brief update

the past few weeks have been super busy, so here's a condensed update!!

the weekend after rome i went to carnaval, which is a week long celebration in cadiz right before lent. it's also really big in brazil and venice. it's basically a mixture of halloween and a huge street party. people really go all out with their costumes, and some are really clever and funny! four of us went as ladybugs, or mariquitas, which isn't so original but it was pretty cute! we took the bus from granada around 1 and got there around 5. we hung out on the beach for a while and then headed into the center of the city to join in the festivities. it wound up being a fun night, but it was way too long. our bus wasn't set to leave until 6 in the morning, but since we're in spain, it didn't leave until 7. there also wasn't really much to do. there wasn't any music or food stands or anything, so we were kind of just wandering around and hoping it was 6.

the next weekend i headed off to belgium/ northern spain for 10 days. we went to three cities in belgium; brussels, bruges, and ghent. bruges was by far my favorite. it was a cute little canal town and all the houses and buildings were adorable. brussels was cool too, but also a little strange. but belgium was awesome thanks to their amazing beer, delicious waffles, fries, and chocolates. i think i gained 10 pounds there. the belgians are really into their beer. each beer has it's own specific glass that it's served in, and they're particular about it. even at the dumpiest bar they make sure to serve the beer in the right glass.








Bruges

   

after belgium we took a 4-day trip to two cities in the north of spain, santander and san sebastian. the north of spain is so different!! everything was green and beautiful. grass doesn't really exist in southern spain. but each were adorable little beach towns where there isn't much to do but walk around and sit on the beach. one night in san sebastian we went out for pinchos, which is the north's version of tapas. i tried the craziest foods, such as veal cheek, goose liver, chicken hearts, rabbit, and pig's ear. some were delicious, but others, like the pig's ear, were kind of gross.



so now i'm back in granada, waiting for my family to arrive! they get here in 10 days!! then the week after that i'm off to scotland/ireland... then i have two friends visiting in april... then only a month left! i'm in disbelief how quickly these months have gone by... even though everyone always tells you it will, i'm always shocked by the fact that time does fly by. but i'm getting very excited to go back to the states and see all my family and friends. i love it here, but it's just not home!

ouchhh (and roma)

today i fell on my way to school. i was walking the same way i do everyday, when all of a sudden i stepped on some ice and went flying. i landed on my butt sooo hard. i couldn't even feel embarrassed because it hurt so much. after the initial shock, i stood up and hobbled to school. it still hurts.

but all pain aside, i had an amazing time in rome last weekend even though the snow tried to ruin everything. pretty much everything shut down because of the weather, including museums which made no sense at all. i can understand the colosseum being closed because it's outside, but museums? when it's rainy and snowy that's where people want to go! but luckily the churches didn't close, so that's where we spent a lot of our time. we also ate and drank a lot. i did make it the vatican and was able to see the sistine chapel... so incredible! it's hard to imagine someone painting that, especially since after ten minutes of looking up my neck hurt so much!
but rome is now one of my favorite cities...  it didn't seem as big as i thought it would be, epscially compared to paris. paris definitely seems bigger and more spread out. but it was awesome how there are just ruins in the middle of the city or in between two new buildings. it also is sort of grungy which i think gives it a lot of character. it's not dirty, it's just not spotless and perfect. but everything was really beautiful, especially the piazzas (plazas) which all had amazing fountains. can't wait to go back someday!

monachil

right now i'm really excited about going to rome so if this post doesn't make that much sense i'm sorry! ahhh i'm so excited!!!

but anyway, this past weekend was great! even though it was the coldest it's been so far, a few friends and i went hiking in a little pueblo nearby called monachil. i had been there when i studied here but wanted to go again. it is such a beautiful place! the trail isn't too hard either (even though i was a little achy the next day). there's a really cool indiana jones-looking suspension bridge that you walk over... it's kind of scary because it feels like it could snap at any second! after you walk through a cavernous area, you are out in the open where there are wild cows and bulls roaming around. we were walking on one side of a ravine and as we went around a corner we looked up... there were two cows and a huge bull blocking the path, so we decided to double back and cross to the other side. better to not mess with a bull. but it was really nice to get out of the city and get a change of scenery! here are some pics...

la gripe

la gripe (pronounced gree-peh) is the spanish word for the flu. isn't that the most sinister sounding word? it sounds like the plague or the black death (same thing?) or something else equally as horrible. right now a ton of people are getting "la gripe." i really hope i don't get it

jumbled thoughts

i think i'm getting into a rut here. i need to travel or something. even though i've only been back in granada for 3 weeks, it feels like forever and it feels like i do the same thing every day, go to the same bars, and see the same people. and it's cold here and in my apartment. stupid winter blues.

but have no fear! thanks to inspiration from my best friend who will be taking a class to become a yoga teacher, i bought a yoga mat and decided to do start doing some yoga. and starting next week i will have the two busiest but most awesome months.

some cool things that have happened in the past two weeks...
-we've won first place in pub quiz two weeks in a row! i don't want to jinx it, but if we win tonight (or get second) we will win free dinner and a flamenco show.
- today an old man started talking to me while i was waiting in line and asked me if i was from granada. earlier an old woman had stopped me on the street to ask where something was. do i look spanish? i sure as hell don't sound spanish.
- i'm going to belgium
-i taught an entire class by myself and i think i did great!
- the whole school stood outside today to sing a song about peace because it's peace day. some of the kids were way into it, others not so much. either way it was funny.
- i think i may actually have learned how to save money.... i don't have the strong desire to blow my paycheck on clothes
- i ate indian food and sushi (on different nights obviously)

barcelona vs real madrid

last wednesday was "el clasico" in spain, which i think is a cup where the two best teams play against eachother? (that's what the 13 year old i tutor told me, but there's always a language barrier... and i don't know much about football (sidenote: yes, i've started calling 'soccer' football.)) craziest thing i've encountered in spain. football is number one, family is second, food and drink are third, and working is 4th. nothing is more important than football. and here in granada, mostly everyone is split between being a real madrid fan and a barça fan, since the granada team isn't very good. but on my way to hannigans to watch the game, every single little bar or restaurant was packed with people watching the game. and when i got to hannigans, i could barely move. luckily at halftime most people moved outstide to smoke so i quickly snagged a better seat. i had missed the first goal by madrid, but when barça scored the first time everybody went crazyyy. screaming in spanish and english and about how that was a bad goal and oh barcelona sucks but madrid sucks more blah blah. the second barça goal was even crazier, with beers spilling everywhere and obscenities flying. i can't wait for the rematch next week! (barcelona won 2-1 by the way)

besides the excitement of the football game, nothing too crazy going on here. school has been going great, the weather has been really nice, and i finally did laundry. and i'm going to rome in 3 weeks!! and i figured out that i can listen to the flyers on the online radio, so basically life is good!!

fish and chips and chips and fish...

back in spain after an amazing trip to london!! i can add london to one of my top 3 favorite cities... it is so cool and fun. it's a crazy mixture of old and new. you walk along the thames (pronounced tems) and you see st pauls cathedral with a backdrop of a crazy looking new building. shakespeare's globe is a block away from an oddly shaped modern building. the people were so nice too, which i found out as i got my passport stamped by the cutest little british man who couldn't understand why i would ever visit the UK in january.

we got to london on the 5th. after checking into the hostel and taking a little nap, al and i went to this tapas bar that her dad insisted we go to. it was soo amazing, their tapas rivaled spain's!!! then we went to this tiny little blues bar that had been al's favorite place to go when she studied in london. the next day we wandered over to st paul's cathedral which is so beautiful. we climbed up into the dome, which was a little scary, but it had amazing views of the city. next we crossed over the thames to take a tour of the globe theatre. it's not the original globe, which was destroyed in the great fire of 1666, but it's an exact replica, with the thatched roof and everything. after the globe we headed to the national gallery which had some beautiful paintings but was a lot smaller than i expected. we saw some cool stuff there and then went to meet up with sean!!! we had a fun night with him just hanging out at the bar near our hostel, but unfortunately we're not as cool as his new friends, so after i bought him dinner and some drinks he was off. we wound up meeting up with my british friend, and he took us to this bizarre club where the music hurt my body. kelsey and i left within an hour.

the next day al was out of commission because of her crazy night at the club, so kelsey and i did some sightseeing. we first went to westminster abbey but were 10 minutes too late! it closed at 1:30 and we got there at 1:40. but it was still pretty from the outside. then we walked through st james park towards buckingham palace. the animals in those parks are crazy! people obviously feed them a lot, so even squirrels will come up to you and take food out of your hand. after we snapped some pics of the palace, we met up with sean at the british museum. such a cool place!! you could spend days in there and still not see everything. we saw the rosetta stone, some pieces of the parthenon, and a bunch of other stuff.

sunday we had to leave :( we were able to fit in a quick trip to portobello market, this really long street with a bunch of cute shops and restaurants. but of course, there had to be some sort of problem on the way back! we got to the airport an hour before our flight (a lot of times with ryanair flights they don't even open the counter until an hour before the flight). we were moving right along, and about to get up to the counter, when their network crashed. so instead of immediately doing something, they waited 20 minutes before our flight was leaving to tell us to just go through security. long story short, we ran onto the plane minutes before it was supposed to take off. i hate ryanair.

anyway... it was really hard for me to get back into my routine here. hopefully next week will be better! the days just seemed really long and tiring, and the kids have been crazy. but thank god it's the weekend!!