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.