The other one is here!

Sweet.

And we're going to Ronda tomorow to see a bullring...possibly a bullfight? I sure hope not.

Bueno! Estoy aqui, finalmente...pero sin mis maletas.

Alright...I'm finally here in Granada. After the 9 hour flight from Seattle to London Heathrow, almost missing the plane to Madrid, and the 1 hour flight from Madrid to Granada, well, the best I can say is that I made it and I'm safe.

The flight from seattle to london was sweet: I'd definitely fly British Airways again. I was seated in a middle row seat between two sweet old ladies who made sure over the duration of the flight that I knew all of the finer points of traveling in England and drinking wine all over Europe. Each were quite nice, and I was soooo glad that I didn't end up stuck between a smelly or fat old man who didn't understand the concept of personal space. But the flight was delayed in landing, and ended up arriving and unloading 25 minutes late. Therefore, along with 2 other girls who I met whom were also in the AHA ILAACA program traveling to Granada, were specially taxi'd across the airport and sprinted through security (I had to chug the contents of my Nalgene because they didn't believe it was only water). But we made it on time.

Our luggage didn't.

So after the crazy flight from London to Madrid (2 hours, I got to sleep because I ended up sitting in an empty row; woohoo!) and the flight into Granada, not only did I not have an opportunity to change my USdollars for Euros (pronounced AEY-YOU-ROHS) meet up with 2 other girls traveling to Granada, but our bags didn't arrive. So we spent over an hour at the airport filling out lost baggage claims....even though they had no idea where our luggage was at or when we could get it. It was weird, because they lost EVERYONE's luggage who was an international connection...

Then we taxi'd into granada, one of the girls was nice enough to pay for me so that I could pay her back when I finally got euros. Haha, but once we got to my street (Sancho Panza, 13, Portal 1 - #1B, 18008 - Granada, Spain) we couldn't figure out where the apartment building was. So eventually we spotted it, I got out and looked at the bright side of how not all of our luggage would have fit in the taxi, and got buzzed into the building.

Riley and my host mom, Encarnacion, were there waiting for me at the door. Thank Goodness. And we went in and I was shown my room, which is nice; see the pictures. Then we ate dinner and watched a little tv, had desert, and I tried calling home. Thanks for picking up your phones family! Anyway, I'll try calling again tomorow or Monday after I have taken the level placement language test.

We had class today at 11, orientation; boring, safety information ect... and in a few minutes are going to meet up with a couple girls from UP to go do this city scavenger hunt. I'm so glad Riley got here a few days early and knows where he is going...I'm the language, he's the direction.

Anyway...I hope my bags arrive today or tommorow. 15 other people had their bags lost as well, apparently it is pretty common. YEAH, thanks for telling us.

My spanish cellphone works too, if you want to call it I recieve calls for free. 661 06 87 37
I don't know what the country code is though, I think you have to start out with 001 to call it...

Anyway, time to go put pants back on...I'm wearing my host mom's extra PJ shorts because it's so hot here! and we have a pool! to bad my swimsuit is in my luggage...

love from spain,
-Elise-

Ok, so my first bag arrived. Thank GOD it was the one with my clothes. Except it arrived open...and pretty beat up. So I'm hoping that the second one arrives with the webcam I stuffed into it, along with all the other stuff, intact. We'll see... I think the other one has all my jewelry and bottles of wine and shoes in it, and hopefully nothing broke!!! But the first one is here, which means I have clothes again...and especialmente, underwear! woot.

Today, being the second day of class, we all got our tentative class listings and got told a lot about school. I should be taking four classes; Business Spanish, Structure and History of the European Union, Advanced Grammatical Structure, and Culture and History of Spain. We don't know yet what times the classes are, and we still have to take the language placement test.

After finding all this out in the thankfully airconditioned classroom, we went on a walking tour around the Alhambra and the area of which our school is in. Quite the History! apparently the spaniards refer to their history in 3 parts. The judaism epoca, the era of muslim rule, and the years after the catholics captured spain. So there are many different types of churches, mesquitas, and other old buildings built in a wide variety of achitectural styles and materials. Basically we walked up and down a lot of cobblestoned hills, almost got run over by a bunch of cars, and took a lot of sweet pictures (although I want to go walking by myself and take some sweeter ones).

Oh yeah, and last night was lame. We left the house at like 11:00 and ended up walking around the city in a group of 20-25 americans. Big mistake. Tonight will be better and we won't end up at some dive bar.... plus it doesn't help that none of us know the city yet and that all the spaniards are vacationing on the mediterranean. ahwell, we get to go there tommorow I think?!

And Riley and I have found a good tapas bar right near our house, which serves Alhambra for only 1.60Euro. Sweet. Hahah, and I had my first taste of fried anchovies today...yech...

New vocabulary---
Sandilla:Watermelon
Pepitos:Watermelon Seeds
Pepino:Cucumber

Love from Spain...and I'll call when I have lots more info about classes,
-elise-