Happy Birthday to me

Hi all!

So as you all know, it was my birthday yesterday!!  Yup, I turned 21, which is only slightly underwhelming when you're in a country in which it's legal to drink already.  :(  But I made the best of the it with my friend Bree, and Jessy and Abby as well later that night.

Me with Mr. Einstein!

I started off with heading over to the Parque de Las Ciencias (Science Park/Museum) in Granada.  Me and Bree knew we needed a whole day there to see everything we wanted to see.  So we met up at 11 and walked over to the park.  After a few minutes of confusion we finally found the building and purchased our tickets for the Museum and for the Planetarium.  I haven't been to a Planetarium in about 10 years, so why not?  We were also reminded by the lady at the desk that it's in Spanish, and we were like "ummmm, we know!"  After we bought our tickets we headed to the outside section of the park and had fun discovering all there was!!  They had all sorts of cool things, a labyrinth of plants and veggies, plastic giraffes, sun dials, and logic puzzles all over the place!! So here's a snippet of what we did for about 2 hours outside.

First we found a butterfly house!! But it wasn't nearly as cool as the one in DC.  There were hardly any butterflies and they didn't have fruit sitting out for them to eat.  But we saw a bunch of cocoons!  And we saw cute turtles and a giant koi fish.  He was the only one and he was monstrous.

I killed the King with his Queen

Then we around the bend and some cool mind problem solving puzzles and a giant chess set!! Although it's not as giant as the one I saw in another city, I can't remember which one though.  But that was fun, we didn't play because neither of us are good at that game.  But it was cool to see one.  Bree even felt like she was in Harry Potter. :)  We're closet Harry Potter freaks together.

Hello Mr. Giraffe!

Then we found some cool plastic animals, a giraffe and a deer.  They also had other fake animals set up in the bushes, so we learned some new words!  We walked around the garden area some more and looked at the pretty trees, and the things they had set up about different types of soils, and what you can do with wood!

View of Granada and the Sierra Nevada

Finally, we climbed up the observatory tower and got a gorgeous view of Granada.  It was so pretty, only I forgot my sunglasses so it was a bit painful to look out into the sun.  But we could see the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Alhambra and the whole city.  I love the view of Granada.

From there we sat down and ate our lunch together and waited for our time slot for our Planetarium show.  The Planetarium show was actually a lot of fun.  I haven't been to one of those in years, and it was fun to be back.  It was a really small room, but it was calm and I really liked the rest in the middle of the day.  I even fell asleep a little bit...ooops...but at least I wasn't snoring like one guy!!  I also understood the majority of what they were talking about.  So that made me feel good.

Birds!

After that me and Bree found a birds of prey show!!  But we were dumb and didn't just join the show when we heard it, we figured they'd do another one in an hour or so.  But nope, there wasn't another show until 5:45 and sadly I needed to return home by then. :(  So instead we settled for looking at all the birds and seeing them up close.  It was really cool!!  That over there is a real life Vulture, and it was huuuge!! And scary. (Side note: While walking around today running miscellaneous errands I totally got side swiped by a bird.  It totally ran into my shoulder/hair and freaked me out!)

We finally decided to head inside and look at the cool exhibits they had inside.  They've had a T-Rex Exhibit for a while, since January so we wanted to check it out before it left.  Unfortunately we missed the really cool Escher exhibit (the guy that does all the really cool illusion drawings).  :(  But the T-Rex Exhibit was cool to see.  They had most mechanical moving animals because they're kind of lame and don't have enough fossils.  Most fossils have been found in North America so we have them all :)

I also have a video for you of me inside the T-Rex Exhibit!  

Whale Heart

After we did the T-Rex exhibit Bree wanted to do the "Viaje entre el cuerpo" (Travel through the body).  I consented, since I've grown a little bit more comfortable with it.  I still stand my ground with the whole, the body is gross thing.  But we did see some cool things, like how much blood your heart pumps in a minute, and put together a x-rays and see a giant heart!  We rounded off our trip inside the Parque de Las Ciencias with a nice video of a birth thanks to Bree wanting to watch it ( J.K not really :P)  which left a wonderful scar and left me saying "Yea...I'm not doing that for another 10 years).

Me by the river, with water in it!

 Bree took me to Los Italianos finally and got me an amazing ice cream.  It was a cake flavored ice cream and Lost Italianos is an excellent gelato ice cream place in Granada.  It's famous all over, and when we arrived it was packed, but luckily we got in and out quickly.  It was also some of the best ice cream I've ever had, not gonna lie.  I went home from there and got home by 6:15 and was surprised with cake from Julia and Julia (senora and roommate).  Julia (senora) was so excited and they were both singing Happy Birthday in different languages, it was really comical actually.  My senora was so excited and gave me a cute blue scarf earlier that morning.  I screwed up their plans by not being home for lunch, but I still got cake!  And it was delicious!  I also got to talk to pretty much my entire family after I got cake.  It was excellent, I haven't seen my Aunt at all on skype since I've been gone and missed her and my grandma.  So my afternoon and morning was excellent, I only had to prepare for the nighttime activities!

Me and Bree at Amsterdam

So at around 10:30 my friends Abby, Jessy and Bree met with me and took me too a bar like 1 block away from my house and we got yummy drinks.  The place was called Amsterdam and I discovered that I like peanuts while I was there.  They gave us little cups of nuts and gummies and I ate all the peanuts, yummm.. Then at around 12:30 me and Bree decided to head over to El Camborio, a fun club where a lot of Eramus (European Students) and Americans go to at night.  El Camborio also over looks the Alhambra with it all lit up at night so it has a gorgeous view.  We were ready for some dancing and good old fashion fun!!  We ended up staying out till around 4:30, but it was so worth it.  my feet were killing me by the end of the night, but my 21st birthday in Granada, Spain was an absolute success thanks to my awesome friends here in Granada!!

Me and Bree at El Camborio with the Alhambra in the back

So my birthday was awesome and this weekend I'm off to Vienna to meet up with Sophie!! So excited for that.  More fun adventures to come, until next time.  Love you all!!