Granada - the city where you get free beer with tapas

Today is my one month anniversary of living in Granada! It’s weird to think how quickly the first one has gone; I wonder how fast the next 9 will go.

I’ve had a pretty good past 2 weeks. My parents and Nan came to stay this weekend and I had a really nice time seeing them. We did all the touristy stuff (some of which I saved to do with them) and ate some seriously yummy food. The main thing I was looking forward to was going to the Alhambra Palace. It’s centuries old from when Granada was ruled by the Moors. It really is such an impressive place, but definitely the type of place you’d only go once. I did enjoy it, and if you’re a lover of gardens, architecture, and general Arabic culture I’m sure it’s the perfect place for you. We got some fantastic views of Granada and I’m glad I can say I’ve now been. Hopefully none of my visitors want to go, once is enough! I think that the Alhambra is far more impressive from somewhere like Mirador San Nicolas.

The view from the Alhambra. I live in such a beautiful city!

On Saturday we headed to the Albaicin on a ridiculously full mini bus that definitely would not be legal in England. It’s just easier to walk I think as it’s not that far – just steep. It was nice wondering around and having a more relaxed day. In the evening we had a posh dinner at a restaurant just below Mirador San Nicolas – you can imagine the views of the Alhambra lit up at night. It was stunning. The food was really nice but I think you were paying for the view rather than the food as food is reasonably priced here.

Our nice dinner

Alhambra by night

The 3 generations

Daddy

 Sunday was a lot more tiring as we headed to Sevilla for a day trip. It’s only 3 hours on the bus and an easy direct journey. I fell in love with Sevilla. It’s such a beautiful city and feels a lot more peaceful and historical than Granada. I suppose we did go on a Sunday though, I’m sure it’s just as lively! I noticed a lot less transport which obviously cancels out a fair bit of noise pollution - something I really notice living in Granada. It’s not fun living near 3 hospitals. We did loads of touristy stuff like a trip to the Alcazar, a river tour, and a guided tour of the Plaza de Toros. I really enjoyed this, the bull ring is the second oldest in Spain and was incredible. You can see where the inspiration of the Spanish flag came from – or perhaps the other way round – who knows. I also learnt a fun fact I’ve been telling everyone this week. Bulls are colour blind; the red cape is still used as part of the tradition of the bull fighting culture but it’s the movement which actually makes the bulls react. I thought the bull fighting season was over but I found out the last one is this Saturday (in Sevilla). A few of my friends liked the idea so I’m going back on Saturday!

Plaza de toros

Catedral de Sevilla

Alcazar

Plaza de España

 I just have to write about a beggar I saw, too. There are so many beggars all over Spain. I've noticed that there are usually two types with signs that go more or less like this... 

Type 1:

Ayúdame. Soy pobre y tengo 5 hijos. Una moneda por una sonrisa. No tengo nada, sólo quiero comer.

Help me. I'm poor and I have 5 children. Some money for a smile. I have nothing, I just want to eat.

Type 2:

El banco me dejo en las calles, tengo 2 hijas de 2 y 5 años. No tengo trabajo, ayúdame. 

The bank left me in the streets, I have two girls 2 and 5 years old. I'm unemployed, help me.

So basically, type 1 is general poor gypsy / black immigrants and type 2 is people who generally I do feel sorry for that have been effected by the economic crisis Spain is in and the serious unemployment issue that leaves families without any working parent. 

This is the guy I saw in Sevilla :

Help me buy a chalet in Marbella and a Ferrari

Well at least he's being honest! I gave him a euro but that's not gonna help with the Ferrari too much..

So after a really lovely long weekend with my parents I was incredibly tired and full on delicious food. However, I’m not here just to eat nice food and travel around Spain unfortunately, I’m here to study. Uni has improved since my first day but I really still don’t feel settled.

The university’s whole system is completely illogical, stupid and just plain annoying. I’m still not enrolled until the 16^th October; this means I’m not officially registered to any of the classes I’m doing. When I enrol next week I could be told that there are not actually any places left for the classes I’m taking – I’m really hoping that doesn’t happen because I’ll be in a pretty sticky situation. I would have to try and find new classes that aren’t full (meaning they would be shit/really difficult subjects) and catch up on a month of missed work. I’m still annoyed about the fact I’m in humanities too, I know I am a humanities student at Kent but here the Translation faculty is completely separate. I find it SO unfair that some other students from Kent elsewhere around Spain are enrolled as translation students. In our last year at Kent we don’t have any grammar classes; we only do translation and interpretation. All the students able to do that at their host universities this year are going to have an unfair advantage over me after already studying it for a year, and that is something I do not like. I’m sure I’m not the only one it’s happening to – I just like to moan. I’m going to talk to Kent about it so maybe the people who go to Granada next year will be able to study in the Translation and Interpretation faculty and do something slightly more relevant. Fingers crossed I’ll manage to get a place on the 1 translation module I’m allowed to do here.

Some classes go well here but others not so much. Portuguese, for example, is a joke. The teacher is an absolute dick. He doesn’t even bring his own pen, he will whatsapp in class (bearing in mind he is 60-70), answer phone calls, tell you to move the front or speak louder because he can’t hear you as HE didn’t bother to shut the door behind him, order someone to then shut the door as he is too lazy to move half a metre to do it himself, and well he’s just a crap teacher. Luckily I’ve done beginners Portuguese so I already have a basic knowledge but it’s all disappeared over summer. He will criticise people for getting things such as vocabulary and pronunciation wrong, but he hasn’t actually taught it - an example of great Spanish teaching yet again. I also got taught Brazilian Portuguese so my accent is different to the Portuguese of Portugal he is ‘teaching’, I shan’t be changing it for him though – the Brazilian accent is nicer. He did look quite surprised when he ordered me to read out a paragraph of text which he probably thought I would muck up due to my face which resembled a slapped arse, but oh no, out came my fantastic Brazilian accent without any mistakes (first time for everything). Take that!!

I had a horrendous experience the other day too. We decided we didn’t fancy getting up at 7am to go to a lecture on Monday so we’d try the 5:30 class with a different teacher. What a mistake. The teacher was some crazy woman with huge eyes who scared me. Not only that but in front of us were sat some Spanish girls who just would not stop turning round, staring and laughing at us the whole 2 hours. QUÉ???  WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?! They were annoying and always chatting making it even more impossible to understand the teacher. Then I noticed something horrific, the girl in front of me had head lice crawling all over her hair. We were all whatsapping each other about how boring the class was and how we wanted to leave, then I said about the nits and that was the icing on the cake for the worst class in Spain to date. After I noticed them (and told everyone via whatsapp) I just wanted to leave, she started leaning her head back every now and then which made me feel sick, keep your nitty hair away from me! I was leaning as far back as possible. What annoyed me was that they were still turning round and laughing, I felt like getting google translate out and finding the word for nits. Perdona, tienes piojos de la cabeza -that would of shut her and her friend up.

However there are some positives about university, my Catalan class uses the same material I used in Kent. The same material I already did last year and have most of the answers to – wahey!

So apart from some mishaps on the university front (I don’t think they will ever stop), life in Granada is pretty damn good. I can’t wait to go to Sevilla this weekend with Ailish, Adele and Amber. The bullfight is definitely going to be an interesting experience, but I can’t live in Spain and not see one, and I’m too impatient to wait until the 2014 season starts. And as Ailish said, the bulls are going to die whether we go or not...so we may as well watch it! It’s such a big controversy in Spain, I want to have an opinion but I really need to actually see one in order to have my own point of view on the matter.

I’ve also got another visitor booked. Emily, my friend who I studied with at school, is coming out to see me in a month. Emily, Adele and I were the only girls who studied Spanish in sixth form so it’ll be great for us all to meet up again, especially in Spain! I’m really looking forward to having her here.

Apologies for the horrendously long blog, I have too much to say. My next blog will contain pictures dead bulls and blood.

Hasta entonces,

Ellie.

P.S. I have to include this photo of me in one of the (amazing) vintage shops in Granada. I found this and just had to have a photo. I know a few people I could buy it for..

shithead