La Catedral!

Hello!! The past two days have been pretty busy thus far! I have finished my first paper this summer and am currently working on my second one! My classes are all going very well and I definitely feel myself improving with my Spanish abilities. I think my comprehension has improved the most since I have been doing a lot of listening!  

Another cool thing I have noticed is that I feel more like a normal person in Spain, rather than a tourist. Now that I have spent a fair amount of time here, I am much more able to navigate the city without help from a map or other people! Spanish has also become more natural, even though I revert to English more than I would like.

Yesterday was a very relaxed day, as I finalized some travel plans for this weekend to Sevilla and Córdoba with five of my friends and then we walked around a bit and stopped at the Bread Lady! For lunch, my señora made a delicious stew/soup/something with lima beans and this epic sauce!!  In the evening after class, we went to the Mercadona (market) to purchase a few things, and stopped by her son's apartment to water plants, etc!  I love running errands with her!  Then, we returned for dinner!

This morning, I was delighted because my señora made me hot chocolate!  It was a fun surprise!  Classes went well, and for Art History, we visited La Catedral!  It was absolutely gorgeous and I took lots of pictures!  It was built starting in 1526... crazy stuff!!  Our teacher was giving us many more interesting tidbits, but let's be real, it was sooooo beautiful that it was a little difficult to focus!

 I love these panoramic shots!

 In this photo, you can see part of the light blue dome!

 There were dozens of stained glass windows, but this was my favorite since it looks like the sun!

Everything is so ornate!!

 This is my favorite ceiling pattern!

 This horse was so gold, I think my camera couldn't even handle it without the flash!

I don't know how this happened, but I love it!

Have a terrific Tuesday!

Vamos a la Playa!

Hola amigos!!  So, on Sunday I went to the beach with Kelley's host parents! It was so much fun! Once again, I took an obscene amount of pictures, so that is where you will find the information!  In Spain time, it's kind of late right now, but I have so much energy and really want to post this!!

First, I should say that all of the pictures that are not of any bodies of water were taken in the car, while we were moving very fast!!  Everything was so beautiful, and I am lucky to have a wonderful camera!

I love all of these white towns!  Makes me think of Greece, but we are off the Mediterranean, so pretty close, right?

Epic blue guard rail and gorgeous views!

My first picture of the Mediterranean Sea!!  So beautiful and blue!

I also thought it was cool that this particular beach had rocks instead of sand.

Surprise photo bomb from the sea!  Good times!

After spending a few hours at the beach, we headed to a nearby river to have a picnic!

This cave was in one of the large rocks near the river. (I really zoomed in, so while it looks like it could be explored, it was actually about 4 stories up on the rock.)

The river!

Kelley and I played a game of Bananograms/Speed Scrabble, only in Spanish!  It was much more difficult, but quite fun!

Awesome red house in the middle of nowhere on our drive back!

Gorgeous lake we stopped at briefly!

I know you were tempted.

It is hard to see, but there is another village with all white buildings!

Another thing I love about Spain!!  We saw these windmills everywhere!!  We probably passed at least 100 on the 45 minute drive to the beach!!  Yay!

I hope you all had lovely weekends!  I hope you are liking the posts so far!  I will keep the posts coming, and please leave comments as you wish!  Besos y abrazos!

Una Noche de Flamenco y Este Fin de Semana

So far, I have thoroughly enjoyed my 3 day weekend!  I forgot how beautiful they are, since it feels like today is Sunday even though it is Saturday!

On Thursday, our school planned a flamenco show for us!  It was a very cool experience, and I loved how fierce the dancer was!  Also, I did not realize that flamenco was as much a type of singing as it is a type of dance.  There was much more singing than dancing at the show!

 I just thought these were the coolest lights ever, especially with the guitars in them!

 Each plate on the wall has a different nickname of a flamenco dancer or singer!

 So fierce! She was amazing!

On the way into the show, we passed the Alhambra Palace just as it was starting to get dark. So beautiful!! 

When we were leaving the show, we walked by the Alhambra Palace again, which was glowing and looked absolutely gorgeous!

This weekend has also been lovely! On Friday morning, I slept in a little bit, and went for a run with my friends Kelley and Elle!  There is this amazing trail along the river that has gorgeous views of the mountains!  We also stopped at this fun park for doing obstacles course activities and playing on the playground!  Yay!  It definitely got pretty hot in the afternoon, so after a pasta lunch, Kelley came over and we stayed inside to plan our weekend trips while we are in Granada.  Next weekend we will be going to Sevilla and Córdoba, and in three weekends we will be visiting Ronda, Spain!  My señora was adorable since she made us smoothies while we were working!  In the evening I worked on some homework and watched some tv and talked with my señora!

On Saturday, I got more than 8 hours of sleep for the first time in the past two weeks!  Then I went running with Kelley, and we later went to the market with Elle as well! (after stopping at a bakery!) I bought a swimsuit and a shirt! It was quite fun, and it was a great, practical opportunity to practice Spanish with lots of different people! I had the best lunch so far in Spain AND was lucky enough to watch my señora make it!  We had gazpacho and tortilla de patata con cebolla (essentially a Spanish omelette with eggs, onions, and potatoes!)  Everything was soooooooooo delicious!!  Afterwards, I felt so full that I could hardly move! I spent the afternoon working on homework while watching some cool nature documentaries in Spanish with my señora.  It was a lot of fun, except for the awkward moment when I had literally been sitting on the couch for two minutes and the documentary about animals of the Serengeti plain in Africa started discussing animal reproduction, and for the next five minutes we watched animals mating.  Awkward!  Later in the afternoon, one of my señora's friends came over, so we talked (as in they talked very fast and I listened) for about an hour and a half!  It is a chill night right now, but I may be hanging out a little bit with my friends Kelley, Elle, and Jennifer.  We will see!  Tomorrow I am going to the beach with Kelley's host parents!

I hope you are all having delightful weekends! :)

Mis Clases!

While many of the posts about Granada so far have been about traveling and fun adventures, I am taking classes this summer as well!  During the summer I am enrolled in 7 credit hours, which turns out to be about 20 hours of class a week for 6 weeks!  I am taking Spanish Composition, Introduction to Spanish Literary Analysis, and Spanish Art History (which is just a 1-credit hour class that meets for 4 hours a week for the first four weeks).  I have Spanish Composition every day from 9 to 11 AM, and Literary Analysis from 4:30 to 6:30 PM.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I also have my Art History class from 11 to 1, and it is really fun since we have the opportunity to visit beautiful historical sites for free! I love how small the program is, because since there are only about fifty students in the program, our classes our very small! My composition class has only five people, and there are nine of us in my literary analysis class!

These are pictures of the main courtyard area of my school, CEGRI!  This is a really peaceful area we hang out between classes and it is very relaxing if we want to study. Sometimes pigeons even join us!

Kelley and I are happy with our "bread lady" purchase!!  A great way to start the morning!

Que triste! Un corazón roto!

We did some exploring in the city, and once again we visited the tea market with all of the dried fruits and nuts.  I bought dried pineapple, strawberries, mango, papaya, cherries, apple, and a tiny piece of aloe vera.  I definitely did not know you could eat it!  (I haven't tried it yet though!)

This was one of the places we visited on the first day of my Spanish Art History class! It was really fun, and we got to walk around and visit four different sites in Granada! A lot of the architecture should look similar to many of the other pictures I have taken due to their Arab influence on Granada.

And churros con chocolate at Cafe Fútbol! They were so good!!

I suppose this update was not the most exciting, but there should be some fun posts from this weekend!  And, at CEGRI, we only have class Monday through Thursday, so I am officially in weekend mode!

Have a lovely day!