Finally in Granada!

I know it's been a while, but I've been very busy exploring Granada! It's a beautiful, very typically European city, with motos zipping down narrow side streets and cute little balconies in every apartment. My host madre is adorable and she makes the most amazing food. The schedule is very different here. I eat toast and fruit for breakfast before I leave for school at 8. The we eat a huge lunch at about 2 or 2:30. Then the whole city shuts down and everyone goes home for siesta. Stores reopen at about 5 and stay open til about 9:30. We eat dinner at about 9 and then go out! We've been exploring the bar scene here in Granada. The city is full of little "tapas" bars where you get a free appetizer with every round of drinks that you order. I haven't been to any of the clubs around here yet, but tonight we're going to try a salsa club called salsera mayor. I'm hoping that its good.

So basically, everything is going well. I finally booked my flight from Madrid to Milan for Paganello!! It was slightly more expensive than I had hoped but flying into Italy for Easter weekend is bound to be slightly pricier than any other time of year. Oh well. I'm planning to travel around in Spain with my friend Caroline for the week before I leave for Italy. We'll probably go to Valencia and Madrid and other places that we won't get to see with the rest of our group.

Um.. what else exciting has happened? I'm speaking a ridiculous amount of Spanish. My roomate, Rachel, and I don't speak English in the house. And every night we watch the news in Spanish while eating dinner. Whenever we go out at night we always find Spanish people to talk to. I already feel like I'm improving my conversational Spanish!

Well, i guess that's all for now. When something super exciting happens I'll be sure to get back here. Please feel free to email me updates about your lives as well!! Ciao!

Las Ramblas and La Sagrada Familia

I have spent the last few days seeing the sights of Barcelona. From the street performers in Las Ramblas to the cow heads for sale in the Boqueria Mercado, Barcelona has been a whirl of new things to see and do. We went to the museum of Pablo Picasso. I could have spent hours there. Seeing a whole museum of one's person's work and analyzing the way his style changes as he gets older is so fascinating. Sometimes I wish I was an art history major... and then I do other things and remember why I love being a language major so much. I had falafel for lunch today in a store owned by an Israeli. I was so proud of the fact that I was able to switch from speaking Spanish to Hebrew without hesitating or mixing them up. I could speak to him in Hebrew then turn to my friend and translate to her what we were saying in Spanish!! I know I'm a loser, but this is what makes me so happy. Also, remember the French mechanics I had dinner with on my first night here? I introduced them to my group when they arrived and we became good friends. We got dinner together almost every night we've been here. My friend Rachel speaks a bit of French so we speak in French and Spanish with a few middle men translating back and forth. It's like a dream come true for me!

Last night we went out to a discotheque near the beach in Barcelona. The nightclub played great music, regaeton, salsa, rap and occasionally threw in classics like the theme from Rocky. Our French escorts were perfect gentlemen. They paid for our cabs and danced with us into the wee hours of the morning. (we didn't get to the club until the standard starting hour of 2 AM.) It was all good until we had to get up at 7:30 to go touring the city this morning.

Today we saw the museum of Joan Mori. With influences like Dali and Picasso, he had a very weird modern abstract style but I really liked it. Again I could've spent hours trying to figure out what this series of wavy lines is and whether that shape is supposed to be a phallic symbol or not...

Anyway, tomorrow we're leaving at 6:45 AM to fly to Granada to meet our host parents! I'm very excited to get to my permanent home and unpack my stuff and have meals cooked for me... The next time you here from me I will be in Andalucia! hasta pronto!

Les Mecaniques

It turns out that I arrived a day earlier than the rest of my group. So last night I took a shower and came down to the lobby of the hostel to find someone to eat dinner with. I walked up to the only group of people there and introduced myself. We started chatting and turns out that they were a group of mechanics from the south of France who were there on an exchange program. Two of their professors and one boy spoke excellent Spanish so I spent most of my time talking to them. The other boys spoke no English and no Spanish, and my French is a step below elementary. So we attempted to communicate over dinner and some cerveza. I would speak in Spanish to Martin and he would translate for everyone else. And you would be surprised by how much you can actually communicate with people even if your only common language is neither of your native tongues. It was definitely an interesting dinner.

Today my group arrived and it was so weird to hear people speaking English. I was amazed at how fast I was able to get my points across in English. It´s like I forgot how easy it is to communicate in English. Haha Hopefully one day Spanish will come to me that easily, but until then, I know that I´ll have to struggle a bit.

I¨m currently waiting for the rest of my group to finish showering and napping. Silly jet lag. I´m well ahead of them in that sense. Two other girls and I already went for a run to explore a bit of the city. I already had a quasi shower. It was absolutely miserable. It was luke warm and its the kind of shower that you have to push a button every 6 seconds to keep the water flowing otherwise it turns off. Damn the business conference that´s going on in Barcelona that forced us to get a hostel instead of an actual hotel...

Anyway, that´s all for now. Tomorrow we´re going to see some of sites of the city. oMaybe las ramblas or la Sagrada Familia. hasta luego!

Safely in Barcelona!

I arrived this morning at my hostel in Barcelona!! My last few days in London were amazing. I left Debbie and went to stay with my cousin Kerri. Kerri has an flat right next to what is the London equivalent of 5th avenue. It's BEAUTIFUL. When I told my other English friends I was staying in Knightsbridge they all were very impressed that I managed to score a place to stay in the most expensive part of London. On saturday, Kerri and I did the touristy thing and went to the Tower of London. We got a tour from a yeoman (also known as a Beefeater) who was really entertaining. He told us the history of the tower and of all the people who were beheaded for treason in the there. Kerri and I then saw the crown jewels which are kept in the tower, and a collection of royal armour. We then had a picnic lunch on the grass over looking the Tower Bridge. It was such a nice afternoon.

Later that day I met my captain for the ultimate team I'm going to play for in Paganello, the biggest beach tournament in the world. I'm going to play for the Discuits (like biscuits, but with a d) which is a women's team based in the UK. The captain, Sarah was really nice and obviously an ultimate player. It was so cool to chat with her about ultimate and the tournament (this is her 8th Paganello) and she was really informative. The tournament is in Rimini beach, Italy over Easter weekend and I'm already excited.

I then had a night out with my friends from year course, Mark and Darren. We tried to get into this really swanky club and they weren't letting us in, mainly because we weren't paying 200 pounds for a table and because we had more boys than girls in our party. So stupid. So instead we went out to a bar for a drink and then caught the last tube back home.

Sunday, I spent the day pub hopping and watching football (soccer) with Kerri and her friends. It was such a fun day and I'm so lucky that I got to spend so much time with Kerri. She's like the older sister I never had.... cheesy, I know, but, it's so true.

I got up at 5:30 this morning to get to Heathrow airport for my 9:20 am flight to Barcelona. I managed to get my baggage and a cab to my hostel without any problems. My cab driver chatted to me about politics in Spanish the whole way to the hostel. He's not a huge fan of the immigrants who are coming in to Spain. This obviously interested me because I plan on doing research this summer about Spain's controversial immigration policies.

So that's it. I think I'm gonna hang out with Jorge, my resident director, and find myself something to eat. I'm starving. Bye!

Dancing the night away

Last night I went to the most amazing nightclub in Kingston called Oceana and it put the clubs in New Haven to shame. I've never seen anything like it in my life. It had 7 different bar/lounge areas each with a different theme. There was a ski lounge area, a Tokyo/futuristic room and of course the Grand Ballroom. The Grand Ballroom was HUGE. It had a massive chandalier in the middle with three balconies overlooking the dancefloor. Each balcony had plush chairs to sit on and a bar at the back. I went on a wednesday night (student night) and the place was packed. The soundsystem was unreal. The bass literally vibrated the floor and I could feel it in my toes. Actually it was kind of like a nice massage for my aching feet (I was forced to wear heels). After dancing all night to latest in hip hop R&B and garage music, I got back to Debbie's flat at about 3 AM. Not bad for a wednesday. Today I'm going in to London to meet my cousin Kerri and my friend Rachel from camp. Yay! I have friends!

You'll run as fast as KENYANS!

Hi everyone!
my adventures to England actually began on the plane ride over. (Veronica, you'll appreciate this) I sat next to the world champion 1500 and 5000 meter runner, Bernard Lagat. You can read up on him here: http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/news/story?id=2958661 I couldn't believe I was sitting next to an Olympic athlete! And he turned out to be the nicest guy. He flicked on the little television on the seat in front of us and showed me on bbc sports his race at the world championship meet in Japan. "That's me coming around the corner!" 1500m in 3:26:34. No Big Deal. I was absolutely star struck.
After my 7 hour flight, I arrived at London Heathrow Airport at 6 AM London time. My smiley but tired friend Debbie was there to pick me up and we drove straight to her parents' house in Ramsgate. We walked around the harbor and ate delicious fish n' chips. I passed out pretty early though, it had been a long day.
The next day, Debbie and went sightseeing in London. We went on the London Eye (This HUGE ferris wheel that allows you to see the whole city), we saw Big Ben and Tower Bridge and the national gallery. I kept thinking of Mary Poppins: dancing on the rooftops of London, and all the pigeons at st. Paul's cathedral. I've had Chim-Chiminey stuck in my head for days.
Today, I took the tube (subway) into London all by myself. I went up to Golder's Green in NW London which is a very Jewish area. There were Kosher restaurants people speaking Hebrew on every corner. I met up with Susie and Danny, two of my friends from my Israel program who I haven't seen in three years. It was so nice to catch up!
Well that's all for now. I am a bit knackered but very happy. I didn't realize how many people I know in England! I have lots of people to see and very little time to do it in.

In the Beginning...

Hi everyone!
This will be my travel blog for the semester that I'm in Spain! This way you don't have to feel bombarded by update emails from me you can just check it out whenever you like. I'll do my best to keep it updated so you can read about my adventures as they happen. I'll try to post pictures as well.

So tomorrow I'm leaving for London. I'll be there for a week visiting friends from camp and my Israel trip and my cousin Kerri who just moved out there. And of course I'll do the tourist thing and see some of the sights in London.

The next time you hear from me I will be across the Atlantic! I hope everyone is having a great 2008 so far and please feel free to email me updates from you!

Hasta luego!