A Rose Called By Any Other Name Would Still Smell Like Pee

So I'm realizing that things in the Spain are bi-polar with things in the US. Some things are really similar then all of a sudden you are smacked with something new right when you least expect it. It's the sense of security that gets you, you think you are safe when you really are just as insecure as you were before. Being in a new place makes you feel like you can reinvent yourself, more often then not you get lost in the new person you want to be while you are away from home, until you are again hit with that one similar situation that snaps you back to reality (oops there goes gravity). Sorry I'm being random I'll get to the point.

Clothing

Men:Metro-sexual doesn't exist here, every guy is metro so therefore it is not a sub-culture. Guys dress in nicer jeans, colorful tee-shirt and a scarf, casual but could probably step into a magazine ad if asked on the spot.
Women: Everyone here is a fashion model. The women dress like the morning walk to work is a runway. They have succeeded in making me look dumpy every day. Skinny jeans, ankle or calf length boots, leather jackets and a scarf make a complete look. If you leave the house without makeup or your hair done you WILL be looked at like you are crazy.

The Streets

I have yet to see a solo house in the city or or the outskirts. Everything close to where I live are pisos or large apartments interspersed between tiendas (stores) or bancos (banks), cafeterias, bakeries and everything else. The sidewalks are made of tile which are super dangerous when it rains (which it does a lot) and there is dog poop EVERYWHERE. People let their dogs just run around whereever they want when they are taken out for walks. Of course there are people with leashes but they are few and far between. The buildings are completely stone store fronts. The architechture is breath taking at times especially in the Albaycin or the old quarter of Granada. Being able to look up in any direction and see the mountains in the distance makes all the rain, slipping, and stepping in dog shit worth it.

The People

Women: To the women of Spain American girls are a plague. We are too noisy, to boisterous, too brash, too honest, and all round too much. It doesn't help that the Spanish men assume we are all easy so we take their men too (oops). Sorry we party.... They stare at us in bars if we laugh too loudly or ask for more then one beer. Really they stare at us for anything. If you keep your mouth shut and mimic their outfits you can usually fit in enough for someone to assume your are Spanish but it doesn't last long if one of your drunken noisy friends approaches you with a tequila shot. The older women tend to be a bit crankier but most women aren't against helping you with directions or being patient while you figure out your Spanish. Can't blame the other for not liking us though, sometimes I don't even like us.

Men: Like I said, the men here are like "eagles" if you give them any eye contact, attention or recognition at all they will bug you forever. Bars are like a hunting ground for these guys it's ridiculous. When it comes down to going on dates with them they are just as confusing, and complicated as the rest of their American brothers. I went half way around the world to discover it is exactly the same... sorry girls. There will be no butterflies, happy thoughts, bunnies and rainbows of love over here either. You might called me jaded, I call me realistic. If you happen to walk past a large group of older men, you will definitely know if they think you are pretty, they all stand up and applaud you down the street... no joke. They are generally more tolerant of Americans, and tend to be a little bit more helpful when you are completely lost. I'll let you know when I have more information on these little jewels of society.

Don't get me wrong, still love it here, just the more time you spend here the more you realize that you didn't escape your problems at all, they are just hibernating till you get back and everything that happens here reminds you of them.

The Days Past

So, it has been awhile since I posted anything so I figured I better get on that. The last week has been really fun. We spend most of our evening exploring different bars and eating different kind of tapas and one of our favorite bars which we call "Wood Bar" is one of Granada's late night hot spots. It's there that I found Jesus actually... well not JESUS but "Hey-Sues" as he likes to tell my friends. He's a student at the university studying Spanish and wants to be a Spanish teacher in the united states. He pretty much kept me safe all night from all the creepy overbearing Spanish men in the bar and ended up walking Emily and I home, (though I was half ready to pull my knife on him if he turned out to be a bum). We ended up exchanging numbers and agreeing to meet up and hang out on my birthday.
I had my birthday on the 17th (my 21st nonetheless) and we ended up having a really good time. My friends and I went to a couple of tapas bars and had coffee and a couple drinks then went to a place called "The Chupateria". In Spanish Chupa is the word for shot, and that's exactly what it is, a shot bar. Jesus came with us and played guard dog again making sure nothing happened to any of the girls in our group, or the guys for that matter. After that we went to wood bar and then Granada 10 one of the discotecas in Granada. I would tell you more but honestly It was my 21st birthday, would you really expect me to remember much of it? I'll tell you what I do remember, I remember a GINORMOUS club with a lot of flashing lights, my friends watching my every move and Jesus keeping a hand on me at all times to make sure I was okay. He walked all the girls in our group home after and then we sat on the doorstep of my house and talked until 7am. Awesome new friend to say the least.
During the day in Granada I have intensive Spanish class. Half of the class is grammar and the other half is pronunciation. It's four hours a day and honestly, you want to die sometimes. The first teacher is really boring, sits there, dictates, reads, asks a question or two then gives you homework. The second professor is hillllarrrious. She says biiiiiiiieeeeeeennnnn or buuuuueeeenooooo, constantly and likes to call me Tonta Sacha, which is the equivilent of calling me Stupid Sacha, but I don't mind because she's hilarious. We spend all day in that class just laughing and making jokes in Spanish, easiest way to learn I think.
We have a 2 week break before school actually starts to we are in the final processes of planning our trip. 11 of us are going from Madrid to Brussels, Brussels to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Dusseldorf, and Dusseldorf to Barcelona, and Barcelona to Granada. Madrid is all paid for but our plane tickets to the other places cost only a total of $110 american dollars. It is REALLY cheap to fly here especially during the winter.
I love everything about Europe!

My First Days

My aunt decided that I needed to have a blog so that she could live through vicariously through me and I ended up thinking it was kind of a good idea. Although I don’t have internet half the time, I’ll see if I can write on my computer and transfer it later. Okay so what have I been doing so far? On the 4^th of January I got on a plane at 5pm and traveled to Chicago, from Chicago I got on the 10:30 plane to London.

London
London was awesome (minus the almost getting hit by a car every 30 seconds), we spent our time going on tours, wandering the streets, exploring pubs and vintage stores and spending entirely way too much money. For those of you who haven’t traveled to London you should know it is impossible to not spend money. The British pound is worth about 65 cents more than the dollar making it very easy to think you are getting a deal before getting smashed in the face with a huge bill later. My roommate Emily and I explored knotting hill, Portobello road, and the eastern, western and southern quarters, including Covent Gardens, Hyde Park, Hampton, south Kensington and a Piccadilly Circus. We pretty much jumped on the tube and let it take us wherever it wanted. I explored abbeys, cathedrals, saw Buckingham palace, Big Ben, the London eye and a billion other things. I ate bangers and mash, fisherman’s pie, fish and chips, and drank tea like it was going out of style. We were supposed to leave on the 7^th but due to the 2centimeters of snow and half ¼ of an inch of ice (yeah…that little) our flight was cancelled. We spent our extra day exploring more streets and wondering why London turns into a bunch of ninnies at the sight of snow. It really was pretty pathetic the way the entire city shut down from so little snow. Our hotel was really nice so it wasn’t that bad to have to spend another night in a comfortable fluffy bed. I was even lucky enough to meet some great people along the way. The girls and guys in my program are beginning to be some of the best friends I’ve ever had and the memories are only getting better. On the 8^th of January our group jumped on a plane to Malaga a day late then we were supposed to and the fun REALLY began.

Malaga to Granada I wasJanu

As soon as we touched down on the runway you could feel the warmth. Coming out of London and its freakishly Minnesota-ish weather, it was amazing to see the sun and exit the plane into 50 degree weather. Malaga had palm trees and bright blue water, and people were barely even wearing fall jackets. Of course THAT couldn’t last. We got on the bus and began the 2 hour journey to Granada. I have never in my entire life seen so many mountains and hills as I did on the way to Granada, I’m talking snow capped mountains in the background and hills covered in olive and orange trees as far as the eye can see. People’s houses sit in the most precarious positions on the hills placed sparsely among trees and giant boulders. It looked like something out of a fantasy book where hobbits or something would live. It seems like you will never see anything but mountains again when suddenly out of the blue you hit a city, Granada.

Granada is placed right along the Sierra Nevada Mountains (which is where the water I drink comes from too) and is a bit colder then Malaga. When I say a bit, I mean a lot. It rains most of the time since it is the winter, and is either really cold (about 38 degrees and rainy) or a warm 47ish degrees and sunny. The sunny days I love, the rainy days… blegh. My senora or the woman who I will be living with for the next 5 months name is Luisa. She is a divorced woman with 4 sons, one of which still lives with her, his name is Paulo. She has an apartment in the southern part of Granada close to a huge park that I have yet to explore. Luisa is the sweetest funniest thing you have ever seen. She giggles at my Spanish but is patient and caring and ridiculously kind. She cooks us every kind of Spanish food imaginable and EVERYTHING is good. I have yet to dislike something she makes. For breakfast she makes us toast and tea and coffee and sometimes gives us pastries or donuts to take with us out of the apartment. For lunch which is at 2:30 or 3pm here, she has made us potaje (lentil stew) chicken and tomato sauce, chorizo and soup, bean soup, manchego and tomato salad, beef stew, and a million other things and there is always fruit for dessert. For dinner we have something completely different and always with bread. I can’t even remember how many different things I have eaten so far, today alone I have 3 kinds of chorizo.

Emily and I share a bedroom with two small beds, a closet, and desk, 2 chairs and some shelves. Nothing fancy but big enough for the two of us to share. Our first week in Granada was filled with placement tests for learning Spanish, learning our way to and from the university (a 30 minute walk each way) and visiting various tapas bars and monuments. Our second day in town we visited the Alhambra, which is considered to be the 8^th new wonder of the world. It is a very old Moorish castle that literally takes up an entire quarter of Granada, it is massive. There are multiple parts to it since it started out as one tiny summer compound and grew to ridiculous proportions. The views from the castle are breathtaking; you can see everything from the top of the castle since it is located on a very high hill. There really isn’t much I can say about it other than that, when you see the pictures you will understand just how beautiful it really is. In the picture below you can see what I’m talking about. It is a picture from a bridge at the Alhambra of the Albacin or the old quarter of Granada. In the background you can see the mountains I’m talking about; on the other side of me there were more hills and King Ferdinand’s summer house.

RIDICULOUSLY BEAUTIFUL!
More later... gtg