The Albaicin

FRIDAY NIGHT
Ok, so friday night was our first night going out for Tapas for real! First a few of us went to a cafe for some chocolate and pastries (que delicioso!)

But then we hit the bars:) It was so much fun and we found this small little bar that was relatively empty, meaning we could all fit (yay) and the bartender was awsome and kept giving us free drinks!! Overall, that night I believe I only spent 2.50 Euro, which is not bad for a night on the town! after we finished tapas (at 3 am-ish) a few people headed to the club Granada 10 and reportedly had so much fun! I was a "aguafiesta"(aka wet blanket or party pooper) and went home to sleep, but next weekend its on!
 (My favorate story of the club was Nick commenting that he was "dancing all over Sara like a straight person!", haha...can't wait to see that next week:)

OK, so today's post will be mostly photos of our trip to the Albaicin yesterday!  Both the walk and the views were breathtaking, and these pictures don't even begin to do them justice:

The mountains in the back were just amazing!

 Some Candids taken on the hike up (I love the cool effects on my camera!):

Overall the day was so fun and we got to see so much of the city! Later that night Nick, myself, Sara, Laura, and Gabby met up to go out for tapas again...in the end it was a nice quiet night where we just chilled and shared stories, and then turned in early so that we would be listo for our scavenger hunt today!!

SCAVENGER HUNT:

ok, so the group was split up into two teams, my team the "ninjas naranjas"(Orange Ninjas-yeah, we are that cool) was Nick, Alex, Margaret, Shanie, Laura, and Elsa:

The game was mainly to make us speak solamente en espanol con Gradineros about the city that they called home:) And we met some of the nicest, most fantastic people! My favorate was this one couple that stopped and sat with us for a good ten minutes, answering our questions and calling their daughter (who had a computer handy) to answer the ones they couldn't.

 They were SOOOOOO nice!

So, yeah...thats it!! Overall it has been a great weekend full of fun and adventure, soooo

Hasta Luego!

TGIF!

Hola!

Last night was a blast! First, we went on a tour of the University with Teresa where we saw this lovely photo:

Yeah, we all found it verrry interesting hehe. The way college (aka university) works over here is way different, life doesn't really revolve around school like at home (or so Teresa told us). A bit weird, but cool all the same. My favorite part of the school was inside one of the buildings: the building was architecturally cool to begin with, from the outside it was boring, but not on the inside! there was a hole in the center of the building and all the floors were open, meaning you could just look up and see all the people around the inner perimeter of each floor...cool. The best part though was this GIANT pendulum that was hanging from the roof of the building down through the hole, it was awesome!

After our tour we went our separate ways for dinner and did homework (yeah, lots of homework) and when we finished we trekked on up to Hannigans to sing Karaoke! Talk about fun haha. I didn't sing, but Kathy, Katie, and Gabby all got up there to show of their talents and sang beautifully, if I may add.

Katie and Kathy serenading us with "I Want it That Way"!

Kathy and Gabi belting out "Like a Prayer"

We were all a bit crazy hehe but thankfully everyone peaced out early because we had school today, and I still needed to finish mi tarea!

Despite the success of last night, this morning did not start out so well hehe: first, I accidentally sent my alarm to silent (yep, real smart) so I woke up late. Then I tried to put on pants that were too small (yeah, sorry mom, I think I accidentally stole a pair from you:) and THEN when I found pants that were actually my size and tried to put them on, the zipper broke! (after taking them off and examining them in comparison to another pair I realized they were missing a piece... so I felt a little better hehe). But, as always things happen in threes, so then my luck changed for the better and we actually got to the meeting spot on time (for once) and ran into the rest of our group on the way, so we all walked together to the Centro Cultural Caja Granada Memoria, De Andalucia which was a supremely awesome interactive museum ( I know... a museum that was fun, que raro!)!!! The building itself was (once again) awesome inside:

The whole museum was about the history of the Provence of Andalusia in Spain and the various towns within it. Myself and Kathy (my partner) looked up information about Cadiz, which is a city in the southwest corner of the province. The best part about the museum were the interactive videos...it was kind of like the Kinect where you were to controller and picked which video you wanted to watch. Some of the videos were rather interesting to say the least, especially the ones about neanderthals because they were just actors miming things and sniffing things...yeah it was very strange and a bit scary.....
After finishing our school work a bit early a few of us went to further explore the museum. During our explorations we ran into Shanie and Alex who had found a little sitting area with an awesomely comfortable rug that Shanie took full advantage of:

And, so far that's it! Now I'm going to take advantage of my siesta, and then some shopping, dinner, and dancing!!

Hasta Luego!

Post one continued....

DAY 5: Wednesday

Wednesday was our first tarde libre and we took advantage! A few of us met up to scope out las tiendas and ended up in a small tapas bar in la Bib Rambla where we had our first tapas experience! Here are some pictures:
Katie and Gabi

Nick, Kathy, and Katie

Wine and Tapas!

Later that night me, Sara, Nick, and Kathy went out for tea at a little....well I can't remember the name now, but it was like a tea and hookah bar that served tapas with the tea! We all go crepes con chocolate! Que Delicioso!

While we were there we didn't take many pictures because we forgot...but that's ok because we have 5 more months, and we'll probably go again:)
So while we there there we ordered crepes with chocolate, and somehow Kathy ate hers in like 30 seconds (still don't know how that's possible: large crepe, small person) So she started joking "oh, estoy una gordita" and while we were talking about it the waiter came upstairs just as we switched to english and Kathy was saying something along the lines of "yeah, im a fatty" in English, but the waiter didn't seem to speak the language and he seemed to think she was referring to him...yeah, awkward...but in the end we explained in Spanish and cleared it up and seemed to make a new friend!

My First Post!!!

Hello!!

Well, let it has been 4ish days (I think...I'm starting to lose track) and I have FINALLY started my blog! The whole concept is a bit weird for me, but hey, estoy en espana y necesito probar cosas nuevos! Anyway, lets see what I can remember from the last four days.....

DAYS 1 & 2: Saturday and Sunday
I definitely started my trip in true Esposito style by re booking my flight the night before, which was really fun (READ: stressful), but at the end of the day I scored a cheapish seat in business class, so yeah, TOTALLY worth it (thanks mom and dad!). I may never fly any other way ever again!!!!!!! Ok, that was a lie because I cant afford business class, but if I could well...anyway the flight was amazing and I met a nice girl who was only a year or two older than me who was returning home after visiting her boyfriend in New York. Unfortunately, we spoke in English but I learned all about the political, economic, and religious situation in Spain from the point of view of a Spaniard! It was very interesting for me, because before our conversation I only knew what I read in the textbook...and since I don't read my textbooks, I basically knew nothing :) When we landed in Madrid (the first stop on our flight) we said our goodbyes and I met up with Sara and Alex, my roomates who were on the same flight.

And then we got lost for the first time in the trip. I still don't know how it happened, but after we went through customs we somehow ended up on the wrong side of a glass divider and couldn't find anyone who knew what our gate was (it was not assigned on the ticket of course) so we ended up like rats in a maze, being able to see the people y los pantalles (gate assignment boards) but we couldn't talk to anyone or read anything! Then, when we went down the escalator (because that seemed to be our only option) there were no up escalators, so we had hike up multiple flights of regular stairs with all of our carry-ons, only to realize that there really was NO WHERE to go...meaning we had to go back down again. For some reason we did this two or three times before asking someone how to get out of there...but we did eventually figure out where we needed to go, and were able to get to the gate (after fixing Alex's man-satchel (re-dubbed "man-sack"), a few adventures to las tiendas y the lounge for business class, and a fun convo with the friend Alex made on the plane) where we met Nick and Erin, who were in our group! We all took our connector together (and we found Katie and Margaret on the plane) and finished our trip!

After we got our suitcases at baggage claim we met up with Teresa who brought us to the bus that would take us downtown to meet nuestros madres. By the time we got to the city we were all exhausted (Ok, I was a little less tired because I slept on the plane) unfortunately we still had to walk to our house, which, for me, Sara, and Alex, was about 10 minutes. Thankfully Maria Jose, nuesto madre (y la madre mejor de Granada) met us at the bus stop to take us home where she fed us comidas deliciosas!

DAY 3: Monday
Day three is somewhat of a blurr, we went to the CLM (Centro por Lenguas Modernas) for the first time and met all of the students in our program, and got our phones, and...oh, yes, we explored the city a bit with Teresa. Overall, i don't remember much lol, except the homework! There was a ton!

oh, wait! Monday was exciting because we went to Hannagans (I can't spell it) for the first time to play Pop Quiz ( a trivia competition in English)! We went with the group and Teresa, who would only speak English at that bar, and it was a blast:) Our groups didn't come close to winning, but we had fun trying! My favorite was the "name that song" category, even though I only knew two of the songs hehe.

Day 4: Tuesday
Well, it turns out the homework in its entirety was actually due Wednesday (unfortunately I was a bad student and didn't finish it the first night...whoops!) So we stayed up late for nothing. Besides that, the highlight of the day was Churros con Chocolate!

Teresa took us in the afternoon before we continued our tour of the city, and they were tan delicioso! The chocolate is not like hot chocolate at all, its more like a cup of melted chocolate with spices, and with hot Churros it was soooo good!!! Then we went and walked around for a bit with Teresa who let us go a little early so we could shop:) The stores right now have huge rebajas (sales) and everything was so cheap, even with the exchange rate!!

Ah, just looked at the time and its 2:45 am! We have class tomorrow, so I better shut this down.
so...to be continued....