¡Estoy aquí! (or, Spain has snow?)

So, I am here. In Granada. First things first: Getting used to this spanish keyboard is kind of difficult, especially trying to figure out to do the accents on words. I suppose my assesment of the keyboards here is not what you all are interested in, but whatever. Oh, also: "Whatever" is not used here at all. As Mihai, our director said, "whatever es un actitud muy americano". When I was on the airplane I wrote something out for a "first impression" post, but as I´m not on my own computer, I don´t have that with me right now. I guess it´ll just come later and for now I will keep you all in suspense!

As previous people on this program have told me, speaking only Spanish is not a reality, at least not right away. I think that as people get more comfortable with their spanish, especially after the language intensive classes start, more spanish will be spoken. Pan, my roommate, and I speak only spanish to each other, which is really nice. (Well, we try at least). We took the placement test this morning. I did alright, got into the lower level, which is still intermediate B (the higher end). A lot of people are advanced, but no one is beginning and I don´t think that anyone is bilingual.

Today, we walked around el Albacín, a very old part of Granada. It was beautiful, except a little cold. Oh, it also snowed a LOT while we were walking which made the already narrow and dangerously hilly cobblestoned streets even more treacherous. At one point we reached a place that had a BEAUTIFUL panoramic view and to the left were snow covered mountains and a white haze and to the right was clear skies, a brightly burning sun, and a hint of the sea.

An interesting difference between Granada as a city and say, New York, is the graffiti. Here, the graffiti is very detailed and beautiful. I don´t think that anyone could deny that it´s art. Which made me wonder if the people of Granada think of it as such, or if to them it it still a type of vandalism. Don´t get me wrong, there is still the typical graffiti that looks like the "tags" I used to draw in middle school, and that is well done also, but even in New York there´s that type. And yes, I´m sure that there are beautiful pieces of graffiti art in NY, but the majority I´ve seen is slightly grungy and the like.

hmmm, logistical things about the program...we have monitores who bring us around at night and just hang out with us. They seem pretty cool, but I´ve only been here one night, so...OH! We got cell phones yesterday, and it was less painful than I thought, even though I had to clarify things in Spanish to try to figure out what type of plan I wanted to sign up for. But I did it. And it felt good. And that brings me to my cell phone number:

011-34-637-09-76-09. Weŕe 6 hours ahead.

hasta luego
j

p.s. all my pictures will eventually be on my flickr acount: www.flickr.com/photos/stavisinspain.com