Life happens.

I last wrote just before we went to Seville, and the reality is, it was a perfectly normal weekend, nothing exciting happened really. We had rain rain and some more rain, as per usual this time around España, and Emily, Tina, Allison, Alyssa and I spent our time eating, sleeping, and shopping. Since we had already been to Seville we didn't have to tromp around in the rain at the Cathedral or Alcazares, so that was nice, we just had a 4 star weekend in the hotel! We ate at this delicious Wok restaurant, basically an Asian food buffet, with Chinese/Japanese/Thai food. Yum! And I hear there is one in Granada which I'll definitely be checking out soon.

This past weekend was a busy one! Thursday night I went out with my roommate Jess (also from Washington, not sure if I've mentioned that before-she's from the Federal Way/Tacoma area) and her friend Mischa, who's from the Czech Republic. We went to Hannigan's Irish Pub for karaoke, which I've done once before and I think through both times, I have decided that karaoke is somewhat lame and annoying. Especially when people get up and sing like they're actually trying..who does that? So after waiting an eternity with the same Spanish guy going up like 20 times and belting his tunes, Jess, Mischa and I went up and sang, "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor. Let's just say I don't think I'll be doing karaoke again. I think the negatives of being embarrassed, everyone looking at you strangely, not knowing all the words and feeling awkward are not worth the satisfaction of belting out a classic 70's song. I can do that on my own, anytime I want. When we finally left Hannigan's it was pouring down rain, and I had no umbrella, raincoat, or suitable shoes, so naturally I got soaked. I am beginning to truly hate rain. I live in Bellingham, I have never hated rain! It just absolutely does not work here in Granada. We darted into a club that I'd never been to before to escape the rain. It was called Havana Club, and immediately when I went in I noticed 2 things: I loved the music & the look of the club, and I was surrounded by middle aged men. I would say the youngest people besides us were 28-29, and there were maybe 4 other girls in the place. Surprisingly I ran into our favorite waiter Mauricio from Café Fútbol, but I kept it short and sweet and just said hello as I didn't want my fave waiter to get creepy, as they sometimes do in places like this. After 15 minutes I was totally uncomfortable and ready to leave, it's a shame that the clubs that have good music have to be filled with creepsters so that I can't go and enjoy myself.

Friday was dedicated to cleaning the apartment as it was the day of mine and Ana's birthday fiesta. Around 7 I ran up to Plaza Nueva and met up with Annie Thordarson, who I went to high school with and she was visiting with her program from Seville. It was so good to see somebody from home! Annie and I aren't even really that good of friends but she is super nice and we share a lot of the same friends in Arlington so that was really cool to see her. I took her and some of her friends to tapas at Feng Shui (CLARO!) and we just had a good time chatting and I liked hearing about their program/studying in Seville.

When I got home, Jess and I grabbed shawarma for dinner, and it was the most delicious shawarma I have ever had in my life! So crazy, because usually you don't want to be eating that stuff unless you're intoxicated enough to forget what it consists of. Then Sam came over and we all finished up getting ready for the party. Sam swept and mopped the piso for us--how convenient! :) I blew up balloons and set them up around the house, and then we all got ready in time for people to show up. Jess let me borrow one of her dresses and I got lots of compliments, plus I was totally comfy! I won't waste much time on the party--It was much like the Fiesta de Navidad the girls had here in December, except I knew way less people. It was a lot of fun meeting people though, including some of Ana's Spanish friends that I haven't met before. Mischa was so sweet and brought Ana and I bracelets for our birthdays! Her other gift to us was some sort of hard alcohol from the Czech Republic...that stuff was crazy! Yikes! haha. Again, the piso was totally crowded but it was a ton of fun. Afterwards I went to Vogue (a dance club near my apartment) with King, Allison, and Brian, and that was when I lost 20 euros...way to go MacKenzie! awesome....not. Dancing was fun but eventually we left and King and I grabbed some shawarma to top off the night. Yes that's right....2 shawarmas in one night. What is the world coming to!? haha

Saturday was pretty unproductive with the exception of a tapas date with Leah and her friend Katilin, Emily, Allison and I. We found a tapa place that has hot dogs! Epic...and of course went to POE because it's just delicious (thai chicken!) and then finished off at Feng Shui. That night I tried to get to bed early but could not fall asleep which was a shame because I needed sleep to be ready for SNOWBOARDING! Which is what we did on Sunday!

My experiences in Europe snowboarding have been so different than going to Mt. Baker at home. But that's ok because the point is that I'm here so it probably should be different! I woke up at 6:30 and Jess and I got ready to go, and Allison met us at our piso just after 7. I was a little antsy about making it to the bus station on time, but sure enough we did! It was the set up for an interesting day-Allison has been snowboarding for awhile, I am just fine at snowboarding but nothing special, and Jess was planning on trying out skiing with her friend Alejandro who works up at the Sierra Nevada. We got up there and waited for him, then bought our lift tickets which he got us on discount for 35 euros. We found a shop to rent snow pants for Jess and gloves for Allison. Then the adventure began with finding equipment. At this point it was already 10 am, and we waited for nearly an hour only to find that there were no snowboards left at that rental shop. 11 am. We go to a different rental shop and quickly get outfitted in snowboards (Jess ended up snowboarding because her friend had to actually work that day) and by 11:30 we were hitting the chairlift. Not as early as we had hoped, but finally we were taking to the snow. It was going to be a different sort of day for me because this was only Jess' second time snowboarding! And the teacher in me came out because I wasn't just going to leave Jess! After all if I was in her position, especially on a strange mountain in Spain I wouldn't want to be left. I didn't really know how to teach how someone how to snowboard but I guess I know what I'm doing because Jess couldn't really do anything at first but at the end of the day she was totally doing toe-side and heel-side turns and linking them and sometimes taking big spills but the majority of the time just taking her time and doing awesome! I was so proud of her! And proud of myself too because I doubted my abilities to help her out. But I just tried to stay really patient and teach her everything that I know. I love teaching! It's a good thing that I'm pretty sure that's the direction I'm headed in life. And maybe someday if I improve immensely I can be a snowboarding instructor! Anyways as far as weather goes the day was alright, there were periods of straight sunshine but by the end of the today the mountain was totally foggy and it was kind of stressful snowboarding. I didn't have my typical sort of snowboarding day because I was mostly with Jess the whole time, but I did get a few quick runs in. New experiences, that's what it's all about.

My friends have I have been becoming big fans of Asian food here in Granada. Little did I know, the Oriental cuisine goes so far beyond Feng Shui and I had no idea! I really am going to miss Granada's cheap meals and tapas when I leave this place. Yesterday Emily, Alyssa, Allison and I went to lunch at a Chinese restaurant and the night before we had tapas at a sushi place! Delish! :) Oh and in other news the beautiful weather is back! Today I wore a dress and leggings and a cardigan and flip flops, and the cardigan was only so the fur coat wearing Spaniards wouldn't think I had completely gone off my rocker. But it's like 70 degrees today! Yahooo!!

Another update is that API had two basketball games through the CLM against other programs. The first was last Tuesday and we kicked butt, I discovered my friend King is a total baller, I had like 10 points and it was a lot of fun except for me nearly getting killed by the completely out of control person named Sam on the other team. But we won, so that was exciting! Then yesterday we had our next game (the intramural system is kind of set up like a tournament, play until you lose, and we unfortunately lost. The team was way better, we weren't playing together like the week before, King was off, I turned the ball over every time I touched it, etc. Not so good. It was a bummer though because the next game would have been next week and my mom would have gotten to see it! That's alright though we still have volleyball beginning in April.

On a much more serious note, my roommates and I have had a very interesting past week. We found out on Saturday that Ana's mom has breast cancer (we knew something was up because she always came to Granada to visit the doctor but we didn't know for sure) and she had an operation yesterday. I don't feel weird writing about this because it's been really emotional and it's a huge part of my life right now. In the operation they learned that there was more cancer than they thought, so she'll be in the hospital for another week and they're waiting to see if the glands surrounding the tumor are cancerous. Ana has obviously had a really hard time with all of this and I'm just trying to do my best to be here for her. Her family has been in and out, and her dog Tim is staying with us right now, which has been frustrating for me because whenever everyone is gone (all the time because they're at the hospital) he barks and barks and barks and cries and it's just so terribly annoying because I can't get him to stop. I have been taking him out when he needs it, I figure it's the least I can do for Ana during this tough time. But everyone, keep Ana's mom Simona in your hearts and thoughts! :) She's a wonderful woman and I know she can fight through this.

Among all the chaos and the good things as well, Mom is coming on Saturday. The timing isn't very good what with the complications of Simona's health, but I still can't wait for her to get here. I miss her so much and it is so unreal that she is actually going to be in this apartment in just a few days! On Saturday I'm taking the bus up to Madrid to meet her at the airport and to get 5 hrs of quality study time in. Oh yeah...school...well I officially have SIX essays to write this semester (IN SPANISH) not to mention midterms and finals and travel travel traveling! It's overwhelming but wonderful. This has been an interesting week but I just need to keep my chin up because there is always something positive. Always. :)  Life happens, there's no avoiding it, and there's no reason to want to avoid it. I'm not a religious person, but I think things happen for a reason, and there truly is good in everything.