the weekend

So, we had an awsome weekend!  On Saturday we went to the Al Hambra.  Sweet!  It´s this walled city that has several palaces in it and a fortress and religious center.  It was started by the Moors, but then the Catholics took over, then the Muslims again, I think,  I don´t really know our tour was in Spanish, so there are probably things I couldn´t understand.  We ate our bocadillas in the jardíns of the palace, and sang do re mi down this tunnel of flowers.  Probably one of my happiest moments in Spain thus far. lol.  We did some wandering and general exploring of the city after that.  We got some tapas and gillato for Britt´s birthday.  Oh, and Britt and I have a running joke of LOTR quotes that have brought much happiness to every situation, so for her birthday I gave her a card including that theme.  It was a fantastic day.  Sunday we went to the beach which was beautiful and superfun.  We saw a giganto jellyfish! and we rolled in the waves like beaches whales, it was beautiful.  Later we had a bible study thing on the beach next to two topless girls.  It kinda felt like we were wearing burkinis in comparison.  We were going to climb a mountain today, but it was really rainy, and not everybody showed up, so we thought, another day.  I´m still trying to learn how I can fit in this culture.  It´s a challenge because I think just about everything about me is different/ the antithesis of this culture.  They are in so much bondage!  Maybe I´m just at that spot where I see mostly things I don´t like about this culture, but it´s hard to see Jesus here sometimes.  I´m learning to care less if the europeans judge me, americans usually think I´m odd/ I laugh loud, so why is it different with europeans?  O well I´ll figure it out eventually, maybe.

another e-mail

Where was I in the story?  I guess I´ll just talk about my Señora.  She is a single woman with two sons who are out of the house now.  Hosting kids is her only source of income I think.  She is really nice and a fantastic cook.  She said that we are eating fish this afternoon, not gunna lie I´m a little scared, but she said "Te gusta eso, te gusta todo mi comida" (or something kinda like that)  Which reminds me, one day we had pallea and she told me that there was bones in the meat, and I thought she meant that they were for eating, so not wanting to be rude I crunched those bones down, and tried to not freak out.  Later I went to class and asked my tutor, Jose, do you eat the bones in pallea, and he looked at me like I was crazy and said no.  I told him the story and he laughed and said that my Señora probably thought wow she is eating the bones while I was thinking wow they eat the bones.  Then he proceded to make fun of me for the rest of class, which ps is a blast, he is hysterical.  Anyways the second night we were walking home from an excursion and since Marla and I are neighbors, we walk Bethany and JB home first when it´s dark out, however we got hopelessly lost for about an hour walking around in the streets.  When I finally got home my Señora started yelling at me about being late, and that I didn´t call her (I didn´t have her number) and dinner was late, and she was worried.  It was awful, she was talking so fast I couldn´t understand her, and I was so stressed and scared from being lost that I just started bawling.  I tried to hold it in or escape to my room, but she followed me and kept asking if I was drunk and if I get tapas with my friends I have to tell her, and that alcohol isn´t good for me I should only get coca cola.  I tried explaining that I was lost not drunk, but she didn´t understand/ listen/ care.  Later I think she felt bad she started saying stop crying, why are you crying? my 3 year old granddaughter doesn´t cry  Which of course only made things worse.  Anyways that was the rough night with my Señora.  It´s been better since then, she really is nice, and I talked to Veronica and she said that´s just kinda how Spanish people are, and I just have to be like LISTEN! in order to get them to stop.  ¡Mas fuerte! she said. ..., and a guy in the program now, Tom, said his friend had her last year and thought she was super contolling.  We get along pretty well, so I want to stick with it, at least for a while and see how things go.  I´m sure things will work out, and I´m there for a reason.

The city is beautiful, and I love our excursions!  <our tour guide speaks spanish and veronica translates, but he speaks so well, slowly, and with gestures, that I don´t really need a translater.  It is good for the language and culture or the city.  We found a pretty cool church in the city that we are planning on going to either saturday or sunday night.  Britt also made contact with the muslim missionaries here, that we are wanting to work with.  We´ll probably help with clothing drives and whatnot.  There are some pretty cool girls in the program the I´ve been getting to know which is always fun, we´ve gotten gillato together, and been the awkward americans in the plazas laughing alot.  It´s kinda fun to be outragiously american and stop trying to hide it, but it isn´t really safe when we are alone, so groups are fun. 

It´s crazy how fast my spanish is coming along, I think I learn the most from my Señora.  However in some ways it is almost like starting over.  I´m relearning things that I knew as a freshman in high school, but it make more sense now in practice.  At night I am so tired because, well, I walk at least three hours a day, and I am constantly thinking in Spanish.  I feel as though my brain has turned into complete spanglish.

I still feel as though there is so much to say, but I need to go now.  Maybe we can skype this weekend?  It´s Britt´s birthday on saturday, and I think we are going to the beach on sunday, so I´m not sure when, but I´ll try to figure it out before the day is over, and I don´t have internet anymore.

¡Sta´Luego!

Megan

Old e-mail

¡Hola mis amigos!

It might be a struggle to keep this all in english because my mind is so spanglish of late, but I´ll  do my best ;-)  Anyways I don´t really know where to start besides the beginning, so yeah I´ll start there.  The journey to Granada was... interesting.  The plane was fun because we all were sort of together  and I made sure to raise my arms during take off like a roller coster  so that we would immediately be pointed out as rediculous  which was fun.   However the couple in front of us... had passion as Veronica would say.  It was awkward esspecially when I would bend down to get something from my backpack and come up and my face would be right next to loud smooching, like I was practically a part of it.   Fun times... On the other flight I sat next to this guy who was afraid of flying I think which was fun because he kept moving, blowng his nose, whistling, and hogging the armrest,  and you know I can sympathise with him, but I hadn´t slept in quite some time, and I was a little grouchy.    O and I dropped my carry on like three times on this pilot´s head when I was trying to get it in the compartment.  He eventually got up and did it for me... oops!  When we were finally done flying  we had to get a bus.  Unfortunately we got there like 5 seconds to late to take the one straight to Granada, so we had to go the bus station first, but before we could do that we missed the bus three times because we were confused on which bus to take.  The most funny was probably the third because it had been sitting there for fifteen minutes, we had been sitting there for fifteen minutes, and finally we are like huh... mabey we should ask the bus driver if we can take this bus.  He says yeah, and we start getting our money and he drives away.  It was hysterical, there was  this huge scene of luggage and yelling and running, and everyone there knew we had been sitting there awhile.  Then just after that marla sat on her suitcase and it slipped out from under her and fell on top of it.  The entire bus stop was laughing at us, and we were laughing at ourselves. 

When we were trying to get to our hostel we got off at the wrong stop and had two walk two hours with all of our luggage to the hostel!  uff dah!  We would go down some sketchy streets, and then just fall into hysterics, because only we could get into this situation so severely. 

 When we finally arrived at the hostel we found out that we had been overbooked, so we had two men in our room, JB and Britt had to sleep in the same bed, and mal had to sleep in the cot.  That was awkward, and one night a chunk of ceiling fell ontop of kelsey while she was sleeping lol.  It was a pretty nice hostel, but that just seemed like something out of a movie.

¡Hasta Luego!

Megan