Author: Gabrielle Neuman

Location: Granada, Spain

 

If my calculations are correct, I’ve been in Granada, Spain, for about 6 full days now.  You would think that nearly 6 days isn’t enough time to get to know a new place or learn anything about the culture you’re living in.  I beg to differ.  First, I’ve experienced traveling on my own for the first time and how to deal with transportation mishaps.  While it wasn’t too fun at the time, looking back on it now I definitely learned more from things not working out rather than I would have had it been smooth sailing the whole way.  People always say that you learn from your mistakes, which is hard to fully believe when you hear it, yet now that I’ve taken part in that experience, I can vouch for its validity first hand.  About 28 hours after I started my adventure in the U.S. I finally made it to Granada.  Then the facts that I hadn’t eaten for nearly 12 hours and had slept for a cumulative of 4 hours during that 28 hour trip hit me hard.  Plus then there was the lovely aspect of jetlag to deal with.  Long story short, sleep is a beautiful thing and so is the city of Granada.

On Monday I was able to wander my new city for about 5 hours, taking in the different sights and beginning to familiarize myself with the main roads, yet most definitely not understanding where I was at that time.  A major point of success was being able to make my way back to the hotel I was staying at.  Tuesday began the first “real day” when we met all of the other students we were going to be spending the rest of the semester with—people I had only seen on Facebook (if you ever want strangers to become quick friends, send them to a foreign country together—it works wonders).  Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect.  I hadn’t previously known these people yet they were the ones I would be spending a lot of time with over the next 5 months.  I can confidently say after one week that I’m so fortunate to have these 13 other students around me and that I already know that some of them will be lifelong friends, as cliché as that sounds.

Tuesday was also the day that we met our program director and our host families.  One of the first things our program director, Veronica, told us was that she wanted us to get lost.  It was my third full day in this country and I had successfully done this…twice.  Soon after making it to my host family’s home (my host mom and family are both great by the way), I left to make photocopies for the next day of meetings and quickly achieved the “goal” of getting lost.  All is well, obviously, but it wasn’t as enjoyable getting lost alone on small side streets as Veronica had made it sound.

Over the next few days our group experienced the city center of Granada through a tour with our awesome guide and teacher, Jose, along with a walk through Albaycín which has amazing views of the famous Alhambra (seen in the pictures).

There is so much more that could be said about this adventure after only one week, and the pictures don’t do justice to any of the views of this beautiful city.  I have so much to look forward to these next 5 months, even more to learn about the people, city, and culture, and as much as I hate to admit it, I have an endless amount of mistakes to make and learn from.