I love Granada!

Hola!

I spent a wonderful weekend in Granada, enjoying the best weather yet!

On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I hung out with friends, took walks around the city, went shopping, and spent as much time as possible in the sun. I went out for tapas and to a few bars at night. I also spent time with Maria during lunch and helped her with her English homework. I'm very intrigued by her English workbooks-- some of the phrases it teaches are so awkward! Helping her makes me realize how confusing English is and I really give her credit for trying to learn it.

On Sunday, I ran by the river with two friends and when we reached the end of our path, we decided to cross over the highway to the mountains and hiked our way back. It was beautiful and so much fun figuring out how to get home! Then we had our senoras pack us lunches and we ate outside at a plaza where a lot of other people were eating. After lunch we went up to one of the most famous viewpoints in Granada (called San Nicholas) where we read our books and enjoyed the sun. There were tons of students hanging out there and some guys were performing circus-type acts so we all crowded around to watch them. It was a lot of fun! Three of our friends happened to be at the same place, so when the sun was about to set we walked with them to another viewpoint and had a beautiful view of the sunset. On our way home, we stopped at our favorite tapas bar (the boys had never been there but they loved it) and had two tapas before returning home for dinner. It was a great day!

During my first few days in Granada, our program director took us on a tour of the city and showed us important places we would need to know during our time here. One of the places he took us was a wine/oil shop really close to our school. He introduced us to the owner, Francisco, who was so friendly and told us that if we ever wanted to come back for a wine/oil tasting, he would be happy to host us. So, last night 6 of my friends and I went to Francisco's store and spent 2 1/2 hours there as he served us more food than any of us have ever eaten in one sitting (for only 10 euro per person)! We sampled 4 types of olive oils (my favorite was the one from Granada), 3 types of wine, bread, olive, tomato, and liver pastes, 3 types of cheese, ham, sausage, sardines in lemon olive oil (I actually liked them). It was delicious! We were all so full and couldn't imagine eating more when he brought out 2 plates of dessert that we had to try. There were chocolate and caramel covered almonds, both white and milk chocolate with almonds, a pastry with chocolate in the middle and sugar drizzled on top, and two other pastries. It was a really cool experience to learn about the different specialties of Granada and Spain that we couldn't have gotten from any restaurant. I will definitely go back and visit Francisco and hopefully spend another night learning about Spanish cuisine at his store.

On Thursday night I'm leaving for a 10 day trip to Italy-- Milan, Venice, Florence, and Rome-- I'm so excited! I'm staying with two of my friends (Josh & Marc) in Florence and am excited to see Becky, Lauren, and Dre while I'm in Rome (and celebrate Lauren's 21st with her!). When I get back, my mom is meeting me in Madrid and flying back to Granada with me. It will be wonderful to see her and spend time with her in Granada and then we'll go to Madrid and Toledo the following weekend. I can't wait!

I hope you are all doing well & I love hearing from you :)