Along with marking one month until my 17th birthday (am I really gonna be 17?!), Friday was the last day of my first week if school in Spain.
I know that surviving a week of school doesn't sound like a reason to celebrate, but when you had a week like mine, it sure as hell is.
School was actually kind of good on Friday! Besides having my economics class (I literally understand nothing), I enjoyed myself. I'm actually a little excited for some of my classes this year!
Something amazing happened to me at recreo- a girl came up to me and said that her and some other girls wanted to be my friend! It was so crazy!! So I went over and talked to them in my broken Spanish (they also practiced their English with me a little) and I think I made real friends...like, by myself (usually I'm introduced to people by others, like my host brothers). We exchanged numbers and talked about having lunch together sometime! I couldn't stop smiling.
After school, I walked home with Karly (Samuel didn't come to school because he had a big fat English test outside of school that day). I forget what we had for lunch at home, but I remember I liked it (on account of that I like everything that I've eaten so far).
When we finished our comida, I finished The Catcher in the Rye. I don't think I completely understand the story, but I liked it a whole awful lot.
When you finish a book, it kinda feels like your life has no meaning. So, I texted Karly. I went over to her house and we used this fancy exfoliator that smells like apricots that we bought at the pharmacy.
With our faces feeling fresh, we just hung out in her room for a couple hours. We oogled over IOS 7 (the new iPhone update), showed eachother pictures of our friends from America, and made plans for our night out.
We were a little nervous about going out to the city center that night because this time, instead of having my host brothers with us, we'd be going alone.
Having almost zero idea as to where we were going except knowing which bus gets us there and back, we embarked on our adventure.
At about 9 o'clock, we walked to the bus stop in our cutest outfits and waited for the 22 bus.
AKA the wrong bus.
Little did we know, we got on the bus that takes us back home, not the bus that gets us into the city center.
After taking a massive detour and getting off somewhere we didn't recognize (we would've stayed on longer until we were deeper in the city center, but it was the end of the bus' line).
So, we walked. And walked. And walked.
To be completely honest, we were very lost.
Eventually, we found a free wifi hub and could Google Map us to the nearest pharmacy (Karly was getting mad blisters and needed some bandaids).
On our way to the pharmacy, we saw a sign spelling out "Centro" with a big arrow pointing left. Thank God!
While following the arrow left, after we stopped at the pharmacy and picked up some Disney character bandaids, we ran into what at first looked like a concert.
Once we got closer and swam a little way through the massive crowd, we saw something that completely mystified us.
It wasn't a concert, it wasn't rally, it wasn't a wedding, and it wasn't a funeral.
It was this. Don't ask me what "this" is, because I'm not sure, even after further explanation.
And it wasn't just in one area, there was a full procession.
My pictures are awful, but at least you can kind of tell that there were a ton of people and that the evenf was Catholic.
And let me remind you that Karly and I still had no idea where we were or even where we were going.
This morning, when talking with my host mom, she told me that in Catholic countries (like Spain), people are very devotional to the Virgin Mary. She also told me that the procession I saw was a celebration of the Virgin of _________ (I forget), which is very special to Granada.
Anyway, Karly and I finally find the city center where we've been before. We were so relieved to actually know where we were!
Next stop: food. By now, we were starving and in need of some tapas.
Of course we couldn't decide where to go and ended up wandering around for another hour. But it's okay because we had even more adventures! Like passing by a guy writing poems on a typewriter and giving them out for free. I haven't translated mine yet, but it's beautiful all the same. We also walked through the Moroccan alleyway. (The picture isn't from last night, but I wanted to include an image of the place anyway.)
One of the vendors saw me looking at a pair of cool flowy hammer-pants type pants and started talking to us rapidly and shoving the pants into our arms and saying to buy them and how great they were. At first, I thought he said the pants were €2, and I was ecstatic! But then I heard "doce" (€12) instead of the initial "dos" and changed my mind. Even though we said "no, gracias" countless times, he still was pushing for those pants (even lowering the price to €10). Still, we said "no, gracias" and finally got away.
After walking for another 20 minutes, we finally decided on a place to eat. We ordered our drinks (sparkling water for me, diet Coke for Karly), and looked at the tapas menu.
All of a sudden, I hear the most annoying ringtone! Then, I realize it's me and my brick of a móvil.
On the other side of the call is my host mom, telling me that Samuel's friends are going to the botellon (the place where it's not illegal to drink in the streets) and that I should meet them there.
Of course that sounded great, except for the fact that I had no idea where the botellon was in relation to where we were eating. My host mom told me to ask someone where Hipercor was because not many older people know about the botellon.
After I hung up, we ordered our tapas. Along with the chicken wings and french fry dish that came with our drinks, I ordered the paella and Karly ordered the garlic chicken. Both were delicious.
And you can't just skip dessert, right? Right! So we got yummy ice cream cones. We asked the man working at the ice cream place where Hipercor was, and he told us to take a left then take a right.
Well, he told us "Go down for a while and then take a right...no, left. Then walk a little and go right."
The precision and detail of his instructions were mindblowing.
What do you think happened next?
If you guessed that we'd get horribly, miserably lost for another hour, you'd be right!
Geez, it was bad! We were so exhausted and stressed out.
Karly kept telling me to call Javi (one of Samuel's friends) to help us get there, but I didn't know what to tell him as to where we were! She ended up asking some guy who told us to follow the crowd of people...and whaddaya know, we got there!
We were so relieved! Luckily, we saw Javi almost immediately and got with the group of people that I knew...or at least recognized.
FINALLY!
It was a little strange not having my host brothers with me, but it was so much fun that I forgot all about it.
We met these two girls who were so nice and funny and they ended up introducing us to so many people! It was crazy fun.
At about 2:50 AM, Javi told us we were going home (which was good because it was starting to get real cold).
Friday was by far my favorite day in Spain so far. I don't know how to end this post.
Oh! The moon was gorgeous!
(Yes, I know they're awful.)
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