I'M HERE! After 5 months of planning, and 2 months in the winter of waiting, I've finally arrived in Spain! The flight was not bad at all, I flew out of JFK with 11/14 girls on the trip (we had no idea there were 14 of us until we got to the hotel). We spent the flight sleeping and awkwardly getting to know each other. My first clue that I wasn't in America was when we had a 5 hour layover in Madrid, before our flight to Granada, where we have orientation. I was starving and went to a little stand that just had sandwiches and coffee and such; I preceded to have a religious experience with my cafe con leche and bocadillo de tortilla. Airport food should never be that good, and isn't that good anywhere in America. Even though everyone was exhausted and anxious from traveling so many hours, everyone is really cool and we all get a long very well. The flight to Granada was awful, but only because there was an obnoxious group of Italian middleschoolers that kept staring at us, and awkwardly held hands with each other.
At around two in the afternoon, we got to Granada, had a questionable lunch, and then had a couple hours before dinner to clean up and such. Instead of napping, I wandered around Granada for a few hours with Ellen and Hannah, two girls on my program. It was a Sunday, so basically everything was closed but it was nice to just wander around and get acquainted to the city that we were only staying in for two days. There was a nice cafe open, so we wandered in and got what I think is "tinto verano" which I found out was red wine with lemon soda, and was the most delicious thing I ever drank.
Then, jetlag kicked in, we traveled for almost 20 hours and I slept for about 3 of them, I stumbled through dinner and finally went to bed before 10, so we could get up at 9 to tour the Alhambra. It's just beautiful here. The Alhambra is so intricate and every decoration has a purpose, to show what was most important to them. I can't believe that people live their whole lives here, with ancient Islamic palaces just around the corner. "Oh, I live down the block from the Alhambra, ndb. My life is so boring" We were all in awe driving up the road, looking at all the pretty little houses in the mountains, I think our bus driver was almost annoyed with us, because he sees this everyday, and he's also surrounded by tourists gawking at his home.
That's all for now. We're going another tour now, but this time it's a walking tour of Granada and the Cathedral. Hopefully tonight I'll have the energy to actually be an abroad student and go out, then this blog will get more entertaining.
If the rest of my rest of my trip is anything like this, I think I'm going to be very happy.
