Welcome to Spain

Hey Everyone!!

I have been inspired to start a blog about my experiences here in Spain and while traveling Europe! I figure for those that don't have facebook this will be a great place to post pictures too! Enjoy...

We have been in Spain for 3 weeks now, I can't believe it! We arrived in Madrid I think August 27th, and stayed there for the weekend. I loved Madrid- it was very metropolitan and large. During our stay in Madrid we participated in a scavenger hunt around the city as well as a guided walking tour. These were great activities to get acquainted with the city! We had a lot of fun. Madrid was very relaxing and basically a vacation- we slept in every morning and just hung out all day and then went out at night. In Madrid we were introduced to tapas which are famous in Spain, but especially Granada, they are plates of food that come with any drink you order. SO if you order one beer you get a whole plate of food as well, for free- the tapas can be anything from fish, to rice, to fried calamari (my personal favorite) to wings- every bar is different. We were a little tired from the flights, but really it wasn't too bad. While in Madrid we went to the very famous palace, which has 2400 rooms- we were able to see about 30 it was very cool! We ate out a lot in Madrid, and went out one night as well, and met some really cool Spaniards. Gina (my roomie) and I went to this cool market where we tried oysters! haha GROSS!! On the right is a pic of us there! Then we were off to Granada!

We came to Granada on the 1st I believe, not sure. When we got to our señora's apartment we were real nervous. Our señora did not look that nice, and the first thing she said was ¨no hablo ingles¨ which means she didn´t speak a word of English. Which is totally for the best, we have had a great time talking with her.. even teaching her a couple of English words while she has helped us tremendously with our Spanish. We were nervous, but than after talking to her we realized she is amazing! She is about 34 we are guessing, she volunteers for the red cross, works for lays potato chips, and goes to school. Crazy! She is a lot of fun! There is also another girl living in our house her name is Jenifer she is cool. Our senora's mom lives across the hall from us and cooks for us. There are two more girls, sophie and brooke. We all get to eat together its a lot of fun. Charo (our senora) also has two nephews and a niece that are here all the time. Marga is in the picture. They are ADORABLE! We love our room! We have an amazing balcony with a great view, our own bathroom, a closet and a really decent size room, its great!! Since we have been in Granada we have roamed around a little to get better acquainted with the city, but we really want to get out and do more.

School is good! I love my teachers. We go from 9 to 1 right now, but I think Oct. 7 the actually semester starts and I will be taking 5 classes. I´m excited for that. The building our classes is in is so pretty and its also fairly close to our apartment. The school is full of Americans, every person in my class is American, but there are also a lot of Germans. There are 15 of us in our program all from ISU and we have gotten pretty close. We all go out together, which hasn´t given us a great opportunity to meet other people, but we have fun!

Two weekends ago we went to Nerja, a city about an hour away with gorgeous beaches. The beach and water (Mediterranean Sea) was really pretty!

I'm really loving Spain- and I can't wait to do more!!!