Day Two in Granada

Day two in Granada

- My roomie Shannon and I woke up around 7:30 am so that we could get ready, have breakfast, and head out to take out placement test
- The breakfast buffet was incredible! There was so much food of very good quality. I also had peach juice, which was delicious!

- The exam took about 3 hours and had a listening, writing, reading, and speaking portion

- We sat around and waited for the results. I got a 5, which puts me in the intermediate level, which means that I will be taking all of my classes in Spanish, which I am very nervous for because I am not very good at listening…

-after the test we headed back to the Arcadia office where we met up to begin a scavenger hunt around the city! We had two teams of three people and we got a map and had to walk around the city and take pictures of certain places on the map. It was a really great way to get to know the beautiful city, although it was also very hot and tiring

- We got back to the office and my team did not win the hunt because we missed a couple of the places, but that’s okay

-We walked a couple blocks to a restaurant where I ate a falafel  sandwich, or bocadillo de falafel, and we were again serenaded by street guitar players

-As we sat around at lunch I realized we could see the top of the Alhambra right from where we were sitting! I had no idea it was so close!

-After lunch we received more orientation information about classes and stuff. The classes I will be taking are as follows: Two different grammar classes, History of Spain, History of Spanish Art, and ecosystems of Andalucía, which is a class based primarily on field trips, which is awesome!!!

-After orientation a woman named Cassie came to the room and asked us if we would participate in her research study about how American students best learn languages. We filled out a brief survey and then she also asked if she could come hang out with us because 1. She has never been to Granada and 2. So she can observe us. She is very young and cool so we didn’t mind

- We then met some of the people in our program who have already been in Granada for the past month for pre-session. They all seem very nice. Their names are Slate, John, and Graham

- We couldn’t hang out for too long because they were going to a soccer game, so we just got some beer and tapas at a restaurant

- After, we headed back to the hotel to get a few things done before we headed back out

- We left the hotel again around 9 o ‘clock and went down a street we had not yet tried going to and discovered a few great plazas with a really amazing nightlife. We stood and watched some street performers and finally found a restaurant where we ordered beer and tapas again. I got water though because I was feeling very cheap 

- after dinner we walked back to the hotel and on our way passed this HUGE cathedral. It is seriously ginormous and I don’t know how we had not seen it before

- we got back to the hotel and I Skyped Ryne and my dad for a little bit

-Showered then went to sleep

                           

Day one in España

Day one in Spain

-We spent the morning before I left in a packing frenzy as I tried to make my suitcase light enough to take, which eventually we were able to

-Ryne came over to say goodbyeL I actually didn’t cry, probably because I was all cried out from the day before

-We went to Target to pick up a few last minute things

-We got Chipotle for my final meal

-Ryne left and me and my parents headed to the airport where we sat around for a while before I finally had to head into the gate

-I went through security and for some reason they had to look through my bag L, but it all worked out!

-I went to exchange money, which took forever

-I bought two Chicago mugs for my host family at a gift shop

-I headed to my gate where I saw lots of people who were clearly from Spain, which was cool!

-On the plane I sat next to an older man who was on his way to Italy to meet his wife who he had not seen in 3 months because she is a nurse on a cruise line. Now they are taking a trip all around Europe together

-When I arrived in Madrid I was greeted by an airport person that told me I would not make my flight to Granada so they had to put me on a different one that was about 3 hours later!! I was sooo bummed. I walked around the airport trying to find a payphone so that I could call my program and let them know I would be late. I asked about 3 people where the phone was in Spanish because I could never understand their responses and was too embarrassed to tell them that.

-Finally I found a payphone, but I could not figure out how to use it -_-

-I asked a nice looking lady if I could use her phone and she said yes, probably because I was on the verge of tears over the whole situation

-I talked to one of the program directors in Granada (Christina), and she told me I would just need to take a bus or taxi to the hotel instead of getting picked up. Ugh!!

-I trudged around the airport for a while, took a nap, and freshened up in the bathroom before finally heading to my gate

-As I sat on a bench, the girl sitting across from me asked if I was going to Granada for the Arcadia program! Yayyy!!! Her name is Shannon and she is super nice! She came from Chicago too and also missed her flight. I was so relieved. I found out she is from California but she goes to school in Ohio and plays rugby

-Eventually we were flagged down by another group of people our age who were also with our program, it turns out we were all on the Chicago flight so we will still be getting picked up whoo hoo!

-The names of the other people I met are Brandon, Emily, Julia, and Dove. We had lots to talk about on the plane since we all had so much in common, yet we all were from different places. It is a very cool experience to hear about where everyone is from, what is the same and what is different.

-We arrived in Granada after a very short plane ride and we were picked up by two of the coolest, nicest young women in the world! Their names are Triana y Christina and they will be the ones managing our program while we are here

-We took a bus into the city of Granada where we dropped our stuff off at the hotel and headed straight to lunch at about 2:30 (they eat very late here)

-The city is sooo beautiful it is insane, it does not even look real. The place where we ate was outside in the beautiful sun with umbrellas everywhere next to a river, and literally had street guitar players playing the absolute perfect Spanish music. It was something out of a Rick Steves travel movie.

-At lunch we ordered various tapas and shared them, which was fun and a good bonding thing! We all got to know a little more about each other too!

-After lunch we had a couple of hours of orientation talk just about safety and all that boring stuff. Granada is known as a very safe city, there are just a couple parts they said to avoid

-After orientation we had free time for the rest of the evening which began at about 5 o clock

-Me and my new pals walked around the city and looked for places to buy cheap phones so that we can communicate with each other while we are here

-I got a pay as you go phone for 40€ which included 20€ free. Every text costs a cent and a phone call starts at 16 cent and is 1 cent after every minute

-The quest for the perfect deal on a phone lasted a while but we got to know the city a lot as we did it.

-We also got to practice our Spanish with each other and with the Grenadine people

-As we walked we saw a large group of Spanish boys on one side of the street and a large group of girls on the other side of the street singing something in Spanish to each other. We are told it was probably some kind of college initiation night for first years. Apparently something like that happens for bachelor/bachelorette parties too

-At about 9 o clock we headed to a restaurant for dinner, even though we were all exhausted

-The restaurant was called la cueva and was basically my worst nightmare because the theme seemed to be dead pig L

-I ordered onion soup because I wasn’t that hungry and didn’t feel like spending much dinero. Turned out it had ham in it even though I asked they waiter and he said it didn’t! Oh well it was easy to pick out.

-I love not having to tip at restaurants here, although you really have to flag down the waiters when you need them though

-After the restaurant we went straight back to the hotel which was really close and we went to bed early because we have a placement test for our classes tomorrow.

Interesting things I noticed

-Men look very metro

-TONS of hippies live here

- People tend to arrive late in Spain, which will be interesting because in America we are very time oriented and structured

-Style is very diverse

Day Thirteen in Holland

Day Thirteen

-we woke up past 10 today which is the latest we have woken up on this trip!

-Alicia got to shave her legs whooo!

-we had breakfast and coffee and chilled outside

-Gert gave us directions to the local beach and so we grabbed our bikes and headed there

-Alicia mags seats were too high so that was scary

-we made a couple wrong turns and got a little lost but we eventually found it!

-it was a very cute little lake type thing with shallow water and a beach

-there were lots of entertaining kids running around

-we were able to lay and enjoy the sun:)

-we listened to music

-we biked back home

-Gert made us tuna steak and French fries

-we enjoyed some trash TV

-Maggie got super burned! This picture doesn't even do it justice!

-Janneke and her mom came over to visit!

Day Twelve- Relaxing at our Nederlanse Huis

Day twelve

- we planned to sleep in but ended up waking up around 9:30

-Tanya went to go visit her grandma

-mag and Al put pictures on their computers

-we drove to town to Tanya's relatives grocery store to get some goodies to take home

-we also stopped by a couple shops where alicia bought and purse and sweater and mag also bought a sweater

-Tanya bought a dress

-we went back to the house and relaxed

-we went to dinner at a seafood restaurant 

-on our way there we stopped by the bank called Rabobank, which we thought was kind of a funny name for a bank...

-we ate a very tasty dinner at the fish place 

-we wrote down all of the words mag and I have learned in Dutch!

-we went back to the house and drank wine and hung out late listening to music!

Day Ten in Geneva, Switzerland

Day Ten

-we woke up at about 5 o clock and got ready

- Tom drove us to Geneva and Alicia and mag slept in the car most of the way

- Tom gave us the keys to his apartment room and told us exactly what we should see in Geneva and  how to get to the train and stuff 

- when Tom left we took a two hour nap in the room

- we woke up still pretty tired 

- we freshened up and headed out to walk around Geneva

- everything in Geneva looks like it should be in Geneva, so classy

-we had lunch along the lake with a lovely view of sail boats and children playing in this awesome jungle gym!

- we had tomato mozzarella tuna paninis and Alicia had iced tea which she has really grown to like

- the lady who gave us our food thought we were from England! Coooool!!!!

-mags dress kept on blowing up because it was so windy so she had to hold it down while she walked haha!

- we walked along the lake and passed lots of ice cream shops and a man feeding swans

-we walked to the train/bus station so that we could make sure we knew where to go tomorrow

- after we stopped a the tourist office to get a map of the city 

- we really wanted to see this famous fountain in Geneva but according to the map, we should have walked right by it already, so our search continued 

- we went back along the lake, still no fountain

- we explored Geneva and went into some boutiques as well as some souvenir shops

- Tanya desperately tried to think of something to get her dad, and mag and al helped her brainstorm. Chip is just too darn practical!

- we walked past a fountain that was not the one we were looking for, but we took cheesy tourist pictures of Alicia wearing a Switzerland hat, and of tan and mag looking embarrassed to be with her

-we walked into a little chocolate shop and eat bought some Swiss chocolate to satisfy our sweet tooths, ad after that we got ice cream! 

- we asked the people at the ice cream place about the mysterious fountain and the said it was off for the day because it is so windy!! Nooo!!!

-We walked along the water some more and pondered on the thought of renting a paddle boat

- we sat on a dock and took some really terrible pictures on Maggie iPhone 

-Alicia saw a duck dive deep under the water!

-We walked back to Toms apartment room where we relaxed for a while, looked at pictures, and Alicia took a shower

-Alicia wants to get an electric water heater for tea!

- after the shower we walked all the way back into the old town to find the pizza place that Tom told us about

- we found the pizza place and we were SO PROUD, but it was closed:(

-so we went to a different pizza place nearby

-we all ate tasty little mini pizzas

-a strange dorky looking man sat in the booth behind us alone and it freaked us out so we had a very funny conversation at the table giving lots of details about our lives in Connecticut where our names are Zooey, Anna, and Aly and we are on vacation with our parents and are very excited for our 16th birthdays where we hope our parents will get us cars:) haha

- we didn't feel terribly threatened but it was fun to make up a fake life lol

- after dinner we booked it out of there and began walking back to the apartment 

-it was dark but the streets were pretty populated which was good

- the best part walking home was that we saw the fountain had turned on! Yayyy!!!!! It was lit up green too!!!

- a group of young women stopped is in the street ad asked us if we knew where there were "cool restaurants" haha, we think they thought we were real locals!

-we walked all the way back to Toms safely and promptly went to bed!

Day Eleven back to Holland

Day Eleven 

-we woke up at 5:30ish and quickly got ready

- we dropped tom's key off at his work

- went to bus station

-took bus to train station

-bought a pan o chocolat

-found train

-waited

-sat in wrong place on train and were woken up by confusing French lady 

-played a fun movie game that Tanya does not think is fun 

-Maggie helped a French woman use the metro system in French!

-established that Maggie is the ugly one, Alicia is the fat one, and Tanya is the stupid one

-tried to find a locker to put our stuff in but we had no change so we just carried them in Paris 

- we went to a restaurant and they gave us free water! whoo!!!

- Maggie has many plans next summer...Ramapo, study in France, camp in Switzerland boat vacation with friends, taking classes and working at school... Hmmmm

- Tanya and Alicia have recommended she invest in a time turner

-Maggie doesn't bless people when they sneeze

-Maggie puts pepper in her ketchup

-Alicia accidentally ordered a giant plate of French fries
-The receipt said ass fries lol

 -we had coffee

-we saw a sexist advertisement of a little girl tying a little boys shoe

-we went back to train

 station and got on train from paris to Amsterdam 

-a stinkin baby kept crying and screaming RIGHT BEHIND US and the stupid parents didn't do anything to make it stop beside rock it's dumb crib back an forth. We just wanted to sleep and Alicia was soo mad. THEN it : out they were not even 26:3–11supposed to be sitting in those seats!!! Ahhhhh!

- anyways, they finally moved and we could sleep

-we arrived in Amsterdam and had smooth layovers from there to the town we are staying in! 

-we got back to Tans family and simply relaxed

- we hung out outside and drank a lot of wine, played games like UNO, and mag and Al learned 1-10 in Dutch as well as some colors and important phrases! 

-we stayed up very late and also made some very funny videos haha

Day Nine in Switzerland

Day Nine

-we woke up around 9 am and showered and got ready for the day

- we went downstairs and had tea and toast with fresh bread and jam

- we sat out on the porch for a while 

- Tom dropped the three of us off in town so that we could walk around for a while because the town is very cute

- we went to a little museum with lots of little historical nick knacks 

- we walked up the steep hills of Leysin and enjoyed the lovely city

- we decided to head back to Toms and ended up getting a bit lost

- we called Hannah and it turns out we just went up a street too far so we easily were back on the right track

-Alicia took a picture of a cute little cow statue she though her mom would like:)

-we got to Toms and Prue was making tasty smoked salmon sandwiches for us! 

-we ate them on the back porch

- Mac, Al, and Tan forgot to bring good walking shoes so toms family pulled out a bunch and we all found a pair that would work for our hike

 -we hiked a short distance to a gondola and took that up to the top if the mountain!

- from there we began hiking down the beautiful and very steep mountainside. 

- we stopped at a spot that was so foggy it looked like if you kept walking you would just fall off the edge of the earth

- we walked to this little mountain restaurant and looked at some chickens and ate some chocolate and trail mix

- we kept on hiking through the lovely scene, it was a bit foggy, but you still had a very good view of the mountains

- we hiked and saw a little mountain shop that sold cheese and honey and stuff like that

- we saw a man making cheese through the window

-we went around back an Tom opened the door and we watched the man make cheese... Not sure we were supposed to be there lol

- Tom bought us some of the same cheese he was making alone with some honey and it was delicious!

- as we finished the hike we passed many many cows!

- we saw a baby cow nursing and it was cute but also kind of gross

- toward the end of the hike it was an extremely steep downhill and Alicia's toes were starting to feel it

-we got back to the house and Skyped Mr. Starkey, and Alicia face timed her dad and Maggie her mom

- in a little while Tom drive us around in his car and told us about the good old days when he and mr. Starkey worked at a summer camp in Leysin

- we took lots of pictures of beautiful things to make poor Mr. Starkey jealous

-Tom enjoyed it very very much

- we went up to a spot where Tom and Chip (Mr. Starkey) slept in a pasture with a bunch Of cows and were awoken by cows nudging and surrounding them! Haha!

-we went back to the house and had a wonderful dinner of raclette and wine waiting for us!! Mmmmmm! no way to describe how tasty it was! But basically you melt your own cheese and put it over potatoes with various seasonings in them like pickles, onions, and pepper!

-Alicia showed the family we skydiving video

-after that incredible dinner we went upstairs and watched "very bad trip" which is actually "The Hangover" haha! 

-Hannah and Sophie made us a plate of fruit and then we had ice cream!! 

- it was a very nice, fun relaxing way to end such a great day!