Hiking in Las Alpujarras

The hike was today! We woke up at 7:30 and man was I feeling sore from snowboarding the day before. We met at Neptuno mall and boarded the bus there. We then went to pick up the other half of the group at Plaza de Congresso. The bus got on the highway and then we got off on an exit and picked up Isabel, another SOL director. Then we were off on our 2 hour bus ride!

On the ride over there, German, being the history buff that he is, told us about the name and origination of the Alpujarras. The Muslim king that was in Granada surrendered to the Catholics because he did not want the buildings to be destroyed or for people to die so he decided to leave peacefully. He stayed in the Alpujarras for 10 years before going back to Morocco. That is the brief summary. 

When we got to mountain, we were winding up and around the on the curvy roads. It was quite the drive. At the bottom of the Alpujarras we took a pit stop for a bathroom break. We then continued on up the mountain. 

At the top of the mountain, we were in the town of Capileira. From there we could hike through the town and then down on the mountain to 2 more small towns, and catch the bus at the bottom to go back to Granada. Capileira was a pretty quaint and small town but very cute. German stopped at a local panaderia (bakery) and he bought us all little goodies to hold us over because we all were hungry already. 

All of the water in the fountains in the Sierra Nevada Mountains is potable (drinkable) because it comes straight from the mountain itself. The water tasted pretty good. 

As we continued our hike through the city, we came to a point where we walking along the mountainside. That was pretty cool! It was a little bit rocky and not always the smoothest path, but we were only going downhill, so that was good!

When we came to the second town, Bubión, we got to see a 170 year old loom. German knew the lady who makes the rugs so we got to see a live demonstration! 

After the demonstration, Ana, the woman, answered any questions that we had. She spoke very little English so it was a little difficult to ask because we don't know the terminology of looms in Spanish. We then got a chance to roam the store and purchase rugs or other trinkets if we so desired. I got a blue and white rug for the cottage! We were all getting hungry so German decided it was a good time to eat some grub. Rachael and I sat on a bench in a little look out that was quite beautiful. We then wandered the town for an hour and eventually all of us met back up on the side of the road.

We then continued on our journey to the last town of the day, Pampaneira. This hike downhill was probably the most treacherous but it definitely wasn't anything to be too concerned about. We stopped at another scenic overlook and took a few pictures.

Rachael had been to this town 2 years prior so she showed me around to all the good shops and we even stopped at a chocolate shop/museum. We bought a wafer that was covered in white chocolate, dark chocolate, and milk chocolate. It was so good!

After waiting around and soaking up the sun, it was time to board the bus to return back to Granada. It was definitely a fun day, but a long one. We got home at 6:30 and I got to Skype my friend Max! This was the first time I had seen his face since running into him at the Packer game in December. It was nice to catch up :)

We ate dinner and I got ready to go out. Rachael was too tired from the hike and she wanted to rest so I met up with Maggie, Leah, Adam, Sam and Michael. We went to Babylon, the shots bar and took many funny pictures! Michael had just gotten a new shawl/hat in the mail and we were having too much fun with it!

Right when we were about to leave Babylon, Amy and Chelsea showed up. We were trying to get a hold of them all night and their phones were dead so it was definitely luck that lead us to them. After Babylon, we started to walk around to find a bar that Adam had been to the week before because they had really good and cheap mixed drinks! When we were wandering (because he had no idea where he was going) we ran into Juan and Jasmine. They were also looking for this bar. Eventually after walking up and down the streets for 20 minutes we gave up and just took a flyer to a different bar that had a drink special... but lo and behold, it was the bar we had been looking for the whole time! 

We ordered our drinks and the majority of the group got pina coladas. It was pretty good but I had ordered something that was not. I could barely drink it so I shared it with everyone so they helped me finish the cup. With each drink you order, you get a free shot, but Amy, Chelsea and I got 2 free shots because the girl bartender didn't know that the guy bartender had already given us our shots! We weren't complaining. 

After the bar we went to Granada 10 and danced the night away. My legs were killing me from the snowboarding, hiking and wearing heels. All such a bad combination... never again!

Me, Chelsea, Maggie, Leah, Amy

Overall it was a great day! I even got walked home to my door so I wasn't walking alone in the dark. Good friends :) Good times!

Snowboarding in the Sierra Nevada Mountains

Today is the day! The day of a once in a lifetime experience. Snowboarding in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The down side, having to wake up at 6:30 am!

When I woke up I had to tiptoe around the room because Rachael was still sleeping. I was meeting Amy outside a gas station at 7:15 to go to the bus station. I was running a little late because I underestimated how slow I was going to be in the morning, too tired, and I ended up leaving the house at 7:15... oops! And to make matters worse, I forgot my lunch on the table.. but luckily when I was getting on the elevator Mila was awake and reminded me of. So I rode the elevator down, and rushed back up the stairs, apologizing multiple times that I had forgotten in. I then ran to meet Amy at the gas station and she was leaving right when I got there. The un-perfect timing couldn't have worked out any better.

At the gas station, Amy and I waited for about 10 more minutes for Juan and Adam to show up. From there we took a taxi to the bus station, bought our tickets and boarded the bus. When we were on the bus, Juan called Jasmine asking where she was, and she was just leaving her house at 7:50... the bus left at 8. Luckily for her, German was nice enough to pick her up and drive her to the mountain. He was already going there with Ellie, a teacher at an English school, and bringing all of our gear to the hill. 

We arrived at the mountain at about 9 am and from there we changed into all of our snow gear. We walked to buy our tickets and took the gondola up. Lucky for us it was not that busy (according to German) because it was a Friday. I thought it was pretty busy though because there were a lot of kids, but they didn't have school due to exams. 

When we got to the top of the hill, we took another chair lift to the middle of the mountain, not to the peek. From there we enjoyed the day :) I had NO falls, or wipe outs! 

We met up for lunch in the chalet and enjoyed that and then Adam, Amy, German, Ellie and I went on an adventure. We were going to view Africa from the mountain! We had to take a chair lift to the middle of the mountain, ski over to the T-bar and ride that up.

The dreaded T-bar. When I found out that we had to take that up, I instantly became pissed because I cannot do it for the life of me. It is seriously impossible for snowboarders, I swear. Because I have no idea how to use it, because I rarely do, I attempted to grab onto the pole in the middle, and sit sideways on one side of the T. Eventually by butt slipped off and I was hanging on for dear life. I made it probably about 1/8 of the way up and fell off because of how much it was pulling me. I sat in the snow for about 5 minutes ready to just give up, but I really wanted to see the view so I unstrapped, walked back down the hill (exhausting) and tried again. This time I told the worker that I needed help and he attempted to explain to me that I needed to put the bar between my legs. He helped me put it there and I was off. It worked for about half the way and then all of a sudden it was digging into my leg bone. SO painful! I was on the verge of tears. I tried to readjust and switch my weight but it wouldn't get rid of the pain and I was fearful that I would fall off again and have to go all the way back down. ** Once you are off the T-bar, you have to go to the bottom because they are on a bungee type cord system where they go to the top (unreachable) and stay there if nobody is riding on it ** Finally I had reached the top and I saw my group waiting for me and cheering. But it wasn't over yet.

When I released the T-bar, I was on pure ice and I could not catch a grip to slide over to my group. I did a summersault, and slid down the hill board first on my back. There was a man who was on skis that must have fallen and I was headed straight towards him. Luckily he noticed and got out of the way just on time. Somehow I ended up on my stomach and I was grabbing for the snow trying to stop myself. I was scared for my life that I was going to fall to my death. Finally, an angel must have came down and saved me because I came to a halt. About 75 feet from my group at the top. It was one of the most dramatic things I have ever experienced. When I stopped, everyone was screaming down to me to see if I was okay, and luckily I was no hurt, just a ton of bruises. From there, I had to walk all the way back up and to the right to go continue on with this journey. I unstrapped my board and began trekking up. The hill was so steep. It was a red, which translates to black diamonds in America. My guess was that it was about 70 to 80 degrees and it was COMPLETE ice. It was very difficult for me to walk up the hill and I was stumbling the majority of the time, and even would have to take a few steps backwards to catch my balance. Not only did I have to walk, but so did the rest of my group, but they had it easy and had to walk horizontally across the hill. They even were slipping down!

When I finally reached the top, I plopped down on the ground and laid down. I was shaking for the next 10 minutes because I was so scared and shocked and shaken up. German was concerned that I needed to go to the hospital but I insisted that I was okay. I drank some water and added some sugar to my blood stream and after resting I was feeling a little bit better. My head kind of hurt, probably because I had hit it and looking back, I am guessing that I had a minor (or half of a) concussion. From there, Amy and I decided not to continue on. We were too scared and did not feel safe and didn't feel it was worth it. As disappointed as I was, we could still see a glimpse of Africa from where we were. Amy and I just sat around and did a photo shoot and had some fun while we were building up the guts to go down the hill!

When we finally decided it was time to go down after hanging out for about 45 minutes, I slid down the whole way on my butt with my board on my lap. I figured I had done it once before, I could do it again! Amy slid on her board's edge for part of the way but it got too icy and she resorted to sliding down like an penguin with me! 

When we made it to an area that was reasonable to board on, we strapped in and attempted to board down. It was too icy so we laid on our backs and slid down some more. It was really fun! Eventually got to a hill that was a blue, same as a blue square in America, and we boarded down to the chalet. We met up with Juan and Jasmine there (they didn't go because they are still learning how to ski.. smart people!) and we told them about my spill. They were thankful that they didn't go. We ordered some fries to calm us down after that scary ride down and then we stuck to blues and greens the rest of the day.

When it was time to go, you have the option of riding down in the gondola, which closes at 5, or riding down a super long trail to the bottom. We wanted to ride down the trail but we couldn't find it, and it was 5:00 so we decided to just take the gondola down. That is our only regret of the day, not finding that trail! We met up with everyone at the bottom and walked to German's car to get our shoes. From there we had to take all of our stuff from the car to the bus to go home. We put our boards under the bus, so that was very easy!

When we got back to Granada, we had to take the city bus with all our equipment back to the rental shop and was that ever an adventure! The bus was crammed full and everyone was scared that we were going to poke their eyes out with our boards and skis. No injuries occurred! We returned our equipment, I got my passport back and we walked home. 

It was a lazy evening for me, and I had to rest up for tomorrow, hiking! Overall, it was a great day, and a once in a life time experience! And the views were breathtaking!!

:)

Happy Valentines Day!

My one class today was fine. I walked home after and slept until 1:15. It is so nice to have that luxury! I wouldn't take it away for the world. Ate lunch and then chilled out until the evening.

Obviously today is Valentine's Day and Rachael's boyfriend and I had been in contact for him to get her some flowers. They hadn't arrived by 4 and Zach (the boyfriend) was getting worried so he had me tell her to check her phone. I went about this by saying I had a missed call from Michael and that she should check her phone as well. She was resistant at first but eventually I got her to check it and she had a missed call from a random number (the flower store). Long story short, Zach had to spill the beans and RIGHT after that, they were delivered. Beautiful roses!

Around 5:30 I met with Amy to go to the ski/snowboard rental store. Here in Granada they have a store that rents you a jacket, snow pants  goggles, hat, gloves, board and boots and bindings. The whole shebang  and you only pay for what you need! Amy and I both rented everything expect for a jacket and hat, we had those. All of it in total only cost 26 euros. That is nothing compared to the USA! The only down side was that they needed a 300 euro deposit OR your passport. We were not about to cough up 300 euros so I went home and got my passport when Amy went to school. I went back to the store and gave them the passport and everything was all good!

When I got home, Rachael was gone to class (we actually passed each other on the street) so I had the room to myself.. to do nothing. I just relaxed and accomplished the bare minimum. 

At 8 I left to go meet Rachael and Sam and Michael for our Valentines date of tapas. Ruth Ann, Katie and Liz also joined us. We went to the first tapas bar and ordered our drinks and the tapa was a tortilla (American tortilla) with ham and cheese and green olives. I devoured the green olives while everyone else found them to be pretty disgusting. At our second tapas bar we got bread with jamon serono (cured ham) on it. It was really good but Rachael and I were not satisfied for dinner with that so we both ordered bocadillos (sandwiches). When I ordered they much have misheard me, and gave us pork instead of ham. (lomo or jamon). It was really good though and it definitely hit the spot :)

When we got home, I had to get all of my things ready for tomorrow.. snowboarding in the Sierra Nevada Mountains! I packed it all up and hit the hay.

Happy Valentines Day!

Atlas Intercambio/Kristin's 22nd Birthday!

Today was a hectic day with 6 hours of class. I don't think that I am ever going to get used to it. And to make things more stressful, Mila forgot that I have to eat lunch at 2:30 because I need to leave the house at 3:05 to get to class on time. Because I didn't want to be rude, and didn't know how to go about the situation, I told her at 2:50 that I needed to eat soon and she was so fluster and apathetic and sorry that she forgot! I feel so bad when she forgets things like that because she gets into a mode of fast pace and she is so sorry! I ended up scarfing down my food and walking to class eating an apple. It all worked out in the end, so no hard feelings!

My two night classes we the same as usual, except that I got out of class 20 minutes early! I ended up waiting at school for Rachael to get done with class so we could walk home together. It is always nice to have a walking buddy.

We ate an early dinner because Rachael and I (and whoever else was interested from SOL) had an exchange with Spanish speaking students who are learning English. We went to their school to meet them and then as a group we walked to a bar and got a drink and some tapas. We ended up spending an hour and a half with them, alternating every 15 minutes between languages. At the end we exchanged numbers and names and I went home and created a Facebook group for us. Let me just say, it is nearly impossible to find Spaniards on Facebook because of the similarities in last names and the lesser amount of friends that they have. Also, we had no mutual friends, which is an added challenge.

Rachael, me, Amy, Leah, Maggie, Chelsea and her roommate all went. There were 5 Spanish speakers that were also there. 

For my tapa, I tried a croquetta (similar to a hush puppy but with mashed up stuff inside) with octopus tentacles in it. It was pretty good! Would definitely have it again. Another tapa that was served was fried eggplant with sugar and possibly cinnamon on it, and a dark honey that comes for sugar cane. It was very sweet!

We figured it was time to go at 11:30 because we had class tomorrow at 8:30. When we got home, we pretty much got into bed immediately and the lights were out soon after!

ALSO!
It is Kristin's 22nd birthday today! I made this collage for her to show her some of our great times that we have had together! It is so crazy to see how much we have grown up and matured and the changes in our looks.

Lourdes and Lazy

Last night I met Lourdes, pronounces (Lure-dace) and she was really cool! She is 21 and lives in a small town outside of Granada. We got along really well and we are planning on meeting up another time. Her English was pretty good, better than I had expected and it almost took me by surprise. We spoke in English the majority of the night, but next time we are going to use more Spanish. It was hard to speak in Spanish after learning how good her English was. It is like you automatically revert back to what is comfortable! We ended up going to a local cafe and I got a cappuccino while she got a smoothie. We sat and talked the majority of the time and we showed each other pictures of our family and friends and her boyfriend. We got kicked out of the cafe because it was closing, but it worked out to be okay because I had to be home for dinner anyways.

After dinner, we became Facebook friends and talked some more about meeting up another time! I am excited that I now know a local and hopefully I will be able to meet her friends and get to know more people!

Today was a normal, yet boring, day. After my hour and a half of class, I walked home and went back to bed. I woke up and watched the Bachelor, and thank the lord that Tierra is finally gone! I was screaming for joy that he finally realized that she is junk! We then ate lunch and I got to talk with some friends from Winona. It is always nice to catch up with them and see how they are doing. Everyone always tells me how jealous they are and that they love my pictures. It is nice encouragement to keep on going and doing what I am doing!

I then watched Man on a Ledge, great movie! Definitely would recommend it. It is a thriller for sure and not very many movies can pull off what it did. Definitely kept me thinking what could happen next.

When the movie was over I motivated to do my homework and get everything situated for tomorrow. I then did a few ab workouts, preparing for spring break :), and now I am waiting for dinner.

Tonight is going to be a relaxing evening.


Today we also got information about the opportunity to go skiing or snowboarding this Friday in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I am going to go! I am so excited. There is a place where we can rent gear, such as a jacket, snowpants, goggles, boots, board and so on. I am going to be going with Amy, another girl from our SOL group. Excited is an understatement!!

Also, it is Grandpa Cmeyla's 95th birthday today! What an old fart! Cannot believe that he is that old, but I am so glad he is still here with us :) I miss him dearly and cannot wait to see him when I get home!

It's Snowing!

Sunday was a lazy day indeed. I Skyped my parents and that is about the only interesting thing that happened. For dinner though, we had tortillas with potatoes and vegetables and they were delicious! I definitely will miss those when I go back to America... in 4 months. So I have plenty of time to enjoy them before then :)

Monday:

Today was my second day of grammar class "class" because the first day of classes was all syllabus days. We relearned ser and estar and reviewed the uses. It reminded me of middle school, but it's always nice to have a refresher course. In my Islamic culture class, it was our first real day of class, and I already am not a fan of it. The teacher talks all of the place, constantly jumping from subject to subject and I have no idea what I am supposed to be writing down. I am hoping that it is just because it was a background day and that the rest of the classes will be easier to follow.

When I got home, Mila was not home, but later when she got home she was not happy. She got the water bill and the month of January was double what her usual monthly usage is. She said that the company sent her a warning telling her that if we keep it up, they will limit the hours and times that we are allowed to use the water. This came as a shock to me because we shower every other, or every 3 days. And we have to turn off the water when we are soaping up. The toilet could have put the bill over the edge because it runs a lot and doesn't seem to ever stop. Another possibility could be the amount of laundry she does because she does have 3 girls living with her. Hopefully now we can figure some things out so we use less water and don't get our usage limited.

I ate lunch and left for class. As I was walking to class, it started to snow. But the snow was not like Midwest snow, it was in balls. It reminded me of sleet or hail, but not as hard. The Spaniards had their umbrellas up (why!?) and some of them were stopping to take pictures of it. I guess it's not something that happens as often as it does back home.

In my writing and oral class, we had a good time! We drew famous people using new vocabulary that we learned to describe faces. We then drew our partner for a game we are going to play on Wednesday. After that we learned a TON of new adjectives to describe personalities, and used the Simpsons characters as our examples. The time flew by and the class was over in no time!

I am now sitting in the courtyard area of school waiting for my class to begin in an hour. After class, I have my meeting with Lourdes, my intercambio partner. I am nervous and excited! I will write another blog post about how it goes :)

How Last Night Really Went Down

After eating dinner and getting ready, Michael met at our place so we could walk to to where Sam and Juan were. They were playing pool at Euro Salon, near Cafe Futbol. 

When we got there we still had not heard from Angie or Gabby after calling them a few times. We had, in a sense, given up on meeting up with them because we thought that they had made other plans or there was some intercommunication. Soon after settling in, Michael checked his phone and noticed that Angie had called him, so he called her back. They were still out to eat with their large group so they said they had no idea what time they would be done. 

To waste time, and because Juan hadn't ate dinner yet, we went to Cafe Futbol. Rachael and I shared an order of churros, and the boys got some drinks, tapas and pizza. After eating my half of churros, and receiving a text from Angie saying that they were done eating, Michael and I went out searching for them and found them outside Plaza Nueva. Only Angie was there, no Gabby, but she did bring along a bunch of friends. We then met Liz, Ruth Ann and Jasmine at the Christopher Columbus statue. Soon after Rachel, Sam and Juan showed up. 

As we began walking to Camborio, to save money and because we had a group of 15, the group from Sevilla decided that it would be best if they stayed home because they had to get up early the next day.

From left to right (this will test my memory)

Kelsey, Steven, Allison, Sam, Shea, Angie, Michael, Me, Rachael!

The rest of the group, all from the SOL program, walked to Camborio. When we got there we got a free bottle of champagne because Rachael (and I and Liz) was chosen from the Facebook group if you brought in 5 girls. It was very crazy how all 3 of us got chosen, but since we only had 5 girls, we only got one bottle. We had 10 minutes to go to the bar to claim it so that was the first thing that we did. 

We then checked our coats and hit up the free bar because it was closing in 20 minutes. We had to drink fast to get a second drink before 1:30 am. We tried to get drinks for the guys, because the free bar is only for the girls, but they said you had to bring the same cup back so it didn't work out.

We then danced the night away, and had a blast. Rachael and I took the CUTEST picture together, but it got photobombed (obviously) by some guy checking out his stomach. We have absolutely no idea what on earth he is doing...