Category: Experience

My flight from Philadelphia International Airport to Aeropuerto Granada was the stuff nightmares are born of. It started in Philly, where I learned that my airline ‘didn’t exist’ (cue first heart attack), then that the airline did exist but wouldn’t send my luggage all the way through (cue second heart attack), then that everything was fine.. until I got to Heathrow. There I learned that my flight to Madrid also didn’t exist (heart attack 3 – you’d think that I’d have learned by now..), then that it did, but that it had been moved until the next day (h.a. 4), then that I had 10 minutes to find it and board (h.a. 5 and 6). In the airport in Madrid I nearly missed my flight due to a misunderstanding of the change in time zones (h.a. 7), but did manage to get on that flight to spend the hour-long trip falling asleep with my head in the aisle and getting clipped by a severely irritated stewardess and her food cart… multiple times. In Granada they lost my luggage.

So, basically, I was not in the most positive of moods to start my semester in Spain. Then I went outside.

I came to Granada in early September, when Andalucia is arguably at her best. The sun was blazing, palm trees were swaying, and the air carried a cool breeze to counteract the tropical heat. There was no humidity. I had found paradise.

At Home in Granda

I lived in a home-stay in Granada, in a fourth-floor ‘piso’ (large Spanish apartment with multiple rooms) down on Calle Ángel Barrios (… which was about a half hour walk from school, but a ten minute walk from Botellon).

The room I shared with a fellow Arcadian was bright and sunny with a cactus-filled balcony that looked out onto a park. Our host-mother was this tiny blonde Spanish woman named Mercedes who would zip around every morning in a housecoat cleaning and cooking until lunch, then collapse for the rest of the afternoon on her couch, chain smoking and watching Spanish soap operas. Mercedes was a very… spirited woman. She and I had few problems, but she didn’t particularly care for my roommate, Sarah, who, among committing other Spanish Sins (she didn’t eat everything on her plate – ALWAYS), was a vegetarian. However, if one of us so much as had the sniffles, Mercedes had a full arsenal of medications that she could whip out at a moment’s notice. Add to this eclectic mix my host ‘cousin,’ Laura – Mercedes’ 18-year-old niece who vacillated between acting like she was 12 and acting like a delinquent, and the assortment of European students who stayed in the extra spare rooms for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, and things were guaranteed to always be interesting en mi casa.

School (yes, I did go to school)

I went to school in El Centro de Lenguas Modernas (CLM), which is a division of the Universidad de Granada (founded in 1531 by Charles V, as long as we’re name dropping) and housed in a beautiful, sunny building near the heart of the city.

I spent the month of September taking an intensive Spanish course Monday – Friday, fours hours straight each day (a dios mío!). Then, in October, I began my real semester. Classes were held twice a week, Monday through Thursday, and I took courses in Spanish history, Latin American history, Spanish Grammar, Spanish Cinema, and (haha) French. It goes without saying, but all of the classes were held in Spanish (yes, even the French one).

Living la Vida Loca

A Spanish daily routine is truly something else, and it took me a while to adapt. To begin with, meals and mealtimes really threw me. Breakfast is usually something very light, such as toast with olive oil (yum!) and a coffee around 8 a.m. (or whenever you start your day). Lunch isn’t until about 2 p.m. or 3 p.m. and then it’s a huge, heavy feast (a typical lunch for us was a HUGE portion of paella, possibly some croquetas [essentially, fried mashed potato balls], slices of Manchego cheese, salad, and fruit) after which is an almost necessary siesta from about 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Then dinner is around 10 p.m. and is usually something small but deep fried and filling. I spent about my first month in Spain continuously fluctuating between starving and stuffed… and then Sarah and I started keeping an impressive stash of chocolate and snacks (mostly cookies) in our room… after that I was almost constantly stuffed.
The Spaniards live their lives on a later schedule. Most shops and banks and what not don’t open until about 10 a.m. and then the whole world pretty much shuts down between 3 p.m. to 5 – 6 p.m… only to open back up and continue doing business until about 9 – 10 p.m. Spanish nightlife (and in Granada, nightlife is the lifestyle) doesn’t begin until about midnight, when one goes to a bar to grab drinks with friends. From there, sometime around 2 a.m., one goes to Botellon to ‘socialize’ more and, around 4 – 5 a.m. until about 7 a.m. one goes to a club. After that, one is supposed to stumble to a cafe to eat chocolate and churros before crawling into bed, but I never was able to make it that far.
So what did I do with myself when I wasn’t too busy studying? Well, three day weekends are glorious, and I usually took advantage of them to travel to some amazing places (See posts for October – December). I did experience a lot of the nightlife, of course, but one of my favorite ways to kill time was to explore the city. I loved walking up and down the river or wandering the streets, but one notable afternoon in Granada, my friend, Mariah (check out her blog here) and I decided to go out for hot chocolate… and ended up in the most adorable little bar with the craziest frozen chocolate mousses and a stellar chocolate fondue. What can I say? It’s hard to study abroad.