I can't believe it's over...

So I'm currently sitting looking at my empty armoire and freaking out a little bit. This has been where I've lived, slept, cried, laughed, done homework, hung out with people, made friends, and grown over the last three and a half months. How do I just say goodbye to a place that's changed my life so much? How is it possible that I actually am not ready to leave yet?

I've decided that it's not going to be terribly difficult to say goodbye to the city of Granada itself, but it will be very difficult to say goodbye to everything that I associate with this place, like all of my friends and memories. I know I'll still have both of those things, but it just won't be the same back in Chicago and Champaign. I think I'm going to feel, at least for a little while, like I'm missing part of myself. Because how do you go from seeing people every day to not seeing them at all? And furthermore, how do you go from sharing the same experiences and the same hardships back to normal life?

I think Steve put it really well. He said, "while I'm not ready to leave Granada yet, if everyone else went home and I was here by myself, I don't think it would be worth it to stay." Granada, for me, is the people I've met, the friends I've made, and the memories I'll hold on to for a long time. Some of my favorite memories are:

-Walking around looking for/avoiding zombies in the Alpujarras with Steve
-Batan
-The last day we had in Rome - perfect weather, we saw beautiful things, and I was just on top of the world
-Walking around Barcelona with Melissa and having a really good conversation with her
-The bike tour through Tuscany
-Salsa lessons
-Short-sheeting Steve's bed in Florence
-Devon's birthday/Camborio
-Farewell dinner/Granada Diez
-Just being able to relax
-Getting to walk around in Paris with Brett and talk
-The wind storm in Algeceiras (haha...)
-Hanging out in the biblioteca
-Halloween
-Thanksgiving dinner

There are a few things that I'm not going to miss, however, such as:
-No central heating
-Crappy Internet
-Nonexistent customer service
-Cigarette smoke EVERYWHERE

Don't get me wrong, I am very excited to go home and see my parents, Paul, Stratford House, and the Banambra (in that order), but leaving is still sad and hard to handle. I want to go home for Christmas because I am so excited about giving everyone their presents (and I hope nothing breaks while I am traveling, because I would be so incredibly upset, especially the liquids...) and I am so excited (strangely enough) to see all of my aunts and uncles and cousins and just enjoy a good, old-fashioned Christmas with them.

I am definitely not excited for the next day and a half. We have to take a bus to Malaga from 7p-9p, then a train from the bus station to the airport from 1015-1045 (or something like that), and then hanging out ALL night in the Malaga airport, checking in at 4 in the morning, taking a flight from Malaga to Paris from 705a-930a, having a layover in Paris, then taking a nine and a half hour flight from Paris to Chicago from 115p (Paris time) to 340p (Chicago time). AND I'm really congested, so it's probably going to hurt to fly. I decided that my nose is protesting the insane amount of cigarette smoke that I've been around the last three and a half months by choosing to not let me breath anymore. Darn cigarette smoke... It probably also doesn't help that my hair stays wet for several hours due to it being too cold in the apartment for the water to evaporate off of my head.

I am definitely a different person leaving here than I was coming here. I am so much more relaxed, I trust the Lord infinitely more, and I know and really understand that people are so much more important than school could ever be and it's okay to take breaks from studying and hang out with people, and I know that the Lord has got complete and total control over my life, and He knows what He's doing, and I can trust that and not be afraid. I think I am a lot more liberal as a person, more outgoing, more human, but I love the Lord so much more and I trust Him so much more, and even though those two things seem contradictory, I can't imagine myself growing in any other way. I am a liberal Christian, and I love it. I don't know that I've been happier with myself as a person, ever, so that has to be something good.

Well folks, I made it. See you on the flip side.
Dos besos...

In a world where children get penetrated, broken, and eaten...

I am DONE with finals!!! Whoo hoo!! It is a wonderful feeling, let me tell you.

I just wanted to tell a story about our culture presentations today. We had to give expositions on our volunteer work (or our groupings with Spaniards over this past semester). So, during our expositions, one guy was trying to say that he introduced himself to these little kids but accidentally said the verb for "insert or penetrate" and our professor's eyes got all wide and she was like, "no! no! that's not the right verb!" And then one guy was trying to say that he broke up a fight between two boys but ended up saying that he broke them. And then another guy said he met some kids and he ate Chinese food with them, but the way he said it was like, "I met some kids that I ate with Chinese food," like he ate the kids and the Chinese food at the same time. It was fabulous. We had such a good time in that class today.

It's weird to think that I'm going home in only four days. But... right now I'm going out with some friends so I'll have to update later (once again...)
Dos besos!!!

Internet at the Piso = not such a good thing

I don't have too much time to update because I should be studying for finals but I just wanted to let you all know that I'm still here, still doing well, and actually not ready to come home yet. Isn't that ridiculous?

Anyways, I mostly just want to tell everyone to go look at my pictures, even though they aren't all labeled yet (I'll do it when I'm done with finals, I promise). And I'll update my life when I'm done with finals, too. But... yeah.
Dos besos!

Uhh... November When??/Boot Fever/"Bond" in Spanish is still Bond

Oh my goodness, I can't believe it's already December! November seriously FLEW by ridiculously fast, and now I only have thirteen days left in Spain! Where did the time go?? It probably got sucked into my trips to Paris, Barcelona, and Madrid, and my four exams, two presentations, and a paper. Being busy sure makes time fly!

So this weekend was SO busy. On Thursday, everyone in our program got all gussied up and we went to this really nice Spanish restaurant for a "traditional Thanksgiving dinner." I ended up walking around in heels half an hour previous to this dinner due to someone mistakenly telling me they were at a bar on one street, when they were actually at a bar on another street, so my feet were not very happy with me when we got to the restaurant. Anyways, they got the food right (pumpkin soup, turkey, stuffing (sort of), cranberry sauce (literally sauce, not like the jellied stuff), and mashed potatoes) but their portion sizes were a little off (as in way smaller than we're used to). We all just had to face it - nothing beats Thanksgiving at home, where you eat until you go into a literal food coma and then all of your uncles fall asleep "watching the football game." It was a good time, though, and we all ended up hanging out until like three or four in the morning, which was fantastic. It's always good when different groups of friends within the program hang out because we all get along really well; it's just generally too difficult to plan something for all 45 of us.

Friday, Melissa and I celebrated a traditional Black Friday - we shopped... all day. We met up about noon (so five in the morning in Chicago, prime Black Friday shopping time) and were shopping until about seven. I know; me, shopping for seven hours. Pretty crazy, right? We did take probably a two and a half hour break in the middle for lunch (and then waiting for the stores to open up again after siesta), but we were pretty much shopping for the rest of the time. We both ended up getting lots of wonderful things (for ourselves and then LOTS of Christmas presents - I finished shopping for my mom, dad, and sister). After that, Steve met up with us for churros con chocolate and pretty much as soon as he met up with us, he took our bags (and there were a lot of them) and carried them the entire time we were with him. What a gentleman! After we got churros, Melissa headed home but Steve and I roamed around in Corte Ingles for like an hour and a half. We looked at all of the board games and electronics and sports stuff. I didn't end up getting home until 930, so I was out of the house for a full nine and a half hours that day! Now THAT'S one heck of a Black Friday. (It was nice that no one else was celebrating with us, because American Black Friday shoppers are actually kind of scary)

I did get a pair of boots while shopping and I LOVE them. I seriously, love, love, LOVE them and I spent a good portion of yesterday trying on different outfits while wearing them. And now I really want a pair of brown boots so that I can wear boots with my brown clothes as well. I have quite seriously caught boot fever.

Saturday, I did homework all. day. long. It was quite brutal, but I was preparing for my finals, since I have my first one on Thursday (again, WHERE did the time go??). Then I met up with Steve, Brad, and Andrew to go see a movie. We decided to see the new James Bond movie but we had about an hour before it was going to start so we just walked around the mall for a while. We happened upon this strange gaming place and they had this thing that was sort of like a batting cage, except that it had four guns, two on each side, so you were shooting these soft balls at each other. So, of course, the boys were intrigued, so we all went in and it was actually quite a blast. I did get hit quite a few times, but I got a couple of good hits in as well.

So then the movie: it was in Spanish. That's right, I watched my first James Bond movie in Spanish. I got really caught up in the little details of the movie, so it took me a couple of days to decide what I thought of the movie, but in the end I decided I liked it. I did feel like it was just James Bond going to a whole bunch of different countries and killing a whole bunch of people. But apparently that's Bond, so... yeah. Definitely quite the experience.

In any case, I think this is a sufficiently overly-long update,, so until next time,
DOS BESOS!!

Barca!!!

So... Barcelona is officially my favorite city in Spain that I've visited so far.

It really was just wonderful. We had gorgeous weather (low 60's the entire weekend) and there is just SO MUCH to do there!! We visited Las Ramblas (a famous street with lots of shops that runs into the Mediterranean), the beach (they're actually fake and the sand gets brought up from Egypt every few years), the statue of Christopher Columbus "pointing to the sea", the Plaza Real (built by the Bacard family - yes, when you thought Bacardi rum, you were thinking correctly), the old palace for Ferdinand and Isabel, Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, Casa Mila La Pedrera and Casa Batllo (but didn't go into either of these, just saw them from the outside), the Picasso museum (this was wonderful, and I decided that I like early Picasso a LOT and I really don't appreciate later Picasso very much), and lots of other random places.

We also signed up for a cooking class where we learned how to make sangria and paella. The sangria was absolutely fantastic!! I'm super excited to get that recipe and try it when I get home - it's supposed to be better if you let it sit overnight first so I'll definitely have to do that. The paella was decent, definitely not as good as when my senora's dad makes it. It did have prawns in it (read: shrimp with a head, eyes, antennae, skin, and feet) but I braved the storm and peeled and ate them, and actually thought they were quite delicious!

The only really bad thing about Barcelona is that the people who run the gift shops are all REALLY pushy. We'd go into a store and if we spent even more than a couple moments looking at something, they'd come up to us and tell us how much it was. AND they followed REALLY closely behind us ALL the time, and it really made me not want to buy anything from them, so I really didn't.

I absolutely LOVED the Sagrada Familia and Park Guell (see my Picasa album for pictures!!). I'd seen it all in pictures before and it was just thrilling to get to see it in person and take my OWN pictures of the places! I really wanted to go inside Casa Batllo as well but it was 16,50 euro to get in, which was WAY too expensive... I was just so excited to see all of Gaudi's stuff, since I'd done a presentation on him in high school. It was fabulous!

So... yeah, Barcelona is pretty amazing as far as Spanish cities are concerned, and if given the opportunity, I'd go back in a heartbeat (because there was still stuff that we didn't get to see because we didn't have enough time).

I've got one more trip to Madrid to see Megan this upcoming weekend, and then I am done traveling. While I'm sad that I'm not going to get to see EVERYTHING that I want to see here in Europe, I think, on the whole, I made good decisions about my travel destinations and I enjoyed my time in them. Additionally, my feet have been yelling at me this last week and a half to STOP WALKING EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME! Goodness, they are tired. I think it's some sort of combination of all the traveling I've done and just plain walking everywhere, but my feet are looking forward to a break, a day where they don't have to be constantly walking.

Also, I can't believe that I'll be home in four weeks! It's such a weird thought for me, because for a lot of this trip, I thought it would never end, but now, the end is FAST approaching and I can't believe how quickly it seems to have gone (quickly and not at the same time). I mean, I'm visiting my sister this weekend, and then it's Thanksgiving, and then almost right after that I'll have finals, and then I'm going home. It's like, bam! bam! bam! all going at once.

I feel like a rock that has been traveling over this giant hill for the time that I've been here, at least since the halfway point. Right after the halfway point, I felt like things were still moving decently slowly, but now I'm rolling and picking up speed now that I'm halfway down the hill. Such an odd thought to be almost done with such a life-changing semester...

Random

So, I know I posted yesterday, but I have been having some serious flashbacks from home. And it's weird because I'm actually NOT homesick, so I have no idea why I've been randomly getting memories from college and high school. Like the following:
-Reading a Streetcar Named Desire in J-Pot's junior year English class and CJ having to yell "Stella", which he did quite unenthusiastically
-Watching One Tree Hill on Valentine's Day freshman year of college and then having Paul come to the door of Stratford with b-e-a-utiful roses
-Finding out I didn't get into Cornell U and then having to go to work afterwards
-when we had to do a presentation on Rumpelstiltskin (I think it was) in Coan's junior year English class (I'm feeling a trend from this year)
-Carpooling with Ian senior year of high school
-When the second floor girls pretended the hallway was a runway and had a fashion show after the Victoria's Secret fashion show
And just all these other random memories, and it's been really, quite the weird experience. Just thought I'd put this up, even though it's really a pointless post.

Paris and other ramblings

Oh. My. Goodness. Paris is SUCH a beautiful city! I'm so glad that I went, like for serious. Plus, it was really good to get to hang out with people from home; it was kind of like we were just taking a trip randomly (minus that I had to spend a good amount of time working on a presentation for my culture class). Plus, we got to see Brett, which I was so incredibly excited about.

We went on a free walking tour and saw a whole bunch of stuff that I can't pronounce (including the French Academy, the New Bridge, the Grand Palace and the Petite Palace, see my Picasa album) and had a really cool tour guide. Then we saw the Louvre (I was shockingly not as impressed by this as I thought I was going to be; yeah, it has a lot of cool art, but just not my style of art, and it said it had a big section on Spanish art and there were only a few paintings), the Eiffel Tower (WAY bigger than I thought it was going to be, and it was really pretty at night; we even got to see it sparkle!), the Arc D'Triomphe (also very cool, and gargantuan), Moulin Rouge (but it wasn't open so we couldn't go inside, but the street that it was on was quite sketchy (most definitely the red light district)), Sacre Coeur (There was a service going on, so it was kind of awkward, but cool nonetheless), and the Musee d'Orsay (I loved, loved, LOVED this museum; it's the museum with all of the impressionist paintings, and it has Cervantes, Degas, Monet, Manet, Picasso, and all of these other artists and I was so blown away). It was just a wonderful trip, although I'm not sure I've ever spent that much money on food in one weekend.

In other news, I can't believe that I only have a little over a month left here. Now that I'm traveling and seriously in the downhill slope and have a ton of school assignments to occupy my time with, time is seriously flying. I can't believe that I've been here for over seventy-five days already. That is SUCH a long time!! I will say, though, I am still incredibly excited to head back to Champaign and see everyone that I haven't seen in a long time. I'm feeling very sad to have missed some of the Koin/Strat events this semester, which seems so ridiculous to say because I'm in EUROPE, but still.

Also, I can't tell you how busy I'm going to be in the next three weeks or so. I had a culture presentation today (that went well, I think), an art history take-home test due tomorrow, a linguistics exam next Wednesday (the 19th - after my weekend in Barcelona), and then an art history paper due the 24th, as well as an art history presentation the 24th (after my weekend in Madrid). So I'm going to definitely have to use my time wisely in these next few weeks, and still find time to spend with people since I won't be around for a couple of weekends. I just have to keep reminding myself that school isn't everything and that people are more important than school.

Other than that, I don't have too much else to report, except that my sister decided to come home for Christmas, which I'm incredibly excited about, because I thought it would be really sad for her to be by herself on Christmas and also for us to be without her. So yay!

Happy Birthday Ruthie-face!!!!!

Dear Spain,
When the rest of the world jumped on the central heating bandwagon, where were you?


In other news, I got to spend this weekend in Granada where it was, shockingly enough, RAINING all weekend, and very cold. There's just something so different about a rainy day when you can't curl up inside your warm house with a big comfy blanket. The rainy days here are just miserable. BUT, despair not, because I still had a fairly good weekend. We celebrated Halloween the best way we could on this side of the ocean, and it was actually quite enjoyable. I got to spend a lot of time with a lot of people that I don't normally hang out with and I quite enjoyed myself.

But I'm really just posting to avoid studying for my linguistics exam (second test in one day, whoo!...), so I'm going to go do that.
Hasta luegino!!

Third Post in a Row!!

Sorry guys, I just wanted to post a frustration really quickly:

So throughout Semana Blanca (our week break), I was under the impression that I was going to have a culture exam AND a linguistics exam this upcoming Wednesday (the 29th). However, during culture today, my professor decided to change the day to a week from today (the 3rd). So I was pretty excited about that, because then I could study for each exam individually and still do well. But THEN in my linguistics class, my professor decided to change the date of my exam as well. What day did he change it to, you ask? Yeah, next Monday. Dangit! AND I have a culture presentation the tenth, but I'm not going to be in town the 6th-9th (AT ALL) and my partner also has both of those tests the same day AND her boyfriend is coming into town tomorrow or the next day. So basically, my next two weeks are going to be very busy school-wise... lovely.

Complain-y

So... I just found out yesterday that my grammar exam that I thought was next Thursday is actually this Thursday (a.k.a., tomorrow) because of an error in the syllabus...
SURPRISE!!!

Also, I'm going to be really glad when Semana Blanca is over, as awful as this sounds, because I am tired of planning a trip for five other people who are actually getting annoyed at the fact that I'm planning things. I've been sending everyone in the group e-mails with updates and such, and I had to send another one because I found some trains that we could take while we're over there, and I told a girl in the room that I'd sent her another e-mail, and she was like, "another one??" like it was really so terrible to just read the e-mail and think about it for a second or two and then respond to it. Sorry for making your lives easier by taking care of everything so you don't have to think about it at all. My bad...

Uhhnnnh....

So... I have contracted my first (and hopefully only!!) illness while abroad: a stomach virus.
Oh joy.
The ONLY upside to me being sick was that I got to experience Spain's free health care system. Quite the experience. We didn't need an appointment or anything; we just went and I got pretty much right in and she diagnosed me right away. The visit was 40 euro (that is going to be reimbursed back to me when I get back to the States) and the medicine (some liquid for the stomach virus and pills for the aches and pains) was FOUR euro. I know, pretty ridiculous. Thank you free health care (and people of Spain for paying your taxes so my medication could be so cheap).

In other news, I took my first linguistics exam a couple of days ago, and I'm not sure how I did, but that's not the point of me putting this in here. I realized something interesting while I was taking it. I knew most of the stuff and the stuff I didn't know, I thought about but didn't freak out about the fact that I didn't know it because (here it is folks....) it's JUST a grade. And this is this new and scary revelation for me. Because school has always been really important to me. And it's still important, but people are so much more important than school could ever be, and it's okay to take breaks and spend time with them.
I'm not sure if this makes a whole bunch of sense, but I'm really excited about it, because I'm excited to get to spend more time with people and less time freaking out about school.

Weekend Update

Another post-weekend update!

This weekend was pretty chill; I got to hang out with Melissa some (finally!), relaxed, started studying for my first exam (in Linguistics that I THOUGHT was on Wednesday but just found out it's not until next Monday, so that's pretty fantastic), and found a church to go to!

I'm so happy about this last one. It's called Iglesia Evangelica (so it's an evangelical church if you didn't get that) and I went with Brad and Kaitlin. Everyone was so friendly and I just felt really welcome and really relaxed right away. I understood almost all of what was going on too, so that was a bonus. We met a whole bunch of people after the service (it was actually harder to understand people at this point because everyone was talking and it was kind of loud), and specifically a girl from California who studied abroad and ended up just staying here in Granada. She told us about how all of the young adults meet up on Saturdays at 8pm and hang out and go out to dinner together, which I definitely want to do. And I asked her about a bible study during the week and she said that she'd find out for me and let me know (because they're going to do one, just not sure when/what yet). Because I really liked it but I'm going to be gone a lot of the weekends (October 10-12, 17-19, 24-26, 31-Nov 2, 7-9, AND 14-16 for certain) but I still want to be involved in the church.

I think I'm going to do this as my "tarea externa" for Culture (we have to enmesh ourselves in a group of Spaniards) and I was going to volunteer somewhere, but this is just so much more what I would like to do if I have to talk to Spanish people. Everyone at the church was just so nice and happy that we were there. So I'm very happy. And I'll be in Granada for the next two Sundays, so hopefully by then, the whole bible study thing will be figured out.

I'm also attempting to finish planning for the week break that we have and hostels are SO EXPENSIVE in Italy. My goodness! I sent the group an e-mail with a whole bunch of hostel possibilities and hopefully they'll actually be diligent in getting back to me so I can book those tomorrow. I think we might end up being cozy and sharing beds and stuff, but we'll see what people think about that.

Islam.... NO MORE

So.... I decided to drop Culture of Islam.
For those of you who know me, I'm no quitter, but this class was just plain awful.
I didn't like the professor; he just seemed like he had no patience for us and didn't want to interact with us as much as just teach us. He has this annoying habit of cutting people off while they're in the middle of explaining something so they don't get to explain themselves fully (one of my friends had forgotten his notebook one day so he took notes on a piece of paper, and then the professor called on him to answer a question and my friend was trying to explain that he couldn't find the piece of paper because it was just a sheet and the professor cut him off and lectured him in front of everyone and then when my friend explained himself after class, the professor was like, "oh don't worry about it." NOT okay.) And he has no concept of letting people volunteer; he just calls on people.
The class is basically structured like this: we have to read, take notes on what we read, and then read the notes that we took in class. And then watch a movie that says the exact same stuff the book said.
We get to keep our books, so I'm just going to read that when I've got spare time and get the material withOUT having to sit through that class.
yay.

Update

Hello everyone!
Sorry for not updating in a while, but things have been kind of busy here lately, so I felt like I needed to gather my thoughts before I told them to you all so that they actually made sense (hopefully a lot of you read this! Don't forget to say hello and let me know how you're doing!)

Last weekend we went on our class trip to the Alhambra and it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen in my life. I have pictures up on Picasa, and I really encouarge everyone to check them out. This place was basically a mini-town for all of the Muslim kings WAY back in the day (we're talking hundreds and hundreds of years ago) and almost all of it is still in really good condition. The designs on the walls and floors and ceilings were just absolutely ridiculous and so intricate and involved; they were really breathtaking. I felt like I was walking around all wide-eyed with my mouth wide open the entire seven hours that we were on the tour. I felt like I learned a lot too, which I was excited about. For example, I learned that the majority of the wall is carved out of stucco, which isn't even that durable of a material, but it's lasted an unbelievably long time in the Alhambra! Everything was just so huge and majestic and unbelievable (that we were actually looking at something this old, that it was made that long ago and still exists today, and that the people back then actually made this). Even though the tour was seven hours long, I feel like I need to go back and experience more of it, because I felt rushed going through parts of it because we only had a certain amount of time (since we were a group) for the tour.

We also started classes this week, and I'm pretty excited about them (geeky, I know, but that's just the kind of person I am). I'm taking Culture of Spain (which should be a good class, but the teacher is always really intense/passionate, so it's kind of hard to read her), Grammar II (because I figured I can always use more help in grammar, and I'm right), Spanish Linguistics (which makes me feel like I'm learning a new language in a foreign language), Art History (which I'm SUPER excited about because I love the professor and every Thursday we go out into the city and find something that we're learning about because Granada's so old, it's experienced pretty much everything), and Culture of Islam (which I'm not sure I want to stay in because I'm not sure how entirely interested I am in the subject material or in the teaching habits of the professor). CEGRI is interesting in that it's a language school and only students within the program are taking classes here, so we're with all American students. But I'm really okay with that because I think I'd be even MORE intimidated if I was in classes with Spanish students.

I also started taking a salsa class, which I absolutely love. Those of you who know me really well are probably really surprised because I cannot loosen up for the life of me, but this class is just so much fun. The instructor is this little Spanish man and he's got a really good sense of humor and is a really god teacher, and the best part is that we can all understand him for the most part! I'm also taking the class with a really good group of people, which makes it all the more fun. Plus, I'm learning to loosen up a little and dance something real, so who can say no to that??

Thursday night we went and saw a flamenco show, which was best described by Rick (one of the guys on the trip) as "tap dancing on steroids." Holy cow, these people moved their feet SO fast and they were just so good! I did feel bad for one of the girls, though, because her shirt came almost entirely unbuttoned so by the end so she had to hold it closed while she finished dancing.

Friday and Saturday we went up into the Sierra Nevada mountains, to the Alpujarras, and hiked for about six hours each day. It was a ton of fun and absolutely gorgeous (these pictures are up on Picasa too!). The air was fresher and I felt completely in my element climbing the mountains and wading in streams and doing a little bit of rock climbing at our resting points. The eonly bad thing was that our guide was like booking it up and down the mountain and since it's her job, it was a lot easier for her to do it than for us to do it, so we sometimes had a hard time keeping up with her. Also, when we were going down, it was super precarious so you pretty much had to keep your eeys down the entire time to make sure you didn't fall and die so we didn't get to see too much of the scenery going down the mountain. It reminded me of something Chris Gottlieb would love to see, so hopefully you're reading this, Chris, and you look at the pictures, and are motivated to visit Spain to climb the Sierra Nevada Mountains! (Everyone else too, but specifically my mountain climber friend).

Lastly, I thought I'd post the places that I'd like to travel and see if anyone has any specific suggestions (definitely go, don't go, see this while you're there, etc):
Sevilla
Valencia
Greece
Cordoba
Italy
Rome
Venice
Florence
Switzerland
Madrid
Barcelona
Portugal
So yeah, just let me know what your thoughts on these places are, okay? Especially you, Melissa. : )

Miscellaneous Update

My feet and legs hurt so much. I tried to be cute yesterday and today and apparently my pinky toes should just get cut off because they're the only part of my feet that got blisters. I got a blister on each of them walking around yesterday in my cute brown flats and then another blister on my left toe walking to class today. Ridiculous. And of course my legs aren't used to walking so much so they hate me right now because I'm not stretching at night. I should probably start doing that again...

In other news, I'm here and finally starting to figure out where I am in the city and where things are (mostly just important things and a couple of plazas) so I'm not whipping out my map to figure things out as much anymore, which is always a bonus so I don't seem like such a tourist.

I started classes yesterday and the ones I had seem like they're going to be pretty good. I have the same teacher from 955-1045 and 1115-1205 Monday through Thursday and she's kind of hard to read because she looks at you really intently and you're never sure if she's just curious or if she's angry (I don't think she's angry, I think she's just intense, but it's hard to tell). Those classes seem like they're going to be good. My first is Culture of Spain and it's only got 14 people in it. We didn't do too much yesterday, just introduced ourselves and she talked about the course a bit, but it's going to be good, I can just tell. Then I have a practical review of grammar II class. There's one at the U of I that I took already (204) and a super advanced one (404) that I didn't want to take so I signed up for 299, which is only at CEGRI and it's like in the middle, but I definitely got signed up for the 404 class (based on my proficiency exam) and it's just going to transfer as 299 (which is what it would have transfered as anyways because only 3 of the advanced hours that I take here will transfer as advanced hours) but I'm kind of like, "wait, I didn't want to take the harder class" but we'll see how it goes. There are only ten people in that class. But my afternoon class was the smallest - 7 people!!! It's my linguistics class and we're the only seven people that signed up for it. Insane! We started learning yesterday and it's going to be quite the interesting class, not really sure why it's required as part of the spanish major, but I guess we'll see. This afternoon I have Art History and Culture of Islam, so we'll see how those go as well.

We went to the Alhambra on Sunday and it was pretty much the coolest place I have ever been. The detail on the walls and in the architecture is completely mind-blowing and it is huge and just absolutely gorgeous. I put pictures up on picasa so you should all check them out (there are a LOT but not nearly as many as I took that day - I deleted the bad ones, but trust me, they're worth looking through).

I only got homework in one of my classes (linguistics) but it's to read pp. 45-121 in the book by tomorrow. Insane! I'm going to be reading allllll night. (After I attempt to salsa - we have free lessons tonight)