¡Hola a todos! Leela aquí. After a few days of venturing around the busy city of Madrid and the Old Town of Toledo, we’ve finally arrived in Granada! The 4 hour bus ride was well worth it when we saw our host families eagerly waiting for us. The bus stopped in front of an All-American Hollywood Restaurant, but luckily we didn’t see too much of those later in the day. Instead, we’ve found that Granada has an abundance of tapas bars and gelatarias (but yes, with the occasional Burger King thrown in).
When our bus stopped Rebecca and I were greeted by Maria and Sergio, our host parents during our time here. They had a very fast discussion amongst one another about our ride back, one which Duolingo definitely did not prepare me for.
For the first time in three days we said farewell to the other students in our ISA group, and off we all went to our homestays and residencias. As we sat in the back of our taxi cab, Rebecca and I took in the first sights of the city- tons of people out and about (but not as many as usual because…siesta!), plenty of tapas bars, cafés, and gelatarias, and of course the mountains beyond the city.
Our cab stopped in the street in front of Maria and Sergio’s apartment, next to a window sill with two cats lounging and staring at us. Rebecca and I practiced our Spanish by exclaiming “¡Gatos! Que bonitos!” (you could say we’re becoming pretty good at exclamations here and there). Maria made us feel very welcomed as she showed us to our room in the back of the apartment, with a beautiful view of the mountains and plenty of space to pour out everything from our luggage.
Maria took us on a walk to the Main Street, which is a convenient five minute walk from the apartment. She pointed out some vegetarian tapas bars (she herself is a fellow veg-head! Hooray!) and told us that the norm here is to stay out until 2 am, and “partying” is considered a night out until 7 am. Us two liberal arts ladies couldn’t wrap our heads around this at first, but it made us all the more excited to experience the nightlife of Granada.
As we walked around, she pointed out that despite it already being 5 pm, the stores were just now reopening after the lovely siesta that Spaniards take every day (napping in the middle of the afternoon is definitely something I can get behind). We spotted plenty of stores for all of our shopping needs (and of course of shopping wants), including both local shops and chains like Zara and Stradivarius. Of course, we’ve already made our way to both of these stores.
When we got back to the apartment, Maria made us a delicious dinner of falafel wrapped in tortilla with feta cheese and olives, as well as fresh salad with cucumbers. Their son Izan returned from his cousin’s house with lots of toys and lots of “energía”. Luckily he didn’t seem too phased by having two new strangers moving into his house!
That night Rebecca and I briefly studied for our placement exam the next day (and by “study” I mean scrolling through some grammar we were rusty on), and woke up the next morning for the test. After around 2 hours of testing we were done with the exam and celebrated by getting cappuccinos in a local café. Our results came later that day, and we were both excited to learn that we had been placed into advanced level Spanish classes (for myself, this was somewhat of a surprise).
When we got home for lunch, Maria had laid out a delicious meal of pasta with mozzarella, basil and tomatoes, along with bread (“el pan”) and salad on the side. Rebecca and I were quick to exclaim “¡Que deliciosa!” , again practicing our excited exclamations. Finally it was time for our first siesta, which we were not hesitant to take advantage of. After our lovely nap, we went on a walking tour of Granada with our jolly ISA director Ángel. He showed us some more sites that we will be exploring throughout our stay here! One thing is for sure- we won’t get bored.
Thanks for tuning in!!! We hope you keep up with our adventures on Peeling Pomegranates.
¡Adios!
