End of my first week in Granada

My first week in Granada has been interesting. The siesta is the greatest invention of all time. I love coming home from school and taking a nap until about 4 or 5pm. The only thing is, if you don’t feel like taking a nap there isn’t much else to do since most of the stores and supermarkets are closed. Most cafes are open but that’s about it.

Most things here are relatively inexpensive. I got 2 pairs of shoes for about 6 euro each, not bad at all. Clothes are about the same price as in the US, but shoes are all on sale, some as cheap as 3 euro.

The culinary experience has been mostly positive, besides the tuna incidents I have only had one other unfortunate experience with seafood. My Señora made paella for lunch and I get home after everyone else has left for school, so it’s just the two of us. Paella is a typical Spanish dish consisting of rice, some veggies, meat and usually some sort of seafood. I scanned the dish and it was mostly carne, or meat. Then I saw these things that looked like onion rings that had been stripped of their breading so I assumed that they were onions. As I was serving myself she said there were a few ‘gambas’ and some ‘calamar’. I then proceeded too discover not only the shrimp but those innocent looking onion rings weren’t veggies at all, rather SQUID !! So, trying not to gag I served myself the meat and proceed to eat. The meat was alright, but with the first bite of rice I was overwhelmed with the taste of seafood. I almost gagged at the table. I quickly ate some bread and drank some water. I know I should be open to trying new things and all, but I just cant stomach seafood! I picked out the rest of the meat and left the rice, it had absorbed too much squid juice for me to handle for one day.

Last night I went out with Di Deustchen that I live with and we met up with some more Germans and an Austrian and a Pollock. Basically Andrew, one of the Americans I live with, and I were minorities in that we do not speak German. We went to a cafeteria for some tapas and then headed to an Arabic tea bar where we spent most of the night. I didn’t know there were that many kinds of tea. The English would not be able to handle it, is all I can say. Plain black tea is NOT an option!

My Spanish is coming along relatively well, it’s starting to slow down a little bit, but its still quite fast. When we listen to recordings in class I am usually completely lost! But its getting better.

The last Rotary meeting on Monday was interesting and I would like to go this coming week if I can. I’m not sure what they talk about, but it was interesting because it was conducted in such a different manner than ours in Oak Ridge. All of the men at the meeting were genuinely interested in having us there and wanted to know about where we came from and how we liked Spain and Granada. Hopefully within the next two weeks my Spanish will be good enough to speak for a while at the meeting. Vamos a ver!