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!