First week of orientation ovaaaah! It’s been busy but I swear once I get unlimited internet access and into a daily routine I’ll have more time to blog it uppppp.
What an exciting week, though! I already feel comfortable enough walking around downtown Granada without a map! (i.e. I’ve accepted every instance of getting lost as an opportunity to explore the city further, and my house mate Anna is super good at directions.)
Day 1: Martes el 25 de enero
I arrived in Malaga without a problem after a layover in Brussels. Found a ton of other IES students when I arrived at the airport so we all made a huge taxi train over to the hotel. We explored Malaga a bit that day, got some little ghetto phones! I take that back, I have no right to call them ghetto since my red flip phone at home is no better than them! Anyway. That night we were on our own to find dinner, so me and la muchacha I was sharing a room with for the night, Cindy, (all day all we heard was: “awww Cynthia and Cindy! CA-UTE) wandered around town and ended up at a Lebanese restaurant. When we first walked in I wanted to leave because there wasn’t anyone except for a group of 4 large men in leather jackets hunched over a little table, clearly talking “business”. The owner, who looked like a heavyset Ray Liotta, immediately invited us to sit down and said he’d make us “un menu”. It was a great choice for a spot to eat; Cindy and I ended up staying there for 2 hours talking to this man in Spanish as well as attempting to finish the 6 or so plates of food he brought out! The owner complained about politics, shared his nostalgia for Canada, talked about his Lebanese heritage—it was fun! The visit overall set a nice precedent for the rest of our time in Malaga.
Day 2: Miercoles el 26 de enero
Breakfast at the hotel was GREAAAAAT! They had half a table devoted to pastries and such, including nutella-filled danishes, donuts, oh and CHEESECAKE! This was a pretty long day—we had activities planned from 8:30 until 19:30 (still tryin’ to get used to writing time like that) most of which consisted of sitting and listening to lectures of orientation, when all I wanted to do was sleep! It was all helpful information, though. This was the day that I met my house mate Anna, too! We’ve gotten along super well so I’m very grateful for that. That night we took buses (ours was the same bus that the Granada futbol team uses!) to Granada, where we met up with our host family! Haha it’s so funny how nervous all the students are to meet their family, but all the families end up being huge sweethearts! Anna and I are with this sweet mujer mayor, who lives in a nice apartment pretty close to downtown. She loves to share anécdotas which I looooooove. Hahaaaa I can always hear her shuffling in her slippers past my door, with her dog Rita trotting along behind. She's overall super cute and I really like her. And I’m not just saying that because she says I’m really tan and look super elegant with my hair straight!!
Day 3: Jueves el 27 de enero
It was a rainy day, but I was itching to get out of orientation so that I could HANG OUT WITH SHIVANI!! She was in town for a couple days from Barcelona. In general it’s been a bit difficult to get in touch with people because when I purchased my phone it only had about 5 minutes for me to use; I thought for sure I’d be able to rely on facebook to do most of my communicating buuuuuut the internet in our apartment isn’t currently functioning. Well, it is, actually, but our señora doesn’t know the password. And when she did finally find it out, the connection wasn’t strong, so hopefully she will call and figure it out because it’s difficult having to rely on using the school internet during breaks or for 5 minutes after class!
So anyway, I figured out that Shivani was staying in a hostel very close to the IES building, so I stopped by and left her a note since she wasn’t there! Later we got in contact via teléfono and so Anna and I were going to meet up with her later that night to go out! I was actually tweaking out a bit before we went out, because I had blow dried my hair but couldn’t get my straightener to work!!! I thought for sure I was gonna have to go out with my hair looking like Albert Einstein. I played around with the converter and finally got it to work, though! So Shivani’s hostel was having a tapas tour that night, and it was great! Whenever you buy a drink in Granada they give you tapas for free, so I think I maybe spent €8 on 4 or so drinks and got food with them and I was set for the night. There were a lot of interesting people on that tour, some guys from Liverpool, a guy from Brazil, a creepy Spaniard or 2, a few cute Aussies with greaaaaaat accents :) It was definitely a fun night, but waking up the next morning for class was a bit rough!
Eeek. More about the rest of the week later. I need internet so I can start Skyping, dang it!!!!
