Just another week in Granada!

Tomorrow I'm off to Málaga and then Córdoba for a week with my boyfriend, Dennis, so I guess I should provide a wee update before I go.

I normally would have three classes today, starting at 8:30 am, but there's a general strike all over Spain today against the conservative labor reforms made by the new president Mariano Rajoy...so no classes for me! I feel bad that people have to strike to try and get back basic labor rights, but I'm not complaining about sleeping in and having a lazy day. I'm planning to go for a walk after lunch, but I'm a little nervous because I haven't ventured outside yet and don't know what to expect.

I'll just go backwards in time from there...so last night, I went to a flamenco show. I was excited, but not dying to go or anything, because in my Civilization and Culture class we saw some clips of flamenco, and maybe they were bad quality or something, but they were kind of just people moving around to winy men singing. However, I was pleasantly surprised by last night's show. All the students in my program sat around a long, narrow room and were face-to-face with dancers, each more talented than the next. They move their feet so fast they basically become blurs of color. I can't even walk in heels, let alone move that fast in them, so I was quite impressed.

Over the weekend, I helped plant mini trees on a hill in Generalife near the Alhambra to help prevent erosion. It was fun at first, but my arms don't like to swing tools for extended periods of time, so it got a little tiring after a while. But it's motivated me to work my arms out more often so I can plant trees with ease in the future.

Friday, I went to Nerja, a beautiful beach in the province of Málaga. I loved it because the weather was perfect, there were palm trees, I bonded with an adorable dog, and a wave washed right over me and my iPod but my iPod somehow still works just fine. It was just kind of a magical day. Not to mention the gelato.

That's pretty much it...ciao.

River Run

I usually try and cover a bunch of topics all in one post, so for this one, I'll switch it up and just give you something I wrote this afternoon about running:

 

My classes are over. My lunch of lentils is digested. The sun is still out. It’s time for my afternoon river run. I’ve gone through all my clean running shorts, so I take some from the hamper and try not to notice yesterday’s sweat lingering on them. I run down the marble staircase of the apartment and am greeted by my own shadow as I open the door. It’s the time of day when the sun melts down and every street becomes cloaked in elongated shadows.

The workers tearing down the building next door whistle at me in that typical way for the second time today. When I catch one of them in the eyes and stare without smiling, he looks away and rubs the dirt off his hammer.

I run across the street to the beat of “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” in my ears and continue over the mosaics that make up the walkway Carrera de la Virgen, dodging  middle-schoolers on their way home and painters at their easels. The older women I pass are not afraid to gaze coldly my way: back in their day, girls didn’t run in shorts and T-shirts. I ignore them, seeing no reason to sweat and suffer, the way many Spaniards do, in full-body running gear.

I pretend my music is too loud to hear the noises that men make at me as I pass by, which sound something like strangled birds trying to sing. Why they make these noises is beyond me—never once have I seen it work on a girl. Maybe they can’t help but emit sound when they spot females, similar to the way bullfrogs do in mating season. I’m enjoying the breeze playing with the hairs I missed shaving my knees—why should I cover them just to avoid animalistic men and old-fashioned women? I turn my attention towards the river, Rio Genil, which is thin as a puddle in parts but on its surface I can make out the cottage-dotted mountains in the distance.

Locals are gathered for lunch outside Las Titas. They sit around circular tables, sipping coffee and smoking while children and dogs scurry around their feet. A blur of their Spanish conversation greets me as I run past.

I stop and stretch at an underpass covered in graffiti. I loosen my hamstrings while staring at a massive, spray-painted portrait of a young man. He looks lonely. No, mainly content. But a little lonely. I wonder if he’s based on a real person or straight from the artist’s imagination. Maybe a combination of the two.

I retrace my steps and see the two power-walking women I passed in the same place yesterday, very intent on wherever it is they’re going. I stop at the exercise park to give my arms a taste of a workout, and then I face a middle-aged woman on a two-person swaying machine. I can’t decide what’s less awkward: looking at her or looking everywhere but at her. “This is fun,” I say in Spanish, even though it’s not. She agrees, and we have nothing left to say. The screeches of the machines are the only sound. Finally, she leaves. I watch the mountains move with me, side to side, like seasick giants.

Continuing home, I pass the construction workers for the sixth time today and inhale the earthy smell of the building getting uprooted, a smell that brings back summer, mud puddles, clay on kilns, and being covered in sweat.

Back inside, I gulp down an orange, not minding the juice that covers my cheeks, take out my journal, and begin to write what I just wrote.

Middle-Schoolers, Meals, and Mountains

Again, I seem to have neglected my blog, but I have a good excuse this time, too: exams! But now I'm almost done with all of them so I have time for a little blogging.
Updates:
-As of last Monday, I started volunteering at a middle school near my apartment for study hall on Mondays and music class on Wednesdays. So far, I've been to two study halls and one music class, and in one study hall and one music class they watched movies, and in the other study hall they did nothing except talk, giggle, and poke each other while the teacher tried desperately, and with no avail, to get their attention. I'm not super impressed with the school thus far, but I can't help but like the kids. They're really eager to learn about me, America, and to practice their English on me. When we were watching the Chronicles of Narnia in Spanish on Monday, one boy tried to explain in English to me what was going on in the movie every few seconds...it definitely didn't help my comprehension of the movie but it was very cute.
-I've been hanging out with some granadinos (Granada locals) who are lots of fun and helpful with my Spanish-learning. There are some bars that have board and card games that we went to over the weekend. I'm bad enough with card games in English, so learning one in Spanish was quite the experience...but I had fun.
-After about the first week of being here, my host mom got lazy and stopped cooking dinner (she would just reheat lunch so I'd always have the same meal twice a day, every day, which is completely not allowed on the program) so finally I sorted that out, and now I actually get to eat two different meals every day! It's quite a relief not to eat Spanish tortilla (eggs with potatoes--very greasy) multiple times a day.
-I went for the third time to Monachil (the mountainous area) two weekends ago--it gets prettier each time! I felt like Maria roaming the hills in the Sound of Music.
-This past weekend I went to the beach for the first time. It was in Salobreña, a town in the province of Granada. People say there are much more beautiful beaches in Andalucia (I just went there because it's close) but I thought it was really nice, so I wonder how nice the more beautiful ones must be...can't wait to find out!
Time to get ready for volunteering a.k.a. movie-watching! Hasta luego.

Roaming in Roma and Firenze

I seem to have neglected my blog for a while...but I have a pretty good reason: I was in Italy for 10 days (I got back Tuesday night), and I didn't want to spend any more time than necessary on the computer when the David was waiting to be admired and gelato was waiting to be in my stomach.

So basically, I stayed in Florence (which is called "Firenze" in Italian-- a much better name if you ask me...why would we ever have changed the name to "Florence?!") for a week at my friend, Althea's host family's house (she's spending the whole year in Firenze). When the week was up, I took a train to Rome ("Roma" in Italian/Spanish) where I met up with the study abroad program and stayed in a hotel in the center for three nights.

Memorable moments in Florence:
-Traveling 15 hours to get there from Spain (don't even ask me why it took so long--I don't ever want to talk about it and I'm not sure why I'm even writing about it now).
-Eating. Every single meal there was superb, including not only Italian food, but also amazing Indian food, which I had in the neighboring town, Fiesole, and yummy Lebanese and Thai food. The good thing about traveling to a place where someone you know lives is that they already know where to go. Althea gave me excellent advice: if the waiters stand outside and haggle you into eating at their restaurants (which tend to have flashy pictures hanging in the windows), skip the restaurant. Go to ones that are good enough that they don't need to advertise.
 -Seeing beautiful churches filled with Renaissance art, such as Il Duomo and Santa Maria Novella, as well as the Gothic church, Orsonmichele filled with statues (that are actually replicas, so as to preserve the real ones, but I never would have known). I walked up 400-something steps in Il Duomo while Althea was in class to see the view of Firenze (pretty awesome) but of course I took the wrong staircase down...and the staircases are winding and narrow so those ascending were not too pleased with me.

View from Il Duomo

-Seeing some unbelievably spectacular palaces belonging to the Medicci family back in the day. The ornate, intricate, decorations on every ceiling, wall, and door of both Palazzo Vecchio and Palazzo Piti was eye-opening, jaw-dropping, and mind-bending. Not to mention all the famous Renaissance pieces on the walls, including works by Raphael, Filippino Lipi, Fra Bartolomeo, and Giorgio Vasari.
-Obviously seeing the David. Describing the sculpture is pointless. It's one of those "you need to see it to believe it" types of deals.
-Going to the Uffizi, home to the legacies of the Renaissance masters. The Botticeli room was my favorite. Seeing "The Birth of Venus" up close was incredible. I guess I got a little carried away with seeing Renaissance art. We didn't only go to art museums though...we did go to the Gucci Museum one day...but the purses displayed are just not really worth reporting on in comparison to the art I saw. (How could such mediocre-looking purses cost so much?!)
-Moving on to other non-art-related topics, we made pesto-tomato-cheese sandwiches one day and were walking along, wondering where to eat them, when I noticed hidden tables along the Arno River that Althea had never seen before. It was the perfect place to eat, and I was proud of myself because I'm usually not that observant and don't notice hidden potential picnic spots.
-Speaking to Althea's host mom in Spanish while she spoke to me in Italian...we could actually kind of communicate. It's interesting how similar the two languages are.
-Avoiding the pee pad next to the door to Althea's room where one of the three obese cats would always pee because, for some reason, she didn't know where her litter box was.

Memorable moments in Rome:
-Seeing ancient ruins all over the place, juxtaposed with elements of modern city, such as cars.

The most awesome of those ancient ruins was the Colosseum, despite its gruesome function. (I found out that people would drink the slaughtered gladiators' blood to cure epilepsy?!) The Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps were also beautiful spectacles. If you throw a coin into the fountain, apparently it means you are ensured another visit to Rome in the future. I threw in three, so I guess I get three more visits!
-Eating gelato twice in the same day...it's that good.
-Savoring a an absolutely scrumptious dinner of salmon risotto in a hidden-away restaurant with no nagging waiters outside (Althea was so right about restaurants).
-Seeing the Pope himself talk from his window to an enormous crowd gathered in Vatican City (which is apparently a completely separate country from Italy).
-Walking in on someone in the bathroom and then walking into someone's room in a random hotel, thinking it was a bathroom...both on the same day.
-Trying to avoid street vendors everywhere all trying to sell the same slimy toy that no one wanted to buy. These toys were everywhere, and they weren't great at all. I don't understand.
-The Sistine Chapel was the highlight of the whole trip for me. After hearing so much about it and painting a paper taped underneath my desk in 5th to see what it felt like to be Michelangelo, I was super psyched to see it in real life. We got there 15 minutes too late on Monday to be admitted, so we had to get up bright and early Tuesday morning to see it before our flight, but it was totally worth it. I don't think I've ever been more impressed by anything in my whole life. That one person could design the whole room and paint the majority of it is beyond my comprehension.

I think that's a good note to end on, so I'll leave it at that.