conejo, conejo

rabbit rabbit, its october! so we've officially been here more than a month. it's actually crazy how fast time flies. this week was spent with a lot of recovery time from oktoberfest as well as our final exam for our intensive class (i passed mom and dad, whooo! level 7 here i come). honestly though, so happy to be done with that class. 4 hours a day 5 days a week was getting really old really fast. this past weekend was my last weekend in Granada until the second weekend in November. pretty crazy stuff. Jess and Shale came to visit which was great cause we got to spend time with them but it also made us do a lot of Granadian things. 

On Friday when they got here we met them at their hostel in the albaycin near Plaza nueva. i had recommended it to them cause i saw somewhere it was rated top 10 hostels in the world, which according to them was certifiably true. After that we went tapas bar hopping including Bar Sevilla where Garcia Lorca and Hemingway used to hang out. it was cool but Ella and I complained about how an 18 euro bottle of wine is outrageous, which I swear for Granada it really is! it was rainy and gross out, for the first time since april in Granada so we stuck to indoor activities that really only ranged from beer to wine. after a few hours of great company, great wine, and great conversation we went our separate ways for dinner and getting ready until meeting up later for the botellon. 

ella and i made our way to poe where everyone was before the botellon only after leaving a series of embarrassing facebook videos on our friends walls who are on other continents. from there, i'm not sure who decided to make the move on this one but we went to the chupeteria which is a shots bar (chupitos is shots in spanish, a very valuable vocab lesson) where all chupitos are a euro. aka my demise. i was actually pretty tame at the chupeteria but by the time we all left the botellon pregame was not looking so necessary. but we went all excited to show jess and shale what the botellon was all about.

really its a time warp where you always meet a ton of friends and speak a fair amount of spanish. i met a great spanish friend in the bathroom area who seemed really cool but she talked so fast i just kept saying si not having any real idea what she was talking about. then we all made the move to mae west at what i believe was around 3 am. so mae west is this very exclusive spanish club and half of us got denied from it. sam made me try to get in about 4 times and every time they denied us. i've never faced such discrimination for being a rubia (blonde) but they were not having it. also ella and i got in another fight at mae west cause she wanted to leave even though she had already gotten in and i wanted to stay just because it was the principle of being denied so many times i felt like i had to make it in there once. screw mae west it brings out the worst in everyone and they're mean racists. so point of story never made it into mae west and pretty much solidified my hatred for the clubbing atmosphere in general. not my scene, thanks but no thanks.

the next day somehow but the grace of god ella and i woke up at 11 am to meet jess, shale, and brandon to go to the cave museums in the sacromonte. the sacromonte is a really cool ancient neighborhood that has a stereotype of being home to the gypsies once the christians invaded Granada. it was actually very cool we got to walk around and see different set up quarters of what a typical cave bedroom, kitchen, and barn would look like. they also had a lot of history about the caves, the gypsies, and the culture of flamenco. 

jess fraternizing with the cavemen

mirror pics in a cave cause thats cool

me and jesus christ just chilling taking selfies in a cave bedroom

so saturday night we continued with our cultural exploration of granada and went to a flamenco show! also in sacromonte. sooo saturday was a lot of uphill walking but that was fine we got some lovely views and i also discovered the panorama setting on the new iphone update so i was killing it up there. all the walking led to some talks about what makes walking uncomfortable and was i the last one to find out that jess shit his pants in bruff freshman year? i think i actually keeled over laughing so hard (sorry for publishing this on the internet jess but you said everyone else knew). anyway so we bought out tickets to the flamenco show at la rocio around 8 or so and left for dinner to come back for a 10 pm show. we later discovered that la rocio is one of the most famous flamenco bars in granada and plenty of famous celebrities have come in and out of there to see them perform. it was in a cave so to give you an idea of what it looked like.... well very much like a cave but hallway shaped almost and we all sat around the edges, the seats were all filled and the dancers performed up and down this strip for us. along with the dancers comes the amazing flamenco music and rhythm. its characterized by the passion they use when the dance and sing not necessarily skill but intensity. it was amazing and we got a free drink with the show as well and it was certainly the most stereotypical spanish thing we've done so far. also when invited by sexy flamenco dancer to dance with her, i obviously obliged and killed it up there. just kidding. i tried to imitate her oh so natural and suave dance moves and i definitely looked like an awkward white girl (no really i'm being modest, i think in reality i should quit school and live in the caves and dance flamenco i was that good).

cave acoustics

the sexiest flamenco dancer to ever live

wait just kidding i'm the sexiest flamenco dancer to ever live (how cute we match)

so after our amazing show i was all fired up and dancing flamenco in the streets. i'm so talented! but after we got a gelato (duh) and went our separate ways and said goodbye to jess and shale our first and probably last visitors. it was great having them around cause they made us do so much and we had a lovely weekend with them. ella and i went straight to bed after cause we had to get up at 8 am to catch a bus with our program for a trip they organized to nerja for us. nerja is a beach town in malaga which we had tried to go to before for a beach day but bus tickets were sold out. once we got there it was very obvious why everyone would be going there and there were no tickets. it was actually breathtaking. first we went to the balcon de europa and saw the amazing view of the mediterranean sea. i've never been anywhere tropical in my life and this was easily the closest i have ever gotten to it.

view from the balcon de europa (is this real life? idk..)

me and my gf at the balcon de europa, probs gonna be our xmas card, thoughts??

so from the balcon, we went and ate lunch as a group which was like 40 something people. a lot of people and a lot of paella. since i still have not conquered my fear and disgust of seafood i had chicken (god i am so embarrassingly american and i cant shake it) the huge roasted chicken came with a heaping portion of french fries of which i proceeded to eat every last bite of....cause i'm american get used to it. then they gave us ice cream bars for desert which i proceeded to spill all over my white shirt!!! chocolate stains on my shirt for the rest of the day solidified my #fatgirlprobz. oh which reminds me i forgot to preface that fat girl problems hashtag.... that morning when ella and i were eating breakfast i looked in the cabinet and saw a cinnamon bun, i decided since i was going to the beach, fine jill, some self control wouldn't hurt, have a yogurt. ella and i took our bocadillos that lola had packed us out of the fridge and went about our day. we get to the bus to have a snack out of them and ella has an extra piece of fruit.... what does jill have? a cinnamon bun #fatgirlprobz.

anyway, from the group lunch we were free to explore. we went to the beach and of course couldn't be at the beach without going in the water. for the mediterranean sea it was frigid, but apparently that was cause of all the rain from earlier in the week. later on after some lounging, ella, sam, dash, brandon and i went exploring down the beach. we got to some rocks that of course we had to climb. we made our way to this little cove/beach/cave area which was like i said the closest i have ever come to a tropical place. i was like a kid in a candy store swimming around these rocks climbing up to the view to see the caves and all. also there's not a chance in hell there's a shark in the mediterranean sea but i just could not shake my cape cod paranoia and needed someone to be in the water with me at all times (so they would get eaten and i wouldn't) but being out there was truly unbelievable. we had to be back at the bus at 3:30 to go to frigiliana which was a typical white architecture town built in the caves for the moriscos to take shelter in while the christians we're conquering andalucia. it was very interesting and the tour guide was very passionate about spanish history but after the beach we were all so tired and ready to head back.

fun secret cove beach we played on, does this not look like the carribean? idk cause i've never been but this is how i imagine it

so after a lovely weekend, we had no school on monday! whooooo! i had a pretty productive day, finalizing my schedule, exercising, finding my building, sending some emails, finishing the first season of newsroom, stuffing my face with churros con chocolate. great day. but today reality hit. i had my first two university of granada classes. so as a tulane student we're required to take two classes at ugr with spanish professors that only speak spanish, with spanish students, in mostly spanish subjects. so needless to say its pretty intimidating especially when everyone else gets to take less intense spanish classes with americans. so this morning andy and i met up early to walk there. i had walked there the day before so i knew it was going to be pretty long. it was 40 minutes uphill really early which was pretty brutal we were quite sweaty by the end of it. we sat in class with a bunch of spaniards and some other tulane kids only for the professor never to show up. solid first class of the day. the second class was a hispanicamerican narrative class which i swear was taught by the younger, spanish version of my pops. it was pretty weird cause pops is my grandfather who is an american/british literature professor in the states so literally this was his exact opposite professor for spaniards. but i understood mostly everything he said i just have to focus more on focusing. i can't zone out like i would in normal american classes unfortunately. but i'm excited to finally have my real schedule under my belt and move on with the month of october (which will be lucky cause i said rabbit rabbit .... or debo decir, conejo conejo jajaja). this weekend i go to portugal with my program and everything is planned for us which is actually so nice. it will be filled with all meals and accomodations paid for, lots of beach time, some sailing, some cave explorations, and some shenanigans. definitely looking forward to it! hasta luego guapas!