Seville, Spain

Last Friday and Saturday was our group trip to Ronda and Seville Spain. I decided to split the trip into two posts so they would not be so long. This post is all about my time in Seville!
We left Ronda around 3 on Friday afternoon and took a 2 hour bus ride to get to Seville. Once we got to Seville they gave us free time to either tour a museum, take a bike tour around town, or to chill in the hotel pool. I opted for the rooftop pool. Sadly I did not bring my camera with me, but the views from the roof of the city were amazing. Seville is a huge city with stunning architecture. We chilled in the pool for about an hour and then showered up for dinner. A big group of us decided to go out and find this Cuban restaurant called Habanita, for dinner. Once we got there most of us just ended up ordering lasagna. So we had Italian food from a Cuban restaurant and the lasagna was pretty good. 

Reales Alcázares de Seville

After dinner as a whole group we went to this old building with an inner courtyard/patio that had been turned into a stage. We were given a private showing of Flamenco! It was such a unique experience. There was just one man playing the Spanish guitar and one man singing. The female dancer was extreme, as well as the male when he came out to dance. The Flamenco is such an interesting dance. The dancers dance together without ever touching but you can feel the passion and tension between the two of them. Once the flamenco show was over we were left to explore the city. My group just decided to hit up Starbucks and head to bed, it had been a long day and we were going to have another one on Saturday.

Gardens of the Palace

Gardens of the Palace

Saturday morning we woke up and had a big buffet breakfast at the hotel and then headed out for a tour of the Reales Alcázares de Seville,  the Royal Alcazar palace in Seville. The Alcazar is the oldest royal palace that is still in use in all of Europe. The upper levels of the place are still used as the residence in Seville for the royal family of Spain. Surrounding the palace are the palace gardens. There are many different types of plants, fountains, sculptures, and even a small hedge maze within the gardens.  

Once we left the palace we were off to see the Catedral de Santa María de la Sede, Cathedral of Saint Mary of the See or better known as the Cathedral of Seville. The cathedral is the largest Gothic cathedral and third largest church in the world. Girlada is the large bell tower in the cathedral. You are able to climb up to the top of it and overlook the rest of the cathedral and Seville. The views from here are amazing! This was our last stop on our tour of Seville. We had a little free time to grab lunch and then it was time for a 3 hour bus ride back to our home, Granada!

View from La Giralda 

La Giralda

Ronda, Spain

I know that you all have been dying to know what has been happing in my life. Sorry for being slow on the updates, life is crazy in Granada. Let's go back to my adventures of last weekend. Friday morning around 7:45 we left for Ronda & Seville, two extremely beautiful cities in Spain. Ronda was our first stop and it  has some amazing views! You can see for miles around out into the olive fields and to the mountains. We split into small little tour groups and walked around the town. I went with the program director, Javier and he took us down the mountain side to see a special view looking up to the town. It was a little bit of a hike but it was well worth it. We got to look up at one of the three famous bridges. This one is El Puente Nuevo which means new bridge. On the one side of the bridge is a a river that flows towards it. If you look over the other side the water comes through as a small waterfall heading to the valley below. It is so pretty. The was here was crystal clear even though it was a teal color.


After we did some walking around, we went toward the bottom of the town to see some old Moorish ruins. There used to be a wall surrounding the town, and at one section of the town is the ancient baths that the Moors used to use. Much of the Moorish architecture was destroyed when the Catholic monarchs took control from the Moors in the 1400's. Most of the baths are still in contact.  We were able to go down into the baths and watch a movie on how they worked. They were an extremely advanced society. They would build a fire in one room and bring in water throughout the rest to create saunas, actual baths, and rooms were they would do massages. It was a really neat sight. I believe when we go to Morocco that we will get to go to an actual bath house. I'll have to update later on how that goes, if we get to participate.

Once we left the baths we explored other parts that were left behind by the Moors. In one area of the town, beneath the king's home was a mine shaft. In the mine shaft was were the Moors would store all of their water and weapons in case of an attack. We were able to go into the mine shaft. There was well over 200 steps that we had to climb down to. At the bottom you come out of the mine and it opens up to this beautiful lake that is hidden at the bottom from the big cliffs. This was were they would keep the fresh water and weapons. 

 After we toured around the town we went back to the main plaza to a small park area and enjoyed our picnic lunches that our host moms had made for us. After lunch we all got back on the bus and drove another 2 hours to get to our next destination, Seville!

Granada: Semana Uno

This week has been a rather slow week. Every morning for 5 hours we have had orientation sessions. Basically the class was a review of Spanish vocabulary. We walked around Granada learning the names for things and how to get around town. After our morning class time we come home from about 1-5 for lunch and siesta, my favorite part of the day! Each night we had tours of different parts of the neighborhoods. 

Yesterday we got our language level assignments and our class schedule. I got placed in advanced level III out of IV, so I was pretty happy with that! This semester I will be taking my Spanish language class along with 4 others: Islamic Art and Architecture of Spain and its Impact, Imagining Andalusian Literature, Federico García Lorca and Traditional Andalusian Literature, and Islamic Civilization in Spain and North Africa until 1492. Hopefully these classes will keep me busy :) They should be fun. With the Art class, we get to take trips to the Alhambra in restricted areas and study the design concepts and art there. I will have lots of pictures! 

Usually during the nights a group of us go out around 9 or 10 and hit up different cafés for food. The tapas here are so good! I have tried so many different foods. Some of my favorites are un bocadillo de lomo and queso, a sandwich of cheese the back meat of a pig usually. I also had creama de clabaza y tortelini, basically pumpkin mac n cheese! This was so good and much healthier. You have your regular macaroni noodles and then you cream a pumpkin and use that as your sauce, so good! And last night I had pork and pineapple skewers. I keep forgetting to bring my camera with me but I need to start taking pictures of the food so everyone can see how good it is!

That is basically what has happened this week. Hopefully some fun things will happen this weekend so I can update everyone. But until then,
¡Hasta Luego!
Nathan 

Cabo de Gata

It has been a couple of days since I have written about mis aventuras en España, let's venture back to Saturday. . . .

 We had to wake up early and be at the bus stop by 7:45 to begin our trip to Cabo de Gata, about 2 hours away from Granada. Cabo de Gata is know for its beautiful mountains, beaches, views and crystal clear Mediterranean sea. I am pretty sure that IES tricked us into this hike. This was no hike, this was a full out excursion in the mountains! You can tell from the pictures that we basically started at the bottom of the mountain, walked to the top, and then down to the beach and the rocks and back up another side again. It was a 10 mile hike that took about 7 or 8 hours to do but it was so worth it. We also got to stop at the beach for about 2 hours to swim and eat lunch. The beaches are amazing (watch our for nudity). I love the Mediterranean waters. You can't really smell the salt, but you sure can taste it. 

It is hard to tell but the picture to the left is the same as the one above just when we got to the bottom. Here we hiked for a bit along the beach working our way up and around some of the pretty big rocks. It was definitely a challenge. I don't think our tour guide was too fond of us. He would stop and tell us a few things and then made us keep going. He did not like for us to rest.  

The remaining pictures might represent my favorite part of our hike. We climbed up one part of the mountain which was all these loose grey rocks that were hard to climb up and down. When we got to the top there was goats everywhere. It was so strange to see them up there. But our tour guide must have been used to them, cause we walked right through them. I think the view from atop the "goat mountain" was my favorite. The hike down it was treacherous but the views were outstanding. The pictures do not do it justice.   

  

After we hiked and swam at the beach, we hiked into a small town where we had the patio of a restaurant reserved and had a sunset dinner basically on the beach. It was a great time. We did not get back to Granada till about midnight. It was one of the girls birthdays so we went out to explore the city at night and got some Shwarma and pizza. Overall it was a great time!

I will hopefully have something new to most here in the next day to catch everyone up on what has happened this week. 

Until then, ¡Hast Luego!

Nathan

Albaicín

Today began with our normal orientation session where we talked about different parts of Granada and the neighborhoods within. We had to go out to the streets and find different types of banks, grocery stores, pharmacies, news stands etc. and figure out different paths to them, all to help us understand the streets in Granada. The layout of the city is very different than cities in the U.S. Here cities are not planned out in grids, streets crisscross and go in every which direction. I am slowly understanding the layout of the streets even though there are many that I have not even seen yet.

Albaicín

After our orientation session this morning I came back home to have lunch with my host family. Marivi had made gazpacho, a cold tomato based soup, and chicken. For dessert we had ice cream cake :) After lunch I enjoyed a nice siesta, and then I was off to the IES center for a tour of a neighborhood called Albaicín.

Albaicín  is a neighborhood made up of gitanos and hippies, gypsies and hippies and rich people. It is very bohemian and is probably my favorite part of the city. It is a good hike from my house probably about 45minutes but that is the Spanish way of life. To them that is nothing. The buildings are set into the mountains so the streets are extremely steep. Nestled in between the houses are little cafeterías y heladerías,  coffee and gelato shops (my favorite part). I have already enjoyed gelato de fragolas y frambuesa, strawberry and raspberry gelato. Both were awesome!

La Plaza Trinidad

After our tour of Albaicín, one of my friends and I hit up the shops along the streets. You have to venture away from the main streets and the touristy areas to find the really good and authentic shops of Spain. In one of them I bought a leather backpack, either goat or cow not sure which but it smells like it was just made, the leather is really potent lol. After shopping we enjoyed our gelato en  La Plaza Trinidad and watched the many palomas, pigeons that circle around the trees. Then we found our way down a tiny street and met up with some more friends and had dinner in La Café Gracias. I enjoyed some paninis de tres quesos. It was a panini with three different cheeses, not sure what kinds, tomatoes and olive oil. It was really good.

Now I am off to bed. Tomorrow we have a 10 mile hike in Cabo de Gato, a city about 2 hours away from Granada. I probably wont up date the blog till Sunday.
So until then,
Hasta Luego,
Nathan

Granada: Día Uno

Today started off as a typical Spanish day, ¡con mucha comida! The hotel had a big breakfast buffet for us. After breakfast we broke off into orientation groups. We got to meet the directors and student ambassadors of the program. Granada is the youngest host school for IES Abroad, only been around for about 5 years. But they seem to have there stuff together and I have no concerns. After orientation in the morning we had another buffet for lunch. Then we broke off again and played ice breaker games to get to know more about each other and Spain.

Around 4o'clock we were separated into buses based on what part of the city that we are living in and headed to Granada. It only took about 1:30 to get to Granada. When we got off the bus we were met by our host families. Mi madre is very sweet, she goes by Marivi. She doesn't understand any English and at times I feel like I don't understand any Spanish, but it is going well and we are able to communicate. We spent the afternoon/evening watching Spanish game shows on the television, which are pretty fun. There were some trivia shows where if you got the answer wrong the floor would open and you fall through it, game over! ¡Muy interesante! 

Around 10o'clock Luis, Marivi's son, came home in time for dinner. Dinner was great! Marivi had made a salad with lettuce, tomatoes, and green olives, and instead of dressing they pour olive oil on it. She also made tortilla espanola, basically an omelet of potatoes, onions, and eggs that is fried in a pan, and of course you cannot forget el pan, or bread which is typical of every meal in Spain. Fresh bananas, apples, pears, and kiwi was for dessert. 

And now I am here sitting on my bed updating my blog. Hopefully tomorrow I will have some pictures for you!  

¡Buenos Noches!
Nathan 

Mi primero día en España

¡Hola a todos! What a day! I had a good flight from Cincinnati to Paris. During security I made friends with an elderly woman who was on her way to Paris for her 5th time this year. We sat and talked until our flight left, she was full of information and knowledge. I had a pretty good flight. I got to take in some movies and eat some decent food. It was such a neat sight to look out the window at night as we flew over Nova Scotia. Through the clouds you could see pockets of towns with their lights on as well as the light of the moon illuminating the ice surrounding them. My flight actually landed in Paris about an hour early, which was great because Charles de Gaulle is not an easy airport to navigate. It was a lot of walking and asking directions to find the right gate. 

The flight to Málaga was much shorter but was rougher. The 8 hour flight from Paris with a 6 hour time change and no sleep was rough enough and then to go do a 2 hour flight on a crammed, hot plane was not fun, but the destination was well worth it. Málaga is such a beautiful city. It reminds me a little of a Florida city right on the beach with all the palm trees, however; the builds are more unique and built out of different colors of concrete and stone, not a lot of new glass buildings. Our hotel is rather modern and different. It took my roommate and me about 10 minutes to figure out how to turn on our lights lol. It turned out that by the door is a slot that you have to place your room keys in to make the lights come on. 

After checking in to the hotel, we all left for lunch and the beach. We ate at a small Chiringuito, which is basically like a small bar/restaurant on the beach. The food was cool. They brought the table bread, salad, fried calamari, and baby squid for appetizers. And for the entrée we had grilled chicken and french fries, (no ketchup, so I squirted lemon and lime juice on mine). It was all actually pretty good, I even ate the calamari and baby squid. The squid was probably my favorite it kinda tasted like chicken and the fried calamari was rubbery but still good. I wish I would have had my camera with me to show how they grilled their fish. Outside the restaurant they had an old boat that was filled with ash and wood that they grill the fish on, and that was typical for all the Chiringuitos on the beach.  

After lunch, a group of 7 of us went and swam in the beautiful ocean and took an afternoon walk on the beach. There were tons of families out enjoying the sun and sand. After about an hour and a half on  the beach we headed back to the hotel. We were supposed to have an evening session tonight where they gave us a tour of the city center, but when my roommate and I got back to the hotel and showered, we crashed for 3 hours finally trying to catch up with our jet lag and we missed the session, oops :P Once I finally woke up at 9:30 I went out on my own and walked the streets of Málaga and gave myself a tour of the city center. Life does not really start here until 10 or 11 at night so people were just beginning to come out for a night on the town. Everything was lit up and beautifully between the people sitting outside the bars, the shops that stay open late, the fountains all lit up or the many people flying around on scooters, It was definitely a unique experience. 

I cannot wait to see what tomorrow has in store for me. We have orientation sessions all morning and afternoon and then we take a bus to our host city of Granada where we will get to meet our host families! Fingers crossed that tomorrow turns out to be as awesome as today was!

¡Chau! Nathan  

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to Spain I go!

It is officially departure day! My flight leaves Cincinnati at 5:40 and then I will be on my way to Paris, France. By tomorrow morning I shall be in Malaga, Spain! They say rain on a wedding day is good luck, hopefully that goes for flying as well :) This will be my first time flying alone as well as going out of the country. I am extremely excited as well as nervous, but nerves are good and this will be well worth it!  I will try my best to keep everyone updated on here as well as on Facebook. Hopefully by Tuesday afternoon I will have landed and will be able to post again and upload some pictures of my first night in Spain! I will be six hours ahead of Cincinnati so I should be arriving while everyone back home is just waking up for the day.What an awesome opportunity that God has blessed me with. Thank you to all my friends and family that have been praying and helping me along my way with this new adventure in my life.

¡Hasta luego! Nathan