Whoa.. that's one big pee puddle...

Whoa.. that's one big pee puddle...


These are the things that I see everyday as I walk to class.
This is the main plaza I walk by in the morning.

This is the building I go to class in. The Kenia Bulding

The Church I walk by with the mini plaza

The gorgeous graffiti artwork along the way. I figured I would post some pictures so you could see what I see everyday!

Primavera
First thing that you need to know is that if you are not in a restaurant that is outdoors or a cafe of some sort it is not legal to drink in the street in Granada. The Spanish government realized that the students were poor and didn't have anywhere to go and hang out cheaply with their friends so they invented the botellion. It is basically a large concrete parking lot on the outside of the city where you can bring your own alcohal and drink outdoors. This means that the students can buy euro boxes of wine or share bottles of whatever, hang out and have a good time. Primavera is a HUGE party that marks the beginning of Spring in Granada. All of the young people have a ridiculous party in the Botellion. It starts out looking like this, pretty low key, a bunch of people sitting in circles listening to music and drinking/eating/playing games. People bring shopping carts with their groups alcohal and snacks. The party starts are noon and goes all night. Now if you look at the pictures I've posted that's around 3-4pm in the afternoon. By the time it reaches 8 oclock.. it looks like those last 2 photos. Literally 30,000 people came out to that TINY area to party. The street got blocked off since students were spilling out of the Botellion into the streets surrounding. These are cops everywhere keeping the crazier of the students in line, but nothing is really done about fights unless someone gets hurt. Most of the the time the cops just observe and go back to smoking. It really is something that you have to experience in order to understand just how crazy that amount of people in that small of an area is. My friends and I were just lucky that we stuck together, after awhile you couldn't sit down anymore, you had to stand so you didn't get trampled. It was a really good way to improve my Spanish since everyone there was speaking spanish and they prefer it over english (if they know english at all). Anyways, I need to get to studying for my exams this week, then it's off to the beach apartment for the week! Talk to you all soon.

More pictures located here

House Cleaning

So I guess it has been awhile since I checked in so now is as good a time as ever I suppose. It's Sunday night and I'm just sitting in bed listening to music (the boy band "Five" just came on and I suddenly feel very ill, hang on while I turn this off, ahh much better). This weekend was super low key. I spent Thursday and Friday nights out with friends and Saturday I spent in a small town closer to the coast called Ronda. It's a very pretty town that over looks a huge gorge that a river flows through into a valley. It is mostly touristy shops with wine, cheese, and sausages, but it has a beautiful church where I got to put my "Art History" skills to work. It was actually kind of fun getting to use what I learned in class to determine time periods and styles that I wouldn't have known anything about a month ago. So my friend Nic and I walked around all day looking at different places, and got to see the place where they have the bull fights in Ronda but mostly just enjoying the sun and got home about 8pm.

Granada has been rainy and cold and awful for pretty much the last 4 weeks. We'll get one day of relief then it becomes 40 degrees and rains for 4 days straight. I think that explains a lot of the mind state I was in when I wrote my last post. They warn you before you go abroad that it will happen, but I didn't really see it coming. Anyways moral of the story is that I'm feeling better and I've come to the conclusion that my whole life needs some "friend" cleaning. I figure I shouldn't waste my time on anyone who doesn't let me be me or at least try and make me a better person. I understand that the difficult people are the ones that teach you lessons, but I think I've already learned the lessons that these people have to offer me, forgive me if I move on.Exams are coming up and I'm starting to study, then I'm off to Nerja for spring break for a bit of (hopefully hot) beach time. I'll try and post again sooner than later.
Hope all is well with you guys! Love you all
-Sacha

No offense spain, but I'm almost over our affair

I guess eventually the honeymoon was going to wear off and it is definitely starting to. As amazing and beautiful as Spain is, it isn't home and it isn't Drake. Drake can be a huge pain in the ass, don't get me wrong, but all my friends are there. My friends that I CHOSE to be with and not who I happened to be thrown together with. Where my roommate is, who stays in with me when I don't feel like going out, or where I'm able to go out alone on my own to find other people to spend time with. Where it takes 5 mins instead of 45 minutes to walk to class, and you don't have to be dressed for it. Where I can take half hour showers and relax and actually fit in the bathtub as opposed to having a 5 minute shower in the fetal position. Where my crappy futon bed is, and my extra crappy job at my campus bar where I work with all my guy friends. Where people call me because they want to see me and make an effort to do so. Where people are a 2 second text message away and my cell phone has full coverage and 300 names to choose from. Where it's easy to call my parents for help when I need to, or talk to my sister and brother when I'm having a bad day.
I guess my problem is that I feel too isolated from everything. I can't take care of what's going on at home and I can't seem to control my life here any better, so I'm kind of stuck in limbo.
I know I sound like I'm complaining about living here but like I said I really do love it, but not forever. If I had the choice to leave now and come home of course I wouldn't. But I know I'm going to love going home to what I know.
Call it homesickness, they say it always sets in right about now