Finalmente, estoy en Granada!

Hola todos! It is now my 4th day in Spain and I apologize for not blogging yet but it has been SUPER busy here. Pues, this post will be quite long so I can fill you in on my adventures so far!

My flight into Madrid went very smoothly. No exciting news (which, when dealing with airports, is always the best). I knew 2 other girls who were on my flight so I met up with them as soon as we got off of the plane and we went through customs together. Then, we found 3 more people from API and so we all got together to wait for Curra and Lydia in the airport. From there we picked up some more people and went back to the hotel. The weather was (and has been since we arrived) absolutely gorgeous... sunny, breezy, cloudless aka perfection. We then spent 3 days in Madrid. On Sunday, we went to El Museo del Prado and saw some awesome artwork from Velazquez, El Greco, y otras. We also went to El Palacio Real y dios mio (oh my god) it was incredible. There palace has 2800 rooms and we saw about 15 of them that were absolutely breathtaking. So much gold and silk and silver everywhere.

Afterwards, we had a meeting with all the students for API and we went over stuff about Granada. During the meeting, there was a mini Spanish Revolution! There is stuff going on with the gobierno and there were loads of people protesting with signs and stuff. Nothing violent, so it was very cool to watch. That night, myself and 4 other girls went to a restaurant called La Bodega in Madrid where we ended up staying for 3 hours. We had been walking around for a long while so when we stumbled on this place, I was ecstatic and it turned out being awesome. We met and talked with the waitresses and danced, sang karaoke, laughed, met some Spanish people and from French people.

Despues (after) (also, I'm already struggling with separating English and Spanish so I will be putting in a few Spanish words every once and a while :)  ), on Monday, our API group went to Toledo. Fue increible! (it was incredible!) It felt as if the town was as if we had gone back in time. It was beautiful but very slow and definitely different pace of town. In Toledo, Marcela (my roommate), Craighton, Adam, Parker, Lorelyn, Kat, and I went to a little restaurant for lunch. We got a Menu which is sometime that is only for lunch where you pay something like 7-10 euro and chose 1 entree from one list and a 2nd entree from a different list and also get a drink and postre (dessert). The gazpacho that I got there was very good.

Vale, on Tuesday we left for Granada! Primero (first), we went to El Escorial which is a monastery where the King would go during the summer months to be a monk. After seeing the Palacio Real, the contrast between the two was astounding. The rooms in the monastery were very plain and simple as opposed to the extravagance that the Palacio had. The only two places that had the non-plain and simple was underground in a room where they house all of the bones of the previous kings and queens (and the mothers/fathers to the children they had, so not necessarily the most recent wife or husband). This place was, simply put, breathtaking. It was all granite and marble, deep green and cream colors with gold everywhere. There are currently 3 empty tombs because they must wait until the bodies of the person have decomposed because they only put the bones inside of the tombs. There are rooms right before the entrance of the tomb room where there are currently 2 bodies ( I think) in the 'rotting rooms' waiting to be done decomposing. The other place that was just as breath-taking, if not more so was the church area. I felt like I was an intruder, it was so big. I also felt like an ant for the same reason. It was phenomenal. The paintings that were housed in there were indescribable.

Well, that pretty much wraps up my first couple of days here! I am now in Granada (today was our first full day) and I am in love with the town. My host mom is adorable and has her moments where she reminds me of my mom and grandad (all good things, grandad and mom!). We live right next to the river and have a very spacious room that includes a desk for me and my roommate, a bookcase for each of us, 4 drawers for each of us, a shelf for each for shoes, and a big dresser where we can hang all of our things. We took a tour of Granada today with Curra (our program director) and visited both buildings of the Centro de Lenguas Modernas and also the API office. We then had a meeting to get our student ID cards and also fill out some paperwork -- always fun, even in Spain. My host mother then made us almuerzo(lunch) for when we got back and it was delicious. It was called arroz cubano and had  rice and garlic. Then there was a tomato, ham, onion, and garlic sauce on top. Mmm mmm mmm. Then we also had pan (bread), salad with a fried egg, and the best watermelon I have probably ever tasted as our dessert.

Today in Granada, there are rebajas (sales) that are so good. For example, almost every store has the cutest shoes selling for only 5 euro. Pues, I'm off to go shopping! Today is the last day of the rebajas because tomorrow is the first of September. Tomorrow or even later tonight if I have time, I'll post some pictures on here from my trips for all of you to see!

Thanks so much for reading!! I'm missing everyone in the US but am so glad that I'm here. I've met some pretty cool people so far and I can't wait to meet more!

Love to all,

Katie