Granada!

HI Everyone, Hope this works well! I've been in Granada for about two weeks now, and I have finally adjusted somewhat! It was really hard at first but things are getting much better. I really like my host mom, Elvira, and my roommate, Ashley, who is from Spokane and goes to Seattle University. Elvira has a son and a daughter, but they are both older and don't live with us. Her son, Sergio, has about 4 rescued dogs that he brings over sometimes! Fun! We have a little white dog that lives with us, Coco. It's about a 25-30 minute walk from the Centro de Lenguas Modernas, where my classes are. We're doing language intensivo right now, it's about 4 hours of class in the morning, and then we have another class from 5-6:30. It's a preparatory class for the DELE, which is a Spanish level placement exam we take at the end of the semester. My classes start in early February. We have a break right before this, so I think some friends and I might travel to Portugal and Barcelona. We hardly eat anything for breakfast here, then go home for lunch around 3-4ish. My mamasita serves a lot of soups, and we always have salad and pan (bread) and fruit. She always says "Come mas, come mas!" (Eat more, eat more!). Then dinner is late, around 9:30 or 10:00. I've gone out for tapas and drinks with friends after dinner, which is lots of fun. Last Saturday we stayed out till 8am, going to different tapas bars and discotecas! Yikes! This weekend we have a tour of the Alhambra, which should be amazing. This past weekend we went on a tour of the Albaycin, which is the oldest neighborhood/district of Granada and has a lot of Arabic influence--really beautiful! We got to go into a really old Arabic bathhouse--very cool. I've been having a lot of fun just wandering around the cobblestone streets here and finding new ways home. There are huge sales in the stores, the Rebajas, so we've all been shopping a lot too. Just fun to wander around and explore. There are lots of cute pastry shops everywhere and guys playing accordians in the streets. I'll be sure to write more later, after our visit to the Alhambra. Miss you all!