España...Round Three!

Hello Family and Friends!

Well, where to begin? As many of you already know, I'm here in Granada, Spain for the year as a Language and Culture Assistant in a local Elementary school. These past two weeks have been a whirlwind, so I will do my best to try to remember everything that has gone on. I would have started writing this blog sooner, but since I am a rookie blogger, it's taken me a while to figure out how to get it up and running! :) Right now I'm sitting at one of my favorite cafés in Granada (Café Pícaro, close to the Centro de Lenguas Modernas where I studied two years ago) sipping on a café con leche and figured it would be a good place to update you all.

The flight to Spain was long but went very smoothly...no lost bags, which is huge when pretty much everything you're going to need for the next year is in two suitcases, a carry-on and purse! I first flew into Amsterdam from Seattle, then to Madrid, and finally landed in Granada about 22 hours after leaving home. I had decided to get to Granada the weekend before my teaching program's orientation in Sevilla so that I could get used to the time and start practicing my Spanish after a five month hiatus. 

Luckily, my host family that I lived with two years ago offered to let me stay with them for the weekend. It was so much fun to see them. When I got to their piso (apartment) Conchi my host mom was the only one there but it was like I had never left. We sat down at the kitchen table and caught up on everything that's been going on and then my host sister Rocio came back and we chatted for a while. It was so great. Later that night Rocio told me that she was going out for tapas (great in Granada -- tapas are little snacks/appetizers that come free when you order a drink) and invited me along. At about 2 am (an early night in Spain) I called it quits and headed back to Conchi's house since I hadn't slept at all on the plane, while Rocio and her friends went on to the next bar. 


The next night I joined up with them again. It happened to be one of Rocio's friends birthday and he took us to one of his favorite restaurants to celebrate. He grew up in the Albaycin neighborhood of Granada (it is the oldest neighborhood in the city and is on the other side of the valley from the Alhambra) and knew of a quiet little place with an amazing view of the Alhambra. We got there right as the sun was setting and were in awe of this amazing fortress on the hill across from where were sitting. 



Then the weekend was over and it was time to head to Sevilla for five days to meet a some of the other CIEE Teach in Spain participants. The first night at the hotel, CIEE had a welcome cocktail party for us with lots of tapas and good wine...my kind of night! The next day we started our orientation and took classes throughout the week about how to look for an apartment once we got to our cities, buy a cell phone,  what our role as Language and Culture Assistants would be, how to apply for our temporary residency cards, etc. They were long days but were filled with a lot of really helpful info. Then we spent our nights out in Sevilla and getting to know everyone in a group. I met some really great people, had a lot of fun, and am excited to start visiting everyone in their different cities!


Friday morning all of us Language and Culture Assistants left for our different cities throughout the southern region of Spain. There were three of us headed towards Granada on the train. My friend Kelly was supposed to get off two stops before we reached Granada but we had a little change of plans. Keep in mind that all of us CIEE people on the train were lugging around at least two 40-50 lb suitcases plus carry-ons and purses, so it took us a while to gather all of our stuff. As the train pulled up to Kelly's town we all got up to help her unload her things when the train started moving after only a brief pause at the station. So, we moved onto plan B and Kelly stayed in Granada for a night before going back to her town the next morning.  


CIEE was supposed to put us up in a hotel for five days while we looked for apartments in our placement cities. It turned out that my roommate for the five days in Granada already had an apartment, so that meant there was an extra bed for Kelly to spend the night. I was really glad to have her there because it turned out the hotel that CIEE had us in was, let's just say, not the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in. It was a small place that had an elevator that stopped in between the floors. So we had to lug our bags up half a flight of stairs and then back down another again once we got to our floor. It was 90 some odd degrees outside (and inside the room) in Granada that week as well and the fan in the room barely worked. But Kelly and I laughed it off and went out for a walk around Granada and spent the night getting tapas and hanging out at the Mirador that looks across to the Alhambra. However, later that night I stopped finding things in the hotel funny when I found a bug in my bed and more in the bathroom the next morning. Yuck!


Once again, I am lucky to have my host family here in Granada and Conchi told me I could stay with them while I looked for an apartment. So after Kelly left for her town I moved back into Conchi's temporarily. Rocio helped me find some good websites to look for apartments and told me what neighborhoods were good places to live and which ones I should avoid. I spent all of Sunday calling people who were renting rooms and found out that most were "ocupados" - already rented. But after a few days of calling and going to see some pisos I finally found one that I really liked. I'm living in a neighborhood that is on the other side of the city from Conchi's house, but she told me it is a great place for tapas and is really close to the University of Granada's campus. My neighborhood is called "los pajaritos", literally the little birds neighborhood, because all of the streets are named after a different kind of bird. My piso is on Turtledove Street. It is a little further out from the city center than I wanted to be but the girls I am living with are really nice, and the apartment is in really good shape, so I took it. 


I started work at my school last Friday and love it! I am assisting in an Elementary school in a little pueblo just outside of the city of Granada. There are about 700 people who live in the town and only 70 students in the whole school. My biggest class has 11 students in it. It's muy chiquitillo, as they say here in Granada! I'm going to be in charge of the Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and other major holiday units as well as helping students with their pronunciation. Since the students learn "British" English, they think my American accent is pretty funny. All of the kids have been really fun and curious and are excited to be learning a new language. My first three days I have been working with the older students (7-12 year olds) and tomorrow I am going to be with the really little ones (3-6 years).

I think that about covers all of what has been going on here in Spain. I'm going to do my best to keep this blog up-to-date so that you don't have a mini novel like this one to read through each time you get on here! 


Hope you are all doing well back at home!

Hasta luego,


Megan