Dog Days of Summer in Granada

I'm sorry that I haven't written since the grand escapade of the Berdan family here in Spain. The truth is, my life has taken a drastic, boring turn since they left! We've finished up with classes and are head-long into the internships here, meaning that I'm working 40+ hours a week. Throw over 100 degree weather in there everyday and that should explain why I have just enough energy to eat, work, and sleep.

Jen and I did get to partake in "La Feria" in Granada, however. This is basically like Brown County Fair, except times about a million, it's so cool! Hundreds of restaurants set up on the grounds for the week, and all the people dress in their flamenco/traditional Spanish get-up while riding on horses through various parades. AND they have an entire section for rides! So Jen and I took the afternoon to walk, eat, and drink our way through the grounds, just to get a feel for what it was all about. It was really cool to see all of the different extravagant dresses and allllll of the horses! Now, what would a county fair be without going on one of the rides?! We took a chance on "The Inverter" where we were spun, flipped, jerked, and tossed back and forth in the air! Imagine two 21 year-olds yelling their lungs out, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, hahah!! It was definitely one of the highlights of the day.

The day of June 25th marked an important day in the Berdan family as well. Not only was it Ron's birthday, but it was my parents 28th Anniversary!! Yes, folks they have been together for more than a quarter of a century and I don't think I know of any other two people more in love. CONGRATS!

We also had our final visitors come to see us as well. Jen's brother, John, and a fellow UWL Athletic Trainer (I should say, former and certified!) Megan Lee graced us with their presence that last week and a half! We did the standard tapa tour and showed them around the city as much as we could in between working at our internships. As always, it was so good to see familiar faces from home!

While this isn't exactly something exciting to blog about, it was quite the experience. This past Sunday night/Monday I got really sick and ended up having to go to the emergency room. I was sick all through Sunday night and finally told Karrie that I think I need to go to the hospital because it wasn't getting better. She called a cab and I think we arrived in record time (this probably had something to do with the fact that the taxi driver was getting squirmy over my throwing up in a Zip-loc in the back seat). After a bit of waiting, me trying to crack jokes and be sarcastic to take my mind off being sick, and answering a ton of health questions in Spanish, they told me I was severely dehydrated. I ended up getting a IV drip along with some medicine for my nausea and after 5 hours of dozing on and off, they let me go back home. Even after blood work, they don't know what else caused me to get so sick. At least, I'm better now and I still have all of my teeth (those of you that are aware of my Scotland fiasco should be laughing right now).

As I wrap this blog up, I realize that I only have 2 weeks left in Granada. What?! 2 weeks?! Where did the time go?! It's hard to believe that my time is almost up here in this great country, but I'm going to make the most of my remaining time here!

Love to all of you!

Granada WON and are going to the Big Leagues with Madrid and Barcelona!!

La Feria

Rides at La Feria!

Eloisa, Alberto, Me, Yolanda, and Mariano from my first rotation of my internship!

THE BERDAN FAMILY IN SPAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you couldn’t tell by the ridiculous amount of exclamation points after this particular title, this blog is going to be filled with a ton of positivity and happiness through our adventures here in Spain!

I thought that Monday would never come, yet there I was sitting on the bus to the airport! It seemed like this was something I had been looking forward to for months, seemed so far away, yet all of sudden it was here. While sitting on the bus, I felt like a kid who’d just had a giant pixie or something with a ton of sugar because I couldn’t sit still—the excitement was just too much to contain. After the 40ish minute bus ride, I quickly proceeded to the area near the baggage claim. The grease board said that my family’s flight was on time which meant that I would be seeing their faces and hugging them tightly in a mere 10 minutes! I think those were the longest 10 minutes of my life, and I got especially when the announcer came over the PA saying that their flight had landed and they were coming off the plane. Ahh! As silly as this sounds, I actually did check my pulse and it was quite elevated. Flyers have to pass through a hallway and gate of sorts before entering the actual airport and those already in the airport can only see the shoes of those coming in. So I was frantically looking for any shoes that my family members might have worn for the flight. After what seemed like hundreds of pairs of shoes, I finally spotted my brother’s blue Mizuno’s from track and just about levitated right there. As soon as I saw his face, I did a dead sprint towards him and jumped at him to give him a hug. My Mom and Dad followed. All of a sudden, I heard this other voice say, “Oh hey!” I turned around, and saw my sister standing there in the airport. A loud, echoing scream of joy escaped my mouth and I immediately rushed over to squeeze her to death. Now, when I say I screamed loudly, that’s not an exaggeration. I think just about everyone else in the airport turned around to see what the heck was going on. If you don’t believe me, Ron (always coming in the clutch), videotaped it so check it out for yourself. It took me a bit to compose myself and stop crying like a 2 year old, but eventually I got a handle on myself, and finished greeting my family…ALL of my family. J I was so, so happy to have my wonderful family here in Spain that you couldn’t have beat the smile off of me. Even as I write this now, I’m just beaming! We took the bus back into the city center to go pick up our rental car, but as we arrived the place was closed for siesta (go figure). So we decided to pick it up Tuesday night before we headed out to see Spain on Wednesday. Then it started raining, so I told my family to take a cab to my plaza and that I would walk home because I knew where I was going. My parents were staying in the hotel across the street from my apartment and I was to meet them there so they could get checked in and then we would go see where I lived. After giving the grand tour of the apartment, which probably took a total of 1 minute, we got everyone settled before heading for some famous Granada tapas! I took them to one of my favorite places called, “Beauty and the Beast” where you get a plate of tapas with each round of beverages. Yum! Since they had all been up for at least 24 hours, we made it an early evening, said goodnight to my parents and Joe and Elese, who were staying with me, headed back to the apartment. We all fell asleep relatively early, but not without watching a few episodes of Glee first! (A great family bonding activity, if I do say so myself).

Tuesday morning arrived and my family and I headed out to the INEF campus so they could see where I had been going to school for the past couple of months. It was fun to take them around and show them what I’ve been up to since being here. We picked a good day to tour because apparently the NBA player, José Calderón, originally from Spain, was there giving a presentation. Who got a picture with him? This girl! My family also got to meet two of my teachers, Victor Soto and Ignacio (who is my favorite!). We had reserved tickets to go see the Moorish palace, Alhambra, so after campus we headed there. It had been raining on and off all day, so we weren’t sure if it would be a good day to see the place, but everything worked out fine and the palace is beautiful. I was just so impressed with all of the Islamic patterns on the walls—the entire place was so intricate and must have taken so much time and effort to design and build. Amazing! We were all pretty worn out from walking all day, so we came back to the apartment while my Dad went to get the rental car. However, he didn’t return until 2 hours later with quite the story. You see, driving in Granada, put simply, just sucks. There are a crazy amount of one-ways, round-abouts, and un-labeled roads. Pair that with driving stick shift in a foreign country where the dominant language is not  English, let’s just say my Dad had quite a time getting back to the hotel/apartment. Nothing a schwarma can’t cure though! So, we went off to my favorite schwarma place so my family could experience this amazing cuisine. We were going to be headed out of town around 9, so we made it another early night.

Wednesday! This was the day we all planned to hop in the rental car and drive all over creation (well, just southern Spain, but creation sounds much better). We got specific directions to get out of Granada to try and minimize my Dad’s stress level, so once we got onto the auto-via, things seemed to go much more smoothly. We didn’t have a set plan, just that at some point in the next two days we got to Gibraltar. After driving a bit and making a pit stop in Malaga, we decided to set up camp, and by set up camp I mean stay in a hotel near the beach, in a suburb outside of Malaga called Torremelinos. We relaxed, got some good sun, rest, and a gourmet continental breakfast the next morning!

We were on the road again, making our way to Gibraltar. Now, some of you may ask why in the world we would want to go there. I used to be one of those people because before my father explained its main attraction, I thought this place would be just another tourist town. First, the town of Gibraltar is owned by the UK as a result of the Spanish War. The UK seems pretty chill about this town though, because all the border patrol did was count to see that we had 5 passports for 5 people in the car, he didn’t even open them up. Anyway, the city is most famously known for what is called “The Rock” of Gibraltar, where upon standing at the top, you can see the tip of Africa. On this same rock lives a vast amount of monkeys, Barbary Macaques, who are quite social, especially if you have food. We decided to take a cable up to the top of the rock and then do the 2 hour walk back down. The walk down was entertaining! Between seeing 2 different guys get jumped on by monkeys because they had food out in the open (after specifically being told not to), watching them ‘monkey’ around with each other (HA!), to listening to my brother say, “Oooooh, it’s a monkey!” (Hangover 2 quote) every 5 minutes, there was not a dull moment! We had a little picnic sandwich lunch, then jumped in the car to drive to Sevilla. Not wanting to stay directly in the city, we found a hotel about 20 minutes outside of the city center to stay for 2 nights. Between driving to Gibraltar, seeing “The Rock,” and driving to Sevilla, we were all ready for bed that night. We were up and ready to go sight-see Sevilla by 8:30 that next morning. After catching a bus into the city center, we decided to start the day out with seeing the Cathedral there. Holy huge! Besides the jaw-dropping architecture, this is the home of the tombs of both Christopher Columbus’ son and himself! Between that and some old antique artifacts that they had, I was rather impressed. We then toured the government building where the King and Queen of Spain stay when they are in Sevilla and took a bus tour throughout the city. Dad was just happy because he didn’t have to drive at all for one day! Upon returning to our hotel we tried to walk around to find somewhere to get dinner because everyone, especially Joe (surprise, surprise), was hungry. As I suspected, restaurants don’t even start serving dinner food until 8:30  at the earliest because normal Spanish dinner isn’t until 9:00 PM or later. So we had some drinks and tapas while we waited.

This next adventure, escapade, fiasco, explicit choice of words, whatever you want to call it deserves its own paragraph. You’ll soon find out why. We got up for an early breakfast and were on the road by 8:30 because we had a 6+ hour drive ahead of us to get to Alicante and then a town called Villajoyosa because we were staying with the friends I met and stayed with back in March. So we hit the road and filled up with gas because we only had about 1/3 of a tank left. It took all 5 of us, plus the gas attendant to figure out how to open our gas cover, but thank God Elese came along for the trip because she’s the one that figured out you simply have place your fingers on the top portion of it and open it normally like a door. Wow. That should have been a red flag warning to the next few hours we were going to have. So we fill up, are driving, driving, and driving some more further into the countryside…yep we’re lost. After driving about 20 minutes out of our way we decide to turn around and get back into a town so we can stop and ask for directions. Wellllllll, first a light on the dashboard came on and we had no idea what it meant. We saw a sign for a town called Utrera that was the next stop so we began making out way into town. As we entered the city limits, all of a sudden my Dad said, “The power of our car just went out.” What!?! Now we have a mysterious light on the dashboard and can’t go above 40 mph. Grrrreeeaaaat. We found a drive-thru gas station and Elese and I set to work. Through the conversation, we found out that our car required diesel fuel to run and my Dad had put gasoline in it. Sh**. The man at the gas station gave us directions to a car shop to see if they could take the gas out and we could refill it. Well, as you know from the previous paragraphs, directions in Spain aren’t that exact, we couldn’t find the place, and we ended up just pulling into what looked like a car rental/possibly used dealership shop. Elese and I went in to find someone and a man in a red shirt came to greet us. The first words out of my mouth were, “Señor, tenemos un problema.” Elese, being a much better speaker than I am, then explained our gasoline/fuel situation to him. He said that we could not drive it any further because it will wreck the engine and that we needed to get a car shop to get the gas out. Lo and behold it was a Saturday and although he called around, no one was open. Awesome. Just as it looked like we were going to miss out trip to Alicante, Joe, having work experience with water heaters while working with my dad, had the idea of siphoning the gas out the old fashioned way through a tube with a bucket at the end to catch it. Well, we thought we may as well at least try because we had nothing to lose and were between a rock and a hard place. The man in the red shirt, bless his heart, drove us to a hardware store where we bought tubing and a big bucket, in addition to already giving us some of his extra pails. Then the process began, my brother was manning the placement of the tube in the gas tank while my Dad started the siphoning process by sucking it out using his mouth. ICK. That right there deserves a hero status, an award or trophy or something! The first couple of tries were unsuccessful and we were getting pretty discouraged because we had about 45 liters of gas to siphon out. Joe came through again though and readjusted the tube one last time before my Dad restarted the siphon (this would make it about the 8^th time he’d had to start it over). It was working! We ended up siphoning 40 liters of gasoline out of the tank and drove back to the drive-thru station to fill up with DIESEL. Let’s just say by the end of this whole ordeal we had drawn a crowd and I’m sure they were all talking about ‘those’ Americans. Talk about family bonding, right?!?! We tried to pay this wonderful man who had done so much to help us, but he wouldn’t take any money. He said that if he was in our country, we would do the same thing for him. Wow, he was certainly our guardian angel—it’s nice to know that there are such good people on this earth!

About 5 hours behind schedule, we finally made it to Villajoyosa, where we got to the house, had some dinner and crashed. The next day we met with Brian and Iona, went to church, and then they took us to the villages of Guadelest and Finestrat, the same places I went on my first visit. It was so good to see the Cronins again, they are just two of the neatest, most hospitable people I know! Before heading back to Granada on Monday, we all went out for a typical English breakfast at a restaurant on the coast consisting of fried eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, and beans. It was scrumptious! After saying our good-byes we headed back for Granada and returned the car as soon as we got there so my Dad could lower his stress and anxiety level a bit. J

That next Tuesday and Wednesday were filled with seeing more of Granada’s sights including the Albayzin and Plaza de San Nicolas, the Cathedral (which is GORGEOUS! I liked it better than Sevilla’s, but that might just be because I’m biased toward Granada), Parque de la Ciencias, and I took them to two of my clinical sites to meet my supervisors and see where I have been doing my internship. Oh, we obviously added some shopping in there as well! Wednesday was another early night because my family had to take a taxi at 5 AM to get the airport for a 7 AM flight to Madrid to begin their journey back to the US.

Saying good-bye to them was hard. The last two weeks spent with them was absolute bliss, I was even smiling and happy just sitting in the same car as them. It meant so much to me that every single member of my family had the opportunity to come visit me while I was here in Spain. My family is already one of my top priorities in life but this trip just made me appreciate them that much more. I love you Dad, Mom, Elese, and Joe! <3

With all that said (once again, I’m sorry you got what seems like an encyclopedia this time) I have ONE month left in Spain! Let the countdown begin!

Raptors' Jose Calderon

Sippin' on some cafe at campus.

Love my two siblings!

View from atop the Alhambra.

Mis padres!

My super spectacular sister!

The Rock of Gibraltar!

Ooooooh, it's a monkey!

"Tourists are so taxing."

Staring contest.

The cathedral in Sevilla.

Christopher Columbus' tomb

City tour bus ride.

Just siphoning some gas.

The STUNNING cathedral in Granada.

This reminds me of the movie "Beauty and the Beast" in the library and dining room.

Chermany, Ya!

I made my first trip out of the country of Spain! Jen and I flew to Frankfurt over June 1-5 for some sight-seeing and to meet up with our friend, Frieder Krause, who came to UWL this past fall as a part of the federal grant.

Getting to Frankfurt was quite the experience in itself. First, we bused 2 hours down to Malaga, caught a train to the airport, flew into Frankfurt-Hahn, and then had to bus 2 more hours into the city center of Frankfurt. Whew! We arrived at 3 AM Thursday morning. Funny thing though, Jen reserved out hostel for the trip and she discovered that our hostel was located on the corner of the Red Light District (for those who have no idea as to what I'm talking about, the Red Light District is a strip of streets where prostitution is legal and there are A LOT of strip clubs--that must have been why we got such a good deal on the rooms!). Let's just say I walked really fast with my fists at the ready while we located our hostel. Haha!

Thursday morning we woke up and Frieder said he would pick us up at our hostel and take us around the city. It was so good to see him! We went around downtown and had some authentic German food for lunch. I had sausage (don't ask me what kind because I have no idea how to pronounce it), sauerkraut, and mashed potatoes! After he took us to see the old opera house and the old downtown that has been rebuilt since being destroyed in World War II which was quite stunning. Seeing the old town in comparison to the modern skyscrapers was my favorite because when I came to Germany in 2nd grade, that is what I remember, the old wooden stores and cobblestone streets. Modern day Frankfurt is too United States-ish for me. As we were walking around, Frieder's girlfriend, Sandra, called and asked if we'd like to come to a show her dance studio was putting on just about 30 minutes away in a suburb of Frankfurt. Of course we wanted to! Sandra teaches 4 dance classes and is in a group that is collaboration of all of the teachers at the studio. It was great fun to watch her dance! Jen and I also had the privilege of getting food with some of the members of the crew after the show was done. As we were driving back into Frankfurt, Sandra asked us if we'd like to stop by one of their friend's house who was having a block party. Again, we jumped at the chance! The party was in celebration of their Father's Day, which we are told is just another excuse for the dads to drink. :) Word got around and by the time we got there, everyone knew that two "Americans" were coming. It was great to meet a bunch of people who were native to Germany. I was also introduced to a typical German game, noggen (yea, that's probably not spelled right). You take a 4 foot tree stump and place it in the middle of everyone. The object of the game is to hit a nail all the way down into the wood, but with the wrong side of the hammer. It's harder than it seems! We ended up playing more than a couple rounds and wow, it was fun. I'm so glad I got the chance to partake in standard things the people living in Germany do all the time.

Friday arrived and Frieder met us mid-morning. He took us to the rehab center where he works and then we got a tour of the University of Frankfurt Sports Science campus as well as the main campus. The main campus is beautiful and so so big! Along the way, we met Amanda, who will be joining the UWL Athletic Training family in the fall as a part of the federal grant. I am happy we got to meet her before she left, hopefully alleviating any nerves or concerns she might have flying overseas for a few months. I told her to not hesitate to ask me if she needs anything, and that my Dad speaks German--her eyes immediately lit up. :)That evening we were treated to dinner by the Sports Science department at a restaurant called Apfelwein, which is known for and serves, what do you know, applewine! Frankfurt is famous for the yummy beverage that many people enjoy at a night out in a restaurant. I got schnitzel with green sauce (another famous German cuisine) which was absolutely mouth-watering!

Saturday Jen and I had the morning to walk around the city. She and I sat in a park for a while just people watching and enjoying being outside. We also sat on the grass. Now, you may think this is an odd thing to comment or write about, but let me tell you, there is no grass in Granada. To see a patch of grass that was more than a 3x3 foot square was heavenly! I even missed the smell of it, lame I know. We got in touch with Frieder later and got directions for the tram to take to his apartment. There we sat and visited for a while with Sandra and him before we headed back into the city to celebrate Frieder's birthday! The friends we had met on Thursday night we all coming out again to help us celebrate. It was a fun night had by all. Unfortunately, we had to be up at 6:30 the next morning to start our trek back home! Buy hey, that's what coffee is for, right?!

While I did not get the chance to see my namesake, Christiane Luddens, who lives in Hamburg, it was fun to get back to a city in Germany that I had not seen in years. Germany is definitely one of a kind and I can see why m y Dad pretty much calls it his second home. :)

The old opera house

Yummy German food!

Old town Frankfurt

Our WONDERFUL tour guide!

Gorgeous.

The crew Sandra dances with.

Another beautiful church.

Schnitzel!

Jen and I

Celebrating with the birthday boy.

Madrid!

As promised, you all get yet another enticing blog entry from me in the same week. Can you stand the excitement?!!

Anywho, Sara, Patrick, and I had tossed the idea of venturing to another city around soon after they arrived. We figured that as long as they were in Spain, they should try to see a little more than just Granada. So, within just a couple days we booked bus tickets, a hostel, and a bullfight. Talk about going out on a whim!

We left early Friday morning for the 5 hour bus ride to Madrid. I was actually supposed to meet Karrie's parents at the Madrid bus station in order to give them their tickets to Granada and make sure they got on the bus alright, so I really hoped that the ride would go smoothly. All went well and I roamed around until I spotted Karrie's mom, Laurie, who greeted me with a big hug. Bob came over soon after and we got them down to their bus just fine. The next task on the list was to find out how the heck to get to our hostel. I had only an address of the hostel and knew of the general area where it was located. Might I add that we didn't have a city map of Madrid in our possession yet. You have to realize that we were in Madrid, a city similar to the size of New York, so the most efficient way of travel was to take the metro. Well, being born and raised in itty bitty little Sleepy Eye where we have a mere two stoplights wasn't really boding me well at this point. Not to mention the fact that everything was in a different language. Cool. Have no fear, we did finally figure out where we were and took the metro to a location near our hostel. After aimlessly walking around and not making much progress, we just decided to take a cab for the last portion of the voyage. And thank God we did because after seeing all the different roads the cab driver took, I think we might still be in Madrid.

After arriving at the hostel and getting situated, we roamed around the streets of Madrid for a while, finally ending up in Plaza Mayor for some lunch on the terrace. The sky decided to open up and downpour so we ran to the nearest place we could find, which just happened to be an Irish pub (darn)! While we were washing down a Strongbow, well a Guinness for Patrick, I called my friend Ana Fernandez. About 12 years ago, Ana came to Sleepy Eye for a year to be a foreign-exchange teacher. She meshed really well with my Mom and family, so we tried to stay in touch after she left. I recently found her via Facebook, saw that she lived in Madrid, and told her I was going to be coming to Spain to study for 6 months. She said if I ever came to Madrid, to give her a call so I did exactly that. We met near her home and immediately engulfed one another in huge hugs. Then we spent the next few hours talking and catching up, while playing with her adorable 1.5 year old daughter, Carolina. I'm very happy that everything worked out to visit Ana and her family. It was so so great to see her again!!

The next morning we woke up early and put on our good 'ol walking shoes to sight see the city. We ventured to various places such as the Palacio Real, Plaza Oriental, Gran Via street, and many others for the next four hours. Whew! The buildings and architecture in this city are simply stunning. I felt like I was always pulling my camera out to snap more pictures.

Upon returning to our hostel we all took a little snappy nappers because we had a big evening ahead of us, an authentic Spanish bullfight! The tickets were super cheap and we all wanted to experience this unique part of their culture. We took the metro (which I felt I was quickly becoming a pro at) to Plaza de Toros and took our seats. Within 5 minutes we quickly realized why we got such a good deal on the ticket price. Our tickets were labeled 'Sol' which meant that until the sun went down, we were DIRECTLY in the heat. Annndd our particular spots just happened to be the last place to get shade as the sun was setting. Go figure. I couldn't be bothered though because we were in the 5th row, super close to the ring! The bullfight started at 7 and we discovered that we picked a good night to attend this event. Apparently it was bullfighting festival week in Madrid, so they were having a bullfight every night of the week. Not only that, but tonight they were going to fight 6 bulls, on HORSE. Whoa! I must say this was one of the most cultural and cool experiences I've encountered in my stay here. They began with presenting the horses and bullfighters, while the horses danced a little routine, they literally looked like they should be in a danceline. Then the first bull entered. Each sword had different colors to signify different things (I'm still in the process of Googling all of that, so, sorry for the non-history lesson) and each fighter used different techniques to conquer the bull, all on horse! Between that and the magnificent clothing they wore, I was simply amazed. At first it seems a little unethical, but you have to realize that not only is this a huge part of the Spanish culture, but they treat those bulls with the utmost respect throughout their lives before they enter the ring. Their meat is also taken to local markets to limit any waste. I think it's a good deal.

A guy sat next to me and heard us speaking English, so he asked where we were from. Turns out he was a Canadian that was traveling with two if his friends for a month or so as a post college graduating getaway. We all met up for a drink after the fight and soon realized how uncultured these three were! First off, none of them spoke a lick of Spanish, but they had been traveling in Europe for the last couple if weeks and had yet to set foot in the metro. Whaaat?! We were the first people to show them just how to use the metro (which mostly involved Sara and I doing the navigating and them following us around like little ducklings). It was gratifying to see that I was actually able to be so self-sufficient in such a large city. We stopped in Plaza Mayor (a landmark that they also had no idea existed) and to my utter astonishment they had absolutely no clue what tapas were! Sara, Patrick, and I took care of that real quick, finding a place that served traditional Spanish food like chorizo, fried calamari, and tortilla espanola, etc. We hung out with them the rest of the night and I think we finally got them culturized!

Sunday morning and the time for our departure came all too fast, but we loaded everything up and caught the bus back to Granada. We were all exhausted but I was really glad that we toon the opportunity to see a different city together. How often can you say that you got to travel overseas with two of your best friends (again, Brooke Kuster should be added to the list)?!?! It was a truly wonderful experience, one that I won't forget!

Plaza Mayor

I love these two!

Seeing Ana and her family after 12 years!

Real Madrid Stadium, where my future husband, Cristiano Ronaldo, plays.

Palacio Real

Plaza de Toros!

Bullfight!

Wow.

Look at that skill!

The bullfighter presenting himself as the winner over the bull.

Patrick and Sara en Espana!

These past 10ish days have been a blast for me because two of my best friends from college, Patrick Burns and Sara Zavadsky have been here in Granada, Spain!!!!


I can remember a couple months ago when I was talking to them that I joked about making a trip to come and visit me. Well, they took me seriously and a few weeks later, the tickets were booked! They found a really good deal on airline tickets, so they bit the bullet and booked them.


On Wedesday, May 18th, Patrick and Sara graced the country of Spain with their presence as they arrived around 6:00 that evening. I was like a little kid waiting for Santa to come and bring presents Christmas morning, just being happy and excited allllll day! I had Spanish class until 6 and after I was supposed to meet them at the stop where the bus left them off, just a little walk away from my apartment. I don't think I've ever power walked so fast in my life. I saw them sitting on a bench waiting for me and I about broke into a full out sprint. Screaming, yelling, smiles, and may hugs were given in the following minutes. You couldn't wipe the smile off of my face because this was the first set of visitors I've had since we arrived here in February. I walked them to my apartment, showed them around, and we went out for tapas that evening, talking, laughing, and just catching up life.


The next few days, I took them around to various places, hoping to give them a good Granada culture experience. They picked me up at my sports clinic on Thursday evening and met all those I had been working with at Clinica Deportiva Campoy. On Friday, we all walked up to the Albayzin and had some great Spanish food at the top in the Plaza of San Nicolaus. Lamb cooked in various sauces with olive oil, raisins, nuts, prunes, etc. It was delicious! I brought them to the first round of the indoor futbol play-offs game--they won! The team plays again in two weeks, I hope I can go! Sunday was a relaxing day, filled with a walk in the park and showing Patrick and Sara the chocolate con churros experience!


Sunday also marked a unique landmark in our stay here. As of May 22nd, we had officially been in Spain for 100 days! It still seems surreal to me.

Monday morning all of us got up early to go to Biomechanics class, even Patrick and Sara came! I thought it might be a fun experience to sit in on a true traditional college class in Spain. They said it was good, or at least they lied well. :) The beginning of the week also brought us yet another visitor, Karrie's best friend from high school, Kristin. It was funny because our friend Petra came over and asked to take a picture of our group including her friend Audrey from Chicago who was staying with her, because she had never seen so many Americans in one place, haha! It was fun to humor her and give her a little bit of grief about being so enthralled with Americans and the USA.

The next day I went to class at 12:30 and then I took Sara and Patrick put to Petra's apartment. She lives about 30 minutes out of the city center, so I thought it'd  be a good thing for them to see a different dynamic of Spain, apart from the hustle and bustle of city life. We laid outside on her terrace and relaxed, just talking and having a good time.

Wednesday I had to cram- I had the final for my Spanish class that afternoon! I  sad this class is over because I liked The Europeans I took it with and it really helped me with my Spanish. It's hard to believe that I'm finishing up a class already, where did the time go?!

Thursday Kristin, Karrie, Sara, Patrick and I took a bus down to Selobrena soak up some rays so our visitors could say they'd been to the Mediterranean. The weather wasn't as nice as we wanted it to be, but I did get some color so I consider the day a success! We had some lunch in the beach then walked back to he bus station to catch the bus, which ended up being 50 minutes late (some things in Spain never change). Before we left we bought an open ended bus ticket which meant that we got to choose what time/bus to return to Granada. What we didn't know, however, was that we supposed to go to the bus clerk at the station to confirm what time we wanted to officially book. So after waiting 50 minutes, they tried telling us that we couldn't get on the bus because we hadn't confirmed our open ended ticket, even though the bus only had about 5 people on it. The bus driver came to our rescue though, and talked to the clerk, allowing us time and permission to get everything figured out. We also had a nice guy from Barcelona who was waiting with us that stood build us ready to jump in and help at any moment. Thank God for good people! We got back to Granada sage and sound.

Earlier that week, Sara had tossed around the idea of going to Madrid for the weekend. We just decided to go for it, and within a few days had everything from the bus tickets to the hostel booked and ready to go! There was a lot that went on that weekend in addition to all the fun that was had, so I'm saving that little adventure for a separate blog (lucky you, two more blogs in ONE week!) Please try to contain your excitement.

Today (Monday, May 30th), my lovely guests are headed to see the Alhambra while I go to class and work at my internship. I plan on visiting the palace when my family comes to visit, so rest assured you will get a blog entry about that as well (I know you were worried you might miss out on something). Then we'll hang out and have one last night together before they head out tomorrow morning to get on a bus o Malaga to begin their journey back home.

I am so so happy that these two took the time and money to come and visit me. It was just the refresher I needed and I couldn't have picked any better friends (well, Brooke Kuster should have been added into the mix) to spend my time with. I am very grateful to have the friends I met during my freshman year of college and to be able to experience something like this overseas with them! As you can see, I have been all smiles throughout their stay. :)

First night in Spain!

We European-ized Patrick.

I took them to Petra's countryside apartment. What a view!

Beach day. Patrick's clearly lovin' it.

Relaxing!

Beach in Salobrena.