La ciudad de Granada

I walked around Granada today with a group of students, and I fell in love with the city! The buildings are all so old and beautiful, the Alhambra is huge, and the mountains are the perfect background to a true Spanish city. For those of you on Facebook, I posted a bunch of pictures I took of the city on there today. This city is so different than American cities. There is a great mix of Spanish/European and Arabic cultures. The streets are crazy and narrow. They are all stone or marble, and only a few streets actually have street "signs" which consist of a randomly placed plaque on the side of a building, not always on the corner of the street. This makes getting around with a map pretty difficult, so I mostly rely on my sense of direction (which has drastically improved since I got here) and try very hard to remember some visual representation on every important street corner. There is a surplus of grand cathedrals here, with a giant one in the center of the city near my school.

The spaniards eat a small breakfast (we've had two pieces of toast and butter every morning) and then eat a huge lunch at 2 or 3. So far this lunch has consisted of soup, salad, Spanish tortilla (which is basically an omlette with potatoes), sometimes bread and cheese, and dessert. I don't know how they manage going so many hours between breakfast and lunch without eating. It drives all of us American students crazy! During lunch time, or the siesta, everything in the city closes. From 2-4pm you cannot go into any stores. Around 4pm, stores open again and the city gets busy again. At 9 or 10, they eat a light dinner, or go out for tapas. In Granada, if you order a drink at a tapas bar, you get free tapas. This is a great bonus :)

Speaking of tapas, it's time for me to go out and eat some! I posted a picture of the city from the top of a hill. Enjoy!