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!