Week three...

Hello, Hello
I'm still playing catch-up, but I'm taking advantage of the rainy day today to do just that. :)

(Monday, October 10, 2011)
Lauren invited me to have lunch with her at her piso, so after my psych class, I walked down from Cartuja to her piso to find she had made Lentil soup for us. Mmmm... qué rica!! It was delicious, with all sorts of veggies. I helped make the salad and wash the grapes, and then we ate! We had some really good conversations (as always) and then I just chilled at her house until we had history class together at 7:30. Twas a relaxing day. :)

(Tuesday, October 11, 2011)
On Tuesday after class, I had made plans with Mohamed to go to the Medieval Fair that was taking place in Granada for the week. So we met near Cartuja and walked all over Granda to get to the fair. I had never walked down certain streets in the city, so Mohamed was just showing me everything en route to the fair. Once at the fair, we walked around and looked at all the little trinkets and food that was being sold. It reminded me of the Park Street Art & Wine Fair, but with a Medieval twist- almost everyone was dressed up in medieval costumes and all the stands we decorated like 'the old days'. It was fun to see, but when we arrived, there weren't that many people, so it was kinda slow. I took some pictures though!

Look how BIG this bread is! :) Family size.

The Bar at the fair.

The town jesters and marching band... how fun is this?!

These little piggies went to market... and never returned home. :(

That's one HUGE dish of Paella! 

This made me feel like Harry Potter is real... So many types of Owls and hawks and birds and carrying Pigeons... 

Some of them were so perfect they looked fake- Mohamed and I were surprised when some of them would move! haha

This made me think of my Daddy... the blacksmith.

This was AWESOME! The man was carving a granada out of marble... amazing to watch them chip away at something so wildly and see the end result as a smooth piece of art. 

Candies... Bug, this one's for you. ;)  

I just thought the colors were pretty...

After the fair, Mohamed and I walked down even more streets I had never been down and finally reached a famed gelato place on Gran Vía, Los Italianos. :) Today was a scorcher- it was in the high 90s even at 6:30pm! So the pistachio and turrón helado (ice cream) I ate hit the spot. Mohamed and I parted ways to get back to our pisos but had plans to meet up later that night for the celebration of Francesca's birthday.
I returned home and we ordered pizza for dinner...

Chiara, Dani (Daniel), Chris, and Emanuela

(We didn't finish all that, but came close to it. haha) So the five of us ate pizza for dinner before meeting up with the rest of the group (los italianos) at embotellón for the celebration. Oh I forgot to mention... you're probably wondering why I was going out to drink and party on a tuesday night... Wednesday was a holiday in Spain (Columbus day- the day that he arrived in the americas- October 12, 1492). Since we didn't have class the next day, we did what all good spanish students do- fiesta!! ;) ...And what a fiesta it was. Everyone brought something to drink and we all stood around drinking and chatting and being merry (even though embotellón is kinda gross). I talked with Chiara, Chris, Emanuela, and Dani in spanish all night and we were just being silly and laughing a ton. Around 4am we all left embotellón and returned to Francesca's apartment where Lisa made pasta. ...So we ate pasta at 4am. At the apartment I met a new guy in the group, Kemel. He was the random one, and I'm still confused about how he joined the group. Kemel is from Algiers and was visiting Spain on holiday- traveling alone. He somehow came across our group at embotellón and Francesca or someone invited him to come to Francesca's house for pasta... so there it is. However, Kemel does not speak spanish and thus proceeded to talk to me in english for the next few hours. We ended up having a really good conversation and ... wow, hindsight is 20/20. Welp, at least I can learn from these things... So we chatted and exchanged numbers before leaving. Also before I left (at 6am), everyone was searching the (small) apartment for Mohamed, screaming "Mohamed!? Where are you?" only to have no reply... so we all assumed Mohamed was lost or had disappeared, but he had definitely come back to Fra's with us. Then when Kemel and I were standing outside the door to Fra's building, suddenly Mohamed came out the door, smiled and said, "Au revoir," then turned and walked down the street in the direction of the bus stop... I was so confused! The next day we talked to Mohamed to make sure he had gotten home safe and he had, but said he had drunken too much. We still don't know exactly where he was chillin' in the building, but hey, he's alive and well and that's all that matters. haha

(Wednesday, October 12, 2011)
Everything in Spain was closed today for the holiday, so it didn't matter that I didn't wake up until 1pm and then spent most of the afternoon in my jammies with my piso mates. (Although being scared awake by someone drilling something in the apartment above me was definitely no fun!)
Then Kemel texted me and we decided to go out for Tapas that night. Let me explain: I have a tendency to get myself in such awkward situations with boys because I am nice to them. Nothing more, nothing less. My thought process goes as follows: 'Kemel is a nice enough guy and he is traveling here alone. We had a good conversation last night, so why not go out for tapas? Whats the harm in that? If I were traveling alone and met some nice people, I'd hope they might wanna go out at night with me too.' HA! Well, there was no harm, but he was late (and I still had homework to get done) and then he tried to kiss me twice at the end of the night... but failed! haha Thank God for the 2 kisses on the cheek custom here in Spain, I was able to use that as my safety net! So, "awkward-kinda-like-a-date-but-unbeknownst-to-me" date #3 was finally (and thankfully) over. Why don't boys just come right out and say they are asking me on a date?! geeeeez... I need to meet some boys that I wouldn't mind accidentally going on a date with... ;P

(Thursday, October 13, 2011)
My best friend's 21st birthday- Happy Birthday Teresa Mooney!!
Today I just went to class and met up with a friend from the UC program, Grant, for lunch. We ate lunch at the cafetería in the Facultad de Filología y Letras (on campus in Cartuja) and talked all in Spanish... while trying not to get eaten by bees. haha We ate outside and enjoyed the sun before heading to class.

(Friday, October 14, 2011)
I think I must have just caught up on some sleep this day and got some homework done (cuz I don't have much in my notes of what I did this day. haha) But at night (as I'm sure you've noticed by now... everyone lives in the night here in Spain), Chris made Spaghetti Carbonara for Emanuela, Chiara and me (Dani had gone home for the weekend. He goes home every other weekend since it is only an hour away by bus. ...and then brings food his mother has prepared for him from home to put in the freezer and eat for the next two weeks. haha Geez, Mom, you didn't do that for me!?! ;P only kidding.  He does cook though too.). Spaghetti Carbonara alla Chris was soo yummy in my tummy. After we ate, we decided to watch a movie in Spanish. Chris had found a DVD in his room with two movies on it, so we chose one of the two, Chloe, as we didn't recognize the titles of either. It was a good movie, but also very strange. ...and hard to understand at first since we couldn't get the spanish subtitles to work.

(Saturday, October 15, 2011)
Today I went shopping with Chiara, Emanuela and Chris. We basically spent about 3 hours in H&M though because Chiara and Emanuela tried on so many things. I bought a white cardigan and pretty purple blouse. Then we went to Chiara's apartment (both her roommates had gone home for the weekend as well) and made albóndigas (meatballs) and veggies for lunch. After eating, we were all exhausted, so Emanuela and I sat out in the sun for a bit on Chiara's terrace and then we all napped on the couch for about an hour. At 6:15pm, we woke up and the three of them wanted to go to the manifestación (protest) in the center of town for the economic state of the world that everyone is protesting right now. I, however, decided going to a protest in a foreign country didn't sound like the best of ideas... and had plans to skype with the fam bam at 7pm anyways. When they all returned from the protest, they told me it was more like a fiesta than anything because people were salsa dancing and having fun... one man was even riding a unicycle naked (not that that really surprised me...I'm from San Francisco for crying out loud! ...and I told them all about Bay to Breakers and my Dad pointing out all the naked people to me. haha God, I love my family!). But nothing dangerous or too wild. That night I stayed in and studied rather than going to one of the italianos apartments to party. I had to read an entire spanish play, Fuenteovejuna by Lope de Vega, and write a short essay about it due wednesday! Whoops for procrastination. But I got everything done and turned in on time! :) (haha my life is so different here than in SB... and in such a good way. I'm LOVING it!! I hardly stress at all.)

(Sunday, October 16, 2011)
Sunday we cleaned the apartment. (I love that we have cleaning rules set up and are sticking to them. It makes life so much easier and less stressful.) Then Emanuela invited 2 spanish girls over for dinner and made a wonderful meal for us- salad and arrancini (a delicious italian dish- basically fried rice balls with peas and cheese and green olives). Here's a picture from the internet:

Mmmmmmm!!

It was fun to have some spaniards in the house and to practice spanish with them. Emanuela and I are trying to meet more spanish people to practice more. It's hard when practically half the student population here in Spain are Erasmus (exchange) students!! (I have to admit though, drinking beer with dinner on a sunday night knowing I had class the next day, was kinda weird... but I'm in Spain so it's really not that strange!)

Week 4 coming soon!

P.S. I promise I'm actually studying while I'm here too... haha. I know it sounds like all I do is go out and have fun and eat and drink... and see and do and conquer, but I am learning 24/7 and studying for the university too. I just don't want to bore you with those details. ;)

besos y abrazos...