Granada to Cadiz

This last weekend (the first weekend in March) my program took us to Granada for a night.  I had heard so many positive things about Granada so I was really excited about this excursion!  We left early Friday morning.  On our way to Granada it started snowing!!  Uh yes, you read that correctly.. snowing!!  The road was covered for part of the drive.  I was not impressed to say the least.  Once we got into Granada though it was only raining (I suppose you could say fortunately), but I didn't bring my umbrella... of course.  The buses dropped us off in some random place so we could walk through the Jewish Quarters.  This led up to the best view of La Alhambra in Granada, but because it was all cloudy it really wasn't that great of a view.  Apparently when it's nice out the Sierra Nevada Mountains loom behind La Alhambra and it's an amazing view. 

Our view of La Alhambra

After this we walked to our hotel where the buses were with our stuff and checked in.  Four-star hotel!  Loved it.  Kelsey Julie and I were together.  We had a little living room area and then a bedroom and a bathroom... with a shower that actually had a door!  That was exciting.  Kelsey has a friend from school studying in Granada so we met up with him, Andy and their other friend from school, Jim, who is studying in Barcelona but was visiting Granada as well.  Andy took us up to the same view CEA had taken us to, but this time it was a bit clearer weather though we still weren't able to see the mountains unfortunately.  After that we shopped around in the little shops.  The shopping area was so cute and had so much!  I bought quite a bit there, but the prices were better then they are in Seville so I figured it was worth it.  After we did some shopping Andy took us to a teteria where he is a regular and we got tea and crepes.  I've grown a tolerance for fruit flavored hot tea with loads of sugar.  I figure ya gotta start somewhere!  We also smoked hooka which was rather amusing.  We attempted (though failed every time) to get at least three of us to blow the smoke out through our noses and throw up horns to look like bulls.  We finally gave up after a few tries.  (p.s. mom and dad: hooka is not bad for you like regular smoking and it's totally legal...promise! love you guys =) ) Anyway,  After this we headed back to the hotel to get ready to go out for the night.  In Granada when you order a drink you get free tapas, so when we met back up with Andy and Jim we went bar hopping for dinner.  Some of Andy's friends joined us for the night as well.  I met a guy who is from El Paso who knows some people I know from TCU... it's crazy how small this world is sometimes!  After a few bars we went to a club for the rest of the night and didn't call it a night until around 4:30am, ha!  I would say the next morning was a nightmare trying to get out of bed, but it wasn't.  We got a complimentary buffet breakfast which I was stoked for.  Before we did anything else we went to eat so we didn't have to deal with the crowds from the rest of our program.  (By the time I was finished and going back up to get ready people were waiting for tables.)  Saturday we had a tour of La Alhambra. 

In one of the gardens at La Alhambra

The tour was nice, but in all honesty it reminded me of a larger version of the Alcazar in Sevilla.  The only thing that I thought was really cool was the room where Queen Isabel gave Christopher Columbus permission to sail to America, that was pretty awesome!  But, besides from that it was a nice tour though I don't feel the need to go back through.  My camera died half way through the tour which was really depressing so my album on facebook is slacking.  Once we finished the tour we got on the buses and headed back to Sevilla.  Upon our arrival in Sevilla (almost) everyone got on another bus through a program called Discover Sevilla to head to Cadiz for Carnaval, the third biggest carnival in the world!  Everyone dresses up for Carnaval so my friends and I were m&m's.  Before you jump to conclusions, the costumes came out really well!  I taped m's on everyone's solid colored tops and we wore white gloves like the cartoon m&m's wear.  Naturally I was the orange m&m =).  I had to buy a top for it so I figured I should buy a top I know I'll use later and what better color then orange?  Unfortunately I forgot my small camera so I wasn't able to take any pictures, but my friends got some pictures.  I tried getting a picture from one of my friends to post on here, but wasn't able to.  If I figure it out later I'll add one.  Anyway, we got to Cadiz around 11pm.  The streets were packed, it was absolutely insane!  We just walked, or rather pushed our way, around the streets all night and met a bunch of people, especially Spaniards.  One group of guys we talked to for awhile were dressed up as football players.  One of the boys decided I was his girlfriend and was going around calling me so, ha!  They were amusing to say the least.  Two girls they knew came over and talked with us as well.  We later ran into Drew and Todd, two guys we hang out with a lot in Sevilla and on the bus I met a guy studying in Greece who was visiting his friend from home who was studying in Sevilla (in my program).  We met quite a few other Spaniards, but they were brief meetings, can't say I'm able to remember all of them.  The night was crazy and long, but loads of fun!  It was one hell of an experience that I'll never forget, that's for sure!