granada: a summary

chicos queridos,

we are FINALLY back in madrid after a grueling 10 days in granada. while we made the most of our time there, it feels great to be back in our beds in our yellow room and to have maruja overfeeding us.

as i wrote earlier, shortly after arriving in madrid, we took a train to granada. during the mornings, we went on cultural excursions to places like the alhambra and la casa de garcia lorca. granada is one of the smaller cities in spain but has a rich cultural background, as it was the last muslim city to be taken over by the spanish inquisition. this became very clear when we visited the beautiful and intricate fortress of the alhambra, as well as our tours to the granada countryside, where we went to an ancient olive oil factory and a winery.

during the afternoons during our week in granada, we spent time at a local school taking spanish language intensive courses. we learned a lot of useful things, like colloquial phrases (es pan comido = easy as pie), as well as words that the "young people" here use to describe their nights out on the town (echar de papas = to vomit).

the stay in granada was difficult at first mainly because we were having trouble figuring out what to eat. while everyone at home talks about spanish tapas, in reality, they are the spanish version of fast food (or at least in granada...we have heard other, better things about tapas elsewhere) and it was hard to find something that was fresh and not totally greasy. we ended up making friends with the receptionist at our hotel who directed us to some amazing restaurants in granada, so we ventured out and were much more satisfied.

although the trip was incredibly interesting and informative, we were frustrated because we had barely spent any time in madrid and really just wanted to get back, so when we arrived yesterday morning, we were so happy to be back to what is now our home. last night, we went to the center of madrid and met some other americans that are going to our school, universidad de carlos iii. today we went to visit the campus for the first time, which is about 20 minutes outside the city. orientation starts tomorrow!