Hola a todos,

I am finally set up in my homestay in Granada and the first day of classes is quickly approaching. There are a lot of things I want to write about, but I think I’m gonna start by describing where I live and what a typical day in Spain looks like.

My homestay is an apartment on the top floor of our building. We are only five minutes, walking, from both the Alhambra and the Albaycin (an Arab barrio that’s also the oldest neighborhood in the city).  When I wake up in the morning, I stare out of my large windows onto la Catedral de Granada. (See below, but my view is from much closer).

I am convinced that I am in the best possible location for our program. I can walk everywhere within ten or so minutes and there are always people around.

El Horario (Schedule):

8:00 a.m.- Wake up and take a shower. For the first time in my life I don’t have to squat to fit my head under the water, but as with everything in life there is a trade off. The shower reminds me of a coffin in a vampire movie. You climb inside and pull these sliding doors to close it, but with the doors closed, there literally isn’t space to bend over. I am slowly developing claustrophobia…

8:30 a.m. – El Desayuno (Breakfast) is served by my lovely host mom. It usually consists of grapes, toast with butter and marmalade, these lemon loaf things I still haven’t figured out what to call, yogurt and this strange fruit milk. Yes you read that write. Its fruit juice, I think mango, pineapple, and orange, with milk added to it. It tastes better than I thought but my stomach still gets uneasy thinking about it.

9:00 a.m. -2:00 p.m.- For the rest of the morning I have been in orientation classes focused on both our language skills as well as cultural differences between the two countries, and between Latin America and Spain. Since many of us learned Spanish from Latin American teachers, there are important differences in between the two languages. For example, in Latin America you would be slapped by your abuelita if you used the word coger. It’s one of those words you’d get soap in your mouth for saying. Yet here it means to grab, or pick up and they use it all the time. The phrase “coger la vida” still makes all of us laugh when we hear people say it here.

2:00 p.m.-3:30 p.m. Lunch time is super important here. In the U.S., dinner is our most important meal of the day. Everything kind of revolves around your dinner plans, but in Spain, lunch is the biggest and most important meal of the day. It’s not until you’ve had spanish lunch that the concept of a Siesta begins to make sense. It’s more of a food coma than anything else, and I am planning on being a life long convert to the Siesta.

4:00 p.m. -7 p.m.- This is Siesta. Stay quiet. Sleep. Everything is closed. It’s what I’m skipping to write this so you’re all welcome.

8:00 p.m.-1:30 a.m. This is when you eat dinner. Usually around 10. Instead of sitting down and eating in your house or at a restaurant, almost everyone I’ve met has eaten along the streets of the city. There are free tapas with every drink you get in Granada. So if you pay five Euros, you get two cervezas or glasses of Vino and two plates of tapas. This is basically how every night goes around here. Wander the streets stopping at random tapas bars to try new things. I’ve had tapas ranging from chicken wings to potato pancakes to ham and bread to snails. Actually the only thing they have in common is that they taste amazing.

And that’s basically been the schedule in the early days here in Granada. I’m planning on writing more about cultural differences and the classes I’ll be taking in the next few weeks. I’m already starting to notice its harder to write this much in English since I’ve spent almost my entire time here in Spanish mode, so I apologize here for how poorly worded the post is. Hasta luego pajos. Voy a tomar mi siesta.