Confessions of A Working Girl

The night before the trip to Granada, I went out with Marissa and Matt. We didn’t drink though, and didn’t even really stay out that late (I was back by 12) We had a nice conversation though…and I tried to explain to them what the word ‘random’ meant since there isn’t really an equivalent in Spanish…

Anyway, 9:30 Friday morning we met up to go to Granada. It was a 7 hour bus ride. When we got to Granada, it was around 7:30pm and we had free time until 10:30 pm. I ended up walking with Richard, Nick, and Rafael. We were with a larger group originally, but the majority of the group decided that they wanted mexican food. Slightly expensive mexican food, so the four of us kept walking. We found a pizza place that had huge pizzas (50cm by 50cm) for only 10 euro. So we bought two pizzas, figuring that we’d split them in four, and each of us could get a half. While the pizzas were cooking, we went to buy drinks (it was the kind of pizza place that you only order the pizzas there, there are no seats or tables or anything). The first indicator that the pizzas were bigger than we realized came when Rafael picked up the boxes. He was like “Woah!” then of course, every one of us had to feel how heavy the boxes were. Very heavy! I would say that at that weight, you are normally carrying at least 4 pizzas. We found a little plaza to sit at while we ate the pizza. That was kinda nice, with the four of us sitting there, eating pizza just out in the open at night. I was a little surprised that I managed to eat more pizza than they did. We all had some to take back to the hotel though.

When we met up at 10:30, we walked up this incredibly long and steep hill. Just when I thought that there was no way that I could take even one more step, we arrived at the place. It was this little bar type place that had a cave in back of it. And there was a stage at the back of the cave. We got to see people dance…I thought it seemed a little like tap dancing but with more fury. I think the proper name for it is Flamenco dancing.

The next morning, we met up and went to this place called The Alhambra. It was huge. there were lots of lovely gardens, and some truly interesting plants. For example, there were a few palm trees. We walked around looking at the gardens for a while, listening to the tour guide. Then we got to see another palacy place that belonged to Carlos something or other a long time ago. It was interesting that a lot of the architecture was not Spanish, but Aramaic. You could tell, and also the writings on the walls was distinctly aramaic, all flowy letters. It was beautiful.  I have lots of pictures.

We had free time for lunch. I went with Richard, Nick and Harry. We got tapas, which are these little side dish things, and I tried beer for the first time. It wasn’t horrible, but its second to last on my alcohol like list. (Rum is at the top, and White Russians are at the bottom)

After that the whole group met up and we went to this cathedral type place . And I can’t remember the name…I think it started with a C. The things I remember most were that inside, you could see 5? coffins (there were these stairs that went down then up barely pausing)there were actually people–royalty people–buried in the coffins. There are two other things I remember. One was that there was a sculpture type thing near the front. It was huge, and had several statues on it. One of the statues was supposed to be Jesus, I think, but I thought he looked like a gypsy fortune teller. Almost like the one from Big, the one in the machine without whom there’d be no movie. The other thing I remember was a painting of the last supper. Or it was a painting of a similar time, the only ones in the painting were Jesus and his 13 disciples. On Jesus’s left there was a guy who was asleep.One of the girls in the group asked why one of the people was sleeping. I suggested that it was because he was drunk. I mean, for all we know, it could have been. Rafael and the girl whose name I don’t remember ended up deciding that it was Judas who was drunk, or asleep or whatever.

That night I wandered around a little with the girl who was my roommate for the trip, “Beth.” Beth and I split a teeny tiny pizza, then got ice cream. I found the most wonderful flavor ever–chocolate with rum and coffee. Delicious. Beth’s lemon was good too. She let me try it–it was the good, tart kind of lemon ice cream.

Today we were all prepared for another 7 hour bus ride. We met up at 10, and were in the bus by 10:15 or so. And then we waited. And waited, and waited. Apparently, the number of kids that the ISA people counted didn’t match up with the number of kids who were supposed to be there. Finally it was figured out that the kid who was missing was still sleeping.  He had managed to sleep through the wake up call, several people calling his cell phone, several people knocking on his room door, and another phone call. But his roommate had forgotten to turn in his room key, so the ISA person was able to go directly into the room to wake the kid up.

We got back to Salamanca around 7:30. I was waiting for the photos to upload to facebook, when my cousin “Kay” who lives in England called back! We had a nice conversation, and we’re trying to figure out what to do for Christmas, since she was planning to go to her mother-in-law’s house. I emailed my friend who lives in Germany and asked if it was at all possible that I could stay there a little longer than originally planned. I hated asking, but it really would be kind of odd to be alone on Christmas, since it’s supposed to be a family holiday. And friends totally count as family.

3 Comments » Dad:

November 14th, 2010 @ 6:30 pm The fortune teller in “Big” was “Zoltar”

Danielle Galbreath:

November 21st, 2010 @ 1:05 pm I thought you were spending christmas with family in Britian?? How yeah so how is spain going? I’ve been trying to keep up with your blog(-: We need to skype soon or something, haven’t heard much from you)-: Oh yeah you been taking any pictures would love to see them. How are classes, what have you been studying??

Danielle Galbreath:

November 21st, 2010 @ 1:08 pm never mind about the picture thing, I finally see you have some more on facebook(-: Spain looks awesome! Your making me want to study abroad again(-: