Seville and Ronda

We went on a trip to Seville, which is two hours away and the capitol city of Andalusia. We spent the night there and then went to Ronda, another city in Andalusia, and then went home, back to Granada. This is just the moon hidden by clouds in Seville after the Flamenco.

There we saw Real Alcazar, which was originally a fort built by the Muslims. It has a beautiful garden and has been added on to by a bunch of different royal families. It is obviously huge, and is still the home of the royal family, apparently, but i don't know how they would live there with all the tours. The first government of Andalusia after Franco did meet there. The whole thing was like one big photo op, so it's impossible to show you everything. Sorry.

After that we went to the Cathedral, which is the biggest Gothic Cathedral in the world. Christopher Columbus may or may not be buried there. They have a tomb they claim is his. But, so does the DR. Either way its cool. We got to climb to the top and see the entire city, which was pretty incredible.

Also in Seville I went to a bull fight. It was just lucky, we showed up to an arena to take pictures and they wouldn't let us in because of the fight, so we just bought tickets and went in, we had no idea there was a fight going on at all. It is pretty gruesome, but incredible. The Spanish are all dressed nicely, like a horse race, and they all clap politely, but there is no drinking or raucous behavior, it is all very gentlemanly. I have some videos, but I'll spare you.

That night we saw a Flamenco show. It was pretty cool, but not quite the spectacle I had anticipated.

We spent the night in Seville then went to Ronda, which is a pretty cool city, visually. We only had a few hours to walk around there before coming home, but we saw the Arab Baths, which are like Roman baths, but, for Arabs. We also went on an official tour of their bull arena, but it was pretty boring considering the night before I had actually seen a bullfight. The whole city was like on a cliff so the main street just sort of dropped off on both sides, it was pretty incredible.

Nerja

We took a weekend trip to a beach called Nerja. It is absolutely awesome. In this picture you can see the Rock we jumped off, its the small one in the distance in almost the exact middle of the picture. It was like 20 feet. The med. Sea is incredible, its really salty, but it is so clear that you can see the fish at the bottom, which is awesome. It's also easier to float.This is just a picture from a balcony in Nerja, which is a really small city by the sea.
This was the porch of our hostel room/house, which was 20 Euros for the night, per person. We got like our own little house for 4 people. It was just lucky I guess, but the hostel was really nice.
It was big, so we had people over. A spanish woman came over and kicked everyone out because we were making too much noise.
This is an awesome view from the bus ride, it was like 2 hours.

Classes

As well as being the week of my 21st, this was also the First week of classes. 4 of my classes are in spanish and the teachers don't speak any english. One is in english, and she doesn't speak very well. They are all interesting, but are gonna be a lot harder than i thought because they literally don't speak english, So, i have to learn the language. The above picture is from my first field trip with my art and architecture class. It is of the old door to the city, they moved it to the woods. I don't know why.

21 Birthday

For my 21st birthday I went to an Irish pub called Patty's Pub sort of near me. It was a lot of fun there were tons of people there. My first drink as a 21 year old was a White Russian, it was an important choice. I'm happy with it. We went to a club afterwords, which was tough because it was a Tuesday and we had class the next morning, but you only turn 21 once, even if it is in Europe.

Concert

last night we went to a famous rock concert with a really famous spanish metal band playing. They love to mosh. Everyone there was dressed in black and had chains and spiked hair, etc, sort of like a spanish metallica thing, so i didn't quite fit in with my pastel polo. I didn't bring my camera because i was afraid i would lose it/ break it, but just imagine a huge outdoor concert in a soccer stadium with a ton of people screaming and dancing. They had a decent light show on stage and the bassist was dressed like a pirate, the other band members were not. We tried to fit in by screaming jibberish and raising our fists in unison with the spaniards who knew the real words. I don't think it worked.

Sacremonte

This is the view of the city from Sacremonte, which is a mountain with hundreds of martyred priests buried in it. It was an abbey, and the moors conquered the south of Spain and killed a bunch of Christian priests and buried them in the mountainside. Middle left in the background is the Alhombra, which is a moorish Castle. Napoleon tried to conquer Granada to destroy it, but he couldn't.
Last night we went to a club called Granada Diez. It was our second time there. Everything in Spain is just pushed back really late, so the streets and clubs are packed until like 6 in the morning. I only made it until like 4, the Spaniards are unbelievable partyers, stamina-wise. As far as gelling hair goes, I wish it would stop. It was a fun, educational, responsible, and safe night.

club/ cabo de gato

yesterday i went to a hip hop club, it was ridiculous. The Spanish people all wore punk rock clothes with spiked hair and mohawks, super baggy jeans, piercings, etc. It was interesting because they played all american music and we were the only people who knew the words, or who were dancing. Also, here is a picture of me at Cabo de Gato, mostly because I want to put a picture up that proves I was there. evidence.

Cabo de Gato

This is a picture of the beach. You can see the beach, and then the water, next to the beach.
This is from up on a high mountain/ hill we climbed. We literally walked through 10 miles of desert to get to the beach (above). It was weird that there were mountains, desert, and really nice beaches all next to each other.

Mirador de San Nicolas

we walked to the top of thecity opposite the Alhambra and we were able to see the entire city in one direction and the Alhambra in the other. It was awesome. the entire city sort of nests in the mountain and then suddenly sprawls into this huge metropolis. The Muslim part is mostly in the hill and the city then spread outwards.

intro

Bear with me as I get used to blogging. Mostly I'll be putting up pictures with descriptions. They will generally be short and only be a few of the pictures of any given event since upload time is slow. Hopefully it will get cool and I'll be able to drop a couple stories. Here goes...

first entry

This is the plaza close IES where I take my classes. That statue is of Christopher Columbus kneeling at the feet of the King of Spain, because every country needs a statue of the first great American. I still haven't found George Washington.