ROAD TRIP IN SPAIN

All right, you better brace yourself cause this could be a long one!
So, Road Trip. Well, a girl in my program, Stephanie, is doing Grad work for Thompson while she is here and has to collect a lot of Interviews (or Entrevistas). She really had to go back to Sevilla for more data and decided to rent a car.... hence, Road Trip. At first, only I was going to go with her, but that changed later.

Okay, so Saturday Morning:

We start out in Granada. My entire group actually had an excursion that day to Almunecar and to Nerja. We met them at the desginated place, but we rented the car that morning and just followed the bus. On this leg of the journey, it was me (of course :D )and Stephanie and Jeff. It was petty fun following the bus. We had some awesome boy band karaoke going on as well as some 70s playing.

Almunecar:

Here, we stopped to look at some Roman Ruins and an old Moorish Castle, Castillo de San Miguel. It was pretty cool stuff. I don't remember the exact years of it all, but the Moors invaded during the 7th century I believe and the Romans were there before that, so that gives you a pretty good idea.

Nerja

We stopped here to visit some caves. They were also pretty awesome but I never really got the full history of them, so I think I like the caves at Gibraltar better. I know that these caves are really old though.... some remains might have been found in them.... remains from one of the phases of evolution I think.
I think it was in Nerja that we also spotted the remains of a Roman Aqueduct. How cool is that?!
After the caves, we had a buffet lunch with food in epic proportions. You think I'm kidding, but I am not.
Then, after food.... Beach! I did not really get in because we were planning on skipping most of the beach time so we could go ahead and start our Road Trip.

Which brings me to...... ROAD TRIP!!!!!!
Okay, so during the morning, we had picked up two more for the road trip: Frank and Stephanie Pego (called Pego). Jeff, in case you are wondering, did not actually go on the full trip with us, he just rode with us on the way there. LAME. haha, just kidding, he just didn't want to spend too much money.
ANYWAY, so the four of us set out! We were generally heading towards Huelva to see Columbus' ships but to be honest, that was pretty much as far as we had gotten in the planning portion of this trip. Not very long after we had left, though, we drove under a Cable Car line that was passing between a city just below us and the top of one of the nearby mountains. We went there. We literally pulled into the next gas stop and turned the car around to go searching for this Cable Car place. Why? Just because we could.

Arroyo de la Miel

So as we drive through this city using the Cable Cars to navigate our way to their base, we noticed there was some sort of Fair going on. When we parked, because the Fair was right next to the Cable Cars, I realized it was an entire Theme Park. Cool! We didn't go in, though. Instead, we headed over to check out the Cable Cars and decided to go up. It was pretty cool. We all shared on Cable Car which took us to the top of one of the Mountains. It felt AwEsOmE up there and had a really great view of the Spanish coast line.
As soon as we stepped off the cable Car, Frank spotted a sign that said if you drink two beers up there, you get a free hat. Stephanie and Frank drank the Beers, though I think Pego might also have helped a bit. The lady up there was nice, and gave both Stephanie and Frank a hat.

So after the beers, we walked around to check out the mountain.... they had birds there! And I am talking about BIG birds..... like Eagles, Hawks, Vulture, Owls. In fact, they had an entire BIRD SHOW! A FREE bird show, more importantly. Before it started, we hiked up to the top of the mountain and the view, once again, was really amazing!
So, the bird show. It was pretty fun to watch. The guy in charge, aka Stephanie's new Crush lol, would first speak in Spanish and then in English. Later, he told us that his mother was British and his Father was Spanish. 
During the bird show, Stephanie got to wear those thick gloves the bird people use and hold one of the birds.
So the British/Spanish guy.... he told us about a German Beer-fest inside a nearby castle. Well, Frank, Pego and Stephanie were alllll interested. We headed down the mountain (using the super cool cable car, of course) and set off!
Yeah..... we got distracted. First, we saw a sign for a Hard Rock Cafe and we thought we would sort of head in that direction.... then we got lost. Well, it wasn't really lost, but we did miss the exit for the Hard Rock, so instead we just kept driving.

Estepona

We were getting hungry. We started pulling off and noticed a stadium with it's lights on full blast. Naturally, we kept driving. JUST KIDDING! We pulled in of course! Stephanie let Frank park the car because we had to drive it over a curb and then we headed inside to check out the locals practicing their soccer game. It was kinda cool. I felt sort of sketchy with all four of us just standing in the bleachers watching them practice, but oh well :)
Afterwords, we decided to head in search of some food and possibly a place to stay.

We stopped in at this one restaurant/bar and ordered some tapas. The waiter was wearing this outfit that was  ketchup-red and mustard-yellow, earning him the nickname of "Ketchup and Mustard." When Ketchup and Mustard figured out we were students from the USA, he called his buddy over who happened to be from Indiana. What are the chances? This guy had come over a few years back and decided to stay. They both gave us directions to some hostels/hotels around and we set off!

Cute pet Ferret we encountered.

Now Estepona is located right on the coast, so as we walked down the road, we were walking parallel to the Med Sea. Of course, since it was around 11pm or so, we couldn't actually see very much of it, but it is still pretty cool. A street or two over, we stopped at a hostel to see if we could stay there..... except, we didn't know how to get in. It was located above a cafe and there was no clear entrance. The cafe guy told us to sit and wait at his tables and the person from the Hostel would come down, We waited. And waited. and might have kept waiting..... but we were impatient people. PLUS, there was this creepy-to-the-max guy sitting at the counter of the cafe and kept throwing us dirty looks.... of course, thinking back, his face might have just been arranged that way permanently in which case he wasn't really creepily glaring at us every time he looked over, but who knows? In any case, we left. We found another hostel about a block over and it was really nice! We got two rooms, but they were joined together with one bathroom, for about 20 each. It was a really nice hostel, though. It probably could have been a low star hotel, as a matter of fact. We stashed our stuff and then went out for some ice cream on the beach of the Med Sea. The water was cooooooooold. No, I did not go for a late night swim, but I walked around about up to my calves. Frank, however, did take a short swim. Literally, it was for only a minute or two, before we went back to our hostel to sleep.

Next Morning:
Breakfast at a cafe then an Out-Door Market before heading off again!

Huelva

We FINALLY made it to Huelva! Yay!.... but it still took us like an hour to find Columbus' boats!
First of all, it was a Sunday. SO MUCH STUFF SHUTS DOWN ON SUNDAYS!!!!....which is weird since MOST Spaniards aren't actually PRACTICING their religions.
But we eventually found them! THEY WERE...... so small. That's right. Small. Tiny. In fact, I am pretty sure I would not consider crossing the ocean on them. The smallest one, which I believe is the Nina (but I could be wrong), was probably smaller than a typical city bus would be. yikes! We wondered around the area a bit.... they even had nude native American statues to represent the New World Area. THAT was super exciting. *insert sarcasm* lol So, back to:

Sevilla

We stopped here for some food and for some Entrevistas for Stephannie. It was here that we had to decide between going south to Malaga for some beach time the next morning before heading back, or instead swinging over to Cordoba, another of Andalucia's provinces and major cities, then on to Jaen the next day on our way back to Granada. We chose the Cordoba route.

Cordoba

We got to Cordoba that night and headed out in search of a hostel or hotel. We quickly learned that Cordoba was NOT designed with vehicles in mind. In fact, Cordoba is very very very very (you get the picture?) old. They don't even have bus tours there because they can't navigate the roads. Our time spent driving around in search of a place to stay involved tiny one way streets, streets that we THOUGHT were streets but were really just walkways, huge circles to just end up right back where we started, and an exciting police pursuit. Yeah, I am actually not kidding about that last one either, though it was not, I repeat, NOT us being pursued. Eventually, we settled on some low ranked Hotel.... partly because it was the same price as the hostel, and partly because we didn't know if we could find either one again if we left. This place was also pretty nice. We stayed in two separate rooms this time, each with our own bathroom.
In the morning, we set our for breakfast, an atm stop then off to see the sights!

Actually, we only really went to one place in Codoba, which is the Mezquita..... this HUGE cathedral. Okay, to give a short and certainly not detailed enough description: Roman temple turned Christian temple, turned HUGE MUSLIM MOSQUE from the 8th- 12th century, and then, instead of building a new cathedral after conquering the moors, the Christians just converted the Mosque into a Cathedral. Really Old. Really Huge. Really Beautiful.

Jaen

After Cordoba, we drove for a wine tasting in Montilla, then onwards to Jaen. Jaen seemed pretty cool, but to be honest, we didn't really have much time to stop or anything. We took some pictures of the surrounding area, but by this time we really needed to be heading back for classes and stuff.

Granada

Well, seeing how it was Monday and it was a school week, we headed back to Granada. Stephanie and I let Pego and Frank out close to their houses and then tried (and failed for almost an hour) to navigate the streets of Granada. I flagged a taxi down New York style after we dropped the car off and we were headed back to school!

End of road trip. To be honest, there was a lot more I could have written, but these were all the important parts, I promise!!!!

More Days in Granada

Hey.
It is Thursday night (10:04) if you wanted to know.... I wish it was friday!

So I went to that Cathedral and the Capilla Real where the remains of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand are. No pictures allowed, but I got one anyway. It is not exactly the perfect picture, though, since I had to be sneaky and people from my group kept getting the way. Plus, I hadn't actually charged my camera so the battery was pretty much running on empty. Oh well, at least my stalker picture-taking has paid off at last. (Kristin, this comment was for your benefit. Stalker pictures ARE worth practicing. *cough cough*)

ANYWAY, The cathedral is HUGE of course and was kind of cool to walk around in.it was actually totally different from the cathedral we visited in Sevilla. This one is all white and super spacious on the inside. All the lighting is like natural sunlight...none of that dark Gothic stuff.



After that, I had to go work on my group presentation power point. Immigration = Blah topic. Not really, I actually think we did pretty well. I put up a slide of all those racist jokes we all love (you know, the "How many Mexicans does it take to screw in a light bulb...." ones) as well as a similar slide of popular jokes about religion. Those were both a pretty big hit.
In other news, I bought TWO pairs of shoes today  XD
One pair is purple heels.... AWESOME, though slightly higher and narrower than I usually wear. Still love 'em though!
The other pair is just plain white flats but I liked them. I will NOT be wearing them around Granada though because my feet always get so dirty here!
As for food today:
Lunch.... Broccoli and potatoes
Dinner.... Soup (some kind of broth with noodles), egg with those hot dog-like (but better) things mixed in and a few potato chips. And Yogurt.

So this weekend I am going to Nerja for at least part of the day on Saturday... still unsure of any other weekend plans. I wanted to go White Water Rafting but that has been canceled. One girl is going back to Sevilla and I might go with her. We would see some more sights there and then hopefully travel around to some other smaller places. We both want to go to Huelva, which where Columbus sailed from! They have replicas of all three ships from his first voyage that you can go on.

Oh, and I can't believe I forgot to mention this..... most Europeans consider there to be 5 continents. I think it goes: Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas (all lumped together). They either discount Antarctica or maybe they just lump it in somewhere else. Isn't that interesting? You would think of all things that we would agree on the number of continents.

No queso por favor.

Hi again! I know, I know it has been a week since I posted but whatever :)

On Friday my computer decided to stop charging, or I guess what actually happened was that my chords decided they would stop charging the computer. And it died. PLUS, I went to Sevilla this weekend with my group and I wouldn´t have had internet there anyway.

So, Sevilla. It is HooooooooooooooT! It at least reached 48 Celcius which, if I remember correctly is around 114 US-wise. We went to this one place called Plaza de España and they said that it was used to film a scene from one of the Star Wars movies!.... the guide had no idea which one, of course. So that was pretty cool. I also saw Christopher Columbus´tomb.

The first night, a group of us went to a sit-down Dominos. We ordered a four cheese pizza.... MISTAKE. Apparently they use some type of cheese not very common in the US and it was nasty! Literally, it tasted rotten. They brought us a different pizza though which was nice of them. That pizza tasted fine, thank goodness. We played Phase 10 in the hotel after that.

The next day, I set off by myself to a town called Caroma. They have the ruins of a Roman Necropolis and amphitheater there as well as some sort of old fort. It was pretty cool to see, though nerve racking to be all alone!
That night in Sevilla, we played more cards. And, we managed to watch Aladdin, Pocahontas and part of Toy Story 2 in Spanish. Awesome!

So.... that was the weekend.
Monday. Pretty much uneventful as far as I can remember. I did get to watch True Blood, though, which was awesome, as usual. And I finally got to Skype my mom and Aunt Stacy which was cool.
Tuesday. el mismo. I got to Skype my dad, though, who is in Korea for business. He doesn´t have a web cam with him, so it was more or less like a phone call.
I did get a universal charger for my computer, except it doesn´t actually charge. It gives just enough power to turn it on.Oh well, beggars can't be choosers.
Today. Well, I gave my presentation today about why the US should have an official language. Super fun. I am going to this HUGE Cathedral later as well as something called the Capilla Real. But after that, it is back to work because I have a group presentation tomorrow on Immigration.
And by the way it is 12 : 46 local time.... none of that 3 am stuff. My poor computer is all confused about what day and time it is here.  :)

Here are some pics from the hiking (or scenderismo, as we call it here) that I mentioned in my last post:

Una Hamburguesa

Hola! It is 12:29 and I am in the school computer lab right now waiting for class to start... I still have an hour! Today, I am supposed to be going on a hike above the city... exciting, I guess :)
Last night, we had hamburgers for dinner! They are not really my favorite but that is okay. We did have watermelon during lunch though which WAS exciting. We also had Paella for lunch but it really wasn´t that good... I think one from a restaurant might be better. Don´t get me wrong, it was tasty, but I think it came in a bag and she just sort of mixed it all together and cooked in like Rice-a-Roni (if that is how it is spelled).
I am already sort of hungry but I won´t be eating lunch for at least an hour and a half. Since one of my classes was canceled today, a group of about six of us stopped in at this bar for a snack on our way to the building. I only ordered some Pineapple Juice (sooooo good!) but I also had a piece of a churro while I was there. I meant to bring some bread with me to snack on but I forgot it :(
Oh well, guess I will just wait for lunch.

On a side note:
There is tons of graffiti all over the city...apparently they like it! Check it out!

The "Rock" of Gibraltar

So you might have noticed the quotations around the word Rock in my title.... well if you have never seen Gibraltar, you might not be aware that it looks much more like a mountain!... especially to us Floridians who are used to everything being flat flat flat.
Take a look:



Okay, so a couple things you might want to know about Gibraltar that you didn't know already:
1.) Gibraltar is considered a part of Great Britain. It uses their currency AND even has the red phone booths.
2.) Gibraltar is at the southern tip of Spain. In fact, it borders the Spanish town of La Linea. The picture of Gibraltar from farther away (up above) was actually taken from Spain.
And the picture below is of the Spanish mountains that end where the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean meet.

3.) You are able to see the mountains of Africa from Gibraltar.... weather permitting. It is very misty there but this is one of the clearer pictures I have.

4.) Gibraltar has an ANCIENT history.... some think that references to the Gates of Hades from stories about ancient Greek heroes refers to the caves in the mountain. Plus, that area of Spain is one of the first to be populated, not to mention the influence of the Moors and the British.
5.) The entire mountain in filled with Apes that are completely free to roam around.

This Ape, named Gregory, actually took my friend's backpack off of her back and unzipped it to look for food that he smelled. He ate all of her snacks and she couldn't do anything about it! Apes were all over just wondering around freely.

It was a pretty interesting trip, all in all. The bus ride was about 5 hours each way and cost about 20 euros.... not bad. In Gibraltar, though, they use mainly British Pounds which is more expensive. They would let you use Euros, but the hiked up the exchange rate. Many of the people there spoke both English and Spanish, which was pretty interesting.

We stayed in Gibraltar Saturday, got two hotel rooms and then left on Sunday morning.
There were 5 of us total, three girls, two boys, so the hotel situation was a little iffy.  Europe is not big on more people sharing a room than they paid for, and are often not fans of letting guys and girls share rooms together. We ended up finding a place with 3 beds in one room and a room with 2 beds which was perfect. The restrooms where shared at the end of the hallway, though.

Championes del Mundo

Okay, so just a few more words about the World Cup.... It was awesome!

There were SOOOOOOOO many people! I think the entire country was celebrating ALL NIGHT! What's really crazy is.... they were all awake and at work and school today. Impressive!I took lots of pictures and videos, but I think I will never be able to accurately describe the hysteria.

WORLD CUP!!!!

So I have SO much to tell you about my trip to Gibraltar but.....
AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! SPAIN JUST WON THEIR FIRST WORLD CUP!!!!!!!!!

When they FiNaLlY scored a goal in overtime, or whatever that is for soccer, there were shouts from everywhere, horns blowing.... it was really cool. And when the game ended, they all went crazy. Actually, I can STILL here them going crazy through my window. Pretty much the entire city.... teens, adults, elderly, parents with their children of all ages.... came outside to celebrate. Suddenly, there were hundreds of cars going by all honking and waving their flags out the window. Everybody crowded around the walking bridge and was jumping into the river. There is also a HUGE statue/fountain of Isabel and Ferdinand a block or so away and apparently people were jumping in that (says the now wet house brother, Nacho). Conchi told me that every major city has a fountain like that or very similar where people go to celebrate.
There were even fireworks going off!... which is cool since Nacho told me they were illegal in Granada.
More on Gibraltar tomorrow.... I have class at 8 and it is 1:15am  :0

French Tortilla

Hey, I'm back!!! AND I just finished lunch... it is about 3:45ish Spain time :)
Lunch = yuck. It was some kind of white beans... yuck. Cold tomatoes... yuck. Tuna... yuck. Green olives... yuck. Onions... okay, though preferably not cold. Egg... okay, depending on the way it is cooked.

Conchi decided that the reason I didn't seem to like it was because I am still unaccustomed to the amount of Olive Oil they use... not so sure about that. But then, she brought out the usual fruity dessert.... an Apple (yum) that was big enough to be a meal by itself!

I have found that a lot of food we are eating here is very similar to what we eat at home, but different. For example, last night I ate 3 hot dogs (though they looked like better quality meat than our hot dogs and were smaller in size) and mashed potatoes (not the real kind, but still pretty good). I don't USUALLY eat these together, but I like them both. She also gave me Ketchup. :) The night before, we had a potato soup which was REALLY tasty. Conchi also made what I have since learned is considered the French Tortilla. It is an egg cooked on the stove like normal but flat like a tortilla. To go with this, we had a slice of Bologna.

In other news, Monique has moved out into another house so I now have my own room and, more importantly, my own fan. yay! A word about that.... Monique was soooo rude! She arranged to be moved out and the school called Conchi during the day to tell her. Monique told me at school, but didn't come home with me. Later, while I was eating lunch with Conchi and Nacho, she came into the house and the kitchen, looked directly at me (and only me) and told me, IN ENGLISH, to tell Conchi she was getting her stuff and not coming back. Then she left, and went into the room to get her stuff. Conchi went in there after a few minutes and was talking to her. She was pretty much asking for Monique to go say goodbye and thank you to Nacho. (He had helped her when her luggage hadn't been here at first and had let her use his phone and stuff). But Moniue just kept saying "No entiendo. No entiendo." (I don't understand.). Then she left. The weirdest part was that she didn't even take everything! And. later that week, a box arrived for her from her mom with a few pants, shirts and underwear in case she hadn't received her luggage yet. They were boy clothes. Conchi thought that was the weirdest  thing ever, and I had to agree it was pretty strange.

One of the worst parts about that whole situation is that Conchi likes to discuss it with me over and over and over again. Now I have nothing against Spaniards, right, but they are racist. I'm not just talking in an "under the table" sort of secret way... but like in a "full out everyone knows" kind of way. To be fair, they have a lot of issues with people coming over illegally from Africa and causing trouble around the city, so it is no surprise they act the way they do a bit. Conchi had never hosted a "persona de calor" as she calls Monique, but had assumed it would really be no different than any other person...her mind is forever changed. It is a little sad that Monique's bad attitude has negatively influenced Conchi, but there is really no remedy for that.

I think I mentioned it before, but it is hot here!... though without humidity, so honestly it feels a lot better to me. Since I am not used to Celsius, though, I only just now realized that we went over a hundred at least three or four out of the eight days I have been here, maybe more.Thankfully, I have been very fortunate, I now realize, in ending up with Conchi. The only room in her house that has air conditioning is the kitchen, but she uses it freely, so that is nice. Also, she placed a fan in my room for me to use. She has actually come into my room before when I've not had it on and scolded me for not using it! This is completely different from some of the other students in my program! Some of them aren't allowed to use a fan even if they buy it themselves!

Also, in other news, I have figured out a little more of Conchi's children... Miguel is the oldest and lives in Malaga from what I can tell. I am in his old room, which has a bunch of sports posters, most of then American, including a SIGNED Michael Jordan poster. Cool. Now for Rosa and Nacho.... you'll never guess... TWINS! I think Rosa is older though. I am still not sure what she does, but Nacho gets up really early in the morning and works till about 3pm.They are both nearing 30 years old. Apparently in Spain, though, it is completely normal for kids to  live at home until in their 30s when they get married and move away. Miguel isn't married, so I am assuming he moved for work. I didn't want to ask in case it was a touchy subject, but the Mr. Conchi (or whatever his name was) appears to be deceased. Conchi's mother was over the other day, though... ancient! But Conchi was feeling particularly generous and fed me some of the ice cream they were sharing!

Hmm, what else? Oh yeah: SPAIN IS GOING TO THE WORLD CUP FINAL!
It is funny how many Spaniards were sure they would loose the semi-final. When they won, they lost it. Seriously. They were crying, screaming, running through the streets and jumping into the river and fountains.... some of them were even sin ropa  0_0

Umm... lets see.... I have started my classes. From 9am-11am I take Conversations with Dr T. Then, I have to high-tail it to the other building for my 11am-12pm Historia class. After that, I have a 1:30 to 2:30 Spanish Civilization and Culture class, then home for lunch :)

What is weird about classes here is that when teachers miss class, they just assign makeup classes or replacement classes. My History teacher, for example, missed the first day, so yesterday, he told us we had to come back later for another hour of class. And my Civ and Culture teacher made us stay an extra hour after class yesterday as well because she wanted to cancel class today. Dislike. Why should they get to do that??

Anyway, so this weekend is our only completely free weekend while we are here. I am pretty sure I am going down to Gibraltar tomorrow which I hope will be really awesome :) That's all for right now I guess.... time for my siesta (which reminds me, we Americans should also petition for a nationally recognized nap time).
Hasta luego.

La Playa Herradura

July 3rd 2010
THE BEACH!
Breakfast at 9:30... toast and some bread that had a sort of cinnamon flavoring on it. The milk was not room temperature this morning, but cold, thank goodness. I noticed that Conchi had boxes of milk stacked up in her pantry, so I guess she sticks them in the fridge only once they're opened. Having cold milk was better, but it still tasted way different from my beloved Publix brand skim milk back home! Thankfully,  Monique got two pieces of toast so no more trouble there.  :)
After that, we headed out to meet up with the group at 10 for LA PLAYA!!!!... Of course, we didn't actually leave until 10:30. The beach was about an hour away but there was some pretty cool scenery along the way.



Surprisingly, it was sort of windy and overcast which is pretty rare for Spain at this time of year. It was perfect for me though because I didn't have to worry about getting sunburned! There was no sand on the beach, but instead there were rocks.

Group shot!

 I went kayaking with a girl named Haven who, coincidentally, is going to be my roommate next year at school. We made it all the way out and almost all the way back before we flipped. What was funny about flipping was that it was so sudden we hadn't even really realized what was happening then BAM!.... in the water. The COLD water. After we got back, we spent about thirty minutes looking for Sea Glass and then walked over to a little sea side restaurant to eat. Apparently, our House Moms are supposed to pack us picnic lunches for things like this but ours hadn't bothered. Instead, I got Rosada Frita and then some chocolate ice cream.

La Playa Herradura

My Rosada Frita

A pic of the shore... you can kind of make out the rocks.

After that, we pretty much headed back.
At 8:30, though, Spain was playing Soccer so Monique and I went out to watch with some of our other group buddies. Since we would be leaving around 8 and dinner is usually around 9:30, we asked Conchi if she would maybe make something for us before we left. She refused. "Spanish people only eat at 9:30" she insisted.

Game day spirit was pretty intense. Now this is July 2010, so the World Cup is going on and Spain is still in the running. We went to this one place where they broadcasted the game live on a HUGE screen inside a tent. It was packed! On top of that, any restaurant, store or bar with a tv (which was almost all of them) had crowds. Everyone was cheering and decked out in red and yellow. Wherever we went, we could hear the people's reactions to whatever was happening in the game. Once, when we stopped in a Burger King for one of the girls with us to use the restroom, and while we were there, an enormous roar came from the kitchen and one of the workers burst out front yelling that Spain had scored. Everybody eating started chanting, cheering and singing.
Even as Monique and I were walking home (the game was not over yet) the cars in the streets were honking the tunes to their favorite fight songs back and forth to each other. When we turned onto our street, the children were all running around with their flags shouting "Viva Espana" and kicking their soccer balls. I have never experienced anything quite like this is America... things like the Superbowl don't even compare!

Tortilla Espanola

Okay, July 2nd 2010
Friday, Day 2.... Test Day.
Test? We had to take a placement test at 9am so the people at the University of Granada could make sure we were placed in teh correct class level. There were three parts:
1.) Written.... I got about a 6/9 on this.
2.) Grammar.... 4/9... yeah....
3.) Oral.... 5/9ish
My average? Still not sure what they officially decided but it was a 5 or a 6. So, yay!!!!!

This is my breakfast...for today and every day while I'm here!

I should tell you about Breakfast, though. When Monique and I woke up, we went to the kitchen. Conchi asked what we wanted to drink. When I asked if she had milk, she wanted to know if I wanted chocolate or sugar put into it and if I wanted her to heat it up. She looked a little weird-ed out when I kept wanting plain white milk. It was room temperature. eww. She also gave each of us one piece of toast and then put a basket of these cracker-like things in front of us. Monique didn't really like the cracker things so she asked for another piece of toast. I seriously thought Conchi was going to throw a fit. She kept saying things like "One piece of toast EACH and then the crackers." Then, she huffed off and brought Monique another piece of toast. She said "TWO pieces of toast each morning, now. You will get TWO pieces."
Monique speaks practically no Spanish, mind you, and does not seem very interested in trying, so communicating is going to be a hassle.  Whew, but with that out of the way, we prepared to head  off to the school.

Conchi walked with us to the University for our tests so we would know where to go... it is about ten minutes away.I might have never found it, though if it wasn't for her! While we walked, she pointed out things along the way, like a really old movie theatre or a big fountain. She tried asking us about ourselves a bit, but Monique kept lagging behind and was uncooperative.

This is the school. Unreal, right? It is just this cute courtyard! Actually, it reminds me of my high school, which also had Spanish styled courtyards like this. The top had a retractable roof to create shade during the afternoons. 

After the tests, we had an "orientation." Basically, Thompson told us some stuff and then some lady gave us some papers to fill out and then this guy (I will call him Rec Guy until I remember his name) told us about  activities we could participate in.

This is the whole UCF group!

When we finally went home for lunch.... Spaghetti!!! It was very Hamburger Helper tasting though, and Conchi gave us each about four times the amount that I would ever be able to eat in one setting...and then grumbled when we couldn't finish it. Monique didn't like it, but I thought it tasted okay even if there was wayyy too much to eat. There was also a girl there, Rosa, who looks to be in her late twenties. At first I had no idea what she was doing there, but then she explained that she was Conchi's daughter who also live at the house. Apparently she had been out until late the night before.
While we were eating, Rosa asked if I wanted a Banana as well. I would eat a couple bites of Spaghetti then take a bite of banana and so forth.... Rosa could not believe it! She kept saying "No, No, the Banana is for after the meal. You like them together?" This leads me to believe that fruit is more like a dessert.
After lunch, Monique wanted to go out for a bit but first Conchi taught us how to work her locks. She has a crazy door! It has four dead bolts that close when the key is turned all the way... no amount of credit-carding will get you through these locks!
So I stayed in, trying to get the internet to work.... got to Skype with dad (yay) and then went and walked around for a bit. I could see the hills and mountains through the buildings.There is still snow on the tops!


When I got back, Monique had just taken a shower and had been told she was using too much water. Now our showers the first day had been about 5 minutes each... I thought that was pretty good for two United States girls, right? Instead, Conchi wants us to get wet then turn the water off and wash ourselves THEN turn the water on again to rinse off. I tried my best to use AS LITTLE WATER AS POSSIBLE when I went in next.I was not lectured, so I guess I did an all right job.
Okay, so it is 9:30 right now as I am writing this, and I am HUNGRY! Monique was laying down so I went into the kitchen to see what was for dinner. Nobody was there. Well, I didn't know what to do about that so I went back to the room and told Monique. Thankfully, Conchi's daughter popped her head out of her room just then and told us she was making dinner. Back in a flash!

~*~

Hello again!
About dinner...I did not eat much. Now I know I am a pretty picky eater sometimes but you'd think I would like at least one thing in a meal.
1.) Spanish Tortilla. Now, I've had some of these that did not taste too outrageous but this one tasted like mayonnaise. Cold mayonnaise. For those of you who don't know... a Spanish tortilla is generally made out of potatoes and eggs and is approximately an inch thick.
2.) Salad. I DO NOT like salad. It just taste like leaves to me. This one had some tuna stuff in it too, I think. I ate some to be polite...and in the hopes that my salad aversion might have gone away, but I did not enjoy it!
3.) Bread with a sort of think buttery/cheesy spread (this is pretty common in Europe) with some large pepperoni-like slices of meat on top.
I pretty much ate the bread and it's spread. For the record, I might have eaten more of the meat but it was hard to bite off with the bread. I also ate a pear afterwords.

After dinner, Monique and I walked around until about 11- which is not very late here. In fact, we passed streets and alleys full of restaurants and bars that were overflowing with people. There were people of all ages out late, too including families with small children. Some of the streets in the most popular sections have lights strung overhead, which are nice to walk around under. 


It was pretty interesting. We headed back and I am pretty much set to go to sleep right away... I think Monique is still adjusting to the time change here though. The Beach is tomorrow!

Coliflor

I wrote this on June 30/ July 1st 2010 (but I am posting it a day or two later)

Traveling sucks. Haha, well okay so I don’t really mind all that much I guess. =) But this was my first time flying alone so that was pretty cool. I took the 8am flight from Jacksonville to Atlanta. The 12:20 From ATL to New York JFK and then the 7:30 (which turned into 8:30) from there to Malaga, Spain. SPAIN!

I guess I don’t really have much to say about the flying. Maybe a few quick points?
1.) Waking up in Jacksonville at 5am is not fun. :/
2.) Terminal T in Atlanta is soooo long and is located before A, NOT after all the other letters. Weird.
3.) Turbulence can be both a plus and a minus. Plus: it is sort of like a fun ride at a park, ya know? Minus: They don’t serve beverages when there is too much of it. =(
4.) We flew in circles around Atlantic City because they wanted to stall our landing at JFK. DISLIKE. We stalled at exactly that level where your ears start popping really badly. It was soooo painful!
5.) JFK is NOT on my list of favorite airports. It was really crowded and confusing as well as really expensive… though there were not actually any good food options to choose from, of course.
6.) Sitting in the middle seat in coach is not exactly what I would call ideal on an overseas flight. Yes (mom) I did sleep some, but not well.

So, when we finally got to Malaga, 2 out of the 5 of us that managed to meet up did not get their luggage. On top of that, we had no idea what exactly we were supposed to be doing. Eventually we found Dr. Thompson (here on in, probably Dr T or just Thompson) and went to wait until 1:30 for a bus to Granada. Did I mention we were tired and starving? It was about 10am by that point (or 4am Florida time).

Granada is about an hour and a half away from Malaga and there were maybe about 10 of us on the bus. THERE ARE SO MANY OLIVE TREES IN SPAIN. I mean, I guess that is not weird, but they really were everywhere on the way to Granada.

The huge Bulls that are everywhere in South Spain!

When we arrived, the bus driver dropped all of us off in front of this little Mall and left. We had addresses to our places but, in case you don’t know, their addresses are a lot less specific than ours are. We got a road name (not pictured on the map) a number and a floor level. Yeah, we had no idea where to go. We asked a guy working in the mall if he knew and he sort of gave us an approximate location to head to which was about 15/20 minutes away.
We set off. It was myself, of course, my roommate, Monique, and two other guys in the program, Jeff and Alex. We stopped for directions again at a Mercado and found out that we were only a couple streets away. That is, we, the girls, were only a few streets away. What the boys found out (a little bit later, and after a a few more direction stops) was that their apartment was actually very close to where we had been originally dropped off! I do not envy them!
Let me just take a moment here to describe the streets of Spain to you: old and uneven. Okay, to be honest, a lot of them are fine, but they have patterns and grooves on a lot of the sidewalks. Normally, this would be something I wouldn't pay much attention to. My suitcase (and the hand that dragged it) however, said otherwise. I had blisters forming by the time we were halfway there! I also want to add, just for the record, that it was HOT out! 
So when we finally found our street, we decided the number after the street name must be the building number of the apartment. We knew the floor number, but this is very different in the USA. Their floor numbers are written as degrees. After that, there was a ‘C’ which we guessed was the specific apartment. There were two apartments, though, that were on the sixth floor and letter C. We guessed wrong the first time. When we got into the building, though, it took us three tries to find the room, because there were 4 elevators…. And they were extremely small.

This is the Apartment Building! Home sweet home :)

It was somewhere around 5pm when we reached the apartment and we were STARVING. It is too bad they don’t eat until 9:30pm in Spain.

So our host, who told us to call her Conchi, took us around her apartment. It has a lot of space. There are three full bedrooms as well as one room that seemed to be more of a study, though it looked like it might also have a bed. Our bed room has two small beds, a window, a long desk with two places and a large closet-like dresser. There is a bathroom right outside the door. The kitchen area consists of the kitchen, a place for her ironing board and a window that opens out to where she hangs her clothes to dry. It also has a wooden table with wooden booth-like seats. Connected, is a small living room. Branching off from the main entrance is also a Dining room and a more formal living room… or I guess you might call it a Den? Everything is decorated beautifully and VERY clean. She STRESSES cleanliness (hope you are happy, mom).

This is our room. I took the bed by the window.

Let me list some of Conchi's rules for keeping things clean:
1.) No bare feet. The house is entirely tile and she thinks that feet are dirtier than shoes, apparently. Thankfully, Flip Flops are okay.
2.) When we sit on the wooden booths at the table, we must sit on pillows if we have metal or plastic buttons on the pockets of our pants so they won’t scratch the wood.
3.) When we sit on the bed or put stuff on it that is rough (or basically anything not pajama/comfy clothes), we have an extra sheet we are supposed to lay on top of the other sheets.
4.) After we shower, we should spray the tub mat down to make sure there is no build up and check to make sure no hair has been caught in the drain. We also must hang our towels up.
Those are four rules, for starters. Now, in actuality, they are not really specifically extreme, but imagine trying to keep up with all of this in Spanish after just arriving from our travels and not having eaten anything since what little breakfast they gave us on the plane. Whew.

By now, it was probably closer to 6pm. Three and a half more hours till food. We milled around in our rooms and bathroom. Monique, having left her luggage in New York, did not really have much to unpack, but I put most of my stuff away. Conchi has a lot of books about Spain in our room so we sort of mulled over those as well as the Grammar book, Verb book and Spanish Harry Potter book that I had brought. Two and a half hours until food. We laid down (a feeling not experienced in MANY hours, now) and I, at least, was out like a light.

I woke up from my nap right around 9pm. Dinner finally. Monique and I went down to the kitchen where Conchi was cooking. Her two sons were also there. I am not exactly sure of their ages but the oldest one was named Miguel and he looked like he might be in his early thirties. The younger son was named Nachos and he was probably upper twenties. Both of them could speak a little English, but not much. They didn’t even stay for supper, they left to play basketball. So Monique and I sat down to our first Spanish meal. Are you ready?  Cauliflower. That’s right, I said Cauliflower.

It had some sort of Alfredo-like cheesy sauce on it. It...wasn’t bad, but let's just say I will not be willingly eating it again. She also gave us this grilled cheese sandwich thing. It was completely breaded on the outside and had cheese and thin strips of ham on the inside. Thinking back, it was probably more closely related to a cheese stick with ham inside. I was super impressed by her cooking skills to be able to have managed to get all that stuff inside the breading, but then I saw the box of them inside the freezer and was less impressed thereafter. Despite the "not-really-the-home-cooking-I-had-imagined" part, the dinner was okay.  To drink, we had water. There was no ice, but it had been in the fridge beforehand. After eating, she gave us some fruit, cherries for Monique and a pear for me. We also tried some of what we think were apricots. All in all, it was pretty good, I guess…though I was not really a fan of the potential apricot or the cauliflower. After dinner, we showered and were in bed by 11.

Spain soooooon!

June 29 2010
Okay, I am leaving for Spain TOMORROW!!!! Early :( I am not sure about my internet there, so I might be writing then entering the blogs later, I guess.