ESN Trip: Part 1: Granada

Photo Cred: Melisa
Alhambra, Granada

During our first week of what I would consider real classes, we decided to take off for a long, extended weekend. ESN, which is a group also known as "Erasmus Student Network", is for international students to get involved in stuff. They have a ton of activities planned throughout the week and then plan different weekend trips to places. Some of my friends took an ESN trip to Porto, Portugal in February and our trip to Andalusia, Spain was an ESN trip. Compared to what it would have cost us to travel to the three different cities that we went to with ESN, we saved a heck of a lot of money so missing class was definitely worth the price that we paid for the trip. Anyhoo, on Wednesday, March 2nd, we began our journey around midnight. We went to class and everything that day, so we only really missed one class. We even went to the horrible cultural activity which was a 2 hour tour of the old zone of Santiago, because we haven't been around for a month now or anything. I slept for most of the bus ride, with my own seat and everything because I don't know how to share. The bus ride was about 12 hours or something, with us arriving in Granada around noon or 1, I'm not really sure when we arrived. We checked into our hotel and then the adventures began. We started our adventures at Alhambra, which was gorgeous. I would say it was like a garden with some castle things going on.

Photo Cred: Melisa
Alhambra, Granada

Photo Cred: ESN
Probably in Granada on our city tour with Alhambra in the background? #noclue

After the Alhambra, we went on a city tour of Granada and learned all about the calle de triste or something like that. There was a hotel that everyone left sick for a reason I can't remember anymore, but we were all ready to hike over to it and weren't "allowed" to because we had to get in our city tour. The tour was wonderful and we got to see a bunch of cool things. The cathedral where we started the tour had red writing, graffiti, on the walls because when you graduate something back in the day, you would try and climb as high as you could and leave your mark on the cathedral. I'm pretty sure that is what our guide told us. It was rather hard to pay attention since it was later in the day and we were starting to space out. I know it was an interesting history lesson but I just can't say that I took a lot of it in.

Photo Cred: ESN
Flamenco 

After our tour we went for tapas, where I just stared at people while they ate because I didn't want to order a drink. I mean I did go to Granada with only 3 euros (cash) to my name, so I wasn't really feeling in the mood to buy anything while I was there. There was some great elephant pants that I wanted though, everywhere I looked I saw elephant pants so its a really good thing I didn't have money on me. Then we went to a Flamenco shop after tapas. I wasn't super impressed with the show. The guitarist was amazing but both dancers seemed bored out of their minds when they weren't dancing and were just backup singers or whatever. The singer seemed rather bored as well. I just didn't get the vibe that they wanted to be there and it sort of ruined it for me. The dancing was dramatic and they obviously had practiced a lot to do some of the moves, but some of the time they just reminded me of a child throwing a temper tantrum with tap shoes on.

In Granada we got to do rooms of three, so Timothy, Steph, and I roomed together. I decided we were great roommates. The next morning, we had a great breakfast that wasn't a Spanish breakfast at all. There was more than just bread ya feel me? We had bacon, and eggs, oh how I love eggs, and there was yogurt and a whole bunch of stuff. The breakfast was included with our ESN price for the trip but a sign said it was 7 Euros, cause hotels don't do free continental breakfasts. I enjoyed breakfast and all but if I had to pay for the breakfast, I probably would have just gone to a supermarket and bought something there. Around 11 we were checked out and on the road to head towards Córdoba. 

Baila Gallego y A Coruna: The Guayest

On Wednesday, Feb 17th, we had a class for learning a traditional Galician dance. First we got a lesson on the tradition dress for it, rich and poor style, and then we got to dress up in their traditional clothing. Once we were done dressing up, we were taught some of the dance moves. Basically we are experts on dancing the Galician style, not really since I don't remember any of the dance moves. There was a lot of hopping around though. At the end of our session we were given the opportunity to play the instruments. The instruments could have been anything, from things made to actually be instruments to what Timothy is holding, a frying pan. Everything makes music if you just let it.

Photo Cred: No Clue
We take music seriously.

On Friday, Feb 19th, we went to A Coruña for class. The weird coloring of the city name is because Blogger likes being a buttface and doesn't like ñ's. Anyhoo, we went on a walking tour of some places basically with our teachers. I mean it was the last Friday of class so we had to go do something fun after all. We went to a museum sort of place, it was someone's house though I forget her name. The museum was quite literally a feminist museum and actually rather interesting. After the museum we went to a cafe, where there was no food and everyone was hungry, but it was a bookstore so we read a little kids book about bellybuttons. It was great. Then we went somewhere for tapas and after that our teachers took off and we were left alone to do whatever we wanted. 

Since some people didn't make it to Torre de Hercules last time we were in A Coruña, we headed there. Some people, including me, paid the 3 euro to climb to the top of the lighthouse, which is the oldest still working Roman lighthouse in the world might I add. There was a history section on the way up, where the ground level had a bunch of history and then as we climbed there was history too. It was all very pleasant on the eyes and then we got to the top and saw the ocean. I probably would have stood up there all day, so I probably should quit school and become a lighthouse operator now, because the ocean was such a marvelous view. It was very peaceful and totally worth the 3 euro, in fact I would probably do it again. After we were done with our ocean viewing, we headed down to near the ocean where the waves were huge. Timothy got great action shots of the waves coming in behind him and we could taste the ocean spray we were that close. Obviously we didn't get super close because the ocean was in a violent mood that day, beating against the rocks with vengeance, but we got close enough to feel the ocean spray and taste it.

Then we started walking back towards the train station only to realize we were missing a Steph so we had to go in search of her before ending the day with a nice train ride home. 

Life Update: Week 4 of Classes

This week is our final week of grammar class or whatever this class is. Monday in our grammar class, Timothy and Morgan introduced our teacher to some nice videos, such as Obama's Victory Dance and then taught her the dance. In our culture class after that we were introduced to "Que dificil es hablar el espanol" because we introduced her to Billy La Bufanda. Tuesday in our grammar class we took the written portion of our test and had a discussion on a bunch of topics, one of which was Climate Change. Basically I could have formed great arguments against some of the things people said because of my Climate Change class last semester, but the whole talking idea threw me off slightly. Let's be honest here, I rarely talk unless I have to, though sometimes here I chime in without being prompted. It's weird because I normally need to be prompted to talk.
Our internship on Monday wasn't too bad this time. We had small groups for the skill building "class" where you just sat there and chatted. I'm too awkward for such life but for the most part my groups kept the conversation going, except the person who didn't want to be there. That person would answer if we asked 'em something but I suck at coming up with questions. At first one of them wasn't sure how to talk to me since they didn't think I spoke Spanish, and they had to ask someone else how to talk to me. Then other people would want to talk to me in English since they are talking English classes as well and want to practice, so they would talk in a mixture of English and Spanish. Much like how people just learning Spanish in the US do it, say whatever words they can remember in English and then the rest in their native tongue. That was probably the hardest to understand because they kept switching languages and its really hard to catch what they are saying when they speak English because it sounds so different than in the US. Accents are hard....