Happy Halloween

This week has been so busy. All of my classes are starting to gear up for midterms and they have given me a bunch of group projects to do as well. It doesn't help that November is starting and it's going to be my busies month. Mom is coming in 5 days and I am BEYOND excited to see her.
Monday night I had a Skype date with my best friend, Amy, who is back at Denison. We talked for two hours and it made me miss school a ton. I am having the time of my life here, but I am also looking forward to going back and catching up with everyone. On Tuesday, some of the girls and I went to the hookah bar because most of them are traveling again this weekend (a few to Amsterdam, another to Istanbul, and another to northern Spain). It was nice to catch up, I feel like we are all doing our own thing and we don't get to hang out as much as we used to.
On Wednesday, Megan Robin and I went to Granada 10 again. It was a lot of fun, although a lot of American students were dressed up for Halloween already, which was a little lame. It's starting to be so that I can only go to the discotecas once or twice a week. There are so many people and the guys are just ridiculous, I can only handle it so often. On Thursday, Meg and I went to tapas with a few Arcadia students and Triana. It was nice to go out and speak Spanish, but the students we went out with were SO RUDE. We're not good friends at all, so I thought it would be nice to go out with them and try to get a little closer, but they were just so obnoxious. One girl just sat at the table all night and texted, the other complained that they didn't have coffee at 10:30 pm (some places stop serving after dinner), and the guy was so shy he didn't say much at all. Thank God Meg was there with me; she, Triana, and I held up the entire conversation. One girl, after making a big deal about wanting chicken wings while we were all choosing some Spanish potato thing as a tapa, got her wings and said they weren't good enough. Triana had to switch with her to keep her from sending them back (something you don't do with FREE tapas). It was really embarrassing; I'm always so surprised when people lack basic manners or common social skills, especially when we're in a place where we don't know the culture as well.
Last night (Friday), Meg and I got up early to go to our Art History class. It got cancelled on Tuesday, so we had to make it up on Friday. I was bummed to have to get up so early, but it ended up being the most fun I've had in a while. We walked around Granada and saw the Arab baths as well as a Moroccan market. Our teacher pointed out the architecture and talked about the history in such a way so that it was easy to understand, but still really interesting. Afterwards, Meg and I went to the Arcadia office to talk about a volunteer opportunity we are hoping to start next week at a daycare center on the outskirts of Granada. We go on Thursday to visit the school and see if we are interested. I also found out that Arcadia reimburses you for some of the cultural stuff you do here. If you go to a Spanish movie, a museum, or a bullfight, they give you some money back if you show them the ticket. Luckily, I hold onto everything here, so I was able to get back some money for the activities I've done the past month. I was so excited to have the whole morning open, Meg and I went shopping a little. We stopped at a boot store where I found the cutest Spanish boots, although I am waiting to buy them until I get Mom's opinion. We also went to a supermarket and stocked up on shampoo and perfume and makeup. Everything is so much cheaper here if you know where to go. When we got back to the house, we ate lunch and then napped for a bit in the afternoon. We ended up going out with Robin and tapa bar hopping. It was a lot of fun and we ended up going to four bars before heading home around 1:00. Today is Halloween and, while I know I'm going to go out, I don't know if I'm dressing up or where I'll end up. We'll have to see!

Happy Halloween,
Em

The Weekend of Discotecas and Tapas

On Wednesday night, we all went out to Granada 10, a discoteca here that I usually avoid because it tends to be filled with American students. But on Wednesday, we all went and had a really fun time. On Thursday night, the beginning of our weekend, we all went to Tantra bar where this really good saxophone player stood up on the bar and played for almost 45 minutes. It was so much fun! Then we went to Camborio, the best discoteca in Granada. It is situated in the old Muslim neighborhood, Albaicin, and it had beautiful views of the Alhambra. We got there so early (around 12:45), we had the place all to ourselves for almost an hour. After that, everyone we knew from school showed up. Saturday we heard there was a tapas festival, but it ended up getting canceled (although we don't know why). We decided to just go out for tapas and went to four different bars and had the best food I've had here so far. I had fried eggplant and honey, barbeque meatball and mashed potatoes, tortellini, and a pork kebab. The best thing is that all of this amazing food comes free with your drinks, so it was so cheap! On Sunday Meg and I decided to just go shopping and have a girls night in. We went out and looked for boots for Megan (they're really popular here) and then we watched a movie and skyped with a couple of our friends from back home.
Denison put up its course catalog for next semester and I've picked my four classes (fingers crossed I get into them all). I am taking two Honors seminars (The Iraq War and Intro to Linguistics) and two English classes (19th Century Brit Lit and Short Stories). I am very excited!
Megan just decided to go to Barcelona in two weeks while my mom is visiting. Plus, when her Mom visits in the middle of November, they are going to travel to Paris as well. Basically, she only has one more weekend in Granada, and then she is traveling for 5 weekends straight (eek!). I'm glad I will be in Granada for a few more weekends.

I love you all!
Em

Summer Research and Amsterdam!

So it's been a fantastic week so far. I found on Monday that my grade for my intensive course (the class I took in September) was 9/10, which is a solid A! I also received an email back from Professor Porcheddu, the professor I want to do research with next semester. He said he would love to work with me again and that he wants me to submit the same proposal as last year because he thinks it's good enough to make it. I'm so excited! I hope I get the grant this year to stay on campus, it will help a lot with my senior research.
On Tuesday night, I went out with the girls who went to Rome last weekend. They had such a blast and hearing them talk about Italy made me even more excited to go to Florence in a few weeks! Although, I'm more excited about my mom visiting in two weeks.
When Meg and I got home last night, we booked our tickets to Amsterdam for December. A group of Arcadia students are going to Morocco, but Meg and I decided we'd rather go to Amsterdam. We are going with two other groups of girls, but we booked our own flights and hostel so that we don't have any problems. We are leaving Thursday, December 3rd (arriving in Amsterdam around 10 pm) and we are coming back to Granada late on Sunday, December 6th. I also booked us a hostel in The Flying Pig Downtown, which is one of the most famous hostels in Amsterdam. It also got voted as the best hostel in the world last year, so I'm hoping it will be a great experience. I've never stayed in a hostel before, so I hope I like it. I am beyond excited.
We only have two more weeks of October, and then November starts, and it gets a little crazy. Both of our moms are visiting, Meg is going to Barcelona, and we are going to Florence, Italy as well as hiking with the group in the Alpujarras. This is really our last couple weeks of downtime in Granada before we start traveling.
To quickly answer Paul's question (because I know it's been bothering him), I have not heard from Javier again. He stopped calling about a week ago. Although, I have met a new guy named Gustavo, who wants to do an intercambio. Since the girl I was supposed to be doing an intercambio with through Arcadia is too busy with her masters this month, I am going to see if Gustavo and I get along well enough. We are going to go for tapas and talk in English and Spanish to help each other learn.
Clare was home last weekend, so I got to see her and my parents on Skype, which was nice. I can't wait to see them all at Christmas. I've also kept up with a lot of my friends from school, who all say that junior year at DU is extremely stressful and that a lot of people are abroad.
This weekend, I am planning on going to some discotecas with the girls, since I haven't gone in a few weeks (last weekend was really restful). A few of them are going hiking on Friday, but I don't think I will be joining them as hiking is not really my thing. We are going hiking with Arcadia at Thanksgiving, and I think that will be enough for me.

I love you all,
Em

Classes

So far this week we have really just gone to classes. My teachers are all very enthusiastic and have great personalities. My art teacher for example, he makes us sing this song called "Granada" every day. It's hilarious, and he has a really good voice. My 5 other teachers are all women, my grammar teacher is sarcastic (in a good way) and the other four are really nice and helpful.
On Wednesday night I finally made the trek up to the student apartments to have dinner with my friend Valerie. You have to take a bus to get there, because it's about an hour walk away. She made tortellini and I brought bread and butter. Mel and Blair were also there, so we had a nice dinner and I got to see where all the other students live. It looks really fun, but I definitely wouldn't want to deal with transportation back and forth.
Today Meg and I had our late class cancelled, so we were able to stay home and figure out some stuff for school. I have to pick classes pretty soon, so I'm trying to figure out what my course load needs to be. I only have to focus on English and Honors classes, and with my AP credits from highschool, it's possible that I only have to take 3 classes each semester. I am also getting a LSAT tutor for over Christmas break so that I can take the LSAT again in February. Plus, I'm trying to work a bit at Target for the few weeks I am home in January and I'm attempting to get another summer research job at Denison so that I can stay there next summer and do something that will help me get into law school. It's such a hectic time, and there's so much that I want to do, it's a little frustrating to be so far away. But, I'm still in contact with everyone at school and home and I'm really excited about the rest of this semester.

I love you all,
Em

Gwen's Weekend

Wow, it's been a busy week, sorry I haven't been updating a lot. On Tuesday I went to the beach with some of the girls and had a great time. We went to a town on the southern coast called Malaga, which was the home of Picasso. The beach was gorgeous and the weather perfect, but I left a little earlier than the others in order to go to the Picasso Museum in town. They had 155 works of his donated by his grandkids, and I definitely learned a lot walking around by myself. I got home just in time for dinner and Meg was home from Madrid.
Wednesday was our first day of classes. I had a TERRIBLE schedule, which consisted of having one class on Mondays and Wednesdays and four classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, meaning I'd have to run to lunch and then run back to school. Luckily, Cristina, our program manager, is the best and was able to switch my culture class so that I have two classes on Mon/Wed and only three on Tues/Thurs. All of my classes were a lot of fun, although I can already tell they will be more challenging than my intensive course. I don't have to buy any books, just these great notebooks the CLM provides for each class. I am taking Grammar, Spanish Culture, Spanish Art, Spanish Literature, and Composition classes, and so far I am excited about them all. In my art class I even get to take field trips to the Alhambra and other places to talk about the architecture and art.
On Thursday, Gwen arrived from Madrid. We went to the guitar concert and then out for tapas and a kebab (she had never had one). It was a pretty easy night b/c she was tired from travelling, so we all went to bed pretty early. On Friday we went to this great Medieval fair in the middle of Granada and went around to all these fascinating booths and gypsy stands. Later, we went to botellon and Vogue (a discoteca). It was a ton of fun, and Gwen said the guys here are just as sketchy as they are in Madrid. On Saturday, Gwen and some of the girls went to the beach, but Meg and I stayed in and then took Gwen out on a girls night to tapas and tea. Last night, Sunday, was our last night together and we went to see a movie during the afternoon. We saw Agora, which was really good, but completely in Spanish. It was a lot of fun being able to understand 2 straight hours of Spanish, and we all felt very accomplished afterwards. After dinner, we all went to the chupitería (shot bar) and met up with some great American students from Barcelona that Meg and Gwen had met in Madrid. They were very nice and a lot of fun. Gwen, Sophie, Meg and I ended up staying out until 4 in the morning, because we won't get to see Gwen again until November.
Overall, it was a great weekend. Luckily we have today off to rest (Columbus Day) and then we have three days of school before the next weekend!

Miss you all,
Em

Trip Time!

Finally! I am finished with my month long intensive language course. I took the test on Tuesday and found out on Wednesday that I passed both classes (I'm pretty sure I got an A!). Meg and I weren't feeling too great though, both of our stomachs had started hurting after dinner one night. On Thursday we left with the Arcadia group to go to Toledo, Segovia and Madrid.
In Toledo, we stayed for one night at the Fundación, which is where the Toledo students live and have classes. It was nice, but Toledo was very small and the only sites we saw were some churches, which didn't interest me a lot. We had dinner with the Toledo students (we had really gross paté for an appetizer), but I got seated by two that were SO quiet. I asked them a ton of questions about their program and how they liked Toledo and I could barely get any responses. Their enthusiasm was so low, I was thankful we were only staying one night.
The next day we took the bus to Madrid and took a couple tours around the city. It is a beautiful city with a lot of fun things to do, but definitely a little too big for me. Plus, everything there is a lot more expensive than it is in Granada. We got to see the Palacio Real (Royal Palace) which is now used only for diplomatic meetings with other countries. It was extremely impressive, each room was more ornate than the last. One room, the king's dressing room in fact, had hand embroidered flowers all over the walls. It took 5 years for the people to sew it. The palace was definitely my favorite place. After the palace, we went to this huge rally in the main plaza where everyone was dancing and they had huge screens up waiting for the announcements for which city won the bid for the 2016 Olympics. We waited for about an hour before they declared that Rio had won, so everyone was really disappointed, but we did get free shirts! We were so exhausted from walking around all day so we had a pretty relaxing night. We went to an outdoor market and walked around for a bit, but went to bed relatively early.
On Saturday, we had to be down in the lobby of the hotel pretty early for breakfast and to leave for Segovia. Segovia was absolutely beautiful, a little town on top of a hill. It has the second oldest aqueduct system, which was also very impressive. We saw another church there, as well as a smaller royal residence. We were only in Segovia for the day and returned to Madrid at night.
I started not feeling well on Saturday morning. Besides my stomach, my throat started hurting a lot as well and I ended up losing my voice. My friend, Gwen, from Denison is studying in Madrid and we were all supposed to go out with her on Saturday to this really big discoteca. However, it just didn't make sense for me to push myself when I wasn't feeling well, so Gwen came and hung out in our hotel room for a while before going out with everyone else. Monica, who also wasn't feeling well, and I stayed in and watched the Italian Job in Spanish.
On Sunday we went to the Prado Museum, the biggest museum in Spain, and saw a lot of works by Velasquez and other well known artists. My favorite was a painting by a pretty unknown author called "The Garden of Earthly Delights". After the museum, we had a little bit of free time, so a group of us went to another, more modern, museum called Reina Sofia. This museum had a lot of work by Dali and Picasso. I spent more time looking at the Picasso exhibit because I have already gone to the Dali museum in Barcelona and know his works pretty well.
I also made the decision that I wasn't feeling well enough to stay with my highschool friend, Courtney, for another two days. So I had lunch with her before I left with the Arcadia group Sunday evening. I am going back to Madrid for a night in November to stay with her before Meg and I go to Florence the next day, so I'll be able to see her again. Plus, she started school today and tomorrow, so we wouldn't have been going out that much anyway. I was able to cancel my bus ticket for Tuesday and I saved a lot of money by not staying in Madrid longer.
I came home with the group on our nice private bus and today I woke up and went to the doctor with Cristina. They say I have a virus and gave me three different kinds of medication to take. It was hard explaining all my symptoms in Spanish, but Cristina was a big help. I am already feeling better! Cristina told my senora that I can't have friend or oily foods, which is good b/c most of the stuff I don't like here is fried, now I have an excuse to have pasta and rice most of the time.
Classes start on Wednesday, so tomorrow is our last day of freedom. Megan stayed in Madrid to hang out with Gwen a little longer, but she will be returning tomorrow night. I think I might go to the beach with some of the girls tomorrow and have a nice relaxing day. Gwen is coming to Granada this weekend, so I will have a lot more time to hang out with her. Besides being sick, it was a fantastic trip and I got to see a lot more of Spain. Plus, I know I definitely made the right decision in choosing Granada!

Love you all,
Em