Mari showed us around the apartment, told us some of the rules, and welcomed us into her home. The apartment is on the top floor of the building (7th floor) and has a beautiful view of the neighborhood and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. As soon as you leave the apartment building you're surrounded by stores, bars, and cafés. Courtney and I share a bedroom and there is one bathroom in the apartment. Courtney and I get along great and are really glad we were paired as roommates. This picture was taken from the terrace of the apartment.
There is a lot to adjust to when it comes to the living situation. Since Courtney and I are expected home for every meal, setting mealtimes takes a lot of planning with our host mom and doesn't allow for much spontaneity when it comes to going out with friends. She plans meals days in advance so canceling a meal or even adjusting the time can turn into a major deal. Luckily it's getting easier to communicate and to find solutions that work for all of us. Another difficulty is that Mari hasn't been in good health lately and sleeps most of the day. It's hard not to feel like an imposition when she talks about how much she is suffering.
Aside from those things, Mari is a fun person to be around. Courtney and I love watching TV game shows with her, and she always has advice for us on places to visit in Granada and in nearby towns. I still don't know a lot about Mari's life when she was younger, but I know she used to write news articles. She loves books and literature. The apartment is full of great books and she said we can read them anytime we want. I have really enjoyed talking about literature with her, and was excited to discover that we share the same favorite author.
To give you an idea of some of the things I've been adjusting to...
It's been cold and raining ever since we got here and there's no heat in the apartment. I can literally see my breath in the apartment. I always look forward to getting into bed to go to sleep because my bed has an electric heated blanket.
Almost everyone smokes and everything smells like smoke.
Laundry isn't an option right now because of the rain. Most people don't have dryers in their homes so everything is hung outside to dry. I will never again consider something dirty that has been worn only once.
Breakfast is toast and tea (always). Lunch is a giant meal served around 2:30pm. Mari has finally started serving me less food because I was making myself sick by trying to be kind and finish everything on my plate. The food is much different than what I'm used to...lots of meat and just hearty meals in general. There isn't really dessert here...just fruit. Courtney and I have already stocked our dresser drawers with junk food from the supermarket. Dinner is a smaller meal than lunch and is served around 10pm.
I wear house shoes. I take incredibly short showers. We use daylight to light the house, not lights. There's no internet at the apartment. Internet can be hard to come by. Military time. Celsius. All the stores close from about 2pm to 5pm. Meeting Spaniards my age is hard (they're in final exams right now). Inappropriate things can appear on the TV screen with absolutely no warning. I walk everywhere. The dogs can be scary. Last night an unleashed, muddy Great Dane nearly tackled me. Mopeds are everywhere...and I rode on the back of one!!
Some of the things I'm really enjoying...
walking all the time, mopeds, arabic shops, tea shops, chocolate crepes, mountains, beautiful graffiti, rebajas (big sales in January/February).
These pictures were taken on my walk to school.
My friends and I went shopping on a street by the Alhambra that has many Arabic shops. This guy let us play dress up for a long time and even joined in himself. It was a lot of fun.
Courtney and I went to the Granada Cathedral. It was very impressive.
We went to a small flamenco show at a café. It was great because it was a small show and we were able to talk with the performers and see the show up close. I plan to go to a lot of flamenco shows while I'm here.
I've been in Granada for a little over two weeks and classes still haven't started. So far we've just had Spanish language review classes for 3 hours each day to prepare us to take the placement exam. The review was really helpful because the professor taught us a lot of colloquial vocabulary and really had a talent for identifying the common mistakes that international students make when speaking Spanish. The class was very different than any other grammar class I've taken. The professor was also just a hilariously funny guy, which made the class fun to go to. I'm looking forward to starting my real classes tomorrow and getting into more of a routine here.
Once a week I will be volunteering at an elementary school. The school is trying to become bilingual (Spanish/English) and is conducting night classes for its teachers to learn English. I will be helping out with these classes and working with the teachers to find ways to integrate English into the classroom.
Speaking and understanding Spanish has been going well. Courtney and I are both in the advanced program and are able to communicate with our host mom, storeowners, waiters, etc. Even though we're able to communicate when we want/need to, hearing young people speak Spanish on the street reminds us how far we still have to go before we will really have mastered the language. Since we still don't have Spanish friends and we're always with Americans, we've been speaking a lot of English. We know it would be better to always speak in Spanish but it's really hard not to give into the temptation to speak English. I'm hoping Spanish will become the norm once we get more settled in and start to make friends here.
Here's a link to more pictures:
2 comments:
whose moped did you ride on?
...wouldn´t you like to know? haha
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