Las Cruces

This past weekend was a really cool festival in Granada. It´s called las cruces meaning the crosses. The festival definitely has religious origins but there´s not much religious about it anymore. Every plaza has platforms with a huge decorative cross. some are made out of flowers and some of leaves and they´re surrounded by ornate decorations. In every plaza there´s flamenco music playing and EVERYONE was out in the streets. I saw men in gitano (gypsy)outfits riding on horses through the streets. All the women were wearing gitana dresses. They´re long with ruffles on the bottom, most have large polka dots or bright floral designs. The kids dress up too! I saw so many adorable little girls all dressed up in flamenco dresses with makeup and combs in their hair dancing flamenco in the plazas. They were so cute! I went out in the afternoon with my new group of Spanish friends. We were out bar hopping and flamenco dancing until 2:30 in the morning. And on my walk home, there were still little kids decked out in gitano outfits out with their parents! It was crazy.

And then the next day, the Real Madrid football (soccer) team won their league tournament. that night, every car was honking their horns incessantly. it sounded like new york city traffic. People were yelling and waving flags throughout the city. They take their football pretty seriously.

This afternoon i´m going on another bike ride! and I¨m very excited about it! I´ll try to update more often!! hasta luego!

Chag Sameach!!

Happy Passover everyone! so far I've had a very pleasant Pesach experience here in sfarad (Spain). After my parents left, we went to Cordoba and Sevilla for the weekend with our group. We saw the great mosque of cordoba, with the red and white striped arches, and the cathedral and plaza de Espana in Sevilla.... and that's about it. unfortunately it was pouring down rain almost the whole weekend. Luckily we were staying in a 4 star hotel that allowed for me to take great afternoon siestas.

But anyway, the point is that Pesach started on saturday night and luckily, my friend Jess on my program has a friend from high school studying in Sevilla who has a Jewish friend on HER program who managed to find a seder!!! I got so lucky that I mentioned in passing that I wanted to find one. The Jewish community in Sevilla has about 90 people but it does exist! So my friend Dana and I took our map and our umbrellas and went in search of the tiny little synagogue. there we prayed the evening service and then after the shabbat had ended they i helped set up for the seder. There about 8 other Americans who had found this tiny synagogue and 4 Israelis who were in Sevilla for the year studying flamenco guitar and dance. I was so happy to find Israelis!! I was surprised at how easily I was able to switch from Spanish to Hebrew. I think i'm going to survive when I got to Israel this summer. The seder was very traditional all in Hebrew. The rabbi made all the israelis and me read (which is rather embarrassing because I'm out of practice and I don't read as well as the Israelis obviously... but it was fine) and it was so great that we all knew the same songs and the same tunes etc. at the end of the meal we sang some zmerot. and to sing am yisrael chai (the nation of israel lives) in Spain, a place where the Jews were persecuted during the Inquisition absolutely gave me the chills.

i had a fantastic pesach experience and i'm finding that keeping kosher for pesach is pretty easy here. i've adopted the sefardi tradition of eating rice (because we are in sfarad) so its not so bad. speaking of food, its lunchtime! hasta luego!

oh spain...

well, I woke up for my 8:45 class only to find out that it had been cancelled when I arrived at the modern language center. great. this is the same teacher who didn´t show up to class on tuesday... mildly frustrating. but now I have plenty of time to check up on my email!

LIfe is pretty sweet here in Granada. it´s been rainy and gross though, the past few days which is not fun since I walk everywhere in this city. yesterday, we stayed inside and watched a spanish movie called jamon jamon. It´s one of Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem´s first movies. they´re both soo young in it and there´s so much racy material. after the fall of Franco´s dictatorship in the 1970´s there was a cultural explosion in Spain. now that movies and music are uncensored, the 1980´s were crazy years in Spain. so Spanish films tend to not hold back on juicy details. if you´re interested in seeing Javier Bardem, the current pride and joy of spain, bull fighting naked, I advise you to see this movie.

That´s it for now... my parents and sister are coming to visit tomorrow!!!! they´ll be here for the week. I can´t wait to see them and show them around granada!!!

hope everyone´s having a great week!
ciao!

End of our mini semester

Friday is our final exam for our grammar class. (yes i actually do take classes here believe it or not) we´re already finished with our culture class. tomorrow we´re just meeting to receive our grades and get coffee with our teacher. The monday starts our new mini semester of history, art history, and political science. I, unfortunately have class at either 8:15 or 8:30 every day. ew. that´s way earlier than I ever take classes in Delaware!
This post is kind of boring, but I havent really been doing too much since i´´ve been back from spring break... umm lets see. i did go to a tiny little candle lit bar to hear live music. This argentinian guy was playing really soft, really chill music that i loved. i´m on the lookout for hole in the wall places like that in this city where i wont be surrounded by americans. i think tonight is reggaeton night at boogaclub... might try that...

anyway, i´m gonna go sit outside and study for my test.
paz afuera!

Botellon

Last night was one of the craziest parties I have ever witnessed. Every year on the first day of spring everyone congregates behind Hipercore (a department store) and parties all afternoon and into the night. It's called a botellon, coming from the word botella which means bottle. Everyone brings bottles of wine and sangria to the parking lot and just drinks. I've heard many different estimates but there were at least 3,000 people there. My friends and I got there at about 11 and there were people there of all ages. I saw kids who looked about 16 and then I saw people who looked like they could be my parents' age. It was absolute madness. But apparently it's like a known thing and it happens every year. They even had a clip of it on national news that night! and I was like, hey I was there! I'm obviously getting my share of culture! :)

I could tell you about the Cathedral in Granada that we also went to see yesterday, but it's just not as interesting.

SPRING BREAK!

I know it's been a while but I've been traveling like crazy for the past few weeks. I'll give you some highlights so it's not too painful to read the whole thing...

I have been...

• meeting policemen in a bar (with live music!!) in san sebastian and them thinking that caroline and I were Espanolas until a half hour into our conversation.
• walking through a super cool aquarium in san sebastian.
• scrambling to catch the last bus back to bilbao
• taking the metro to the airport in bilbao at 6 am
• staying on the beach in the south of france with Marti, the french mechanique. He took us out to a really nice dinner and then we watched ratatouille in french!
• getting dropped off in Perpignan (the Wilmington of France) without minutes on our phones and not speaking a word of French... an adventure to say the least
• spending the night in the barcelona airport drinking vodka with Slovakians
• crashing in madrid with Caroline's friends and making them a real American breakfast in the morning (teaching them how to put ketchup on their eggs)
• attempting to navigate the public transportation system in italy with my minimal italian
• playing ultimate with THE COOLEST group of girls from all over the world in Paganello, the biggest beach ultimate tournament in the world.
  
• not being prepared AT ALL for the weather in Rimini and playing in the same clothing for 4 days straight. including the day it rained...
  
• catching a sweet lay out catch in the end zone and getting sand in places i didnt know existed
• meeting ultimate players from all over the world (switzerland, germany, argentina, new zealand, israel, england etc)
• seeing my coach, tim!!!!!
• hanging out and traveling back to milan with Mike McGee!
• catching the bus back from madrid to granada with caroline and catching each other up on the eternity (5 days) that we had been separated.

Now i'm back in granada and its soo nice to be grounded for once in a place where i feel comfortable. after taking 5 flights over 10 days, i'm def staying in one place for a while...

but yesterday, we went for a bike ride up to the alhambra!!! it was really hard but totally worth the beautiful view of the whole city.

well, that sums up my spring break, i'm sure there were more adventures but this post is long enough as it is. if you've made it this far i'm impressed!!

Viaje!

I'm bouncing today for my spring break! it is Semana Santa (the week before easter) which means that here in granada there will loads of religious pilgrims/tourists coming to see the parades and religious festivities that only happen here in Andalucia. Since I'm not particularly interested in religious traditions and I have more than 10 days off I'm TRAVELING! My friend Caroline and I are leaving today for San Sebastian, a supposedly beautiful city in the North of Spain in Pais Vasko. Then we're flying to Barcelona where my friend Marti (remember the French mechaniques?) is picking us up in his car (!!) and taking us back to the south of France for a few days!! Then it's back to Madrid for a day before I fly out to Milan then hop a train to Rimini Beach for Paganello, the biggest beach ultimate frisbee tournament in the world. I will playing for a women's team from England called Discuits. I'm so excited! I've been running about three times a week since I've been here, but I really hope that I'm in shape enough to play a 4 day tournament... I made sure to bring plenty of ibuprofen.. I wont be back to home base Granada until march 25. so until then... ciao!