A Free Day.

Finally... we have just finished class and I have stayed behind to use the computers for a few minutes before going home... Tomorrow is Friday and we are going to Madrid! I think it will be a fun trip. We were supposed to have a touring/sight-seeing event this afternoon, but we cancelled it.. there has been so much this week. We don´t stop until at least 11:00 pm every day... it is nice to have a rest momentarily.
Tomorrow at 8:00 am we leave for Madrid. I think it is about a 4 or 4.5ish hour drive there. We don´t have specific plans for tomorrow... we are just going to relax and do whatever we want. Saturday, we are supposed to go to the Reina Sofia museum and also the Museo del Prado. I am very excited!! We will be able to see some marvelous paintings and other things. I am also looking forward to seeing everything and having time to shop, etc. It will be very nice.
I am a little tired today... I am having a wonderful time, but I do long for home on occasion... I think there is not much more to say at the moment... so I might post again later or maybe when I return from Madrid.
¡Adios!

In Between

I agree as everyone else does that it is a pain not to have internet access frequently. It is just not possible to find computers here... You have to wait forever and only use them for ten minutes. For the ones available in our classroom, the internet does not function half of the time. I don´t understand it. Only a few people have internet access at home... I did, but it has been on the fritz. I don´t know when it will be fixed.

I have just finished lunch. They try to feed me so much here! We had some kind of soup and then potato tortilla. Luis' father is here for lunch. He is a very nice older man. He is a little hard to understand beause he kind of slurs/slushes his words together. It is very scratchy.

I just finished writing some more postcards. I need to mail them soon, maybe today if possible. If not, I will try to mail them tomorrow.

(Later in the evening)
We went to the restored Arab baths tonight here in Jaén. They were really neat! We weren't allowed to take pictures inside them, however... The story behind them: a wealthy family at one time had owned them... they filled them with earth to make a foundation for their palace home. Thus, the restoration.

Around Jaén

This afternoon/evening we visited a local church and the old Jewish quarter (or what used to be the Jewish quarter) of the city. It was pretty. It was quite old and smelled very musty, but it is still in use. We were able to walk around in the pretty afternoon sunshine and air and take a look at things... the sunshine is much better than the rain we have had most days while here.

Oh What a city!!

Today we visited Granada, and it was beautiful!! It was a much bigger city than Jaén, I think.

We visited La Alhambra. Then we went to La Capilla Real and the Cathedral there in Granada. It was the largest Cathedral I have ever seen!! My, oh my, it was beautiful!

After we went to La Alhambra, we came down a street for lunch. It was a place where I think some of the gypsies from the neighborhood worked. There was a lady who would walk up to you, hand you a piece of Rosemary, tell you your fortune, and then try to charge you money for it. The shop keepers, one in particular, made me generally uncomfortable.

I learned that Granada is named that because of pomegranites. That is what the word means. I found it to be very interesting.

From La Alhambra we were able to see so much of the city that it was incredible. We could see the homes and the gypsy neighborhood and so many things. It was breathtaking and beautiful.
After we got back, I walked from the Plaza de Las Batallas to home. I decided to stop and use the pay phone to call Mom and Dad. I went from having a whole lot of minutes to having not many remaining on my card.

Tomorrow is class and sightseeing; the day after is the same. This weekend we go to Madrid. I am excited about that!

¡Chao for now!

Monday

¡Hola! Buenos dias.
Actually, it is afternoon here. It is just 4:00pm, and it has turned out to be a nice day. It has been sunny this afternoon and has warmed up a little from this morning and the previous days. Today was the first day of classes. It went very well. Our Spanish professor is very nice; I like her very much already. I think she is going to be a good teacher to have while we are here. We had the culture class and talked about all the provinces of Spain. I really enjoy having Profesora Centeno as a teacher. She is probably my favorite ever. Tommy then talked about Arabic influence in Spanish architecture. We are going to Granada tomorrow to see La Alhambra, which has a lot of Moorish and Arabic (Muslim) influence. I am very excited! I am looking forward to learning about it and taking pictures.
I have been having a very good time over the last few days. It is getting better every day.
Tonight we are going on a sightseeing tour to a church and maybe to see a few other things.
I find this place fascinating, and I see again how much I enjoy the Spanish language, history, geography, culture, etc.

LONG Day.

OH what a long day. I am quite tired. I got up around 7:00 am because we were leaving for Cazorla at 8:00am. I met Charli by the Caedral after 7:30 am. We drove the 2-ish hours to Cazorla.
It was cold, rainy, and foggy when we first arrived... however, it cleared up after a while.

We went through the town and toured an old museum/castle there.

After having coffee and a tour, we loaded the bus to drive for lunch. It was about an hour away. We were going into the Parque Natural (Natural Park).

It was honestly a bus ride unlike any other. It was quite terrible. We probably didn't go much more than 30 seconds for the total hour and a half bus ride without going around a curve. It was wretched. We stopped for lunch & as the second course, had some type of deer animal meat. A piece of mine still had the bristle hair in it. We left lunch and drove more to hike for a few minutes. We got to see some beautiful views and take some good pictures. We made the awful bus ride out. I fell asleep on the way out and woke up to rain on the way back to Jaén. It hailed on us... I learned the word for hail: graniza... when it is hailing: está granizando... and also for when it is foggy: Hay niebla.

I am still a little nauseous, but I am out for the night... I must rise early!!

¡Chao!

Mi Familia Española

Mari (left), Luis (left center), myself(right center), and Raquel (right)