two weeks worth of catch-up

as predicted, i'm not very good at keeping a blog! so now i have a lot to catch up on...

first of all, i am so happy here. don't worry mom, i'm not going to move here permanently, but right now i am just really happy. all the time too! but how can you not be when you're living in granada? it's impossible to be grouchy and moody and sad.

anyway, last weekend was a great one. on friday, my friends eve and kelsey and i went to our british friend tom's apartment since his roommate offered to cook dinner. his roommate is from italy, so we had the most delicious carbonara pasta i've ever had in my entire life. then on sunday, eve and i went to ronda, this really adorable little town about 2.5 hours away. the entire town was built on top of a really high gorge, it's actually kind of scary. the first thing we did when we got there was hike down into the gorge. really awesome pictures, but the hike back up was brutal! next up was visiting the bullring, which is the oldest in spain. ronda is really beautiful, but after you see the bullring, the church, and the gorge, there's not much else to do except walk around.(see pics below!)

i can't believe it's already the middle of november! next week i have two thanksgiving dinners to go to (so popular, i know...), but they don't have full turkeys here. or stuffing. or cranberry sauce. or pumpkin pie. or football. or the macy's day parade. but it will be fun anyway!!! the second week of december we have a four day weekend (actually we have tuesday and thursday off, so it's kind of a pointless week), and i booked a trip to paris! i'm so excited. i thought i was going to do soo much traveling here, but i'm finding out how difficult it is. i love granada, but it's really inconveniently located. almost no flights fly out of granada, so i either have to take a 2 hour bus to malaga or a 5 hour bus to madrid. even traveling within spain is kind of a pain! but i'm really really excited for january... i'm going to go visit sean in london for a few days!

have i mentioned how much i love my school? there is never a dull moment. and i guess i like it so much since i'm not the main teacher who has to yell at scream at the kids to be quiet every second. they really do talk nonstop. and like i said before, the teaching style here is extremely different from the US, and even though i love it, sometimes i feel bad for the kids. for instance, last week one of the students was telling on another, and instead of solving the situation, the teacher went off on the tattletale, telling him he looks and acts like a grandfather. i had to hide my face because the kid really does look like a grandfather. two weeks ago, in the third grade class, they were drawing pictures of animal habitats. when the biggest boy in the class came up to show the teacher his gorilla, she burst out laughing in his face. again, i had to turn so he wouldn't see me laughing, but the drawing was just so funny looking. when he walked away she turned to me and said "it's funny because it's big and looks like him!" i felt so bad for him that i went over and told him it was great. she then came up and told him it either looks like a man dressed like a gorilla or a gorilla dressed like a man. these kids can not have high self esteem. and just yesterday, while learning the formation of the present third person, the teacher became so frustrated that they didn't understand that she started screaming that she was going to jump out the window. then one of the girls started crying. i don't think yelling at them will help them learn, but then again, i'm not the main teacher, so i just try to be nice and help them as best i can.


pretty random series of thoughts, but i'll get better at writing, i promise!!

ps... there's snow on the mountains here!!!! so pretty!!