Granada!

Sorry for the delay on this post. I know it’s been about a week since I’ve posted but I was waiting for my stay here in Granada to wrap up so I could just do a general overview of the entire experience here.

Following the pictures on Facebook will also help give you a visual for what I’m talking about but I’ll try to describe stuff here too.

After arriving on Friday we worked on getting settled in our hotel and trying to meet everyone. My roommate Shane (pronounced like Sean) was already here waiting for the rest of us to get here. He had met up with another guy who will be living in our apartment in Morocco, in Seville, Spain a few days earlier. His names Juan and he’s from Columbia but goes to school in the states. So his first language is Spanish, which has come in very handy here in Granada. Anyways, long story short, all 6 of us decided we were going to go out and grab some dinner together and get a feel for what everyone’s like. Before I go into detail about that I want to talk really quickly about the culture here in Spain.

The culture is here is so different when it comes to a normal day. There is usually breakfast from like 7:30/8 until 10 ish then shops will open up and do their thing. Then around 12 until 2 there’s lunch. Lunch usually is the biggest meal and almost every restaurant has what is called a Menu, pronounced Men-“ew”. And what this is essentially a 3 course meal. You choose from a few options for your first dish, usually some sort of salad. Then your next dish is the most substantial with meat or pasta or something. Then you can either get coffee, tea, or some sort of pastry dessert. This also comes with a drink, beer, wine, or a soft drink usually for about 10 – 15 euros.  Personally, I only did this once because it was a little expensive for my taste, I prefer a 3 or 4 euro “Kebab” which is like a pita filled with fresh vegetables, and in my case, “pollo con queso” or chicken and cheese. They are amazing. Then after lunch comes the best part of the day, the siesta or naptime. This is wear many people close their shops and go take a few hour nap until about 5 when shops start opening up again.  Then at about 9:30/10 dinner starts to pick up. Dinner lasts from 10 until 1 or even 2 in the morning. Dinner is a little bit different from lunch. It usually consists of things called “Tapas”, which are essentially appetizers.  The concept is quite simple, every time you order a drink, they bring you food. Usually they are smaller portions but fantastic nonetheless. The drinks may cost 1-2 euros but come with food. This is what we did for dinner most of the time. Ordered 4 or 5 rounds and just ate dinner like that. We also would kind of bar hop to try as many different tapas as possible. Then after dinner, if you’re interested, you can continue to drink a little bit until it is time to go out “clubbing” or bar hoping, whichever you prefer. Personally, I enjoy a good “discotecha” or club with loud dance music. Some of these clubs don’t open until 3 AM and almost all of them are open until 6 AM!!! This makes for some crazy long and wild nights.  There’s a little taste for how the Spanish culture’s days are structured.

But back to the first night. So we went out and with Juan’s help, had no problem getting some dinner and tapas. We actually all kind of clicked as a group. There was really no awkward time between the 6 of us. Bottom line is I’m really excited about living with these guys for the next 4 months. It should be an awesome time.  Just for future references in later blogs, here’s a list of the guys and where they’re from:

Shane (Sean) My actual roommate – He’s from Santa Barbra, CA

Zach – Maine

Ben – Virginia

Jared – Colorado

Juan – Columbia (But goes to school in Maryland)

The next few days we were in Granada, one of our program directors, Daniel and his girlfriend Christina showed us all over town. If you check out the pictures on Facebook you will see the tour around Granada then the amazing tour of the Alhambra. I labeled all those pictures so you can get the description of the tours from the pictures.

Each day was about the same with regards to what we did for food. Kebab’s for lunch, tapas and drinks for dinner. Then we went out to the discotechas at night. So far it has been an amazing trip. I will definitely want to make it back to Granada someday and hopefully show the family and Mandie around. Today is our last day in Granada though and we will be traveling to Tangier, Morocco all day tomorrow. Taking the ferry out of Gibraltar to Morocco, which should be awesome. Oh, and tonight we are going to see one of the famous Flamenco dancing shows! That’s supposedly one of the best things to see in Spain. I’ll continue to post pictures and try to keep my blog updated.  Hopefully in Morocco it will be easier. I also learned a lot of information about what life will be like in Morocco, but I’ll share that in a later blog.  Hope you enjoyed the read and the pictures! Update again as soon as possible