June plans and thoughts

How has June already rolled around? I've been here ALL YEAR, and it's already summer in Graná again? ¡Qué fuerte!

I am in the midst of super study time for my tests next week. Oh an the world cup starts tomorrow, I am so so so excited, and already have memorized the dates of Spain's games :). Then Tyler and Basia get here!! Woo! I am so so excited to see my big bro for the first time in a year, and to show him my city and my life here! Alan's best friend from home is also coming the same time, so we are planning some outings like the beach for a day, going to the Arab baths one day, etc. Can't wait! Then Alan leaves June 29, and I will stay here crazy studying for my last final on July 5th. It's a bummer he's going home a full month before I am, but I will be veryyy busy so the time will fly! I have my exam, and then I have my last trip of the year all planned out.

July 9-12 visit Duncan in ROME where he's working in an internship! DUNCAN! yayyyyyyy

(July 11- WORLD CUP FINAL. oh and if Spain is in it, I am cancelling my flights and staying in Spain and somehow getting Duncan to come see me...!)

July 12-16 STOCKHOLM, staying with and exploring around with Duncan's old roommate Magnus who is from and lives in Stockholm.

July 16-19 COPENHAGEN. staying with a boy I found on CouchSurfing, which will be great!

July 20-22 LLORET DEL MAR (small beach town near Barcelona) staying with Ty and Basia where they will be working for a month or so.

July 23- home to Granada, pack and say goodbye to Granada and Spain and Europe!

July 26- FLY HOME TO CALIIIII!!!!

Everyone is beginning to feel very weird about leaving our home and life here after a year. I am excited to get home and see my family and friends and pets and eat food we have missed so much all year, visit the places I have dreamed about and been homesick for... But damn I am going to miss Granada! It has been such an incredible, unforgettable, liberating, intense year here. ahhhhh

Italy in Pictures!

Fantastic Trip to Italy!!! (and plans for the rest of my time here in Europe)

I just got home to Granada from a fantastic trip to Italy with Alan. It was so beautiful! We went to Rome and saw the Vatican, the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and more. That city is incredible. It is just indescribable how it feels to stand in the center of the whole Roman Empire....wow so amazing! And then we went to Naples where we ate (every day for lunch and dinner haha) the best pizza in the world! It was so so delicious. :) Then we went to Herculaneum, climbed to the huge huge crater of Mount Vesuvius and saw the gorgeous view of all of the Bay of Naples, and then Pompeii! I have lots of pictures of this whole trip that I want to show you, I am SO excited to come home this summer and see you at the Ranch and sit down and show you lots of photos from my year of traveling here! Pompeii was fascinating and just overwhelming. We saw the bodies of humans and animals frozen in time from the ash, and the whole big city that was just destroyed, and yet simultaneously preserved for 2,000 years! I also appreciated all these Roman and Italian ruins much more because I am taking a class here at the University of Granada called Arte Antiguo en España, so ancient art history in spain. Right now in that class we are studying Roman arquitecture, and how that can be seen in Spanish villages during the time of the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. So I am learning about the Roman urbs, or city, and so it made visiting these ruins so much more interesting to me since I am learning about it! Then we went to the Amalfi Coast for a day, we took the bus along the steep, gorgeous cliffs of the coastline, with the aqua Mediterranean ocean glimmering below us. Beautiful, just stunning! We had very fun weather for the time we were there; the bright sun was shining through these dark, foreboding clouds which made for awesome pictures, and then we just got dumped on during a quick but strong rainstorm, and then it let up and the sun came out again. Fun! Then we took a flight from Naples to Venice, where we spent our last two days. Venice was so cute. It really did feel like an adult Disneyland, riding on the waterbus Vaporetto down the Grand Canal and just watching these amazing buildings and churches and museums float by us... We got lost wandering the tiny streets and canals, and found some great gelato and capucchinos along the way :). Then the next and final day we took a waterbus to the island of Murano, where the world famous Murano glass is made. The glasswork is phenomenal, just gorgeous, all the different shapes and sizes and styles they can make, all beautiful.

It was an amazing trip! I love Italy and am so glad I got there, I have wanted to go for so long! It was everything I had expected. And oh how I miss the pizza....

Now I am back to classes and getting caught up and starting to study for finals and work on class projects. I have finals through June and early July. Tyler and Barbara are coming to visit me June 15, I am so so excited to show them my city! :) Then my last final is July 5, and then I have three weeks on my own to do whatever I want before I fly home to the states! All my friends and roommates and Alan will already have left, so I will have some time to do some solo traveling which I love to do and am really looking forward to. I don't have set plans yet, but I am dreaming about doing a solo Scandinavia trip! Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm....!!! I would love to get up into the north, and it would be great in the summer! So that's what I'm thinking... :)

It has been an incredible, absolutely unbelievable year, however I am really looking forward to coming back home to California. I am really excited about this fall in UCSD. As you know, I will be living in International House which will be a great atmosphere. I also just signed up for my classes and am really stoked! The two classes I am REALLY super excited about are these, check them out: Archaeological Anthropology of The Ancent Mayan Civilization (I have always wanted to study this! Ever since I saw Mayan ruins in Mexico as a little kid, like age 7 or something!), and Psychology of Animal Behavior (ahh! this is a subject that has fascinated me for so long! yay!). So I have a lot to look forward to when I go back to UCSD!

Morocco In Pictures! yay! so colorful.

Morocco Exchange!

I am trying to post some photos but am running into problems for some reason...anyway I uploaded all my photos onto facebook, so check there for tons of good photos!!

what an incredible trip. 4 days in morocco with the morocco exchange program (check out the website, it's super cool: www.moroccoexchange.org). We went to a woman's center in tangier, rode camels on the beach, stayed with a homestay family in rabat, the capitol, met moroccan students and talked with them, drove into country where we hiked this dirt path to a small home in the countryside where we had a very intense discussion about religion, politics, and life with a rural moroccan family with the help of an interpreter. then we went to this beautiful town in the rif mountains called chefchaoen. i learned so much about life in a muslim country here, it was so eye opening and incredible. the moroccan people we met were absolutely wonderful and so generous. oh and the food our homestay mom cooked for us.....ahh! l macla benina, sukran! :) so much more to say about morocco, ask me personally! I am running out of time sheeeeeesh because I got home late last night, need to study and write a paper today, classes all day tomorrow, and then I leave for Italy with Alan early the day after tomorrow. woww!

itinerary: lgeciras, spain-> tangier, morocco->assilah->rabat->chefchaoen->ceuta, spain

hosting visitors, my 21st, and mom and jim coming!

So I was super lucky to have two awesome friends fly all the way from the US to come see me here in Granada! First Darren came for a week, and we went non-stop to do all my favorite things in Granada, eat all my favorite foods, go to the best places...it was so much fun getting to show off my beautiful awesome city to someone from home! We had the spring´s first wonderful weather, and made use of it. Then Darren went home and the next morning Kavy came! She was here for four full days and it was a great visit. After hosting Darren I had a nicely planned schedule of events for Kavy to experience while I had her here :). Churros y chocolate, walking around the city, el catedral, tapas with friends, clubbing into the early morning with friends, La Alhambra, schwarma, paella...so much! It was so wonderful to see my buddies from back home and show them my life here and have them meet my friends and Alan. I had a wonderful time hosting!



My birthday weekend was awesome. It ended up perfectly as Kav was here for my 21st bday! On Saturday morning I got my new tattoo that I had been planning on for a long time. I love it, it is perfect. :) Then I celebrated with all my friends and we had a big potluck lunch and hung out. That night we got together again and enjoyed the night life of Granada, which Kav loved and aprovechó mucho :). Then on my birthday on Monday, Kavy woke up early to tour La Alhambra and I slept in. 15 minutes before my alarm was meant to go off to get me up so I could work on reading for my classes, Alan called and woke me up saying he was at my door. He showed up with a big bouquet of beautiful flowers, and this adorable letter written to me in spanish. So cute. Then he opened his backpack and pulled out all the ingredients for these awesome omelettes he makes and made us breakfast :). The weekend had been overcast and a little wet, but I woke up on my bday to a sunny day! I am so glad Kav got to see La Alhambra in the sun. The rest of the day I had class and enjoyed the sun walking between classes. That night Alan made the three of us a super tasty spaghetti and chorizo dinner (you´re saying dang, two meals in one day? how did you train him to do that? haha ;) ).

Kav left the next morning. Now I am trying to catch up on work and sleep before Mom and Jim arrive midday on Friday! I am so excited. I haven´t seen my mom in 7 months, and I can´t remember the last time I was this excited to see her! :) We are going on a night tour of La Alhambra this weekend (sounds so mysterious and magical!) and then next week for Semana Santa we are off to explore other parts of Andalucia! We are renting a car and staying in Sevilla, Cordoba, Baeza....

I am really looking forward to this trip. One, because it´s going to be my mom, step-dad, my boyfriend, and me. It´s like a week-long double date with my mom and step-dad! Haha. Two, because it will be a very different dynamic than the rest of the traveling I have done and will be doing this year. I have planned and organized all my other trips, and this one my Mom has done all the work! Meaning I can sit back and relax and just go wherever she takes us. I love planning trips and organizing, just like Mom, but it will be a nice break to be on a family trip again. Yay!

New Classes of 2nd Semester at UGR!

So I finished my finals, after working on papers and studying hard for exams the whole month of February. whooah! I already know I did very well in my anthro class, and am waiting to hear about the others. yay!

New classes started this week. I am taking:

Historia del Medio Ambiente en el Mundo Contemporáneo (History of the Environment in the Contemporary World)

-seems pretty interesting, we will be learning ecological history and the impact of the environment on society and vice versa, global climate change, etc. i'm excited!

Historia de Arte Antiguo en España (Ancient Art History in Spain)

-I thought I wouldn't like this as I've never taken an art history class, but it seems cool. The reason I am excited is that last semester I took the history of ancient spain, so this class is talking about the same time period, just focusing on art! so I have a great base after studying for that exam a couple weeks ago :)

Didáctica de Inglés (Teaching of English as a Foreign Language to Primary School Children)

-Awesome, because I am already an English as a Foreign Language Teacher! I am just taking this class for fun, and I already know the professor. It is an interesting mix of Spanish and English....should be interesting!

Antropologiá de la Salud (Anthro of Health)

-Seems pretty interesting, we'll see!

It was fun to start classes again. This time I feel way more comfortable and confident the second time around. I can understand the thick Andalucian accents of the professors much easier, and I am much more confident to ask questions in spanish, etc. And, there is a new batch of foreign students who just started this semester, and I have been a guide and helped them a lot with their questions since I know the drill and the spanish style of teaching, etc. yay!

Carnaval de Cádiz!

The annual Carnavales de Cádiz (a beautiful city on the Atlantic Ocean) are world famous parties. It lasts for a full week, of tons and tons of people dressed up in CRAZY awesome costumes! And there are stages in every plaza where various "chiringotas" perform-- groups of spaniards dressed up in the same ridiculous costumes, singing songs of political satire, etc.

We left Saturday morning on a bus at 9 am, and got to Cádiz around 2pm. We had all day to explore around the city, walk through some pretty parks, and see the gorgeous ocean! So nice to see that again, I missed it!

One of my favorite things about our time at Carnaval was seeing all the different ages of people. There were families with kids decked out in adorable costumes from dinosaurs to pirates to the one cute little boy dressed up as the old man from the pixar movie Up! And then at the same time there were lots of older adults, also wearing costumes! So all generations.

Once nightfall started coming, all the university aged people took over. Swarms and INSANE crowds of people. Check out the pictures!

Hosting couch surfers on my couch here in Granada

So as you know I couch surfed all around Europe this winter break, and had wonderful experiences surfing peoples' couches and meeting them and hearing their stories, getting local city tours from them....

Well now I am putting myself on the other side, and hosting people here on my couch! In January (the day after I got back from my 3 week trip actually, haha) I hosted this young man from New York, a music student solo-traveling around Europe. He was fun and a great first hosting experience. I took him out to tapas with my friends, showed him a good Granada time.

Now I am hosting a man from New Zealand, Daniel the kiwi! Unfortunately as you have read I am super busy and so don't have time to show him around or anything, but he is crashing here for two nights. I talked with him for a few hours when he arrived last night (instead of studying..) and he is a very interesting guy. He has been traveling around the world and living in different countries for the past 8 years. He has had many insane worldy experiences and stories to tell. His current project and passion is designing and building the "solarflower", a device made of regular household materials and junk that works as a solar panel and makes energy. He explained, in way too full of detail for my non-scientifical brain, how it works and his design strategies and successes and failures. Very interesting and complex. He carries it around with him in in pieces in a small duffel, and so he let me see some of the pieces. Crazy!

Anyway, it is way fun to host people from all over who have had these amazing experiences!

ok, off to my toefl class. ahh! bye!

TOEFL course

I just wrote a long, detailed syllabus/course calendar for my 7 week intensive TOEFL test prep course I'm teaching, complete with all our class activities and their homework assignments and practice tests and everything. I feel like such a professional instructor now, haha. Teaching is tough stuff! My admiration for teachers and what they do keeps increasing...

I think I will be able to pull this course off. I was super worried about it and didn't want to do it at first. My boss told me nothing about the class being different and an actual intensive test prep course, so I've had to figure everything out on my own and act like I am on top of everything when really I am figuring it out as I go....lot's of thinking on my toes. We are using this thick, long test prep book that is super intimidating. But, hopefully we will be able to cover the most important aspects. I am a very organized person and lve making lists and schedules and such, and so this characteristic has come in very handy prepping for this course. I have structured out every class day as well as their homework for every night..... ojalá que funcione!

I am off to the class right now. I will hand out the syllabi and explain the structure of the course, and away we go!!! cross your fingers!

wooooo so much work!

OOO I feel super productive. Up until this point of finals cramming and working, we haven't been spending too much time studying here. I have read the occasional article or written the occasional essay, but in general the work load here is pretty low.

However, now with finals here there's lots to be done! I had my first final this morning, bright and early. Well, make that dark and early. I woke up and walked the mile and a half uphill to campus in the dark and in the rain at 7:30 am. I took my final for history of ancient spain, and I feel pretty good about it! I think I did well. Clare and I studied together yesterday--we were in my small room studying from noon to ten pm. So one test down! Next wednesday I have my anthropology of religion final, and our final project is due. I talked to my professor yesterday and showed her my project outline and she gave it a thumbs up! So powering ahead. Then I will just have one more paper, for my history of andalucia class, which is a long research paper that I have a few weeks to do.

On top of university classes, my english classes I teach are getting crazy busy too! I still teach the same three women twice a week who I've been teaching since November, and every day we laugh a lot and have a great time sharing our languages with each other. That's a fun class, and we all learn a ton each day.

I was just asked by my boss to add another class at the beginning of this week. I showed up on Tuesday at 4pm (after already teaching in the morning), without knowing how many students, what ages, what level....turns out I have two men students who speak english pretty well, and are paying for an intensive 30 hour course to prepare to take the TOEFL (test of english as a foreign language) in March. Next month! So I feel a high level of responsibilty, as these men are counting on me to fully prepare them for this difficult test in one month! EEEk! I showed up and had to wing our two hour class without ever having looked at the TOEFL book. They knew more about it than I did, yet they still asked questions and I had to quickly flip through the book to find the answers.....woooo thinking on your feet! Man has teaching been a new learning experience for me in so many ways!

So, in half an hour I am leaving to go to the academy to proctor a full-length practice test for these two spanish men. As in all four hours. Hopefully all our technology will work and we can complete it today, and then grade it, and see what sections need work and go from there! (I have no idea yet how to teach this class. I will have to play with it and see how it goes!)

I have been studying full days, but as breaks I have been running. Every time I run I try to go someplace new that I've never been before, which is not too hard to do when you live in a city. Lately my runs have been STUNNING: the Sierra Nevada mountains behind the Alhambra behind Granada are covered in shiny white snow, and it's been quite sunny and chilly lately, save for this morning when it rained. Granada is so gorgeous!

I am getting so so so excited for my visitors who are coming to see me and my life here. If everything works out, Darren will be here, then Kavy (here on my 21st!), then Mom and Jim! And then Ty and Barbara in the summer. I can't wait, guys! yay!!

ok well I got to go to deliver this fantastic four hour test! over and out fools! I hope you are all well. I love you and miss you!

finals and lots of work, and Cordoba this weekend!

FINALS, ETC. so I haven't had much time to update on the blog or add pictures because things are getting crazy busy with schoolwork! our finals start in a few weeks, and I have tons of work to do. lots of reading, short essays to write, and then 2 big projects that I am just starting and are super intimidating. for my history of andalucia class we have to write a big long paper on any topic. my topic is "la enseñanza y educación de los niños moriscos en granada". so, the teaching and education of morisco (muslim converted to christianity) kids in granada. so just lots of research and writing for that. shouldn't be too bad. and then the other project that I am a little stressed about is for my anthropology of religion class. it's this long fieldwork project, in which we have to conduct an interview, and do all this background info, and then plan and start this whole project and plan it out with a timeline and budget and more....not really sure. it's rather confusing. I am still trying to figure out my topic, which I need to do like now because I am going to the thursday night buddhist talk tonight and I want to ask the speaker if we can find a time to meet so I can interview her. eeek I'm nervous about asking her! I'm thinking of interviewing her about buddhism in spain, and then interview Jim my step dad about buddhism in the US and compare them....we'll see! and then i have a bunch of exams too which I need to study for.

ánimo, megs! (that means spirit, encouragement, cheer up. i LOVE that word)

CORDOBA. something super cool! tomorrow alan and I are taking the 7:30 am bus to Córdoba, a small andalucian town a few hours away. he has a class field trip to the cathedral and muslim mosque there, which I saw four years ago and are incredible. then we are hosteling it tomorrow night, and then spending saturday exploring cordoba. for alan's xmas gift I reserved a time for us at 2pm to go to the Hammams Al Andalus, which are the arab baths. I went four years ago and remember loving them. They are beautiful baths with a room for hot water, a huge room with warm water and stars cut out in the high ceiling, and a cold water room. and we get massages too! I am super excited to go back! :)

http://www.hammamspain.com/cordoba/

ok well back to work studying!

back home in Granada! Trip recap and highlights.

So we returned safe and happy after our long adventures!

I have 699 photos. Wow. I need to edit them and then I am going to put al the best on facebook and then a few of my favorites here on my blog.

As for stories and adventures to tell regarding all our traveling, I will start to write about it on here. However, I am super busy now that I am back home, and so just check back here every now and then and I will continue to add stories as time comes.

It was an awesome trip! The group was wonderful, we were great together and had no problems whatsoever. I still love my three travel companions :).

All the cities were awesome. We couchsurfed in Dublin, Brussels, and Vienna, and thus saved a ton of money and also made some great international friends and had some great local tour guides! :) It was wonderful.

Highlights:

DUBLIN. I loved our day trip to the small seaside town of Howth, where we went on a long walk along the steep ocean cliffs that were reminiscent of Big Sur and thus made me feel at home :)

BRUSSELS. We stayed with a friend of Garren's, Juliette, a Belgian girl studying in Granada too. On Christmas she drove us to her parents' house outside of the city, and we were welcomed into the family and the warm, nice house complete with adorable black cat and hot fireplace. We had a nice Belgian dinner and we listened while everyone spoke French, and then after dinner we sat near the fire in a circle and opened presents. Juliette's mom had wrapped Belgian chocolate and beer for each of us. We felt like part of the family, what a wonderful christmas!

BRUGES. Ice skating in the center of this adorable town, surrounded by tons of christmas lights, and then eating hot, sugary Belgian waffles and sipping Gluhwein (milled wine) afterward. :)

VIENNA. New Year's eve! Our host Honzo took us to buy a big package of fireworks. eeeeEEEEE! Garren, Alan, and I went into the nearby park and set off a bunch of them and they were SO AWESOME! Then we headed into the center of town, where there were thousands and thousands of people, and a bunch of huge lighted stages with live music everywhere, xmas lights lining all the streets....we found the center plaza and it was completely cleared of people and it had been made into the firework launching pad. It was so incredibly loud! Huge firecrackers going off everywhere, bright flashes, huge almost painfully loud booms and crashes, people running.....it was madness! So much fun. We counted down to the new year in this huge crowd of people in the center of Vienna!

PARIS. I just loved walking around, we walked a lot. The sidewalk crepes are AMAZING. The Eiffel Tower was pretty cool, as well as all the other big monuments, Notre Dame....And I loved the glass pyramid at the Louve. And free entrance into the Louve being european students! We found a cute little boulangerie, bakery, where we went for breakfast every morning and tried some new french pastry every day. So good!

BERLIN. So much snow! And freezing! We went on a really good, almost 5 hour long free walking tour. Our Irish tour guide Barry was really good and enthusiastic, and I really enjoyed listening to the history of this very historically rich city! We also went on a fun pub crawl, which started in this cool bar with a ping pong table! That was way fun to play with Alan and Garren. And I just loved all the snow everywhere, and walking through blizzardy snowstorms!

OK well I need to go shower and do my laundry. More to come! Love you guys!