Jan 11

Hi everyone!!
sorry it's taken so long to get another post up.  It's been crazy here and I'm so busy all the time, or really tired and hit the hay pretty quickly.  Since I last posted a lot has happened.  We started our intensive course program and I'm in level 5.  I go to class every day from 9-1, 4 hours of intensive Spanish class.  We just started so it's been good so far, but I'm starting to get pretty excited and overwhelmed from all the Spanish.  I basically get out of class and then go back to my homestay for lunch and siesta and speak more spanish.  I'm getting more confident but we'll see.  I have to remember that I'm only been in the country for like 4 day so it's going to take a while to see the improvement I want to see.

Today I got out of class and went shopping a bit down the street and got some stuff done around town like I needed to.  Oh did I forget to mention that I walk more than 30 min to class every day.  Yea, I live on Camino de Rhonda, which is basically on the other side of town from the Central de Lenguas Modernas.  So I have to be in class at around 9, that means I leave my house at like 8:20.  Yup, I walk a really far ways, all together me and my roommate figured out that we probably walk about 6 miles.  You walk everywhere here, everyone walks, that or you take the bus.

So, Granada really does do siesta time, their not kidding.  Literally everyone leaves their job or school and goes home to have a super big lunch and just hangout and talk and everything.  I get out of my intensive course at 1 and walk home with my friends for a 2:30 lunch.  My senoras daughter and granddaughters come over to her house for almuerzo cada dia and her nieta is sooo cute! It's very fun, but literally every store is closed and the streets are mobbed with people going home.

Today we went to a short meeting for classes and then shopping!  I didn't really buy anything but a pair of earings, but it's rebajas right now! Basically it's black friday for a whole month and so much is on sale in every store.  Here they don't really have sales like we do, everything is full price and then they have rebajas for a whole month and it's wonderful.  So i need to do some more shopping, but after all the walking I do I'm super tired and slightly uninterested in shopping by the end of the day.  No one goes outside during siestas time, and all the stores are closed so you have to go out after 5 or 5:30 to get things done, and then you only have until like 8:30 or 9.  It's certainly different.

But I'm liking it so far, today I took off with a friend to get her a phone and just walk around, and of course practice our Spanish.  It's nice to have friends who are at the same level as me so we can practice our Spanish together.  But I finally got my Spanish phone and here it is!! It cost me a total of 9 euro and then on 10 euro or whatever I want to put on it for the month.

Me telefono!

Pretty much that's all I really did today.  I just came home for dinner and then holed myself up in my room.  I've been in my room a lot at night because I'm still getting acclimated to it all.  So we'll see.  

Yesterday I went to a tea house with some friends.  I had cinnamon tea, and it was really good.  Here's a  few pics!

Me, and my friends!!

Me drinking my tea at the tea house, and my friend in the background. 

A picture of la Plaza de Isabella Catolica, otra vez.  It's a beautiful Plaza that I go through every day on my walk to school.  I'll take pictures of my school muy pronto (very soon) and post them. 

Una otra plaza en Granada.  Just another Plaza, because there are so many, and I thought the fountain was pretty at night.  Nothing like the whale fountain that we need to turn off for fear of people using it for a public bathroom. Ugh, Americanas. :P

That's it for now.  My senora just went to bed, which means it's my cute to go to bed too!! Wake up at 7 to walk my half hour to class tomorrow morning.  Hay hace much frio en la manana tambien.  And I'm sorry for the lack of tildes, accentos and other such spanish things, I have no idea how to do this on the internet. 

Until next time, love you all

Bonnie