piso, profesores, intercambio, mala suerte.

So recently I took some pictures or my "piso" here in Spain. And I thought I would share. Here is a picture of when you first walk in and turn around. The front door. 

This is a picture of the hallway. When you walk in the front door and look left this is what you see. It is the only hallway. And if you were to go straight instead of turning left to talk down the hallway, you would go straight into Jen and Becca's bedroom. The first door on the left in this picture is my room. Marieta's room is right across from mine. The bathroom is the second door on the left. And the third door on the left there is another bathroom- this bathroom however is for grandma. She has glaucoma and is blind so this is her bathroom so she knows where everything is. The fourth door on the left is the door to the kitchen. The second door on the right is Claudia's room. Claudia is Marieta's daughter who is 17. And then if you walk straight through the colorful door there is the living room, the dining room table, and grandma's room. 

Obviously, this is the kitchen, yes with the washer in the kitchen. Just like in England! Funny that we have something to clean dishes in our kitchen instead of something to clean clothes. 

Here is the other side of the kitchen. In the back there I guess you could call this the laundry room. There is a sink like you would have in your laundry room. And then in the "laundry room" there is a window there. It is kind of difficult to see but it is where that ledge is. The dryer is outside that window. hahaha. 

Here is the dryer. This picture was actually taken from my room and the window where you can see things stacked up is the laundry room. Normally all of the building in Granada are like this- a square in the middle so that you can hang all your clothes across the building. The top is exposed to allow sun and wind. 

This is the living room. This is what you would see if you turned right after the colorful door. The chair behind the draped table is normally where grandma sits all day and listens to her radio. 

And here is where we eat all our meals. I guess were pretty luck because everyone that I have talked to has told me that they eat on the couch. They normally have two couches and then the table in the middle like a giant coffee table; with no dining room table. 

So this is our bathroom! 

Note: there is no shower curtain. Also note: the shower is hand held. Here in Granada, the water is supppppper expensive. SO. when we take showers, we turn the water on, get wet, turn water off. Lather up with shampoo, turn water back on, rinse, turn water off. Condition, wash body, turn water on, rinse, turn water off. Oh and if you notice the back corner, there sits my "loofa." I looked everywhere for one and I could not find one. So, yes, I use a sponge...great exfoliator. 

Yes, we have a bidet. 

 Today I had my final exam for the intensive week corse. There was a listening part, a oral part, and a written part. I got a 9.5 out of 10. The grading scale is way different here. A 10 is basically impossible to get. A 5 is passing and if you get a 6, you are very happy about it here. So as you can imagine, i am very happy. Although I am sure they probably go easier on Americans. 

Here is a picture of Amanda, my second teacher Ana, my friend Lisa and me!

And here is a picture of my first teacher Susana, again with Amanda and Lisa. 

Here is a picture of us in the classroom. There are more people than us in the class but they had already left! haha. There are about 12 people I think. One girl is from Russia, we have one guy, and the rest are American girls. 

Lisa.

The building where we had class was actually a hotel before and the building is really old. Well one day,  during a "mini pausa" we decided to go out on the balcony because it was like 65 degrees and sunny. Well apparently, we were not supposed to do that because the doors and windows are all the originals and they would like to keep it that way. This is what was on the door the next day. 

My friend Amanda is having really bad luck lately. She got a text message last week that a black cat was going to cross her path, and she has no idea who sent it to her. On Tuesday, her and I were meeting up with Lisa and while we were waiting for her, a man came up to us and put is hand out facing down towards us and started mumbling "bub bub bub bub." We had NO IDEA what he was doing.. We both kind of laughed it off and walked away. Then as she walks to school in the morning there is always this same guy walking around at this corner and when you pass him he will start mumbling things. Super scary and I have whitenessed it myself.  Then yesterday, she went to the store to go return a pair of pants that she bought that she decided that she did not want and a little girl who was in front of her in line started speaking to her in Spanish. And Amanda could not understand her at first because she was talking so fast so she asked the little girl to talk more slowly. And the little girl started saying "mala suerte, mala suerte." Which means bad luck, bad luck. So Amanda told her mom in Granada about it and her mom gave her a realllly long red ribbon to keep in her sock. And her mom keeps one in her sock now too because of everything that Amanda has told her. When she got home yesterday, her mom made her sit down while she lit incense to help "get rid of her black cat." PRETTY CRAZY. 

On Wednesday, all the students from ISU-who wanted to- had an "intercambio." An exchange. Those who wanted to, met at the post office and our program director took us to a bar where there were Spaniards there who were learning English. You split up into partners or groups of three, and you normally spend half the time talking in English to help them practice and then half the time speaking in Spanish so that they can help us. Me and my friend Allison got to the bar a little bit late and we both were with the teachers of the Spaniards. So even though we did not get to meet people our own age, we both got to only speak in Spanish. :) It was a lot of fun though. After about an hour talking to the teacher people started leaving and I got to mingle with the people that my roommates and other friends were talking to. We stayed for about 2 hours talking. We met a lot of people and I really cannot wait until the next one! 

exploring. Alhambra, Albayzín, Monachil.

So the past week has been a lot of exploring. Me, both of my roommates (Jen and Becca), Maria, and Amanda walked around on Monday and Tuesday afternoon through Granada but mostly the Alhambra. You do not have to pay to get inside the palace walls but you do have to pay if you want a tour of the buildings. But since we are doing that with our school here, we just walked around outside. It is definitely a hike to get up there though, but on the way there are a lot of fountains and little waterfalls to look at. When we finally got up there though we were all just really overwhelmed with all the buildings...there were so many! And we have no idea what any of them were..but nevertheless here are some pictures!

walking up to the Alhambra...

some building once inside...

the view of the Moorish/Gypsy part of Granada from the Alhambra

this is an old tree stump!!

this is the view of Granada from the Alhambra Palace Hotel

so many hills.

On Thursday we had a tour of the Albayzín part of Granada. Which I am pretty sure I sad earlier that is the part of Granada that is the Moorish quarter. What that really means now I am not quite sure, but back in the day thats where the Moors lives. There were so many pretty buildings and a lot more colors than where I live. 

The Albayzín is also where Granada's only masque is. 

maria, jen, becca, me, amanda

view of the alhambra behind us!

the mosque.

a church wayyy up top... 

side note about this picture: behind the church there are caves in the mountains that people live in...yes, cavemen. no electricity or anything.

this is the sign for a crosswalk....i always think of the movie big when we plays the piano with his feet. haha

jen, becca, me. alhambra above. 

On thursday we decided to go to Camborio again. The discoteca that overlooks the Alhambra.. American fiesta again. Music was better, but there were only about 25 people there. kind of a bummer. However, before that we went to the Irish bar Hannigans...were my roommates convinced me to karaoke with them. NSYNC. 

OKAY. next topic. on friday night we decided to go to a play. it was called: LA CASA DE BERNARDA ALBA. and it was at TEATRO MUNICIPAL ISABEL LA CATÓLICA. This is the biggest theatre in Granada! The play was about 90 minutes long, with no intermission. Throughout the entire play, i probably understood ten words. It was definitely a beating on my spanish...but when i talked to everyone else, they also had no idea what was going on. I got the gist of it though and it basically went like this. Four daughters, one mother...three of the girls like the same guy...one of the girls sees him at the window, one at the door, and one actually goes out with him. Then the mother finds out that one snuck out of the house to see him....the crowd hears gunshots. Everyone thinks that the mother killed him. One of the daughters goes and hangs herself outside....But the boyfriend actually got away on a horse. People are sad. The end. 

In other news, I havent really been saying what I have been eating lately. This is probably because all of our meals have been repeats of previous meals. Except for one...... It was a a fish and egg salad. It was made out of mayo, peas, eggs, mashed potatoes, and fish. After we had lunch one day..she showed them to us and told us that it was our dinner-they were sitting on the counter...- it was just a big pile of this picture...and there was a face made out of peas and hardboiled eggs. Then dinner came...and we tried it...yikes. i think i had to pick three fish bones out in the first two bites.. Thanks god she didnt eat dinner with us that night..we had to throw them out and escape to burger king.... :( 

SATURDAY. We went to Monachil yesterday! Allison, Me, Jen, Becca, Maria, and Amanda. Monachil is a a town located in the Sierra Nevada mountains but it is still in Granda. We took a local bus for only 1.20€ each way. It was about a 30 minute ride. Once we got there, some lady knew that we had no idea what we were doing but she guided us to this hotel where the man working there gave us maps of the hiking trails. We hiked from about 9:30 to 13:30 and went to about 1495m high. Along the paths, there are so many different things to stop and look at. The mountains, rocks, trees, caves, different bridges, the streams, the rivers. It is really quite amazing. We didnt get to stay as long as we wanted to, so we are definitely going to go back! I think that so far, that was the cheapest thing that we have done for such a long amount of time. Perfect morning/afternoon. 

Just started the walk!

...a bridge.

dear dad, this is proof right here...that i was not near the edge of any cliffs...i was the photographer only.

the trail up the mountain...

the town of Monachil...

School this past week has been really great. I can really tell that I am learning a lot already. This upcoming week is our last week of the intensive course. Then we have a week off-IRELAND HERE WE COME- then back to school where the actual semester begins. :)