From tourist to local...hopefully!

So I realize it´s been a while since I posted. It's not like I've been busy busy but rather just lazy. I have been taking pictures more often for those of you who feel I wasn't taking enough *cough mom cough* You can check them out on Facebook. Also this post is going to be a little scattered because it's been so long since my last post. I'm just writing things as I remember them so hopefully you'll be able to follow.

Most days I just can't believe I am living here in a completely different country. I mean as soon as I walk out of my room and hear rapid fire Spanish it kind of hits me in the face. But even though it's been only 2 weeks that I've been here it's still amazing to walk around and I tend to just be in awe of my walk.

So far the hardest part I think is the weather. In the morning it'll be around 55 degrees when I wake up at like 9:30 and then it almost seems to get hot with a snap of the fingers. When I walk to class around 3:30 I am sweating buckets even with the cool breeze. It's been pretty much stuck around 85 degrees and walking up hill the entire time with the sun beating down on me is pretty painful for me--especially since I feel like I have to sit through 4 hours of class in my own stink. Thankfully I know the temperature is supposed to go down soon so it won't be as suffocating.

That right there is my only complaint. Everything else is pretty amazing.


Most amazing thing that's happened was yesterday (Friday). I was walking to class and I got stopped by someone who was asking for directions. One thing on my wish list for this trip was to be confused for a local. Sadly I don't know Granada well enough to be able to help the family but they still thought I lived here so yay! It was a pretty amazing moment for me and basically I was smiling the whole rest of the time I walked to class. Now I've changed the goal to being: Getting asked for directions and being able to give proper directions--completely in Spanish. Here's hoping!

The good thing is I'm already feeling pretty confident making my way around the city. The main roads are way less complicated than Pittsburgh's so that's a plus. The problem is that there are so many tiny roads that just make random turns out of nowhere. It makes it a little harder to navigate through side streets. It really helps that it's a pretty easy city to roam around. There's like next to no chance you'll end up in a bad part of town because there really aren't bad bad parts of town. There can be some when it's night time but I don't make it a point to go exploring at night so I should be safe. There hasn't been a moment that I've felt scared because the city is just full of people walking around so I haven't ever been the only one walking down a street. There's also way less homeless people/beggars than Pittsburgh believe it or not.

Today was a good day for exploring. Instead of eating the muffins for breakfast like we usually get we both decided we wanted go out for breakfast. We ended up at this place near one of the main roads. It was farther than we'd walked before but we just walked through the park new our place and along the river and eventually ended up at this restaurant. I got a piece of fresh bread toasted and I dribbled olive oil over it and then drank a cafe con leche. The total for my breakfast was 2 euro and it was so good! My roommate had a coke and a tortilla española (think quiche without the crust and with potatoes and onions. It's seriously amazing!) for only 4 euro. She was stuffed too. The restaurant is located in a pretty busy part of town but mostly because it's right across of a grocery store and on one of the main street of Granada.

Everything about this city draws me in--well except for the massive amounts of dog poop on the sidewalks. It's a bit ridiculous how much dog poop there is left on the sidewalks. Somedays it's like walking through a minefield. When we first arrived in Granada I saw a sign reminding you to pick up your dog's poop but I just thought it was like a friendly reminder....now I see it was more of a necessary command....Despite the dog poop Granada is a pretty clean city. There are street cleaning and sidewalk cleaning vehicles out daily. Below is a picture that I attempted to take to show you the dog poop reminder and the street cleaning vehicle. Excuse the poor quality...I literally basically ran behind it to be able to take these pictures....

But yeah they're out there daily...but I mean the dog poop they can't really do anything about. There are just so many freaking dogs--I swear like every 5th person on the street is walking with their dog. It's great! I saw the most adorable big dog today. I have no idea what breed it was but I wanted it haha It had long hair-like fur and floppy ears but was huge. It was the coolest looking dog and I'm so made I didn't take a picture because It looked really well behaved.

Anyways. Granada is beautiful despite the dog poop and I am loving it here minus the seemingly drastic temperature changes....