CORDOBA.

March 11, our program, CEA, took us on a trip to Cordoba and Sevilla. Cordoba is about three hours away and we spent majority of that Friday there. Of course, just our luck, it was raining all day. When our tour guide started talking I was ready to hear a different language, Spanish right?, however, the first thing that came to my mind after when he said his first sentence was "you sound like you're from London". Well oddly enough that's because our tour guide had a heavy British accent because he was from England giving a tour of a Spanish city. We have had some of the strangest tour guides. You just never know what you're gonna get next. He had been living in Cordoba now for 15 years and told us to NEVER go to England because it's a waste of time and money. I thought it was hilarious how every ten seconds he kept rippin on England. One of the boys who's in our program has a Spanish girlfriend who just happens to be from Cordoba, so it was kind of cool having her with us that day as we explored the city. Yet, for her it probably wasn't so awesome because she was getting a tour of her native city.

View of the Cathedral (used to be a mosque) from a plaza in Cordoba. This view is why many people come to the plaza.

A small mosque. Our tour guide thought it was the smallest but he was corrected.

The balls symbolize praying five times a day. If you do so, you get to be up where the star is. ( in paradise)

Outside of a Mosque where the patio is.

Inside the mini mosque where they prayed. Each mosque or cathedral has a patio outside. These are very important because before you go in to the sacred room to pray you have to first remove some your sins and walk through the patio first. Also, you were supposed to pray in closed semi dark place, yet it has to have 18 windows.

This man was very intelligent. They say if you touch his shoe his intelligence will rub off on you. i touched his shoe, I have proof that theory is wrong haha

Inside the Mosque/ Cathedral.

Amanda and I praying.

Rain rain go away.. :(

London boy told us that this part here helps hold up the cathedral and that because of the crack this is being held up by faith.

CaRnAvAl.

Last weekend a group of us took a trip to Cadiz, Espana to go to Carnaval. No, it's not a carnIval where you go on rides, and eat cotton candy, buy tickets, and hang out you friends. This CarnAval has an "A" in it, and here people drink more than you can imagine in the streets of Caidiz. (and also there was drinking being done on the steps of the Cathedral) I did not partake in too much drinking in the idea that not only am I in Spain, but I am at a Spanish festival with lots and lots of crazy Spanish idiots, and I also would like to remember this experience since I will probably never attend it again. Here at Carnaval people dress up as different things, just like our Halloween. Except, they are way more original and creative with their costumes, or in Spanish "desfraz". I  got a lot of cute and fun new ideas for next Halloween. Basically their "Halloween" is a combination of our Halloween and the South Side Irish Parade, only 20 x more crazier. My costume, well I don't really know what I was, my roommate and I just went to one of the chino stores and bought random things. We thought it would be more fun to do it that way :) We met a lot of interesting people, to say the least. And of course, like always, when we say were from Chicago, they all go "Chicagooooo! Chicago Bulls". haha it never gets old. We took a bus from Granada to Cadiz that morning and we arrived there around three in the afternoon. While walking around, some old woman (which I still don't understand how these old folks are capable of attending this insanity, and there were A LOT of them) came running up to me from across the street singing and dancing. When she was done, she put her shot glass out in front of me to pour her some of my alcohol.  I'm assuming that was her way of entertaining me and I had to pay her by giving her some of my Mojito.  Too funny.

It was a long day. We had five bus time options to take back to Granada the next morning. 4, 5,6,7, or the last one at 8, well we thought..  Everyone decided to take the first one back at 4 because they were tired except for me and my friend Maria. We stayed until 530. When we left the craziness, we walked back to the buses, and after walking around looking for our bus and asking bus drivers where they were headed, we realized our bus was no where to be found. ummm now what? Since we were desperate to get back to Granada (four hours away) and had no other way of getting home, we snuck on a random bus. This bus was full of all Spanish people that had all come to Carnival as a group on a pre paid bus. woops. The bus driver didn't see us so he had no idea we were the ones that didn't belong, but everyone else noticed. "You're from America?!" There were two boys who couldn't find a seat, pretty sure that's where we were sitting. Our hearts were pounding when we thought we saw a man with a list that was about to take attendance as we tried to crouch down in our seats. He must have been drunk too and thought he had already taken attendance because all of sudden the bus started and we were off to Granada. Thanks goodness! I do not know how we pulled that one off, but we did. The boys on the bus were really nice and kept laughing and thinking it was hysterical that we were on that bus with them but told us not to worry. Not to mention that this bus seriously had all of Granada's best looking boys.

The Cathedral in Cadiz.

I bought a mask there. it was originally 4 euro. I told the lady no I only have two. She thought I didn't understand and i repeated no I only have two. So she said fin, but tell anyone that asks you that you paid 4. hehe :)

"sorryyyy"

The last day of February is a holiday in Andalusia, Dia de Andalusia. Like any other holiday that we have in the states, you get the day off; no school. However, since we don't have Friday classes and didn't go to classes that Monday, we had to make them up that Friday. And the point of the day off was..? I only had to go to two classes which was fine and in my night class we watched a movie called "Familia". This movie was VERY strange. The people in the "family" weren't really a family and were only pretending to be a family so that this one man could rent a family. No wonder they're crazy about American movies because the movies that they produce here are just....I don't even have a word to describe them. Our professor told us that she wasn't feeling good and told us how to turn off the VCR and where the put the DVD and remote when we were done because she was going home. Is that even legal? Should we leave too since our professor is at home and this movie is making me uncomfortable? Good thing we didn't  because she came back at the last ten minutes. Sneaky woman. Within in those next ten minutes, my phone goes off, and because no one ever calls me on it I never to think to put it on silent. Woops. It was Marieta, my Spanish mom. She never calls me, so my first thought is, oh my goodness something happened. Nope. She didn't feel like cooking that night and was calling to tell us to meet her to go a bar for dinner. Well, when we finally met up with her we realized why she didn't want to cook. She couldn't...she. was. drunk. Funniest thing I've ever seen. That woman could not walk a straight line for the life of her, kept repeating herself, and had to stop at every store on the way to the bar because "her best friend worked there." (She seriously knows everyone) Also, there was a group of young boys standing outside, she noticed them looks at us and goes "chicos!". She then proceeded to model walk, with her hand out, right in the middle of all of them and in English, goes "sorrryyy". Jen and I could not contain our laughter. The tapas bar was really good and she kept telling us to get more Sangria, soooo we got more Sangria. That would have been great any other night if I wasn't waking up at the crack of dawn the next morning to go to Carnaval. She also, because she was drunk and feeling a little less timid, asked me why I'm always hungry.  hahahahahahahahahaha.When we also told her that our other roommate wasn't leaving until later the next day and would still need lunch she screamed "noooooooo". Keep in mind that our other roommate is sick and was contemplating on not going to Carnaval because of how bad she felt. Marieta, told her no, here's some medicine you have to go to Carnaval, it's a great experience! Sometimes I think she likes it a little toooo much when we're not there and she doesn't have to cook for us because she never eats in fear of getting fat. No comment. We ended up leaving fairly early. Marieta, however, well she didn't come home until after 4 and we found out that she was at a club all night. I love my Spanish family. Such an interesting day.

La Playa! Salobrena .

Saturday February, 26 my roommate, Jen, and my friend, Maria, went to this beach in Granada called Salobrena. It's only February and it's beach time?? VAMOS! We got up early that morning to take an early bus so we could arrive at the beach at a descent hour since it's an hour and a  half  away. After waiting at the local bus station, for a half hour, to take us to the bus that would take us to Salobrena, we were wondering why our bus number still hadn't come...and why the other bus numbers had come more than once..where was ours? It was at a different station because, no surprise, we were at the wrong one. cool. This kind of stuff always seems to happen to us and I don't really understand why. You would think after living here in Granada for almost 2 months we would have all this figured out by now. Well that's a funny joke. Even though we wasted about forty minutes now getting to the beach, we still made it in time to make the 10 'o clock bus, of course after running, and cutting people in line, to only have the man tell me "it's sold out".  Since we had some time to spare and went to a convenient store to buy suntan lotion... Mom..Dad... are you so proud!? We ended up taking the 11 o' clock bus and were laying out by 12:45 :) We each packed our own lunch and had a cute little picnic  there on the beach that was not made of sand. I have been to two different beaches so far now in Espana and neither were made of sand, instead little rocks. Maybe from the mountains? I don't know. But the rocks tend to hurt your feet a lot, and when you walk you look like you're in a lot of pain. When we got there, we tried to sit near this group of boys there hoping to be friends with them by the end of the day. Plan worked. It wasn't long after our picnic that we were being serenaded by them, with the help of their friend playing music on his guitar. Guitar = BONUS. The boy with the guitar knew pretty good English, therefore knowing a lot of American songs on his guitar. Go figure, everyone here listens to our music. Causing a lot of head turns, we were singing , loudly I might add, the lyrics of Wonderwall by Oasis. I was happy that we met these boys there because it gave us another chance to practice our Spanish. And also because the one boy had pretty good English, he could help us even more with how to say different things in Spanish.The water was freezing, so there was no swimming being done by us girls, the boys on the other hand didn't think anything of it. We only went in up to our waists, and for a certain reason They even made us Mojitos and told us they had three houses here in Salobrena and for us to stay with them. How nice. We took the Mojitos, but when it was time to leave, we left. Haha. Apparently only in the states it's okay to walk around town in your swimsuit when you're around a beach because me and Maria got quite the looks, or maybe that's weird in America too?  Sangria, sun, Mojitos, beach, and Spanish boys = perfect day :)

what a gyps.

So basically this blog is just going to be an update of what I have been doing these past two weeks. For starters, I got scammed by a gypsy. Yeup. It was a mistake that I kept saying that I really wanted to meet a gypsy because I have been told so many different stories about them and wanted to have my own story. Well now I do, and the title of it is called " The Gypsy Took My Money". My friends and I were just casually walking around when this woman stuck this weed in my face to smell it and then proceeded to grab my hand and make me hold it. As I went to hand it back to her, she grabbed my hand again and did this creepy thing to it and said some words. Basically now I'm going to have good luck, find love, have 2 children, and some other stuff. I stared at her because I wasn't quite sure what just happened and she put her hand out for me to give her money. Seriously lady? I was ready to give her 50 cents because she told me " lo que quieres". However, she saw my five, demanded me to give it to her, and told me to she had change. I got a euro back. Thank you annoying gypsy lady for saving me the trouble of picking this weed off the tree for me for four euros when I could have went and done it myself for FREE. Yeah, I'm still bitter. Ironically, it was the same street we were on when my roommate, Jen, got scammed for thinking she was buying a dress and ended up purchasing Aladdin pants.
The Chupiteria, also known as the Adult Chuckie Cheese, is my new favorite place. Basically at this place you buy shots (chupitos) for one only one euro, get a ticket that's worth a point for every shot you take, and the best part, which how can anything be better than 1 euro shots, is you get to turn in these tickets for prizes. Great, right? It's just like Chuckie Cheese only better because there's booze and better prizes. You can save up to get a tent, a hat, t- shirt, sweatshirt, a thong, and etc. I'm saving up my tickets for the hoddie. It's seventy points.

Shot menu.

Participating in the craziness.

My friend Maria and I also took to the time to go to church this past weekend. I think it was an Angelita church or something? I don't know, neither of us are that, but we didn't know where other churches were and we figured it'd be similar. Nope. Not like any of the masses that I have been to. There was a power point and we got a history lesson about Jesus and everything in this religion century by century. Also, it was an hour an 40 minutes, I'm used to 45 minute masses. When the service first started the priest had asked who was new and wanted whoever was to stand up and introduce themselves. I looked at my friend Maria and told her do not draw attention to us, pretend were regulars. However, due to us sitting by ourselves, with our new blind friend, with no one else sitting around where we were sitting, the priest or pastor, or whoever he was, kept staring at us and repeating "alguien mas alguien mas?" (anyone else). After about the 6th time of him saying it, he had the whole church looking at us, at that time we decided it would probably be best to stand up and introduce ourselves. We couldn't stop laughing and when we told them we were from America, everyone else started laughing too.
Also! Last weekend I felt like a little kid, because grandma was at her sons for the weekend and my Spanish mom was out at a concert and we had the house to ourselves. No one was home except for me and Jen. This was a first and I was lovin' every minute of it. We were FINALLY able to watch t.v. because grandma wasn't sleeping in the living room, like always. It had been about 7 weeks since I had watched t.v. I found the Disney Channel and because they have to translate the English to Spanish in the shows the voices sound very strange. It's quite comical. However, I was  perfectly content watching Disney channel all night while eating Natella :)

Alhambra

Our group went to the visit the Alhambra Sunday February 13, and I have decided to blog about it today, Wednesday February 23.

Just a little background information:
The literal translation of the "Alhambra" is from the Arabic language meaning "Red". The significance of it being called the "Alhambra/ Red" is due to its walls actually being a dark red color. Basically the Alhambra is the most important and historical  palace  in Granada, Spain. It is what brings most tourists here and it's also  what brought Ferdinand and Isabel to Granada. Yes, this city is where Christopher Columbus asked for his permission from Ferdinand and Isabel to sail the ocean blue in 1492.  Here lived the Saltan, the Queen, their family, (like in Aladdin) and about 3,000 other people. This palace takes up A LOT of space considering it did take us about three hours to walk through. It contains three palaces inside it. The Private Palace, The Public Palace, and the Politica Palace. The Moors reined here in Granada  from 711 - 1492 until the Christians, under the leadership if King Charles V, came and destroyed some of the architecture and buildings. The Alhambra was never completely finished and the Christians tour down parts of it to recreate their own. You can tell  which parts of the palace were reconstructed by the Christians because of the marble they used. Also, something interesting, the Salton was allowed four wives. The wife who had the first son, who would then  become the next King, would become Queen. Therefore, it was a competition between these women. If one of these woman had a son after the first son had already been born, it didn't mean anything. However, if the first born son had an "accident" oh well...and the next woman would become Queen.

Hanging off the side of part of the Alhambra.

Where the other 3,000 unimportant lived and bathed, a couple times a year. ew. Handkerchiefs and perfume were invented because of the awful smell and they would not only drench themselves in perfume, but they would spray some in to the handkerchief and when someone smelled they would cover their nose with it.

Where they kept their catapults.

They would lock those who did wrong down here. Prison.

Public palace. The queen lived in this palace with the Salton, only she had the best view from her bedroom. That was until the Christians came and conquered and built right in front of the beautiful view.

They would pray here 5 times a day always east towards Meca.

The Salton's chair. Furniture was very simple. They would also use these chairs on top of camels.

The private door the Salton would enter through.

View of the city from inside the Alhambra.

Alhambra.

The chicas inside the garden in the Alhambra.

So touristy ;)

View of the Cathedral from the Alhambra.

Pretty view of the garden.

After our 4 hour tour of the Alhambra, me and a couple girls decided to go for tapas. Might I mention they were the best. tapas. ever. We ordered Alhambra beer as our beverage. I mean we did just visit the Alhambra, so why not drink it's beer right? :)