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? :)

Ronda.

Last week we went on a trip to a little historical city called Ronda, with our program, CEA. Ronda is located in Malaga about 2 1/2 hours south west from Granda, which meant bus ride! I can sit in a bus, or car, for a countless number of hours as long as I have music. It gives me type to think and have "me time" and also of course to look out at the beautiful scenery. When we first got there we all really had to go to the bathroom and the place we were at charged 50 cents a person for usage. En serio? I decided I didn't have to go anymore. We had a tour in Spanish of the city and all of its historical sites. This was our tour guide.

Yeah I probably had the exact expression on my face that those of you reading this have. "Wait.. you're not Irish?" Moving on, this man was the cutest little thing, he was bilingual, and the head of the tours here in Ronda. He was very informative, yet a wee- bit boring. I was very grateful that I had a brochure that explained majority of what he was talking about when I wasn't paying attention. Ronda is the fastest growing city in Andalusia. It is famous worldwide for its beautiful views including over the Serrania de Ronda Mountains,  the deep El Tajo gorge that carries the rio Guadalevín through its center, Puente Nuevo, built in the 18th century, and for being the birthplace of modern bullfighting. 

View from Paseo de E Hemingway.

Mopeds :) goal before I leave: find a good looking young man to take me on a  ride on this.

Fedrico Setnatosa Marquez , a famous Spanish writer/poet, lived here in Ronda.

Their backyard is the edge of a cliff.

Puente Nuevo

Arabic baths. We were supposed to pay to come in here and see, but by the time the lady told us we needed to pay we already saw we wanted to see, snapped a last shot, and left. Sorry :)

Jen and I were under the impression that lunch was going to be included on this excursion since this was with our program. False. It took us about 20 minutes to find a place to go to that didn't have big hams hanging everywhere or scary seafood and that was a reasonable price. Like how hard can it be to find a sandwich place? Here, impossible. There was a McDonalds but we passed that up and went to this cute little Pizza place. We ordered water in the idea of not having to pay for a drink, but apparently you have to be VERY specific with what kind of water you want because the man brought us bottled water. Our pizzas were about the size of a medium sized pizza, freshly made, and gone in about 5 minutes. We each had our own and didn't say a word to each other while we ate. Hungry much? I wish I could have taken a picture of this, but it was gone before I got the chance.

too school for cool.

February 7, 2011, I began my courses in Granada, Spain. I'm taking five classes that are dispersed between Monday - Thursday. Again, no Friday classes for this chica :) I'm enrolled in an Oral and Writing Course, Civilizations and Culture of Spain, Spanish Grammar, Islamic Culture, and Literature. Literature is going to be hell. For starters it's at 8:30 in the morning Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I haven't had a class that has started that early in about 2 years. And segundo, I barely understood the literature courses I have taken in the past in English. Therefore, this will be interesting. So far, I love love loveeeee my professors. I've heard horror stories of fellow estudiantes that have been screamed at for yawning, drinking coffee, or falling asleep in class. Well, I understand the falling asleep part, but that probably happens to those people who have early classes with monotone professors; not the students fault. My professors are really understanding and don't really support exams or homework and just want us to participate, have fun, and learn the language by listening and speaking. My Islam professor told us that we were going to have a false exam. I don't really know exactly what that means?, but I think I'm gonna like it.  And my Civilizations and Cultures professor said she's only giving us two exams because it's mandatory. However, each is only worth 10%. Awesome!? Also, my professor for this class, I forget her name, I'm really bad with names and names of things, well she kept standing next to me during class the first day, because already me and my friends got moved to the front for I really don't know the reason why because it was within the first 2 minutes, but we kept smelling this awful body odor smell and couldn't figure out who it was coming from. Well we found our answer due to the idea that when our professor stood right next to us the smell NEVER left. Tempted to bring Febreze to the next class and to find that she was wearing the exact same outfit...two days later.. I would like to believe that this woman lives in the caves that are located in Granada because there is just no other excuse for that rancid scent. On a better note, I surprised myself as to how well I can understand my professors and keep up with everything they're saying, and participate. Feels good to know you're making progress :)

final day of the holiday :(

It was our last day in Ireland, so what do we decide to do? Go to the Jameson Factory to become even more educated on alcohol/whiskey and drink some more. I mean were in Ireland, right? Because we volunteered during the tour, we got to be taste testers of three different types of whiskey. Downside: I HATE whiskey. However, I sucked it up and tried the three whiskeys; Ireland's Jameson Whiskey, Scotland Whiskey, and of course American Whiskey, Jack Daniels. Jameson is the the smoothest whiskey to take down because it is distilled three times. Scotland's is only distilled twice, and Jack Daniels, only once which is why it has such an awful strong taste that seriously took me twenty four hours to get out of my mouth. Upside: at the end we all got certificates that made us official whiskey test tasters in Ireland :)

Our tour guide, that looks a little possessed in this picture, with the Jameson Whiskey. It gets its auburn color by staying in these barrels for years. The last one at the top has been in there for 18 years.

After being "those people" who continue to stay and loligag and then get kicked out eventually, we walked around the city of Dublin and went to the oldest bar in Ireland, not sure if it was after 5 yet..... One of the boys we met had actually been studying there since September so he was able to show us all the historical sites,castles,and churches. This boy was Asian, and because he had been in Dublin for quite some time now he had picked up an Irish accent;  not something you see everyday.

Statue on O'Connell Street.

City of Dublin.

Having a nice conversation with "The Hags with Bags". Women that shopped and gossiped.

Oldest bar in Dublin, Ireland.

In front of Dublin Castle.

Christ Church.

Me in front of Christ Church.

The Dublin Castle still has it's historic part of the castle, but half of it is reconstructed with modern architecture and this is the modern part of it.

Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.

Look how GREEEEN!

That night was our last night sleeping in Dublin and we had to be up at 4 in the morning to catch our flight. Ireland was amazing, even if it never took a break from raining, but I was ready to go back to my temporary home in Granada, Spain and sleep in my own clean bed <3