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