If you are reading this post, I am very sorry for not having updated this blog in months. As some of you might know, I came back to the US in early January to finish out my last semester of school. I was and have been pretty busy, so I will slowly continue to add more post. There is a museum in Granada called the Palacio de los Olividados, which has information about the Spanish Inquisition. One of the big things you learn about in Granada is the clash between the Catholic Spaniards vs. the Jews and the Muslims. Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand wanted to unite the entire country under catholicism. They decided to create the Spanish Inquisition to help get rid of any other religions. People could report to the Spanish courts about someone they thought might not be a good Catholic. These people would then be taken and tortured to determine who was legitimate or pretending. I posted a slide show ![]() Fact: While my family visited me in Granada, they commented how popular ham or jamon was in Andulusia. Ham is a huge part of the Spanish diet in Granada, and you can find it everywhere whether in sandwiches or tapas. However, it didn't become widely spread just because it is tasty, but was actually used as a way to discover who might be a Muslim or Jew. According to the Muslim and Jewish religion, people are not allowed to eat pork. This was a quick way to discover who was who back in Granada.
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Last week our school put on a flamenco show for all of the students. They set up in the courtyard of one of the buildings, and they did about an hour long show. It was a really nice experience to watch, especially for free. The dancer also did three costume changes, but I really liked her last dress which is the one below. I recorded the last dance, so you could get a taste of flamenco dancing. Happy Thanksgiving from across the pond! I hope everyone is having a good time with their family and friends. My Thanksgiving was definitely different than normal. I still had to go to school today because it is a "normal" day here in Spain. But the good thing is that I only had one class from 12:30-2:30 and not a whole day of classes. Our teacher was nice and brought in cookies for us to snack on during class because she knew it was Thanksgiving. Thankfully, I didn't have to spend Thanksgiving alone because I have Kitty and Kayla here with me. It is different being in a country with no Thanksgiving. It went straight from Halloween (which most people don't celebrate) to Christmas. The funny thing is though that Spain does celebrate Black Friday. We were originally planning on cooking and celebrating in our apartment, but we could not find a turkey or ham at the market to save our life. I also have not seen stuffing or pumpkin anything. So we decided instead to go to the mall because there were a couple of buffets. We ended up at an asian buffet, which wasn't too bad and had a lot of choices. We still achieved the "stuffed" feeling. Afterward, we walked around a little bit before we went back to the apartment. Hope everyone has an amazing and relaxing break! So the program that I am doing in Spain is called the Center for Modern Languages (CLM), which is part of the University of Granada. The University has a different set up than the traditional set up like in Albuquerque. Instead of having all of the buildings together in one central location, the buildings here are spread out throughout the city. Even our small section of the univeristy is split in half, which means we have two buildings that classes take place. They are probably about ten minutes apart from each other, but thankfully our apartment is between both buildings.
Before we did orientation on the 21st I thought that there would be around forty students, but there was only eight other students. We are part of the "Study Abroad" group at the CLM. Even though there are a lot of other students around, they are part of different programs such as ERASMUS or there own specific school program. There are even groups from China and Japan here learning Spanish. All of the classes are relatively small, and my class has about nine people including me. The program that I am doing is an intensive Spanish class. So that means I have class Monday through Friday from 9:30 to 1:30. We have two teachers, one for the first 2 hours and one for the second 2 hours. Thankfully, we get a twenty minute break when they switch off. It has only been my second day so far, but the class hasn't been too bad because I am following Spanish culture and taking a siesta *wink wink. Last Friday, the school group and I went to the Alhambra. I believe it's the top visited thing in Spain, and it was beautiful. I will probably have hundreds of photos of it by the end of my trip. The Alhambra is hard not to notice because of its position on the hill that overlooks Granada. From the 13th to the 15th century it was used as a palace and fortress by the Arab muslim Nasrid dynasty. This can be seen by the different artwork from the walls to the ceilings to the beautiful windows. Our guide told us that we were lucky because we were able to see ceiling paintings that had not been previously shown to the public. This can be seen in the Alhambra Part 1 video. Granada was the last city in Spain that was under Muslim control. The Spanish Catholic Queen Isabel had slowly conquered cities in the Andalusia area (southern part of Spain), such as Sevilla and Cordoba. It wasn't until 1492, when Queen Isabel and Muhammad XII, the Nasrid sultan, negotiated a treaty. This treaty is called the Treaty of Santa Fe which is a couple of miles outside of Granada. That was a big shock when I saw a town called Santa Fe. I think I remember one of the guides mentioning that in the treaty the sultan demanded that the Alhambra not be torn down and destroyed. Thankfully, the Alhambra has survived the many centuries since! |
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March 2019
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