Dos Besos

Sooooo we have arrived in Granada! This city is gorgeous! Everywhere you walk you can catch a glimpse of the Sierra Nevadas! It is a pretty big city but 30% of the population is college students, 7,000 of them international! Pretty cool! This is going to be an awesome four months! So when we got off of the bus all of our house families were waiting for us.  My senoras name is Carmen and she brought her grand nephew or something named Alejandro who is twelve and very sweet! They told us before we got there that when you greet them it is customary to give "dos besos" (two kisses) one on each cheek. So it was overwhelming, everyone getting there luggage, dos besos, and then following your family to where you are living. We dragged our luggage for like 5 minutes to our apartment (I am regretting packing so much more and more every day).  My apartment is so cool! I have my own room that is about the size of my closet but I love it! in the living room there is a table with a heater under it and you put the table cloth/ blanket over your legs and it is SO warm and amazing! I wonder if you can buy one on ebay.... Ill look into that. There is not heat in the house so this comes in handy!  I took a shower in our tiny little shower and it was FREEEEEZING i think it took me about 17 seconds to take it and then i went to bed with wet hair which is not a good idea! i woke up about 20 times freezing to death! Last night, i was smarter and wore more clothes! Carmen (my senora) told me she forgot to tell me that i have to turn on the hot water in the kitchen and let it heat up before I take a shower.... thank you Carmen!!

My senora:
Carmen is one of a kind! She is absolutely crazy and I absolutely love her! She is like 75 and speaks no English at all so I am SO thankful that my roommate is basically fluent! They just talk and talk and then every once in a while Alaina fills me in! I think that Carmen is trying to make us each weigh a thousand pounds. When we got there in the afternoon we had a marienda which is a snack with coffee and 3 boxes full of sweets that she kept saying to eat more! We  then went out for tapas because she wanted a beer. Tapas are like little appetizers that you get with your drinks and they are very popular in Spain! Tapas bars are everywhere and in Granada the tapas are free because it is a college town so every time you get a drink, you choose your tapa and there are lots of different kinds.  So we went to the tapas bar and Carmen ordered her drink and ordered both us a coke and tapas (3 bocadillos- little sandwiches).  We were already not hungry but she kept saying to eat it so we were like okay thats fine so we ate ours and then she made us eat hers.  She then said that she wanted a glass of wine because the beer is too cold so she ordered us two more cokes, and 3 more orders of tapas! This time cheese and olives and she kept on saying EAT EAT EAT! When we left she said if she had one mroe drink she would be dancing on the table!! After tapas she asked us if we would be wanting dinner and of course we did not but we wanted to be polite so we said yes.  She made us a tortilla de patata which is like a potatoe omelet with egg and peppers and it was really good but very thick and she made a full one and gave us each half! On top of that, we had salad, a whole loaf of bread, a whole plate of 3 different kinds of sliced ham and a plate of 3 different kinds of cheeses!! She kept on eat eat eat! Trying to choke everything down was hard enough but we were also watching bullfighting! And after that we watched a telenovela and she was telling us about all the scandal!  For breakfast: 25 pieces of toast, 15 muffins, coffee, a bowl of fruit and she wanted us to eat all of it! And you get the picture, tons and tons of food and there is no way I can eat it all! I am so tired of saying No puedo comer mas (i cant eat more)! I told her she was going to make me so fat and she told me that you cant get fat in Spain, only America. When I wasnt eating enough she took my glass of water away and said my stomach was full of water and it needs to be full of food!  She also told me that I make crazy faces (because I have no clue what she is saying). She enjoys picking on me for some reason! She told me that I am way too young to have a boyfriend and he better be handsome because I am beautiful haha (love her).  She also told me I look like a Cordoban (Cordoba is a city in Spain) and she said they are famous for the beautiful women.  Then she called me a melon head.... These are just a few of the many many stories I have about Carmen! I adore her and she is amazing!!

I took some videos and pictures but I only have internet in the ISA office which is like 10 minutes away and  I forgot my camera chord so those will come later! Sorry its taken me so long to do this!