided to call BA2 (b.a.dos), we made friends with Maho, who works there but was just hanging out tonight. He recognized us from being in there so much and we're totally best friends with him now. We told him about Kam's and how much we love it and how BA2 is our Kam's in Spain. He then proceeded to yell out "THIS IS KAM'S!" in his thick Spanish accent for the rest of the night and threw up the "K" sign for Kam's (I'll post a picture later). SO fun!

1.) The most exciting part of the day. During dinner, Maria started choking on hamburger and bread. After showing symptoms of FBAO (foreign body airway obstruction), I instructed her to stand up and, bracing myself with one foot positioned between hers, gave her five inward and upward J-thrusts to the abdomen using my clenched fist and hand approximately an inch and a half above the belly button. (All of my JEM friends will laugh at this. Everyone else might think I'm a tool. I should explain that when I teach lifeguard certification classes, this is how I have to explain how to give the Heimlich maneuver.) In any event, I gave her the Heimlich and after six abdominal thrusts, she was able to breathe again. This is another why EVERYONE should have basic First Aid and CPR training, as well as have basic knowledge of an AED :-) 

So, that's my exciting day in Spain! Tomorrow I promise to post pictures of the piso and some others that I've taken.

Two Weeks Down

Just some pictures of my favorite person under 24 hours old and her big sister, my favorite almost two-and-a-half year old :-)  Now the post for the day...

Two weeks down. Wow, it feels good to be able to say that. It's comforting that things are starting to get more familiar and less scary. Even things as simple as knowing that I have to turn the doorknob left to get out of my building and that there are lightswitches in my hallway for when I come home and can't see anything are making life a little less stressful over here.

The first week dragged on and felt like it was never going to end, but the second ended up going by decently fast. I'm hoping that the weeks will keep getting faster and more fun as time goes by, routines get established, weekend trips get underway, and visitors start to come. Gina and I were saying the other day that we just can't wait until it's February. I feel like once I don't see "leave for granada" on my iCal (calendar program for Mac that I'm already addicted to) I'll feel a lot better and a lot more like I'm making progress in this whole thing. I don't want to wish the time here away, but I'm definitely ready to feel like I've made a significant dent in my stay.

I also forgot to mention that on Sunday night, Betsy and I went out walking around 8:00 because we were both getting the Sunday homesick blues. We ended up walking by Dunkin' Donuts (well, here it's called Dunkin' Coffee, but same thing) and getting donuts. THEY TASTE AMERICAN! We decided it might have to be the place to go when we feel homesick. Just the fact that I can have something here that I can also have in the United States is comforting. 

My goal for today is to figure out the schedule for the group classes at my gym... My friend Kaitlin took a spinning class at her gym and said it was really fun. I want to try!

NINA IS HERE!

First and foremost, I want to send a huge congratulations to my cousin Arne and his wife Beth for the arrival of their second baby girl! Nina Kathleen Hendricksen was born at 1:53pm today and weighed in at 7lbs 13oz. Everyone is doing great and I cannot wait to get home and see her in May! I'll be sure to post pictures once I get them.

Today marked the beginning of our second week of classes at CEGRI, and it was great to return to the structure of the school week after the weekend (Wow, I never thought I'd say that!). I had grammar and literature this morning and then ate my bocadillo (turkey and cheese... my favorite) during the break before law this afternoon. It was a pretty solid school day, nothing really new to report on the CEGRI-front.

The kids and I had dinner together tonight, which always makes for an entertaining meal. They are so funny! We had chicken noodle soup (which had hard-boiled eggs in it and was amazing) and tortilla española con espinaca (basically an omlette with spinach... yes, I ate it. I'm growing up!). 

We also planned a trip to Madrid for this weekend which should be a great time! We're going to head up Friday morning and come back Sunday evening. I'm excited to start to travel and get to know Spain better. 

Lazy Sundays

Ok, remember what I said yesterday about Saturdays being really slow in Granada? Sundays make it feel like a ghost town!

I started off today by going to church down the street with Julia and Clarissa. It was a really interesting experience. We walked in and there was a band (complete with electric guitars and drums) playing really pretty and really intense worship songs. There was a screen behind the band that was essentially a karaoke screen so that everyone could know the words, and the entire congregation was clapping to the beat, dancing, and singing along. It was pretty cool! The pastor gave his sermon and then we hung around afterwards and talked to some people in the congregation. These people had so much energy! Everyone was coming up to us and kissing us and introducing themselves... It was nice to feel so welcomed! I think next week I'm going to try to check out mass at the Cathedral to see how that is, too. I like seeing all of the different ways of life around here. 

After church, I walked home (in the rain again... I seriously think they were intentionally lying to us about the whole drought thing) and came up to find the kids' dad cooking. Apparently on Sundays we eat one big meal in between lunch and dinner (lunner?) all together. The dad made couscous and it was pretty good. I'm getting more adventurous, even eating the peas and carrots! 

I took a long siesta after the meal and spent some time catching up with people from home. Homesickness started to get bad again, but I think it's just the lack of structure for the day. Betsy said she's feeling the same way, so I think a few of us are going to go try to find something American-ish in a little bit.

Hope everyone is doing well... missing all of you!

Saturday in Spain

**I'm not sure why the formatting on this post is so bad. I tried to be fancy and add the map, but I think I did it wrong! Sorry!**

Saturdays in Spain have a really interesting vibe. The streets are pretty quiet and everyone walks slower and takes their time more than usual (which took some getting used to for "walk-with-a-purpose" Sally). I live on Camino de Ronda, which, if you look at Granada on Google Maps, is by far the biggest street in the city:

View Larger Map

(The highway is basically the edge of Granada, everything to the right of Camino de Ronda is the city). It's so crazy, though, because this street that's normally really hustle-and-bustle is so quiet on the weekends. Everyone stays in, relaxes, and catches up with family. It's pretty cool-- that's my kind of weekend!

Anyway, after eating my usual three galletas (breakfast cookies) for breakfast, I headed out to the gym. Betsy decided to sign up, too, so we worked out together for about an hour. On my way home (probably a ten minute walk), I decided to stop in some of the stores that I always see but never venture into. It was really fun! I was laughing because they're basically Spain's version of Target. They're much smaller, but they have anything you could want. It was fun to check them out and really fun to people-watch inside. I managed to refrain from buying anything but I think I'll be making a return trip sometime soon. 

I did venture into one store, called araña (spider), that made me laugh hysterically. It looked just like a clothes store, but it had kind of a punk vibe. My favorite part was when I got to a big display of buttons that you can buy. I won't go into detail, but let's just say that they all had the words you never learn in Spanish classes but you learn your first few weeks abroad. I really can't picture anyone wearing them in public, but I think that's the American in me talking. It might just be a Euro thing.

I'll be sure to update later; it's almost time for lunch-- pollo y salsa (chicken and sauce) today! (Oh, and by the way, I had salad and spinach lasagna for dinner last night. That will be really shocking for those of you who know that I tend to eat like a 3-year-old :-) )