Week 2 of Spain

January 24,

This weekend has been a fun weekend. Friday night there wasn’t too much going on we all went out for tapas and found a pretty cool bar with really good tapas. We didn’t do too much because Saturday some people had to get up early to go to Alhambra! Alhambra was absolutely amazing… It was SO big!.... I hate history but I want to take a history class just so I can learn about this place. What I understood is that this Kingdom is 800 years old.. It was the last Muslim kingdom to stand in Spain. The Christians decided to take it over in a 6 month siege in 1492 (the same year that the Christian kings sent Christopher Colombus to America haha they must have had a good year that year!) The Muslims were forced to convert or flee the country. It was said to hold 6,000 people… The placed was a town in itself.. it was just ridiculous! (haha big history lesson for ya) The pictures that I took of this place do not do it justice.. every thing was obviously hand carved… and there was some sort of hand-carved decoration on every single wall and the ceilings.. It was crazy!

We planned a trip to Switzerland today… It took us like 5 hours to figure everything out (as in just the flights) haha We are kind of winging the whole train situation… We’re flying into Milan, Italy (north Italy) from Madrid. From there we are hoping we can just buy train tickets because when we ordered them online It was going to cost like $30 to ship them and we need them by this week soo were just hopin for the best. The train ride to Interlaken, Switzerland is about 2 ½ hours. There is a twist however…. Were going to morocco from Thursday until Tuesday the 2^nd at night. We are supposed to get back at 8:30 pm to Granada, and we are hoping there is no delay because at midnight that night we have to catch a bus to Madrid for a 5 ½ hour bus ride. If we miss this bus ride we will miss our 1 o clock flight. Haha we are all kind of crossing our fingers that our morocco trip doesn’t get delayed at all because we definitely packed a tight schedule of events! The plan is to stay in Interlaken for 3 nights and go skiing, sledding etc. on one of the biggest mountains in the Alps I believe. I am pretty excited to ski in the Alps! We are staying at a hostel called “The Lazy Falken”.. It is going to be a good time! On the way back we will take a train back to Milan, Italy and fly to Madrid on the 6^th. We will then have a night to spend in Madrid, so we will be able to check it out for a day, and I’m looking forward to that! We are planning to get back on the 7^th and then classes start on the 9^th. I heard Switzerland is pretty expensive so I plan on this being my most expensive trip haha but we will see about that I guess. Flights are ridiculously cheap… We are flying to Italy for like 40 Euro and from Italy to Madrid for about 20 Euro… Which is very cheap for flying I would say. We are flyin through RyanAir… Kind of sketchy but its cheap haha

Tonight we are all going to an Irish pub to watch the Vikings play. The game starts at midnight here… could be a late night but we have to watch the game of course!

January 27^th

It has been kind of cold and rainy the last couple of days, but I can’t really complain because Iowa is much worse.. (haha suckers) Yesterday I went out for some drinks with my housemates from Minnesota, and they have kind of become friends with a waiter in one of the restaurant who skis. The guy asked if I skied and I told him yes. haha he gave me his number and his email and I guess is he going to take me skiing the week after we get back from skiing in the Alps which will be pretty cool! I’m already pretty pumped for that even though it’s a ways away!

I ended up signing up for a social service project today, so I went to the hospital with about four other people and we are going to volunteer there for a semester! I am pretty sure it will be similar to the volunteer work I did in Des Moines with kids, but I really didn’t understand everything that the lady said to me. I am just hoping I didn’t accidentally say that I want to wipe butts or give showers or something like that because she asked me a lot of questions and I said yes to them whether I knew what she was saying or not haha could be trouble for me in the end! I have to wait till the ninth when classes start before they can definitely tell me what I will be doing and the times and everything. I’m ready for classes to start because orientation is 4-7 pm every night and there’s no time for a ciesta!! Morocco and Switzerland this weekend, and Milan, Italy ( the fashion capital of the world… umm yay? Haha) I will write again after that trip!