I am truly sorry that I haven't posted a blog in so long. And since it has been so long, I have a lot to fill you in on. I have been on two big trips since I posted last, Granada and Toledo.

There were eight of us that went to Granada (Amanda, Heather, Lane, Aubrey, Ben, Abi, and Cameron). It was so much fun!! We went up on Friday night and got a little lost on our way to the hostel. After about an hour and a half of wandering the streets, we finally found it! What we didn't realize when booking it, is that it was situated on the top of a mountain, basically. So we had to hike up the narrow cobblestone streets up to the hostel, which was quite the work-out. We visited the Alhambra the next day which was the main reason why we had gone to Granada. The Alhambra is the Nazari Palace that was built in the 14th Century which most of us had studied in our art class. It was really neat to be able to walk in all of the rooms that we had learned so much about.. we were definitely able to appreciate it more that way. Our hostel was situated at a very touristy place where there is a beautiful view of the Alhambra, as you can see in the picture below

 

I am holding my backpack strangely because they told me I couldn't wear it on my back... still not sure why it mattered...

So after the Alhambra we walked around the beautiful town and side streets of Granada. One really cool thing that only happens in Granada is that they have a deal at every bar/restaurant, that if you buy a drink you get a free tapa with it. Tapas are typical dishes that they have here that range from Croquetas (which are basically just balls of ham and cheese) to jamón cerrano (ham). We took advantage of this deal and enjoyed some free food at the expense of a Coke, which I thought was great! Well, those are the main highlights from the Granada trip, it was a whole lot of fun times spent with some awesome people!

Next trip was to Toledo (yes, Glenn... I said Toledo). This was with the whole program, so all 42 of us were in attendance. It was a long trip, about 7 hour bus ride (wasn't expecting it to be that long..) but we left super early, so most of us slept the whole way there. We did stop to see the legendary windmills from Don Quijote, which were very cool. It was cold, but we were able to get some fun pictures there.

We visited the Cathedral in Toledo among other things. We stayed at a really nice hotel that served an amazing complimentary breakfast Saturday morning of which we were told about five times that we couldn't take food from. Although, I think some people did take some fruit :) What can we say? We are hungry Americans that will probably never be used to the meal schedule here.

Anyways, I know this is a very general overview of both these trips but I felt like I should send you guys at least something since it had been so long. I miss everyone so much! I hope your semesters are going well and that they aren't too stressful. We head out for Barcelona today and we will be there until Sunday, more info on that soon! :)