Hallelujah, Lord Almighty, thank goodness it has
finally stopped raining in Granada! I think it was like nine days in a row and
my umbrella was getting quite a nice workout. Of course, now that I say this,
it’s probably going to start torrentially down pouring on my walk to school.
Now that the sun has returned along with my inspiration to
write a blog post, I’m going to recount the past week and a half in Spain!
Since coming back from Prague, we’ve done a bit of traveling around the area
here in Spain. Last Friday, we had another “intercambio” activity with our
partners from the University of Granada. For this activity, we visited the
Memoría de Andalucía museum, which has all sorts of cool things to teach us
about the history of Andalucia. On Saturday, we hiked wayyy up to the area
called Sacromonte here in Granada to see the cave museum that’s up there.
Basically, these man-made caves exist from years ago when the gypsies lived up
in the hills and created their own little neighborhoods of caves. It was pretty
cool to see them, and I definitely burned some serious calories on the hike up
there.
Inside one of the caves in Sacromonte
On Sunday, we had another excursion with our program to the
city of Ronda, about 3 hours from Granada. I had heard that Ronda was
beautiful, but wasn’t expecting the breathtaking views that we saw of the
bridge there. Ronda is known for its famous bridge and it blew my expectations
out of the water. The day started out with rain, rain and more rain. We were
pretty much soaked, but were determined to see all we could. We had about 3
hours of free time before we had to meet up for our guided tour, so my friends
and I bought a student pass from the tourism office to see the inside of the
bridge, 2 museums, Arab baths, and the palace for only 5 euro. It was a pretty
great deal, even if we only used it to get out of the rain for a bit. Our first
stop was the bridge, followed quickly to a wine museum-right up my alley. I’m
thinking of stealing their idea and installing a wine fountain in my house this
summer.
Wine fountains!
Before we had to head back for our tour, we decided to take
a hike down the steep hills to try to get a better view of the bridge and the
waterfall running underneath it. Luckily for us, the sun came out for a while
so that we could take some pictures without umbrellas. The scenery was
absolutely amazing. Some quotes I heard from that day included, “It looks like
we’re in Lord of the Rings!” and “It’s just so OLD!” and “Are we really here?” Pretty much sums that up. The
pictures don’t even begin to capture it.
On Monday, our program went to see a Flamenco show. It was a
great experience and one of those things that you just have to do when you’re
in Spain. I was impressed that it was such a cool art form-both the dancer and
the singers were absolutely amazing.
So I think that’s about it for the past week. What did YOU
do this week? :)
Tomorrow night we’re doing an olive oil tasting, which I’m
so excited for. Anything that involves food...I’m SO there. And Saturday we are
going to Sevilla, Spain for the day.
Before ending, I’d like to make two quick shoutouts. First,
to all of you loyal readers who have continued to read my blog! I’m really
enjoying writing this (a lot more than I thought I would have), and I hope
you’re all enjoying reading!
Second, I’d like to give a shout out to my little sister
Britta who turns 17 tomorrow! HOW is that even possible?? Craziness. Happy
birthday, B! Wish I could be there to celebrate with you. Unfortunately, one of
the hardest things about being abroad has been missing out on the birthdays of
my family and almost all of my closest friends’ 21st birthdays. To
all you girlies whose 21sts (How DO you write that out?) I missed, I owe you all a drink. To
Britta, I hope you have an amazing birthday and get all you ever wished for!
Happy birthday Britta!
xoxo
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