I’m really good at fitting in. Call me stealthy Cynthia. I’m a dang chameleon.

I got a gym membership for 30 euros a month with no sign up fee. Most people I know are paying at least 45, in addition to an activation fee. (+)

My first time working out I tried going in through the exit (Clearly marked salida) and got denied passing through the entrance bars so a worker had to come assist me/ point out the blatantly marked "exit not entrance" door. (-)

All the weights are in kilos and not pounds. (-)

I accidentally (yes, it was a real accident) walked into the guys locker room instead of the women’s.  To make it better, the first thing that I thought to say when two men stared me down upon entering: “Oh, is this only a men’s locker room?” Yes, Cynthia. GYMS DON’T MAKE COED LOCKER ROOMS. EVER. (-)

Ah well. Project SWOL is now underway. (+)

...SOY GUAPA!...

Guapo(a): pretty; handsome; good-looking;

Various times after leaving a store or parting from a stranger, male or female, they will reply “adios, guapa”, “hasta luego, guapa”, or “gracias, guapa”—you get the idea. So after hearing this so often, I thought, wow, I must be pretty hot stuff in Spain!!!!!! [KIDDING!]. I didn’t really know how to respond to this at first…after my  first encounter with it I muttered “…gracias?” under my breath as I rushed out the door, bewildered. Now I am finally well aware that “guapa” is a colloquial way to say “muchacha” or "young woman", SOMETIMES "cute girl". So I have gotten off my high horse and ceded to the fact that all these people weren't necessarily complimenting me at all, ha!!

Items I’m starting to miss:

• Peanut butter
• Cookies
• Funfetti
• Baked Ziti
• Cilantro

Oh whoops, that’s all food, isn’t it? Luckily a) My Señora said she really wants to learn to bake “American” cookies so we’ll probably be doing that this weekend and b) she also has a special recipe with lots of cilantro that she promised she’ll make me!! Yes, I like her more and more every day! I have even forgiven her for saying “Awww you pulled your hair back today! It makes you look more infantile!”

Exciting Things:

• Played soccer today, I think I found a team to consistently play with! (WOO!)
• Goal set for Saturday: stay up til 7am
• I signed up to volunteer at a nearby Oxfam store
• My Señora has a friend at a nearby residencia who I'm going to read to once a week
• I have come in contact with my intercambio and we're going to meet up sometime soon!
• Goin' to the beach in Nerja next weekend!
• Despite all the food I miss at home, I have at least found the Spanish version of Nutella!:

Crema al Cacao con avellanas

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO acclimation!

First week of CLASSSS

I am currently listening exclusively to the Amelie soundtrack on my iTunes, and rightly so, because I just booked my flight to PARIS TO MEET ALEX!!!!! We aren’t going til the end of March but it feels so good to finally have my first aventura booked! WOOOOO I’m also going back to London with her after Paris so that’ll be just as exciting!

So as the title states, I just finished my first week of class! I thought for sure the classes here would be a breeze and I had prevailed over the Grinnell educational system, tricking them into giving me a 5 month European vacation. NOPE! Although the workload isn’t too heavy now, I already know based on syllabi that I am gonna be put to WORK in my classes, and it does make it a bit more difficult that they’re all in Spanish. Also, my classes every day start at 8:45am, which is earlier than all but one of the classes I have taken at Grinnell! Boooo. My Spanish language and grammar class is gonna kick my butt. I got placed into the highest level which I was really excited about, but even based on the first few days of work I am coming to see that my grammar is not where it needs to be despite all the Spanish grammar that has been pounded into my head over the years. There are also presentations and such that I’ll have to give in that class. I’m also taking a class on gypsies in Spain, and so far I REALLY like it but I know it’s going to be a lot of work as well. The first night’s homework consisted of a 51-page Spanish reading! And the final is either to organize some sort of social intervention project or write a 20-30 page paper. I swear when I read about the 20-30 paper I could hear from across the ocean the aura of Grinnell cackling at me for thinking I’d completely escape its workload. Darn.

I’m also looking to take a class at the University of Granada, although that won’t be finalized until next week. I’m hoping to take a psych class although the pickinz are slim. ALSO, I didn’t realize how big the University is—70,000 students enrolled!! But I think it’ll be a great experience to get in a class and meet some Spanish students. I’m also currently signed up for an intercambio, which is basically where I get paired up with a University student who wants to practice his English, and we meet up and practice both English and Spanish. Woo!

So my 4^th class is Flamencoooooo! I am loving it so far, but it’s harder than I would have imagined! We’re only learning basic movements as of now, and I find myself having no problems doing the footwork but adding all the arm movement is tough! HA luckily when I come home from class my Señora asks me what I learned and then we practice together. She actually knows a bit already and is pretty good, but wants to learn some more! Meanwhile, I’m still trying to figure out a way to viably transfer these Flamenco moves for Harris parties when I return to Grinnell  :P

Me, Katy, Margaret, Kim, Rob, Chelsea, Sarah, Molly, Liz (Hannah was takin' the pic!)

Friday a group of us decided to go on a hike in Monachil, a little town next to Granada and in the Sierra Nevada. It was so great! The sun was beaming down on us all day so I got some color, we got a good workout in, and round trip transportation cost less than 5€! Definitely a day well-spent. Later that night I finally got to play some soccer with a few people from the IES program! It was GRAAAAND to touch a ball again and I definitely plan on attending those pick-up games every Friday, but I’m still looking for a more organized team to play with as well.

So that was my 3^rd time working out this week. I didn’t reach my goal of running every day this week, but let’s be honest, that was probably the most unfeasible goal I have ever set. This week I ran by el rio Genil with my friend Katy; it’s a pretty good distance so I’m sure I’ll be making more runs that way again! I’m happy things are started to fall into place as far as getting into a routine of working out in between class.

Last night, Saturday, I finally met up with Brittany to go out! I hadn’t really hung out with her since our Strikers soccer days so it was the besssssst to catch up. Hahaha I experienced my first legitimate botellon, where a lot of people meet up in a parking lot to drink. Afterward we went to la discoteca Mae West, which is the biggest in Granada and really is just massive. They have 3 distinct dance areas, some with 2 floors, and all playing different music. I felt like we were amongst the younger people in the discoteca, which isn’t really to my liking, but at least we got a solid 4 hours of dancing in! Brittany and her roommate had made friends with a couple of Spanish guys earlier so we hung out with them for most of the night before heading home at 6:30am! Maaaaaan I’m getting good at this staying up late thing! It’s almost as if I’ve had practice before :D

2 pastries a day keeps the doctor away.

Churros y chocolate. Cream-filled croissants. Flan. Nutella-filled donuts. Cola coa. Biscoches.

My goodness. The past 2 weeks any sort of healthy regime I’ve had has gone out the door. Check that, has been catapulted at 100 mph out the door. Not only have I not worked out aside from a lot of daily walking, but I’m pretty sure the term “portion control” cannot be translated into the Spanish lifestyle. La comida, or lunch, is always a 3 course meal which includes a lot of white bread, and then it is followed by a siesta: a time for napping or just resting that I probably take too much advantage of/abuse greatly with 2-3 hours naps. Dinner is usually tapas, which tend to be any sort of deep-fried appetizer, accompanied by a couple of beers. Gahhh! Today (Sunday) I ran up the 7 flights of stairs in our building. My goal is to run every day this week…but I have a feeling I’m going to be unbearably sore tomorrow.

Pretty Sevilla!

Over the weekend we went to Sevilla and Ronda, and I LOVED it! Not only was it about 10 degrees warmer than Granada, but they were just precious cities in general! We arrived in Sevilla Friday morning, and started out the visit by walking though los Reales Alcazares, which is basically a set of beautiful palaces. So so pretty.

We also visited la cathedral, which is just enormous and beautiful on its own. The view from the tower in the cathedral was breathtaking!

The rest of the day we had to explore Sevilla on our own, and then that night watched un espectaculo de flamenco, and my goodness, it was the most intense live performance I’ve ever seen! (Yes, it even rivaled the Spice Girls reunion concert where Scary Spice tied a man up and proceeded  to have her way with him on stage). Flamenco is so deng COOL! There was a lot of stepping and it reminded me a lot of tap, but MAN! The intensity between the guy and woman dancing was indescribable, really. I was literally in a trance the whole performance and had to keep telling myself to stop gawking and close my mouth. I’m signed up for a Flamenco performance and theory class here, and if I could even gain a small fraction of the abilities I witnessed that night, I will be SETTTT!

The next day, [after ANOTHER amazing hotel breakfast…ahhhhh too many pastries] we left for Ronda. The best way I can describe Ronda is like a cute little dream. We visited the oldest plaza de toros in Spain, and after going and hearing more details about the tradition, I am determined to go watch a bullfight. It will absolutely be disturbing and immoral to a certain extent, but I just can’t imagine not allowing myself to experience something that is so unique to Spain. We also took a walk by some gorgeous bridges, all which overhang cliffs. Pretty pretty pretty!!

Saturday night was superb. We had a plan to go out and do it like the real Spanish do, and that we did! We met up at 11 to go to tapas bars and found some winners!! Cheap drinks+large portions of food=happy drunken students. After the bares started closing we hit up a hilarious pub that played classics like “Livin' on a Prayer”, “Roxanne” and “Losing My Religion”. Hannah and I were reminiscing about Harris upon hearing songs like these :(  After a little social wine drinking in a plaza, we made our way to a discoteca called La Vogue (La Voh-Geh) and it was THE BESTTTTT! Literally it was just our group of 6 that was American, and everyone else was Spanish. They played Spanish pseudo-techno music, and we just danced our American hearts out. At one point me and Molly were dancing together when a group of good-looking Spanish men came up and talked to us, so we hung out with them for awhile before leaving at 5:30!! Yup, we met our goal of the night of staying up late. Next weekend’s goal: 6am. Hahaaa Sunday morning was a bit sad; I woke up at 11 to eat el desayuno of churros con chocolate, went back to sleep til 3 for la comida. Bah. Okay. This week, I'm gonna try to get off the path to morbid obesity that I'm currently on. Yay!

Never play chicken with a Spainard

See? Jacket looks pretty legit!

Finally got some shopping in last week! Molly and I hit up only a couple of streets, but they were sufficient to keep us occupied for several hours. The sales going on are coming to a close in the near future so it was necesario that we take advantage. I ended up buying a scarf, earrings, brown boots, and a brown faker-than-pleather-but-still-pretty-neat jacket all for 48 €! I think I’ve fed my shopping appetite for a couple weeks.

So it wasn’t until that shopping experience that I felt for the first time a minor surge of culture shock. During orientation we were warned that Spaniards have a different view of personal space, as well as customer service. In essence, they are both non-existent. I have been here for a week and I believe the shopping day was the first day I heard a Spaniard say “perdon” as she shoved me aside, and it certainly happens on a daily basis. Shopping in the crowded stores only elevated the number of occurrences; people tended to just brush roughly past you, grab your waist to push you aside--shop workers included, all without a word of apology. Back in the states, I would not endure this. In fact, I distinctly remember last summer browsing perfumes in an aisle and a store worker reached right in front of me to grab something, and that was enough to set my off. Let’s just say, said worker later felt my wrath.

 Allow me to delve into a bit of an analogy now in order to further illustrate this Spanish view of personal space. You know when you’re perusing a rack of clothes, moving rightward along it, and someone starts browsing at the opposite end of the rack, and begins to move towards you? As you each inch along eventually one person surrenders the rack and moves to another one, but only once you’re nearing the point of interrupting one another's personal space. I’ve always thought of it like playing “chicken”, trying to see who will go the longest without giving up or getting uncomfortable first. Now in the U.S., I pride myself on my relentless “chicken” stamina when it comes to clothes; if I want to thoroughly peruse a rack, I will finish it at my leisure and without interruption, regardless of whether or not I'm dangerously close to violating someone's personal space in the process. Well, that shopping day I found myself in such a situation, and decided to put my skills to the test here in a new environment. The contender was a middle-aged woman, moving at record speed toward me in a rack of dresses “rebajadas”. But I wouldn’t allow myself to be intimidated by her indifference toward me! I inched right along the rack toward her. But she kept coming closer. I slowed down. She didn’t. She showed no signs of stopping. Maybe I imagined things in the heat of the moment, but I SWEAR, once we were next to each other, close enough to violate the standard U.S. personal space bubble,  she reached BETWEEN my arms to look at a blouse. As if it was nothing. Obviously, I immediately threw up my white flag and relocated to another rack. Lesson learned: do not play shopping “chicken” with a Spaniard. Defeat is inevitable.

Anyway, the other part of the culture shock has come from customer service. Wherever you eat, you have to do everything in your power short of entering the kitchen if you want to order and receive your food! The same tends to go for clothing stores. So when I was shopping, you better believe there was no petty worker at the entrance of each store welcoming me in, no worker to set me up a fitting room, nor one to ask me if I was looking for something in particular. I don’t quite know how I feel about this yet. I think many people would agree that the amount of time store workers bother you in the U.S. is borderline harassment, but receiving no attention at all is not exactly optimal either! Hmm. In my Utopian society, I would have the store worker greet me, treat me with positive regard without hovering, run to my side to help me only when I needed it, and probably carry around my items for me…Aaaaaand I think I also just described my ideal man.

More later on our trip to Sevilla and Ronda over the weekend! c:

First week synopsis continuado

Day 4: Viernes el 28 de enero

As I previously said, this day of orientation was a bit rough. I think we stayed out til 3 the night before, and that’s fairly tame for Spanish standards. Thus, Friday night Anna and I decided to stay in after some brief Granada exploration, and you know what? It was a great decision; we ended up watching Beauty and the Best en español! Still brings a tear or 20 to my eye after all these years….We ended up going to bed by 11 that night…we had a looooong day ahead of us on Saturday…

Day 5: Sabado el 29 de enero

ROAD TRIPPPPPP! To la Alpujarra; the mountain range on the other side of the Sierra Nevada, right along the Mediterranean! Our señora warned us that it’d be pretty cold there and we should bundle the F up. Although the weather ended up not being too bad, it was superrr windy. Finally, this hike allowed me to get some physical activity in! We had an option of a 1.5 or 3 hour hike, with most of us choosing the 3 hour one. It was truly picturesque; I was snappin’ photos left and right, but pictures on the average camera never seem to do landscapes justice, ya know? (I took a video, it's sideways though so sorriessss). During the hike, we had to walk up some steep inclines and narrow paths, so extreme to that point that I wondered why we hadn’t all had to sign some sort of liability contract before beginning this hike. Before reaching the peak of the mountains we hiked up this one incline for about 20 minutes it seemed. I swear every time I looked up to see if we’d reached the peak yet, it appeared as if we hadn’t made any progress. Lots of people stopped to rest, but Molly and I roughed it out and kept goin’ the whole time WOOO but dennnng HURTY HAMMIES! {Also, my butt was sore for the next 3 days afterwards). It’s funny because everyone was cold and bundled up at the base of the mountain, but by the end we were all stripping down. 

Eating lunch at the top of that mountain was unbelievable, and worth every drop of sweat and sinew of sore muscle. During our hike back, I couldn’t help but think how worried Irma would be if she saw how narrow and dangerous the paths we were taking :). On the bus home I passed OUTTTT, but not before stopping by the gift shop to talk the saleswoman down on some earrings originally priced at 8€! (AHH did I mention that I realized I forgot all my earrings?? So so so rough without them... they must be lonesome, collecting dust in my room at home. :( Luckily there’s a million different shops on my way to class, so rebuilding my army of earrings will not be a problem.)

That night, refreshed and ready to go after being comatose on the bus, I met up with some friends to get some tapas and eventually we ended up at a discoteca with a gorgeous view of the Alhambra. Let me tell you, finding people is no easy feat when YOUR PHONE HAS NO MINUTES!! In fact, it consists of a lot of pacing back and forth alone in plazas, stealing internet from cafes with wifi (they call it “wee-fee” here heehee), and waiting for calls! But it all worked out, we had a really fun night! I was able to talk to some Grinnell students as well as other IES students; we had basically taken over the whole discoteca, and by the end of the night it was just a bunch of IES students getting on each other; thus, hilarious to witness. HA also, as I was walking around a Spaniard whistled at me “oOOoOOOOoOh, Meeeshell Obama!” Yep. I’m the first ladayyyy. I told you I'm taking over the country! Hahaaaa eventually we took a taxi home around 4, which apparently is the time that Spanairds start arriving at discotecas. Oops! Gotta start building up that late night endurance! 

Day 6: el 30 de enero

Finallyyy a day of libertad!! First day of sleeping in, too. I kept it civilized, woke up at 10:30. Can’t be scaring off my señora by waking up at 2pm…yet. We definitely took the day to relax; Anna and I watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith in Spanish (While it pained me immensely to watch it without hearing Brad’s soothing alpha-male voice, it allowed me to focus more on his physical features, which tend to slip my mind, HAAAAAA). Later we met up with some friends for tapas and then decided to go for a long walk around our barrio. We found lots of cool shops that we’ll be going back to. Granada isn’t huge, but there are SO many shops that I don’t think I’ll be able to hit up every spot I want to before I leave here! Also, apparently January is the month for “rebajas” or huge sales. Every clothing store has huge tantalizing signs reading: “REBAJAS”. It’s been tortuous passing by these signs every day but not yet having time to take advantage of them!!!

So Monday was Day 7, and with it another week of orientation commenced. Everything is better than I could have imagined…I mean, seriously: Among other things, every day includes eating a huge ass delicious meal at 3pm followed by a siesta, for as long as I should desire—

!Si, estoy bastante felliz!