One month!

It's hard to believe that I've been in Spain for a month and that it's almost March...I feel like I just got here and that I have so much more to learn. However, I'm definitely getting into a routine and am getting used to daily life and knowing what I'm supposed to do, which makes me feel more Spanish and less like a bumbling tourist all the time.

(Part of daily life...Negrita sitting on things that are important and looking defiant.)

My classes are going well thus far, and currently my favorite class is Islamic Art and Architecture. At first it was really overwhelming, both because of the professor's accent in Spanish and because of the sheer amount of information we were receiving, but now we've had a few weeks to adjust, and I love learning about the architectural features of buildings and then actually seeing them up close and personal. We're going to Córdoba next week to see the mosque there, which is one of the oldest still standing mosques in the world.

I've also started my internship at the Hospital Universitario Virgen de las Nieves, where I am working in the Palliative Care/Pain Management units. I go there every Monday and Wednesday for 5 hours and work with the psychologists and social worker...thus far, I've mostly been observing, listening, reading about what they do in the unit, and asking a billion questions. The people who work there are all very friendly and have been great about answering and encouraging my questions. Yay!

Other than that, life's been pretty normal over here. It's finally started to warm up a little bit and the sun even came out for a couple days this week! Yesterday I think it was around 60 degrees for part of the day, which was lovely, since my umbrella is starting to rebel against all the rain by sticking out at funny angles. Yesterday evening, I also went to karaoke night at Hannigan's, which is an Irish pub in our neighborhood. It was a lot of fun, but quite the interesting experience to hear what American songs the Spanish people decided to sing (for example, Mack the Knife is very popular. What?). My friends convinced me to sing with them eventually, so we did a rousing rendition of "My Girl" for the audience. I'm not sure if they cheered at the end because they liked us or because we were done, but it wasn't as terrifying as I thought it would be, and we got a free drink out of it. Smiles all around.

Stay tuned for future updates on my weekend in Madrid (I'm leaving in a short while), my first hostel experience, and the exploits of the Spanish!

The rain in Spain, old clothes, and Humphrey Bogart

Although I went to sleep last night without any specific plans, today has been a fascinating and very unexpected day. I woke up this morning when the phone rang at about 9 a.m. I didn't really think anything of it, and fell back asleep until about 10:30, at which point I got up and went to say good morning to Hortensia. She was in the living room-type area with my roommate, and they had just finished listening to a radio interview with Marcos Ana, a famous Spanish poet who had been a political prisoner for 23 years. To our surprise, Hortensia informed us that Marcos Ana had actually been imprisoned with her father, who was a political prisoner for 16 years during Franco's rule in Spain. "From the time I was little" (she indicated with her hand measuring the height of a small child) "until when I was about your age, my father was in prison." He was a university professor, but also played the violin, and Hortensia showed us photographs of her father in prison and also a drawing that was done of him, with a poem dedicated to her inscribed on the bottom. It was pretty amazing to hear about that and to see the pictures of her father, and kind of put my petty concerns into perspective at the time.

After we ate breakfast together, Lauren and I went to a museum down the street from our apartment, which is called Casa de los Tiros, which roughly translates to "house of the shots" or "house with the guns." The name came from the fact that the building used to be on the outskirts of the city, so the owner of the building (it used to be a house) put guns on the top to protect himself from robbers. The museum was mostly filled with art and artifacts from Granada's lengthy history...my favorites were the drawings of different parts of the Alhambra and photographs of people in Granada's neighborhoods.

When we got back, Hortensia had cooked us a dish that she called "ropa vieja," which means "old clothes" in English. I thought that was pretty funny, but it's kind of like the American concept of leftovers, with a twist. She took parts of two dishes that we had eaten the day before (chicken and chickpeas/vegetables) and combined them with more vegetables to make a new dish, which was delicious. One thing that I've noticed about Spanish culture is that there is very little waste, with food, water, garbage, etc. For example, instead of throwing away orange peels and nut shells, Hortensia burns them to create a sort of potpourri, which smells really good.

After a relaxing afternoon, I decided that I wanted to go to see The Maltese Falcon (they called it "El halcón maltés"), which is a Humphrey Bogart film that was part of the classic film festival that's been going on all week. The movie was in a cinema in the shopping mall across town, so I braved the rain (which has been happening for about a week...so much for the supposed drought) and walked over. I got some yummy popcorn (which is called "palomitas" here, which translates to "little doves"...I'm confused) and watched the movie, which was in English with Spanish subtitles. It was cool to see how things are translated, or not translated, from one language to another and the reactions from the audience, and that Humphrey is popular over here, too.

Now I'm back at the apartment, eating lemon yogurt and a peanut butter sandwich, and contemplating what to do this evening. Despite the rainy coldness of the past few days, I'm truly in love with this city and how, in the same day, I can witness so much history and so much innovation. It's pretty incredible.

La vida diaria (Or, How my Spanish is "getting better")

So, as of today, I've been in Granada for two weeks. I'm already starting to feel like I know the city, and have been exploring more every day, whether it is a different neighborhood or street or a new cafeteria or bar. I have yet to meet a lot of Spanish folk, but I have been trying to talk to people in Spanish, and succeeding some of the time. Yesterday during lunch, my señora, Hortensia, told Lauren and I that she could already see a lot of improvement in our speaking, which made me pretty happy.

(This is my street! On the right is a well-known theater, Teatro Alhambra, and on the left is possibly a school. I'm not sure.)

I started my IES classes on Monday, which have been going pretty well. I'm in an advanced Spanish class, an anthropology course titled The Experience of the Other, and a course called Islamic Art and Architecture of Spain and its Impact. I'm pretty excited about these classes, because they both involve using Granada as our classroom and visiting several sites in the city. I will also be taking a course at the University of Granada, which won't start for another week and a half, and I'll be interning at a hospital here and taking an internship seminar (more updates to come on the internship soon...once I find out for myself)!

This past weekend, I went to Sevilla and Ronda with IES, which was a great trip. In Sevilla, we got to see the Alcazar, which started as the old Moorish castles and gardens and was eventually taken over by the Christians (like pretty much everything else here...go figure), as well as the Cathedral and the Museum of Fine Arts. I also went with a few other students on a bike ride around the city and along the river - the highlight of my day was definitely seeing the rowers on the river...it made me miss my crew team!! We were lucky to have gorgeous weather in the mid-60's, and it was cool to explore a new city. In Ronda, we saw the old bullfighting ring and explored the old part of the city, which was amazing, since it was built on a cliff and thus a very important city, strategically, to control in the past.

(This is a picture of part of Ronda...I didn't get a great picture of the gorgeous bridge, but you can see the big drop-off there...wouldn't want to fall out of one of those windows.)

I had a lot of fun traveling, but I was definitely glad to get back to Granada. I love it here, and I am really happy I chose this city in Spain. It seems like there are a lot less touristy areas here, and less American influences (although I hear American music all the time and there is a super-nice Burger King in the main plaza...). I'll keep you all posted on my encounters with the Spanish and my misadventures in the city (most of them so far have involved our angry cat and my slippers). Os amo desde Granada!