La la la la

I just posted the blog below, but I wrote it over a week ago so it seems like a lot of stuff has happened. Well, Kyla and Andrea went to Morocco for 6 days, so it was just me and my host family. Almost everyone in our ISA group went to Morocco, there was only a handful that didn't go. Being by myself completely for the first time pretty much since I have been in Spain was something I think I needed, but for the first time I could really think about everything with my Dad and stuff. I was pretty sad that day... but I feel so thankful that I have my loving host family. I told my host Mom about how I had lost my Dad last year and she was crying right along with me and she gave me lots of hugs and kisses and chocolate. All the things someone needs to feel better. Anyway, after I was sad... I felt much better. I think I needed a day to just be sad and just completely relax. I went shopping a lot and bought a few things, and I got a couple books for the ISA library. I also started drinking an insane amount of tea... I love how I just get random kicks with food, I eat the same thing for a while until I get tired of it. I think the tea has been keeping me from getting really sick though, because while almost everyone in my host family was sick I never got sick. Well, anyways, onto some happier stuff...
Last weekend, I hung out with the young people from the church on Saturday night. Well, I showed up at the church at the normal time with a couple other girls from ISA that didn't go to Morocco. We waited around for about 15 minutes and no one showed up and the church was dark and locked. There were about 10 of us (mostly all new people) at the church and we didn't know where the rest of the group was... but da da da da I had the phone numbers of a couple people from the group of jovenes (young people). We called them and figured out that they were at the bowling alley! Yes, there is a bowling alley in Granada... I didn't know that until last Saturday. That whole night was really fun, we bowled, we got some food, and I talked to some cool people. Then on Sunday morning, I went to church and it was really good, then we all ate afterwards, and I stayed and hung out with everyone until almost 6 PM! Hmm... let's see. I don't remember what all I did on Monday and Tuesday, but Kyla and Andrea returned on Wednesday. I did a lot of reading and tea drinking in those few days before they got back and in a matter of a few days I finished a 400 page book. Now, my sisters are back and we are having lots of fun together. I think I did need that time by myself though. I like being with people, and I did get a little bit of time by myself before, but not much. When we were traveling all around Europe, the only time I had by myself was behind my eyelids when I was sleeping. Plus, when I was alone I had to do things by myself. I went to the post office to send a couple things, and normally I would want to go with someone because it's really intimidating when there are so many people and I don't know what to do or where to go and I have to try to speak in Spanish what I want. But, it wasn't bad at all and I was able to send the packages easily.
So, last night we went salsa dancing with some people from the church, but it was all girls and only one boy. The boys that wanted to go weren't there so that was kind of disappointing, but we still had a lot of fun. We got some tapas and then went dancing and we danced and talked to a few people there at the club. It was really fun... I decided that one of the goals for my life is to take salsa dancing lessons and dance in a competition. I think that would be so amazing and so much fun.
Well, that's pretty much it for now. Kyla and I tried to go to the library today, this big library that's pretty far away from where we live. We took the bus and walked through the rain to find it just to find out that it was closed. So we just walked around and got a little tour of Granada instead and we went to Dunkin Donuts and now here we are at an internet cafe. Nothing too interesting happened today because I didn't even get up until about 12:30 because we were out salsa dancing until like 4 AM and that's the lastest we've stayed out here. I was proud of us for staying out that late because we're usually asleep way before that, I was like, at least we're sort of like Spaniards because we stayed out late, yay. haha... okay I'm just blabbing on now. Goodbye everyone, have a good day!

All Around Europe and More

Well, there is so much to write about. Classes started yesterday and right now it’s about 10:30 AM on Thursday morning, don’t worry I don’t have class today until 4 PM. We just got back from our trip around Europe on Monday night. We first went to Paris, France for a few days. While we were there we took a night bike tour with lots of other tourists. We even had to wear bright colored vests with reflectors while we were riding the bikes, I know we’re nerds and tourists, but we embraced it in all its glory. We rode all around Paris then we stopped at a yummy ice cream shop that was supposed to be the best in Paris. Then we got on a boat because it was included in the tour as well, along with free wine and we glided along on the water of Paris. It was so awesome to see all the sights, but it was freezing because we weren’t prepared for the cold weather of Paris. We were used to the 80s-90s in Granada and we looked up the weather in the countries we were going to visit but I didn’t expect Paris to be so cold, I wore lots of layers after that boat ride!
A few other things we saw in Paris were Notre Dame, St. Chappelle, and of course the Eiffel Tower. We went all the way to the top of the Eiffel Tower at nighttime and we got to see the whole city lit up. It was such a grand sight; I couldn’t believe I was really there. We ate at a couple cafes and we ate one nice meal out because we were trying to save money. I had salad, quiche, and lots of yummy French bread. I also really liked our hostel in France, the four of us girls had our own room to ourselves and we had our own bathroom. The hostel was more like a hotel than a hostel, there was free internet and we had free breakfast, plus it was in a pretty good location. If you plan on going to Paris, be sure to ask me about it because it was a good price too! There was only one time where there was some sketchiness going on when we were trying to go back to our hostel at nighttime. We accidentally went down the wrong road and there were all these creepers… we were looking a map that was along the road and this guy was talking to us and we walked away so he wouldn’t be near us. Then he walked away and we went back to the map and were walking down the street, then he came back, and Kyla yelled, “Corre!!” which means “Run!” in Spanish and we all started running to cross the street. We were booking it until this other guy started talking to us in French, and I said, “We don’t speak French,” then he started talking to us in English and I said, “We don’t speak English!!” Then we were speed walking to get back to our hostel. It was really funny and that was just one of the adventures we had on our trip.
Next we went to Geneva, Switzerland and stayed in this hostel where the room was for 6 people and we had 5 girls, because another girl joined up with us. The bathrooms were shared for the whole floor, but at least it was only for girls unlike one of the other hostels we stayed in, but that’s in Rome. We saw the largest waterfall in the world, and this garden clock thing which is pretty much the only famous thing from Geneva. We went to Coops a lot to buy food to make picnics and stuff because Geneva was extremely expensive. We only went to McDonalds once during our trip because we were in a huge hurry, and it cost 11-13 francs (they use CHF in Switzerland) for a combo meal, it was ridiculous. I’m not sure how much that is in dollars, but it’s too much. Then we went to Interlaken that night, we arrived there around midnight and we were walking around trying to find our hostel. The little town was dead at that time, but the thing that stuck out the most to me when we first got there was how fresh the air was. We couldn’t see the mountains because it was so dark, but the next morning when we woke up we realized that our hostel was basically right next to the mountains. They were breathtaking! We spent that whole day up in the mountains and we brought food with us to have a picnic up in the Alps. The only thing that happened that day was when we were following this path that took a good 2 or 3 hours to walk, it was starting to get dark. We were on this downhill part for a good hour and we could hardly see but a foot in front of us. We were all so sore for the next few days after that, because going downhill that long we used parts of muscles that never get used in that way for that long. It was so funny when we tried to go up or down stairs for the next couple days.
The next place we went was Rome, Italy. Rome itself was a very dirty city; there were lots of graffiti on the buildings and lots of trash everywhere. While it was amazing to see all the historical things like the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the Roman Forum, and many others, the city itself wasn’t very pretty. It was kind of a depressing city because it seemed like people just didn’t care about it anymore. Plus, this was the hostel that we truly had the hostel experience. We were in a 10 bed co-ed dorm type room and there was co-ed bathroom as well. The bathroom was really gross, there was always water on the floor and the toilets were icky. I tried to avoid taking showers there as much as I could. Also, people kept taking the bed I was sleeping in. I slept in one bed one night, then when I got back there later the next day someone was sleeping in it. I got clean sheets and moved to another empty bed, and then the same thing happened the next night. It was funnier than anything else because people kept taking my bed. I didn’t mind too much because I got to talk to the cute guy who worked at the front desk to get new sheets…hehe. We had a lot of food in Italy, but sadly it wasn’t any better than the food in the US. I would’ve been happy with Olive Garden over some of the restaurants where we ate. We didn’t eat anywhere super expensive but we ate at some decently nice restaurants so I was expecting the food to be completely amazing, but it wasn’t as good as I hoped.
Our last stop was in Venice, Italy. We all loved Venice, it was so beautiful. Thankfully our hostel was in a non-touristy area because there were so many people in some of the areas in Venice. It was east to get lost because everything looked the same, there was water everywhere and the buildings were very pretty but they tended to look the same after a while too. The cool thing was that our hostel used to be a palace or something like that. It was really old but beautiful and homey. I think it was my favorite hostel because it felt like home when you walk in. There were chandeliers in every room that were gorgeous, plus when we had our breakfast, everyone in the hostel sat at one big table and we ate family style. There weren’t that many people in the hostel, and they were all girls, so it reminded me of a Joshua House women’s retreat or something. In Venice, we walked all around and looked in all the cute little shops, I even got a couple Christmas gifts for people. Then after Venice we came back to good ‘ol Granada. I missed our host family and Granada while on our trip. I was ready to stay in one place for a while and not live out of a backpack anymore.
I truly loved going to so many different cities in Europe. It was definitely an eye-opening experience. I got to hear many different languages, French, German, Italian, and I saw so many cultures as well. I feel like to got to know the girls I was traveling with a little better, and I think I was able to be myself a little more on the trip because we had to definitely get comfortable with each other in those living situations. Sometimes it takes me a long time to really feel comfortable being myself, I don’t know why, but I think that trip really helped me to feel completely comfortable. I love living with Kyla and Andrea… it’s always an adventure with the three of us. We have lots of fun together that’s for sure. I think that the trip around Europe and this trip in Granada has really been a learning experience so far. I feel like I’m finding out who I really am here and who I want to be and who God wants me to be. It seems like to find out who I am and who I want to be, I have to be taken away from all the things that made me me, then I can see who I am when the things that defined me aren’t around anymore. I don’t have my church, my friends, my family, my school, my normal places I go like Caribou and different clothing stores, I don’t really have anything here that I am used to. Even the clothing I normally wear isn’t really what people wear here. I like wearing jeans, tennis shoes, and a hoodie, but people here dress up a lot even to go to class. That’s something I have to get used to as well, I want to get some new clothes so I don’t stand out so much like and American and I need cold weather clothes. So anyway, it’s kind of cool and difficult to see who I am when the things that have basically been defining me in a way aren’t there anymore. All I have here are God, and my strength on the inside (well my host family and Kyla and Andrea, and some of the friends I’ve made here too). In a way this has been one of the hardest things I have gone through and one of the best. I’ve definitely had some hard things happen to me, but this is hard in a different way. I really learn the things and the people that I love when I don’t have them with me. There are so many little things that I miss. I was eating an apple this morning, and to me the taste of an apple feels like the fall. I think of going apple picking, I think of cool weather and Halloween, and then Thanksgiving. It makes me think of walking across the Oval on Ohio State’s campus with the cool breeze kissing my face, and hearing the laughter and chatter of my fellow students as they are living their lives. I miss football season and going over to Nikki and Ray’s house to watch the game and eat Ray’s Dad’s chili while everyone is clapping and yelling and pounding the floor. There are so many things that I miss, but at the same time I’m learning to love it here in Granada. I’m making new memories of the fall season and maybe next time I eat an apple when I’m in the US it will make me think of my experience here. I really feel fortunate to be learning all of this about myself, about my life, and everything while I’m young. I still have about 2 and ½ months here to learn even more and I’ll be home just in time for my favorite holiday, Christmas. Well, this has become very long and I need to go running. I’m trying to get back in shape and my goal is to be able to run 5 miles by the time I get home. Well, whoever is reading this just know that I love you and miss you and I can’t wait to be home and spend lots of time with you. :)

Salsa dancing and everything

Well, I haven´t updated this in a little while. I have been doing really well lately. Even last night, the young people from this church we started going to and Kyla, and Andrea, and I went salsa dancing. It was so much fun... we got there a little bit early so there weren´t that many people there but we had a pretty big group so we all just started dancing together. There was a guy who was trying to teach us a few moves, but it was hard to hear and hard to see so we just had fun and danced all around. I love salsa dancing and I would love to take lessons someday and maybe even dance in a competition. I started making a list here of everything I want to do in life and taking salsa lessons and dancing in a competition is one of my goals in life now. Another is to learn how to snowboard... Sierra, if you read this, you can help me with that one. I can´t wait to go snowboarding and stuff when I get back. I could possibly go here in the Sierra Nevada mountains, but since I don´t know what I´m doing at all, that´s kind of intimidating, but we´ll see.

I just finished my intensive month course, which really wasn´t intensive at all. We had class for 4 hours a day, 5 days a week but almost everything we did I had seen before in other Spanish classes multiple times. It was good to see all of it again though because hopefully this time I learned it for good. The test wasn´t too bad or anything, I feel like I did pretty well. Umm.. what else is new. Well, a couple days ago, me and some friends and some intercambios (Spanish girls) went out to lunch and then we got ice cream and just walked around Granada. It was cool to practive my spanish and the girls got to practice their English with us. I think it´s funny that some of the Spanish people get so nervous to speak English with us because I´m like hello, I´m not speaking my native language here either. I definitely feel like my spanish skills have improved. I catch myself listening to people speak spanish but it feels really normal, not like when I´m walking through Ohio State campus and I hear people speak spanish and it sticks out a lot. Spanish is starting to become more normal and easier for me. Maybe that switch that people talk about has started to turn on, when everything becomes easier. I don´t know though because I still speak in English quite a bit to some American friends and when I´m with Kyla and Andrea we don´t speak Spanish all the time. My brain does need a break sometimes.
I feel like I have a new outlook here now after meeting people and not having homesickness nearly as much as I did. I feel like 4 months might not be long enough to really learn everything I want to learn and I could stay longer, but on the other hand I will certainly be ready to come home and spend Christmas with everyone. When I was talking to some people at the church we go to and I told them that we´re staying until the end of December, they all said you´re only staying 4 months, that´s not very long at all. When I first got here, 4 months felt like it was going to be an eternity and I was almost counting down the days I was here just because I missed everything so much, but now I´m having so much fun and I´m getting used to things a lot more I probably won´t want to leave. Well, I have many things to do to get ready for our trip because we´re leaving tonight so this is all I have for now. There will be much more to come after we go to France, Italy, and Switzerland. :)

Some pictures!

Here is a link to my facebook photo album of some pictures of Spain. I will try to put more up soon, but it´s been difficult to get them up. Anyways, here is the link.

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2456043&l=55af2&id=12431995

Well, I don´t really have that much to write about but I just felt like writing something. Last night we had our intercambios meeting. Intercambios are people that we will meet with so we can practice spanish and they can practice English. I was proud of myself that I could talk to people a lot in Spanish and we had a lot of fun. The meeting was at this Arabian tea place, I was sitting with a few other ISA girls, and about 5 spanish people. We then went to a tapas bar and they ordered us typical drinks that the locals usually order. I ended up with a drink that was a mix of a few types of wine I think. They said it would put hair on my chest... it was strong that´s for sure but I liked it a lot. We then decided to try one more tapas bar afterwards and we went to this wine place. I had a glass of some type of sweet red wine, I forget what it was called but it was good, just a little too sweet. The tapas (free appetizers that come with the drinks) were really good too. I also found out that there is a salsa dance club that gives free lessons two nights of the week. I am definitely going to go soon, maybe even this weekend! It was definitely a fun night! I love meeting different people, especially spanish people because I can feel my spanish improving and talking with actual people helps me learn things that I just don´t learn in a typical spanish class.
Well, I am doing really well. I don´t feel homesick as much when I meet people because I feel like I am making more of a home here. Everyone here has been really nice and I hope to make good friends with lots of people. Sometimes 4 months seems like such a long time, but right now I feel like maybe it won´t be long enough to experience everything I want to experience. I know that feeling won´t last that long, I´ll be ready to come home in December for Christmas. Well, yesterday we booked two hostels for our trip and we´re going to book two more today, so our plans are coming along. If anyone has any suggestions of what we should see in Paris, Switzerland, Rome, or Venice, please let me know!

My adventure of a weekend

Well, I´m sitting in an internet cafe type thing right now. There actually aren´t too many of these anymore in Granada, so it´s kind of hard to go online during the weekend. During the week, we can go to the library near us, or the ISA office but on Sundays especially everything is pretty much closed. I´m sitting here listening to Miranda Lambert on my iPod, it´s an interesting mix of cultures. Anyways, my trip here is getting close to 3 weeks so far. I´ve been having lots of fun lately. On Friday night, a bunch of us went over to this girl´s apartment who is in our program and hung out for a bit. Then some of us went to this festival concert thing. We thought it would be about a 20 minute walk from where we were, but it ended up being probably 45 minutes. It was about 1 AM when we got there and it was full of people, even little kids were out playing on the stuff for kids. It was weird to see kids out so late. But there was also this concert but there were so many people. It was pretty gross because everyone was either drunk or high and the place wreaked of alcohol, but the concert was pretty cool. I have no idea what group it was or anything, but apparently the festival went on until 3 AM. We only stayed in that crowd of people for about 10 minutes. I couldn´t take being that close to people, getting bumped every 2 seconds. It was a cool experience but I didn´t want to be there for long. Kyla and I got separated from a few of the other people in the group, but we decided to go home so went to try and call a taxi, but none of the phone numbers we had worked. So, we started walking a little bit, we were practically speed walking because we were freaking ourselves out. But, thankfully an empty taxi drove by and we were able to get in it. The taxi driver was a young, nice, good looking guy that had just started the job the day before. So we talked to him and then went home, even though he accidentally took us to sort of the wrong spot. It was an interesting night for sure!
Yesterday was another whole adventure. We met these Spanish guys at this karaoke bar we went to and they ended up calling us yesterday to get some coffee. We all went to this really yummy place called Cafe Futbol. Then they invited us to play soccer with them and some friends and we decided to go. We ended up playing soccer with Spanish guys in the Sierra Nevada mountains. I was like I can´t believe we´re here playing soccer with Spanish guys in the mountains! It was really fun, but I´m not very good at soccer. They didn´t seem to care though.
Today, I went to a church that is about a 20 minute walk from where we live which isn´t very long in Granada. I really liked it! Everyone was so friendly, we met some people our age and found that they hang out pretty much every weekend so hopefully we can join them this weekend. I recognized some of the songs we sang during the worship part, and it was so cool to be singing to God in another language. So, things are coming along here. I feel like I am making a life for myself, and I´m enjoying meeting new people and trying new things.
I am definitely missing people and everything about home, but I´m feeling much less homesick than I did before. I have two more weeks of the intensive month class, which really isn´t that intensive. We don´t have much homework or anything, and a lot of it is review that I still need to learn. I bought my plane tickets to travel to France, Switzerland, and Italy during our one week break after this month which I´m really excited about. Then the semester starts and we start our real classes. It seems like I´m still going to be here for such a long time, but really it won´t be that long. It has already gone fast and I´m sure once we´re busy with school and stuff it will go even faster. I´m here for a total of 16 weeks and I already only have 13 weeks left pretty much. I´m trying to think if there is any other update but I can´t think of anything else. I will write again soon and I miss and love all of you!!

I've been here for 2 weeks already!

Well, I can't believe that it's already been two weeks. I've only been in Granada for a week though because during the past week we went to Madrid and Toledo. Madrid was very city-ish, it didn't seem like we were in a different country when we were there. Everything was in Spanish, but there were buses, people everywhere, and even Starbucks. I was glad that I didn't decide to study in Madrid, it was just too much city for me. I didn't particularly care for Madrid, but I really liked Toledo. In Madrid though, it was so historical, we saw the Palacio Real where past kings and queens of Spain had lived, and we also saw the Museo del Prado which had tons of sculptures and paintings. It was so cool to hear the stories about the kings and queens and we saw their bed chambers and the rooms where they had parties. Toledo was exactly like the old cities you think of when you think of Europe. Narrow streets, lots of apartments with little balconies with plants on them. It was beautiful!

We didn't get to Granada until that Sunday even though we arrived in Spain on Wednesday. After the 5 hour bus ride from Toledo to Granada, we anxiously awaited in the bus until our names were called and we could meet our family. After one of the ISA directors called our names, Angela, Kyla, and Andrea, we got our luggage and were greeted by a nice middle aged man with a smile. The rest of the family was at the house, which was good b/c we could hardly even fit us and all of our luggage in the car.
We are staying with an amazing family with four children. There is a 22 year old daughter Monica, a 17 year old son Manolo, and 11 year old twin girls Elena and Maria. The parents have been so welcoming and so amazing. The Mom, Torcuata, always greets us with a smile and a kiss and tells us how pretty we are. She always tells us that we are her own daughters now. She is just really sweet and loving. The family can definitely be really loud, especially the twins, but they are pretty cool. We have played games and watched 101 Dalmations with the girls. It has been a good homestay so far. In the house, the three of us share a pretty large room and the three of us also have a bathroom to ourselves. We couldn't have asked for a better place to stay.
I am now starting the second week of my intensive month course. I was worried at the beginning when I had to take a placement to test to see which course I would be placed into. I needed to place into the advanced level to get college credit for this trip at OSU and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to, but I took the test and sure enough I made it into the advanced level and so did the other girls that I live with. We have class from 9-1 Mon-Friday. The class isn't really that hard, when I heard it was called the intensive month I was worried it would be a ton of work. But we hardly have any homework. We're reviewing a lot of stuff right now but it's nice to see it again so I finally learn this stuff for good.
Well, I'm sitting here in the ISA office with some friends and we're trying to figure out where to go during our breaks. Right now, we're thinking about going to France and Italy during our one week break. We're planning on doing lots of traveling while we're here. I'm not sure where else we're going to go, but I know it will be a really good experience. It still hasn't completely hit me that I'm going to be here for four months, and when I think about it, it's kind of hard to be away for so long. But I know that I am on this trip for a reason, well, obviously to learn spanish, but there is so much more that is going to happen. I do get homesick, but I know this trip will be worth it when it is over. I miss all of you and I love all of you. I will write again soon! Please keep in touch!

My first blog

Well hello everyone, I´m trying to start a blog so that everyone can keep up to date on what I´m doing. I´m just going to write something very short here so that I can make sure everything on here works.