Joder

This week I've made a conscious effort to stop speaking English and hablar más español. As a result, I went out every night this week doing intercambios or meeting up with Spanish people to basically just chat. My favourite intercambio was Wednesday at Mundo Manila (the same place me and Adele had gone to the week before but spoke to no one). There were more people this week and we managed to sit on the big table and get talking. I really enjoyed this intercambio because there were all sorts of people (the one we went to on Monday was primarily students). I spoke to a few different people, a few my age, a few a bit older, and even a middle aged man who is an optician that had studied ophthalmology in England, we had a good conversation and he told me about how great Easter will be in Granada saying that they celebrate the death of Jesús whilst drinking lots of beer. Fine by me! It was also really nice helping people with their English. Anyway, the night rounded off by a game of bingo which is usually something I would find boring but this was good fun. Somehow I won, it was funny because our whole table was cheering for me, I felt so special! I won a bottle of red wine so it was a good night. 

On Friday I went to the cinema to see Los Juegos del Hambre (The Hunger Games) with Emma and Hannah from my Spanish class. I was surprised how quick it was released here -only a day after the UK I think. Anyway, the experience was good. Tickets are a lot cheaper at only 5 euros! In England it's probably about £7 or £8 these days. We didn't realise we had assigned seats so we went and sat slap bang in the middle in the best seats...to soon be chucked out my some Spaniards, we finally found our seats after a 7 year old girl had to help us (how embarrassing). The film was really good, luckily I've read the books so I had more of an idea of what was going on, but we still managed to understand most of it. The only thing that was weird were the girls screaming when the main actors appeared on the screen and then clapping at the end of the film. It was a clap worthy film though. I really want to go back and watch a few more considering the price and how easy it was to understand. 

So after the cinema is where the title of this blog comes in. Joder (fuck). I went out with some friends and someone stole my iphone. I'm now phone-less and more importantly whatsapp-less. This is a tragedy for being in Spain and I don't really know what to do. It isn't really £200 I had factored in to my spending for my last month in Spain before I go home for Christmas but I'm probably going to have to bite the bullet and just buy a new second hand phone. These things happen, it's just a bit rubbish. 

Granada is still freezing, it's coat weather all the time and there's now snow on the mountains. The ski resort opened this weekend but it's looking like I won't be going until after Christmas. On a happier note I only have a week of uni (including an exam) to get through until Tara arrives for a long weekend which is sure to be good fun. 

Ellie

P.S. 3000 views on my blog - wow!

Chocolate, jamón and blood tasting water

Not much is new this week unfortunately. I went to all my classes and the weather is confusing me. It's the middle of November now, one day it can be 22 degrees while I'm walking to uni, the next it can be cold and raining. Sort it out, Spain!

Me and Adele went to an intercambio on Wednesday, well, we went but we didn't actually end up speaking to anyone. Intercambios are a great idea but when they're placed in a bar/restaurant it kind of makes it difficult if you arrive late (like we did). I think it started at 8:30 or 9 but we didn't get there until around 9:45 because I had a class and Adele was giving an English lesson. We walked in and Mundo Manila (the vegetarian/vegan place it was held) was full, but it was hard to know who was there for the intercambio. We ended up just having a few drinks and great food BUT we only spoke Spanish to each other the whole evening which was fun and good practice. Mundo Manila is a cool restaurant, it's very hippy! It only serves vegan/vegetarian food but it was so nice. Our first tapas was couscous with pasas and sweet potat and our second was a sort of mini vegetable lasagne. It was a fat day so on top of that we ordered some dinner too, we both had a veggie burger. It was so good and portion sizes are very generous considering it cost about 5.50euros! I'd definitely go back there again. We're going to go to another one this week but arrive at a more appropriate time and get talking straight away! 

On Thursday I also had my first presentation for Spanish. I made a pretty damn good presentation if I do say so myself. I've always used powerpoint but since my teacher recommended Prezi, I used that and it's a lot more professional. I basically did all the work for the presentation but then my group member put it on his account which I think may come across like he did it all - not impressed. One member also kept interrupting me whilst I was talking in my part of the presentation which didn't please me at all, I do have a voice - piss off.  At least it's done now and that counts as my Spanish oral exam so hopefully it went ok, I wasn't as nervous as I have always been doing presentations at Kent. Usually, I can't speak or even breathe properly and my hands shake like crazy but this time it went smoothly which is good. 

On Saturday we went on our trip to the Alpujarra. It was such a good but tiring day. We went on an organised trip with Low Cost Trips Granada (we might get a grant but we're still stingy students looking for a cheap deal) there was a group of 7 of us within the rest of the people on the trip. The worst part of the trip was the bus journey. I'm not a nervous traveller at all, stick me on a plane or a train and I'm fine, but when it comes to coaches in Spain this is a whole other question. They appear to love to drive fast, even when on the edge of a bloody mountain. There were a few times I thought I was going to die. The route literally was going round the corners of mountains, he was speeding round but at one point just at the edge he slammed his breaks on and that scared the hell out of me. It's not a race, slow down!! Me and Adele were joking about what would be on the news in England if our coach fell of the mountain. We could just imagine it on Look North...'two local girls from Sleaford.....'. Only joking! We made it (just) to our first town Campineira. The views were amazing but the photos I took just don't capture it. As we were so high up it was extremely cold but luckily we had worn our coats and scarves. We visited 4 towns in total, stopping off at different view points and places to visit. The scenery was amazing and we ended up being right at the back because we kept stopping to take photos. 

The route we went was Campineira-Bubion-Pampaneira-Trévelez

Pampaneira and Trévelez were my favourites because of the places we went. Pampaneira was home to a really popular chocolate factory. It was set up in Argentina years and and years ago by a woman, when they died her son and his daughter came to Spain and set up the factory here (I think). They import to Belgium and throughout Spain. We got to have a degustación of the chocolate which was amazing. It was a very small little place, like the Willy Wonka of Spain (no golden ticket for me). There was weird chocolate and nice chocolate. I tried chocolate with sal (salt) which was actually really nice, with kikos (some sort of corn that wasn't as good) and all sorts. It wasn't cheap but it really was so tasty. I bought a bar of negro con coco and blanco con galleta (dark chocolate with coconut and white with biscuit). The white with biscuit tastes a bit like the GOLD chocolate bar which reminds me of my Grandad and my brother but I'm not sure why.I considered buying some as Christmas presents but then I thought realistically I will just end up eating it.. I also bought some postcards in a conscious effort to save what I can from trips and make a scrapbook of my year abroad. After the amazing chocolate factory we went to Trévelez. It is the highest town in Europe apparently, you could tell because it was so cold. However, before going directly there we stopped off at the famous fuente agria. It's a little waterfall but the water isn't clear. It's an orangey colour because it has so much iron in it. We were recommended to taste it because it is supposed to be very good for you, we reluctantly tried a little bit and it tasted like blood. No one appeared to like it but it was a really cool and strange place to visit somewhere that, if we had done this trip ourselves, we definitely would not have found or even known existed. Onwards to Trévelez, the secadero de jamón is supposedly the best in Spain and people all over Europe have it imported because it's so good. We went into the curing room which had hundreds of legs of ham hanging from the ceiling. The man explained how some are cured for lengths of time the longest jamón ibérico de Cordoba cures for 3-4 years! Dread to think how much it would cost, but I bet it tastes great. After that we got to try some different types of jamón, lomo, salchicha, chorizo - all sorts basically! Even a little glass of wine. We weren't very satisfied though so we ordered some more as they were doing special prices for us, more jamón y queso manchego - can't go wrong! Before getting the bus back we quickly nipped to a shop and bought a rug. We'd seen them in all the towns we visited, I wanted to make sure I had money left at the end. It was only 10euros and looks nice in my room.

Inlgesas y mejicanas

Needed a bit of help..

Fuente agria 

Beautiful

It was a very busy day but really enjoyable, it was nice to get out of the city environment and breathe some fresh marijuana free air! 

No plans for next weekend as of yet,  the weekend after Tara comes and we've got all sorts planned. A day trip somewhere, a nice walk/hike, hitting Granada and we plan on making toad in the hole on the Sunday! I'm already looking forward to that. The weekend after it looks like we are off to Madrid which will be good as I've not been before and it is the capital of Spain. 

Hasta entonces,

Ellie

A bit of Sleaford in Spain

I had such a lovely weekend with Emily and Adele.

Adele obviously lives in Granada too, and Emily came out to visit. We all studied Spanish together in sixth form and it's been over a year since we've seen each other so it was lovely to catch up and reminisce about some of the funny times we have had.

On Friday me and Emily went up to the Albaicin and to the Mirador San Nicolas. I think this is definitely my favourite place in Granada, the view is just incredible and no camera (no matter how fancy) can capture how stunning and breath-taking it really is. We had a drink in one of the cafés that had the view of the Alhambra just to relax after our hike up to the top. We then went and had lunch in a nice plaza. We had berenjenas con miel for our primero. I'm not sure if they're a speciality for the region but they're everywhere and so delicious. It's simply fried aubergine dressed in honey. Yummy! For our segundo I had bacalao (cod) and Emily had calamares. We left room for desert and went into town to meet Adele for froyo. I'm not sure if the craze of froyo has hit UK yet. It's frozen yoghurt with a variety of different toppings, you can make it healthy/not healthy. I usually have strawberries and dark chocolate but instead of chocolate I had avellana crunch which is like the inside of a kinder bueno. Needless to say it was delish. We then left and did a bit of shopping. In the evening we had tapas in D'Cuadros in the bullring. 

Mirador San Nicolas

Saturday was a great day. We got up quite late and went to 100 montaditos, I go there quite a lot and had to show Emily it. It's a cheap restaurant that has 100 different montaditos (little sandwiches). They range from jamón serrano to tortilla de patatas to anchoas ...you name it there's a montadito. Most sandwiches are 1-1.20 euro and the drinks are cheap too. The worst thing is you have to go inside and read out your order, each sandwich has a number so it really tests our Spanish number skills! Everytime I pray I'm not gonna mess up and end up ordering someone the wrong sandwich. On Mondays every montadito is 50centimos and Wednesdays and Sunday 1euro. It's a super cheap place and very popular with students, obviously it can get pretty busy so finding a table is sometimes hard but it's worth it.

So after some yummy montaditos we headed up to the Albaicin again to go to a tetería to smoke shisha. Along the way we popped into a shop where I bought my first Christmas present for my Dad. I think it's hilarious and I can't wait to see his face when he opens it. The shisha was fun and we also had a batido natural which is a milkshake, we both got vanilla and it was the best tasting milkshake I've had. It tasted just like milkybar but didn't taste of chocolate. Hard to explain but it was very nice indeed. 

Later that evening we met Adele for tapas and the hope of finding somewhere to watch a flamenco show. We bought tickets for the 11:30 show because the first one was already booked up, for 8euros we got the front table so it seemed like a good deal as some are extortionate prices and complete tourist traps. We headed off for some tapas after asking the nice man at the flamenco bar the best places to go in this area. He told us Los Diamantes y Los Manueles are very nice so off we went. Los Diamantes mainly specialises in seafood. With our first drink we had coquinas (shellfish/cockles). They were delicious and reminded me of au pairing because we always used to have them. Our second tapas were garlic mushrooms (yes, I now eat mushrooms and seafood and fish) and they were equally delicious. After that we moved on to Los Manueles and got more nice tapas. We had room for one more before the show so we went to a Moroccan tapas bar and we had the most delicious albóndigas (meatballs) I have ever eaten. Feeling satisifed we went to the flamenco bar which is called Le Chien Andalou. It translates (from French) to the Andalusian dog. Strange name but WOW - I cannot believe it's taken me 2 months to see flamenco here. We had an amazing view on the front table. It wasn't a very big venue, a small cave which probably only held about 30-40 people. I was mesmerised by the music. The songs varied in rhythm, some were fast and others slow but it really was incredible. The passion in the singers voice was amazing and watching the guitarists hands as he played was unreal. When the dancer came on it just blew me away, I didn't know where to look! The footwork is so impressive and the atmosphere was just fantastic. Words can't describe how good it was, I did leave with a headache after all the feet banging but it's a headache worthwhile unlike one from a boozy non cultural night out, eh?

Reunited

We left feeling SO happy that we managed to see a show. For 8euros it hardly breaks the bank and if that wasn't authentic flamenco dancing then god knows what is! I'll definitely be taking visitors back there. 

This morning me and Emily rounded off her trip with a huge portion of chocolate con churros before we got the bus to the station and said our goodbyes. It was so nice to see her and we definitely wont be leaving it another year before we see each other again!

This week will be full of uni and hopefully an intercambio or two with Adele. We also have our day trip to the Alpujarra to look forward to. I'm feeling very tired now and missing England a bit, spending the weekend talking about all things school and sleaford has made me miss home. I also didn't get to see my Dad in London marching in the Remembrance Parade at the Cenotaph like I have the past few years but there's always next year! Luckily, Emily brought me out some dairy milk so with that and a cuppa tea I can pretend I'm at home.

Hasta la próxima,

Ellie

I can't think of a good title

I feel like I haven't blogged in a while and that is probably because life has been rather boring.

Main things that have happened recently:

-I couldn't do translation so I'm only doing 4 subjects now
-I bought my ticket to go to La Aplujarra next weekend
-It's suddenly got FREEZING (I've had to buy a new coat -how inconvenient..)
-I thought there was a gas leak in my flat (there wasn't)
-I'm coming home for Christmas


SURPRISE MUM! I've actually had my ticket booked for quite a while, it was booked when my parents came out but only my dad knew. It was going to be a surprise and I was going to turn up in Sleaford on 20th December to surprise my mum. I also kept thinking I was surprising the wrong person, my mum kept telling me that she didn't mind if I wanted to spend Christmas in Spain, but it was my dad who really wanted me to come home. However, I can't be bothered to keep the secret any more and it was hard when my mum would ask me if I had sorted my Christmas plans every time we skyped - mainly because I'm a crap liar! This means I'll be home for Christmas with my family and I can go to the christening of my baby cousin which I'm looking forward to. I'm only back until 31st December because then I fly to BARCELONA to spend New Years Eve and the following days with Tara.


The next few weeks are set to be pretty exciting. Tomorrow my friend Emily arrives, I can't wait to show her Granada. We'll do all the Albaicin, Sacromonte and Mirador things, and hopefully we're going to go to a flamenco show.

Next Saturday I am going on a trip to La Alpujarra with 3 of my friends (and maybe their mexican flatmates). La Alpujarra is part of the Sierra Nevada, we'll get a bus up to the highest town then walk through the mountains to visit 3 other towns popping into a secadero de jamón and fábrica de chocolate on the way. We get to taste the jamón serrano, wine, and chocolate! It's only a day trip but for 18 euros I think we've got a pretty good deal, they're apparently some of the most beautiful towns/villages in Spain.

2 weeks after, Tara arrives. We're hopefully going to go on a day trip somewhere...wherever we feel like on the day. We might even use blablacar to make the journey a bit cheaper. Me and Tara have also decided on something pretty big for the summer, we are going to go interrailing. We always talk about the places we want to go in Spain, it then escalated to Europe and after talks we decided to go ahead with it. This will be the best time for us to do it, the summer after (2015) who knows what our situation will be with graduation and looking for a job (scary!). I'm excited but it's now time to be sensible with money but still make sure I enjoy my year abroad.

I've now also been invited to go to Madrid on the first weekend of December because it's a puente, which means we get the Friday and Monday off. All of us seem to know people in Madrid who we would like to see so why not all go together, see who we want to see and then explore Madrid.

We have provisional plans to go skiing the weekend before we come home for Christmas, I'd love to try it and it would be silly not to considering it's right on our doorstep. It won't be cheap but it'll be cheaper than doing it from England so this year is the best time to try it.

So the lead up to Christmas is looking pretty busy for me, whether it'll all happen or not who knows but I like the sound of my plans (although it sounds a pretty expensive 2 months). I'm really looking forward to going home though, I can already taste my Christmas dinner! It is also going to be the first Christmas in 4 years that I haven't worked both Christmas eve and Boxing day which is something to look forward to!


I'm going to leave you with some observations of the Spanish which I've been finding strange:

-Boys with one very long dreadlock/plait down their back. No. This is not cool. It's seen on 1 in 4 guys. Even just dreadlocks in general is very popular. Spain is so hippy.

-Double denim. Enough said really...

-The amount of people apparently acceptable and safe to fit on a bus. I've had a few near death experiences.

-Té ingles con leche. They made a pot of tea with hot milk instead of water and milk on the side...yum

-One day it was 25 degrees, the next it was 10. WHAT

-How much weed there is. You could get high just walking around Granada sometimes..

-Outdoor gyms which are free. Not amazing but they're free! I also enjoy seeing the old people using the equipment. Great idea, Spain.


That's it for now, I'm sure I'll have a new blog after my weekend with Emily about all the fun things we did.

Ellie