people & talking.

I want to talk about people. And how much I love them. I have been finding so much joy in the littlest things lately. People & Spanish are concepts that go hand in hand and skyrocket my confidence and joy and curiosity and every other emotion. This may seem confusing. And it is, to me even. But the reality is, learning this language is opening up so many doors for me. And not doors like careers or resumes or grad school or all that bullshit. But doors to the lives of the people who live in Granada. It's like I have a secret code to find out who they are, and the more I know, the more I can explore and delve into the lives of the people who live here.

I am getting much more comfortable with my roommates. I have always liked them and enjoyed them, but now I can really just talk to them, and it's getting easier to talk to Jess in Spanish, even though our common tongue is that of Washington! The more Spanish I master, the better I get to know my roommate Ana, and she is going to be my friend for a very long time, I know it. Today though, we were just sitting in our sala (living room) chatting and laughing and I don't even have to think. I don't even have to think. That is what is so amazing about this process. I feel like in the last week or so I have had some sort of breakthrough, I know that I can communicate and when I realize that, just the confidence boost alone improves everything else.

Today I went to a salon type thing near our piso called Solarium and got a full leg/bikini wax (sorry if that's too much info), but hey we must pamper ourselves once in awhile. Anyways, for all of that it cost me 14 euros, which is equivalent to $19. Nineteen US Dollars!! A full leg and bikini wax at Gene Juarez in the US costs WELL over $100....unbelievable! I have found that the US is so CONSUMED with money. I can't even really explain it, but seriously-WHY should something cost so much? Anyways, this was not why I brought up my waxing experience, nor was it to make you uncomfortable. Back to talking about people, and Spanish. After the whole salon thing, I was just laughing and talking with the salon girls like I would in any situation in the US...and it is so silly how happy that made me, how invigorating it is to be able to be understood, to joke, to do things that are so normal for you in your native language but are so hard to be comfortable with when you're learning your second...it was lovely. :)

Life is so good. When I pass Cafe Bar Playa (where I used the internet last semester) I give a smile and a wave to Antonio and Pepe, the bartenders who know my name! On my way home from my last class  I say hello to my Moroccan friends Morad and Josef who work at the shawarma place near my house. I am just so happy being a part of this city. One notable change from last semester is that I do not go out or drink as much as last time. This is both a good and bad thing. It is good because it is healthier, it saves money, I don't spend my days sleeping or my classes wanting to kill myself because I want to be sleeping. It is bad because I feel less social, haven't met as many people as last semester, I know when I get home I will will wish I had gone out more, etc etc. But honestly, I am enjoying a lot more just going out for tapas and chatting with my girlfriends than going to botellón or discotecas or drinking like a fish. And I think that's just fine! :)

Last Monday was a really nice turn of events, because one, the weather was BEAUTIFUL (it has since returned to it's dreary state, please don't be alarmed!) so Alyssa, Allison and I went on a hike for a few hours. I didn't know where we were going really and we just walked along the river until it turns into a dirt road, and leads out of Granada towards an outside pueblo. We crossed the freeway away from the river and started up some trails into the hills outside of Granada. It felt so amazing. I can't even express it. I live in Bellingham, I am not a city girl, there is nothing I love more than getting outside and roughing it a little (with access to a shower afterwards of course, I'm not that rough as we all know). It was so adventurous, just hopping through the mud and brush and climbing up hills that weren't so easy as I was holding on to roots and the dirt was crumbling beneath my feet! Don't worry, it wasn't dangerous, just a little more outdoor-sy than I'm used to, what with being in the city for so long. We finally reached the top of the mountain, and sat and ate crackers and hydrated ourselves, just chatting and looking out at the Sierra Nevada and the pueblo beneath us. It was so beautiful, quiet, and peaceful. It felt like we weren't even in Granada, like we were the only people in the world that day! Eventually though, we had to make our way back to the city, and to be honest, I can't wait for the next nice day to retreat into the campo again!

Classes are going alright. I absolutely love my Spanish Civilization and Culture class. My professor is so nice and funny and all the topics we cover are so interesting to me. We covered briefly the history of Spain including the Moorish rule, Franco's dictatorship, and now we are talking about gypsies! History is just so much more interesting to me when I can see remnants of it all around me, when I am living in the result. And I am really enjoying how a lot of things I learn in my classes are intertwining, relating, overlapping with one another. For example, the treatment of women in Spain comes up in a lot of my classes-in Civ & Culture, obviously in Images of Women in Spanish Literature, and also in Hispanic American Lit. I love it because it all connects for me and I feel like I'm actually learning something. That feminist lit class is getting a lot better, and now that I'm used to my professor's accent, it's a lot easier to get into and I am really enjoying analyzing the literature from this perspective because it's a complete new topic for me. My Hispanic American Lit class is pretty boring, all we do is read the works out loud in class and a lot of it is old Literature so it's difficult to understand, sort of like reading Shakespeare is difficult to read in English because the style of old English is different. Linguistics...ahhh what a class. I always feel anxious because we have to actively participate, but I guess that's good because if we didn't have to participate I would completely check out and have no clue what's going on. Back to Civ & Culture...one thing I think is amazing is that before coming to Spain, I knew nothing of their history. From the 30's until 1975 Spain was under a horrendous fascist dictatorship, and I had never heard any of this in the education that I've received in the US. I understand that we can't learn everything, but it frustrates me that the United States does not teach us about anything unless they were directly involved in it. Here, we learn that Franco is a name that goes RIGHT alongside and is associated with Hitler and Mussolini, but before coming to Spain, I had never even heard of this dude Franco. It's amazing to me. Hitler helped bring Franco to power, and Franco reigned a completely isolated, controlled Spain for 40 years or so, killing thousands of his own people. I know this is probably not exciting at all to you, but to me it is SO interesting, and appalling that I had no idea this happened until moving here. My POE class is funny and manageable, but it's frustrating because I won't receive credit towards my Spanish major for it so I have no motivation to do anything in that class. But overall it's just a bunch of laughs, and we learn important ways to communicate in Spanish and a lot of coloquial terms that the young people use, so I guess overall it's helpful.

In other news, I received my first phone bill of the semester, and was horrified to see that it was $179! I had no idea that using my phone in Switzerland would be so harmful, but my one week staying there and sending a few text messages/having a few short phone calls brought me down about $100.  Soooo frustrating. That is one thing the US has on Europe, the dang phone system. Come on guys, doesn't unlimited texting/1000 minutes a month for like $40 sound nice? YES.

Two weeks ago we went to see the Spanish movie Nacidas para Sufrir, which was very strange, I don't like Spanish cinema all that much from what I've seen but it's good to go and practice the Spanish. Last week a few of us girls went to see Valentine's Day, which was a fun little outing, and the movie was nothing special but it was fun to see in Spanish. I don't think I would've thought it was worth seeing in theaters in the US, but in Spanish yes. Last Thursday we had an intercambio with API and it went really well. Allison and I talked for a little while with a woman in her thirties and a younger guy who studies engineering, and it was fine but overall there wasn't a lot of conversational chemistry and it was kind of boring. But then I met this guy Pablo and we spoke in Spanish the entire time which was really fun! Again, it's so exciting and makes me so happy to have experiences like that where you can just TALK to people.

Tonight we're going to Seville, I have to leave in like 45 minutes actually. We went last semester so I'm not going to visit the cathedral or Alcazares (kind of like the Alhambra here in Granada) and it's supposed to rain the entire weekend so that's a bummer. But it will be nice to shop and stay in the hotel and just walk around and stuff. Mom comes two weeks from tomorrow! I am very excited because last weekend I was slightly homesick missing Jordan's show (I watched the videos online though, if you haven't gone and you're within 2-3 hours driving distance from Arlington-you MUST go! It looks incredible) plus I am just really pumped for Mom to be in Spain! Excited to see her, excited for her to get the opportunity to travel, and PUMPED for our cruise during Semana Santa! Looking forward to everything. Also just booked tickets to Lisbon for April 30-May 3, and my friends still have to buy their tickets but they haven't done so yet. So....I'm definitely going...hopefully not alone! haha.

okie dokie I should go because this is getting long and I need to get ready to leave. I will write again sometime next week!