September 8 - September 14 (well, 15)

September 8, 8:00am

Left to right: Aurora, Carli, and Jenny.  Yay tapas!

Last night was absolutely incredibly awesome.  I went for tapas with Carli, Aurora, Jenny, Jelissa, and Eileen and we talked so much and had so much fun discussing life and ministry and everything!  I am so beyond grateful to God for a group of women like them that I can be so crazy and open with.  After some gelato and walking around, we all went home and I greeted my host mom and then went to bed around 11:30pm-ish.  And then I had to get up around 6:30am to make it to Palacio de Congresos to board a bus to drive for two hours to where there's a rest stop before we begin our ten-mile hike.  I'm sitting next to my friend Nathan and behind Carrie, a couple seats behind Aurora.

Left to right: Nathan, Carli, and Abina at the rest stop.

Something uncomfortably different about this place: lack of biodiversity here.  All the trees seem the same, there's hardly any bugs, and birds seem a rarity.  I've seen lots of pigeons, and actually bats too (not a bird, but whatever).  But other native non-invasive birds not so much.  Something I greatly enjoy: the smell of the little white flowers every time I exit my house to go wherever.  It's a cross between a hydrangea and an Easter lily scent, strong but sweet.  My current prayer: to not get sunburned and/or dehydrated on this hike, and for my camera not to die so that I can try to capture the adventure I'm about to embark on.

September 9, 3:30pm

Cabo de Gata, and heck yes we walked all over this!

So to correct myself after my very uninformed statement regarding there being a lack of biodiversity, especially in the dry Cabo de Gata region: there is a TON of highly-specialized and diverse species of flora and some nocturnal and well-adapted smaller fauna.  I'm glad I asked to many questions and kept pressing for Luis to talk to me during our difficult mountain-hiking experience yesterday.  The plants all seem similar from far away, but closer one begins to see how awesome the Mediterranean biome can be.  I still prefer forests over scrubby deserts any day, but I appreciate this nature reserve a lot more now.

Aurora: Beauty and Beast all in one!  Such a cool girl!

We stopped at a couple of beaches along the hike and I did most of it with Aurora by my side, which was fun.  We even walked along the side of a cliff, which I was scared to do at first but which was really awesome and a great experience.  When we finally got to San José we had dinner and then hopped on the buses again to go home.  I proceeded to get disoriented on my way home in the dark from Palacio de Congresos and ended up doing a two-hour hike around the city and even through Albayzin near the Alhambra in an effort to try to find a main street I knew.  So finally, all sandy and salty, I passed out at 2:00am and then woke up, showered, ate breakfast, uploaded pictures, and went to church with Carli, Eileen, Aurora, and Jenny to an English service through Centro Familiar Cristiano.

Left to right: Eileen, Carli, Aurora, Jenny, and me at the
Centro Familiar Cristiano.  Love them so much!

It was incredibly blessed and I felt like each and every single song we sang, all of which I was familiar with and had sung before at home as well as in Cartago and Monteverde, was God's way of saying to me, "I am still here and moving, and I am with you, the same One and Only no matter the country."  Especially after seeing the disastrous results last night and what was being spoken into me this morning, I see God showing me different aspects of pride that need to be broken down in my life and how much I need to wait on Him.  I can't wait for the Spanish service tonight!  And I love these girls I'm with so much; I love the fellowship I have with them and how honest and real it all is.

One last thing: so many bats at night near the Río Genil here!  It's so super cool!

September 10, 11:00am

The church service last night was long (2.5 hours) but it was so cool; I recognized most of the songs and a lot of what the pastor was saying resonated with me in the sense that what he was praying about (indifference and incredulity among the Granadinos) is what I want for people and what I pray for in a postmodern society here in Spain, and little by little I'm beginning to come into my purpose here.

11:45pm

Me being awesome outside of one of the buildings 
surrounding the La Alhambra gardens (see September 12 
for a description of this day).

Today was a day of orientation, more or less getting to talk about culture some more as well as think about personal goals and time management, and we also had presentation from some of the IES staff and met the University of Granada professors we will be around the most.  We had refreshments afterward and later on, after siesta and much-needed Facebook chat with Gabriel Trejos, Dani Monge, and John Porras in Costa Rica, I walked back to IES for my internship meeting.  I will be interning in the English department at what is more or less a charter school here in Granada called Santo Cristo de la Yedra.  A while back when they told me I wouldn't be doing an IR internship, I was kind of angry because education isn't my major.  Recently though I had come to accept and be able to view this as a huge, very useful opportunity, and now I am excited for my internship interview on Wednesday!  God knows what He's doing.

September 12, 8:20am

Left to right: Michael, Carli, Eileen, and me.  Just being us.  ;)

Yesterday in the morning Carlos talked to our Spanish class about Moodle and extracurricular activities around that we can do, and then in our Spanish class we talked about the past tense and we also were given the challenge of finding our given store and interviewing a store manager.  I got mine done really quick because Cortefiel was really close by.  Afterward, I went home and ate lunch, then I took a "20-minute siesta" that turned into two hours because I set my alarm incorrectly.

So after hurrying around I ran over to IES again to go to a meeting on volunteer opportunities and then on a tour around the gardens around La Alhambra and Realejo.  I took lots of pictures as per usual.  We were there while the sun was setting, so it was pretty beautiful.

Gardens around the La Alhambra area.

Sunset over Granada.

After the tours Carli, Eileen, Analí, Tara, Jonathan, and I went for tapas and then I went straight home and after talking to Carmen and Gaby on Facebook and uploading all the pictures, I went straight to bed.  Needless to say I feel ridiculously exhausted this morning and just want to go back to bed; I'm all dressed up (ish) for an interview with the grade school I will be interning for, so hopefully all goes well!


September 13, 7:50am

Can my schedule just be consistent already!?  Haha, I am so tired from waking up and going to bed at different times each day.  Anyhow, after the interview yesterday (which turned into more of the director of the school talking to us about the school and having us simply express what ages we wanted), I returned to IES for my Spanish class, which also took an outing to the markets and to get some churros con chocolate.

Upon leaving IES later, I went home and had some lunch and then worked the entire time on putting my updated resume into Spanish so that I could send it off to an organization that deals with sustainability and interculturality so that I can volunteer for them.  I'm very excited to hear back about that!  I tried going to Eileen/Carli's apartment later for Eileen's birthday cake but nobody was able to help me find them once inside, so I walked to Centro Familiar Cristiano to try to get my phone to charge and it won't work, so I have a dead phone and it's either a problem with the charger input or with the battery.  Ugh.  I did run into Carli, Eileen, Tara, Analí, Jenny, Jonathan, Mario, and Aurora though so we all went out and they got tapas, and then I finally went home (which I had been temped to do four hours ago).

September 13, 1:45pm

The College of Translation and Interpretation.
I plan on spending time here.

I went to my Spanish class today and learned more about the system of education here; Carolina also took us on a walk around the political/social sciences campus so we got to know the buildings a little bit.  I'm quickly discovering that I have so many ideas for what I would like to do and accomplish and so little time and so few resources to do them that I am going to have to prioritize very carefully.

One thing I'd love to point out about Granada that is both good and not-so-good: the sounds and the smells....

Good sounds: lots of birds in the mornings, certain street music, children laughing.

Bad sounds: traffic/construction, certain other street music, babies crying next door that won't be quiet.

One of the good smells: tea and spices!

Good smells: tea/spice stands on the streets, food from restaurants and people eating outdoors, the flowers right outside my house.

Bad smells: smoke from 50% of the Granadino population, car exhaust, too much incense around some of the streets in Albayzin.

Also, while people never smile at you while walking down the street and one would look out of place smiling at people here, I've decided that by joyfully smiling consistently I remedy the situation of smiling at specific people at specific times.

September 14, 7:05pm

Sunset from the evening before because I forgot to mention
that our neighborhood group got together for a tour by
Lorena and then we all sat down for tapas together.

I'm sick with a cold.  My sinuses hurt and I may have had a small fever earlier.  It didn't really help when I made a phone call to the president of AINDESOS for an interview and he wanted to meet in person and then when I finally arrived (after being given several sets of wrong directions) nobody could tell me where he was and in fact people said they didn't know him at all.  So I left and wandered before taking a taxi to Plaza Fontiveros a couple of minutes from my house, except somehow I managed in my ill delirium to get turned around and wind up way far away from my home again.  But it was okay because when I finally more or less got on the right track I ran into a brand-new French Erasmus student who I was able to help get on the right street to go to the facultad de derecho.  I finally made it home at 4pm and finally ate some food after hardly eating anything all day (I had a small banana for breakfast since nobody was awake).  I wanted to go hiking with Aurora and Kassie tomorrow and now I don't think that's going to happen since I have no Internet currently to look up the bus schedule.  On the bright side, reunión de jóvenes tonight, yay!

September 15, 1:05am

Love these guys so much.  :)

Tonight was such a huge blessing!  After seeing random things that made me smile and laugh (guy in the streets with a glass magic ball thing and a giant frog costume-wearing guy), spending an hour in Vodafone taking note of all the interactions as well as getting a new phone, and buying grapes for the reunión de jóvenes in El Corte Inglés, I finally made my way over to Centro Familiar Cristiano and me, many other foreigners, and some natives all shared food, went for a walk through La Alhambra, and then had a great in-depth conversation up there about what we believe about why Jesus had to die.  I met new friends named Tito (from Honduras), Jocelyn and Sarah (from the U.S.), and Ivana and Gizela (from Argentina).  It was just super nice being able to have community and talk freely with each other and I was so happy to pray for Jenny and be prayed for by her tonight.

Part of La Alhambra and Granada at night.

This weekend starting later today technically I go hiking with Kassie and Aurora near the base of the Sierra Nevada closer to Plaza Nueva and I'm really excited for that.  Until then, I should probably try to sleep away this cold and hope I feel a lot better tomorrow all around.