Greetings from España! I can´t believe it has been over a week since my return from Ireland. Getting back into the swing of things at school was a bit difficult since I wasn´t speaking much Spanish while traveling (unless Natalie and I didn´t want people to know what we were talking about...) but last week my señora´s daughter and family were visiting from Sevilla and I had many opportunities to practice with them. They have a one and a half year old son named Oscar (such a cutie!) and I learned a bunch of names for various animals after reading him a children´s book-what a great way for me to learn vocab, right?

Last Thursday I went out for a few glasses of wine (vino tinto) and tapas with some of my classmates before heading to a small dance club called Afrodisia, which played groovy music from the 60´s. It had been a long week so by the time people were heading to the discotecas, I decided to head home for a good night´s rest. Friday I went shopping and found some great deals at Zara, a popular clothing store here. The sales (or rebajas) here only last for another week so I´m taking advantage of the time I have left! Saturday Natalie and I traveled to a city about 45 minutes east of Granada, called Guadix. Here we saw a beautiful cathedral, visited the market that sells everything from spices and fruit to beads and hand-made African carvings. Then we headed up the mountains/hills where a large portion of the population lives in caves! Their dwellings are actually built right into the sides of the hilly land and there was a spectacular sight of the Sierra Nevadas from the highest look-out point in El Barrio de las Cuevas. That night after having a few sangrias and tapas, we headed to Kapital, a smaller and less expensive discoteca that had really good music. I didn´t get home until 4:45am (a bit early to call it a night in Spain but hey, it was a long day) and Sunday was a day for rest and relaxation. I went for a run in the early afternoon and watched the end of Gladiator (dubbed, of course...just not the same) before meeting Jesús (mi intercambio) for café con leche. We hadn´t seen each other since before my trip to Ireland so there was a lot to talk about and since we lost track of time I was a bit late for the evening mass at San Francisco.

All in all, my weekend was really fun and I´ve enjoyed staying around Granada and practicing my Spanish. I´m getting really excited for this weekend because my friend Kaela, who is studying near Madrid this semester, is coming to Granada to visit! I´ll have a lot to show her in just a few days but maybe we´ll head down to the beach for a day if the weather is nice. Okay, check out the Ireland pictures at the bottom of the page and I´ll post again soon! Ciao.