Granada!

So today we took the train to Granada, which was painful because it took 4 ½ hours and I was very tired, but not able to sleep much. It was very beautiful though because the mountains were visible. When we arrived, we took a taxi to our street, parton tejeiro, but the taxi driver didn’t know exactly where it was and dropped us off to figure it out ourselves. Kathleen and I were a little nervous about the buildings, but we finally found ours and it was locked with a big black gate that you rang up to. Our host senora let us in and met us on the third floor. The building floors were very nice and marble looking, and everything was clean and well maintained. It was very quiet and private as well. When we got upstairs, Ana Rosa was waiting outside the tiny elevator that only fit one person and their luggage, and she greeted us very openly and excitedly. She showed us the apartment and told us this would be our home, and she would be “la mama”. The apartment door opens to a foyer area with the option of turning left to a seating room, which is also used as the dining area, or walking straight to the small alley kitchen, or turning right to see a hall of doors. The first door is a bedroom that is being used by a French student who arrived later today than us and will be staying until March. Then the bathroom for her, Kathleen and I to share is next, followed by another bathroom that Ana Rosa uses for herself. The end of the hallway is a door that leads to the bedroom Kathleen and I are using, which is surprisingly large. It is much bigger than the dorm room I had freshman year and includes two bed and a nightstand, two desks, two dressers and areas to hang clothing, and a tall wooden area for storing things like our towels and maybe books.

Kathleen and I dropped our things off in the bedroom and Ana Rosa had lunch prepared for us. We ate a pea type of soup with fresh French bread, and pasta with carne de pollo, which is like chicken that looks like ground beef. It was very delicious! Then we were offered fruit to follow.

We unpacked our things and Ana Rosa offered to walk us to the city center where we were to meet with our group to find the school. It was so nice of her, and she came with most of the way until we could see where we needed to go, and I told her thank you and we could go the rest of the way if she’d like to go back. Kathleen and I met up with the group and saw a few areas of Granada, basically enough to get us to the school. We only got to see the outside wall of the CLM (centro de lenguas modernas) but tomorrow we have our placement test at 9am there. Hopefully then we will find out the schedule for the next 4 weeks of intensive language, because I’m curious as to how long we are in class!

Afterwards, it was raining but we stopped at el corte ingles, a supermarket or department store in Spain that is very popular. I got shampoo and then we headed back to the apartment because we were freezing and it was raining. Then we tried to upload pictures which worked much better here as the internet is great, and had dinner at 9pm. We had tortillas espanoles which was a warm potato based circular bread or pie you might call, with more French bread and salad. I am still working on liking the type of dressing they have here, I think it is oil and vinegar but I am definitely not used to it yet.

I am very tired today and will be adjourning to my bed very soon as we have to go to the CLM tomorrow so early. Our breakfast will be at 8am, so we have to get up pretty early, probably 7 to shower before hand. I tried really hard to get pictures up on this blog but it has been difficult and facebook loads them much faster, so please for now at least check them out there because I want you all to have visuals! But I need more time to figure out how to upload them here.

Love Nikki