Nerds Abroad

¡Hola a todos!

Boy do I have some pics for y'all…. It has been quite an eventful week and I’m pumped to give you the rundown because I have an even cooler week ahead of me so everybody just buckle up.

So last I checked in, I had just gotten in to Granada. Let me just start of by saying that if you ever want to pack up your stuff and move to a new city, Granada would be a strong contender. It’s a very picturesque little city in tucked in to the mountains, about 45 minutes from a coast. The town itself has a university so it’s pretty lively and there’s people walking the streets at almost any time of the day, but very safe.

My favorite part about Granada is that if I want to explore some place cool, all I have to do is find a rode that goes in the directions and it will take me to some really cool park with a view of the city. It works every time. I'm going on a little Go Pro adventure tomorrow to my new favorite spot in Granada so I can give you guys the full effect....

A very important note: I found a little shop this weekend while exploring, and I wanted to go ahead and bring it up because I already know how proud my dad is going to be of me for my most recent purchase. Spanish retail can't be beat folks:

I really like Star Wars...

Okay, now most of the nerdiness is out of the way... Guess what I did this week:

La Alhambra

Tuesday’s class was probably my favorite class I’ve ever had. Instead of meeting in the classroom, we met and hiked up to La Alhambra. La Alhambra was built in close to 800 AD to be a fortress because it’s up on a hill in Granada, but it was converted later into a palace around 1400. This place is UNREAL. It’s a giant palace with gardens that span basically across an entire mountainside. Luckily, we were free to take all the photos we wanted so just check out some of these views and gardens:

Bc the grind doesn't stop even for culture

And btw, if you’re looking for some cool engagement photos or something like that, book a flight to here… and hire my buddy Kyle:

After walking around La Alhambra for several hours, we went home and had our lunch and siesta. We met back up as a class around 10pm when the sunset and went to a Flamenco concert!!! And it was in a cave! (weird right?) Apparently it is pretty common for houses on the hillsides to be built into the hills because it makes for cooler architecture and much cooler temperatures inside. Flamenco is really really cool and fun to watch, here’s a photo gallery from the restaurant if you happen to find yourself with a free night in Granada: http://s587795681.web-inicial.es/fotos-pics/

Los invernaderos

My course in Granada teaches us about sustainability in Spain, which includes a lot of information about sustaining resources like agriculture, water, energy… things like that. For Wednesday’s class, we took a field trip to the playa! And on the way, we stopped off at a dam to learn about using rivers to create energy and regulate water, as well as an experimental organic farm with acres of invernaderos (green houses), and finally a habitat conservation off the coast of Spain -all very cool, and extremely picturesque. Technology can be a really cool thing when used the right way, for example, to produce crops at any time of year without using any pesticides or herbicides, while reusing the soil all throughout the year. Some real earthy-crunchy stuff if you’re into it like me.

We stopped off at the beach afterwards to… learn how cool the beach is (lol). Just in case you’re wondering, the Mediterranean is as cool as it seems.

Views from the top of a dam

Vacation Abroad: Málaga Edition

Since we have free weekends starting Thursday afternoon, some of my classmates packed up a bag and took a bus to the coast to have a beach weekend in a city called Málaga. It is home to a cool little city with lots of shopping, pretty beaches, and the Pablo Picasso Museum, plus lots of other fun excursions. Being very beach minded folks, we shared an AirBnB and laid on the beach all day Friday and Saturday. We had Domino’s pizza and Chinese takeout all weekend and it rocked. Btw, the Domino's website isn’t exactly easy to navigate in Spanish, but you don’t have to pay extra for delivery and you don’t tip your driver so three thumbs up. Also, the Spanish version of sweet  n’ sour pollo isn’t exactly what you’d  find at Lucky Buddha but it’ll do for a Chinese food fix. I got pooped on by a bird while walking home too so that’s always nice :)

Authentic Chinese food

Sunday morning, we woke up to get Churros con Chocolate and drink coffee, and then ventured over to the Pablo Picasso museum. My new favorite artist is def Picasso. One of his paintings features a woman playing with a cat, and he paints this very abstract but intriguing and beautiful woman, and then painted a 4-year-old quality cat just to mess with people. And he did this with a lot of his paintings… just because. There are more artistic terms like “to illustrate contrast” and “artistically depict oppression” but really he just wanted to mess with people because he could. Great stuff.

….. After I got home from my bus ride, my host mom was so happy to see me that she made pasta for dinner because “soy italiana” and she knows I like pasta. She rocks!

Stay tuned because this week, for class we are traveling to stay in cave hotels! Plus, word on the street is we are taking a Spanish cooking class so watch out.

Sam in the (Nueva) Ciudad

Hola a todos!

Wow what a week this has been since I got back from Barcelona! I finished up my Madrid class and took my final, took a day trip to Toledo with my amigos, did some last minute exploring in Madrid, and then hopped on a bus for Granada yesterday. We got in last night right before dinner. Here in Granada, I'm staying with a host family in a flat about 5 minutes from my class. I have only been here a day but my host family has been incredibly gracious to my roommate and I (shout out to my roomie Suarez). They speak in Spanish in their home so it is proving to be a really exciting learning experience for me getting to know them... plus my host mom is a phenomenal cook (omg y'all). She made us paella for lunch today after our first day of class, which is a traditional Spanish dish of rice with seafood.

Given it's only our first day here in Granada, I haven't gotten to do much exploring yet, that starts after my siesta. I can tell you already though that this is a BEAUTIFUL city, smaller than Madrid, so be sure to stay tuned for pictures and info because we have some cool adventures planned...

Here are just a couple pics so far:

Flamenco Class

After our final, our University brought in a Flamenco teacher to show us a couple moves. Flamenco is a traditional Spanish dance. Typical Flamenco music consists of percussion (usually just clapping or tapping the feet) and guitar. I was told beforehand that the Flamenco is a tough dance to learn, but coming from a girl who has only taken hitting lessons in the place of dancing lessons... it was way more than tough! (lol) As part of our class in Granda, we will be attending a Flamenco show so it should be pretty funny seeing professionals dance in comparison to what me and my classmates tried to do.

Featuring Flat Jessie

Buscando a Dory

As part of our last day in Madrid, my friends and I found a local movie theater because we wanted to have an authentic Spanish movie theater experience. Naturally, we went to see Buscando a Dory (Finding Dory). SO GOOD! Lucky for me, Irene Gari, Spain native and recent graduate from the Georgia Tech Basketball team tagged along with some friends from Madrid, so I was able to ask her for help when they used words I didn't understand. Big shout out to Gari! If you're wondering how different a Spanish movie theater is... it's not different at all, down to the overpriced bucket of movie theater popcorn.

Whether it's Spanish or English, definitely see Finding Dory before it's out of theaters. I'm looking forward to seeing it again back in the States so I know just how much I understood....

Toledo, España

Toledo is a city in Spain only about 45 minutes by bus from my residence in Madrid.  Toledo is a city that is thousands of years old (yes dates back to BC times). The city itself sits up on a hill and is fortified by walls. The cobblestone streets that wind through the historic buildings are surrounded by a river and while it is small, walking the streets of Toledo proved to be pretty cool site-seeing in and of itself. There were big bridges crossing over the river, several delicious restaurants, good shopping, and great views of the countryside of Spain. Toledo is famous for several churches and cathedrals as well, definitely recommend researching because it’s incredibly historic. Check out some pics:

Photo by Kyle

Gates of Toledo

Featuring Flat Jessie

Anyways... Be sure to stay tuned for the next few blog posts because we have some really cool trips planned and Granada has some really cool places to explore so I'll be sure to keep track of it all for yah.

Thanks for keeping up everybody! Stay safe!

Hasta pronto!

Red, White, and Barcelona

Happy 4th from across the pond! Obviously, the folks here in Europe don't celebrate our independence, so I'm sure your're wondering where your American Amigo went to watch fireworks... Well, no fireworks here (and we certainly weren't going to set any off) so my classmates and I went to the park near our residence for a little 4th of July picnic. We ate "the most genuine hot dog in America" - apparently they love Oscar Meyer here- and rented paddle boats on a pond in the park. Just about as American as it gets:

Los Americanos

Aventuras de Barcelona

So as I mentioned in my previous blog, I traveled with several of my classmates to Barcelona this past weekend and it. was. INCREDIBLE. So beautiful, very interesting city and architecture, plus lots of delicious food.

Just to give you some background: Barcelona is in the province of Cataluña and the people of Cataluña speak both Spanish and a language called Catalán. It is similar to Spanish somewhat, so if you can speak Spanish you can understand writing for the most part, but it is pretty hard to understand someone speaking. Most of the signs are in Catalán so learning the metro system in Barcelona was un poco interestante. Also, if you are in to politics at all I would highly recommend reading up on the news in Spain in Cataluña, because a lot of people in the province want independence from Spain- pretty interesting stuff. All in all, there’s an immense of culture and history packed into this city so walking the streets could be considered an attraction in and of itself. We were only in Barca for 2ish days so we had to pack our days full of activities (lots of water and comfortable shoes = major key).

We stayed in a beautiful apartment in the city right by the metro station, close to a couple really cool hole-in-the-wall type tapas places and restaurants. My favorite (s/o to Megan Kurey for the recommendation) was El Rincon de Cava, where the owner posts pictures of all of his customers up on the walls inside the store- great lobster empanadas.

After experiencing my first high-speed train, my friends and I set off for some intense site-seeing:

Basílica de la Sagrada Familia

In 1883, Antoni Gaudí took on designing this temple and working on it until he died in 1926. I learned that it is estimated to be complete in 2026. As you can imagine, a structure that takes hundreds of years to build is easily one of the most incredible places I will ever see in my lifetime. Religious or not- you absolutely have to travel to this place. Gaudí designed it with such detail and symbolism, that from far away it almost looks like a drip sandcastle you would make at the beach, but up close, every inch of this massive structure is carved and decorated with extreme detail.

 The inside is GIANT and covered in beautiful stain-glass windows so the entire place is filled with different shades of color. If you haven’t heard of it, definitely worth some research because it is stunning. I had chills throughout my entire visit (and Barcelona isn’t cold, let me tell you).

Park Güell

Gaudí also designed a park that he intended to be a neighborhood of high-tech (at the time) homes. He created structures with a similar vision and use of glass and natural looking structures as la Sagrada Familia. It’s famous for its beautiful detail, as well as views of the city and the ocean. Lucky for you all, we (Kyle) took a lot of pictures:

Be sure to check out my Photo Album b/c we seriously took a lot of pictures.

El Mercado de la Boqueria

Couldn't leave Barca without stopping by the infamous Mercado de la Boqueria. It’s packed with rows and rows of stands that sell any type of fresh produce you can imagine: fruits and veggies, live seafood, meats (like pig heads and stomachs too… gross!), and all the sweets and candies you could ever want. Very fun walking around and taking it all in, and even more fun trying to talk to the locals.

Ice Barcelona

Where my Star Wars fans at?! I found really cool spot in Barcelona with a patio overlooking the water called Ice Barcelona. It has a room inside completely made of ice. The theme for the room this year is… STAR WARS – Dios Mio. There are lights and fun songs and ice sculptures of movie characters in a room at -15˚C (5˚F, so pretty cold). They provide jackets and gloves at the entrance, but I threw some socks in my purse and wore them under my sandals, my mom taught me well . Basically the highlight of my trip:

La fuerza es fuente con este

Barcelona was beautiful with tons of culture and so many people, but I am very happy to be back in my little slice of home: Madrid.

I should probably go do some homework now (oh yeah, I'm here for school), but you folks back at home enjoy your holiday week!

¡Chao!