Vale

Let me just begin by saying that I am having so much fun and have met such cool people here. I still have to pinch myself sometimes to remind myself that, yes, Katie, this is real. Por eso (therefore), I have been slacking a little on my blogging because I have been so busy enjoying this amazing city! So this will be a long post but full of fun goodies about the rest of my first week in Granada.

Well, we have all survived the first week in Granada and first week and a half in Espana! This past weekend was lots of fun. On Friday night, almost everybody from our API early start group went out to a club called Kapital and danced the night away. And with that phrase is no exaggeration. We danced until 6 in the morning and I went to bed at 6:30 am. Here's a picture from that night:

Here is from left to right: Marcela, Colleen, Carrie, Rita, Lorelyn, Kat, me.

Saturday wasn't too exciting. I slept until noon after not going to bed until 6:30, woke up for breakfast, ate lunch, and siesta-ed. There was a music festival in the city center of Granada that we stumbled upon so we hung out there for about an hour and danced!

On Sunday, 6 other people and I decided to go to the beach for the day! After a slightly rocky start involving us just setting the time to meet a little to early for anyone to get there on time, we ended up at the Granada Estación de Autobuses. We originally were heading to Malaga for a beach day but Malaga is about 2 hours away and the timing didn't work out so, we randomly chose a city that they had buses going to after asking around to make sure it had a beach. We went to Almuñecar and it turned out better than any of us could have imagined. This little beach town was perfect for what we wanted. There wasn't so much sand as there were piedras (rocks). We got to the beach and staked out a spot to hang out which ended up being one of my rockiest parts of the beach but all was well. We hung out and waded in the water a little (it was so cold!). Then we wandered around the town to find some place for lunch. My host mom, Maria Jose, had packed me a lunch to take with me but since our trip was so last minute, not everyone got packed lunches. We went to a pizza place that was pretty good. Afterwards, we found a sandier part of the beach and took a group siesta on the beach (hard life, I know!) A few of us, including me, ended up going all the way into the crystal clear water but it was a short lived experience since it was so cold.

Here is a picture of the group of us who went:

From left to right: Derrick, Katie, Me, Ryan, Allyson, Kevin, and Liz


Almuñecar's bus station was close to the beach so we were able to get a lot a time at the beach without having to trek to and from the bus. We left around 6 pm and got back into Granada at 7:30. I had dinner at home with Marcela and Maria Jose. Marcela and I have come to a consensus that we have lucked out a lot with our host mom. She's a good cook and almost everything she has made us we have liked! Sunday night was a chill night with Marcela, Adam, Parker, and me just going out for some tapas since we were all kind of tired and had class the next morning.

Monday, I had my second day of class. Nothing too exciting to report about class yet. We're going over a lot of perfecto/indefinido and ser/estar. Some people from my class and I went to the API office after class to sign up for the rooming list for our API excursion to San Jose/Cabo de Gata! Marcela, Molly, Lorelyn, Kat, and I then went shopping for a little around Granada. On the way home, Marcela and I found a group of breakdancers the practice everyday except Sunday's behind our house at  8 o'clock. They are so good, it's crazy that people can move their bodies like that.

On Tuesday, API held a meeting about all the cultural activities that the CLM and Universidad de Granada has to offer. So many cool things from rock climbing to swimming to theater to salsa lessons. There are some volunteer opportunities with a school in Granada for primary and secondary school students and once I get my class schedule for the semester, I am going to go and volunteer there for a couple hours a week. They are very flexible with your schedule (aka you tell them when you can do it, what age, and what subject you would like best and they pretty much honor that). I can't wait to start doing all these activities! Most of them start in October since that is when the actual semester for the Universidad starts (I'm doing early start which is the Intensive month beforehand) so we still have a week or two to wait until everything starts up.

After the meeting, a group of us went out for tapas by the API office. That night, API had a movie night with a movie by Garcia Lorca. It was a movie held at a building really far away and it turned out being a bust. Nothing could have warned us that it wasn't going to be a success though. The movie just wasn't very good (it was actually a play that was put onto film) and 20 minutes in, it started skipping which did not help the movie's cause. We ended up leaving early, going to get frozen yogurt/gelato and sitting by the statue of Christopher Columbus and Isabella in the city center.

Last night (Wednesday night), we all went out for Marcela's 20th birthday which is today! It was ladies night at one of the clubs called Granada10 and since it was her birthday, she sent them a list of everyone in our group beforehand and we all got in for free. It was so much fun!!

Here is a picture of me and the birthday girl before we went out on the town:

 (More pictures to come. I didn't bring my camera out and the people who did have not yet posted pictures)

This morning was rough because we didn't end up getting home until 5:30 am (whoops!) and I had class at 9 and Marcela had class at 10. I only slept about 2 1/2 hours before I had to get up for class so I was a little tired (God bless cafe). Then I had a solid 3 hour siesta right after lunch when I got back from class.

Well, that pretty much sums up the past couple days! I'm having a blast here and I am 100% happy with my choice to study in Granada. I like our Intensive Language classes so far but am excited to find out more information on Monday about my Hispanic Studies classes.

Pues, hasta luego!

Katie