Granada day two...

Granada, Day Two… Got up at 8:17 am because my roommates and I had told our host mom, Esperanza, that we wanted to have breakfast at 8:30. So, knowing that food and coffee were imminent, I convinced myself to get out of bed and went to the kitchen to find “pan tostada” aka toast, which was really yummy. It was a small baguette cut in half and then toasted with butter and strawberry jam on top, and a glass of coffee with leche (milk) which came out of a carton that resembled chicken broth cartons in the U.S. It’s weird, but a lot of the products here are in cartons, and it seems like drinks are just in really tall containers, vs. having a big circumference. After breakfast I made sure to put on sunscreen and my hat and sunglasses (or gafas de sol, which I just learned :P). Then my roomies and I decided to go downtown (el centro), and the walk was super awesome because there are so many old buildings everywhere, and everything in general is just interesting! I have to say, there are LOTS of churches, banks and pharmacies, EVERYWHERE. And all the cars here are small, which I already expected. AND there are TONS of scooters instead of cars. It’s funny because a lot of the people are really nice—we asked an older man where we were on a map we had, and he helped us very kindly, and a woman at one of the banks we went to trying to convert our money was super nice too—yet a LOT of people are rude by my standards, but I don’t know if that is normal for Spain or not. The main reason for this is just that people here so far don’t say “excuse me” or “sorry” when they run into you, they just kind of shove by without a word or a glance. We walked for a LOOOOONG time and went in a little clothing store where I got a long skirt and a pair of baggy pants which are tight at the bottom, which are very popular here. I would say that at least half of the people downtown today were wearing a variation of this design. And also jumpers are super popular, so I definitely have to find one of those here! We walked and walked until we ended up in a cobblestone area full of outdoor stands selling fruit and veggies and other merchandise. It was really neat, but we knew we had to be back by 2:30 pm for lunch, so we turned around and hoped that we could find our way back because we had no idea where we were. We followed signs for a hostel that we had passed by earlier and somehow we found our way to the Neptuno mall which is right by our apartment. We went inside to escape the heat and also out of curiosity, and it was very different than the Sun Valley Mall. It’s only two stories, and it’s not very big and instead of escalators with stairs they have flat escalators going up and down, like moving ramps. Which is pretty cool! We were going to take our picture in a photobooth they had there but it was expensive and we were pretty sure you only got one copy… but weirdly enough the machine had advertisements for how you could use the photobooth picture on government documents like your I.D. Very different. When we went upstairs there was mostly just restaurants, but we decided to stop by Burger King (yes they have Burger King) because one of my roomies wanted to try her debit card there to see if it worked. We were all dying of thirst also, and our legs were really tired, so after ordering some drinks we sat in a weird inside, outside area and talked for a while. Then we noticed through the window that there was an American restaurant advertised across the street, and we all really want to go there to see Spain’s version of American, haha. I also went to a panederia, which is a bakery, and got a croissant with ham and cheese (VERY delicious!) and I ordered a bottle of water which they serve here with a glass. It's very fancy ;) Later in the day when we were walking somewhere, we found an outdoor market and a shop that was full of different herbs. It was pretty neat, and right nearby was a fountain which seemed normal until a bunch of people walked up and started drinking out of it... so after about five people I said, "well, if that many people are drinking it it can't be bad," and I drank from it too. :) Don't worry, I got a picture. It was super fresh and cold. According to my host family the water here is really good because it comes from melted snow from the Sierra Nevadas. :) After that we headed back to the apartment for lunch, which was delicious homemade pasta (the noodles very much resembled mac n’ cheese) with a light marinara and ground pork. It was delicious, and then we all tried a melon that none of us had seen before. Esperanza said it was just called a melon, it didn’t have a specific name, but it had the shape and outward appearance of a watermelon and the inside resembled a honeydew. It totally tasted like a mix of watermelon and honeydew too… it was really good! Afterwards we talked to Esperanza’s son for a while, which was fun and good practice! And then eventually we decided to relax a bit, which is when I started writing this. Afterwards there was an orientation meeting and a tour of the important places in Granada that we should know, such as the post office, the tourist office, and main squares that make good points of reference when it comes to directions. I found out that my school is right at the base of Albaicín, which is an old Arabic neighborhood on a hill. So all of the tiny streets are full of Arabic influence, it’s really neat. I really like the streets here because they’re really different than I expected. They’re small and cobblestone and the sidewalks are only big enough for people to walk single file in a lot of places. It seems like cars are driving on sidewalks, but it’s actually just the road… very strange. I also noticed that I had not seen any squirrels or wildlife, which is really strange. But I guess it’s because there are way more buildings than nature in town. Anyways, I have to take a placement exam tomorrow morning to determine what class I’ll be in so I should go to sleep. Buenos noches!