Destacados de la Semana Pasada

Ay, que mucho ha pasado.  A lot has happened in the last week, so I'm going to try and show you the destacados, or highlights.



Let's start with last Saturday.  Me and a group of people went to this town that borders Granada city called Monachil.  It is really well known as a place to hike as it has lots of small hills you can climb and paths to follow.  It even has a suspension puente, bridge, that goes for 40 meters. We spent several hours there and enjoyed the view from atop of a rock, and man, was it breathtaking.  I don't know if it's just because we're in Europe, but everything looks and feels better here.  The rocks had a great color scheme of gray, red, and dark gold that interrupted the crisp blue skyline.  We even ate lunch on top of one of them.

After we hiked up, we decided to follow a path through a cave that led to a stream.  We crossed the stream and took another break.  As I was eating my naranja, or orange, I threw the peels into the bushes, an action that unintentionally invited a small guest to come dine with us.  This mouse started munching on the peels and staring at us.  After our quick break, we kept following the path until we found a field.  Though as beautiful it could have been, it was covered with cow pies.  This is where we decided to turn around and head home.

Sunday: returned to the beach, but a different beach than before.  I told you we went to Salobreña, but we were in the mood to try a different place called Almuñecar, which is supposed to be the second best place behind Nerja, which is much further away.  Nerja also has caves to explore and hills to climb, but it is two hours away. Anyways, we went to Almuñecar and found actual sand as opposed to the rocks that Salobreña offered us.  There was also a cheap ice cream place that had one scoop for 90 centimos, or cents.  And then we played frisbee with our green, large frisbee that was super cheap at a chino store.  Just for your information, that is not a racist common as there are these cheap stores that are owned by the Chinese.  That's where I bought my costume for Carnaval.


Wednesday: Fútbol.  I was so excited to play a competitive sport, and I did miss soccer, but man was I overwhelmed by the amount of running I had to do. Firstly, it was 5 on 5 soccer, meaning four in the field and one goalie.  The field is smaller than a normal 6 v. 6 field meaning that there is a lot of back and forth which means a lot of running.  Even worse was that it was on concrete.  We had 12 people on our team, so we were subbing in and out constantly.  Unfortunately, we lost by 4 goals, but we attributed that to getting back into the game.  Luckily, we think we have another game this week in the loser's bracket, but vamos a ver, we will see.

Friday: La Fiesta de la Primavera.  This must be the biggest party that Granada has because there were thousands of people gathered in one area near our house.  They were celebrating the coming of Spring, primavera.  At this location, there is no open container law and thus people from all over Spain, including people we met from Madrid, come and hang out and drink.  The party started at 1 PM, but we went around 5 and stayed for a few hours.  It was pure craziness.  There were just people everywhere.  It was definitely a good way to meet Spaniards as they were on our left and rights, our fronts and backs.  So we talked to them while we could, but as soon as the sun started to set, we left.  We had been warned that it can get kind of dangerous after dark.


Saturday: El Día de San Patricio, St. Patrick's Day.  Now, I spent last St. Patrick's Day in Canada where it wasn't done over the top as it is in the United States.  I had the same expectations for here, and I was right.  All we had to do was find a nice Irish bar and we actually found two and had a great time.  I even got a hat for drinking two Guinnesses.  Dunn's would be proud.  Especially because it is supposed to be a Guinness with a clover as it's coaster.



Sunday: Today.  I should be studying for midterms seeing as I have 5 in three days, but I'm only worried about two of them.  Those are the two I took a break from to write this long post to catch you all up on what I've been doing this past week.  Aquí está, and there it is.  Until my next cultural experience, ¡hasta luego!