Finally, in granada :)

Well right now I am currently in Granada, Spain, which will be my home for the next 4 months! I cannot even begin to describe what I am feeling right now, but I guess ill give it a whirl ;) I am: exhausted, thrilled, energetic, tired, restless, overwhelmed, nervous, hungry, anxious, excited…. You get the idea. There are just so many things going on right now its really hard to process it all! First off, I’ll go back to when we were in Barcelona. It was crazy to be in an airport that was actually in Spain, but we weren’t at our destination yet. It was BEAUTIFUL from what we could see. The airport was once again huge… but we somehow found our way around! This was the first time where we started to hit the realization that we were in another country and felt like a minority! Everyone around us was speaking in Spanish… on the over-coms, everywhere. We really realized we were “outsiders” when we were standing in line about to board our flight. We were all excited because they had already moved us to a different gate, so now things were going to be fine and we were getting on the plane. Then, at that moment, the lady over the speakers proceeded to ramble off something very long and fast in Spanish that I did not catch onto. EVERYONE in the line, except for me and my fellow students, threw their hands up in the air, sighed, moaned, said “Que lastima..” You name it. We followed them back to the benches and it was THEN that we figured out we had a one hour delay do to “technical difficulties on the plane.” Haha. It was so weird to feel like an outsider, and legitimately have NO clue what was going on. It was actually exciting to me! I’m glad that I could look at it as an adventure, rather than some stressful event. J In the end, we got on the plane to Barcelona and I passed out within take-off. I then woke up to the landing on the strip! I felt like someone had drugged me because I was so out of it! Our flight was only an hour, but I think that hour pour nap was REALLY good for me. Once we left baggage claim we hitched a bus, and made our way into downtown Granada. I really can’t even tell you how excited I was. I was grinning from ear to ear, and literally bouncing in my seat, pointing at beautiful buildings along the road. At the same time, I was snapping some pictures through the bus window- so they’re not GREAT quality, but it gives you an idea of what a bit of the architecture is like! Our bus dropped us off at a bus stop, and we then had to find our way to our hotel. No map. Nothing. It was fun having to ask people for directions. It challenged us to try to use our Spanish! The only downside was that we had ALL of our luggage, dragging it along rocky roads, and up hills. I definitely got my work out in for the week! Haha. We made it to our hotel, and I got on the internet right away. I then showered up, and went out for “tapas” with friends from Central. Tapas apparently started when men would be sitting at a bar and flys would be dropping in their beer glasses. The bar tender started giving them pieces of bread to put over their glasses to solve the problem. The men would take a bit out of the bread, take a drink, then put the bread back on top of the glass. It became very popular, and to this day you can go places and order a “tapa” which is an alcoholic drink with a food item on the side! SO good, and what a deal! I tried a ‘Sangria” which was VERY good. Almost too good! I also had some bread with butter and steak. So so good. Now its time to FINALLY sleep. Night!