It is Apr 26th and I have a month left to live in the beautiful city of Granada. I can't believe I'll be back in the states and speaking English with everyone again. I'm excited to get back and continue with school and my business degree. But I'm also going to enjoy everyday of my last month here. I have two more trips planned, next weekend Portugal, and the week after that I'm going to Madrid. Madrid is a trip planned by my program, and we're also taking day trips to Segovia and Toledo. I'm especially excited for Toledo because I've been working on a presentation and it's all things Toledo. The city looks absolutely amazing. I'm also excited to see Madrid and hopefully see Kayla and Eva! I haven't seen those two in forever. Looking back at the past four months, I have done a lot of cool things and been to a lot of cool places. I'm so thankful to have had the opportunity to do all of that.
I'm slightly wondering to myself why I've decided to make a blog now, and why I didn't upon coming to Spain, or waited until I got back to the US. But, anyway, I'm excited that I decided to start it, and I really hope I keep it up. I say how much I want to be a writer, but I need to actually write. I do love to write, and once I get started again it reminds me why I've always loved it. I do want to write a novel someday, but I think for now I'll take about Spain. So, Spain. I'm so incredibly happy that I chose to come here for a semester, it has been an amazing experience that I will never forget. I've had to opportunity to travel to different countries, and also a bunch within Spain. I've seen so much more of the world, and that just makes me want to continue to travel, and see as much of the world that I can.
This past weekend I went to Ronda, and this city is probably one of my favorite cities in Spain that I've visited. Aside from Granada, being my number one and probably always will be. Ronda is a small city placed on a rock, with a big cliff on one side of it. When you're looking out past Ronda, you see landscapes and mountains and green and it's absolutely beautiful. Every time I visit a place I think about if my family would like to visit and what they would think of it. And I think there's definitely a chance my family would enjoy Ronda. It's small and cute, and there are mountains right at your finger tips to explore.
My very first trip was to Barcelona, Spain. I went at the end of intensivo (a month long class during January). It was an amazing trip, Barcelona is gorgeous and there is so much to explore, you could spend a year there and still find new places to explore and see. I stayed with Rachel, which was a great idea. Rachel is so fun, and it was cool to have her show me around. We went to beautiful parks, the beach, the famous La Boqueria and so much more. Even though I only saw a small fraction of Barcelona, it was a successful trip and I left with some pretty great memories.
Next was a day trip to Córdoba with my program. Córdoba is a beautiful city as well, we got to go in the Baños Arabes, and that was absolutely amazing. There were three different baths, one freezing, one lukewarm, and one hot. Then, you got a 15 minute (I think) massage, and that was heaven. Obviously.
Then I went to Morocco through a website/program called DiscoverExcursions. This was a really fast moving, but super cool trip. I went with four other girls from my program, and there were over a hundred people total. We spent a lot of time in a bus, but got to see three super cool cities. Our hotel was in Tangier, which is right on the coast, and we took day trips to Chefchaouen and Assilah. My favorite city was Chefchaouen (I hope I'm spelling that correctly) because it was painted blue, with all of the walls and doors being different shades of blue, it was absolutely beautiful. It is also right in the middle of the mountains, which is the main reason I feel in love with it. Assilah and Tangier are beautiful as well, but Chefchaouen has my heart. Oh, and I got to ride a camel.
Sevilla tiene un color especial. Next was Sevilla, the capital of Andalucia. This city is amazing, and I wish we got to spend more than just one night there. It was a trip through my program, so we had a lot of tours and not a lot of free time. When I come back to Spain, I want to spend more time exploring Sevilla. I spent the trip with my now good friend Melissa, walking around and exploring. It felt like summer on that trip, which I loved a lot. Summer weather means tank tops and cold drinks and happiness.
The very following weekend I went to Amsterdam with a girl from my program. It was a great trip, and a very cold one also. I didn't fully prepare for this trip, and wore both of the two light coats I brought the entire time. We rented bikes, went to the Anne Frank museum, Van Gogh museum, walked around a bunch, and did some other typical Amsterdam things. Our hostel was right in the Red Light District, which I assume is why it was the cheapest one we could find. But that wasn't the thing that bothered me, it was the four other guys we shared a room with. They all snored. Literally every single one of them. I realize I can not sleep with people snoring, and I will, without a doubt, wake up to people snoring. I would get to the point where I'd be going out of my mind at 2am that I would put in my music and blast it loud enough so it would drown out the snoring. But after 15 minutes or so, I would get really tired again, and would need to turn down the volume, which would then make it so I could hear the snoring again. At this point, I would get up and make a lot of noise in the hope of waking up the guys and get them to stop snoring. This would work only every few tries, and after 20 or 30 minutes, they would start snoring again. This was also my first time ever staying in a hostel, so now I have that first impression and officially do not like hostels and would rather pay extra to stay in a hotel. Besides that, it was a great trip and I'm so glad that I went.
At this point I've been taking trips every weekend, so the weekend after Amsterdam I went to the Canary Islands with Rachel. We went to the main island Gran Canaria, and stayed in a hostel. I had already booked this trip prior to going to Amsterdam, so I was a little nervous to stay in a six person hostel again. But it ended up being a completely different experience, and annoying for different reasons. It wasn't professionally run, but there weren't any snorers. So I was grateful for that. There was no water when taking a shower, so it would be a slight drizzle. But, it was a fun and rememberable experience. Rachel and I went on a run one of the days and that was awesome because she runs fast and it felt good to push myself. We also went zip lining, and that was super fun. It was from one cliff to another, having the zip line over the ocean. It was scary and incredibly thrilling. There was also rock climbing but I was too terrified to do that, but Rachel did it twice. After that, we hiked down to a cave, where the waves from the ocean crash in, and it's really beautiful when looking out at the water from inside the cave. But when we went, it was becoming high tide, so the guide told us to take a quick look, then to head out fast so we wouldn't get hit by the waves. This naturally terrified Rachel and I, so as we were heading out, a huge wave came and completely soaked us. It was so scary, but it was also funny because now we were completely drenched and laughing and in a cave. It was really fun, I'm so glad Rachel talked me into do it.
Next was Semana Santa and I went to Fuengirola (on the Costa del Sol, near Málaga) with a few people from my program. It was an interesting trip. Fuengirola is absolutely beautiful and the weather felt like Hawaii in the summer. I spent a lot of time on this trip alone, which I enjoyed because I realized I got annoyed by this people after spending too long with them. Don't get me wrong, they're great people. I just couldn't handle them for long periods of time. I went on a run everyday, got tan, went on walks exploring, had some sangria. It was a nice, relaxing trip. Then we got back to Granada the day before my birthday. So for my birthday, one of my friends and I went hiking and that was a lot of fun. I was missing my family in Fuengirola because that was the time that my mom and grandma were originally going to visit me, but it didn't work out. But going on the hike made me feel better, and it was a great birthday. Semana Santa over all was really cool. There were processions everyday, and those were cool to see, it's definitely not something you'd see in the states.
The weekend after Semana Santa I went to Oslo, Norway. Alone. Norway is kind of intimidating when you're landing in an airport an hour away from the city your staying in and you're all alone and don't speak the language. But, a lot of Norwegians speak English, so that never ended up being a problem. And getting into Oslo was easy. And so was finding my airbnb's place. So nothing really ended up being a problem, I was just really nervous to be going on a trip alone and thought I wouldn't be able to handle doing anything by myself. And what I mean by that is traveling wise. Being able to handle traveling alone. Which is kind of ridiculous and I was terrified for no reason at all. Anyway, it ended up being a great trip and I absolutely love Norway and I already know I want to go back. The first day I walked about the city. Literally did an entire loop and saw as much as I could. Oslo has so many parks, it's amazing. I love parks so much. They were all beautiful, and the day was beautiful as well. My airbnb gave me a map, and it was extremely helpful and it is how I decided where to go and it helped me get there. The next day I went to the Holmenkollen ski jump, and this day happened to be dense fog. So that was kind of a bummer, but it was still really cool. There was also a ski museum that I know my dad would have loved and would've spent way more time that I had in there. Of course the gift shop didn't have the two things my family wanted. But. Shopping online exists and will be happening when I return to the states. I'm so excited for my dad's trip to Norway. He's going with his mom and sister, and they're going up north. Where I want to go. It looks even more beautiful then Oslo, with mountains and lakes and smaller towns. I know he's going to have the trip of a lifetime. Anyway, I had a great trip as well, didn't feel too lonely because there were other people staying in the airbnb, and everyone was super nice and helpful.
Now I'm about up to the present. With last weekend being Ronda. I spent this day trip with Melissa, and we had quite the experience. There's this massive, crazy bridge, and we hiked down the cliff, and there's a part of the bridge that you can take a ladder up to. And of course the ladder is on the bridge, so you have to walk on this side of the cliff, over to the bridge, and have to reach out to grab it, the ladder is over a cliff. If that makes sense... It's hard to describe, but either way it was absolutely terrifying. But so worth it and so cool to be on the bridge. We had to talk each other through it while going up and down the ladder. Things like, "You're fine". "We got this" "We're totally safe" "Almost there". I never thought I was afraid of heights, and maybe it's not the heights I'm afraid of, but the ladder. I seriously thought it was going to break the whole time. I can see how this would sound not fun, but it really was. We joked and laughed our way through it. We laughed a lot on this trip. It was a good bonding trip. It was really fun.
Now I'm laying in my bed, on a sunday with this being one of my last weekends here. It's crazy. Next weekend I go to Lagos, Portugal with DiscoverExcursions. Then Madrid. Then the weekend before finals. Then home. May is going to be here before I know it and so are finals. It's been an amazing ride so far.
