Three More Days

Just three more short days till I head home to the good ole U.S.A. In the meantime I have to study for and take 3 more finals and finish up my packing.

This past weekend I literally spent the whole weekend studying, I know its boring compared to what the rest of my weekends have been like these past 4 months, but it was necessary. On Friday morning I took my History of Art in Spain final and it went well. It was a lot easier than I thought it was. This morning I had my Introduction to Spanish Business final and it literally took me 15 minutes to complete. It was sooo easy! I wish more finals could be like that. :)

Tomorrow (Tuesday) I have my Grammar final and Wednesday I have my POE (Composition Class) and History of Spain finals. Bright and early on Thursday morning I will be heading to the Granada airport to head home! :)

Thank you to everyone who has read my blog over the last 4 months. I really appreciate it! I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it!

May 16, 2012

Well, the end is nearing. I currently have 8 days left in Spain before I head home. It is both sad and exciting for me at the same time. Sad because I am being separated from my new friends, leaving a wonderful city/country I have come to see as my second home, and I am also saying good-bye to a fantastic chapter in my life. I am happy because I am returning to my friends and family who I have not seen in almost 5 months. I am currently in the last week of classes. I have my Phonetics final tonight and my History of Art final on Friday. My other 4 finals will be next week. Unfortunately, I will probably have to spend most of the weekend studying. :( This is my life currently :) See you all in 8 days! Love, Roseanna

Mis Clases

I realized that I still have yet to write about my classes that I am taking here. I am taking five classes at the CLM (Center of Modern Languages) and three that are required by Central (these three are all taught by José). My five classes at the CLM are: History of Spain, Introduction to Spanish Business, POE (Production, Oral, and Writing…in Spanish “writing” is escribiendo, hence the “E”), Grammar, and History of Arte in Spain. My three classes with José are: Phonetics, Granada Seminar, and Tutorials. I will explain in the following paragraphs (briefly) what I am learning in each class.

History of Spain In History of Spain we have been learning about the history of Spain (who’d have thunk it??). We started off at the beginning learning about the earlier years (pre-historic periods, etc.) and have slowly moved our way forward. We are currently learning about the Spanish Civil War, which took place right before World War II, the circumstances leading up to the war, and Spain’s role in World War II. I am enjoying learning about this part in history because it is still incredibly relevant today due to the fact that Franco’s dictatorship did not end till the 70s.

Introduction the Spanish Business This class is both very boring and fun at the same time. It is boring because the professor assigns us exercises to work on during class, we do them in like 15 minutes, but in total he gives us about 30 minutes to do them, so we end up talking to each other for the rest of the time. This is the fun part. I enjoy talking with my classmates, especially my friend, Paul. It is also fun because the professor worked in England for a year or two and he knows how to speak English, even though he pretends that he doesn’t know in order to make us speak to him in Spanish. He says phrases like, “The party is over”, and “You’re fired” (mind you, they are all in a British accent) and in the context of class they are very funny. He uses “The party is over” when class is done for the day and “You’re fired” when someone says a wrong answer. Also, for some reason he thinks my name is Susana. Every time he says that I look at him and tell him that my name is not Susana and then he remembers that my name is Roseanna and calls me it. Weird….

In class we have learned about how to write a good resume, how interviews normally occur, INCOterms (International Commerce terms), and different type of positions in various businesses. It is all fairly interesting/easy, but overall I am glad I am taking the class because I am learning a lot of knew vocabulary about business.

POE This is my writing class and it is basically a joke. We don’t have a set curriculm for the class; it is basically up to the professor to decide what we do in the class. Each class in the CLM does something a little different. For my class the professor gives us different “temas” or themes, they are put together in a packet and we go over the material. We have done themes on traveling, emotions, friendships, our futures, etc. I always feel like the packets are chosen at random because I don’t see any structure to it. We have also had to write three essays, one about our “guiri” (foreign) experience; we had had to do two presentations as well. Also, in this class we enjoy getting our professor off topic and asking her questions about her life. It’s a great time waster. 

Grammar This class actually has structure to it. Obviously since it is a grammar class we learn about Spanish grammar. It has been very useful to me in improving my Spanish. The professor is also very good about making a lot of the exercises we do in class to practice fun and useful in helping us learn the material. We have had to do a few writing assignments for this class, but not many.

History of Art in Spain This is one of my harder classes because there is a lot of material to study for the tests. For the midterm and final he gives us a list of 24 pieces of artwork that we have to know information about. On the tests he then chooses 6 of the pieces from that list and we have to write about them. It is a pain in the butt to compile all the info into one place and study it, but once I have it down its ok.

Even though the class is harder material-wise I really enjoy the professor. His name is Salvador Gallego and on the first day of class he gave us a synapsis of his life, which none of the other professors did. He also tells us jokes almost every day in class or he sings opera music to us. He is a very good singer. Overall he makes the class enjoyable to go to. We also got to take three excursions during class to the Arab baths, the Cathedral, and the Royal Chapel.

Phonetics Phonetics is a class required by Central College for all students in the Language & Culture or Hispanic Studies programs. I am in the Language & Culture program. Like I said Phonetics is taught by José and basically we have been learning about Spanish phonetics, otherwise known as how to pronounce various words and sounds. It has been very helpful to me because I was not pronouncing everything correctly, but now I am doing a lot better, even though I am still not perfect at it.

Granada Seminar In this class we learn about different subjects each week; the subject always varies each week. This class is required by everyone in my program and it is used to teach us more about the Spanish culture. We have learned about a ton of different subjects like: bull-fighting, wine tasting, olive oil tasting, politics, tapas, types of fiestas, and many more. We learned about the subjects for bull-fighting, wine tasting, and olive oil tasting the class before we took an excursion to those things. Overall this class was very helpful to me to help me learn more about the culture in Spain.

Tutorials Tutorials is a class set up to be an extra help to us for what we are learning in our Grammar and POE classes. If we have any questions about what we are learning in those classes we can ask them in the Tutorials class. José is really good at re-explaining what we are learning in a way that we can understand more thouroughly. If we don’t have any questions we go over colloquial phrases, some of which a really fun to hear because of the way they translate into English.

YOLO: You Only Lagos Once

Friday May 4, 2012
We rode for 7 hours in the bus, but now I am in Portugal!! Yay! Right away after we got here we went down to the beach. I got to swim in the Atlantic Ocean! It was freezing! There was a large boulder/ice berg-sized rock in the ocean along the beach, and people were swimming out to it, climbing up, and jumping off, so naturally Shannon and I swam out, climbed out, and jumped off. It was sooo much fun! The rock was made out of coral and was really sharp and I ended up cutting up my hands, feet, and legs a bit, but it was worth it. We jumped about 20 feet into the water.

For supper I had a HUGE hamburger. It was so big I could barely grab it with my hands.

Saturday May 5, 2012
I went on the Sangria Sailboat today and they took us sailing for 2 hours. There was unlimited sangria, but it wasn't very strong. They also took us in smaller boats to see the grottos (rock formations). They were gorgeous! I really enjoyed the sangria sailboat.After that we went to the beach for the rest of the afternoon.

Before supper we went to the "end of the world". It is the most western point in Europe and thought to be the end of the world before Columbus discovered America. We watched the sunset there. I was breathtaking.

Sunday May 6, 2012

Today we hit the beach up again. We went to a beach about a half mile away from our hotel. It was a nice beach. You had to walk down about 200 stairs to get to the beach. Walking up the stairs was not incredibly enjoyable.I spent a few hours on the beach with my group of friends. We mostly layed on the beach, talked, and tanned the entire time. So relaxing!!

Towards lunchtime I left with Sabrina, Breann, and Elizabeth to walk into town to grab lunch and explore the city a bit. We got food from the grocery store to make a picnic lunch that we could eat on the pier by the ocean. It was fantastic! After lunch we wandered through some of the tourist shops till we headed back to the hotel. We had a 7 hour bus ride back to Granada and we didn´t get home till 2 am. Overall I am THRILLED I went! It was an amazing weekend!

Mom & Dad Visit Spain

Thursday April 26, 2012
Mom and Dad arrived today! I went to one class this morning and skipped the other in order to pick them up at the airport on time. There were lots of hugs and tears when we met at the airport (all for happiness of course).


We took a bus back into the city, checked into the hotel, and ate lunch at Cafe Futbol. Mom and I had pizza and dad had paella. After that we walked over to Carmen's apartment (my host mother) so everyone could meet. I think mom and dad enjoyed meeting and thanking the woman I have been living with. They also got to see my room and the rest of the apartment. While I was packing some stuff for the week mom and dad fell asleep in the desk chair and the bed respectively. They were a bit jet lagged. :)


We all needed a nap after the day's excitement, so we napped till supper. For supper we went out for tapas at Cafe Europa. They serve larger tapas there, so it is much more filling. We had mini hamburgers and baked potatoes for our tapas. Delicious! We also ended up running into my friend Genevieve (she is in my program) and her parents who were visiting also. It was nice to meet her parents. After that we went out for frozen yogurt (this may be my new addiction ;). ). We all got different flavors so we could try each others...


We headed back to the hotel for the night. We were all exhausted.


Friday April 27, 2012
We slept in this morning and went out for breakfast at Cafe Nevada. I think mom and dad were a little surprised at how small the breakfasts here are compared to the U.S., but we made it work. Mom and I had toast and dad had eggs with a croissant. Dad and I both had coffee, but the coffees are small in Spain and we both drank the cup in a couple swallows. :)


Our goal for the morning was to walk up the Albaycin so Mom and Dad could see the beautiful views of the city, the Alhambra, and the mountains. We took our time, stopping when we wanted, touring the Arab bath monument along the way. We made it to the top eventually and I think they loved the view!


We walked down to the Cathedral and we walked past a stand selling spices and dried fruit so we stopped for mom to look. She bought some curry powder and dried cherries. The cherries were delicious! I am also looking forward to when she uses the curry powder in her cooking. I showed mom and dad the front of the cathedral next and explained some about the art and the history of it, then we meandered through the tourist shops for a while till we were hungry for lunch.


We ate lunch, then went and toured the cathedral. I believe they were in a bit of awe at the magnitude and the intricacies of the artwork and sculptures in the Cathedral. We sat down while in the Cathedral for a bit just to enjoy the beauty of it and Mom was so tired that she shut her eyes for a few minutes and almost few asleep! I scolded her. ;) we decided after that we should leave and go have nap time at the hotel.


That night we went out to supper with my friends, Tesla, Breann, and Sabrina. We went to a Mexican restaurant and ended up staying there for 2.5 hours talking. It was a lot of fun. After that we went out for tapas at Cafe Futbol and ended up staying there for about an hour talking more. I think mom and dad enjoyed meeting and talking with my friends. :)


Today I began developing a bad cold, which means that I started to lose my voice. At supper whenever I talked my voice would crack and squeak. It sounded awful. I was a little worried I would lose my voice, and then we would all be in trouble because mom and dad don't speak Spanish. Thankfully my voice held out.


Saturday April 28, 2012
Today was cold and rainy. We slept in, ate breakfast in the room, then went out shopping for a few hours. We stayed out till lunch, then came back and rested for a few hours. Mom and I went out to walk around after our naps. I showed her a pretty church and we ended up walking into a wedding ceremony. It was cool to see part of a Spanish wedding ceremony, but we didn't stay long out of respect for the couple. We went to the same church for weekly mass later that night. Mom and dad couldn't understand a word, but that was ok. We grabbed pizza afterword and ate it in the hotel room.


Sunday April 29, 2012
We decided this morning rain or shine we were going to go visit another city in Spain. We chose Malaga, a city about an hour an a half south of Granada by bus along the Mediterranean coast.


We took a tour bus around the city. We were able to hop on and off as we wanted. It was nice and we were all glad we did it, especially since it rained for a good part of the day. We started off the day walking down by the piers where we saw a handful of cruise ships, many sailboats and yachts, and one HUGE yacht the size of a small cruise ship. It was very cool to see.


Next, we went down by the beach. Unfortunately the sand was wet and muddy so we decided not to walk in the sand so we wouldn't get dirtier than we already were. We ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant along the beach. During lunch it started raining cats and dogs so we took the tour bus for the rest of the day instead of walking around. We went up by the castle and saw an aerial view of the city, port, and ocean. It was gorgeous. We also travelled via bus through the older part of the city. I enjoyed seeing all the architecture on the buildings.


We hopped off the bus and saw the old Roman Theater, and a gorgeous rose garden. I was in heaven in the beautiful rose garden. There were so many different types of roses with so many different colors. My favorite was a flower called "Julio Iglesias" and it was a rose with swirls of white and magenta. Stunning!


We took the tour bus back to the bus station and then took another bus back to Granada. We relaxed and watched Au Pair on tv in Spanish for the rest of the night.


Monday April 30, 2012
We took another day trip to Salobrena today. Salobrena is a small city an hour bus-ride to the east of Granada on the Mediterranean coast. We arrived around 12pm and right away climbed a large hill to reach to castle where we witnessed fantastic views of the city, the ocean, beach, farmland, mountains, and surrounding countryside. I think mom and dad loved it.


We climbed down the hill to the beach where we ate lunch at a restaurant on the beach. It was fun to eat and enjoy a view of the ocean. After that mom wanted to put her feet in the ocean, so she and I took off our shoes and rolled up our pants and went in the cold water. Mom almost fell over at one point and dad was almost on the ground rolling around because he was laughing so hard. It was a great moment.


After the beach excitement we walked back to the bus station stopping at a few stores along the way. We returned to Granada, ate supper, and watched The Incredibles on tv in Spanish. It was soooo much fun to watch!

Tuesday May 1, 2012

Today is the beginning of May! I can’t believe it! This semester has gone sooo fast. I remember when it was January/February and I thought May would never come.

Today with Mom and Dad we had a pretty chill day. We slept in, ate another relaxing breakfast at Café Nevada and went to change my suitcase for my book bag at Carmen’s apartment (my host mom). I had to change bags because I have classes on Wednesday and I needed my books, and I needed another change of clothes as well. When we arrived to the apartment Carmen wasn’t there, but Amy was and the four of us ended up talking about a variety of subjects for about an hour. It was nice.

We ate lunch at a pizzeria, and then headed back to the hotel for a nap before the bull fight.

At 5:30 pm we had to meet my director and many other people from my program at the bull fighting stadium. We were going to a bull fight!! I was pretty excited to experience it. The bull fighting stadium is circular (similar to the Collesseum in Rome). It is shaped this way so there are no corners for the bull to hide in. The show began with a parade of sorts, bringing out all the people that are involved in producing the bull fight, this includes: the bull fighters, their helpers or decoys, two people on horseback that harpoon the bull during part of the show, and a few others. Once the parade concluded the show began.

The actual bull fight is divided into 3 parts. First, the bull is released and the helpers/decoys use brightly colored blanket-like material to wave and flash so the bull sees it and runs toward them. They then scamper behind wooden paneling in order to be safe from the bull’s horns. They do this for about 5 minutes in order to tire to bull.

The second part is when two men on horses enter the arena and the decoys uses their “blankets” to attract the bull near the horses in order for the men to harpoon the bull. They harpoon the bull in order to weaken it, so it is easier to kill in the end. The horses are covered with a thick material that almost looks like something similar to metal plates in order to protect it from the bull. Its eyes are also covered so the horse will not be spooked by the bull.

Finally in the third part is when the matador or bull-fighter appears in the arena. In this part he does the classic bull fighting where he is waving a red cape and the bull charges him. This is also the part of the show where people shout, “Ole”! Depending on the bull-fighter this part can be the best part fo the show or it can be incredibly boring; it all depends on how entertaining they are. At the end of the third part of the show the bull fighter takes a sword and stabs the bull between the shoulder blades right through the heart. This is the worst part of the show because you literally sit there and watch the poor animal die. Many a time the bull took almost a minute to die, but eventually blood would start pooring out its mouth and it would keel over, dead. One of the bulls was twitching and jerking as it died. I felt so sad for the poor animal that it was murdered for no reason.

As you might have already noticed through my writing we watched more than one bull fight during the show. We actually watched 6 in total. There were 6 bull fighters in the entire show, one for each bull. Each bull fight followed the same sequence of parts as I described above. A couple of the bull fighters were boring to watch because when they were in the area they would basically turn in a circle waving their red cape at the bull. Others would be more entertaining, running around the stadium with the bull chasing them, kneeling on the ground to bull fight, etc. One of the bull fighters was kneeling on the ground when the bull entered the arena and the bull charged him and started roughing him up a bit. The bull fighter was fine, but I was cheering for the bull at that moment because by this time it was the sixth bull and I was tired of watching the sensless killing of bulls.

Overall I am glad that I had the opportunity to experience the atmosphere and culture of a bull fight and to learn more about it and what goes on during it. Would I ever go to another bull fight given the chance? Probably not. I enjoyed every part of the bull fight except the senseless killing of the bull at the end. Why can’t they let the bull live? There is no sense in taking the animal’s life. For this reason and this reason only I probably would not attend another bull fight.

Wednesday May 2, 2012
Mom and dad left me this morning. :( I'm sad to see them leave, but happy that they came. I enjoyed their trip. We woke up at 5 am to make it to the airport by 8 am. We probably didn't need to wake up that early, but oh well. We made it and they are traveling home as I write this. I have classes today (I will probably miss my first, but ahh well...), and in 2 days I will be traveling to Lagos, Portugal for a weekend on the beach. I'm excited!

Thanks for reading! Sorry this was such a long post, but I did have a lot to tell. I will update my blog again soon!

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

April 22, 2012

Today is Sunday April 22^nd, otherwise known as my wonderful mother’s birthday! I cannot wait to wish her a Happy Birthday later this afternoon when I speak to her and my dad over Skype. It should be great!

I have had quite a busy weekend. Friday night I went to an olive oil tasting, which I wrote about already. Yesterday (Saturday), I hung around the house all day doing homework and just being a bum. At 7:30 pm last night I left the house with Amy and Tesla to meet up with Shannon and Malissa on Ronda. Once we met up with went to a bar to watch the Real Madrid-F.C. Barcelona futbol game. We went to a tapas bar and have a few drinks while we watched the game. The game turned out to be fairly boring…Madrid won 2-1, which is sad since I was rooting for Barcelona. Unfortunately Barcelona just seemed to be having a bad night because they were not playing like their usual selves. Ahh well, it was fun anyways.

Today I planned on going hiking with my Intercambio group at 10 am, so I had to wake up at 9 am. So early! Especially since I didn’t go to bed till after 4 am…Anyways we planned to meet at Puerta Real and when I got there Chris was the only one there, and I arrived at exactly 10 am. We ended up waiting for 15 minutes for more people to show up till finally Trini, our Intercambio leader showed up. We waited another 5 minutes just in case anyone else was going to show, but no one did. We picked up one of Trini’s friends before we left the city and then took a 15 minute drive to Monachil, a small town at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

We spent the day hiking on the trails around Monachil. The views were stunning! It was fun to hike in that area because there were parts of the trail where you had to be creative in how you climbed over the many rocks. Trini and her friend, Juan Lorenzo, also took us down into a cave with a waterfall in it. You had to climb over rocks that were so smooth that they were slippery. It was my favorite part. We had a picnic by the river and relaxed and took a siesta in the sun before hiking a little more and heading back to Granada. I really enjoyed hiking today.

Soooo, guess what?!?! My wonderful parents are currently on their way to visit me for 6 days!! They will arrive in Granada around 1 pm tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon. I cannot wait to give them the BIGGEST hugs of my life! I miss them soooo much! Because Mom and Dad are visiting I will be a little too busy showing them around Granada, so please don´t expect me to blog again for another week. 

In parting here is a copy of a hilarious email Maggie (my sister) sent to me. She had tried to help my mother out by showing her a Spanish "cheat sheet" (the basics of Spanish) she had in order to encourage my Mom and Dad to learn some more Spanish before they came to visit. My mother is the one who replied to her...

Sent: March 25, 2012

Hola,

I sent Mom and Dad a "Survival Guide" handout that my Spanish teacher gave us at the beginning of the semester, hoping that it will encourage them to start learning a few Spanish words, so they won't be complete fools when they come.  Here is how they responded to my e-mail.

Gracias,
No pasa nada
Salud! Jesus!

Mama, Papa


... Oh, they show so much promise.  Ha. :)  Thought you would enjoy that!  Hope you are having fun in Spain!

Maggie

Friday April 20th

This evening I went to an olive oil tasting with a group of people in my program. This was something set up by my program and it was a lot of fun and I was stuffed afterwards!

The store we went to to have the tasting is less than 5 minutes from the CLM (Centro de Lenguas Modernas, otherwise known as my school). Normally the store does not hold olive oil tastings because they are so expensive, but this was an exception because we are such a large group.

We started the olive oil tasting by receiving 3 small bowls of olive oil at each table. Each bowl was a different type of olive oil from a different region in Spain. The storekeeper gave each table olive oils from Granada, Huelva, and Cordoba (3 different regions in Andalucia). We taste-tested each oil with bread and then with potatoes. I liked the olive oil from Granada the best because it was the strongest tasting. It had the most olivy taste out of the three. He also put 2 different kinds of olives on the table for us to try as well, but I cannot stand olives (when they aren’t oil), so I didn’t try them.

Next, we were served toasted bread with tomatoes and olive oil. This type of Spanish dish is called Tomaca and is a popular breakfast food. It was really good, I liked it a lot. I actually had not had tomaca till last night, so it was nice to try it. Next came Gazpacho, which is a cold Spanish soup and is made with a lot of ingredients, including: olive oil, vinegar, salt, peppers, dry fennel, garlic, bread, and tomato. All the ingredients are blended together to create the soup. Normally it is drunk out of a cup, but I also dipped bread into it and that was delicious too!

After the gazpacho we were served avocados covered in an olive oil with a lemon flavor. It was great, but the lemon flavor in the olive oil was not my favorite. After that came a slice of tomatoe and a slice of goat cheese; both we covered in olive oil. This is a popular tapas food. After the tomato and cheese we were served fried garlic and olive oil on a lettuce leaf. This was different, but very good. I enjoyed the tastes of the 3 foods together.

I should mention that this entire time we are being served an unlimited amount of bread. At this time I was also becoming very full, and we weren’t even close to being done. 

Next, we were served a small slice of pork loin on bread with olive oil on top. The pork was delicious and made me miss the delicious meats at home. After that we were served a cube of cheese dipped in olive oil. The cheese was very rich, but heavenly.

After all this the dessert portion was about to begin. We were served 2 types of typical Spanish pastries. Olive oil was used to make them. They were delectable. One was basically a sugared donut and the other was a pastry covered in sugar. Finally, we were served dark chocolate ice cream where olive oil was used to cook it. Oh, dear goodness, that was amazing! I love dark chocolate in the first place and making it into an ice cream made it even better.

After the olive oil tasting was over I went with my friends to Café Futbol where I got a cup of ice cream called Copa Futbol and a Tinto de Verano. It was a perfect way to end the night.