HOLA!
This Friday starts our second “spring break.” It’s called Semana Santa. Actually, Semana Santa is their week long Easter celebration. Funny thing though, they don’t really celebrate much in the usual sense—going to mass, fasting—nope they have festivals! Don’t get me wrong, they also have religious processions.
I actually came across one last week. It was really interesting: a bunch of people lined up in the middle of the street holding tall candles. With a priest leading the way and a larger than life statue of Crucifix of Jesus being carried down the calle. Apparently this is a special ceremony to bring the statue over to a different church for Semana Santa.
Still, most students at CEGRI are going traveling! Kelly, Katherine, Justine and some more people are heading over to Amsterdam, Prague, and Krakow. MaryPat and I have our families visiting. This Thursday Mom, Dad, and Elaine will be stepping into my Granada world—let’s rage! Just kidding. Before they come and we start are adventures in Malaga and Mallorca, I need to catch up on all my blogging!
Tuesday 3/9:
Basically all day I was freaking out because we had our first Culture of Islam test. I was freaking out because our teacher, Alicia, is very tough. She takes off for grammar and that is just not my strongest suit in Spanish! But the test went alright! (I ended up getting a 90%, so that’s good.)
After the test I thought about going out and celebrating the test being over—instead? I slept. Still, a good night.
Wednesday 3/10:
Wednesday was a great a day. I woke up early to meet Nerea so she could take me to the doctor. (I had an allergic reaction to the water or detergent or something.) Let me first start off by reminding you that Nerea is awesome. It was refreshing to talk with her (my senora and I don’t talk overly much). We walk to the doctor and it turns out they don’t have open hours! And their available times did not work with my schedule. Nerea and I went over to the Farmacia and I bought medicine. Then she took me out to breakfast for some pan and café con leche. I felt my Spanish improve within the 2 hours I spent with her. I tried to explain to her the difference between dog fur and dog hair. (Because my dogs have hair and its better for my allergies.) She was pretty confused when I said some dogs don’t have hair (meaning they have fur), but she had visions of hairless dogs roaming the streets of Chicago. That would be hideous.
After my day of errands with Nerea, I came back to CEGRI to find a package for me and MaryPat from Steve and Colin! That was a great surprise for the day. Colin sent me a framed picture and COOL RANCH Doritos! Those disappeared in 3 days…
During my Art class we went to visit this older Monastery called San Jeronimo in Granada. It was lovely. I’ve never felt so drawn to any sort of architecture before. The building was inspiring. The details and magnificent designs were elaborate, but overall it wasn’t overwhelming like Baroque designs. It cost 3.50 euro to get in. If it didn’t, I think I would visit there a lot to, you know, be all pensive and write.
That night Kelly, Justine, and I decided to be rebels and go out on a Wednesday night. With the full intention of going to Granada 10, the classiest discoteca in Granada…not. But it was Ladies Night. Too bad we never made it. Wednesday night turned into Wine night with the girls and Hannigan’s. Needless to say, it was a great night.
Thursday 3/11: Half way: TWO MONTHS EXACTLY SINCE THE DAY WE LEFT FOR SPAIN.
Unfortunately I completely slept through my alarm in the morning and missed my Culture of Spain class! But I still got up in time to volunteer. That was a pretty fun day. I bought myself a Coca Cola before heading to the school. A little boy let me in. He was holding a newspaper, saw my coke, dropped the newspaper and grabbed my coke. I was so shocked that I just stood there. He ran away with my coke and tried to drink it. The gym teacher ran after him. It was a really interesting moment, I didn’t know whether the boy was kidding or not. (I found out later that this school also has special needs students, which is wonderful, but that child needed extra care.) After that cute kid, I moved on to a whole classroom of cute kids! As soon as I walked into the classroom they all started shouting, “Kaye!” “Kaye!” “Profe!” “Profe!” So now I’m a professor.
I helped them pronounce the names of items in a classroom. They pick up the language really quickly. It was really cute when they tried to say anything that started with an “s” like “student” or “science.” It comes out as “ehhstudent” and “ehhscience.” Also, it made me start to look at our language from their perspective. It’s interesting how differently we use words, but have similar rules for different circumstances. For example: diphthongs. They say religion REL- LI- GI (HE) - ON. They pronounce the ‘io’ in religion separately. But of course we make a “jon” sound.
I made a friend at my volunteer hours names Jesús. He is really nice, twenty years old and basically does student teaching at the school. So we hope to help each other out with languages as he is trying to learn English.
Friday 3/12:
Friday I woke up early and met up with 1/3 of our CEGRI group to take the 2 hour bus ride over to Córdoba for the day. It ended up being a lovely day. The weather was beautiful, lots of sunshine, and the city is gorgeous. We visited the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos, árabe baths, the Jewish Quarter, the Sinagoga, Calle de las Flores, and the Mezquita. All from 8am to 7:30pm. How do you have such a productive day when traveling? Have someone else plan it and get a tour guide. Oh and also have a city the size of Córdoba.
Alcázar: This was the “castle” of the Christian Monarchs. The highlight of the Alcázar was the the gorgeous garden. We had the most beautiful day to see this place. It was one of those common moments when I thank God that I’m in Spain seeing these places.
Árabe Baths: The árabe baths are all over Andalucía where the árabes had reigned. The baths were used to keep clean and a ritual sign of cleansing before prayer. We were told that these baths actually became a really important place as a lot of business negotiations occurred in these baths. They even had a sauna room!
Jewish Quarter: The Jewish quarter dates from the Middle Ages. Within this area is the Calle de las Flores with makes for a gorgeous picture. The bell tower of the cathedral stands tall it he background. Also within this Jewish Quarter is the Sinagoga. Who saw that coming? The synagogue is small. It was built in 1315. This synagogue has seen times of Christian rule and Muslim rule. On a wall in the synagogue there are remnants of cross that had been painted there. It’s really interesting how so many of these buildings were just reused bouncing from religion to religion.
Calle de las Flores
Mezquita: This mezquita has seen quite a bit of changing religion as well. It was a mosque, and a massive one at that. Now there is a cathedral within it. Words really cannot describe the beauty of this building. It is massive and a huge mix of Muslim and Christian architecture. History radiates from this building. Rather than using words, let me show you:
The Cathedral portion
After Córdoba we came back to Granada to meet up with our friends visiting from Sevilla. (Yayy Tara Gille!) We went out for tapas, hit up the Chupiteria. Tara helped me out by giving me her free point cards they give you with every drink. I am hoping by the end of this semester, I will have enough to get the sweatshirt! (You need the most points for that one, the prize after it is a thong…no thanks, shot bar.) After the chupiteria, we headed over to Kapital, a discoteca close by, and danced the night away.
Saturday 3/13:
Ahh, Saturdays. I just laid around all day to catch up on sleep. In the afternoon, Katherine and I went for a walk. We stopped by a SuperSol and bought some snacks, which we immediately ate in the park right outside the store. Then we found an internet place so Katherine could skype with Josh and I read my old Spanish grammar book. I am so glad I brought that thing. And that pretty much sums up Saturday.
Sunday 3/14: One Month to my 21st Birthday!
Sunday began pretty much the same way as Saturday. But this time, Katherine and I went for a walk around the park Garcia Lorca. It is beautiful, but not quite what I imagine when I think of a park. Usually, I think there will be more than just a couple large chunks of grass. Why does Europe hate grass?
And my Sunday finished up with a good two hours or so devoted to the internship search. After I applied to any and all Disney related internships, I called it a day.
Monday 3/15: Mom and Dad’s 30th Anniversary!!!
No pasa nada. Apparently this day was pretty much routine. Had class, learned about poems in Spanish and art in Spain. I don’t remember anything sticking out too much here. I walked around Granada a bit, took in a bit of the city I am loving living in. And then that’s all folks.
Tuesday 3/16:
Tuesday I had class. And needed to start preparing for my Culture test on Thursday. After class I went over to the school to teach those children. I had not worked on a Tuesday in a while, so I didn’t realize my Tuesday and Thursday schedules were different. Pretty much I was very confused the whole day. But I met some more people at the school. They are all very friendly. And patient with my Spanish!
I had a really interesting conversation with Maria, an English teacher at the school. The school system in Spain works a lot differently with teachers. In each autonomous community, Andalucía for example, they have a main board that controls where teachers are placed. Rather than the teachers being hired by the school, they are a part of this main organization and are told where they will teach. After a couple years, they get transferred and moved around. In order to get preference or an opinion on where they will go, they have to earn points. So it’s a point system that determines your future. Seems a little sorority to me! Maria is taking classes in addition to teaching in order to earn points so she can hopefully stay around Granada. It is so interesting that teaching jobs work this way because in the US many people choose the profession because it is easy to have a family life. But according to Maria, it is actually difficult here to start a family because they don’t know if they will be moved each year until June or July.
Speaking of school…I have my U of I registration time slot. I have completely forgotten I am a student and must return to that world. Anddd I have no idea what I need to take—how about ice skating? Dad, how do we feel about me adding a 5th year to college? Joke, joke, joke.
Wednesday 3/17:
Art class went back to the Alhambra today to see the Palacio de Carlos V. Granada has been rainy and chilly, until this week. And of course it hits about 80 degrees when we need to hike up the giant hill. Don’t worry, I got some ice cream. Before the class. (Mint Chocolate Chip) AND after. (This weird Sesame and Chocolate Arabian Nights Ice Cream…AMAZING!) It doesn’t take much to convince me to get ice cream apparently.
Wednesday night I devoted to studying for my Culture of Islam test. I’ve gone WILD in Spain, I know.
Thursday 3/18:
Well, I took the test. It was alright (but I still got a B+, my brain strongly dislikes taking tests in Spanish.) After the test I went over to volunteer. Today the classes I am normally with were off on a field trip. So I hung out with the P.E. class. There were some students from another school and a girl who taught them that was about my age and from New York. We talked the whole time. She has been here for 3 years and is finally going back home. It was nice to chat and of course watch as the children played a thrilling game of “roll a marble into a hole.” Or my personal favorite, when the teacher had the children lay down in a row on the concrete, and then have the child on the end start rolling on top of the others to get across. Why would THAT be unsafe? Afterwards Jesús and I were able to make plans for next week to practice English.
After my Islam class, Kelly and I went out to Taberna Irlandes. Its five Euros for all you can drink beer and tinto verano until 1am. It was a very fun, chill night of drinking and talking. And ending with a Kabab (“I only want the King!”) extra picante.
Friday 3/19:
I got ready during the day for our flight to Barcelona. Katherine, MaryPat, Kelly, and I boarded the bus to the Granada airport and took ONE FLIGHT—NO FIVE HOUR BUSES, NO TAXIS, NO LAY OVERS—to Barcelona. We arrived around 8 at night, found our hostel and got ready to go out! We went to a bar called Cosmos. We sat in the back of the bar and drank our beer. The decorations and seating was random and old. Kelly described it perfectly by saying, “I feel like we’re drinking in Grandma’s basement!” We had great conversations and pretty much spent the whole night taking the ugliest pictures of each other we could. No, I will not be posting them.
Saturday 3/20:
We started our Saturday off right by stopping into a little bakery. For only 1.50 Euros, I bought three little delicious chocolate things. Yum.
Then we made our way to Las Ramblas where we shopped at clothing stores and the little vendor stores they had in the middle section between the streets. There were the usual crazy street actors or whatever. Europe LOVES them. I however, find them creepy.
They had PET STORES outside…! How crazy is that! And at one, they had pigeons in a cage. Who would want those? It literally looked like they just scooped a pigeon off of the street and shoved it in a cage. No thanks, I’ll catch my own pigeon.
Cute Little Bunnies!
After some shopping, we made it the beach and looked around. It was slightly overcast this weekend (still great) but I can imagine how beautiful Barcelona will be in the summer months. After a little walk around the area, we found a McDonald’s, yes we were “lovin’ it.” Then we made our way over the gondola lift. We took a gondola across the way to get to this park in Montjuic. It was lovely. But I also felt like it was like a secret level in Super Mario, we could only reach it by air.
Made a Wish in the Fountain
After that we hopped on a metro (the normal way Barcelonans get around, Kelly, not the gondola lift.) We went to Parc Guell. It is a park that features the architect and artist Antoni Gaudí. Me gusta Gaudí. All the colors, the use of ceramics, and the occasional mushroom designs contributed to the Super Mario feel.
Looks like Bedrock
At the end of the day, we hit up a grocery store to buy dinner. I bought pavo (turkey lunch meat), bread, and mustard. AND it was the best mustard ever. Overall, it was a great dinner. Between the four of us we finished off a loaf of bread, a jar of nutella, jam, a box of cereal and a box of milk, chips, and salsa. No big deal. After our super market feast, we started goofing around and laughing. Rather than going out, we spent the whole night in our bunk beds cracking up. It was actually one of the most fun nights I’ve had abroad! Especially when Kelly when to go take a shower and the shower head broke off. All we heard in the room was the sound of her screaming as the hose sprayed hot water everywhere like a CrazyDaisy sprinkler.
Sunday 3/21:
We woke up well rested and ready to go. Our day started off with checking our email while an episode of How I Met Your Mother played in the background in the hostel lounge. It was Legend –wait for it—DARY. Definitely a good way to start our day. After the NPH fix, we metro hopped over to Sagrada Familia. We didn’t go in because the line was longer than a line at Chipotle on Free Burrito Days. But we were able to observe the exterior architecture and that was very nice.
Our next stop was to the Batlló House designed by Gaudí. Gaudí refurbished the house that was originally built in 1877. But by refurbished, I mean, he completely redesigned the entire building. He added galleries, balconies, two more floors to the building, and decorated with polychrome tiles. The inside of the house had an aquatic theme. Everything was blue toned and beautiful. One room had ripples around the light fixture on the ceiling like a droplet hitting water.
Water Droplet
On the roof, he uses ceramics and makes what is to look like a dragon on the top of the building. I thought it looked more like an iguana, but I’m not going to be nitpicky. It was still pretty awesome.
Dragon or iguana?
After we witnessed the beauty of Gaudí, we moved along to the next incredible artist. We went to the Museo de Picasso. There was a pleasant surprise when we arrived there. After 3pm on Sundays the museum is free. We were so pleased that we would be saving 10 Euros, we went to a chocolate shop and bought very expensive, but very delicious, pieces of chocolate.
The Museum was wonderful. I’m not a big fan of abstract paintings, but it was really nice to go through the museum and see the progression of his artwork. Picasso was a skilled artist before he decided that eyes should be on the chin and noses on the forehead. But Kelly said that she thinks maybe you have to prove yourself to be a good artist before you can draw a dog that looks like a 3 year old did it. So, good work, Pablo, my man. Nevertheless, I loved his artwork, especially during the Blue Period. I found myself staring look at each paint stroke, amazed that I was looking at a canvas that Picasso touched—a picture that he painted. I love my life.
Eventually we made our way to the airport and home to Granada by 10pm. This was the easiest weekend travel wise, and such a great trip. Barcelona: Two thumbs up and a gold star.
Monday 3/22:
Today was a beautiful day. We had Lit class outside at a “park.” I use the word park in quotations as there was only a small patch of grass again. It was actually quite productive and the sunlight felt nice on my back.
After class, MaryPat and I took a bit of a walk looking for a book store for a play by Garcia Lorca. Of course we forgot about siesta and the fact that everything closes at 2pm. So we found it, but in vain. We returned later that night to get the book. That night I watched Army Wives, my newest addiction/show. And that was my Monday!
Tuesday 3/23: Steve’s 21st Birthday! Happy Birthday, Steve Moore!
There are no volunteer hours this week because it is Science Week at their school. They spent the whole week working on experiments and what not. But for Cultura de Musulmanes we went to Parque de Ciencias, which is the Granada Science Museum. There is a section on the history of Arabic Culture and Al-Andalus (Andalucía). It was really interesting, but made me miss the JFK Health Center. Does anyone from my childhood remember this place? No one else has heard of it.
After class Kelly, Justine, and I went to get….ICE CREAM. Shocking. And then Jesús met up with us. Apparently he was expecting just me, but I made Kelly and Justine join us for coffee, which turned out to be good because my Spanish and his English would not get very far in a conversation. That made for an entertaining hour or so for Kelly and Justine!
Wednesday 2/24: Katherine’s Mom’s Birthday. Happy Birthday, Mrs. Seck!!
Today I had classes as usual. And for Art we went back up to the Alhambra to look at Museo de Bellas Artes. Before we headed up there Katherine gave me a little surprise! Josh had sent her a package and a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos for me! Thanks Josh!!
Museo de Bellas Artes was an art gallery with lots of interesting artwork from the area through the years. It was very interesting and beautiful, but at times disturbing. I don’t know why, but early Christian artwork loved to include details of the brutal deaths of martyrs.
The weather today was very sporadic. It went from cold and rainy this morning to hot and sunny this afternoon to cold and windy. I hope when the family is here it is consistently warm. I’d like to lay out and change my current vampire-pale look.
As of now I am pretty much waiting for Mom, Dad, and Elaine to come! I am very excited to see them and show them around Home Sweet Granada. Plus they are bringing me more clothes!
Now I’m gonna do something unsual and predict my day tomorrow:
Thursday 3/25:
Go to class. Participate lots, impress my teacher with the levels my Spanish has jumped since Tuesday and end up with an A for the class.
Next, I’m going to go over to Kelly’s house and put a little Mary Poppin’s magic into her packing and help her save room for lots of souvenirs (preferably for me).
Then, I will attend my Islam class where I will, again, astound my teacher with my Spanish brilliance. I will then be told that I never have to attend class again because I am so good at Spanish.
After Justine, Katherine, and Kelly give me a teary hug good-bye (they’re going to really miss me) I will wait for my family’s arrival! Where I will find they have bought me an Arabian horse and won the lottery in Spain, funding a whole summer of traveling for me.
[Some of the events stated may be exaggerated and highly unlikely.]
Until next time: Seize the Day.
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