Blah, blah, more text…

Sorry I’ve been away for so long. As most of you know, I was traveling almost all of last month (Edinburgh, St. Andrews, London, and Canterbury to visit Lindsay Meline and Evan Burford, then a week of classes, then Dublin, Brussels, and Bruge with my friends Garren, Megan, and Alan for Christmas break, then Madrid, El Escorial, Granada, and Córdoba with Caitlin and Lindsey).  After all that fun, I’m happy to finally be back in Granada for a long period of time, relax a bit, and get back into the swing of school.  Of course, now we only have less than a month left until finals, so I’m busy busy busy reading, studying, reasearching, writing, etc. for my 2 finals and 2 massive Spanish research papers…the only things I’ll be graded on for this whole semester abroad! That’s a lot of weight on those few assignments. Anyway, once again, sorry for not keeping you all updated. I probably won’t get around to writing out long descriptions of my trips, but we’ll see what happens. Until, just thought I’d write a small update.  Now I’m gonna go eat some lunch then head off to study with some friends in a cafe.  And, in case you didn’t catch it in Facebook or in an email, I’ll be flying back to San Francisco via Granada–>Madrid–>Chicago–> SF on March 7th! Can’t wait to see you all!

The Weary Traveler/Sometime Student,

Clare

Now for today. It’s Monday, and tonight we have a dinner organized by our program for Thanksgiving (since, of course, it’s not celebrated here, and all of us Americans miss it!). So, we’re going to a hotel nearby at 9, and I think there will be traditional Thanksgiving food in the form of tapas, but I’m not sure. I’ve heard rumors of pumpkin pie. Either way, it’s sure to be a lot of fun, since I haven’t seen some of the people in the program for the past 2 months that ILP has been over. Then Thursday, we’re planning another feast for the REAL Thanksgiving Day. It’s all making for a very exciting week.

I think that’s all for now. I just bought tickets for Dublin and Brussels for winter break before Cait comes to visit, so I’m in the process of finding places to sleep and figuring out getting back to Spain. Pictures of the Thanksgiving feast will hopefully be up soon. Then on to planning various Christmas parties (Granada Secret Santa and a Snowflake Making/Cookie Baking Party are in the works). Miss you all and hope you’re doing well!

Once again, I’m slacking on this whole blog thing. SORRY! So here goes…

I went to MADRID awhile back, I can’t even remember exactly when now, so this part of the post will be short.  We took the long bus ride up and met our friend, Ashley, from the Cádiz program up there.  We stayed at her apartment for the duration of our stay.  She lives in an awesome location right outside of Plaza de España on a little street filled with ethnic restaurants (while we were there our dinners consisted of Mexican food (twice) and Thai food, 2 types of cuisine that are hard, if not impossible, to find in Granada.  The first day, we took a short bus ride to Toledo and spent the day wandering around there.  The cathedral in Toledo was ENORMOUS, and it was really cool, because all the side galleries and little nooks and crannies were open to the public so there was lots to see and tons to explore. The next day, we ran around Madrid all day, trying to cram everything possible in.  We went to Rastro, a gigantic open air market that stretches for something like 10 blocks of booths filled with shirts, bags, shoes, sunglasses, antiques, old books, you name it! Then we walked to Plaza Mayor, took a few pictures, and then headed to the Royal Palace, which unfortunately was closed for the day because of some national holiday (the reason we had a long weekend). Theeeeen, we went to El Retiro, a huge park in the city with a paddle boat pond and some pretty impressive statues.  Connected, or at least right around the corner, was the Prado, and since the museum is free on Sundays, a couple of us decided to wait in the line and go in. First, though, we tried to go to the other big museum, the Reina Sofia, that has all the more modern art like Van Gogh’s and Picasso’s famous “Guernica,” but unfortunately, like the Royal Palace, it was closed too. Drat! So we went back to the Prado, waited in line for a very short amount of time, and entered. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many famous paintings in one place (and in such a short amount of time) before (or at least not since the Louvre). It was really exciting to see all the Spanish paintings that I had read and learned about so many times in person. As usual, we spent far too much time looking at the Medieval paintings (Jesus after Jesus after Jesus…) and ran out of time to see some of the other parts of the museum. However, I did get to see all of Goya’s “Black Paintings,” painted on the walls of his house at the end of his life after he went blind, and a bunch of Velasquez’s work, including his masterpiece, “Las Meninas.” It was all very cool, but I wish I had had more time. Anyway, after all this, we got dinner, then ran (Literally. We were late.) to a movie theater to see Inglorious Bastards (“Malditos Bastardos”) in English!  For those of you who don’t know, it was a huge deal for us to see a movie in English, because all the movies are dubbed in Spain, UNLESS you’re in a big city like Madrid or Barcelona.  It was pretty good, but not the best pick as a break from Spanish since the movie is in English, French, and German, so we kept having to switch between reading Spanish subtitles and listening to English. Anyway, that was pretty much our trip to Madrid. It was a ton of fun, but there’s still so much to see, so I can’t wait to go back (which may actually be this weekend, because I have a field trip there with my Prehispanic Art class)!

Neeext, we took a few weekends off before I decided to travel to BARCELONA for Halloween weekend to visit and stay with some friends (again from the Cádiz program). This time I didn’t have any friends traveling with me, just me and my bag.  I flew into the airport in Girona (Ryanair’s airport closest to Barcelona), which apparently is an 1 and 15 minute bus ride away from Barcelona itself…Sheesh! But, the bus stop was literally around the corner from my friend’s apartment, so it was actually perfect. My friend, Tatiana, met me at the station and then we took the Metro to Plaza Catalunya and Las Ramblas.  She, unfortunately, had class, so she left me there to entertain myself for a few hours.  This, of course, was very easy to do. Just in that little area, I walked all the way down Las Ramblas and enjoyed all the street performers and booths full of birds, baby bunny rabbits, souvenirs, etc, explored the huge open air market, La Boqueria, saw the port and statue of Christopher Columbus, then turned around and explored the old Gothic neighborhood complete with a soaring cathedral, Roman ruins, old city walls, Jewish quarter, and shops galore! I had a lot of fun just wandering around and doing whatever I wanted.  Then Tatiana and I met back up and headed back to her apartment to rest. She lives with 3 Spanish guys, all of whom were very nice and happy to have me stay. 2 of them were leaving for the weekend, so one of them offered to let me use his bed while i was staying there…very nice. That night, we baked brownies from scratch (there are definitely no boxed cake or brownie mixes here), went to the University of Barcelona to do a quick “intercambio” (talking in English and Spanish for a few hours) with some Spanish students and then watched a movie with another roommate, Kilian. The next day, we went to Parc Güell, the huge “Gaudi Park” to the North of the city where lots of “Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona” was filmed. It was amazing! So many Gaudi sculptures, houses, caves, benches, and walkways all in one place with an awesome view of the entire city (although it was covered in haze…like my other home away from home, LA!). The weather was gorgeous, so Tatiana and I stayed awhile to sit and enjoy the breeze.  Later we met up with another friend from Cádiz, Kate, who also had friends visiting and was showing them around the city.  Together, we went to the Sagrada Familia, but didn’t go in because it was too late.  Still, it was  breathtaking to walk up out of the dark of the Metro station to see the huge elaborate facade of the Sagrada Familia towering over you. We walked around the cathedral to examine all of its sides and see the differences between Gaudi’s work and the more modern additions before heading back to Tatiana’s.  That night, we baked special Catalan cookies that are made for All Saint’s Day with her roommate Kilian and his friend.  Made from potatoes, flour, sugar, and lemon zest and topped with almonds, coconut, or pine nuts, they were delicious, but a little strange at first.  Then we went to hang out with Kate and her friends for the rest of the night. I think I’m getting my days a little mixed up, but the next day was Halloween, so Tatiana and I bought some cheap fairy wings that came with a wand and antennae from one of the Chinese stores (like a Dollar Tree pretty much) and headed to an Irish pub that was throwing a Halloween party. Pretty much everyone there was American, and I was surprised to see that there was almost no one dressed up out on the streets of Barcelona. I had expected Halloween to be more happening in Barcelona than in Granada, but judging by the pictures from Halloween in Granada, Granada was the best place to be because of the enormous student population. Oh well, we had a lot of fun in Barcelona anyway. The next day, the day of my departure, we woke up early and went to Mass at the Sagrada Familia, partially to see the inside for free and just to experience the whole thing. Then I hopped on a bus back to Girona and flew back to Granada.  But, the craziness didn’t end there.

I got back to my apartment around 11pm to hear some very strange noises: mostly feedback, whistling, and other strange electrical noises. As I walked up the stairs to my apartment, the noise got louder and louder, and I kept saying to myself, “That’d better not be coming from my apartment,” and sure enough, it was.  When I opened the door, literally just back from the airport, still with my bag in hand, there was a guy crouched on the living room floor with a self-invented musical instrument made of a broken fan, plastic trash bags, and tape hooked up to an amp.  Somehow, he was making all that racket with this strange thing, and to top it off there were about 20 Spaniards, friends of my roommate Raul, watching the “concert” from my living room. I was a little surprised, slightly peeved ’cause I was pretty tired, but also intrigued and incredulous at the whole scene.  One of Raul’s friends asked me (while I was cooking the last box of Kraft mac ‘n cheese in my slippers, because I was sooo hungry from the trip) if I knew anything about Raul’s proposed “Living Room Concert Series,” and I of course, said “Nope.” The friend seemed a little surprised, but was very friendly and offered me a glass of wine and a seat on the couch to watch the show. Luckily, I wasn’t the only one who thought this whole thing was a little weird, because the Spaniards kept making comments like “Oh, is this supposed to be a new song? I thought we were still on the same one!” The show eventually ended, leaving us with a very dirty and trash-filled living room, but not before everyone started wrapping themselves in a role of black plastic.  It was a very strange night, fun, but exhausting, and that is where my Barcelona trip ended.

Then, this weekend on Friday morning, I left on a bus to Sevilla with my History of Ancient Spain class to see an exhibit at the Archaeological museum there. We drove about 4 hours to get there, spent an hour and a half at the museum, then had a good 3 hours to wander the city.  It was a lot of fun. We walked though one of the many huge parks in Sevilla called Maria Luisa, then came upon the enormous and gorgeous Plaza de España (many Spanish cities have one of these) with tower, colonnades, and row after row of tiled tributes to each province in Spain (we of course took pictures with those of Granada and Cádiz).  Then we wandered some more and ended up in the city center that reminded me of a cleaner Granada…very typically Spanish with whitewashed buildings, flowers, flamenco music, and Moorish influences.  I especially liked all the parks and tree lined streets.  We saw the famous cathedral and the Alcazar (only the outside) before having to head back to the bus (and taking a quick stop at a Starbucks. “Oh my God, it looks just like home!). We hopped on the bus and drove another 4 hours back to Granada. It was a long trip for not very much time in the city, but still a lot of fun.  I really loved Sevilla and can’t wait to go back to see more of it.

I almost forgot! The weekend before Sevilla, my friends Lindsay Meline and Evan Burford from high school came to visit me. Both are studying in the UK, Lindsay at St. Andrews in Scotland and Evan for a quarter in Canterbury, so they just hopped down here for the weekend. The first night we went tapa-hopping around the newer, student-oriented part of the city.  Then the next morning, we got up early to eat churros and chocolate for breakfast (very nutritious!) before going out to explore the city. We went to the cathedral, the old Moorish silk market (that is now just stall after stall of Moroccan souvenir shops), a few of the main plazas, and up to the Albaicin, the old Muslim neighborhood.  From there, we went to the most famous viewpoint of the Alhambra and then wandered our way back down the narrow winding streets back to the city center for a cup of Morroccan tea on the street lined with tea shops.  That night, we cooked dinner at my apartment before going out for a few hours.  Then, on Sunday, we toured the Alhambra, the main attraction of Granada, ate some Spanish tortilla sandwiches, and then took some time off to do some homework before Lindsay and Evan had to leave. They caught a bus out of Granada to Madrid at 1:30am and then spent the entire next day in Madrid before their flight back to London.  It was a very short but sweet trip. It was great so see some people from home, even if it was only for a few days, and it made me realize that there isn’t a ton of stuff to do in Granada (so when any of you visit, you don’t need more than 3 days here, probably, hahaha).

Up next, I’m going to visit Lindsay and Evan in Scotland and England from December 3rd to December 9th. Then I have a couple of weeks of class, then winter break starts, so I’m hoping to travel to Dublin and then Brussels with a group of friends before coming back to Spain to meet Caitlin and Lindsey in Madrid for the remainder of the break!!! I’m super excited and can’t wait to see them.

I think that’s all for now. I have to go do some reading for class and then we’re having a movie/dinner night tonight to watch “Once,” because I bought tickets earlier this week to see the couple from the movie in concert in Madrid at the end of February with 2 friends.  Now, let’s see if I can add some pictures to this post. Hmmm… Love you all and miss you always! Please comment if you feel like it. I really enjoy reading them!

Day 5: Venice, Part 1

We didn’t do much the first day, because we slept in and got to Venice in the late afternoon, because the bus ticket offices closed for the afternoon (I guess they have siesta in Italy too).  We once again explored the city with no real game plan, which was especially fun in Venice because of all the tiny canals, bridges, plazas, and narrow streets.  There was always something cool to see, and it felt like a giant playground.  We shopped around a few of the many handmade mask shops, ogled at the gondolas (Garren had wanted to ride one the whole trip, but then we discovered that they cost something like 80 euros during the cheapest day hours…so much for that plan), and watched a wedding while eating a late afternoon snack on some plaza steps.

Day 6: Venice, Part 2

The next day, we got up earlier and had breakfast with Silvia was finally free from work. YAY! She agreed to be our tour guide for the day, which basically meant the day was going to be that much more awesome.  She showed us around the less touristy parts, including the old Jewish ghetto.  We took a 50 cent gondola ride across the Grand Canal (the only gondola we could afford, but still so cool!), visited the Rialto Bridge, and finally walked to Piazza San Marco.  The plaza was so cool! It reminded me of the new James Bond movie, “Casino Royale,” because this is where the last chase scene takes place, and besides, it was absolutely gorgeous! The basilica was so elaborate and completely unlike anything else I had ever seen.  There were high clock towers, the square Renaissance plaza full of very friendly pigeons, and finally a view of the water and more Venetian islands in the distance speckled with yachts and sailboats.  I kept trying to convince myself that I really was in Venice, but it just felt too much like a dream. We then went to a few free art galleries in the area, shopped and purchased our own Carnaval masks, and bought more gelato before heading back to Gianluca’s.  Then that night, we returned to Venice.  Silvia and Gianluca has arranged for us to go bar hopping with a group of their friends, so then we got to explore Venice at night with some natives. So cool! We got back to the apartment around 2 then had to wake up at 4 to catch our train to Milan at 5….fuuuuun, but totally worth it.

Day 7: Milan and HOME

This part isn’t interesting. It was just exhausting. Needless to say, we made it back to Granada after a very long day.  We had packed 6 cities into our short trip to Italy, seen some old friends and made others, and had an absolutely amazing time. I’m already thinking about my next trip to Italy and spending more time looking at some of the museums (Ufizi, anyone?) and other attractions that were either too expensive or that we just didn’t have enough time for. Still, the trip was a great introduction to Italy.  Thanks so much to Silvia and Gianluca for everything!

And I’ll finish it off with some pictures from Garren and Vanessa’s Facebooks of course…And I apparently uploaded the same pictures twice, so sorry about that

Coming soon: MADRID!

Day 1: Arrival in Bologna

Our first day, Garren, Vanessa, and I flew form Granada to Bologna.  Garren and I got to see up close and personal just how afraid of flying Vanessa is, especially while flying in high style on Ryanair. Anyway, we arrived in Bologna to a warm and very welcoming greeting by Silvia, our Italian friend who lived with my family for several months a few years ago.  She drove us into the city, and we walked around to find a place to eat dinner. We had a delicious dinner of pizza (I had artichoke pizza of course), and then decided to explore Bologna by night. Garren, Vanessa, and I were all amazed at how different the atmosphere and style of architecture was after a month or more in Spain, not to mention the very Moorish-flavored Granada.  In Bologna everything was so medieval: all high thin towers and walls.  Then we all put the pieces together and realized that this, of course, made sense, because Granada was controlled by Muslims until they were expelled in 1492, meaning that it had missed the high points of Gothic/medieval architecture and was creeping in on Renaissance times.  And for that reason, all the oldest buildings in Granada are Moorish.  Anyway, we left Bologna feeling exhausted but very satisfied with our first taste of Italy and arrived at Silvia’s tiny one-room apartment in Parma, our headquarters for the next few days.

Day 2:Parma

We had gotten into Parma so late the night before that we decided to just stay and explore the city the next day instead of trying to catch a bus somewhere else, and it was a fabulous choice! Parma, as Silvia informed us, is the home of many delicious Italian foods inlcuding Parmesan cheese and prociutto, so you can bet that we ate a lot of those things. Garren, Vanessa, and I woke up and pretty much just wandered the town aimlessly all day, without a map and no information about the city.  Still, we had a great time.  Around every corner, we found some new beautiful site: an archaeology museum, an enormous park, and finally, and probably best of all, a beautiful cathedral whose interior was painted beautifully from top to bottom. After seeing this church (which was free, might I add for the rest of Italy’s tourist stops), all the other Italian cathedrals we went inside seemed bland and a bit boring on the inside.  We ate lunch in the park and got goofy with a ball of red wax from our cheese, then bought Kinder Surprise eggs for desert (Kinder Sorpresa!) We eventually went back to the apartment to find Silvia cooking a beautiful meal for us. What an awesome hostess! We ate, of course, prociutto, parmesan cheese, proseco, and lasagna homemade by Silvia’s mother! This was definitely the highlight for me, because it tasted just like my dad’s, which, if anyone has tasted it, is DIVINE! We all ate a ton and then got some much needed sleep before our next adventure…

Day 3: Firenze/Florence

We woke up early to catch a 2-hour train to Florence at 8am, but arrived safe and sound.  Once again, we were struck by how different this city looked from all the others we’d been to. While Bologna seemed by medieval, and Parma very colorful and small-towny, Florence was definitely the epitome of the Renaissance.  Most of the big buildings were white marble decorated with green and red squares and designs.  Not wanting to spend too much, we skipped over the first church we saw, grabbed a map at a nearby hotel (all the maps we found throughout the tourism offices in Italy cost money…LAME!), and headed on a route that we thought would hit all the big sights. We walked through a really fun and cool market place full of vendors selling cashmere scarves in every color imaginable, leather goods, soccer jerseys, and other interesting odds and ends. Then we turned a corned, and I think we all gasped.  There in front of us was the Duomo, the massive, beautiful, intricately designed Duomo.  We headed over, waited in line, and went in.  I admit that I was a little underwhelmed by the inside of the Duomo after seeing the elaborate design of the outside, but then again I guess that’s more the Renaissance way.  Somehow though, it paled in comparison to the cathedral we’d seen in Parma the day before.  Ee descended some stairs to the remains of the original church that the cathedral had been built on top of. It was really cool. There were old mosaics on the floor, the tomb of one of the Medici, and several other tombs. I looked through a crack in the wall once to find 2 or 3 skulls in boxes looking back at me–a little creepy, but still pretty cool. From there, we got some sandwiches for lunch, then hit up the outside of the Ufizi.  Unfortunately, we hadn’t really planned our trip in advance, so we couldn’t get tickets and the line outside was insane. Instead, we walked around and looked at all the amazing statues: Cosmo di Medici, Poseidon, and of course the lifesize replica of the David.  This is apparently where the original David stood, but it has sicne been moved into a museum for protection.  Even though it wasn’t THE David, it was pretty close, and it was really fun to see it in the original location with all the other statues. Next, we crossed the Ponte Vecchio, ate some delicious rasberry and dark chocolate gelato, and headed over to the viewpoint above the city on the other side of the river.  We, of course, took the wrong street and ended up headed away from where we wanted to be on a street that didn’t have any turnoffs. So, we turned around, after heading up hill for awhile, and headed in the other direction.  By this time, we were all pretty hot and tired, but still excited to be in Italy, so, as happened a lot during this trip, we started to sing.  I think Vanessa is making a playlist of songs that we sang throughout the trip, but it was a very interesting, and horribly, mix, and I’m sure all the Italians nearby REALLY enjoyed it. Anyway, we made it down the hill, then had to head up another enormous hill full of stairs before finally reaching the view point.  It was totally worth it though. We could see the entire city and all the sites we had just visited. We headed back down the hill, crossed back over the river, and each of us bought a Florentine cashmere scarf before hopping on the bus home to Parma.

Day 4: Cinque Terre / Verona

Woo, I’m getting tired just writing all of this. OK, so the next day we woke up even earlier to catch another train, this time to Cinque Terre, the 5 small towns perched on cliffs above the Mediterranean that are all linked by a trail that can be hiked in one day.  We, as usual, got off the train, took the wrong road, ended up going in the wrong direction, and then had to turn around, but again as usual, we were all in good spirits and excited for the adventure.  We finally got going the right way, leaving from town 1, Riomaggiore.  The town itself was cute and very picturesque: lots of buildings in shades of yellows, peach, pink, and orange, highlighted by the crystal clear turquoise of the Mediterranean.  We ended up in town 2, Manarola, faster than we expected, and we all said to ourselves, “Shoot, if it’s all this easy, we’ll be in town 5 by lunch! Piece of cake!” My, how were were wrong.  The hike to the next town took about an hour, but we had to climb 382 stairs at the end to reach the next town.  Still, the hike was absolutely gorgeous.  The towns looked like mosaics or abstract paintings as we walked away from them, and the water looked sooooooo inviting, but alas, none of us had brought a swimsuit. We made it to town 3, Corniglia, and rewarded ourselves with an ice cold lemon granita (and 5 figs, in Vanessa’s case). Yuuuuum.

At this point I will digress a minute to describe our poor choice of clothing and the few trials and tribulations we had to deal with.  Thinking that the weather in Italy would be similar to that of Granada and dealing with the luggage restrictions of Ryanair, we all only packed jeans (because jeans are good for everything, right?) and none of us had tennis shoes.  So, on this hike, we were all wearing jeans and improper footwear.  I was wearing my Vans, but poor Vanessa made the bad choice of wearing sandals, so she spent the day feeling like she was walking barefoot over jagged rocks…not so good for the feet.  And the weather turned out to be much hotter in Cinque Terre than the rest of Italy, so we were all pretty sweaty in our jeans, walking up 300+ stairs, etc.  Each of us experienced a little Cinque Terre “fun:” Garren got some cactus spines stuck in his finger, I got stung by a bee while taking a rest in the shade, and Vanessa, as I already mentioned, was pretty much walking barefooted. But enough complaints!

From Corniglia, we walked another hour and a half to town 4 Vernazza.  This was the hardest  by far, because by this point, we were starving, hungry, tired, bee-stung, etc, but really, none of that bothered me much because the hike was just so beautiful. It’s hard to be grumpy when you’re doing something so awesome with such awesome people, exploring one of the most gorgeous places I have ever seen in my life.  We had some cheap pizza for lunch, and reluctantly decided that we shouldn’t try to hike to the final town, a hike of 2 hours according to the guide, because we had to catch a train back to Parma and we didn’t want to cut it too close.  We left  feeling very accomplished, thoroughly exhausted, and already planning our next trip to Cinque Terre, complete with shorts, bathing suits, and tennis shoes.

When we got back to Parma, we quickly packed, got in Silvia’s car and headed to Venice. On the way, we stopped for dinner in Verona. Verona reminded me of Bologna, very medieval with it’s towers, but it really stood out because of it’s enormous and well-preserved Roman coliseum, which was hosting a concert the night we were there, and its connection to Shakespeare.  Verona is, of course, the home of Romeo and Juliet, and apparently even though Juliet was not a real person, she has a house in Verona.  The house was closed when we got there, but the walls were covered in love poems and letters, and there was a statue of Juliet and a replica of the famous balcony form Shakespeare’s play.  All in all, it was a really interesting city, and a worthwhile stop.  Next time, I’ll have to spend more time there. After Verona, we finished our journey and made it to the apartment of Silvia’s boyfriend, Gianluca, about 40 minutes outside Venice, our new home!

And I’m just gonna go ahead and publish this bit now, before heading into Venice… And while I’m at it, maybe I’ll add some pictures from this part of the trip from Garren and Vanessa’s Facebook pages. My pictures are already up on Facebook, so check them out there!

My friends from the program and I might go shopping for stuff for our apartments later, but it turns out I might not need much, since Raul already had blankets! So basically for the next few days, I’ll just be relaxing in Granada, getting ready for school to start, fixing up my room, and preparing for our trip tooooo….

ITALY! Yes, my friends Vanessa (American and French-she can speak both fluently) and Garren (from UCLA) and I are flying to Bologna on Monday night to visit our good friends Silvia and Gianluca. I think we may spend a few days in Parma, travel around there (Silvia mentioned Cinqueterre and Florence), and then head over to Venice for the rest of the time. Then we leave on Sunday the 27th from Milan and fly back to Granada.

Classes start on Tuesday the 29th. I’m signed up for 6 classes, but we’re supposed to drop to so we have the normal amount. Right now I’m signed up for History of Andalucia in the Modern Age (not so modern…more like Renaissance), History of Rome, Precolumbian Art History, Archaeology of the Iberian Peninsula, and a couple of others that I can’t remember right now. They all sound interesting to me, so we’ll see how it goes. And I won’t have classes on Fridays (most Spanish students don’t), so that’ll be great…especially for more travelling! Hehe.

In other news, we saw a flamenco performance in our residencia the other day, and one of our professors mentioned that the guitar players gives classes, so after the performance, Garren and I told him we were interested. So, he said he’d give us a class together for an hour every Saturday, and he’d give us a discount since we’d be coming in as a pair! He also said he’d help me find a good guitar for a good price. I’d already been to a lot of really great shops and tried out a lot of guitars, but I’m no expert, so it’ll be nice to have him there to give me advice. I’ll let you know how it all turns out.

I think that’s pretty much all for now. I love and miss you all!