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