Salobreña

April 8, 2008

First I must apologize for going so long without posting anything. Things are so busy here and I have finally been able to spend some time just relaxing. This past weekend I finally got to go to the beach. There are a lot of beaches nearby and people have been going for the past 2 months – basically as soon as the sun came out from behind the clouds. The Spanish are blown away by how fast we pull out our flip flops and bathing suits… if they only knew about those of us who live in flip flops year-round… They have actually been wearing shorts and skirts (super short) since I got here in January but never without tights to go with them – as long as they have tights on anything goes here, and the crazier the pattern and color the better as far as I can tell.
The beach we went to was in Celebreña, a tiny little beach town about an hour south of Granada. I forgot my towel of course – who brings a towel to the beach? – but I bought a cute little roll-up mat at one of the stores for surprisingly really cheap (not like most beach towns where all the prices are jacked up because they know you need it and can’t get it anywhere else). We also bought our bocadillos for the beach (the Spanish have bocadillos everywhere they go… doesn’t matter where you are – the beach, on an airplane, in the park, walking down the street – if it’s anywhere near lunch time you can bet somebody’s mom packed them a sandwich or 2.)
The town was really pretty – all the houses were up on a hill, and they were all white with the same kind of tiled roof that is typical of little towns in Europe. And there were palm trees lining the roads. :) The weirdest thing was the sand… and when I say sand I actually mean little pebbles because there was no sand to be found anywhere. But that turned out to be kind of nice because rocks on the beach = no sand stuck to all of your stuff! :) The water was way to cold to swim with the exception of little kids in which case the cold water was more of an excitement than a deterrent.
On the way home we were a little crispy and drained from being under the hot sun all day but very happy to finally see the coast. We got ice cream from a local heladería, and it was so good. I got a half-scoop of mint-chocolate chip which had reeeeally thin sheets of melt-in-your-mouth chocolate and the other half caramel which had tiny little chunks of caramel. It was delicious and refreshing.
Let’s see… what else has been going on in Granada that would be interesting. *I am just now getting over a bad cold… Today I was able to leave the roll of toilet paper at home – finally done with blowing my nose for a while. :) *There is an English service tonight at the church so I’m really excited about that. It will be nice to hear a sermon that I can understand. *I have a project for my health class due in 2 weeks. We are writing a paper and presenting (aaaaah!) on abortion issues and how it relates to social work issues. So basically my job is to look at all the sources in English since there are a lot more than in Spanish and tell my group that information. The teacher said I don’t have to present if I don’t think I can, but I might do a little… my class seems pretty nice and if I practice before hand I might not be too nervous. :\ *And last but not least, the fam is coming on FRIDAY!!!! I am so excited to see them. I haven’t been homesick really but it will be so wonderful to see them and get some good hugs. I am so blessed to have a family that I want to spend time with, and I can’t wait to show them where I’ve been living and everything that I’ve been experiencing being here. *I am also working on plans for the last month after school is over. I can’t decide if I want to stay in Spain or meet up with other friends travling. We shall see.
That’s all for now. Hope it was a good update! If you’re reading this send me some updates of your own. I like hearing from people from home! :)

Spring Break begins with some familiar faces and much needed hugs :)

Hi everyone! Don't think I've forgotten about this... things are just really busy here. C'est la vie, right? Speaking of French... my most recent news is that we have had some French kids come stay with us. They came on a week long trip with a group from their high school to see all the wonderful sights in Granada. I think they usually go see the Alhambra, the albyzin district, eat tapas in the city, visit the coast, and eat chocolate con churros. So, overall they have a pretty nice break from school I'd say. It's fun having them stay with us because it makes Cara and I feel like we are no longer the "guests" in the house. The kids don't speak any Spanish but a little bit of English so we try to translate a little between them and Mama Luisa which is fun - more charades practice. :P

So, a few more updates... We are on spring break right now. Semana Santa (holy week - the week leading up to Easter) is a really big deal in Southern Spain. There are processionals all week long that go all over the city. The people participating in them have been practicing since we got here in January! I would write more about it if I were going to be there to see it all but sadly I will miss it all. I am in Barcelona right now starting off my spring break with Carly and Rob. :)

It was neat walking around today (Palm Sunday). There were huge crowds of people standing around the entrance of the Sagrada Familia. Everyone was waving these really tall reed-like things tied at the top and bottom to keep them together. There was some kind of service being held at the front over a loud speaker. So, at least we got a small small taste of it.

Carly is here and I teared up a little bit at the sight of someone I love so much finally in front of me to get a real hug!! (I have some wonderful friends here without a doubt but it's just not the same.) So, we all met here and will be moving on to Lyon where Rob is working for a few months. Drew and Jeff are meeting us there and then we will go to Paris for a few days. After that it's on to Berlin probably and then home... if I can find a ticket. :P I love traveling when plans aren't exactly made. It makes it a lot more exciting and you never know where you will end up or what you will find. Hopefully I will make it back before classes start back on Monday. ;)

I promise to write about Morocco when I can find time. Also, my class at the university is really great. It is really hard but a good challenge, and I have met some really nice Spaniards closer to my age. :) So, off to bed but I will write more when I can. :)

much much love to everyone!! more soon... I promise :)

little update about the everyday life

February 12, 2008

The past few days we have gotten to play Frisbee and futbol (you can’t say soccer here). It has been so much fun!! We had a pretty good group the first day – just enough to look like a game, and then a huge group the next day – we got some good games going then. :) Some Spaniards even played with us! It’s really a relief to be able to get outside and get some energy out!

I went running tonight and it was wonderful! There is an 800 meter stretch on the campus right by my house… it’s pretty with lots of trees and bushes, but it gets boring after about 4 loops. I ran a little in the neighborhood earlier but there were too many people on the sidewalks and they stared at me because I don’t think they’ve ever seen anyone running. People are too composed here. The only place I’ve ever seen people running is on the campus – and they don’t come out until it gets dark.

So I had a good run. And then Mama Luisa completely made my night. I came home to probably the biggest salad I’ve ever eaten, and please believe, I ate the whole thing. I wish I had taken a picture of it because it was glorious. It had lettuce obviously, shredded carrots, corn, chunks of ham (she finally stopped giving me tuna), corn, and pickles with oil & vinegar dressing. And pineapple rings for dessert.

Classes started last Thursday and have been pretty good so far. I’m taking a grammar class, a speaking/writing class, and culture/civilization of Hispanic America all at the CLM – classes with mostly Americans. And I start my class at the university next week –social work in health – that will be challenge but I’m looking forward to it.

I am also looking forward to being back at the hospital to play with some more kids. I will be upstairs in the school/play room this time. :) The kids are so cute and I always look forward to that part of my day. I’ll try and put up pictures of the hospital (at least the outside) next time I go back.

Much love to all of you at home!! :)

München and Salzburg!

February 7, 2008

This past week was our break between classes. We had the intensive language course during January – travel break! – and then semester classes started today. I traveled with Marysa and Catherine, in my program, and Cole, a guy we met here at the CLM.

On Tuesday night we took a 5 ½ hr bus from Granada to Madrid (that left at 1:30am!) then flew to Munich Wednesday morning. We stayed at the Euro Youth Hostel (which we loved! It is cheap and fabulous.) We were a little apprehensive about staying in the 18-person dorm room because it was cheaper, but we ended up meeting so many people that we were glad we took the chance. We had to leave our mark behind the bar. Solid Orange! (even though we had to use black)

Our first day in Munich we did a free walking tour of the city. (It SNOWED!! Okay, so it was just a little bit but it still counts!) There is a company that has tour guides in a lot of the big cities so that people can still learn a little something about the place they’re visiting and still be on a budget. (I think they had us in mind!) The tour guides only get tips from their tours, which works out even better because they have to be entertaining. Our Australian guide, Travis, was very animated and told us a lot of things that you won’t find in a guide book. We learned that a lot evidence of Munich’s WWII history has either been removed or had the attention drawn away from it. It’s there if you know what to look for, but a lot of it you just walk right over it without knowing it.

One quick example of this is the street in the picture to the right. Without getting into the story I can just say that a lot of people were killed for walking down this street as an act of passive resistance to the Nazis. It was called Dodger’s Alley because they walked down this street to avoid giving the Nazi salute to a plaque on a different street. Hitler found out and had these people arrested and killed. There is nothing written about the meaning of the gold line, and the Nazi plaque has also been taken down. The second picture is where it used to be. So, you can kind of see how things have been removed but evidence of it is there if you know what to look for.

The 2^nd day we went to Dachau, one of the first Nazi concentration camps. I had been there before but it was much better with a tour guide. She told us a lot about the physical torment that the prisoners went through as well as mental and emotional. The gate to enter the camp (picture on the right) says “work will set you free,” which made them think that if they worked enough they would be freed. Another example, they had to always have their complete uniform on at all times and be wearing it properly. Even a missing button was punishable. When they returned from the work camps they were not allowed to have any “foreign” objects on them. So, say a button popped off while you were outside of the camp working – you’re screwed. If you keep it to sew on later you have a foreign object on you and are punished. But if you come back without that button then you are wearing your uniform incorrectly and are punished.

3^rd and last day in Munich: We met up with Cat’s friend, Katya, and hiked up to the top of St. Peter’s Church – 300 something steps! Good glut workout for only 1,50 €… sweet! (with our packs on our back the whole way up and the whole way down! Not such a bright idea… it was a tight squeeze) I finally had sausage and sauerkraut this day – delicious.

We went to the H house one night. I got a mass of beer and a roasted pork knuckle. It was delicious. PICTURE Cat fb Other people got sausage and sauerkraut which was good as well. No one was adventurous enough to try the cow cheek or the udder... :O

There is so much more I could say about Munich but on to Salzburg. It was much more expensive – no free tours :( but the city is gorgeous so we just walked around a lot and enjoyed the old city. We walked up to the fortress for a beautiful view of the historic city. I don’t have any good pictures of the city because my camera battery died the first day there so this is the lone survivor. We also walked around the Mirabell Gardens where part of the Sound of Music was filmed. We saw the church Maria gets married in, all the places shown on “play days” – the gardens they run through, the fountain of Pegasus they dance around, the stairs they hop up and down, the tunnel of vines they run through… so cool! The hostel we stayed in showed the movie everyday, so our last day there we watched it and had so much fun pointing out all the places we had just been!

The last night of our trip we went back to our hostel in Munich to waste time before heading to the airport. I learned a little German finally. I can now count to 10, and ask for an apple and for free bread. :) We had so much fun on the trip but are so glad to be back in Spain! We really appreciate our home-cooked meals and our own beds. No more bread and Nutella for a while. It’s good stuff, but you can only eat just so much of it before you want a real meal.

So, the trip was lots of fun. It was nice to spend a good amount of time in each place (3 days each) so that we weren’t rushed to squeeze everything in. I love seeing new places and experiencing different cultures. I can’t wait to do it again in March when Carly comes! :)

Carrefour and more

I was not going to post today but I have to tell about our new experience yesterday.

Yesterday we went to the Carrefour… a.k.a. Walmart. It’s like Walmart in that it has everything you could possibly want and more… food, clothes, fresh seafood, an entire aisle of whole ham hocks, 2 aisles of wine, an aisle just for birds, a huge section of furniture and beds, freshly baked bread, pastries, a wall of chocolate :) … you get the idea. We definitely fit the stereotype of crazy Americans – taking pictures of everything, laughing uncontrollably at the amount of dead fish in front of us. People were staring and pointing… it was great.

You gotta break down and enjoy the differences every now and then instead of always trying to fit in and look like you’ve lived here all your life. There were fish heads bigger than my laptop! Life is good

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I’m sitting on a bench right now in a park in between my house and the CLM. The weather is beautiful, the sun is out, and I left the house without a coat for the first time since I’ve been here. In a little bit I am going get more minutes put on my phone. (I have been out for about a week) There is a little internet place on my street and I found out last night that it costs more to call a cell phone in Spain than it does for me to call home to the US. Explain that!

I am also going back to the hospital today, hopefully to play with more kids. Tonight we are going salsa dancing again. As for school, classes are almost over – our exam is Tuesday and then I am off to Munich for the break. I am going with Catherine, Marysa, and Cole. We are flying into Munich, have a hostel there for 2 nights and then who knows. We are all picking 2 things we want to do and that way we all get to see things we want and other things we wouldn’t have done on our own. I am so excited to finally do some traveling!

Hope all is well at home! Keep sending me updates – I don’t want to miss anything!! :)

church, salsa, and kids - does it get any better?

January 23, 2008

Let’s see… what have I been up to recently. I went to church Sunday night – one of the few evangelic in the city. My friend Chelsea put me in contact with a missionary couple at an evangelical church down the road from me. I went to that church Sunday night and met a lot of really nice people. We met the pastor’s wife, who preached that night, and she did not speak English but everyone else I met did… so I feel like I cheated a little bit but I was glad for it. Everyone made me feel really welcome and I can’t wait to go back for youth group this Saturday night. Once exams are over there will be a lot more Spanish people there. (Their exams go through the middle of February – and I thought 1 week of exams was bad… try three)

We went salsa dancing again last night! It is so so so much fun. It is definitely a lot different than swing dancing with regards to the steps, but I feel like a lot of the turns are the same so it’s really easy for me to pick it up. The club we go to is called Salsa Mayora, and they teach a lot of lessons there so hopefully I will be able to take some. We are friends with some of the teachers so I learned a lot last night. :) happy day

More Great News!! I started my internship yesterday! We are volunteering at a hospital, playing with kids in the cancer wing. I got to hang out with an 8-year old girl named Elizabeth (Eli for short… so cute!). She was really sweet and so much fun. Another volunteer, Nacho, came in and we all played hangman (in Spanish of course… that was different) and he showed us a new version of tic-tac-toe. When we left he helped me get find my way back to the plaza, and I met up with friends at Poë for some of our favorite tapas.

So, things are going well. I miss everyone from home, and miss a lot of things that are familiar to me. But I am loving this city more and more everyday I am here, and there is still so much to do and see!

PICTURES!!! This one at the top is a view of the Sierra Nevada mountains. :) Soo pretty!

Here are some more pictures for you!

http://clemson.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2152338&l=be423&id=12714857

Touring Granada

January 15, 2008

As promised I’m gonna tell about our tours. We have been on three so far: we saw the big Cathedral in the middle of the city, the Albyzin district, and the Alhambra.

We saw 2 churches. One was more of a museum with art and King Ferdinand’s sword and Queen Isabella’s crown. They are buried there under the church along with some other smaller coffins. I can’t remember who the little ones are – maybe their kids? They also had examples of clothing that the king and queen would have worn. That was pretty cool.

The Cathedral was really big. It reminded me of the cathedrals we saw in Austria. (Salzburg?) The building was huge and freezing. It must have been cold back in the day sitting in church during the winter. (Maybe that is why Catholics stand up and sit down so much… just kidding). The one thing that I thought was incredible was the pipe organ. The size of that thing is like nothing I’ve ever seen! I can’t explain it well but some of the pipes fan out and look really cool. I don’t know if it can still be played – it is probably out of tune. I don’t know if services are still held there.

I can’t decide if the Albyzin district was my favorite or the Alhambra. Both tours took us very high up in the city. For the tour of Albyzin we started in Granada and walked up and up and up through tiny, winding, one-way streets. The district is made up of a bunch of houses on the side of the mountain all squashed together with tiny little cobblestone streets. It was a pretty good hike up there, but the view is incredible. You can see the entire city and the Alhambra on the other side. I bet it would be amazing at sunset. There is a plaza at the top where people are always hanging out and playing music. There was a woman selling castanets and a guy playing a guitar and others clapping along with the beat and another singing. There are people all through the streets of Granada playing music for money: guitars and accordions mostly. It is really fun walking to class and hearing live music coming down an alley or the old man on my street who plays his accordion and sings and smiles at the people going by. (I’m pretty sure he is the only one smiling on my entire walk to class. Europeans are not as friendly as us South Carolinians… surprise) Anyway, I got off topic. The Albyzin district is amazing.

Next we went to the Alhambra which used to be an old military fort back in the day. (I’m not sure which day but the moors used to have control of it and then the Christians took over it and then let it go to ruin… until… Washington Irving came and lived there for a year, wrote a book or short stories about it, and made it famous again. Thanks Irv) I could go on and on about how incredible the architecture is and how long it must have taken to build everything because of the size of the entire fort and the intricate detail on every wall of all three palaces, but I won’t. You’re welcome.
Also, the gardens are pretty cool. All of the bushes/trees are carved into shapes, and one area reminds me of a big maze from a movie or a book and I’m pretty sure I might have gotten lost had I been on my own in there.
The view from the tower of the Alhambra is indescribable. It was breathtaking. I didn’t even want to take pictures of it because it could not be captured. It wouldn’t have done it justice. The view was so vast – seeing the entire city at your feet and the huge mountains covered in snow so close to the city… I can’t describe it.


As soon as I can figure out how to put pictures in here I will put up some of the better ones.

I miss you all! But I am having a wonderful time. Granada is a really neat city and I like it more every day I’m here.