i really meant to update this more often

but let's face it, the really interesting stuff only happens on the weekends when i travel. speaking of - london this weekend, get excited!

went to granada last weekend... it was beautiful, of course, though i think toledo was more striking. we arrived there on friday after a 5 hour (!!!) bus ride, got set up in our hostel (steffi, amy, juliette, esmir, and i in our room), and found food... had paella for the first time, it was really good. the seafood they put in is a bit intimidating bc it's crawfish and giant shrimp things, but with the shells still on. i tried to eat the crawfish-like thing, and ended up flinging it across the table. needless to say, i didn't bother with that again.
after food, we went on a tour of the city... this time our guides really knew exactly where they were going, thank goodness. it was funny to watch how people would get distracted and wander off to take pictures or explore a nearby store and disappear for a while, only to reappear a little while later. or in some cases, give up trying to find us and go back to the hostel, either way. we started out the trip doing the usual spanish thing of being way late and ok with it, but by friday night, the trip leaders developed a strange insistence on puncuality. fine by me, but very un-spanish and unexpected.
then... we went back to the hostel and took a nap. well, everyone else took a nap because they, for the most part, had not slept the night before bc they went out. i stayed up and read during their nap, and got ready to leave again. next on the agenda was our mystery evening event. we knew we were going to the almacin (oldest muslim neighborhood in europe) and seeing a flamenco show, we just couldn't figure out how we'd be touring a neighborhood in the dark. we finally got ready and all left, almost missed the bus because some of my little group wanted to get food, and... toured the neighborhood in the dark. in buses, for the most part, though we did get out and walk a bit. it was absolutely insane how those buses squeezed through the tiny little streets... at one point, a car going the opposite direction came around the corner we were about to turn, and i really thought the bus was going to demolish them. we just barely squeaked by the car and continued winding up the itsy bitsy streets.
saw the alhambra at night all lit up, and eventually got to the place the flamenco thing was at. at which point, of course, we spent like 20 minutes outside in the cold not really knowing what was going on and waiting for someone to tell us what to do. got inside, they gave us drinks (best sangria i've ever had. still only finished half before i got tired of it, but still. it was really good), and we watched flamenco for like an hour. the footwork they do is really interesting and the dancers were all so intense that sometimes i didn't know whether to giggle or be a bit scared.
the show didn't end until like 1245, and though i never ate dinner, i wasn't all that hungry. that paella was so filling, mmm... anyway. we got dropped off on some random street in granada where the rest of the group was going to a bar (or five), but esmir, cristina (i've met more c/ch/kristina's on this trip than ever in my life, geez), dina, thomas, merilin, and i were tired and decided to go back to the hostel. so we started walking, not really knowing where we were going, kind of looking for food along the way. saw a sign for a pizza place and got all excited, only to find inside the nastiest dried-up looking pizza ever. kept walking and found an incredible pizza place that also had pastries, so i got a slice for dinner and a napoleana (spanish favorite thus far - flaky sweet pastry with chocolate inside and powdered sugar on top) to save for breakfast. total: 3.20 euros. woohoo! the other girls got a cab while esmir and i finished getting our food, and esmir, thomas and i kept walking until we decided we were lost, then got a cab. and went to sleep.

saturday we didn't have to be anywhere until 1130, which was great. i still got up wayyyy before the rest of my room, for some reason. checked email and whatnot in the hostel lobby, had a girly little excited fit that made these french girls look at me like i was crazy, and went back to be mom and make sure everyone else woke up. yadda yadda yadda (don't worry, that's not the best part), we got on the bus and went to the alhambra. which was absolutely unbelievably gorgeous. ancient arabic construction and design, and obsession with water and intricate wall decor... i put a link to my fb album of it in my last post, but those pictures seriously dont do it justice. we were there for 4 hours, wandering through the summer palace next to the alhambra, all the gardens, and the actual alhambra. i... really don't have anything else to say about that place, it's more of a 'picture's worth a thousand words' kind of thing.
walked like 10 minutes down a hill, and we were back in the middle of granada. at lunch at a restaurant with waiters that were ridiculously inattentive - seriously, i'm almost looking forward to being bugged by a salesperson or waiter when i get back to the states. though i do like trying to decipher the menu and ordering without really completely knowing what you'll get. it's always worked out well for me so far (knock on wood...). i had 'pate de pato' (duck patee, we think) with rasberry jam on toasted bread. it was awesome.
i struck out on my own when i was done eating so that i could try and buy some clothes for the club that night. i'd brought stuff to wear, but judging by the way everyone else was talking, my sperry-jeans-pretty tank top-cardigan combo wasn't going to measure up. it ended up being that i probably could have worn that without being denied entry into the club, but i managed to indulge myself fashion-wise rather cheaply... little black audrey hepburn-esque dress - 12 euro. green pointy-toed flats (that really tore up my heel, i'll wear tights next time) - 7 euro. yay cheap!
ran into other people in zara, left some and went on with thomas, steffi, and merilin to other stores. after finding my dress and shoes, steffi and i went to the arab street we'd seen the day before on the tour (one of the main places we lost people) so i could see about buying a (camel) leather briefcase i like. it was professional-looking but quirky, and big enough to be functional without weighing you down. i bartered the guy down to 25 euro, and even though i wanted 20, he wouldn't budge from 25. so i gave up and bought it at 25 :)
went back to the hostel, rested for a few minutes, then started getting ready for the evening. attempted to meet a guide to take us over to the other hostel for a paella dinner, she never showed, and we tried to find our own way. a few phonecalls later, we were sitting on an upstairs patio eating 5 euro paella. again, sooo muuuch paella. mmm... and i had calamari in mine this time, woohoo! got into a big political discussion with thomas (french, from paris) and esmir (lives in holland, originally from bosnia) while merilin (estonian) sat and laughed at us. as you might imagine, it was an interesting conversation. good thing i started dating jake when i did, or i wouldn't have had a single political opinion to bring to the table :) kidding...
from there we wandered off to find cristina and dina some food, and find our meeting point for heading to the club with the whole group. designated time to meet: 1030. time when actually headed out: 11ish. silly spain. walked for WAY too long, got a little lost, and ended up at a little club that was apparently just an interim place for us to hang out before going to the big club they'd told us about. we snagged a table and pretty much just stayed there the whole night. well i did, except for the few times i was guilted into dancing a bit. dina and cristina say they've joined the quest to find a drink i like enough to actually finish, but no luck so far.
at 2 (yes, that's 2am. ridiculous.) we finally left that club and headed off for our real destination, a club called mae west. it was in a mall, so when we finally got in, we were more excited about the bocadillo (sandwich) and kebab places than the actual club. so when we got inside the actual club and realized there was barely room to breathe, much less dance, we left after 5 minutes and spent like an hour sitting (and eating, of course) in the kebab place. got to the hostel at 4/415 ish and went to bed.

and had to wake up in time to be out of our room by 1030, which of course didn't happen. i got up in time and was packed and everything, but no one else was, so i just hung out in the room with them and waited. we left with like 10 of us to go to dunkin' coffee (yes, the same as dunkin' donuts. i have no idea why the name is different), but esmir and i took a detour so i could go to the atm and he could exchange a mug. stopped at a pastry shop on the way to meet up with everyone else, rather than get breakfast at dunkin' coffee. sat around there for a while in a huge circle of chairs, and around 1230 or 1, juliette, amy, thomas, connor, and i decided to go see the inside of the cathedral we'd passed on our tour. we wandered over there, chatted with some fellow erasmus kids sunning themselves on the church steps, and wandered inside. the cathedral was, of course, gorgeous... simpler than others i've seen so far, though, and i think i like that better. carved whit columns, unbelievably high ceiling, black and white marble tile floor... very pretty. unfortunately there was a service going on, so we didn't get to explore much. instead we went back outside and listened to this amazing guitar and bass trio play... for a good 15 minutes or so. they were really really good. then off to the arab street again, where we met up with esmir and merilin. wandered around there, did something else (maybe, i don't remember), and ended up vegitating and sunning ourselves on the church steps. see, the problem was that we weren't meeting to leave until 4, so we had quite a lot of time to waste and not a whole lot to do. so we sat and talked for a while, then roused ourselves to finally get some lunch. i had my first kebab of the trip (so good, though messier than i'd hoped), and we headed back to the hostel at like 3 so we could be the first people in line to get on the bus. turns out the bus went to the other hostel (our group was split in half and staying at 2 separate hostels) first, so it didn't get to us until about 445 and it didn't matter much where we sat anyway. it was a decently comfy ride home, though, particularly when i figured out how to recline the seat. we stopped at a gas station/restaurant about halfway back and it was funny how similar it was to stopping on a group trip in the us... pretty much everyone loaded up on junk food for dinner and spent a while loitering in the gas station before ambling back to the bus. mmm, pringles for dinner. better than the weird sausage-looking things the restaurant had hahah
finally got back to madrid at about 1030, went home, skyped, unpacked, and went to sleep.

one of the most entertaining things about this trip was to watch our pack mentality in action... the vast majority of the time we were with the entire group last weekend, half of us had no idea what was going on, we just saw other people from our group going somewhere, so we followed. it was this 'even if the group is lost, as long as i'm with them it's fine' kind of thing. worked out well every time, believe it or not.

oh, and thomas (the sharp-dressing parisian) asked me if my weekend bag was long champ. nice to know it looks that stylish :)

last wednesday i went up to immanuel baptist, the church i'm getting involved with here, to hang out with some of the other college kids. it's a small group, there were only like 8 people there, but they're fun. i kept hearing how the college pastor was from texas, so when i got there and met him, i asked him about it. turns out:
he's from houston
he lived in college station for a year
during that year, he attended first baptist church.
in college station, not bryan
yeah, the church i grew up at.
unfortunately, it was only a year and a half ago that he was there, and i was already going to grace by then, so i never met him.
still, he's related to 2 of the older kids i grew up with in youth group
AND mrs. melton (the consol biology teacher) is his aunt and mr. medlock (yes, THE mr. medlock from algebra 2 honors at consol) is his uncle.

absolutely ridiculously ironic. i love it.

and another funny story... last week i took my boots to have them streched, because they were absolutely destroying my feet. too tight across that wide part above the toes (is there a name for that part of the foot in particular?), and rubbing blisters like crazy. i bought tape for my heels today to prevent the blisters, but anyway. back to the stretching. even though the calves of the boots are very fitted, i decided to leave them alone and only have the toes stretched. so i go back monday afternoon to pick them up, and try them on before i leave, just to be safe. the toes feel fine, but i can't get the calves of the boots completely over my actual calves. that's right, in the week and a half since i'd quit wearing the stupid things, my calves had grown to the point that they are now too big for the stupid boots. so of course, i handed the things back to have the calves stretched, and i pick them up tomorrow.
still, how crazy is it that that is such a huge difference in the amount of exercise i do here versus in the US that my muscle mass would increase that much? and isn't walking supposed to make you leaner, anyway?

here's hoping they fit, because all the cute 'english countryside' outfits i want to wear in LONDON this weekend center around them. yep, london this weekend, get excited! i'll try and post earlier in the week after this trip, but i wouldn't recommend holding your breath about it... ♥