GRANADA

so two weekends ago (Feb 12-15) we went to Granada for the weekend. we left after class on thursday and caught a bus from madrid down to granads, which was about a 5 hour trip. the ride down there was absolutely gorgeous as we went through mountains and the countryside of spain. we got to our hostel which was literally right across the street from the Alhambra and the next morning we went to the Alhambra at about 9. The alhambra used to be the palace for the arabic kings, as granada was the last city in spain to fall to christian rule it has a lot of arabic influence. we spent probably 4 or 5 hours there and it was worth every second. for starters this place is huge, and it was also up to be one of the new seven wonders of the world, i dont actually know if it is or not but it should be. all the walls and ceilings and floors were tiled or carved super intricately and everything was so elaborate. there were tons of mirrored pools that were amazing, plus we had a great weekend weather-wise. after teh alhambra we went back to the hostel and ate and then took our siesta on the roof of our hostel's terrace. day 2 we slept in a little bit and then ventured down to explore the town which is super pretty. the sierra nevadas are off in the distance and the alhambra as well you can see from almost any point in granada. we stumbled upon this little park behind our hostel that opened up to this huge green hillside with the sierra nevadas in the background and people sitting playing the guitar and little yellow flowers everywhere - it was very picturesque von trap family style. it was a very chill weekend all in all which is one of the things i loved about it.

bueno, i'm sorry i haven't gotten around to posting anything about granada so far, this week has been a little busy for me so far but its slowing down. time just goes by so fast here i dont know what to do about it, its already the end of february pretty much and it feels like i just arrived. for some reason today was difficult for me, speaking-wise i'm doing great but i just feel a little overwhelmed, but the thing is i have nothing to be overwhelmed with. maybe its that i miss my family and all my friends at MN or maybe its because i realize now that things will be different when i come home, and its not them who are changing, its me. this trip is an amazing life experience for me and for that its shaping me as a person. well obviously i had a lot of free thinking time to myself today but it could be a good thing. don't worry mom i'm still extremely happy here, i dont know how i could not be. every day i notice or learn something new and every weekend i travel to these places and literally around every corner i see something new and more amazing that god created and it blows my mind. this really is the opportunity of a lifetime :) well tomorrow i will work on getting pictures and stories from granada up here for you guys! besos

so the last two weeks have been a little crazy for me. This week was the first week of regular university classes, so i added three more hours of class on to my week which wouldn't be bad if it wasn't in very rapid sometimes incomprehensible spanish! i feel like i'll be learning a lot more in that class because i'll be pushed a lot harder, but my profesora is really nice and helpful so thats a plus. last Friday we had a day trip to Toledo, but instantly upon arriving in Toledo it started snowing very hard. One of the pictures is of us trying to catch snowflakes in our mouths - the flakes were so big that we had it down to an art! We did get to see the monestary but then our leader person said we would have to go home after because he didn't know what the roads were going to be like. As we were walking back to the bus it suddenly got beautifully sunny, and as we were leaving Toledo it started to snow again, so atleast we got a little window of sun! The snow seems to be following me though! I brought it over from wisconsin, and then it snowed in paris, and then it snowed again here, and then it snowed in Toledo! but so far it hasn't come back to Alcala! Tomorrow I leave to go to Granada for the weekend, which i'm super excited about! Granada, being in the south of spain, should be decently warmer than here, 60's or so.

Paris Day 2

Hola todos! bueno now on to day two of paris (saturday) and our departure on sunday. we got up early again on saturday to begin our adventure. We started off going to the catacombs which were absolutly amazing! i dont have many pictures from these days because my camera died and i have yet to get them back from my friends. the catacombs were formed because a major plague/disease swept through paris and so they buried people in mass graves because they couldn't bury them as fast as they were dying, and as they were decomposing they stunk and so they dug them up and put all of the bones in a 2 km long underground tunnel under the city of paris. it sounds kind of gross i know but it was so cool! the walls were lined with femers and skulls and the bones went way back. i guess there were the bones of six million skeletons down there!! at the end there was a man checking our bags for stolen bones before we could leave and he had a small pile of them next to him so people must take them often! we went to this amazing bakery to get sandwiches for lunch and from there we walked to the eiffel tower again to picnic and see it during hte day and go up in it. this was very cold but worth it. we took the elevator up and the top was so windy i thought i was going to freeze, but you could see everything from there!! we then walked to the arc de triomphe and walked down what is probably the most expensive street in all the world! louis vuitton and cartier to name a few! we were confused as to how to get to the arc as tehre is a massive traffic circle around it that assured certain death if we tried to dart, but then realized there was a tunnel leading over to it. the arc was the last on our list for the day so we got out the map at a little cafe and randomly chose more things to do. we went over to see the moulin rouge which wasn't that cool, just another building, but from there we walked to the Sacre Coeur which is the picture of the beautiful cathedral. millions of stairs later we were up there and could see all of paris - absolutely beautiful! we then randomly decided to walk down some street and found the most picturesque little french neighborhood ever with crepe shops everywhere and people painting on the street and lights everywhere and it was so cute! from there we went home to get up early the next morning and come home to a light covering of snow here, and we just missed the major snowfall in paris. overall a wonderful trip!

so i went to paris last weekend and it was absolutely amazing! there was a transportation strike in paris on thursday and we were convinced that our flight was going to get canceled as many that day were, but ours was only delayed a couple of hours. we got to paris and there were french soldiers with guns directing people around which was a bit intimidating. we got royally ripped off by our taxi driver but finally arrived at our hotel which was worth the 7 dollars we paid a night for it - our bathroom was basically non existant it was so small and all around it was just a bit sketchy. the first pic is of me cowering in the corner :) we got up bright and early to venture into paris (our hotel was in a town called Chelle which was not 15 km out of paris as the website told us...) we hopped on a bus and then a train toward paris and met a very nice and extremely helpful english speaking man that told us how to get to where we wanted to go. from that train we took the metro and emerged about a block away from the louvre!! we ate at a cute cafe on the river seine and then headed to the louvre. the building of the louvre is art in itself its so beautiful! and its much much larger than i thought, we could have spent the whole weekend just there! it was amazing getting to see such historic stuff that we've heard so much about! the second picture is of the outside of the louvre. from there we walked to the bastille, which i was SO excited to see, but apparently i didn't pay enough attention in Ms. Zimmerman's lit class because i found out that the bastille came down two days after it was stormed, but i did get to see the monument. The sad picture of me in front of a statue depicts this part of the trip. we then walked from the bastille to Notre Dame, and from there started our quest for the eiffel tower. Understand that this walk from the dame to teh tower is very, very long but our map was not exactly proportionate. we walked through the park of invalides without even knowing it and passed some awesome architecture. we finally reached the tower at about 9:15 and stayed till 10 to see it sparkle and it was soooo worth it! from there we made our way home just to start again on saturday.

here are a couple more pictures from our crazy hiking adventure. the one is of a couple friends and me looking out over Alcala, and the other is of one of Lauren walking through one of the worst muddy patches of the whole hike!