Spain Recap

So I'm sitting here at the tail end of spring break, having spent the last six and a half days in Granada, Spain, trying to think about what I want to say in this blog post. As usual, I don't think I'll be able to keep it to just one blog post. It's going to be another week of me blabbing on about Spain. I would say I'm sorry…but I'm not.


So, to recap. My lovely roommate Jordanne and I flew out to Granada via Madrid last Friday to meet my friend Maylen who is studying there. Maylen served as tour guide during our stay, showing us her city. We visited the Alhambra, Albayzín, walked along the river, went to a traditional Islamic bathhouse, met (and were fed by) Maylen's host family, and ate more churros than is probably legal. I'll get more specific about certain things (the ones that I feel like writing about extensively) later in the week, in other posts.

Needless to say, the whole experience was rather spectacular. Granada is so different from London, which seems like an obvious statement, but I found that the real difference were much more subtle than I expected. It goes way beyond the fact that we speak different languages (side note: I feel like my many years of Spanish language education were somehow leading up to this, and I have to say, I performed credibly well, except teachers have lied to me my entire life about the words for "juice" and "bathroom"). Spain has a whole different pace of life. Everything is later, lunch at 2 pm, dinner at 10 pm. From 3 to 5 pm or so hardly anything is open due to siesta time. I can't imagine anyone in Spain sprinting to catch the Tube like Londoners do on a regular basis. It was great for about three days, and then I started struggling with it. First of all, I'm a morning person, so when dinner doesn't even start until I'm basically asleep, its a problem. Secondly, I don't do "slow paced" very well. I walk fast. I work hard. I'm not into taking two hours out of every day to do nothing. It was great for vacation, but not for forever.

That's a fairly vague recap, but keep a weather eye on the horizon (or this blog, whichever) for more detailed Spain posts later this week!