I can’t believe I have been in
Granada for almost 2 months now! As long as that sounds, time really flew by.
This past month has been total chaos for me! My brother Josh came to visit from
October 28th to November 3rd! We had a blast walking
around the city, and taking lots of pictures of course! We went to a soccer
game, a botellon, and when my sister in law Shelley came, we went to a Flamenco
show. I think Josh was able to get a true Spanish experience! It was a good
time for him to come because I was just starting to get homesick, so it was
nice to get a visit from family J
Right after Josh left, I had to start studying
for midterms that week. I totally over studied because the midterms here are
muuuuch easier than the ones in America. I already found out that I got an A on
my history of Spain one, but I am still awaiting the results of the rest, but I
think they went well. It will be a bit of a wake up call when I go back to real
school in the Spring and actually have to study my butt off again.
Studying abroad has been such an
incredible experience. Every day I am learning something new about the culture
or the History of Spain. It has such a rich history that I am so interested in.
I honestly feel like I know more about Spanish history now than I do American! There
is no better way than studying abroad to truly get to know a city. I am learning
just by walking to class every day and seeing people out on the streets. Today
our art teacher took us on a walk through Granada and pointed out buildings and
told us about their architecture and history. That is something you can’t
experience through a textbook!
This past weekend I went on a trip
to Italy with four of my friends from my program! We had a really really great
time! Rome was absolutely beautiful and had so many old buildings everywhere!
All throughout the city there are historical artifacts! We of course went to
places like the Colosseum, Vatican, Trevi fountain…but we loved just walking
around and enjoying the city.
One of my
favorite parts was St. Peter’s Basilica. I had no idea how huge it was!!! You
can’t tell until you get inside and stand there looking up. It is just insane
how tiny you feel. We were also lucky enough to go up to the top of the cupula
of St. Peters! We paid 5€ and were able to climb hundreds of stairs to get to
an incredible viewpoint of Rome and Vatican City. I didn’t even know we were
allowed to do that but it was awesome!
We also went into the Sistine
Chapel, which was very cool, you aren’t supposed to take any pictures and they
are very strict about it, but I managed to get one with my phone ;) My favorite
part about it was the tapestries. When I walked in, I said to my friends, “wow
these tapestries are beautiful! I want one in my room!” Later I mentioned it
again and my friend Evan said, “yea they look so real.” I said, “umm they are
real…” Then I looked closer and realized that Michelangelo had painted them on
the wall! It was crazy how real and three-dimensional they looked!! It looked
like they were actually made of thread with real gold woven in! I couldn’t even
believe it.
I
am so happy to have gone to Rome because the Roman empire played such a huge
role in the history of so much of Europe. To see Rome first hand gives me a
real idea of what it was like. Also, the Gelato was incredibly delicious!!!
I went with a great group of guys that I got
along really well with. It was a really fun weekend but I will be honest I was
happy to come back to Granada to a roommate who is a girl lol. It was
refreshing to not hear sarcasm every 5 seconds haha. I would love to go back to
Rome someday and I highly recommend that everyone experience it at least once, J especially history
lovers.
One activity I have started to do
since I last blogged is have coffee twice a week with a group of three older
Spanish people who are trying to learn English. There is a man named Peter
(Pedro), and two women named Rose (Rosa), and Virginia. I absolutely love
spending time with them! It is so refreshing to meet people who are just
learning a language! For once I am better at Spanish than someone is at
English! Today they had prepared a small essay about themselves that they will
be presenting to their English class and they wanted to read them to me aloud
to make sure they sounded okay. It is really good for my Spanish when I get to
explain things to them in Spanish because they don’t understand them in
English. I feel really good when I am able to explain something well in Spanish.
It is nice to be doing this alone because I am not able to depend on anyone
else to do the talking for me. The time with them flies by and I feel like I
could talk with them for hours. Plus, we never run out of stuff to talk about
because it takes them a very long time to get sentences out to begin with lol!
I love that I am getting to know true Spaniards who have lived here their whole
lives! They all have such adventurous spirits too! The whole reason they want
to learn English is because even in their older age they love to travel. They
feel that learning English will be very useful for them! They have all been
places like India, Paris, Amsterdam, London, Italy, Belgium, Mexico….and they
want to keep traveling! I think that is super cool and older people should be
like them!
I
love Granada so so much but I have also come to appreciate and miss a lot of
things about America, particularly the food…Food here is definitely delicious,
but I just miss the familiarity of food in America. I miss mashed potatoes,
pizza (which was delicious in Rome but still not as good as Chicago), peanut
butter, American candy (they don’t have Hersheys bars here!), BAGELS, CHIPOTLE,
you know…healthy food!
I also miss the ambiance of the
Holidays in America! Believe it or not, stores here don’t put up Christmas
displays in November! What?! Although, they have begun stringing lights around
town, which makes me really happy. I am not sure when they will light them
though. I have been told that Granada has a Christmas market at some point so I
am really excited about that.
To end this long, overdue post, I
am really happy here in Granada but I also can’t wait to go home to Chicago to
be reunited with my family and friends right before my favorite holiday J I miss everyone so
much and I wish you could all be here with me!
Mom and Dad, give Sadie and Millie
kisses for me and keep the videos coming! I love them! Muh! Muh! Muh!
