¡España!: Finally in Granada

Greetings from my new home for the next 4 and half weeks! Granada is beautiful! When we arrived this afternoon, you could see the snow slowly melting away on the Sierra Nevadas at the top of the mountains. Our coordinator told us up until May 15th they had the slops opened so people could go ski. It is too bad I didn't come the beginning of the summer to get to experience my first ski adventure here in Spain! Even though there is still snow at the tops of the mountains, it is muy muy calor en la ciudad (very very hot in the city). I continue to try to use Spanish as much as I can now that I am with my host mom, Ellie, because she does not want us talking in English, which is really hard ha. I am almost positive Ellie speaks little to no English so this should be a great learning experience to continue to speak in Spanish. I now live in a flat or also called an apartment. I am sharing a room and it has two single beds, two little desks, two vanity dressers, and a nice balcony for us to go out on, there is a picture posted below. Once we got here, we unpacked all of our belongs, I cannot tell you how nice it is to not live out of a suitcase anymore. I was hardly able to find all the clothes I brought because they were all stuffed in my big duffle bag. Ellie does have air conditioning but she has control of the remote for our unit in our room so she turns it on when she wants to since it is very expensive. Right now we are in our room and I am pretty hot! It reminds me of when I worked at Camp Ozark last summer with no air conditioning in the cabins but I had two fans to keep me cool at night. Here, I have not seen a fan yet to buy, but if I find a clip on fan that can go on my bed I will probably have to invest in one.

After dinner with Ellie, I am pretty sure my group is planning to meet up and go out for ice cream and explore the city a little bit. When we arrived at our home today, some girls from Colorado State were still here, but leaving tonight to go back to the United States. She gave us a bunch of pointers and all about where to go. She said that people might go to a bar till midnight but then at 2:00 AM everyone will start to go to the discotecas. That is insane to be going that late, since I am usually heading home around 2:00 in the United States, but this trip is all about adapting to another culture and trying new things. Pretty tired tonight and still adjusting to being in my home, so my roommate and I probably will stay in tonight and get use to the city before we go out and about. Tomorrow we are meeting our coordinator at 8:40 in the morning to head to the campus for an orientation and classes from 9:00-2:00. We will do the same on Thursday, but on Friday we have to take a placement test to actually be placed in the classes we are suppose to be in. The test will be 3 hours long and there are 4 parts: multiple choice, writing, listening, and a 1-on-1 interview to see how well we communicate. Lets cross our fingers that I do well, I am pretty nervous! Then, we finally start classes on July 4th! Our group is already planning on finding an American bar to celebrate independence day ha! Will keep my readers updated as the days go by, I am pretty excited for tomorrow, after classes are over we come back to our homes and have lunch and ask our families to pack us a picnic dinner and meeting with our group at 6:30 to tour downtown Granada. Then we get to go watch a Flamingo Dance! I am so glad I will get to that! Enjoy the pictures!