Montecarlo Granada

... we have been invited back to my homestay to eat dinner with my host mother and my roommates. I am extremely excited for Mom, Torrey and Scott to see where I've been living and get a better sense of what a typical day is like for me here in Madrid. Though I'm sad to see everyone head out in the next 2 days I have enjoyed my week very much. Its hard to believe that in a little over 3 weeks it'll be me getting on the plane to head back to the states. I'll write again soon!

... tapas... wonderful. After a few of these, we caught the bus to Bobadilla, which is a 10min walk to the campsite, and conveniently has a typical Spanish (loud men, even louder women serving) bar, where we continued to consume beer and tapas; 4 rounds later, we had spend just Euros 7 per person and felt sated not just Alhambra (the local beer, very good) but the variety of hearty tapas. We walked back to camp for a well earned sleep.

This weekend I went on an excursion to Granada with the study abroad group that I am with back from the states. I didnīt necessarily want my first visit to Granada to be with the group, but itīs all good. Granada is about 135km from Malaga or an hour and a half by bus. The first thing I noticed on the bus ride was that above and outside of Malaga the trees that have leaves were all changing colors. Itīs the middle of November and for the first time ...

... mtns. It was really one of the highlights of the trip. I just wished we had more time here. There is so much history!

We were then off on a 3.5 hour drive back to Toledo for our last 2 nights. We arrived in Toledo early evening and had a quiet dinner in the old city. We spent our first night in Spain here and we loved it so much we decided to spend our last few nights here as well.

... there was an all you can eat supper at our hostel for only 4 euro.....sooooooooooo we went back a nd did that too.
We scored 2 free drinks each at the bar, because everyone gets 2 as a welcome drink juts for staying there. Then we ate the unlimited supper, which was couscous with veeges, a really good moroccan sauce, and chicken, with a salad that had like melon and a mustard something dressing. Good stuff. Ended up splitting a pitcher of mojito, and a pitcher of Sangria. We were ...

... bay, where the freighters were as small as German cockroaches, where the houses were little matchboxes. We looked down on the world and we talked of coming back to Spain, going on to France and India. We talked not of stockpiles of money, actually we didn't talk of money at all, we talked only of what money really is: entertainment, experience, and wisdom. We talked of a life lived, not of life savings. We pointed and breathed; we laughed and ...

... up to the Alhambra ticket line. In the dawn light we saw another couple with a daypack and then another. We knew we were on the right track. The ticket queue was only a zig and 3/4 of a zag as we joined it. Later it stretched to 2 full zig zags and 1/2 a zig. It was /am and we were happy enough with our position. There were only 300 people in front of us. At 8.30 the ticket office opened and the PA announcements began. In four ...

... as we spent quite a bit of time at the Alcazar in Seville which basically the difference between the two is that the Alhambra remains fully Moorish architecture while the Alcazar in Seville has been occupied by many cultures over the years so therefore incorporated various types of cultural changes and add-ons over time. So we basically wandered the city of Granada. We were staying in the University area, suprisingly quiet and generally a nice area to ...

... Another thing that I found interesting is that the Arab style castles/fortresses do not consist of any decoration on their outside walls, only on the inside. The only decorations one sees upon entering the Alhambra is a huge carving of a stone hand which represents Muslim faith and also a carving of a giant key- which historians are still not sure about what it represents. Besides that, all of the effort in decoration takes place on ...

... The funky backpacker" that was an absolute delight. In 3 days I managed to spend time going out on the town with a group of Spanish girls from Alicante, some hitchhikers from Holland, and some very nice sisters backpacking around Spain from Austrailia. This melting pot of nationalities was amazing, and lead to some very interesting conversations about US politics, world happenings, and different perspectives. It's interesting now to see just how everyone looks at us ...