Flamenco

I have officially completed a week of classes at CEGRI!  I am taking 4 classes- Art History of Spain, Culture of Spain, Oral Spanish, and Culture of Islam.  They are all taught in Spanish, but I am only in classes with American students in my program so we are all in the same boat as far as experience with the language.  Art History seems as though it will be the most interesting- each week we go on a field trip to a church or a museum or a building in Granada that has to do with the lesson.  This week we were learning about Gothic style, so we visited Capilla Real, where Isabelle and Ferdinand are buried.  The history is so amazing to learn about!  And it's even more surprising that I can understand it all in Spanish.

Tonight we went to a Flamenco show with our group- and basically it was a show where some old men sing some very unusual songs, and a woman comes out in a Flamenco dress and angrily tap dances around the stage. She was very passionate about what she was doing, but it was definitely a show for tourists- there are some more Flamenco shows in the gypsy part of the city that we all want to go to on our own!

Things are better with Mari Lou- except she keeps on telling me that I need to get over my idea that there are different kinds of ham.  She repeats whenever I won't eat something "todos los jamones son iguales!!".  Um, no they are not.  When a thick slice of meat is literally sliced off of the leg of a pig in the kitchen, it looks and tastes a LOT different than our American lunch meat.  Oh well!  At least I haven't been hiding as much food in my shirt because she has been making some great meals.

I am also planning a week long trip to Prague, Vienna, and Budapest!  So far there are for sure 6 of us girls, but another group is now excited about these cities and is going to book the same flight.  I cannot wait because these cities will be so much more different than the Greek and Roman influences you typically see in Mediterranean cities.

I can't think properly right now because I am so tired, but I figured I'd try to update my family a little about what is going on here.  Granada is great, and I am getting over a lot of the culture shock that many of us students were experiencing.  Should be a really exciting 4 months!!