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.

written by  Taryn Hawkins on September 25, 2009 from Granada, Spain
from the travel blog: Granada
Send a Compliment

---

Thank you for the run down of your schedule. I have been very curious about that and wondering what your days are really like. It does sound like you have a lot of down time. Does this experience make you want to host a student from another country at some time in your life? It sort of makes me want to do that! I read your post and think, "wow, if I had two students in my home with so much down time, I would love to take them around and show them the day-to-day experiences of life in America and then take them sight seeing or .... gosh, I can think of lots of fun things to do." You should talk to your host sister and see if she wants to do some stuff with you guys. Ask her to take you to the grocery store and talk about the different foods, etc. Do they have zoos there? I can hardly wait to read your next post and see if you made it through the Running of the Bulls.
--T

written by  Teresa Haselmann on October 2, 2009

---

yea it actually makes me think, oh gosh, i wouldn't ever do this. haha. i think i just would not know what to do with/for a student like myself in this situation. and our host sister is not very social...and she is sort of condescending-ish with us...
one thing that bothers me the most is when we tell our senora thank you, she tells us, no, dont say thank you, this is my obligation, this is my job. just kind of like...im doing this because i have to, not because i want to..
and now i forgot what else i wanted to say. haha

written by  Taryn Hawkins on October 2, 2009

comment on this...