Spain hit a nice relaxing temperature of 5 million degrees today.

As you can see we went Salsa Dancing last night and it was sooo much fun. Nick and I were definitely the coolest guys there....that is until they started playing techno and Miles danced like a maniac. It was incredible. I have never seen anybody dance like Miles. It could have very well been the best dancing I've ever seen. Anyhow, in the picture is (from left to right) Jordan, Michael, Nick, Shalyn. They're all pretty fun and we like them.

So Spain is ridiculously sweet but there are obviously some problems. Here's the biggest one. When you wake up the first thing you can think is, "Holy crap it's hot here!" but you deal with it and you go get breakfast where you drink HOT coffee. At this point you have been awake for thiry minutes and you're hot on the outside because of the heat and you're hot on the inside because of the coffee. After breakfast you walk to school and by the time you get there you're in a pool of your own sweat because it's so hot. (Also the school is over a mile from our house and it's all up-hill) Then you get to school and you get a break from walking and you can sit in the shade (which is still hot). So after that little break you go into the classroom where it's 100 degrees and sit there for 4 hours. Class is finally over and you get to walk in the sun for another 20+ minutes to get home. Of course you get home and it's even hotter inside the apartment. After boiling in your own body for a while you get to eat a hot lunch then go out...into the sun. You hang out in the sun and think, "Well it's about 4 o'clock the hottest part of the day has passed." WRONG! Nope, in Spain the hottest part is at about 7. And after the hottest part, guess what! It's still hot! So now it's 10 o' clock and it's still hot so you go inside and rest for a little then eat a nice and hot dinner. When dinner is over you're pretty tired so you want to take a shower and go to bed. (the shower can also be in the morning and this point is still valid) So you get in the shower which is cold and relaxing then you get out and it's hot again. At this point you feel like you have accomplished nothing because the second you get out of the shower you're sweating again. So finally you try to go to sleep but you can't because it's too hot to think straight. When you finally fall asleep you get to wake up the next day and do it again. Other than that Spain is amazing.

Tourists suck. We don't classify ourselves as tourists. We're students. Tourists will buy anything as long as they're being told to buy it in spanish. As silly as this sounds it's true. Next to the Cathedral, about 20 feet away, there are these spanish women selling a stringy green plant for one euro a piece and saying something about their powers in spanish. At first you would think they're just vendors but no. They're malicious plant selling soldiers. They will make sure that you have these plants. Here's the catch all along the floor next to the big Cathedral there are these long green plants. The worst part about it is that people buy it all the time.

Well it's siesta time for me, I'll be sure to update some more soon.

A little filler...

Yesterday we went to the Alhambra for a magnificent tour led by one of our teachers named Miguel. He's really cool and makes learning Spanish super easy. The Alhambra is one of the prettiest things in the world and it has a crazy history. I really liked going there. That is a picture of the last entrance way before the throne room. I'm really enjoying learning the history of Granada. Even though that is fun I think the best part by far is hanging out with some of the people in our group.
This trip has taught me and Nick a valuable lesson. Coffee is good.
Today we are going to go see a movie at the school about the History of the Alhambra. It could be fun but I'm sure I'll end up not understanding some of it. Not much has happened since we went to the Alhambra so I'm out of things to write. I'll post more later. :)

TODAY ROCKED!

Well we arrived in Granada last night and hung out with our host family. It´s this 51 year old lady named Yolanda and neither of her kids are at her house but there are two american girls there. (I don´t remember their names) They´re in college so they´re alway condensending but overall their fun. It´s 5 o´clock now and we have to be at the school for our tour of Granada at 6. It takes about 40 minutes to get there by foot. It´s pretty hot here.
We had our first classes today and those were pretty cool. We spent the first half of the day taking placement tests to see which of the two groups we would be in. So far I like all of the kids here (except one, I gave him plenty of chances but he just continues to suck. Whatever. He only annoys me when he talks) Anyhow, I know WAY more spanish than I thought. Today in the class it was only me and two other kids (who are flapping hilarious) that understood everything. We spent a lot of time making a lot of jokes and so far it was the best day of the trip. Also the 2 hour period the three of us spent joking and screwing around was one of the funniest times I´ve ever had. EVER. I´ve already learned a lot of spanish as well. It´s really cool that we learn some stuff in the school and when that is finished we put what we learned immediately into use. There are plenty of internet cafes so I´ll be sure to continue posting. Actually we like a specific interent cafe that is a little more expensive but it´s totally worth it. The place we´re at now is cheaper but the computers are slower so you have to spend WAY more time waiting for things to load and then it feels like a waste of money. Speaking of money.....the exchange rate sucks. I had to exchange (cambiar) money today and I got like $0.68 to €1. It blew but I need money.
I needed to leave 2 minutes ago but I lost track of time. I´ll post more later. Adios.

This is crazy.

I did my last post approximately thirty minutes ago and since then a bunch of people of come into the internet place and sat down and talked to me. I feel like I´m sincerely better at speaking spanish after the past thirty minutes (treinta minutos). I can´t wait for Granada.

WTF....

I´m so flipping confused. It took us a while to have the difference hit us. At first I was thinking, ¨Wow. Everything looks the same....¨ that thought went away fast. The culture is crazy different. It´s really fun though. 1 big problem is that when you screw up it´s nearly impossible to explain what you did wrong. Although a lot of people speak English nobody tries talking in English until they watch you struggle for like 15 minutes then they´re like, ¨oh, you speak english?¨ That´s soooo annoying. Why can´t they just start speaking English when you start? It´s totally absurd.

Right now we´re in Madrid and it´s pretty cool. I expected the food here to be way different but it´s not that different. There is a lot of ham (jamon) everywhere. Lots of cool people here but of course everybody is following Nick and I around.
I got a phone and it works. In order to make international calls I need to use a seperate card so I don´t know the number I will call from but if you need me my number is 675-234-464. (that´s all the info I know about that. I don´t know what to do with the country code and whatnot)
I just got back to a museum that was pretty sweet. But I ditched all the cool kids and went with Pilar because I wanted to learn stuff and nobody else did. Now I get to spend the next 45 minutes hanging out in an internet cafe. GOOD NEWS! The girl that is sitting next to me is pretty and she keeps looking at me.
TTYL!

Almost there...

I'm still at home. Waiting. I leave my house tomorrow morning at 7. The program I'm going with requires me to be at LAX at 8:00 so we can organize everything and they can give me all the information I will need to get there. The flight is about 9 hours but I stop in New York. I land in Madrid and I stay there for a couple of days in a hotel (where I room with Nick). Then I get to take a 5 hour bus ride to Granada which I'm actually excited for. I don't know why.

In Granada I'm staying at C/ Carril del Picón 26, 6º B 18010. There is a movie theater 2 km away from the apartment so maybe I'll be able to see Transformers after all. I think that Spain is 9 hours ahead so if you need to contact me I'll have an EMERGENCY cell phone. I only say emergency because it's like $1.29 per minute. But I'll be calling the US (that's fun to say) to check in.
Wish me luck!