I have a feeling this post is going to be very long. There are a lot of things that have happened in the past week or so. Classes have been really good. I have met so many new people because of class. I'm in a class that would be like an English as a Second Language class.. except it's Spanish as a Second Language (or for some people in my class Spanish is their 4th or 5th language!!) There are only 14 people in my class, so we have gotten to know each other really well; however, today is the last day for many of my classmates because they take exams and leave for their home countries this week.
I have class for 4 hours everyday.. from 9:30-1:30 and I have 2 teachers for 2 hours each. My first teacher is Mariangeles (Mah-ree-an-he-les), she teaches mostly grammar. We have lots of writing assignments with her.. and we get graded on participation and our homework. My second teacher is Fermin (Fair-meen), he teaches mostly nothing. We watch a lot of YouTube videos and joke around in Spanish. We have watched several movies and had to write reviews on them, so we still have some homework, but he doesn't really teach much. This is a picture of half my class.. It's Me (USA), Anna (Poland), Mike (USA), James (USA), Federico (Italy), Jonnes (Finland), "Cecilia" (China) and Vittoria (Italy). My usual seat is between Jonnes and Cecilia.. I had moved that day because I thought we were going to watch a movie, but Fermin didn't show up.. so our first teacher had to teach for all 4 hours haha.. so we did different activities.
And the other half of my class.. from left to right: Devin (USA), Laura (USA), Erika (Slovakia), Viktoria (Serbia), Holly (USA), Liza (USA) and me on the very end.
Brittney, Mike, James, Federico and I decided we wanted to play racquetball one day last week. There was a little racquetball store that told us we could rent the equipment for really cheap from the University. So we went to the university sports area and looked around for a while. When we finally went to the building to rent equipment, we discovered it wasn't cheap at all. We decided not to do it, and we walked around for a while in my part of town.
We took tons of pictures with the statues that are in the median area near my casa. We found some nice people to take pictures for us.
My host mom has been telling me a lot that there is a really really good churros place by my house. So on our adventures around, we decided that since we weren't playing racquetball we would eat churros instead (perfect!). Churros are fried things that you dip in chocolate. Basically heaven on Earth!!! After you're done dipping the churros you drink the chocolate.
Last weekend, we went on an excursion to Ronda and Malaga. They are two small towns to the west of Granada. We had a 4 hour bus ride to Ronda. On our way there we saw a tonnnn of wind mills. They were so pretty! Once we got to Ronda, we had free time to get coffee and breakfast, then we had a walking tour of the city.
We split off into groups.. this was our meeting point. The bull in front of La Plaza de Toros. Our tour guide was SOOO good! His name was Jesus, so every time we would have people lagging behind, he would say, "Ok! Everyone follow Jesus!!" He said he could fluently speak Spanish, English and German.. pretty impressive!
The new bridge was built in (I think) the 17th century.. so even though it's not new at all it's called The New Bridge. It was HUGE and beautiful!
Some of my friends and I in front of the beautiful view of Ronda. Brittney, Me, Amanda, Brittany.
One place we went into was a home for poor people. It was given to English people a long time ago, and they turned it into a home for poor people to stay. Since at the time there were so many people in need of shelter, they were only able to stay there for 4 years. These were the people that the home was given to, and they are the ones that started this home.
We were able to take pictures in the back of the house. More of my friends.. Brittney, Me, Amanda, Sarah, and Sarah.. in my group alone there are 5 Sarahs and 4 Brittanys.. its crazy and can become very confusing!
I loved the view with the Spanish flag in the background!
As we were walking, we saw one of these orange trees. Like I said in one of my earlier posts, these oranges are very tart. The tour guide said that you can always tell who the tourists are because they pick the oranges and eat them and have sour faces as they're walking through town. So, with that being said, since we're tourists, we picked oranges and passed them around our group to taste them. I thought it tasted like a lemon with a hint of orange mixed in. The locals pick the oranges and make jam out of them and sell the jam.
The only way to tell that the oranges are tart is by the leaf. Orange trees that you can eat from have leaves with only one part to it. Orange trees that have tart oranges have leaves that have two parts to them.. a big part and a small part.
Back in the old days, this was a church. Where we were standing was the bull fighting ring, so the noblemen and all the important people of the city were able to stand on the balconies of the church to watch the bull fights.
View of Ronda, the white buildings are very Andalusian. They painted the buildings white to make them look cleaner.
The beginning of the Arab Baths. This is where the people would change into their robes. As you enter the actual baths, there's a hot, warm and cool room. The Arabs would take an entire day out to bathe. They would switch from the hot to warm to cold rooms to cleanse their skin and spirits.
Remember when America was mad because Michelle Obama took a vacation?! Well Spain LOVED it!!! Our tour guide was also Michelle Obama's tour guide. He said that she's a very nice lady.
We were only in Ronda for a few hours, then took a 2 hour bus ride to Malaga. Malaga is a city on the beach!!! Once we checked into the hotel, we had free time. So of course we went straight to the beach!
The next day we had a walking tour of Malaga. Our tour guide was TERRIBLE!!!!! Who knows if he even knew what he was talking about. But this is a river.. it's no wonder this part of Spain is having problems with water!
Another part of the tour.. we saw the Cathedral. This is the biggest building I've ever seen in my life! It was beautiful!
The bell tower. When we were standing there the bells started ringing. I'm not sure if the Spaniards enjoyed the sound of them, but they were totally off sync and sounded terrible.. definitely not something we liked.
The theater.. again I'm not really sure what this was used for.. I'm pretty sure our tour guide didn't know either!
Sitting outside.. Me, Brittney, Amanda, Brittany
The pretty view overlooking the city!
FINALLY! We got free time to go to the beach.. which we took full advantage of!
There were teenage boys on the beach that had buried a bright yellow stability ball in the sand and were doing flips off it. There was one boy that was amazing at this.. he would do flips over his friends when they were standing.
One of the girls in our group decided that she wanted to try this.. she was wearing a strapless dress, so she had to borrow a shirt from one of the guys in our group! Every time she would bounce on it the ball would go flying out of the sand.. I'm not sure why it didn't do that when the guys were bouncing on it.
After a few attempts, this was her best shot.. she face planted into the sand.. definitely a hilarious thing to watch!
I have learned a few very interesting things about Spain. One thing is that the reason that so many people take care of their elderly parents is because the government pays the caretaker 500 euros per month to care of them. This is much cheaper for the government than putting them in a nursing home.
I got lost again on the bus today. It was raining and I thought I was getting on the right bus, but it turned out I did get on the right bus.. it just took an hour to get to the stop I needed!!! Quite the adventure.. Encarna was wondering where I was by the time I got home, but when I explained everything to her she just laughed soooo hard! She was telling me that one girl that lived here before me got on a bus and ended up in a different city!!! AH! That would be scary!
Today is my friend Federico's last day in Spain, so we're going to go out to eat with him and hang out for a while. I'm sure I'll have more pictures to upload very soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment