January 24, 2011- Departure: Chicago O'hare International Airport
My parents and I arrived at the airport 3 hours early. As usual, I over-packed and had to take off some of my clothes and shoes to make the required weight. Little did I know that the flight wouldn't be full and that the 2lbs excess weight of my luggage would have gotten through without charge. Anyway, that's not a concern for me right now because of all the "rebajas" going on here in Granada. Haha! I'm just sad that I chose not to have my parents stick a while longer because I hate crying and saying goodbyes. It was not really goodbye because I will be coming back home.... only 6 months later. A long time you might say, but time passes by really fast because you meet people here and there. Speaking of meeting people, I met another IES student, Rachel, at O'hare because her connecting flight to Brussels happened to be there also. So, we were airplane buddies until we met Katie at the airport in Brussels 8 hours after.
January 25, 2011- Arrival: Brussels Airport, Brussels, Belgium
Our plane from Chicago was late by half an hour so, when we arrived in Belgium, we only had an hour of layover. During that layover we met another student, Katie. Katie's parents move to Brussels just a month or so ago because of their jobs that's why Katie was there as well. She's been there since December. We talked about our majors to pass time and then boarded as soon as we got deep into conversation. The flight was really fast and we arrived in Malaga at around 1:00pm. We met other students at the airport and just decided to take the cab together to split the bill. Saves money!!! We got to the hotel, and let me tell you, it was really nice and fancy! We had an hour or less tour of the city after we purchased our cellphones for the duration of the trip here. Finally, they told us to go around and find a good place for dinner. We were treated like adults as how it should be and it felt great! We went to famous restaurant called El Pimpi and had a great dinner with other students. We ordered food we did not even know about and had cervezas and sangrias. Oh, life is good! After eating, we all just crashed in our rooms and woke up refreshed the next day.
January 26, 2011- Hotel Silken, Malaga, Spain.
We woke up and had the greatest hotel breakfast! We were served well and the food was just awesome! ALSO, the greatest part was that we had TWO breakfasts! TWO! How cool is that?! After having the first part of orientation before departing for Granada, we had lunch, and again, it was great! I think I will be saying great and awesome often. So, be used to it. =)
After lunch, we took the shuttle bus to Granada and met our host families. We arrived in Granada at around early evening. It was raining but the terrible rain could not hide the beauty of the city. Getting the luggage from the bus was hard too, but my host mom spotted me and my roommate quickly. She helped us and then we walked to her apartment and met her husband. She gave us a tour of the little apartment and got us settled in our room. After that she prepared us our dinner and had us eating more than usual. I told her "estoy llena" but she was telling me I must eat more. Oh, boy... I think I am gonna have to take advantage of the distance of our apartment to the IES center. We live 20 minutes away and the street goes uphill. So much for a workout. Haha!
January 27, 2011- IES Center, Calle Pisas, Granada, Spain.
We were separated into groups according to the level of Spanish that we know. They called our group "grupo Nazhun." To tell you the truth, I felt terrible because in our group, I had the worst Spanish. My teacher Virginia would always tell me "tranquila, Andrea" or "no pasa nada." What she meant was that I need to stay calm and take it easy on myself because my Spanish was not as bad as I think. I could get by and if I study, I will be able to speak properly in a month, which is really good for me because I need to be able to talk to my hostparents (they do not speak in English). Also, the rest of the group were also struggling when it comes to speaking, aside from a select few. Anyway, it was a fun first day of "class" in orientation because we had different activities that helped us improve our vocabulary even more.
January 28, 2011- Excursion del grupo de Nazhun a Albaycin y Sacramonte.
Today we walked up to Albaycin and Sacramonte to see "las carmenes" and the neighboring view of Alhambra. It was beautiful even if it was raining like crazy! The streets were really narrow and there were tons of shops left and right. I could not describe how amaze I was when I saw cars trying to squeeze their way into those calles pequenitas! They were so small we had to give way to the cars and stay right by the walls so we wont get run over.
I am speechless over this place and I certainly have more to say but for now I must get ready to meet my friends for some tapas, churos con chocolate and then later on go to las discotecas.
It's going to be a fun night! T.G.I.F. ^___^
The photos I uploaded are posted on Facebook. Check them out! =)
ADIOS CHICOS y CHICAS <3
