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Taryn Hawkins

47 Blog Entries
1 Trip
53 Photos

Trips:

Granada

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http://www.blogabond.com/TarynHawkins24




hills & valleys, but mostly hills

Granada, Spain

yesterday was our hike called the hills and valleys of granada. think they just put 'and valleys' in there so people would go on the hike. they lady leading said that it would be almost vertical the whole way, up and down.


they were very, very steep. the only 'valley' we walked through was at the top of the mountain where we ate lunch, then we went back to the hills.
it was crazy knowing that i was actually in the mountains. all around me were mountains..

the hike left me very sore today...
i got to skype withmy whole family minus jake yesterday and grandma hawkins was there! it was very nice to see and talk everyone.

permalink written by  Taryn Hawkins on September 27, 2009 from Granada, Spain
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corridas de toros

Granada, Spain

we went to the corridas de toros today. it was horrible. i did learn that it was a benefit for downs syndrome so i guess that makes it a little better. there were three matadors, they each went twice. they all went once, then it was break time. it was pretty funny, everyone pulled out their 'bocadillos' which are sandwhiches made at home. we need to get one every time we arent home for a meal. then each matador went again. the first one was really bad. i had no idea what to expect. it was very hard to watch..a lot of our group actually left after the first one. the second one made me feel a little better because the bull was very feisty and was NOT taking it, the matador actually fell and got stabbed with a horn...sadly, this was my favorite part of the whole thing. it was so graphic and bloody and very very cruel. i'm glad i got the 'cultural experience' but i will not go again. here are some pictures.

the first one i tried to use an interesting feature on my camera where it brightens a certain color, in this case, red.
the first picture is of the second matador. if the audience thinks the matador did really well they wave white rags, if the majority of the audience is waving the rags the matador gets the big prize...the ear of the bull he just killed. so that's him showing off his prize.
i took a few videos so if anyone is interested i can try to send one to you through email, i can't upload them. but be warned, it can get icky. i have one where it's just the bull charging the flags, but other ones where the bull is hurting quite a bit :(

permalink written by  Taryn Hawkins on September 27, 2009 from Granada, Spain
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12

Granada, Spain


this is outside of the hotel we stayed at in almería, its very hidden by the palm trees, but it was a grogeous hotel, very big and spacious.

when my camera decided to work again, we were waiting for the bus, so the only picture of monito that i have is of him in the lobby of the hotel...at the bottom of the palm tree.

so i finished another week. i dont remember if i've said what this class is like, but it's four hours a day. the first two hours i have with one professor, and the next two is with another. my second professor has been gone all week and our exam is on tuesday...

my days here right now basically go like this..
wake up at 730, hit snooze til 8, have my two pieces of toast and water for breakfast, walk 30 minutes to class that starts at 9, class til 1, walk back home and hang out maybe mini siesta til lunch at 230, then real siesta, which is usually about three hours for me when i can sleep, then liz and i usually just hang out in our rooms, maybe read the books we bought in spanish, maybe watch the jungle book that i bought in spanish, but cheat and really watch it in english, spanish subtitles if we're feeling ambitious, then dinner at 930.

something we have been kind of...wondering about, i guess, is what we're supposed to be doing in all of our down time. because we have a lot of it. all of our friends say the same thing too, we just hang out in our rooms. it almost seems rude but we don't know what else to do. conversation during meals is usually pretty forced to begin with, and spanish tv gives me a headache. plus, i dont know how much more of the TMZ-like spanish gossip tv i can take. this is what our host sister watches all day every day when she's not on her computer.
just about every day since we got here, the story has been about this matador who had an affair with this woman who had his child. so the girl is ten years old now...and it's still being talked about...every day.

tonight we are going out for tapas. tomorrow we have a four hour hike which i am very scared for. the past hikes we've had have been two hours, i cant imagine having to climb up these mountains for four hours straight.
sunday i'm going to a corridas de torros...running of the bulls. i absolutely do not support this event whatsoever, i actually think it is very cruel, i'm going to root on the bulls!!
i saw something recently that said that hunting can only be called a sport when the animals can shoot back. i sort of see the running of the bulls kind of like hunting. i'm going for the cultural experience fully expecting not to be able to make it through the whole thing.



permalink written by  Taryn Hawkins on September 25, 2009 from Granada, Spain
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week 4

Almeria, Spain

I'm not really in Almería anymore, but when I put it in the city, it shows where i went on my map. can you guys see the map of where i've been?

we left saturday morning to go to the beach for the night. it was very nice to get out of granada. we ended up with good weather which was lovely. i only have a few pictures from the weekend because my camera decided to temporarily break, it's fine now, but i'm really hoping i won't have to deal with that again while i'm here.
the picture is of my friend at dinner...i said something like people would think we havent eaten in three weeks the way we're eating this free buffet, and everyone kind of looked at eachother and said...that's because we haven't been eating for three weeks...

a week from today is our exam for this class. it's hard to believe i'm going to get 5 credits for it, we have done just about nothing, but i'll take it.

there aren't too many new updates. i was having trouble with my phone so all week i have been trying to get it clarified. i ended up having to argue with this woman for over 20 minutes about a mistake she made and wouldn't admit it, in spanish. that's the first time i've been in a situation like that by myself.

i'm trying my hardest to stay positive, but i'm still having a really hard time adjusting to all of this. i'm having a hard time staying focused which worries me with classes starting soon. we had a culture shock meeting tonight that didn't give as much info as i would have liked, but i talked to my resident director and she said that at this point culture shock shouldn't be as bad as it's affecting me...

this is what i've been doing to keep me sane.
i appreciate all of your notes and emails, they keep me goin

permalink written by  Taryn Hawkins on September 22, 2009 from Almeria, Spain
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"La vida Española es como el teatro"

Granada, Spain

In class today, we talked a lot about the differences between the cultures in the US, Japan, Norway, and Spain. Mostly between the US and Spain, there is one girl from Japan, and one girl from Norway in our class.

My prof told us the way to really get our señoras to stop giving us food. She said to say "no quiero más, de verdad" which means, I don't want more, it's true. HA
She also said that basically the spanish life is like theater. If someone asks you if you want to do something, they really don't want to do it unless they say it AT LEAST three times AND say "de verdad"
So if a group of friends are walking home and someone says, do you guys want to come hang out? the polite thing to say is no...maybe some other time, and if thats the end of the conversation, leave it at that, but if they say, yea come hang out de verdad come hang out, lets hang out, then it's okay to say alright let's hang out.

When asking for something, it's rude not to explain why. So if I say, do you mind if i open the window? it's "maleducado" or rude, to not say, it's because i'm hot. And the response i'll get is, "si abrela, abrela, abrela"....or yea, open it (3 times) ha.

If you go out to eat with someone, when it comes to paying the bill, if one person offers to pay, it is maleducado to not say no i'll pay it..which I think is sort of similar to the US. BUT what happens here is that the two people go back and forth until the waiter comes over, then at that point the person who offered first, must pay the bill.
(so why go through the whole motion every time...??)

If you're out with a big group of people, when it comes to paying the bill, it is usually split. This is where I would be missin out! So weather you drank water and owe nothing, or drank ten beers, you split the bill between however many people are at the table, end of story.

If someone says oh i have a headache, you are supposed to say something worse...oh i broke my toe three years ago...and this will go back and forth. I said..it's not a competition when it comes to pain, and she said, oh yea, in España it is.

que diferente...



permalink written by  Taryn Hawkins on September 17, 2009 from Granada, Spain
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weekend festivities

Granada, Spain


Nerja beach
friday night we went for tapas again then one of my professors told us about free, outdoor, live music. we had no idea what to expect but decided to try it out. it ended up being this huge carnival with tons of little kids rides and bouncy things and a people selling jewelry and clothes and stuff everywhere. we found the music..it was a huge concert. it was obvious that this band, los delinquentes, are pretty popular here because there were SO MANY people and every single person knew every word of every song. and it was HUGE. a giant stage and tons and tons of people. we ended up getting about ten rows from the front. it was very fun for the first few songs, but i'm not so much a big group person..

last night half of our group went to a rave in Malaga :\ and everyone else who was here wanted to go to a discoteca which is basically a club, but is only open from 3am to 8am. so i went out for tapas with that group then came back to the apt and went to bed! ha i'm lame. i decided it was a very good decision seeing as i rolled over at 630am and my roomie was still not back. i enjoy my sleep and like i said before i don't like big groups either..and i don't drink.
today was our first sunday here in granada and it was pretty boring...which was alright for today. liz and i went out for churros, she got chocolate and i got honey :) the churros here are not like churros in the US. they have no cinnamon or sugar on the outside, its just basically fried dough with either chocolate or honey. i was not a huge fan.
back to class tomorrow then the beach next weekend. i'm looking forward to an uninterrupted, warm shower, and supposedly great food.


permalink written by  Taryn Hawkins on September 13, 2009 from Granada, Spain
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Araaaabian nigghtts and...pants

Granada, Spain

A couple of days ago we went to an Arabic tea party. the place we went to was very cool. unfortunately i could not locate my camera while we were rushing out the door, but hopefully i will be able to get some pictures from someone else.
we all got to sit on those pillow like chairs super close to the ground and they had very relaxing music...and this woman did some belly dancing. she then told us the story of 1001 nights. it's pretty interesting and quite popular so if you don't know it, you should look it up :p

she also showed us how to make arabic tea. she used spearmint leaves that smelled SO GOOD, and hot water and about 6 tablespoons of sugar in every pot. haha yikes. the whole thing was pretty interesting, but mostly relaxing and nice to be around a lot of the people from the group.

so there's this pretty...cool..trend going on here. haha. the women and some men wear these genie pants. like..full on aladin pants. the women here are stick thin and absolutely gorgeous and can totally pull them off in a very bizarre way. they are everywhere though. other than that kind of quirky thing, most of the clothes here are..normal? i guess. i don't think we have to do much to blend in, but i'm sure we still stick out. we were actually stopped a few times for directions so i guess we don't stick out too much! very cool to be able to tell someone in spanish how to get somewhere when i've been here for less than two weeks...

other than that it seems to have slowed down quite a bit...school is starting to feel like school, and the semester hasn't actually started yet. everyone is very very ready for it to cool down, but last night was the first night that i actually used my sheet to cover up with so that might be a good sign, and all i can think about when i'm hungry is how much i miss my mom's food! i am already thinking about what i'm going to want to be my first meal when i get back... :)

ps- i miss my grandmas a lot. anyone know if grandma hawkins' virus was fixed? and anyone think grandma june will get email anytime soon? haha

pps- our friend morgan, liz and i booked flights to florence! we'll be there the beginning of october

permalink written by  Taryn Hawkins on September 10, 2009 from Granada, Spain
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maiillll tiiiiime!

Granada, Spain

helllloooo hellloooo

so even though I have my best friend here, I still get lonely. Actually, we both do. For the past few nights we have been pushing out beds together to make one big bed so there isn't two and a half feet between our beds. So! If anyone wants to send me mail, and it's a decent price to send mail from the U.S. to Spain ( i have no idea how much it would cost) then here is the address you can mail it to :)

Taryn Hawkins
AIFS
Plaza del Campillo, 2
Edificio Maciá, 3^E
18009 Granada-Spain

  • **replace the ^ with a little circle degrees sign :) (that's the 'rd' here)


    • other than that we went to the Alhambra which was beautiful, I'll try to put some pictures up, and tomorrow we are going to an Arabic tea ceremony.
    Also! If anyone wants to visit...cough uncles danny and mike and maybe ronny cough.....or anyone else. I would love visitors..... :)
    just let me know asap so i can make sure i don't plan individual travel during that time. I have Fridays off of class too :D
    hasta luego (in granada, hathta luego)




    permalink written by  Taryn Hawkins on September 7, 2009 from Granada, Spain
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    Siestas and Fiestas

    Granada, Spain

    I’ve heard a lot about the siesta in spain, but never really thought too much about it. Siestas are real and are taken very very seriously here. From about 2-5 pm everything in Granada is closed. The few big stores that are kind of like macy’s and walmart are the only things open during this time. Everyone goes home to take a siesta. Sure enough, if liz and I come back to the apt between that time, our host sister is back from work and sleeping and our host mom is sleeping as well. After siesta our host sister gets ready for work again and is off to another job. Our resident director, paula, told us that the only people on the streets during siesta are the weirdys and the Americans. The siesta is something I can definitely get used to and once we get settled in I for sure will take advantage of it.
    On our first Friday night in Granada about 15 girls from the group (I think I have only met about 3 guys from AIFS, they are way outnumbered here) went out for tapas. This is something I also read about before coming here, but couldn’t fully understand it till I tried it. When we told our host mom we were going out for tapas, she was thrilled because they, along with the siesta, are such a huge part of the Spanish culture. With every drink you order, you get one free tapa, which is kind of like an appetizer. For 15 people ordering one drink we got four plates of tapas. We were told that the more drinks you order, the better the tapas get. Good for me, a diet coke counts as a drink  our first tapa was potato salad and four pieces of bread with a very thinly sliced piece of beef? Maybe? On top of the bread, per plate. The second one was pieces of meat, again, not quite sure what kind, and slices of this egg/potato/onion bake thing. Lastly, the group got these baby fried salmon…which pretty much still had eyeballs, and this salsa salad. The salad was probably the best thing I’ve eaten since I’ve been here. It was a very comfortable atmosphere to be in. We were sitting outside for three hours at the tapa bar. After dark is a nice break from the extreme heat of 100 plus degrees that we have been having.

    permalink written by  Taryn Hawkins on September 5, 2009 from Granada, Spain
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    first days of class

    Granada, Spain

    This was our first week of class that started yesterday. I go to class from 9-1 and half way through we switch professors. Both of my professors are really funny. There are 17 kids in my class. Everyone in my class is from the United States except for one girl is from Japan. We have been doing a lot of get to know you kinds of things and very little actually learning, but I'm sure that will change soon.
    Today was the first ever day that I realized how much I appreciate knowing a second language..kinda. Ha I'll explain.
    The prof gave us partners to do a get to know you game, I was paired with the girl from Japan. She know zero English. It was SO COOL to be communicating with someone who doesn't know English, and obviously I know zero Japanese. Very interesting. It kind of made me realize the importance of communication...I don't know if that makes sense, but it provoked thought :p

    We plan to go to the beach (the Mediteranean coast!) on Sunday. Tomorrow we are hiking up to see the Ahlambra.

    permalink written by  Taryn Hawkins on September 4, 2009 from Granada, Spain
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