Good Gracious! and Granada

Good gracious! It's been a long time since my last post! I had no idea it had been that long. Yeesh! Most of my former readers (my lack of posting has probably caused my readers to throw up their hands in disgust by this point) probably know this, but I'm in Granada, Spain for the semester! More on that once I've caught everyone up on the other important things that you've missed since my last post. 1. I'm engaged! It's funny because last time I posted was shortly after my first date with my now fiance... 2. I'm a Senior, graduating in the spring! 3. I went to Mexico and had a wonderful, wonderful time. I still miss the people there :( 4. I have a brother-in-law, he's pretty awesome. 5. My brother went away to school far away :( I suppose those are the most important things that I've missed in the past almost-year. On to Granada... I arrived yesterday after a long bit of travel. I'll give you the blow-by-blow just to get it all out there. My fiance took me to the airport and stayed with me in the very long line to check my baggage. I was a tad worried that waiting so long would make me late, but I can't say I minded seeing my fiance for a bit longer. Eventually I did get through and had to say goodbye. I may have gotten a little "dust in the eye" as my brother calls it, but I think I managed okay - I just tried not to think that I'm not going to see him for many months :(. I breezed through security and went to the terminal where I met up with 4 other girls in the program. I've gotten to know them pretty well after all the traveling etc. and despite some differences in worldview, I think we can be friends. The first long flight was fine. I sat next to a recently divorced woman traveling with her two sons back to Greece. We chatted a bit, her six-year-old son was pretty adorable despite some semi-tantrums. All in all, not bad except that I didnt' really get much sleep. On arrival in Frankfurt, we went up and then down, up and then back down for forever it seemed like. Probably the most annoying airport I've ever been in. Not that I've been in that many...but still! Again, uneventful flight to Madrid. Nothing too horrible happened to me, except for my panic moment in Madrid where I thought I'd lost my passport. Turns out, it was just down my pants. Let me explain, since that place might seem like an odd one for a passport. Before I left, my co-workers bought me a passport belt with a couple pockets as a goodbye gift. It's quite handy, but I'm not quite used to it I guess. So when putting my passport away after using it to check my luggage in Madrid, I missed the pocket. So after going through security, I noticed it wasn't in my belt, which made me check all my pockets, backpack etc. but I couldn't find it So I checked again...and again...and again. Getting more concerned each time. Then I thought to check my pants and there it was. Phew. Madrid was not a good spot for my travel companions and I. For one thing, it was a very confusing airport. Not as annoying as Frankfurt, but pretty bad. One of the girls ended up in tears because they made her pay for her second bag even though the other girls with two bags didn't. She went back to talk to the people a couple times but never got anywhere. We all felt really bad for her :( They didn't tell us what gate our flight was going to leave from until 20 minutes before the flight was supposed to leave. Pretty annoying, but we just sat at a cafe and chatted. It ended up being a pretty interesting conversation because one of the girls asked me about my ring which led to a discussion about marriage views, divorce, forgiveness, God, etc. Pretty cool. We all had different views, but were able to discuss it without any nastiness. Arrival in Granada was fine, it was rainy, cold and dark when we got in, but when we got to the hotel we met up with a couple other girls from another University and we all went out for tapas. I split a pizza with someone and then shared the tapas which were anchovie-filled olives and these little bread pieces with ham, cheese, tomato paste and paprika. Quite tasty. Today, I got to walk around a lot after sleeping in until 11ish. I had to be out of my room by noon because now that everyone is here we're sharing rooms and the program is covering the cost. Fine with me, my room now is nice and i'm only sharing with two other girls. They're both nice too. The city is beautiful, it was sunny and warmish today which was awesome. I bought a very tasty pastry for lunch after wandering around with one of my roommates for a bit. She needed to buy a converter. Then I went out again shortly after getting back with a few more girls and we went to a nice park and people watched for a while. Then I read for a while until 4:00ish when the hotel got more username and passwords for the wireless. I guess they can only support so many and had to wait until some people checked out before giving them to us. I was lucky to get one! Eventually, the rest of the people in the program (about 50 people!) showed up and we all got our room assignments, schedules for the next couple days and maps of the city. I got a nice surprise shortly after getting settled in my room - the phone range in the room and it was Dodyn saying she was down in the lobby! So I got to see her for an hour and a half or so. She had to get back to have dinner with her host family but came and walked around with me and the other girls looking for a spot to have dinner. We found a nice place and I ordered bread and butter with an Irish coffee and eventually a beer. The beer is served in wine glasses - pretty funny. I also had some tapas which was tasty. We had a good time hanging out getting to know each other a little better. Again, we got into some pretty weighty topics. It's pretty cool because I've decided not to be shy about being Catholic, and it's been great. So. That is pretty much that. I miss everyone at home, and am a little nervous about my Spanish, but other than that I am having a pretty good time so far! I hope to hear from all of you - I want to know what's going on with everyone!