yay a post!

(photo guide, see P.S.)

Well, I'm back on the blog wagon. Sorry for not writing for such a long time to anyone who reads this. I guess I've been doing a lot since I last wrote so I'll try to organize this entry somewhat.

I went to Granada one more time, this time with our class and it was incredible! We went to the Alhambra which is now one of my favorite buildings (or, umm, cities) in the world. Others on that list are Canterbury Cathedral and the Space Needle in Seattle. A lot of it has been restored but most of it has survived in almost perfectly and it still blows me away to actually stand in the same rooms, touch the same walls that have been touched by caliphs and some foreign ambassadors and what not. I definitely felt a bit star struck to just be in this place that I've heard so much about. I feel the same way in the presence of great paintings too (more about that later). I guess it's a bit silly, but I let myself anyways. The hostel that we stayed at was honestly the best hostel I've ever stayed at. The kitchen was loaded with free food, there was a rooftop terrace with a hammock and an incredible view of the city. My friend Jenna's host brother is studying in Granada so we went out at night with him and his friends, which was a lot of fun.

The weekend after that was a really long weekend and while pretty much everyone in my program went to Barcelona, I decided to go to Madrid by myself since I'm going to Barcelona with Larkin in December. I figured that staying in a hostel I'd meet a bunch of people and have things to do, plus two of my friends who went to Barcelona were coming back through Madrid and staying for a night. What's funny though is that the only time I actually wanted to have someone there to hang out with was at night when I wasn't sneezing and coughing (yes, lucky me, I was sick). The day that I got there at 2pm, I checked into my hostel, dropped off my stuff and was at the Prado museum by 3:30 and stayed for 5 hours. Next to the Louvre it's the best museum I've ever been to. That night I went to get incredible ice cream with two american girls who have been traveling around Europe for 2 months and were so incredibly American... Definitely the stereotypical American tourists who walk into a place not even attempting to speak the native language at all, and just assuming that everyone in the world speaks English. The next day I went to the Thyssen-Bormenizsa (I think I'm spelling that right) museum which was really different in the way that it had works from all centuries put together in a chronological sequence, so you'd be walking through Medieval art, past the old masters like Rubens and Titian, through Impressionists and Picassos and Dalis and end up with pop art. Definitely a pretty cool experience. For lunch I got a cheap shwarma sandwich to go and headed to the Parque del Buen Retiro which used to be the royal hunting grounds, but now it's just a huge beautiful park. Eating delicious shwarma in front of the Crystal Palace watching ducks in a pond, while listening to some students practicing Spanish guitar near you was one of the best hours that I spent in Madrid. Unfortunately it was also one of the times that made me feel pretty lonely cause I would've loved to share that experince with someone. The next day I went shopping... bad idea. Shopping in Madrid is amazing! Not only are there normal stores like Mango, Zara and H&M (which are about 3x the size of the same ones in Cordoba), there are all kinds styles in smaller stores and about 3 shoe stores for each block. I didn't end up buying that much but I certainly wished that I could. The next day I went to see the Royal Palace and met up with my friends who came from Barcelona. Madrid definitely is a huge city in the way that it feels and the things it offers. We had Chinese that night and I had hot and sour soup that was actually hot and sour and not some concoction they made for spice-shy Spaniards. Don't get me wrong, the food here is amazing, but you will have a really hard time finding anything even remotely spicy in Cordoba. They also have movie theatres that play American movies UNdubbed and subtitled instead. This is a huge drawback of Spanish movie theatres, because pretty much everywhere else they keep movies in their original version and subtitle them... here, well, I think people are sorta lazy about that, so everything sounds really funny to us. Two nights ago I watched El Senor de los Anillos (yeah, go translate that yourself) on TV and it was pretty funny, but for me personally it helps with learning Spanish, especially when I've seen the movie about 5 times already in English and know exactly what the characters are gonna say. The only movie that I've seen here in theaters was Alatriste, which is the most expensive Spanish production so far, and you guys should all go see it if it's playing nearby. It's really good, despite the fact that there are throats slit about every 10 minutes. I understood about 25% of it, but still, enough to keep up with the plot and really enjoy it. So back to Madrid. On Sunday we went to the Reina Sofia museum which has a huge collection of Picasso and other modern art, which I don't really like very much so for me it was just ok. Over the whole weekend I walked around the whole city all day, every day and by nighttime I'd be so exhausted I had no desire to go out dancing all night or anything like that. Though nightlife in Madrid is supposed to be amazing, I didn't get to experience it that weekend, but I'll definitely go back.

Since that weekend I haven't gone anywhere else, mainly stayed around Cordoba and explored a little more. My friend Chaya has an intercambio who has a friend who is a tour guide around the city and he agreed to give us a walking tour of Cordoba for free. Needless to say it was amazing. I loved it, but I've already been to most of the places before because during the first few weeks I walked around the city a lot by myself, but it was still great to hear more about the history and random local legends connected with the buildings and streets. I also met some British students who are here to teach English for a year. They're friends with an American girl who is also teaching English here through a fellowship that she applied to, which apparently isn't that hard to go, you just need to apply carefully and write a decent essay. I really would love to come back here and stay longer, and that's been a partial cause for a lot of confusion that I've been going through lately. I guess just general confusion about what I want out of life, what is important to me and how to prioritise those things and people. It's been bothering me a lot and I've sort of been an emotional wreck for the past week and a half. The English teaching thing certainly isn't the only cause of all this confusion, but I guess I've been getting scared of leaving Spain and my life here. I have to force myself to keep in mind that this life isn't the real Spanish life. I live in the nicest part of town, my friends were handed to me on a silver platter, I go out every weekend and I barely do any homework because most days none is assigned. Then again, these British students pay 150€ for their own room in a nice apartment while getting paid about 650€ a month. Not too shabby either, and their life definitely resembles "real" Spanish life.

Obviously I can't possibly write down everything I've done and every way that I've felt over the past month, but here are the Cliff notes. I hope everyone's doing well. I promise I'm getting on this post card thing. Dear ol' McHenry is getting one for sure. I'll try to write more often...heh as always.

Besitos,
Rena

P.S. Guide to photos (up -> down, left -> right)
1. Neat statue in the middle of Paseo Del Prado in Madrid
2. A window at the Alhambra looking out unto the city of Granada
3. Inside the Alhambra
4. El Palacio Cristal (The Crystal Palace) in Parque del Buen Retiro in Madrid
5. My feet, as I'm lying in a hammock out in the sun on the terrace of our amazing hostel in Granada