¡Hola! Time is quickly ticking away and it seems like I am only getting busier and busier! This last weekend was filled with many activities, festivals and new adventures! My weekend here starts on Thursdays; there are no classes at IES on Fridays. So Thursday night, we went to a new discoteca called El Principe. We had a fun time but didn’t get home till 5 am, so we slept pretty late the next day catching up.
Friday started off the real weekend with Dia de Los Trabajos (labor day). Every store was closed, schools were out and the Granadinos were out in the streets once again enjoying the great weather! It was a beautiful weekend weather wise and we are supposed to stay in the high 70’s throughout the week!! I just got back from sitting on the school terrace and I have a light burn after just 45 minutes!!
Back to Friday, Camille and I had Pilates again (well, really for the first time). However, our fates must not be aligned because the Casa de Poros was CLOSED!!! Obviously, if everything was closed for Labor Day, they would be too; but we did not think that far ahead until we were tugging at the door wondering why it was locked!! So, off we went on another Granada Adventure!! We have decided that when we signed up for this class, it was actually a round-about way of getting to see more of Granada rather than actually getting into a Pilates class. Camille and I walked to Parque de Frederica Garcia Lorca and at LAST…I FOUND GRASS!!! There was green grass everywhere – it was amazing! There were flowers everywhere, beautiful walkways and an awesome playground for kids! We sat down in the park and just watched all the little kids play for hours! Looking back, it might have been a bit creepy, but we had fun! Haha The amount of little kids in Granada is absurd….they are everywhere you look.
On Saturday, I went to the Parque de Ciencias (very similar to the Seattle Science Center). It is only a 15 minute walk from my house yet I had yet to go! I met my friend Mary in the morning and we spent the whole afternoon there! There were all sorts of amazing exhibits – The Antarctic Exhibit, the Andalusia Exhibit and my Favorite – the Human Body Exhibit! It was like I was back in my Anatomy class but ten times cooler!! It was remarkable how many different interactive activities there were! I have to say, it was much more advanced than the Seattle Science Center! We went into a butterfly house, went up the tower where you could see all of Granada, and we went to a bird show, where the final act bird flew away and didn’t end up coming back (that wasn’t part of the show!)
Sunday was not only Mother’s Day here in Spain but it was also Dia de Las Cruces (day of the Crosses), so there was a lot going on around here! In the morning, Camille and I got up early to make Loli a carrot cake for Mother’s Day and let me tell you – what an adventure!!
I am going to give you some reasons for why this cake SHOULD NOT have turned out. 1. I am not a good baker. (let me remind my family of the fried egg brownies that I made once) That gave us a severe disadvantage to begin with.
2. Neither of us had ever made carrot cake before.
3. Loli doesn’t own measuring cups…so we added ingredients by eye. (refer to #2 please again…)
4. The oven was in Celsius.
5. We ran out of sugar and did not have any vanilla.
6. We did not have canola oil, so we used Olive oil. (Granada uses HEAVY olive oil, not light tasting)
7. Because we used the olive oil, the batter was green and smelt like our daily salads we have at lunch time.
8. The oven is VERYY old and burns everything that enters it. With in five minutes of being in the oven, the top was crispy brown.
9. The frosting was exxxxxta cream cheesy because we ran out of sugar.
Now, considering all of these problematic events, the cake made it to the lunch table for desert and everyone ate it! Despite our host brother’s immediate (fake) reaction of needing to throw it up, everyone loved it and it actually turned out pretty delicious! Loli was very thankful and even called us her “hijas” or daughters! Camille and I were pretty impressed ourselves that everyone was alive this morning and willing to have another piece!! We also gave her a nice card that we had made in our art class earlier that week! We took an Arabic calligraphy course and wrote out Happy Mother’s Day in Arabic calligraphy for her!
After lunch, we took our siesta and headed into the streets to join in the festivities of Dia de Las Cruces. I am not actually sure of the meaning of this holiday but everyone must take it very seriously because EVERY PERSON IN GRANADA was in the streets dressed up in their Flamenco dresses and Matador outfits! Every little child, mothers and even elderly ladies were elegantly dressed in their big and beautiful frilly dresses with flowers in their hair. I was a serious creep once again, taking photos of all the little children in their outfits! The crosses were placed in every plaza, fully decorated with flowers and objects that resembled Granada placed below them. It was just a huge paseo (walk), wandering from cross to cross, plaza to plaza enjoying the sun and the hard work that was put into decorating the crosses. Of course there was also a ton of gelato, cervezas and photos involved in this paseo!  On our way home, Camille and I bought a hello kitty balloon for Lucia because she has a cold! That seemed to cheer her up for a while!
Every day Lucia is doing something funny, throwing her toys everywhere or just making a plain mess! The other day at lunch Loli was saying how she couldn’t find Lucia’s shoes for the longest time that morning. She had put them on Lucia and within ten minutes they were no where to be found. She asked Lucia and Lucia yells “zapato, zapato!!” (shoe shoe) and brings Loli by the hand to the balcony and points downward. Loli looked into the street but didn’t see anything. Lucia kept yelling and pointing and finally Loli went down into the street and someone had collected them off of the sidewalk and placed them on the door step! It was hilarious!
Well that’s all for now!! Off to enjoy the sun and more class!!
Hope everyone is doing well!! Only a few more weeks of this blog reading and then I’ll be home! Can’t Wait!

Oxox
Julia