Bienvenidos a Granada

Finally here today! The picture is of the alhambra, which I can't wait to see. I'm laying in bed with a little space heater because there is no heat in the building. It's surprisingly cold here. I can't wait to go shopping and buy room decorations, it's pretty boring at the moment but I'm sure it will be better once I add some pictures and stuff.

Backing uppp...

Toledo was really awesome, it reminded me so much of Italy with all the medieval architecture and the walled in city. My feet hurt so badly when we were walking around on the cobblestone so that kind of ruined my day a little bit. Toledo is famous for three things, espadas(swords), damasquinados(inlaid gold jewelry) and mazapán(marzipan). The streets were lined with gift shops selling those things and other stores with lots of clothes and shoes. I resisted shopping there because thats one of the first things I want to do here. The rebajas are going on right now and everything is really cheap. I also found this shoe store that sells flats for like 9 euro and boots for 20 euro, they are surprisingly cute too. We went on tours of religious buildings in Toledo with our tour guide, Fernando. He was quite amusing in his explanations of things. Then we were given free time for lunch, we went to this little hole in the wall(as most places are) restaurante. I really think those waiters were speaking a different language, I was asking for the menú del día, which is like 2 courses plus un postre, vino y pán for around 12 euro. He could not understand me at all no matter how slowly I said it and so I eventually just gave up. He sent another waiter over after that who spoke a bit of english. Ordering food is hard because I don't know what some of the things are in English never mind in Spanish. I'm hoping the food will be a little bit better here in Granada so I can actually eat something!

We went back to our hotel and had a long reunión about academics, la vida en Granada and a couple other things. There were no options for dinner, because all the restaurants were back in the walled in part of Toledo, except room service. Once again there was nothing I liked so I got huevos fritos, jámon y patatas fritas. The egg was basically raw and I'm pretty sure it gave me food poisoning because for the next 15 hours I was throwing up constantly. Not the way I wanted to spend my night : ( This morning we left Toledo for Granada and the bus ride wasn't too bad. The scenery was gorgeous and if I hadn't felt so sick I would have liked to take pictures.

We have our placement exam tomorrow morning so wish me luck! I can't wait to explore the city and take lots of photos!

Besos

Madrid

Madrid is gorgeous! My birthday was great although I went out and missed the activities today. But when we woke up at 2:30 we walked all over Madrid and it was really cool. I'm having a hard time with the food. Lots of fish but I found one place that had something I like. The sangria is delicious and we found this little store that sells wine for like 2 euro, its nothing special but it was fun to hang out with everyone and just drink a glass of wine.

I already feel like my spanish has improved immensely. I still get nervous when someone asks me something but as long as I think about it and take a second to figure out what I wanna say I definitely do alright. Tomorrow morning we leave for Toledo, which is cool but I can't wait to get to Granada. I wanna unpack and organize all my things...and of course see the city where I will be living. It still hasn't hit me that I'm here for so long! Which is a good thing because I already miss people at home and I think it'd be worse if I was thinking about it negatively. But my internet is about to expire so I will write more detailed things when I get to Granada!

Besos

Sí una cerveza por favor

Hoy was the longest day ever...I managed to sleep a little on the plane but not much. Luckily it wasn't full at all and I had the whole row to myself. I slept the entire way from London to Madrid which made for a very sore neck. I had my laptop taken at the airport for further screening and then I had my backpack searched and each individual thing was placed under the x-ray thing so it took a while to get through security at Heathrow.

Oh well...now I'm here and I'm so excited! Hace más frio than I thought it'd be but it's all good cause I brought enough warm clothes. I missed my first pickup at the airport and so I waited a while for the next one but there were 9 others getting picked up then too which worked out. We took a bus to the hotel which is surprisingly nice, right in the middle of Madrid with tons of stuff around to do. We are definitely going out tonight to celebrate turning 21! Vamos a Santana, el mesero en la tapería recommended it to us.

I went to a tapas bar with Caitlin, Molly, Brett and Andrea...it was interesting to say the least. The menú was complete gibberish and we all just ordered something that seemed like it'd be good. I took the safe road with a salad...every thing has ham in it or cabra, which is goat. I'm all set with that. For now anyway! The hotel room is small and I'm sharing it with 2 other girls so our beds are jammed together, it was a struggle to fit the suitcases in there too. It's also weird that there's no shower curtains? I guess I'll hafta get used to that. I'm going to try to nap before we have a panoramic tour of la ciudad.

Besos, KP

Manos al aire

Last day to get stuff done! Every time I think I have everything I remember something else that I "need". This is a real good method for making sure I have overweight bags. I'm about to call it quits though because I just wanna be packed and ready. I downloaded a bunch of music and I need to add it to my ipod for the flight.

My current playlist in progress:

¡Buen Viaje!

1. Hey, Soul Sister-Train

2. Trouble- Ray Lamontagne

3. Mellow Mood-Slightly Stoopid

4. Stereo Love-Edward Maya

5. Daisy Cutter-311

6. Manos al Aire-Nelly Furtado

7. Musical 69-Pepper

8. Here Comes the Sun-The Beatles

9. Hotel California-Eagles

10. Could You Be Loved-Bob Marley

11. Love Generation-Bob Sinclair

12. Cry Baby Cry-Carlos Santana

13. Fuck You-Lily Allen

14. Cali-Soca-311

15. Buffalo Soldier-Bob Marley

and thats all I've added so far but I think I'll be needing more than 15 songs for this flight.

Anyway, time to finish up. Still a couple things on the to-do list for this afternoon

Besos,

KP