The Travel Bug :-)

Hello everyone! I hope this blog finds you all well! I am leaving tomorrow afternoon for Dublin and Paris...I can't wait! Tomorrow after class we will take the bus from Granada to Madrid. Then from Madrid we fly to Dublin and spend two days there :) We are going to an Irish dance show at a pub in Dublin on the second night, so exciting! After Dublin we are flying to Paris and staying there for 3 days! We are staying with a friend of a friend in Paris...it will be so nice to save some money. On October 6th we fly back to Madrid and take a bus back to Granada. We start school the next day, so I have a feeling I will be a little bit tired on the first day of classes ;) I will post pictures and write about my trip as soon as I get back!

xoxo,
Elena

Intercambio

Last Wednesday our program, ISA (International Studies Abroad) set up our first intercambio! An intercambio is where you meet up with a Spaniard who wants to learn English and you practice both languages. Our program sets up the first meeting, then it's our job to exchange numbers or emails with as many Spaniards as we can so we can practice speaking as much as possible! There were about 40 American students and 20 Spanish students on Wednesday. We went to a really neat teteria, an Arabic tea cafe. Jill and I just happened to sit next to these two guys who we ended up having a lot in common with. Their names are Fernando and Alejandro. They have both graduated from the University of Granada already with degrees in Engineering. Fernando was a Computer Engineering major and Alejandro was a Mechanical Engineering major. They both enjoy doing "outdoorsy" stuff, such as running, hiking, mountain biking, skiing etc. Jill and I were really excited to meet people who like doing "outdoorsy" activities because we haven't met many people who do. They are both really nice and really eager to learn more English. They both speak English very well, they are almost fluent. It makes it easy for us because when we forget a word in Spanish we can just say it in English and they know the translation! We usually have conversations in English and Spanish, we just switch languages whenever.

Since Wednesday we have gone out with them two times. Fernando introduced us to some of his friends and we went out for tapas on Friday night. Fernando lives very close to us (on the outskirts of town) so every time we have gone out at night he walks us home to make sure we get there safely...very sweet! I have already learned so much from them, even an awesome little shortcut on the way home from the center of the city! I have learned more about Granada, Spain and the Spanish culture in the last few times we've spent time with them, than I have the whole month I have been living with my host family! Last night we went to another teteria (Arabic tea cafe) that had an amazing view of La Alhambra, which is beautifully illuminated at night. After having tea we went to a plaza in Granada which was hosting a chocolate fair! We ate crepes with homemade chocolate...yummy! Then we met up with some of their friends and we went to a popular pizza place in Granada. They are really fun people, I can tell I am going to learn a lot from them! Here are some pics:


Fernando, me and Alejandro at the choclate fair!

The chocolate fair :)

Eating pizza with Fernando (aka "Fern")

Jill, Fernando and I at a tapas place

Fernando's group

Fotos de Granada

Some of the beautiful flowers in the gardens of La Alhambra :)


La Alhambra, one of the Moorish buildings...amazing architecture!

Fotos de Granada!

Jill and I in one of the many gorgeous plazas in Granada :)


Centro de Lenguas Modernas, my school!


This is our cozy room :-)


The famous "Churros con chocolate." The other day Jill and I went to get churros con chocolate with our two friends for the first time. When the waiter came up to us and asked us if we wanted four orders we figured that was right because we thought you would get one churro per order. Little did we know one order means five churros!!! ahhh we had wayyyy to many churros, enough to feed an army! hahaha they are really good though, very rich!


yummmy :-)

Hike in the Sierra Nevadas

Last Friday we went for a hike in the Sierra Nevada mountains with one of our directors. It was absolutely gorgeous! Our director's name is Christian but everyone calls him "titi" (it sounds a lot different in Spanish than the way we would pronounce it in English haha). He is really funny, especially when he tries to crack a joke in English with his British accent. Anywho, we hiked for about six hours through the mountains and stopped near a beautiful waterfall for almuerzo (lunch). Our host Mom, Mary, packed Jill and I a "bocadillo," which means sandwich. Of course it was a ham sandwich...haha I swear that's all they eat here. We were really lucky because last Friday was probably the last day of sun, it has been raining since Saturday! We saw some mountain goats on the way up which was fun! At first I thought they were deer from far away, but I was quickly corrected by "titi". The view from the top of the mountain was breathtaking. The sky was crystal blue with beautiful clouds. There were a lot of pomegranate trees on the way up (Granada means pomegranate, hence the abundance of pomegranate trees here)! Here are some pictures from the hike :)






My friend Sherman and I on one of the many suspension bridges!


Where we stopped for lunch, beautiful!


Our director, "titi", pointing to the sign at the beginning of the hike

Granada pictures!

Pictures of La Alhambra, the famous monument in Granada which is a mix of Moorish and Catholic palaces. It was built in 1238 and is still gorgeous!

Granada :-)

We have been in Granada for a little over two weeks now, wow I can't believe how fast time flies! Here's a little bit about my experience so far in Granada. Jill and I share a room in our host family's apartment. Their apartment is really modern compared to most apartments in Granada, they even have a dishwasher and dryer! Our host Mom's name is Mary, Dad is Antonio, daughter is Laura and son is Antonio Jr. At first we were really excited that our host family has kids our age, Antonio is 20. We thought they would take us out and show us around the city or give us tips on the best places to go. However, neither of them seem to take much interest in us (They are pretty spoiled!). They have been housing international students for over six years, so I have a feeling they are a little over it. Our host dad is really nice and often starts conversations with us at the dinner table, we especially love to talk about soccer! Our host mom, on the other hand, doesn't seem to care too much to get to know us. Our host family is a lot different than most of the other families in the program because most only consist of a Señora, who's children have probably moved out of the house. Either way, it has been fun experiencing what life is like in another culture.

Experiencing the food here has been quite an adventure. Breakfast is not really a meal at all here, Mary leaves us crackers or a little muffin. It's hard for us to get used to that because Jill and I both love a big breakfast. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day, around 3pm. Dinner is very light, which is nice because they don't eat dinner until around 10pm! Jill and I have been going to the grocery store to get snacks, because it is so hard to go all day with no food until lunch at 3pm! We are dying for some vegetables! Mary does not make veggies or salads often because her kids do not like them. The diet here basically consists of carbs and more carbs haha. Jill and I are probably going to ask her if we can have more salads and veggies, because my stomach just can't handle all the starch.

School has been really fun so far. We go to class from 9am - 1pm Monday through Friday. We don't have much homework right now because we are in the "intensive month" where the professors just concentrate on getting the students up to par with speaking Spanish. When our semester starts on Oct 7th, I will definitely have a lot of homework! It takes about 25 minutes to walk to school. It is a very nice walk, uphill for the most part...but it's a good workout! We have a beautiful river behind our house where I like to go for runs. It has been really stormy and raining a lot the last couple of days, thunder and lightening!! The cool weather has been a nice change because when we first got here it was blistering hot! With no air conditioning in the apartment, we were hot and sweaty all the time!

Last Friday we went for a hike in the Sierra Nevada mountains with one of our directors. It takes about 20 minutes on a bus to get there. We hiked for about six hours, it was beautiful! I will post some pictures of the hike. The other day we tried churros con chocolate for the first time. They are so rich...my dad would love them! They give you a cup of chocolate that tastes a lot like really thick hot chocolate and you dip your churro in the chocolate...talk about fattening!

Jill and I just finished planning our trip to Dublin and Paris! We have a week break with no school from September 30th to October 6th, so France and Ireland here we come! We found some really good deals on flights but we have to take a 5 hour bus ride from Granada to Madrid to fly out of Madrid. We are staying in Dublin for two nights and Paris for four nights! We have a free place to stay in Paris with a friend of a friend of Jill's. It will be really nice to save some money there. I can't wait! Well I have to get some homework done...pictures are coming! Love you and miss you all!
xoxoxo,
Elena

Catching Up!!

Hi everyone! I am so sorry I've neglected my blog for so long...I just got the internet at my homestay yesterday. Up until now it has been difficult to use the internet because internet cafes and my program's computer lab are only open for certain hours and I live about a 30 minute walk from the center of the city where both are located. I am going to try my best to catch you up on everything :)Below are three blog entries about Italy, Madrid and Toledo...the beginning of my trip! I will be adding an entry about getting settled in Granada soon! Hope all is well! xoxo

Italy

Italy was absolutely amazing! I fell in love with Cinque Terre, it is so relaxing and beautiful! Cinque Terre consists of five little towns (Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore) which are perched up on rocky cliffs overlooking the ocean. The five villages and the surrounding hillsides are all part of the Cinque Terre National Park. Jill and I were so surprised when we got to our room and it had an amazing ocean view and balcony. We had read that our room would have an ocean view, but we weren't expecting to be able to lie in our bed and see the whole city of Manarola and the ocean! We visited each of the five villages by hiking or by train. Each village is a little different in its own way, although they all look really similar with the brightly colored buildings. Monterosso is the most “touristy” village, with a big sandy beach and a boardwalk. The walk from Manarola to Riomaggiore is called Via Dell'Amor, or Lover’s Walk, because it is probably the most beautiful path between all five cities. I couldn’t possibly pick my favorite of the five villages, I loved them all!



^ Views from our balcony in Manarola, Cinque Terre ^

After spending three days in Cinque Terre, we left on the train for Florence. We stayed at a really nice hostel in the heart of Florence. It was a big change going from a quaint and peaceful place like Cinque Terre to the bustling city of Florence; however I enjoyed the change of pace. The first evening Jill and I bought a ticket to enter the Duomo, a famous cathedral in Florence. We walked up the four hundred and something stairs to the top of the dome. It was a very hot day in Florence, and the stairway up to the top was not exactly made for many a lot of people to use at once. To say the least, we got a little bit sweaty on the way up hahaha. However, the view from the top was definitely worth it. We could see the whole city of Florence! The next day we bought a ticket to take a bus tour of Florence, which was the best idea ever! The bus took us all around the city with stops at all the major attractions. You were able to get on and off the bus as you wanted, with a new bus coming every 30 minutes. Without this bus tour, we probably would not have known about Piazza Michelangelo, a beautiful plaza with a breathtaking panoramic view of the city. We had our fair share of gelato throughout our backpacking trip through Italy, which was soooo yummy! After two days of touring around Florence, we left on the train to head back to Genoa, where our flight flew out of for Madrid.




^The beauty of Florence!

Madrid

Arriving in Madrid was a little hectic because we had a short amount of time to run to our lockers (where we kept the majority of our luggage while traveling in Italy), reorganize our bags and find our program directors who were supposed to be holding a big “ISA- International Studies Abroad” sign. After finding our directors and meeting some other students, we left the bus to head to the airport. From the very first day in Madrid I could tell our program directors were really nice (and all hilarious too!) It was so nice being in Madrid because our program directors had all the tours planned for us and told us about the best places to go for tapas!! (Tapas are basically a variety of appetizers. Most tapas restaurants give you a free tapa when you buy a drink). This being our first time in Europe, Jill and I were really relieved to be with people who knew exactly what they were doing…no more running around like a chicken with its head cut off... like we felt we were doing in Italy! We stayed in Madrid from Aug 27th to 29th in a really nice five star hotel (with an amazing continental breakfast I must add). In Madrid we went to El Museo del Prado, a famous museum which houses incredible paintings by artists such as Rembrandt, El Greco, Velazquez, and Francisco de Goya. We also went to El Palacio Real (The Royal Palace) in Madrid, which was built during the 18th and 19th centuries for the royal family. It is now used for state ceremonies and open for the public to visit. It was truly amazing to see how lavish each of the rooms were, decorated with such fine detail! We also had a couple meetings in Madrid for orientation and about academics for the semester.






El Palacio Real in Madrid

Toledo

From Aug 29th to the 31st we were in Toledo, a beautiful city about an hour and a half outside of Madrid. We stayed at another really nice hotel with an awesome swimming pool (which was nice because it was really really hot!). On the way to Toledo the bus stopped at Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen), which is a giant memorial for Franco, the dictator that ruled Spain for about 30 years. Franco is buried inside this memorial, which consists of a giant cross and a cathedral. Our directors did not come inside the memorial because Franco's rule is a very sensitive subject, as he was a harsh dictator and killed many people. After the Spanish Civil War Franco took many people from the opposition party prisoner and forced them to build this memorial. The location of the memorial is very far up a mountain, and because of the horrible working conditions thousands of people died during the construction. As you can tell, this was a very morbid and kind of creepy place to see. Many of the statues in and around the memorial reminded me of the dementors from Harry Potter. To say the least, I didn't really like being inside this memorial...it's a very creepy place!

This photo is of Valle de los Caidos, Franco's memorial.


After spending about an hour at Valle de los Caidos the bus took us to El Escorial, an enormous building which was once a monastery and a Spanish royal palace. Our tour guide at El Escorial was really fascinating, he knew so much about history, it amazed me! Although he spoke extremely fast in Spanish, I was able to understand a lot of what he was saying. El Escorial houses the Pantheon of the Kings, a circular room with rows of marble cofins that contain the remains of kings and ruling queens of the Hapsburg and Bourban dynasties. The center of El Escorial is an enormous and very beautiful cathedral. This enormous palace and monastery was completed in 1584...so amazing that such an extravagant building was built so long ago! After touring El Escorial for a majority of the day, we finally arrived in Toledo. We had a free night the first night in Toledo, where a bunch of us went and explored the city. At dinner in Toledo I tried my first Tortilla Española and fell in love with it! It is very different from the tortillas we are used to, it is more like a potatoe and egg omelet. So yummy! (My host mom is going to teach me how to make it!). The next day we spent learning a lot of history through our walking tour of Toledo. On our last night in Toledo we had a meeting about our host families. Our directors spoke to us about cultural differences and what we should expect. The directors are really funny, especially Marisa. She had almost all of the students in tears with her animated comparisons of what life is like in Spain compared to the US. She told us that people in Spain are really straightforward and blunt, and that we shouldn’t take it seriously if our host mom says something we normally consider offensive. They also told us how we have to be very considerate of water and electrical usage. Water and electricity is really expensive here, which is why many señoras (host moms) will yell at American students for using too much. Not wasting water and electricity is a great thing to get used to anyway! On the 31^st we left Toledo for the five hour bus ride to Granada where we met our host families! More on Granada and my host family is coming soon!!

xoxo,

Elena (as my host family calls me!)
Jill and I with the beautiful city of Toledo in the background :)

Jill and I in one of the courtyards at El Escorial

My excitement as I try my first Tortilla Española :-)