The third week (so far)
Trip Start
Jun 17, 2007
1
9
26
Trip End
Aug 01, 2007
Granada,
Spain
Friday, July 6, 2007
After my day trip to the Alpuharras on Sunday, a few of us arranged to meet up for dinner on Monday night - specifically, Eva (from Germany), Jonathan (US), Susannah (US) and Kyle (US). Anyway, Kyle didnīt end up showing up (we think he got lost) but the rest of us went for drinks and dinner. After a bit of trekking around, we ended up at a fairly nice restaurant / bar near Plaza de Carmen. Was an interesting evening as we were such a mixed group - Eva is 53 and keen on working as a volunteer on organic farms around the world, Susannah is (I think) in her late 50s / early 60s and comes from Texas, while Jonathan is 21 and an aspiring medical student who wants to acquire either my accent or a British accent (Iīm not sure whether he thinks that they are one and the same!). Still, we had a fun night and I got home around midnight-ish.
Also, on Monday we got our new 'intake' of students into our class as well as a new teacher (for the first session only). New students in our class were:
Ida - 26 year old teacher from Norway, who teaches French and English to Norwegian teenagers;
Dami - 21 year old engineering student in Cambridge, England; and
Mara - Dutch woman of unknown age, but probably about 20 as sheīs about to study journalism.
As a result of their arrival, as well as the arrival of some new students at the residence, my social life this week has been much more interesting. On Tuesday night, I was the chief organiser of a visit to a free jazz concert - unfortunately, I thought that half an hour ahead would be sufficient time for us to get in. However, the concert proved to be quite popular and after waiting in line for about twenty minutes and being about 10 people from the front, it turned out that the free concert had 'sold out', so to speak. The quickly cobbled together back up plan was to go and see a free Spanish movie in the main plaza. It turned out to be a movie called 'Flamenco' directed by Carlos Saura. There didnīt appear to be a plot, just a series of various performances from the Flamenco culture - dancing (great), music (also great), and singing (sometimes great, but mostly awful to listen to - not through lack of talent, but because thatīs what flamenco-style singing sounds like!!!).
This weeks lessons have been quite taxing on the brain - even though they only take up 4 hours of each day. So far this week, weīve learned two new tenses (both for the past - one generally for time which surrounds the present, and one for activities more than one day in the past), been instructed in the ways of Spanish pronouns and also learned how to form imperatives. Itīs been quite a tough week, and Iīve still got homework to do!!
Wednesday evening had me taking the new students to my all-time favourite tapas bar in Granada...at the risk of ruining its ambience and quality, Iīm going to let you in on the secret...itīs called Bodega Casteneda and itīs very close to Plaza Isabela Catholico. They do a fantastic platter which feeds about 4-5 people and only costs €13.50 (as well as honouring the Granada tradition of serving up a free tapas plate with every drink that you buy).
As for today, I made a repeat visit to the Alhambra with my some of my new classmates and another girl staying at the residence. You may remember that I went a couple of weeks ago, but we hadnīt seen the whole thing that time and I still wanted to see it again. We chose a ridiculously hot day to do it, but we took the bus up the hill and walked back down and rewarded ourselves with an icecream from the great Italian icecream place on Grand Via.
As for tomorrow, Iīll be on a bus to Seville at 3.30pm - or at least I should be!!!
