21st birthday!

Hola :),

My birthday is on the 21st December and I wanted to celebrate here with my friends before I went home (I go home on the 14th). I thought I was going to celebrate it by doing a few small things with my different groups of friends..

Well, on Tuesday night I was meant to be going for a curry in one of the few Indian restaurants in Granada with Sophia and two other good friends. Unfortunately I wasn't feeling well and had taken the day before off uni to try and recover and thus didn't bother to dress up on Tuesday night to go out. I went over to Sophia's to meet up with her and one of the other girls before leaving to meet Christina (who I love dearly but is always late). When I arrived I was surprised by how much effort Sophia had made just to go for a curry, she was wearing a lovely outfit and had her make up done really nicely. I looked like a tramp! She encouraged me to paint my nails or do my hair if I wanted but I wasn't feeling great and decided not to as we were only going for a curry after all. Sophia was acting a little odd by making us watch tv and even offering to make tea. I found this odd as normally she is so keen to go and eat (as am I) and I was absolutely starving and was wondering why we weren't making a move.

Eventually we left and went to meet Christina. When we arrived she said she wasn't ready and buzzed us into her flat. I was so hungry and was trying to encourage her to hurry up. The girls told me to go and wait in the lounge as it was 'warmer'. So eventually I opened the lounge door and was greeted by the opening of a bottle of pink bubbly and the shouting of 'surprise' by some of my bestest girls in Granada. Sophia had managed to plan a whole surprise party without me even knowing! Christina was an amazing host and had prepared lots of food and decorated the lounge for me. I was truly touched.

Girlies <3

Sophia and Christina had gone to soo much effort, there were penis straws, a hello kitty table cover and the gifts they got me...

Penis water pistol

Penis glasses

A gorgeous new dress (you can't really see here and are probably distracted by the penis on my head)

After drinking lots of pink bubbly and a lot of banter (they even made some rules, if any of the following words were said I had to drink) ;

We finally headed out to Mae West for a fun filled night where all the men thought it was my hen do because of the penis on my head, and were surprised it was just my birthday. Caused a lot of interest by all accounts! Although I didn't drink that much, I think the combination of alcohol and all the medication I had been taking left me quite sozzled.. According to my housemate my speech became very slow and slurred...!! 

Chicas en la mae

No pare la fiesta, don't stop the party!

I had a great time and truly had no idea about the surprise party! Thank you Sophia <3 love you lots and Christina <3 and to everyone who made the effort to come! 

The next day I spent on the sofa recovering from the night and feeling under the weather. I made sure I had a big siesta in the day as I had planned to go out with my housemates that night to celebrate my birthday. We had planned to go for a lovely meal and then go out partying.

Before we left my two official housemates and my adopted housemate - María (the best friend of one of my official housemates) came singing feliz cumpleaños (happy birthday) into the lounge where I was sat and brought me some presents;

So cute <3 and all pink, they know me so well!

Then we continued to get ready to go out.

Mis compañeras antes de salir <3 <3

We went to a gorgeous french restaurant and we ate some lovely food. For main we ordered a meat fondue, which you cooked yourself at the table. It was like a normal fondue but with hot oil in which you added the meat on metal sticks (cannot think of the word in English.. lol) and cooked it to your liking. It also came with potatoes, cheese and pate which you could cook. It was great fun!

The fondue

Meat, potato, sauces

The restaurant

Dessert.. mmmmm chocolate!!

After the meal we took a taxi to Camborio, a really famous night club in the mountains which overlooks the Alhambra.

Compañeras <3 <3 <3

As it was so high up in the mountains it was absolutely freezing! Some of the music they played was a bit disappointing and the people inside were mainly erasmus acting drunk and stupid. So we went home a little earlier than expected and decided next time to go to the trusty Mae which is in walking distance from home and always a great night out.

So I had a great time celebrating my birthday here, now I have my actual birthday to look forward to at home :D how exciting! Hopefully I will have recovered from this pesky illness by then as it is really starting to bug me (see the pun there :p).

I better go and move my bum off the lovely warm sofa,

ciao for now! xxxx

Christmas is coming :D

11 days until I go home for Christmas and I am SOOOOO excited, probably more than the average child! I can't wait to be surrounded by the ones I love and get into the Christmas spirit. Unfortunately here there is a severe lack of anything Christmas related. I mean there are some fancy Christmas lights above El Corte Inglés (a department store), some tinsel and decorations in the shops and I heard one (yes only one) Christmas song in the Mercadona (supermarket) the other day. But other than those meager attempts, Spain is lacking on the run up to Christmas.

So today I listened to some Christmas music online and almost cried with excitement (sad I know!). I am so looking forward to arriving home and putting up the tree and making my house look like santa's grotto :D.

I have also been Christmas shopping online today which only added to my excitement :D.

It is my 21st this month as well so I am going out for dinner and then out partying with my lovely housemates on Wednesday to celebrate. Exciting! I love spending time with these girls, they have been so good to me whilst I have been here so will be awesome to spend a night together with just the three of us :D.

Partying the other day;

Fun times with the girlies

In the bar

What a fun night we had! A lot of alcohol was consumed (let's say almost a whole bottle of rum between two).. Many confessions shared via the game "yo mai mai" the Catalan equivalent (despite sounding Chinese!) of "never have I ever". It was awesome :D.

That's all for now folks, peace out :) xx

20 days to go!!

Hello world,

Just a quick update of what has been going on.

Last week I went out clubbing with my housemate and her friend which was a lot of fun... We didn't get home until 6am (standard here)!

Casually sat with our mojitos :D

The bad boy mojitos - which were soooo scrummy!

Comapañis <3

I also had my first ever hot dog that night, it was average!

I must say that after reading some of my friend's blogs also on their year abroad that there seems to be a lot going on for them! For example in Mexico!

Not that much happens here as university seems to take over :/

However, I also went out for a yummy Chinese with a friend from uni. It is such good value, so cheap and so tasty! We went for a few drinks after before coming home full and satisfied.

After being here over 2 months I am realising that I am missing some food from home. For example, soup. Standard tinned soup. It doesn't exist here. You can either buy powdered soup which you add water to and it is really thin and horrible. Or salmorejo or gazpacho, both I really like but they are made to be eaten cold. To try and get over this I have tried heating the gazpacho to make tomato soup, still not quite the same!

I also really miss curry! There are no Indian restaurants out here, the whole place is run by Chinese. I am definitely having a cheeky Indian when I go home! There also seems to be a severe lack of spicy food in general. The other day I bought 'pimiento picante' - spicy pepper which is meant to be like chilli powder. However I was disappointed as it was not hot at all! The other day I made a tomato sauce to go on rice and added half the jar of the so called 'chilli' to try and make it hot, and I could just about taste the chilli with half the jar.. ahaha.

Apart from the fun at the end of the week - going out and having a Chinese, last week was a bad one for me.   The lovely Sophia had gone home to England for a while so I was left without my study buddy and general companion. I wished I was at home too! 

I am running out of tea bags as well ahhhhhh!!!! 

The work situation is really stressing me out, I always get given so much to do. So much for 'Spain is so relaxed, you won't get any work, erasmus students have it easy' and all that crap. My teachers take a register and give weekly homework which they ask for and make a note if you don't hand it in. Brilliant. The problem is some of the subjects I have chosen are really difficult and even my housemates found some of the articles I had to read hard to understand and it is written in their language!

I was really close to having a breakdown last week and emailed lecturers, advisers etc to try and get help. I managed to see two of my lecturers this week and I am going for the arse lick approach as marking is not anonymous here, so figured if they think I am interested and trying (I am) then they may be more lenient towards me. 

So I feel a little better this week but still don't know how I am going to combine my research project with all the work and projects here. No fun :(.

One good thing (I think) I am starting to give English conversation classes to two Spanish boys. The first class is today so wish me luck!

Luckily it is only 20days until I go home for Christmas and I am so excited! This is the longest I have ever been away from home and I really miss it (I am a home bird if you hadn't guessed). I am already getting pretty booked up over the 3 weeks I am back because I need to squeeze in seeing family, friends, partying for my birthday, seeing my boyfriend's family etc. It is going to be crazy but probably the best Christmas ever :). These last 20days couldn't go quicker!

Love from Spain xx

La vida...

I am going to update you on my what has been going on in my life...

My family visits!
I had a great week with my family acting tour guide/translator. We visited the Cathedral, went to a tetería (tea shop in the Moroccan part of town) and generally saw the town. We had some great meals out with a lot of beer and tapas! They were very impressed with how cheap and good it was! It was also my mum's birthday whilst they were out here, so I booked a table in a restaurant near to my house, took in balloons and a cake with candles. We had a great night!

Birthday candles!!

My mum, my sister and I also went out for a few drinks after the meal to a really cool little pub and had a hilarious time. As the only three females in there we immediately attracted the attention of some of the lads sat drinking in there. They invited us to play table football with them - which was HILARIOUS! They were shouting in Spanish and us in English!! Great fun. They also bought us some shots when they realised it was my mum's birthday! An experience for her!!!

Us in the bar with the locals!

Overall, we enjoyed the week being together and exploring and they liked the town. When they came to leave I was left devastated again, it was soooo horrible leaving them at the airport as I went off in the bus back to Malaga centre to head back to Granada. The week after they left was one of my worst here as it had come to the point where I just wanted to go home. A lot of my friends are heading home this month for a week or so to visit family and it seems like this is the point where everyone is beginning to feel very homesick.

On the upside it is now only 1 month and 2 days until I go home for Christmas and I am soooo excited!!!! I have even bought a few cheeky Christmas decorations from the Chinese shop!!!

The uni here is still as rubbish as ever! It stresses me out! Balancing uni work and writing my dissertation is no fun!

Anyway, I am off to cook my dinner and get an early night as I have a splitting headache! Until the next time, un beso xxx

The year abroad - best year yet?

So everybody says the year abroad is meant to be an incredible experience, the best year yet and a whole lot of fun.. I want to analyse this and write my pros and cons about my experience in Spain so far.

The year abroad is amazing because:
1. You can enjoy the culture of another country and get stuck in.
2. It is the best way to improve your language.
3. You can travel the country very cheaply.
4. You deal with everyday situations in the target language. You cannot avoid it, it is everywhere - t.v, in the street, music, at uni, at home etc. Perfect for improving your language.
5. The prices. Food is sooo cheap, so is alcohol, thus a night out is a bargain.
6. I want to write weather here but given that it is chucking it down here and has been raining cats and dogs on and off for a few weeks now, I don't think this point is valid!


Cons of the year abroad:
1. Everybody says "erasmus don't have to do much work".. This is the biggest pile of poo I have ever heard. I get plenty of work from the university here and yes I have to do it because I need to pass the year. Some universities don't require their students to pass but Southampton does. If I have any chance of passing the year I need to do the work set!
2. Year abroad project. Aka dissertation. Yep you all thought I was out here living it up but actually I have to write a serious research project which counts for my mark of this year. It is super important and not easy. Reading, interviewing and writing this bad boy in Spanish is no fun.
3. Being away from home. For me this is the worst part. I hate not being able to jump on a train and go home to see my family. I arrived here in September and won't be going home until December. Doesn't sound long but for a girl who hasn't been away from her family for longer than 3weeks - it is pretty tough.
4. Dealing with the over-relaxed way of life. I mean siestas are great but other than that things happen way too slowly here! For example, our student cards took about 3weeks to arrive and it turns out they are only laminated pieces of card.. We actually thought we would get proper cards like the students do here.. No such luck and it still took ages!
5. Bureaucracy. What a joke! If you have read my post titled "Spanish bureaucracy" you will understand what I mean.
6. Disorganisation. The uni is a joke. Full stop.


Therefore, I think the year abroad is an amazing experience and will be great for my Spanish but it is like any other year work wise apart from I am in a different country and can't see my family.

Adiós!

Un poco de todo

What has been going down in Granada town lately?

Weather
Well it has rained a hell of a lot which is a joke, I can see rain in the U.K I don't want to see it here!! Also it is not good when you don't have any waterproof shoes. My mission of tomorrow is to find some! My poor boots have got soaked through to the point that they have officially died. It is not acceptable to wear shoes any longer that let in whole puddles and drench my socks/feet.

University
Haha, still the biggest joke ever and often result in me and Sophia turning to alcohol at the end of the day! Yesterday I had classes from 11am until 8pm with only a one hour break for lunch! That is sooo painful trust me!

Some teachers here are utter pricks as well - like my Italian teacher who likes to pick on people. If they can't answer his question fast enough he says ''you are boring me'' and moves on to the next person! He also wants us to buy a course book that costs €37... jog on mate! For one semester I don't think so! Instead I decided to get it copied like a lot of people in the class have done. A girl from my class lent me the book so I went off to get it copied on Wednesday... Well like everything out here, it didn't go to plan. I got told that I could only copy a tenth of the book in one shop and that I couldn't copy any of the book in another due to copyright laws. Dejected, I returned home and told my housemate who recommended me a shop on the same street as the others I visited that day and insisted I would be able to get the whole book copied there. So off I went again in look for this shop and low and behold it turned out to be the one that had told me that they couldn't copy books...

I returned home quite annoyed. Luckily my housemate kindly offered to go down to the shop herself as she knew someone that worked there and he would do it for her. Phew! I could have been in big trouble if I couldn't get a copy of the stupid book!

The only good thing about UGR is the food. You can get a 3 course meal including bread for €4.50. Noooom!!!

An example of one of the dishes yesterday - squid in a red wine sauce :D

This is definitely not something you would see in Avenue Café!!!

Partying

I went out clubbing sometime last week with Sophia and a group of girls we are friends with and Sophia had the genius idea to draw mustaches onto our faces. However, she got a little over-excited with mine and I ended up looking like Hitler. Needless to say, we had to wipe it off before leaving as I didn't want to get killed! Instead I got cat's whiskers drawn on me - cute!

The crazy ones amongst us with our faces painted!

No crazy stories to report though - other than the strange looks we got as you can imagine!

Things I have noted about Spain

1. The smell of weed. It is everywhere! On the streets, at uni... I really didn't think the Spanish would need to chill out much more! Which leads me onto my next point;

2. The laidbackness (new word lol). The teachers don't really give a toot. You can stroll into class half an hour late, you can wander off to the toilet for twenty minutes - no-one cares! There is no hurry here to do anything.

3. The amount of strikes. I know the students here are annoyed by the cuts in education and the increasing price of university but they aren't getting their monies worth by striking almost every week! Suits me though, less boring classes to attend!

Can't think of any more at the moment but I will continue this list on another post as more come to mind!!

Laters xxx

Adventures

I realised I hadn't written about the trips I have been on since I have been here - how disgraceful!

The first place I visited on the 22nd of September was Córdoba. It is a gorgeous little town with plenty to see. We visited some arabic baths, the mosque/cathedral which can I say is INCREDIBLE.. Half of it is mosque and the other half cathedral and as you walk from the lowly lit mosque area into the cathedral the light comes streaming in. The differences in design are very apparent. And it is all the same building, woweee!
We also visited some other ancient buildings with gorgeous gardens. It was sooooo hot that day though, by the time we finished looking around we were parched! Luckily lunch there was very cheap. I definitely recommend a visit to Córdoba to anyone who is interested in looking around lovely historical towns.

                                                                         Córdoba


Secondly, I went to Sevilla on the 6th October. Wow, what a brilliant place. It is huge and definitely not a day trip location. There is so much to see. We visited the cathedral and some other lovely buildings. Again the arabic influence is apparent there too. Unfortunately we only had about 7hours there as it takes 3hours on the coach to get there from Granada so we didn't see as much as we could have. It was so worthwhile though, even though we were very tired by the end of the day. Not surprising considering the 6hours traveling!!

                                                                          Sevilla


The week just gone I had my boyfriend to stay with me. It was great playing tour guide and being able to explore places I hadn't seen before. His flight home was early Monday morning so we had to spend the Sunday night in a hotel as there weren't any coaches that would make it to Malaga on time before his flight. We decided that it would be a nice idea to go to Malaga for 2nights so that we could explore the town and go to the beach on Saturday.

Well!!.. Malaga is shocking! Such an ugly town with nothing to do or see. The beach and the port were the only good things about the place. It is honestly the worst place in Spain I have ever been to. There was rubbish all over the streets and the poverty there seemed rife.
In order to get to our hotel from Malaga coach station we took a bus to the airport as our hotel was very close by. We had to take a taxi from the airport as we couldn't walk it due to all the motorway by the airport/hotel. When we pulled up outside the hotel the driver announced that it cost €19 - the minimum charge for an airport pick up even though the journey only lasted 5mins. What a joke. We were furious (I am still not over this!).
In order to not spend more money we tried to walk into town. We managed to get over the motorway via a bridge but then found ourselves in some sort of heath-land that went on forever with no escape. We could see where we wanted to go but couldn't get there. Eventually we found a gap in the fence and climbed though to civilisation. Unfortunately we were still very much on the outskirts of the town and it was an utter s**t hole!

On the plus side we managed to go to the beach on Sunday and got a tan but rest assured I will never be venturing into Malaga again besides making trips to the airport!

                                                                    Beach!!

I just figured out how to add pictures so I am very excited now!! Hahaha.

To round off, I am off to do some uni work now yawn.. Looking forward to my family visiting me in 12days :D.

Peace out niños!! <3

Updates!

Sorry chicos, I haven't updated in a while woops!!
So what has been going on over the last week or so?...

Me and Sophia hit up a club last Tuesday. On the way there we got stopped by a promoter offering really cheap drinks.. so we had to oblige! So 5 tequila shots each and we carried on our merry way to the club. We paid €5 to get in with 4 or 5 shots included - great! It wasn't too busy inside but we enjoyed getting our dance on. There were mainly erasmus students there but we had a laugh. On the way home Sophia was insistent that we found some southern fried chicken! So we stopped somewhere to have a munch, but due to all the shots earlier, we couldn't remember if we had paid or not!! We tried to leave to see if they would stop us.. Turns out we hadn't paid so had to go back in... woopsie!!!

Hahaha this photo sums it up really!!


Hangover the next day was not fun, especially as I was going for lunch with my Spanish friend and his family at their house! Funnily enough my Spanish was pants on that day, obviously the alcohol was taking over my mind.. Haha.

Moving on.. My mum and my family booked their flights out to see me the end of this month. So I did some research on hotels. I decided to go to one of the hotels I had seen online and ask for a price directly. When I arrived there a coach load of people had also arrived so I decided to sit in a pretty little Plaza for 15mins or so, so that the queue for the reception would have died down. Whilst I was sat there minding my business some random guy comes up to me and asks me if we were in Plaza Gran Capitan. I replied that I didn't know but assumed so as Calle Gran Capitan was very close by. He replied quite sarcastically asking me if I couldn't speak Spanish.. I told him that I could but I was new to Granada and therefore didn't know the streets very well yet. This seemed to satisfy him and he proceeded to sit down next to me.. He told about his little corner shop and how long he had lived in Spain etc etc. He asked if I had a boyfriend and I told him yes. I hoped this would put him off... I did not encourage him at all as I could see where it was going. He continued by saying how beautiful I was and what a nice person... I was getting creeped out!

I told him I had to go and he wanted to know where! I said I was meeting a friend right now! He still tried to follow me down the hill and asked me out for a drink. I told him straight NO! He finally got the hint and walked away.. Scary! I made sure he was gone before I went into the hotel to ask about prices - turns out it was ridiculously more expensive than booking online!

University....
We are now in week 3 at UGR. Last week I continued to go to a sociology lesson that I was really keen on taking and the teacher continued to not turn up. I went to the secretary furious and demanded to know what was happening because I was wasting my time! He took me to another office and the man in there informed me that there actually wasn't a teacher for this class and they were looking for a substitute ahhhh!!!
This meant I had to pick another module because I cannot wait around forever and take the risk that they won't find a teacher and may cancel the course.
Luckily Italian fitted into my timetable so I emailed the teacher to ask if it was ok if I joined the class after missing the first 2 weeks. He replied saying it was fine, I just need to catch up.

This is the silver lining because I have wanted to study Italian for a while, so now I have my opportunity and after my first lesson I love it!! I even got up early this morning to do my homework... I know geek right?!!

Even more exciting my boyfriend arrives today to visit me :D. I now have someone I can drag around with me to see all the sights hehe.

For now I bid you all farewell as I have to leave to go to uni in 10mins!!

Ciaoooooo!!!

Spanish bureaucracy....

¡¡¡Hola chicos!!!

Today was yet another eventful day here in rainy Granada!

My friend and I had to take our government forms which declare that we are living in Spain to the government building for foreigners so that we could get our Spanish I.D numbers. Doesn't sound too bad so far right?!
We left with plenty of time as we knew we had to get some photocopies of the documents they needed before walked there. Unfortunately it was absolutely hammering it down and we both knew our shoes were not waterproof nor did we bring any with us to Spain!

So after only being outside for about 5minutes and still getting soaked (walking to the printing and copying shop) we decided that taking a taxi was probably a far more sensible option. We popped into a shop asked for a taxi number and proceeded to call them.. The first time my friend got through the woman from the taxi company was very unhelpful as she insisted that they could not take us to the Plaza we needed to go without a road name and to call her back when we had one. So we hung up and got out the trusty map and found a road name. We called her back and this time she insisted that we needed a building number. We did not have one and she flatly refused to send a taxi to us without one! She even told my friend to ''ask them'' for the building number! She replied ''ask who?'' and the woman hung up... Great! So we resolved to walk it in the pouring rain.

After walking 15mins and looking more like drowned rats we found a parked taxi and decided to try it. Fortunately the taxi driver knew exactly where we wanted to go (without a building number or road name) and was happy to take us there. Perfect!

We arrived at the building with plenty of time to spare before it closed at lunch time so we were very pleased. We collected our ticket numbers to wait our turn and sat down. (It was much like the system at Argos!!)
My friend got called first and went in with all her documents... When she came out she looked very distressed and proceeded to tell me that the man on the desk would not accept her document from the University of Southampton and that she needed to bring her enrollment letter from the UGR. She had this document at home but had crossed through it as she thought she would not need it. Therefore she could not get her Spanish I.D. number..
I would have the exact same problem as I did not have this document either and I did not have it at home. We could not re-access this document as the UGR enrollment page had closed and there was no way for us to get any proof from the uni that we were erasmus students as we are not enrolled on their system yet!

It seemed we were in a bit of a predicament. By the time I got called up to the desk my friend had decided to argue our case and came with me. She explained to the man that we could not access these documents and that even if we could they aren't proof that we are erasmus as it was just our module selection page. He proceeded to have another look at our docs from Southampton. He went off to ask someone else and came back stroppily. Finally he processed both of our forms and gave us our Spanish I.D's. After getting these you have to go to the bank to pay a tax and then return to the office to receive an identity card with the I.D on. So arguing does work!

We then went off to the bank to pay the tax.. My friend went first, all was fine she paid, got her form stamped.. and then it was my turn. The man behind the desk entered my Spanish I.D. number and then told me that one of the numbers must be wrong as it wasn't going through. This meant I had to return to the government building, wait again to be seen and have someone check the number. It turns out the guy had written a 'Q' at the end instead of a 'R' .... grrrrrrrr!!!! So I had to go back to the bank again to pay my tax. Luckily it worked the second time. Then it was another trip back to the government building to hand in the stamped form in exchange for my I.D. card. This was all within 20mins of the office closing.

I got seen to pretty quickly and my form was processed and I got my card. I was very relieved! Luckily I checked the card and noticed that they had put I was born in Poole, Ireland instead of Poole, United Kingdom and therefore my nationality was Irish... I went back to the desk of the man who originally wrote my number wrong and he was very apologetic and said I had all the mistakes of the day! He managed to change my card for me despite the time being 13.50 (they closed at 14.00) and all other members of staff were running out the door at 13.55!!

After all the chaos not to mention the fact we were soaked through my friend and I decided we deserved an alcoholic drink and some tapas. I had beer and she had tinto de verano and we shared some great tapas.

I am pleased that we managed to survive the day! When I told my housemates what happened they laughed and said ''welcome to Spain!''. The Spanish are very aware that a lot of their systems out here are appalling and we have to get used to it!

Rant over!!

Adiós xx

Universidad de Granada (UGR)

Ok so firstly I will say how appalling the education system is in Spain!! Por ejemplo...;
Yesterday I had two classes I wanted to try both starting at 12. So I decided to go to The History of Islam but as I was waiting outside the classroom another Spanish student came up to me and explained that the teacher was not coming as there was a strike and they may be back on Thursday.. How annoying! So I decided to go to the other class at the same time and the teacher did turn up. However, there were so many students that the teacher decided to not take the class..

After returning home early for lunch and a siesta I felt slightly more positive about returning to the university for the afternoon. I attended another history of Spain class and overheard some Spanish students saying that it was a 5th year module.. That would explain why I found all the political terminology hard to understand! So after the class I went to the timetable board and picked some other modules to try from the first and second year (I had learnt how to read their complex timetabling at last!). Finally I went to the class I was really interested in - the history of Arabic women and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Although we were set homework.. boo!!!

Today I got up early to attend a sociology module at 9am. I was looking forward to this module as I loved it at A-Level. I arrived outside the classroom and sat alongside a Spanish girl and waited for the class and teacher to arrive. Another 5 students turned up but surprise surprise no teacher! We traipsed around the offices on the campus to ask what was going on and were palmed off and sent on a wild goose-chase! Eventually someone managed to tell us that the class had been suspended but the teacher failed to let the students know or put a notice on the board.

I was utterly p***ed off!! I got up when it was dark outside and traveled all the way to my campus for nothing! I used the time wisely when I returned home and returned some sheets I bought from El Corte Inglés for an extortionate price and swapped them for some from a Chinese shop for more than half the price - great success! 

Later I met with my friend for churros con chocolate mmmmmmmm before heading off to hand in our government form to show our temporary residency in España. Well firstly we entered what looked like an official building and turned out to be a school! Then went to a government building which sent us off to a university office nearby. They in turn sent us to a government building alongside it. However, the man at the desk told us that we could not give the form in there and would have to trek off to another area to hand it in.. We were not surprised at another wild goose-chase. Spanish bureaucracy is rather frustrating to say the least!!!

Nommmm check out those churros ;).

En fin, I am going to enjoy a cosy night in with my housemates (yes it is actually cold here and even rained today!) before attempting the UGR again tomorrow..

Wish me luck!!

Day one part two..

Ok so after a worrying start to the day (the bus breaking down and a lecturer not turning up) I vowed to plow on with the university in hope that the rest of the day would improve.. No such luck!
After returning after my lunch I went to one class - Historia de España actual (recent history of Spain). This was not so bad as the teacher was aware that there were a lot of erasmus students in the class and was very accommodating.

The second class I attended of Spanish as a foreign language started off well, with a great teacher but once he began to set work online (we cannot access as we can't enroll and don't have student i.d.) he soon realised that having erasmus students in his class was a bad idea. Therefore he recommended we took other modules and basically told us where to go! This puts us Spanish students in an awkward position as we were told by our uni we had to study a Spanish module and it seems that there aren't any for us!

Oh well, onwards and upwards! I went to my next class that I was really looking forward to - historia de las mujeres arabes (history of arabic women).. However, when I arrived the teacher began talking about Italy and I thought - hold on what the hell is going on here! Turns out it was a lesson about the history of Italian art (yawn yawn). I hate art, so imagine listening to someone talking about a subject you don't like in a foreign language for an hour.. Let me tell you, I was dying a slow death!!

Subsequent to this I checked the timetable board to see if I had mistaken the location of my module - but no I had the right class.. It appeared I had walked into the wrong room as it was so unclearly marked!

After the chaos of day one I can't say I am looking forward to tomorrow but let's see how it goes!

The definite highlight of my day was walking home from uni with my friend and watching the sunset. Then going to a Chinese restaurant for a four course meal and a drink for only €6 each! Bargain!!! Loved the vino de verano, was quite strong - just what I needed!

Well it is time for bed now so hasta luego chicos,

un beso!!

Bienvenido a mi blog!

Hello people!
I have decided that after two weeks of living in Granada - Spain that I have to write a blog. There is just too much to report!

So first of all I will go back to when I arrived here. I expected the journey to go smoothly as I have traveled  to Granada from Malaga several times already. So being very organised I had already booked my Alsa bus (much like National Express) ticket online in England before I left. I knew I had plenty of time from the landing of my flight until the bus was due to arrive so I was quite relaxed. I waited outside the airport in view of the bus stop eating my packed lunch my mum had made me as I waited the 40mins or so for the bus to arrive....

However, it seemed that on that particular day the bus was not going to turn up at all and I was stranded at Malaga airport. I was not the only one so it wasn't me being oblivious! There was another group of girls there that had been waiting the same amount of time as me and hadn't seen the bus. They decided to take a taxi to Malaga and take another bus from there. They must have thought I looked quite distressed as they kept asking me if I would be ok!! After all the emotional farewells at the airport and the week before, added to the early morning (4am).. it is no surprise that I was quite upset when the bus didn't arrive. With two heavy suitcases all alone I was not enjoying myself. I decided to take the bus to Malaga and then take a coach onto Granada. Inbetween texting my mum, my boyfriend (through teary eyes) and my friend who was meeting me at Granada bus station, I managed to get myself to Malaga and onto a coach. The wait at the airport had put me about 2hours behind schedule!!

Luckily my friend was able to meet still at Granada coach station and drove me to my flat... I was so grateful for that as I NEVER would have found it alone!!! I was very nervous and was hoping that the flat would be nice and luckily it was lovely. Very cute and homely. My housemates are very friendly and helpful too so I fell on my feet :D. It was definitely the right decision to live with Spanish people as I hear Spanish 24/7 at home, in the street, at uni, on tv etc etc etc.

My first week consisted mainly of settling in and trying to locate places. The latter I failed at badly and got lost many times!! Once I was walking for 2hours and could not work out where I was! (And they say Granada is a small town - hahaha). In all honesty the first week was a little boring for me as all my Spanish friends had exams and therefore no one was available to do anything.

In the second week I had to attend several meetings at the university designed to give us information about courses, enrollment etc. I realised that I did not bring copies of my passport or passport photos with me which resulted in many lengthy treks around the town to find places to get them.

My best advice so far is do not follow instructions from Spanish people!!! For example; go straight up that road, keep going, keep going and then turn left and you will see it... Well turn left at which point?!! How far is keep going?!!! I have got very lost following these vague instructions as you can imagine.

One particular funny incident I have to write about involves going to a tapas bar.. I went along with 2 English friends and we were trying all different types of tapas. I ordered one round and politely asked the waiter for ''croquetas de polla'' instead of ''croquetas de pollo''.. In English: croquettes of dick instead of chicken!!! How embarrassing but utterly hilarious! The difference of one letter hahaha!!

I promise I am rounding this off now and will leave with my experience of university that I had today.. Firstly on the way there the bus broke down! This meant I arrived to my first lesson late but luckily the teacher didn't seem to mind. I went along to my next lesson a little before starting time in order to not have to walk into another classroom late.. Well after sitting down inside for about 10/15mins with the rest of the class it was announced that the teacher wasn't going to turn up - brilliant!!

The uni system is clearly far more relaxed here than in England! Don't even get me started on the fact that we cannot enroll yet until we receive our student cards (in 2-3weeks). This means we can't select our modules, get our bus pass, eat in the uni canteens or anything! Guess I will have to be patient.. The mañana feeling is still unfamiliar to me!

Anyway, that is enough for now!

Hasta luego!!