Trip To Granada!

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Hola!

This weekend everyone from our program and I took a 3 hour bus trip to Granada, Spain for the weekend. Granada is another large city in the Analucian province of Spain. We stayed in a hostel Friday and Saturday night. I roomed with my regular roommates: Jenny, Kia and Sam.

We woke up really early on Friday morning to go and I was in such a rush to catch the bus that I totally forgot to bring money, so I literally didn't have any this weekend. I did borrow 20 euros from Jenny and 20 euros from Cole, so it wasn't that bad. I remembered that I forgot money literally 5 minutes after I left the house but we were short on time so I wasn't able to go back to get it. So mad.

Anyway, in Granada we took a tour of the Alhambra, which is this ancient palace built in the 13th century which was occupied by the sultan. We viewed all the big palaces, and some of them still had the original ceilings and walls. It was very detailed and really quite amazing. Apparently the sultan had 4 wives and about 200 concubines. The guy was a pimp. The tour was really nice but since Granada is in the mountains it was a lot colder than Seville. On top of that it was raining. The weather kind of put a damper on how fun the tour was, but it was still really incredible.

That night we went out exploring the bars. In Granada you get a free tapa (a tapa is kind of like a "side" of something like a baked potato or fries. That's probably not the best way to describe it but a side is the closest American equivalent to a tapa) of the bar's choice with the purchase of any drink. We ended up at this really cool little Irish pub called Hannigan's & Sons for about 3 hours. I had 3 drinks. With the first drink we got a baked potato with this delicious white sauce on top, with the second I got a little chicken sandwhich and with the third a baby hamburger and fries. It was soooo good, and a really good deal for a girl with no money! We ended up going back to the hostel around 12:30 and a bunch of us just talked and got to know each other in our room for a while.

On Saturday we walked up a mountain. Literally, I walked to the top of a mountain. It wasn't snow capped or anything, but it was still definitely a workout. I'm definitely feeling sore today. We climbed the mountain because we went to go see the gypsy quarters of town. In Granada gypsies literally live in caves in the mountains. It's ridiculously cool. I'm mildly obsessed and fascinated with gypsies. Don't ask me why. So anyway, I got some really cool pictures of the view from the top of the mountain. I wanted to go skiing inthe Sierra Nevada but it was about 55 euros, so unfortunately a little out of my price range. A walk to the top of a mountain was definitely the next best thing.

Last night we went to the night club May West, which is the biggest night club in Spain. I can't even describe how cool it was. The place is HUGE and was absolutely packed with people. It also stays open until 7 am. I only made it until 5, but it was really cool. It was a 10 euro cover charge to enter, but you got a free drink with it so it's not that bad of a deal. So yea, I danced the night away with the other 30 people from my program and like 1,000 other people. Literally.

There was more drama with some of the same girls from my program, but I won't get into that this time. :)

My mom just told me that she and my brother are going to be coming for spring break since our spring breaks are all the same week this year. I'm really excited for them to come and show them around. I think we'll just tour around Spain, maybe go to Barcelona and Valencia on a EuroRail pass. We'll see. My Aunt was also thinking about coming during that week but now I guess she's not sure if she'll be able to. I think I'm still going to try to talk her into it though.

Well, I'm sure there's more that I should be writing but I should probably go do some homework.

Ciao!

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