The first weekend here I did one of the excursions through the program with about 30 other of the students in the group! It was VERY well organized. I'm still running low on sleep. Also, I'm not sure how to get my pictures on my blog but I'm trying to stay on top of it with putting them on facebook and updating the blog at least once or twice a week!
Day 4: On Tuesdays and Thursday we take field trips to different places in Madrid. Today we took a field trip to the mosque and cultural center for Madrid. It was okay. Afterwards, a group of us went to McDonalds, which was delicious! We took a bus tour tonight of Madrid which was pretty but 4 hours long…. I am staying in tonight and catching up on A LOT of sleep! I’ll try to be good about writing in the blog!
Days 5: Wednesday went well. I had my first test in Spanish and the school day was pretty long, but it got better. We had a hall meeting and learned about the weekend excursion. I’m on the bus writing right now. Wednesday night we went to tapas and sangrias at 6 and my friend Dani and I went to walk around Madrid afterwards. She is from GCSU. We were only planning on being out for a few minutes, but went to this awesome park I found and ended up just staying out for the night. It was really relaxing and we went to a bar at Sol called Bourbon café. We made friends with a group of the natives witch was cool, even through the language barrier. We ended up not coming home until 2:30… early next morning.
Day 6: Today is Thursday and this morning we had a field trip and had to pack for the weekend by 8:30. Breakfast was at 8. I woke up early this morning so I could get a run in before the weekend trip; the morning came early. This morning’s field trip was to Alcala de Henares, the birthplace of Miguel Cervantes, the writer of Don Quixote. It was a pretty cool place and we got lots of pictures. Right now we are on the bus to the South of Spain trip to Grenada, which is supposed to have the best night life in Spain. Tonight we are going to see the flamenco dancers show and we are even going to dance with them. Tomorrow we’re going to the beach in Grenada, which should be really pretty. I’m really excited for it. We got into Grenada and went to the “eighth” wonder of the world, La Alhambra. La Alhambra is a palace and garden and it was huge. The gardens were really pretty and you could see the entire city from the views. The palace had Arabic architecture, but now belongs to the Christian people. Afterwards we went to the hotel where I roomed with Megan, who goes to Georgia. It was so nice to be in a hotel for a change, because we’ve missed the nice large showers and the bed was great. We ate at the restaurant in the hotel with the group and had pretty good food, very authentic. Potatoes are very popular in Spain. After dinner we took five minutes to change and then hopped on buses to go to a “cave” in Grenada to see the flamenco dancers. The dancers have a different look to them than the Spaniards. The dancing was good, it was a lot of stomping and the performers had on nice costumes. After the performance, we got back on the bus at midnight to go back to our hotel area to go out, but found out we were going on another tour. We ended up getting drinks at a place with a gorgeous view of all of Grenada, which was unreal. One teacher, Cristobol, who’s from Grenada taught us how to take a shot in Spain. Arriba, Abajo, Al Centro, Al Dentro. He’s a real good time guy and is always willing to go out with us and show us the good bars. Last night we ended up calling it a night at about 1, thankfully because I was exhausted. I finally caught up on my sleep!
Day 7: We left Grenada. We woke up this morning and ate breakfast at the hotel. Our excursion leaders put backpacks in our room with shirts and hats for us, which was a surprise. Breakfast was good. Right now we are on the bus on our way to Cordoba. They say the best thing we are going to do here is get to experience life with the local families. We are eating lunch with a family and they are cooking for us. First thing we did today was take a tour of an olive oil factory. It was really cool. I learned that people here consume as much olive oil as they do beer. We got to try the oil and buy some for ourselves. Next we went over to a little village where we got a small tour and went to a café where we got to try the signature drink, which was regular wine mixed with dry wine and was extremely strong. There were a lot of old men there and one of them brought down a scandalous cane that had a stick that popped out in a private part when the cane was hit on the floor. Haha. (diction by Megan) Afterwards, we split our 36 people into 3 smaller groups and e ach group got to go to a local house and the mom of the house served a delicious lunch. When we were eating lunch we could look out and have an outrageous view of the lands. To drink at lunch we were served white and red wine and water. We were served a lot of courses: breads, meats, salad, and cheese, then potato salad, mushroom chicken, potatoes, pastries, coffee, and homemade liquor. It was delicious. A guy with us on the trip, named Stanton, keeps us laughing. We headed to Malaga and finally had some down time, so we went to the beach. The Mediterranean Sea was super cold, but it stays sunny very late, like 10. About a quarter of the girls there were topless, which was pretty interesting. People buried me in the dark sand. My friend Dani and I got hair wraps for really cheap haha. The lady that did our hair spoke a little English, but she was from Africa. We were trying to find where to buy tampons and she thought we were looking to buy sex. That night we grabbed a bite to eat on the strip along the sea. We found a cool marina area and walked through it to the nightlife. My girl Megan met a nice manager of Morocco’s bar and got us the hook up. It was fun and pricey. Afterwards, Dani and I got some late night food. The hotel we stayed at was nice, but unfortunately we were only there from 5 pm to 10 am, so not too many great pictures.
Day 8: Today we got on the bus at 10 and drove an hour to Puerto Banus. It is the wealthy area of Southern Spain, with lots of boats and great expensive shops. We stopped for an hour and walked around with cameras. We got a two hour stop on the way to Sevilla to a place called something al tun. On the way to it, we saw so many windmills! Lunch at the tuna place was slow and I wasn’t in the best mood for it, but afterward Dani and I got delicious ice cream and the night went up hill from there. Afterwards we bussed it to Sevilla. It was nothing that I had expected. It was really large and they had sidewalks. At the hotel, my friends and I got split up into different rooms because some other pairs of two people were quicker to grab keys. It was pretty upsetting. The hotel had the pool on top of the building and there was a bar up there too. Mojitos are my favorite and a lot of places here have mean mojitos. Haha. That night, everyone was crashing, but I had energy for a night out in Sevilla. I finally convinced a few people that it would be worth it to come out and it definitely was. Sevilla has a gorgeous nightlife because it is all located along a river with pretty scenery. At one point of the night we had a few sangrias and cervezas outside overlooking the river. Also while we were out, we went to Paseo de la Castellana, a white, large passageway that you take an elevator to the top and are able to see the entire city of Sevilla as you take a path at the top. A bar we went to had a line of about ten license plates and one was from Georgia, which was really cool, so of course we had to take a shot under it. Another thing I liked about Sevilla, was that we had free wifi in the hotel lobby, I needed a connection to the world. I think when I get back to Madrid I am going to finally buy my sim card for my phone, because I miss my family and friends!
Day 9: Morning came quick today. We left the hotel at 8:45 because we had a tour set up to take at 9:30 of Alcazar, which is kind of a big deal. Alcazar is a lot like La Alhambra, being a Christian palace using Arabic architecture. It was gorgeous, but I wouldn’t quite compare it to La Alhambra. The significance of the palace was that it dated back to Christopher Columbus. There were a lot of ceramic tiles and very cool tapestries. I saw a Peacock and the peacock’s babies, which was pretty interesting. We went to Cordoba today and had the privilege of getting some good American Burger King. I think fast food tastes so much better over here! We walked through the Jewish quarters and shopped around in all the little tiendas. We then proceeded to take a tour of the Mosque of Cordoba, which was magnificent. It is known for its red striped arches and people typically think of them when they’re thinking of the city. When we were in Burger King, a gypsy came up to us asking for money with her four year old daughter and we denied it, but a mom inside bought her food, really sweet, but an hour later she was begging again ☹. I’m so excited to get back to Madrid because I need a break from a group to be by myself for even a minute and I can’t wait to go for a run tonight! I am working on posting pictures on here, but having little success. I am putting them on facebook. Thanks for reading ☺
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