Granada is a wonderful city filled with much history and diversity. The centro is similar to any other city; bustling with people, commercial retailers, bars, tapas, and modern architecture. The weather here is hot and very dry which means no one really goes out during siesta time (3-5pm), which is the most scorching part of the day.
My schedule here is very different than back home which I suspected would be the case. I have classes from 9:30-11:30am, then a 2 hour break and then Flamenco from 1:30-3:15pm. I usually head home after this for a little snack, nap, reading, etc. People usually begin leaving the house for dinner, bars, tapas, etc around 9ish and don´t begin eating til 10pm. I realized early on that my days were much longer than what I was used to. The warm nights make it a wonderful time to sit outside and have a drink or people watch.
Granada has a ton of Islamic history. It´s very fasicanating. The area where I stay and where my school is located is the Albayzin. The Albayzin was the area the Muslims lived when they ruled Spain. There are cobble stone roads and small white or colored houses crammed together with tiny alley ways usually enough only for one car at a time. The Albayzine is very reminiscent of India. Additionally, there is a lot of Moroccan influence in the Albayzin and the Sacromonte (area next to the Albayzin). I look forward to learning more about the rich history of this magical land.
I´ve meet a ton of people at my school. Most of these students are only here for a week or two at the most. I´m the only American, everyone else is European. I´ve had a few people make indirect and direct negative comments regarding Americans. I guess it comes with the territory.
Something I´ve realized is that this is the first country I´ve studied in where I can not get by as a native mostly because of my appearance, but also because I do not have the traditional Spain spanish accents. My spanish sounds more like Central or South America.
