This week was a treasure trove of little things that made us happy. We keep growing ever more grateful for our host family, who continues to make us great vegetarian food, and has begun to speak more slowly such that we can begin to understand what they are saying under their thick Andalusian accents.
Our host brother, Izan (pronounced like ‘Ethan’ but with the emphasis on the second syllable, so it’s like ‘Eeth-on’), has taken a liking to dressing in a Spiderman costume and barging into our room to cast spiderwebs into our faces. Midway through the week, we felt like he was finally warming up to us, which made our time spent lounging around the house much more enjoyable. He also loves to watch Bob Esponja, and we’ve come around, too, learning bits of undersea humor along the way.
We went on three runs along the beautiful river, a fitness destination we learned many Granadans drive long distances to get to — and for good reason! The path starts out as a sidewalk, which turns into a gravel walkway, and finally winnows into a thin, wooded footpath that extends for miles heading into the mountains. Close to where we start, there’s a little ‘exercise park’ that boasts some barebones metal exercise equipment for residents to #get #swole. We can’t quite figure out how to use the machines for anything but a laugh, though, as there’s no resistance knob for the ‘elliptical,’ and the rest is mostly pull-up bars. There is also a set of hurdles spaced dangerously close together — which we’ve yet to see anyone attempt. Nonetheless, it’s been good to get out in the evening and exercise. The lighting around 8pm is STUNNING as the setting sun casts shadows on the mountains in front of us, and illuminates the windows as we turn around to head back into the city.
We also made it through our first week of classes — nice! Leela started at a level 6 (avancado), and quickly realized that many of her classmates were fluent, which was a tad overwhelming. After a few days, she was humble enough to join us folks in level 5 (intermedio alto), where she now feels much more comfortable. We’ve both gone through some different professors, but have now settled with two each. Leela has her first class (which is a little boring) from 9am-12pm every day, followed by a second one from 12-1pm. Rebecca has class from 10am-12pm and then from 12-2pm. Both are fine — and after a week of attempting to sharpen her Spanish humor skills, she finally feels like she made some good jokes during class today.
EEEK: the hallway door just smashed closed. Hay algunos ghosts aquí? We’ll keep you updated.
The weather’s generally been great- except for Sunday, when we found ourselves ducking under multiple awnings in an attempt to escape the torrential downpour. We were trying to make our way to an arts and crafts market 20 minutes from our house, but instead stumbled upon a cozy café that shielded us from the rain. The streets were still busy despite the storm, and the coffee shops were certainly getting lots of business.
On Saturday we took a walk with no particular destination, and found ourselves wandering around a beautiful Monastery. Leela also wandered into what she thought was a free museum, and was greeted by a friendly man eager to tell her about the philosophy classes offered at his school. With philosophy being hard enough to wrap one’s head around in English, it may not be so doable in Spanish, but she’s holding onto that brochure just incase she suddenly becomes fluent.
COMING UP THIS WEEK:
- Tour of the Albaicín: Granada’s Muslim quarter that sits beneath the Alhambra, studded with white roofs and colorful accents.
- A Spanish Rock music festival that our host parents are super excited for. Its hours, you ask? 10pm-5am, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. That’s gonna be one for the books, if we can flip our sleep schedules around for it.
- The beach! Nerja! We may try to spend an afternoon or a weekend day descansando (relaxing) on a nearby beach in Nerja, Spain.
- Discoteca, anyone? We went to our local #club twice last week, which was pretty fun. We will probably do this consistently to maintain a college level of fun. 😉
- We made a goal to only speak in Spanish to one another from the time we wake up until 5pm, which is usually around when we’re waking up from our siesta. We keep forgetting to do this, though, so we’re trying to get better.
- Plan some traveling! We both have grand plans of spending our weekends wandering through Europe….. we just have to make it happen. So we’ll work on that.
- Spend more time with Peter Parker — excuse me, Izan — maybe watching Bob Esponja, maybe going to a park, we’ll see.
Well, salud, friends!
Hasta luego,
Rebecca and Leela