Hola familia y amigos! I am glad to be writing to you in such a good mood today. So recap of the past few days: class has been extremely long, four hours in a row every day, but I feel like I am learning more than I ever thought I would. It is crazy how many grammatical concepts we are not taught in school in the states. It also has been overwhelmingly warm the past few days here which makes walking everywhere a little uncomfortable. Our room at school is on the third floor with no windows and the first day we were up there our professor didn't turn the air on until an hour and a half had passed. We all thought for sure someone was going to pass out. Surprisingly sleeping at night is not that bad even with out air conditioning. We usually have our fan running all night and have the windows open. Life has been pretty normal here the past few days, mainly shopping and going to school.
I love that we try to discover new parts of the city everyday. As many of you know, I have a very mothering personality and I also have a keen sense of direction. So of course I have been helping lead the way when we explore new and even familiar areas. It seems that my name tends to be Mama Dani on all continents. We went to the libreria (bookstore) yesterday and I bought a book of poems by Federico Garcia Lorca and also the first Harry Potter book in Spanish. The challenge of trying to read a whole novel in Spanish was truly enticing.
The problem with the euro being a coin here is that in the states we reagard coins as useless because what can you really do with a handful of pennies? Not much now a days. So when you have all these euro lying around in your wallet and you see ice cream for one euro you think to yourself "oh my gosh that is so cheap" when really its about a dollar fifty. It does not seem to be that big of a deal until you start going to the heladeria on every corner or going to Los Italianos (worth googling) where their ice cream is 3 euro, you end up spending quite a bit of euros. Sadly the heladerias will close as fall closes in but maybe it is better for our wallets.
Today we went to the Alpujarras and it was incredible. I wish I could put into words how beautiful it is to drive there/anywhere south of Granada. The views cannot be captured with a simple camera lens, these are places you need to see in person to truly capture their beauty. The winding roads on the way to the mountains were a bit scary I am not going to lie. I tried not to look out the window because it seemed as if the bus would tip and plummet to the bottom of an endless looking valley. Of course when I arrived I realized I had left my memory card in my computer so I had to rely on others to take pictures for me. I did not think I would participate in any of the activities because they were a little more adventurous than I usually am but I actually did them. I ziplined for the first time and it was awesome. It wasn't too high or too fast but that's why it was the perfect first zipline. After that I was feeling good and then we arrived at our next station. It was a bungy chord sling shot essentially which you strapped yourself in and a car pulled you forward and then released you. I actually ended up doing it and it was beyond scary! I loved it though I ended up doing it twice. I don't know what got into me. But the next station is where I drew the line. You basically did a free fall from 40 feet in the air and you had to just fall forward and you were in a harness and you did a flip and then you would swing down to the bottom. Definitely not my cup of tea. But the day was truly amazing and I feel like I pushed myself to have more fun.
I love everything about this city and even after only two weeks I am dreading having to return to America. There are so many things I enjoy that I don't want to leave behind. I do miss little pieces of home at times. Like yesterday I was craving chocolate chip cookies that my mom makes, or wanting to play with my dog, or watching a movie with Kevin. All these things sneak into my mind while my mind is still and not busy absorbing everything happening around me. It still sometimes does not hit me that I am here in Granada finally. I just hope that these four months go by somewhat slowly so I can truly enjoy everything this experience has to offer.
Besos, Dani
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