A tiring touristy weekend.

This weekend has been a touristy one as Erin came to visit Granada for a few days.  On Thursday I just had one class to go to before going to meet Erin from the bus, I rather unenthusiastically dragged myself up the hill and into the classroom just for the teacher to turn up and tell us that there would be no class.  As you can imagine I was not impressed, not just because I'd got myself up there but also because next week we are missing a class because of a strike and I could really do with the lesson time for Latin if I am going to stand half a chance in the exam.  Still, there is nothing I can do about it, ♫ Que sera sera ♫ and all that, so off I went back down the hill to the flat.  When Erin arrived things were not quite as straight forward as they could've been, the internet says that the bus stop is at Triunfo Gardens so logically that is where I was waiting when I received a text from Erin telling me she had just got off of the bus, yet she was no where to be seen.  Some confusion and rough directions later and we found each other after the bus had quite helpfully dropped her off down the road, not even in sight of the gardens!  With the initial confusion over we spent the afternoon having a wander round the city, and even went inside the cathedral which I'd still not done.  We ate in a really nice restaurant where the food was really moorish (Sorry, I think I have spent too much time around Jack and his terrible puns, I won't do it again...), I had a lovely cous cous dish with vegetables and we also had some arabic tea afterwards too.

Friday brought with it a trip up into the Sierra Nevada.  I didn't really know what to expect but knew that I should make the most of my chance to go up into the snowy mountains and enjoy the views before it all melted away.  The bus ride is only 45 minutes and cost us less than 10 euros for the return which was really reasonable.  The views on the bus journey are amazing and every time you think that you couldn't possibly be driving any higher you turn another corner and up you climb a bit more.  We were prepared for the cold with hats, scarves, gloves, hoodies and gillets but it wasn't as cold up there as we'd been expecting.  In fact we sat outside a bar drinking cold drinks and watching the ice melt before our eyes.  Being so warm and sunny yet surrounded by snow was more than a little surreal I must say!  Whilst we were there we took the cable car up higher, we think it was around 8200ft, to really make the most of it.  It was quite expensive at 16.50 each but worth it to appreciate the views up there, we'd been walking round the bottom of the resort which was absolutely dead, we soon discovered it was because they were all at the next stage up, there were loads of people!  After another sit down with a drink in the sun we headed back down to have some lunch before getting on the bus again.  In the evening we met up with the others to go out for tapas, we tried the Chinese tapas to start off with which was a strange concept but the food was good and that was all that mattered!  The last place we went to had a huge range of tapas to chose from and we had some really good fajitas, will certainly be going there again.

On Saturday we woke up to the rather disappointing sight of clouds and everything looking generally grey but this actually turned out to our advantage because although it rained a little it made our day a lot easier.  We walked (or more accurately climbed) up to the Alhambra where we queued, in order to queue, in order to just queue again! You'd think we were in England, we like queuing there, it's our national sport, but the Spanish don't generally like to partake in such an activity!  Despite all the queuing we had a really good time, but we did an awful lot of walking and consequently by the end of the evening after we'd been out my feet were in no fit state to walk home and we ended up getting a taxi- stupid blisters!  We'd not eaten anything for lunch before we went into the Alhambra and so were rather hungry when we eventually caved in to the temptation of buying a packet of gullible tourist priced biscuits from a stall, half a packet is a nutritious lunch right?!  We did eventually eat again when we got back into town and went for tapas, including another visit to the Chinese tapas place.  In the evening we went to Paddys with the others for a few drinks, finally arriving back at the flat in time to change the clocks and see an hour of our sleep for the night go flying out of the window...

Today I've not done much, in fact I don't really think I've done anything.  I walked to the bus stop (that this time actually was at Truinfo Gardens) to say goodbye to Erin and then headed back to the flat where I have successfully done one load of washing, written this blog and put my photos on facebook.  For those of you that want to see my photos from the weekend I've put them all (or at least am in the process of...)on flickr as opposed to Facebook where I have only uploaded half.

This week is going to be a short one as the Spanish are going on general strike on Thursday so I won't have my classes.  I do have an exam on Wednesday though which I have no clue about the content so that should be rather interesting.  Oh well!  Just 3 days of classes to get through before a few days off and then off on holiday for a week!  I can't wait now, it should be really good.  As well as looking forward to seeing my friends (obviously) I'm really looking forward to getting to see a Spanish Easter parade on Maundey Thursday.  At the end of this week I'll be half way through my classes out here in Granada and a third of the way through my time in Spain.  6 weeks down and 12 to go!

I'm settled in, now what?

As you may well know from my previous blog posts I've been here for 5 and a half weeks now and haven't really been up to much.  Don't worry, it's not like I've been locked in my room for all this time or anything, I have been out and about but I've not had any big plans or gone any further than the beach.  That's been good for the settling in period but this week I've been hit with the feeling that I really need to do something, because if I don't I start realising how I miss everything and everyone at home and it's far too early to be doing that.  Some of you probably read Lucys blog too and will have seen in her most recent post that she talks of the "post-settling-in and pre-holiday slump" and I think she has hit the nail on the head.  We've gone through our first month or so discovering everything that is around us, got into our routine and now need something to break it up a bit.  For me I think the realisation came over me when I got up at 7 on Monday to head up for my classes and was no longer so willing to do it and just wanted someone else to go for me.  I had this in Brussels too, it was the point at which everything became boring/normal, and I had a few weeks until the next exciting thing I had planned, I think it was going back to Lancaster for the weekend.  This time around the timing couldn't be better, Erin arrives tomorrow and we're going to go and enjoy the apparently brilliant views up in the Sierra Nevada as well as going to the Alhambra which I've still not done yet.  After that I'll just have a few days to wait until I go on holiday and get to see Katy, Charlotte and Vicki for the first time since January.  As if I didn't already have enough to look forward to whilst I am out here I have now planned to spend the final week of the summer term in Lancaster so that I can go to Grad ball, extrav etc, meet a few people that I need to see and also collect my keys to the house for next year, but most importantly catch up with the people that by then I won't have seen in months.  It does mean however that I will be spending around 1 day at home between flying back from here and driving up there, and in that time I'll need to buy a dress for Grad Ball... should be interesting!