Discovering Granada

It is starting to get harder to remember what I've been up to each week. Every day seems like it is blurring into the next! I'm happy that we are nearly done with our intensivo and DELE classes. It been kind of rough to have so much class every day plus all the homework that we are assigned. It is especially hard considering we feel like we are in class 24 hours a day here because we constantly have to be thinking about what is being said to us and what we are going to say in response. It is tiring! But hopefully it is helping us improve (not that it really feels like we are improving much!).

This week I went out with some friends to explore our side of the city. We live really close to the ceter of the city and have spent most of our time so far exploring that area and the streets between our houses and school. We didn't have any idea that there was so much more to the city on the opposite side of our apartment! We found a bunch of cafes and a salon that does manicures for 2 euros... We are definitely planning on making a stop there soon! =) We also finally found a Vodafone that had the phone I needed, so I finally have a cell phone here. Very exciting! We ended up going to a little restaurant that served these HUGE bocadillos (basically they are sandwiches) with fries and a drink for only 6 euro. We are all pretty convinced that we lucked out with our location, and our side of the city is an undiscovered gem! It is definitely a lot less touristy. No one speaks any English. At one cafe we didn't know how to say something, and the owner brought out his teenage son to try to translate! The poor buy looked mortified, but we thought it was pretty hilarious.

We spent most of the day today searching around our barrio (neighborhood) for a non-existent market. Our mama told us that the market on Saturdays is near the Palacio de Deportes, but we walked basically all morning and never found it! It was pretty fun though to just wander around and discover all the little hole-in-the-wall shops and cafes all over the place. We found this great bookstore near our street and of course I could have spent the entire day there... I can't wait to go back! =) It is fun discovering the city, and even though we didn't ever find what we were looking for at the outset, I still feel like it was a very successful day!