Yuck, traveling is so exhausting. Yesterday we drove all morning to get to Granada and then Hermana H. didn´t have anything for us to do so she just let us loose in the city. We went shopping for a little bit and then we heard about this gigantic open air market, and we set out to find it. I asked in a farmacy, but they didn´t understand me. Then I asked these British tourists with a map and they had a really entertaining accents, but gave us poor directions. It is kind of funny because a lot of the tourist places here will have flags on things to signify what language they are written in, and for English it is always the British flag, a lot of times they even have English lingo like rucksack instead of backpack. There are a lot of British tourist with really strong accents here and it almost seems like they are faking it. We were still looking and wandered into a cafe for lunch. While we ordered lunch we asked for directions and they told us the market didn´t open on any day but Sunday. Lame, then we had an hour and forty five minutes with nothing to do. Next we went to this giant cathedral-cript. It was really weird because right in the middle of the chuch there were these giant marble blocks shaped like beds with giant images of the people inside carved sleeping on top. There were all of these ornate decorations all around them, but they wouldn´t let us take pictures. Then we saw this staircase leading into the ground and we actually got to go underground and look at the coffins beneath. Very cool, but also kind of gross.There was a lot of interesting art in this cathedral. There was a painting there that had been featured in my art history textbook, so I was really excited. There was also a painting by Botticelli. They also had a giant statue depicting the moment after John the baptist got his head cut off and his body was falling to the ground as Herod held his decapitated head. The Spanish artists are known for being zealots and now I know why.Next we went to the Alhambra, which was a giant mulsim palace taken over by a Spanish king. There were beatiful gardens and vistas overlooking the city, so I´ll try to post pictures later. By this time I was so exhausted from walking and standing all day, but my director forbade me from going to buy a snack. However, her husband figured out about my blood sugar problems and took me aside and said, ¨How about some sugar?¨ and took me into the corner to give me some chocolate.We left the Alhambra and had dinner at a kebab place. It was seriously the best and most satisfying food I´ve eaten since I´ve got here. Spanish food is a disappointment. After that we got gelatto, talked to some random African imigrants-there are a ton here and they like to sell contraband items in the street-and wandered around the city. We weren´t allowed to go to a discoteca, so there wasn´t much to to but go home. The culture is really weird here because everybody stays out late, but all of the stores close really early. And they don´t eat dinner until like nine pm, which is a major annoyance to me.Today was a marathon of stops that I didn´t even know we were making. We woke up 20 min before the bus came so we were super rushed and already dirty before we started the trek for the day. We stopped at this town called Baeza and looked at this old renaissance cathedral. It was nothing exciting but at every turn there was some box begging for a donation. One of them said they ¨begged a donation¨ and that ¨only you, God, and the Virgen Mary¨will know if your donation was sufficient. Nice try, my euros staid in my pocket. That is until the made us pay 60 centavos to climb the tower. These people were really milking us for all we had. The tower climb was atrocious. There were all of these claustrophobic spiral staircases covered in pigeon poop. We even found baby pigeons in the top of the tower. At the top there was a nice view, and guess what, a telescope that only cost a euro to use! Lucky us! When we got back down, our instructor paid a euro to see this golden statue that unveils when you pay money. I couldn´t wait to leave. There was an old university outside with all of the faded red letters covering the façade. We found out that if people passed their tests, they would write their names on the wall in bulls blood. Next we stopped to use the bathroom which took like a half an hour. But we were also hungry so we drove for a while and then stopped again. Then we drove some more and our teacher got the bright idea to stop at the ¨Versailles of Spain¨meaning this really elaborate palace. It was really pretty interesting because all of the rooms were perfectly preserved, but I was sick of stopping and already hungry again. I was really excited to get back to Alcala, especially since our family wasn´t home, which means we didn´t have to eat their dinner, which means were eating at a kebab outside of the internet cafe. Yay!Hmmm, interesting things here. The birds are OUT OF CONTROL! Everytime we go to a cathedral it is like a Hitchcock movie. They are swooping and screaming and there are tons of them. One of them pooped on my friend Melissa. Also, they don´t believe in condiments. A sandwhich is dry baget bread with a slice of meat and, if you pay extra, cheese.

Right now I´m in an internet cafe in Sevilla and I am baking in my skin. My pant are rolled up to my knees and I´m sweating like crazy. They run us around like machines here. We walk and stand for hours and my feet and legs constantly hurt. I´m going to have to start bringing more food around with me because with the heat and the walking I get dizzy and tired all of the time. I took a nap in our hotel room before dinner and I almost couldn´t get back out of bed again! Yesterday we drove to Cordoba and saw this giant mosque. The muslims invaded Spain in 711 and built all of the mosques everywhere and this one was really interesting because when the Christians took back the area they built a cathedral in the middle of the mosque, so now the townspeople have mass in a mosque. Next we went to these ruins of a muslim palace and then drove to Sevilla.Sevilla is gorgeous. Last night we ate dinner in an open air cafe overlooking the river. The food here is not as good as I´d have hoped. EVERYTHING is some sort of seafood and I just can´t bring myself to eat any of it. They cook everything absolutely drenched in olive oil and when I got my scrambled eggs with potatoes and ham I was kind of disgusted. It didn´t taste bad but the greasy look was unappealing and the potatoes looked like they were frozen french fries dumped into the pan. But, the weather and the view were so beautiful I couldn´t much care, and I was starving, something I seem to be all of the time here, so it helped.This morning we went to two cathedrals. We walked in in the middle of a mass and got to see the end of it. The church was ridiculous. There were paintings all over the ceiling and everything was gilt. there was a giant virgen Mary in the front that was decorated in tons of gold.The next cathedral we went to was so beautiful. The ceiling was probably at least 30 floors above us and the the building was enormous. There were lots of interesting artifacts and paintings. They had a 34 story tower and we only had 30 min to get up and down it. Everyone was trying to run to the top, but I was just too tired so I walked untile I hit a crowed ( about floor 27) took my pictures and went down again. I was by myself and I couldn´t remember where to meet, so I ended up wandering around a little bit. I walked all the way back to the street and back to the cathedral and just barely caught the group. It made me a little nervous, but I knew how to get back to the hotel just in case. Lesson learned, Don´t go out alone!Next we went to the palace of the Hapsberg king Carlos the 5th. There were gorgeous muslum styled gardens and fountains and a really intricately decorated palace. After that we had lunch. I was really excited to try paella, but there was none with chicken so I ended up having a really gross sandwich. They we wandered around for a while and ended up in an art museum. They had a lot of interesting baroque and renaissance pieces, but the best thing was that they had a Picasso on loan from the Guggenheim and I got to see it. It is called ¨La Planchadora¨and I liked it a lot.We wandered around for a while and then finally got to go back to the hotel. I zonked out in my room for an hour and then we had dinner and now I´m here. Tomorrow we are going to the Alambra in Granada.
Things with my family are getting steadily more interesting. The mom just got back from Cadiz and is wasting no time getting ¨aquainted¨with us. We came home from school and she was out on the back deck in a bikini. Then that evening she was wandering the halls in her undergarments, and in the morning when we were getting ready to go to Cordoba, she walked out of her room COMPLETELY nude and started talking to me. I have a few more stories but I´ll just have to tell them in person.