¡Hola!
As I write this I realize that there is only a month and two days left to this Study Abroad experience for me. I miss everyone—family, Chi Omega, U of I—BUT it kills me that this semester has flown by. Spain is an amazing country. To all those considering studying abroad: DO IT! I just came off of the week with my parents feeling quite confident in my Spanish abilities. I had talked in Spanish a lot as I had to be the translator. But of course, once I came back to Granada and CEGRI my occasional inability to form a sentence came back.
This past week has been great and only reminded me every minute why I love Granada. But also, why I do NOT like Granada 10 as much. I woke up Monday morning with lovely case of Pink Eye in my left eye. (I have eye issues apparently.) And I am fully blaming G-10. I had been planning on going to an Eye Doctor to make an appointment to check my other eye out this day also. But walking into an Ophthalmologist office, where touching eyes is intentional, with pink eye seemed about as good of an idea as bringing a keg to an AA meeting. So I refrained and bought some eye drops at a pharmacy.
I was excused from classes for the day and instead spent my time figuring out my schedule for the next semester. It seems I should be able to double major in Spanish and Rhetoric! Yeah! But since I’m not a declared major yet, I could only register for 2 classes. What’s the point of being a Senior and James Scholar if registering early doesn’t help?! But on this note, any Spanish majors out there that want to reserve a class for me please let me know! Thanks!
No tutoring this week because pink eye among children spreads like rapid fire. This was nice as it gave me more time to do homework aka nap.
Wednesday was the light at the end of the tunnel for me the beginning of the week. I had to write some papers, and the idea of Wednesday night pulled me through. I went over to Kelly’s house for dinner. We caught up on each other’s lives and planned our final trip the week after school ends. Our official return date is May 14th! And we decided to nix another trip to Ireland because the logistics wouldn’t have worked. Instead we are going to Rome May 7th through 10th and then coming back to Granada for 3 days of tapas, shopping, and “Kelly & Kaye in Granada” time! I am actually really excited for this. I love this city! So anyway, Wednesday night we ate a delicious meal—Lina is quite the cook! After dinner we were gonna work on a short presentation we had for Islam the next day on Circumcision. (Of course we have this topic…) Instead of that, we decided to watch New Moon. And the coolest thing happened. We played the DVD in Lina’s DVD player. As the movie started the first line out of Bella’s mouth was “Abuela.” I nudged Kelly and exclaimed, “Kelly! Listen! She said Abuela!” And of course, Kelly thought maybe that was just the line, but no, the movie was dubbed in Spanish. We fixed this by going to the main menu and clicking on English. But how amazing is technology? The disc recognized the player as Spanish and automatically switched to the dubbed version! I was so impressed because my copy of Anastasia from London won’t even play on my American computer—both countries speak English—but New Moon knew to go to Spanish! Even though I’ll admit the movie is a guilty pleasure, I’m not going to say it’s the most impressive acting, directing, screenwriting, etc. So the whole disc playing the dubbed version thing was the most impressive part of the evening. I always have GREAT nights with Kellita Bonita!
And Thursday was a great night as well. Justine, MaryPat, and I joined basically the rest of CEGRI at Taberna Irlandés. It was a really fun night of just good people and good conversation. Friday morning I woke up early and went over to MaryPat’s house. We did some P90X ~ KenpoX. And I am still sore! MaryPat is a great person to work out with because she has so much energy. I kind of think she should forget about Communication and just be a Kickboxing Teacher. After our work out we went over to the park near her house to laid out and do some homework. Friday night Katherine, MaryPat, Justine, Kelly and I went to La Oliva. La Oliva sells local wines olive oils. They offer tastings. So we split a bottle of wine and tried several delicious olive oils. I felt very refined, as refined as I can feel anyway. To complete the great day, Kelly, Justine, MaryPat and I went to Feeling, one of Kelly and my favorite places. Unfortunately, Friday night was an “off” night and full of creepers. Sometimes guys think it is okay to video tape us dancing—but it is not. So we left and got ice cream!
Saturday morning Katherine, Kelly, and I planned to go horseback riding. When I was telling my family I was to go horseback riding (montar caballos), I didn’t accent the “mon” in “montar” correctly. What they heard was “matar” which means to kill. So I told them that this weekend I was going to go kill horses. Luckily that did NOT happen. Instead the three of us had so much fun riding. Kelly had never ridden a horse before so I pushed for this event!
I love this picture of Kel
We went to a place within Granada. My horse was a beautiful reddish brown and named Jedry. He was a very tall horse, but didn’t give me any sass.
At the place, we were able to practice riding a little around the ring before going out on a trail. The guide worked with me on my positioning during “trotting.” I needed to sit down, stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down, and stand up on the horse as he trotted. She had me practice. As you can imagine this looked a little funny and Kelly was sitting on her horse laughing at me. But then the guide turned to her and made her do the same thing so HA! Katherine knows how to ride well, so she needed no help! The saddles were English saddles and not Western, so that was a little disconcerting because you feel more likely to fall off. But I got the hang of the trotting motion and when Jedry trotted it was an amazing feeling—like I was flying!
The best moment of the afternoon had to be when we were crossing the river and Katherine’s horse began to stamp at the water, splashing everywhere. We thought maybe the horse just wanted to play a bit. But then it sat down in the water with her on it! She hopped off of him and he started to roll around in the water. Clearly a perfect time to do this, horse! It was really funny. And then Kelly’s horse started to stamp in the water too. “Don’t you do copy him!” It was okay though, we made it across the river. Katherine was unscathed! Just wet!
Playing in water, before laying down
Us laughing...
Collecting her horse...
I headed home for a shower and a nap! That night Katherine, MaryPat, Kelly, and I met up with some guys from CEGRI at Hannigan’s to watch the Real Madrid versus Barcelona fútbol game. It was a pretty bad game for Real Madrid. Kaka was out because he hurt his leg a couple of weeks ago, I believe. And Ronaldo just didn’t match up to Messi. But don’t worry Ronaldo, if it was a photo shoot contest, you would win. (On the sports channel here they compare Messi to be the Michael Jordan of soccer. Messi IS amazing, though. Youtube him.) The game ended and we stayed at Hannigan’s. It was a really good night.
Hannigan's
Sunday Katherine and I had planned on joining some of the guys at a beach. But the forecast said rain, so I chose my bed. This was the last full weekend with all five of us (Katherine, Justine, MaryPat, Kelly and me) in Granada! I’m telling you time here just flies by! Speaking of time flying…I turn 21 on Wednesday! How am I 21 already? Maybe I can stop the aging process here…I just need to find a vampire to turn me. I’ll keep you all posted on the vampire search, but for now:
¡HASTA LUEGO!
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