Mi Vida en España

Hola a todo,

Pues, no puedo creer que mi experiencia en España esté terminada. He aprendido tanto y no quiero salir. Aunque tengo ganas de ver mi familia y amigos, no me siento un sentimiento de cierre todavía. Voy a echar de menos hablar espanol! No pensaba que dijera esto haha.

Now in English

Well, I can't believe that my experience in Spain is over. I have learned so much and I don't want to leave. Even though I want to see my friends and family, I don't quite feel a sense of closure yet. I am actually going to miss speaking Spanish..I never thought I would say that! haha.

I leave tonight at 3 am. I am actually leaving! That is crazy. In a few hours we have our goodbye lunch at the Mirador de Morayma which is a really fancy restaurant. Robby and I went there when he was here, and it is super nice. I am excited. IES treats us so well. haha. I am practically done packing! I just need to do the hand luggage and then later put in my outfit that I am wearing to the lunch. Some how our room still looks really messy haha but I guess Carrie's stuff is still all over the place!

I have to admit a weird feeling I am having: There are 15 people from Penn State coming to IES Granada next semester, and I know 3 of them. I am excited for them because this is a great time, but I also have this feeling of possessive jealousy...like this is MY experience, these are MY teachers, My Javier, my Tapas bars! haha I feel like the IES people can't love us all!!! and they need to love my group of people. I know it's kinda silly but I can't help it. How can the new people have MY experience. haha oh well, I'll get over it. I know they will have a blast, and I can't wait to hear about their experiences.

On a happier note, I am DONE WITH WORK!!!!! WOOT WOOT. I am so excited to be done thinking until Jan. 12! It is an amazing feeling. No more papers, no more exams, no more anything!

Alright then, I will be home Thursday night! Speak to everyone then!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love Always
besos
Kate

Ok so Saturday was an amazing day. I will try and go into lots of detail! haha
In the afternoon we had our flamenco performance. We all dressed in black and wore red flowers in our hair. It was so fun. We had professional musicians and everything. Our flamenco teacher was so cute, she also brought us flowers and yummy snacks and made us flamenco CD's. She was so proud of us. I would say most of IES came to our performance and it went really well. No major mess ups or anything. We felt so accomplished afterwards haha. That night we also had to go to a real flamenco show for class. It was in the Sacramonte neighborhood and the theater had a glass background that opens up to the Alhambra. It was the best performance of flamenco that I've seen yet. It was the most traditional and I think thats why I liked it. Right after that a student in our program, Seth, also had a performance. Seth is a jazz musician and found a group in Granada who he could play with and they had a performance in the Right near the flamenco theater. It was held in a little ( and i mean ITSY) cave bar. There was probably enough room for like 50 people but CRAMPPPPPED. It was oh so Granadino though. Lots o IES people showed up to this as well and we all enjoyed lots of Jazz. They were really good, and Seth is hilarious to watch play the Bass...he is quite the character, and sings along with his playing. It was super crowded though so a bunch of left during their break and went to a little bar just up the rode. It was also super tiny and in a cave and could only fit about the same amount of people, but it was shaped differently. There were like 2 rooms, one with the bar and a few tables and one kind of around the corner in a little circular nook. It was Carrie and I and a few other of our friends. We got some drinks and food, but then Carrie and I started to hear some music coming from the corner room. It was flamenco and we recognized it and went to look. It was a room filled with about 20 people ( I would say 50 years old and up) sitting around in a circle drinking gin and tonic. One old man had a guitar and was playing flamenco, and there was this big fat man who would stand up and sing some flamenco songs. They were all yelling OLE and cheering him on. A lady got up and started dancing in the middle, and Carrie and I started clapping along because we knew what Palo (the type of rhythm). They noticed and started yelling at us to come and dance....so we did!!!! We told them how we just took a flamenco class and we danced in the middle of their circle! They were cheering us on and telling us what to do and they were so excited! haha they thought it was so cute. It was a true Granadino experience. It felt like something truly spanish that I could be involved in. They kept saying "isn't spain better, don't you wanna stay here.." stuff like that. haha it was so funny.
After that awesomeness we decided to go to a Salsa club. We danced a little salsa and had some fun. Then we went Hannigans and Sons (an Irish pub that everyone always goes to). Lots of people were there and they played lots of fun music. We sang and danced around. We stayed till the pub closed and by then it was about 3:30/4. Since it was like our last major night out in Granada, we decided to hit up the discoteca and went to Granada 10! It was only my second time going to this dance club so I was pretty excited. The only problem was that we didn't want to pay to go iin since it's 10 euros. You can usually find passes to get in for free but some how Carrie and I were the only ones who missed out on that...we walked up with our friend Will, who had a pass, showed the bouncer dude his pass and just kind of quickly walked in! SO we got in for free and it was awesome. They had put up lights because its christmas season and there were a TON of people there. We danced around for a bit and then finally around 5 started to head on home. Carrie, Anna and I walked home together. We went outside of Granada 10, started to walk and these 3 spanish guys just came over and picked us up...little picked us up and started like throwing us in the air like PSU students do when we get a touchdown! So we started walking with them a bit, making it clear we were just going home to sleep. It was funny talking with them, but when it was time for Carrie and I to split with Anna we didn't want to leave her alone with them, so we kept walking with her. We were about half way to her home at this point when one of the guys asks me where this other discoteca is. I point him in the direction and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, they bonk carrie on the head, and then SMACK Anna and I on the head with umbrellas and RUN away, like sprinting. Anna described it as " they bonked us on the head like we were those squirrels at an amusement park". We were shocked. We had no idea what happened. We just got bonked. haha we were like freaked out yet laughing and I dunno. It was so weird. So we ended up taking a Cab home from there to avoid any other "mishaps" haha. It was quite the evening, quite the day really. One I will never forget.

Hello hello,

so, I am writing this because I should be study for an exam that I have in 2.5 hours. So this will be quick. Tomorrow we have our Flamenco performance for the school and whoever else wants to come. Should be an interesting spectacle. I am sad to be leaving, but I can't wait for all this work to be over!! woot only 5 days till its done...then one day for packing.
Interesting observation: I've seen more fur coats here than I have in my entire life. I would say like 60% of all women over the age of 60 have one..and they are HUGE. I know I've seen them in stores and such, but I don't think I expected people to actually wear such a huge fluffy fur coat, but come to Spain/Italy in the winter and they are EVERYWHERE

Um I don't really know what else to say. Last couple of days have really just be studying and nothing fun. Yesterday there was a meeting about way to come back to Spain in the future for teaching positions and such. Sounds pretty interesting and easy...might be something to think about. I dunno. There's also this awesome scholarship called The Watson program...I wanna do it! haha but I don't know if PSU is affiliated with them and thats a requirement...you should check it out though. sounds like fun.

Ok I really gotta study. Grammar...gross

SEE people see!
Love Always
Kate

HI EVERYONE!

so sorry it's taken me forever to write a new blog. Life is SO busy here I can't even explain. The free time I have I want to talk to people on Skype or be out and about in Spain! The work load at IES started out being crazy EASY until about Halloween and then it just started piling up. I swear the semester is shorter here...we didn't start class till sept 15, but that means like a good week for things to get rolling and we are done with class and finals the 16th of dec, plus we only have 4 day weeks but we have to get everything in that a normal semester would have...maybe it's just cause we are in Spain that it feels like it is so much faster, I dunno.

So IES had a thanksgiving dinner for us. It was great, but nothing like Thanksgiving. It was at a fancy restaurant and everyone was really dressed up. There were about 4 glasses for each person and like 6 different eating utensils. We had a pre dinner cocktail session with drinks and olives and nuts. Some people were already a bit drunk by the time we got to dinner! haha...my one friend was like "GUYS it's FREE drinks" (she was double fisting it with 2 wine glasses). Others just enjoyed the Orange Fanta. haha. Drinks kept a coming during dinner...if they at all saw ONE of your wine glasses low they would fill it back up. We had 3 types of drinks during dinner, red wine, white wine, and champagne, plus water of course. We had some appetizers(very Spanish styled), pumpkin soup (spanish twist), then turkey stuffed with nuts and cranberries with like mash potato tattertots...all with a Spanish twist. Robby was there so that was nice to have some family-esque feeling surrounding the evening.

Robby was here for a whole week. We went to Nerja (a small costal town about 2 hours away from Granada). It is filled with British people haha, in fact our hostel (Hostel Miguel) was owned by a British family, the nicest guy ever! We went to the Nerja Caves and laid on the beach looking at the Mediterranean. Then the rest of the week we just explored Granada. We went to the Alhambra (my 4th time, and still loved it), the Albayzin for dinner, the Cathedral and some tapas bars. I also got him a ticket to the flamenco performance that our class had to go to. It was Farroquito, he is like the second most famous flamenco dancer of today (next to his father). SO that was pretty cool just to see..although I was so tired while we were there I kinda fell asleep for the end (oops).But I had a good reason. That day we had gone Skiing in the Sierra Nevadas!!!!!!!!!!!! It was beautiful. I had a slight mental breakdown on the slopes because I suck at snowboarding and it was like a 25-30 min. run that I turned in to like an hour! haha. Robby handled me quite well though and went up one more time on his own. I'd had enough of falling. It was still a great day, and I am so glad I got to go to the mountains while I was here. Its just about a 40 min ride up the mountain!

Yesterday I just got back from Italy. My friend Brittany and I went to Pisa and Florence. It was a great trip. We stayed in Pisa and went to Florence for a day (a looong day, 12 hours in Florence). We saw The David, The Birth of Venus, Springtime, The Leaning Tower, The Duomo etc. We got in a lot. Especially in Pisa since it doesn't have that much stuff to see, we saw it all, plus! In Florence I could have spent more time. It was RAINING alll day long while we were there so it wasnt as pretty as some pictures i've seen, and we didn't get to see any of the country side, but I've got time in life to come again and it was a great time anyway, lots of good italian food.

Now all I have left to do is WORK ...lots of it. We are all so stressed that we can't WAIT for these 2 weeks to be over..and I think that is what makes us so sad because really we don' t want the two weeks to be over, we just want this work to be over. I feel like I need an extra week after finals to offically feel ready to come home. Ya know, some closure time or something. I finish finals the 16th (most people finish the 17th) and I leave the 18th (at 645 am). We are taking a bus to Malaga at 3 am on the 18th (or really late feeling on the 17th haha). I am really sad to go. I feel like the people I met here are so great but I just don't know them well enough. There are some people I would like to talk with more and get to know, but I just dont have time. I probably won't see most of them again either. Carrie, my roommate, lives in Oregon and goes to school in southern California. I have no idea when I'll really see her, and thats sad. There are only 4 people in total who are from or go to school in PA. 3 in the Haverford area, and then me. Other than that people are in Minnesota, Maine, South Carolina, and California!

I've heard that adjusting to life back in the US is harder than it was coming here because people expect culture shock when they came here, but don't really expect it when they go back home. haha. I believe it though man! Especially the night life. No offense to the States, but night life in Spain (europe in general i guess) is SO much better ! haha...its just more relaxed and they have bars and clubs that are just more chill yet fun and unique. I dunno really how to describe it, but I don't think going back to State College and having to go to The Phyrst or Zenos is gonna cut it...especially not fraternity parties! But I am sure with my friends being at home, it won't really matter and we'll find ways to have fun! It just won't be the same. I am also sure everyone will get REALLY sick of me talking about Spain...we've been saying here how all of us are gonna go home and be like "Spain this , and Spain that" ahah and that people are gonna get annoyed with it, so get ready everyone!!! I'm sure i'll have lots to say! I can't believe I only have 11 days left!! Nuts. I am excited to be home for the holiday season though, that will feel nice and homey! I can watch some bad christmas movies like The Santa Clause in my PJ's sippin' on some hot coco! I hope lots of people are home for break cause I am ready for some familiar faces!!!

MiSS EVERYONE
LOVE always
Kate

Hola todos,

so last weekend was Halloween! I dressed up as a devil...just some horns and a trident! It was a very easy costume. Spain celebrates Halloween but not like we do in the States...I would say maybe 10% kids/students get dressed up and the most I saw were Americans! But we still had a pretty good time, no candy though . I mainly hung out with my intercombio during Halloween. I went to her place and then we went out to get a drink (she was dressed as a witch). We went to this really modern bar called En Cuadro...which means like Squares. It was super modern with white, black and red colorings and everything in squares. The lights were fun and the atmosphere was nice. There were a few good costumes going on like this one guy dressed up as the dude from a Nightmare before Christmas. After that we went to the Mexican restaurant where her boyfriend works. We got there a little before 1 because thats when it closes and we hung out there for awhile and chatted with his work buddies. Then all of us went out to another pub and hung out some more. It was fun cause I was speaking Spanish like all night with Spaniard! so that was great. Around 2:30 I went to meet up with Carrie and some other people and we finally went to Camborio, the disco in the cave..they have been before but I hadn't! The atmosphere was great, especially for Halloween, but for some reason tonight the people, mainly the guys, were more annoying and grabby than usual. I think they were just more drunk because of Halloween and expecting Americans to be easier or something... I kind of thought it was annoying and didn't have the greatest time at the club, but I am still glad I finally went there. It has an AMAZING view of the Alhambra!!! So thats pretty much all I did that weekend. Oh I also went to the Alhambra for another visit with my Art History class. We have one more visit of the Alhambra coming up too. It is a pretty spectacular place! OH and that weekend was crazy rainy. Like more than Granada usually gets crazy raining and ALLLLLLL day Halloween it rained, and hard. very annoying.
Anyway, then was ELECTION DAY! We were all very excited for it. We had an all-night slumber party at the IES center. We all had our pj's/sweats and computers and we had a big projection screen of CNN and we just hung out all night and watched. It was quite exciting around 5 am when the big win was announced. I am still recovering from the lack of sleep. Yesterday I took 3, 1 hour naps!!! All of Europe is quite exciting, at least Spain is...I think I only met 1 Spaniard who liked McCain..funny huh!? A few of the kids in the IES program are Republicans so they were disappoinnted but I would say the majority of us were quite ecstatic!
We've been doing lots of work! so much homework. But yesterday I went to another Spanish movie about the Naked Years after Franco...its called Los Años Desnudos. I didn't understand much, but it was interesting
Tomorrow we head to Cadiz and Jerez for 2 days. We are seeing a National Nature Preserve thing and a Winery.
Ok I have to go...I have more work i need to be doing.
Much Love
Kate