Six weeks already??

It’s hard to believe, but this past weekend was the six-week mark for my semester in Spain. Time has been flying by, and the next month will be over before I know it...that’s what happens when you travel somewhere every weekend for 7 weeks. That’s right. SEVEN weeks! This past weekend was week 2 of 7, and I traveled to the Spanish cities of Toledo and Madrid with my program. It’s really nice having a trip completely planned for you every once in awhile and I was pretty excited to spend a weekend not having to worry about making sure everything flowed perfectly as I always seem to whenever I travel whenever I do anything.

Our entire group of about 40 students plus our program director, Verónica, and our tutorial teacher, José, came along for the trip. We left on Friday and on our way to Madrid stopped in the city of Toledo. Despite torrential downpours, Toledo was a beautiful city of cobblestone streets, gorgeous views, and a rich religious history. The city contains an enormous cathedral, two synagogues and a mosque! We only spent a couple hours on a tour of the city, but we were all ready to get back in the bus and out of the rain.

We arrived in Madrid, Spain’s capital city and home to about 4 million people, in the evening and had the rest of the night to do whatever we wanted. A friend of a friend recommended a local, hole-in-the-wall tapas bar not too far from our hotel so a couple friends and I headed to El Tigre (The Tiger) for some drinks and tapas. The bar ended up being great and we talked to a couple of Spanish students who overheard us speaking English and thought we sounded like we were from an American movie! They also complemented us on our Spanish, which always surprises me because I feel like I am still not nearly as fluent as I want to be.

The next morning started off perfectly-I was able to take as long of a shower as I wanted, we got free breakfast at the hotel, and I got to reunite with one of the things I miss most about the US...STARBUCKS. Well, any American coffee actually. I’m a big coffee drinker and the coffee in Spain is just not the same. It’s so, so tiny and although it’s called “café con leche” (coffee with milk) it’s definitely more milk with a bit of coffee.

So with a venti café latte in hand and sunny skies above, the group headed to the Royal Palace for a morning tour. The palace was so regal and impressive-unfortunately, we couldn’t take pictures inside so I have no proof, but the outside was gorgeous as well. The King of Spain and the Royal Family don’t actually live here, but it is where the King greets all foreign visitors and it is also where the document was signed to add Spain to the European Union in 1985. We got to see the table where it was signed!

After the palace, we had the next 8 hours to ourselves to do whatever we wanted. While many members of the group went back to the hotel to nap, my friends and I put our explorer caps on and headed out into the city to see all the big things. Our first stop was Retiro Park, where we decided to try our hands at row boating! It was cold and windy, but still beautiful and a great arm workout. 

After grabbing lunch and sitting in the park for some time, we walked to the National Library, which is actually a museum, and shopped for a bit. We also got caught up in a nationwide protest about everything under the sun, which sounds scary, but was actually just really cool. At night, the group all went to see a show at the theatre called “Hermanas” or “Sisters.” It was pretty good, and I was surprised at how much of it I was able to understand. A quick cultural observation: Spanish people, and Europeans in general are much less sensitive about nudity and sex than Americans are. To know what I’m talking about, you just have to turn on the news and see the images they show here, or the commercials that are allowed to air, or just watch the play “Hermanas.” I’m not going to elaborate much more, but all of us American students were quite shocked by a couple of the things in this play. Always new learning experiences!

Sunday morning we visited the Prado art museum to wander and explore the works of Velázquez, Goya, Greco and others. To sum it up in one sentence: I really enjoy art and art museums, but one can only take in so many portraits and paintings of Jesus in one day. Also, Goya was seriously disturbed.

In the afternoon, we shopped a little more and headed back to Granada. It was a fantastic weekend, and I was surprised at how beautiful Madrid was! The architecture was not what you would think of when you think ‘Spain’ but it was stunning nonetheless. I am continuously wowed by the history and the surprises that exist throughout Europe. I can’t wait to explore the next city on my list this weekend! Look for another blog post next week.

Abrazos y besos!

Hugs and kisses!

Learning to Party Like a Spaniard

Hello, readers! Time for another update on the exciting life of Kira Leigh...nothing much has been going on in the last week apart from classes, which are going well. Sometimes I have to remind myself that technically I am here for school. All of my classes are an hour and half long which doesn’t sit well with my short attention span, but Paige and I bought colored marker-pens that make taking notes more fun and we are consequently more likely to pay attention.

This weekend, we had a short travel to the coastal city of Cádiz but this time it was not to view the gorgeous beach or the beautiful cathedrals...it was to learn how to party like a Spaniard! Clearly I’ve been enjoying my wine and tapas here in Spain, but for those of you who know me, I’m much more keen on a low-key wine/movie night with friends than a crazy night at a club. Don’t get me wrong, I love to have fun when I go out, but I guess I’m just more of an “old soul” in that respect. In Spain, the clubs (or discotecas) start getting busy around 1:30 a.m. and it isn’t uncommon for students to stay there till 5 a.m. or later. That is absolutely NUTS! Call me a grandma, but I just don’t have the energy to stay out that late every weekend! This weekend was an exception...we went to Carnaval!

Carnaval is an ancient tradition of singing, parades, and festivals that has been around in Cádiz since the 1200’s (apart from the time of Franco’s rule when it was banned) and it is now a 2-week long festival of singing and nonstop drinking. Some friends hooked us up with an organized bus group to Cádiz and we met at 9:30 am on Saturday to make the 4-hour bus trip there on a bus full of Spanish college student (who are absolutely crazy, by the way). After stopping for several smoke breaks since the Spaniards can’t live without their cigarettes, we arrived in Cádiz around 3:30. Everyone wears costumes to Carnaval, so it was fun to see what everyone else was wearing. We spent the afternoon walking around and stopped at a bar for a quick tinto de verano and began our drinking around 4:30. As the night went on, things got crazier, louder and much, much dirtier. I imagine the closest American thing you could compare Carnaval to is probably Mardi Gras, just to give you a frame of reference. I had a lot of fun with friends and met some cool Spanish guys as well as a guy from Sweden and two girls from Holland.

Things were fun until about 1:30/2:00 am (when I would normally call it a night) and then we realized we were stuck in Cádiz until our bus left at 7 a.m. I REPEAT: we had to stay out partying until 7:00 in the morning!! I was proud of myself for making it to that point, but I think it was definitely a once-in–a-lifetime kind of thing. It got pretty cold while we were waiting and I really just wanted to sleep, but I’m glad I did it!

I think that’s about all there is to report for now, until my trip with the program to Madrid this weekend! Miss you all-sending hugs from abroad!

Wine is Cheaper than Water...

...And other cool things about Spain. Yes, it’s true. It’s a sorority girl’s dream-no matter what restaurant you are in here, wine is cheaper than water. The extra calories are not part of the dream, but how can you resist a deal like that? Another great thing about this city is tapas; almost every restaurant brings you free tapas with your drink order and it’s always fun to see what will be brought out. Tapas are basically appetizers given to you for free, but you don’t usually know what you’re going to get. Sometimes it’s chicken nuggets and fries, other times it’s an entire breaded fish (head, eyes, tail and all). 

So I’ve now been in Spain for over 4 full weeks and I can’t believe how fast time is flying! I’m starting to get adjusted and I am getting into a more regular schedule. My first full week of classes went well--I’m especially excited for my Spanish Civilization and Culture and my History of Spanish Art classes. I am particularly dreading grammar. It was also really nice to just have a weekend without travel or anything special going on so I could have some time to catch up on sleep, correspondence and a little bit of shopping.

On Friday night, we started at the tea shop again for some delicious tea and then tried our first flamenco bar! It was tons of fun, but we got there pretty late so it wasn’t too crowded. I definitely want to go back again! We ended the night at a pub for some delicious tinto de verano (red wine with soda and lemon). Saturday morning we met up with friends to do some shopping and explore parts of the city we hadn’t seen yet. We also needed to buy our costumes for our big trip to Cádiz for the annual Carnaval this Saturday (more on this later). After shopping we stopped at a fruit stand and got some fruit for lunch, which we ate at a running park near our apartment. It was so nice to just sit on the benches with a view of the Sierra Nevada Mountains peeking through and enjoy friends and food. Of course we made time to play at the playground, and then headed home for a little bit of siesta time before meeting once again to walk to the top of El Albaycín to watch the sunset. We grabbed a bottle of wine on the way up (another cool thing about Spain is that there are no open container laws. YAY!) and made the steep hike up to the lookout point just as the sun was starting to set. It was pretty crowded because it was a Saturday night, but it was still really fun!

Sunday was another pretty relaxing day filled with homework, tapas with the señora and some friends, and Skyping with mom and dad. Carmen decided to take us out for tapas instead of cooking lunch and we met up with her friend Virginia again. We went to a cool, low-key bar across the street from our apartment where we each got 2 drinks, 2 individual tapas plates, AND dessert for less then 5 euro per person. Did I mention that Spain is great? The host moms ordered for us for the first round and got us all calamari but I opted for a fajita in the second round. We finished off the meal with some delicious chocolate cake. The perfect ending to a great weekend was an hour and half long Skype call with mom, dad and Odie. I also got the chance to Skype a few of my friends from home, which was great.

Nothing very exciting is going on this week but I’m looking forward to Saturday when we are going to Cádiz for Carnaval. It’s essentially a big, long day of partying, drinking and other shenanigans and it promises to be a blast. My next post will surely be filled with some interesting stories from that day. Until then, hasta luego!

All Things Swiss

I’m back in Granada after a weekend trip to the land of army knives, chocolate, skiing and neutrality (sorry to steal your line, Dad!). Switzerland definitely lived up to its reputation! The chocolate was to die for, so naturally I bought about 4 bars and ate them all before I even got back to Spain. Switzerland wasn’t one of the top countries on my list of places to go while abroad, but it just so happened that when Paige and I were looking on Skyscanner to find somewhere to go for the weekend, Switzerland was the cheapest flight! So we went with it, and ended up spending 3 days in Geneva with some friends from our program.

Instead of giving you a play-by-play of our activities for the weekend, I decided to give you some helpful information about traveling to Geneva, just in case you ever decide to go.

1. Everything there is EXPENSIVE. I mean a McDonald’s hamburger will cost you easily $10. I have no clue how the flight there was so cheap, but we paid dearly once we arrived. Nevertheless, it was totally worth it. We found ways to work around the price and luckily for us, our hostel had a full kitchen that we were able to cook in. We made quite a few trips to the grocery store and found it much cheaper to buy food to cook ourselves.

2. The chocolate (and fondue!) is to die for. Even the cheap Swiss Airlines chocolate they gave us on the flight was amazing! I bought a few bars for myself, including one with little “coffee crispies” in it. Yum. The other thing we splurged a bit on was one big lunch out on our last day of the trip, where we got gruyere cheese fondue and some pizzas for the group including one with smoked salmon, onions, and capers that was delicious!

3. The Alps take your breath away. Or perhaps it was the cold, but either way I found myself getting goosebumps when I stared at them. There is just something about snow-capped mountains peaking through clouds that seem so magical. The other thing we all noticed about Geneva was how clean it was; after a 13-day garbage strike here in Granada, it was nice to see constantly clean sidewalks and absolutely clear water in the lake. The air just felt so refreshing.

4. I need to learn French. Next on my to-do list upon returning to the US. So many people here in Europe speak 3, 4 even 5 languages and I’m still struggling to be proficient in my second language! French is beautiful (and spoken in Geneva AND Morocco, by the way) and I think it would be really helpful to know. We had several somewhat embarrassing moments when someone would speak to us in French and we instinctively responded in Spanish. Woops.

5. Just walk around. The best parts of our trip happened when we were just wandering or trying to get from one place to another and happened to find cool things to see on the way. Our whole trip was unplanned for the most part, so it was neat to just experience things as they came along. A few moments to remember: the first afternoon we just sat by Lake Geneva and the amazing fountain for awhile and looked out at the water and rode the free boats back and forth across the lake just because. We spend almost a whole day traveling to the other side of the lake to see the Chateau Chillon in Montreaux and ended up walking for about 45 minutes from the train to the castle. It was probably my favorite memory from the trip. On our way to the Old Town we happened upon a playground made of old tires and had to channel our inner child and swing for a bit. We visited St. Pierre’s cathedral and happened to catch the beginning of a free organ concert! We also saw the United Nations building and ended our trip with a couple delicious bottles of wine in a pub...but only after accidentally walking into an all-male bar. Hey, it was an adventure. 

At United Nations

Drew, Megan, Me and Paige at a pub