yesterday, i got to go to the coast in almería. lauren's friend, daniel, drove us over and it took about 2 hours. we fell asleep in the car on the way there and on the way back. but we fell asleep to the music of david bisbal and alejandro sanz. awesome. we got there at about 11am and had breakfast and then found a section of beach. we hung out there for a little bit and then went to find daniel's family, who were also at the beach. two of his aunts have beach-front apartments and they are nice. it's like their summer home. i want a summer home. i've gathered that it's really common for spanish people, and europeans in general, to have apartments/houses all over the place. after a quick stop there, at roquetas del mar, we went to another section of coast. the water was salty, but not so much sandy because it was more a mix of sand and pebbles, so we could see to the bottom of the water. and we were lucky, because the water on this particular day, was super clean. after spending many hours outside, we went back to the apartment and made food for ourselves. i discovered that i should've reapplied my SPF 45 because i got burned. and it totally hurt.

around after we ate, we headed back to granada. we all went home to clean up, and then met up for dinner at the italian restaurant at 11:30pm. the restaurant was packed and some spanish women were having a bachelorette party, so they were just crazy, but it was pretty funny. by then, i think i was suffering from being out in the sun, because i was dehydrated, in pain, and couldn't really eat. after dinner, we drove around for a little bit until we decided to get some ice cream at los italianos. it was an italian themed evening.

when i got home, i went straight to sleep, only to wake up an hour later and find myself suffering from chills. i put on a sweatshirt, socks, mittens [i found them in my backpack] and went back to sleep. 2 hours later, i was dying from the heat, so i got rid of all the extra layers and popped an advil with a ton of water. i kept waking up every 2 hours having to pee and feeling hot/cold. this morning, i couldn't even drag myself out of bed. i popped another advil and slept until 1pm. at that point, i was like, i'll feel better if i just get up and do something. i got up to put my contacts in and i was so exhausted and i had to lie down. an hour later, when i could get back up, i brushed my teeth and washed up. again, had to sit back down because it was too much of an exertion. how weak am i? another hour later, i decided that i'd feel better if i did something. it took a massive effort to walk to the internet cafe. after this, i'm going to try and make it up to plaza nueva. and i think my fever has gone away. yay!

ok. i won't lie. i'm a little irritated. i'm already supposed to be at the coast. but, i'm not. we were supposed to leave around 5pm for the coast in almería. it's 9pm and i'm still in granada. lauren's friend was going to drive us after he got off work. i didn't realize that he works in madrid. so right now, he's on the way back. but, he called her a little bit ago to say that now, he doesn't want to go, with no explanation. he promised to explain once he got here, and we don't know how far he is from granada. this would all be fine, if i hadn't been sitting inside all stinkin' afternoon waiting for them to call me to go. and it was a beautiful, sunny, fantastic afternoon. i could have been taking advantage of one of my last afternoons in granada. instead, i was sitting around waiting for them. they called at 3pm to say that we should be leaving by 6 or 7pm, so not to go out. ok...i waited. 8:15pm...umm...there's a bit of a problem. alright, i can definitely appreciate the fact that antonio, lauren's friend, offered to drive us and take us around the coastal area. however, if we knew he was going flake, we would have rented our own car, or grabbed a bus on our own. either way, lauren and i decided we're going to the coast. it'll probably be by bus tomorrow morning or something. grr.

i forgot to mention that another thing i like about granada, aside from feeling much safer, is that i don't have to deal with skeezy boys...much. in sevilla, in the short 36 hours that we were there, we were invited onto an old guy's boat, spoken to [not in a flattering way], and gestured at - by guys of varying ages, including dirty old guys, i'm talking like old. ewww. seriously, do guys here just think that all foreigners are like loose women? it wasn't like super offensive, more like annoying. but, i did want to take a bat to some of them just to say, "stop that." someone needs to teach them. maleducados.

only a few more days left. how sad. i just finished taking my "final" exam. i say "final" because it was multiple choice and only about 40 questions. i chose not to study [read: cram] last night, and chose to go and walk around more of granada, in the northeast direction. so, for having not studied, i think i did well. tomorrow is the last day of class and we're watching a movie. woohoo.

i have to start packing up my stuff because the four salvajes [marian calls them savages and i think it's because they're texas boys...hahaha] are arriving today and i have to switch rooms into marian's room until i leave, that way the guys who are staying for the summer don't have to keep moving their stuff around. this is good anyway, i'll be able to see if i need to buy another bag to carry stuff, though i probably won't since i haven't actually bought all that much for all the times i've been out shopping. eh.

on friday, lauren and i bought our bus tickets to sevilla and got our hotel stuff all worked out. we weren't able to get tickets to isla mágica because the internet wasn't working, which turned out to be divine intervention because when we saw it in person, it was dinky. i was picturing magic mountain proportions, and it definitely wasn't even close, more like the size of the portland rose festival...ok, maybe twice as big as that, but that's it. anywho, later that night, our class had planned to go to a tetería, teahouse, to sample different teas, but when we met up, we decided on tapas and drinks. we barhopped for a little bit and then i went home, since i had to be up by 6am the next morning to catch the 8am bus to sevilla. [ok, i don't know if it was really barhopping the way other people barhop, we just went to 3 different places to try different tapas.]

saturday morning, i dragged my tired self out of bed and met up with lauren to catch the bus to the bus station. the trip was about 3 hours and they showed john q in spanish. i had to try and not cry, as i was on a bus full of people, but i pretty much failed. it was pretty darn sad - the movie...and i suppose me too. we arrived in sevilla around 11am and caught a bus to our hotel, where we checked in and made a game plan. we decided to do the big double-decker red bus city tour, which took us around to la plaza de españa, a government building [i think], la catedral de sevilla, el real alcázar, la plaza de toros, la torre de oro, over some bridges, and around isla mágica. this is where we were glad the ticket buying process didn't work out as we were very much disappointed upon seeing it. we got on and off the bus to look at the different areas as we wanted and spent the rest of the afternoon walking through the center of sevilla and shopping. that pretty much took up the entire day. we stopped a couple of times to have bocadillos [baguette type sandwiches] and ice cream. one of the many things i love about spain is that there are heladerías [ice cream places] on every corner, like starbucks in the US, but better because it's ice cream. we went back to the hotel briefly to sit and rest because we were exhausted from walking around all day in the hot sun. we went back out again for tapas and drinks and as we were walking home, there was a shifty looking character who had walked past us, and then decided to turn around and walk in our direction. needless to say, we walked much faster and turned onto a highly populated street. mr. shifty then went another direction. i liked sevilla, a lot, but i feel so much safer in granada. granada just doesn't feel as sketchy as sevilla.

the next morning, sunday, we slept in, checked out, stored out bags with the hotel, and went to visit for free the insides of la catedral [free because it was sunday] and el real alcázar [always free for students]. both were fabulous. after that, we went to la plaza de toros because they do short 20 minute tours and take you to see the bullring and let you sit in the stands and explore a little bit, but we were too late. they had finished giving tours for the day because there was a bullfight that evening. so we had to make do with just looking at the gift shop and taking pictures of the outside of the building. we hopped back onto the tour bus one last time before we went to some pizza. after that, we got our stuff from the hotel and caught a bus to the bus station. once we got off the bus, we got a little lost and had to be pointed in the right direction for the actual station. we thought we were going to miss the last bus back to granada, but lucky for us, our bus was late. on the way back, they showed pirates of the caribbean. it was fun to watch in spanish. we arrived in granada at about 10:30pm and the only thing i wanted to do was shower and sleep. that's how tired we were - our whole bodies hurt, from head to toe. we had burnt scalps and blistered feet, but it was so worth it. lots of pictures were taken, so there shall be lots to see, mostly of places, not so much people. i need to start taking more pictures of people.

the spanish plants have waged a war, and i have lost. i've been going through kleenex like crazy. all of a sudden, i'm sneezing every 5 seconds and wiping the snot from my nose. how attractive an image is that?

i just finished having lunch, well we finished eating awhile ago, but we just left the restaurant. as a class, we went out to il gondoliere, an italian restaurant, as a good-bye gesture for one of the people in class, samuel, this really nice 60-70 year-old grandfatherly guy. it's us, a bunch of young 20 somethings and samuel. it's awesome. he has a lot of latin american vocab that he shares with the class. he's heading to france after class tomorrow and then back to the states.

day after tomorrow, i'm going to sevilla...wahoo. and the weekend after, a drive to tarifa, stopping along different coastal points. our plan is to rent a car and make our way over after our last day of class. i love how we keep changing our plans - because we can.

there's a pack of cigarettes sitting in the right pocket of my fleece jacket. it goes against every fiber of my being to allow it to sit there. marian, my homestay mom, asked me to buy her a pack of cigarettes on my way to the internet cafe. i could tell her that smoking is incredibly bad for her, but i don't know her well enough to say that. and so, for the first time ever, i have purchased cigarettes. lame. i feel all yucky. ok, i don't really, but it still is lame.

i spent the afternoon sitting outside having tapas and planning my trip to sevilla with lauren, becky, and becky's flatmate, anna. we're so excited! and we decided that for sure, the next weekend, my last weekend here, we're going to the coast. that trip was looking kind of iffy since lauren is headed back to england the same time that i'm headed back to the states and she's got tons of stuff to pack. but we're like, it's our last weekend in spain, we're going to make the most of it. and with that mantra in mind, we went shopping and bought university of granada gear, as if we were real UGR students, and finished the day with gelato at an italian place, where the names are actually in italian. shopping and ice cream...ha..i love it. and there shall be plenty more shopping and ice cream before we're through.

i never made it to the park yesterday. libby and i somehow ended up at the internet cafe for almost 5 hours. 5 hours! goodness. she had a good excuse...she was looking up summaries of a play to help with her final exams. i have no idea what i was doing.

i bought some cds today - bootlegged, pirated cds. and they're not even like pirated ones that have like crappy imaging on the cd, they're just like cd-rs stuck in sleeves with a color copy of the actual cd insert. awesome. i got chambao, alejandro sanz, david bisbal, and ramón - the last two being more cheese, yet catchy.

i found out today that four guys from the university of texas will be moving in on the 27th [libby is leaving friday morning for málaga for her flight to germany and the rest of her summer european travels]. the letter the program sent to marian [my homestay mom] describes the guys as all more or less bio/engineering guys who are like 20/21. libby and i were trying to figure out if they would be nerds, or crazy party animals. we shall see.

if anyone knows if it's possible to rent/download telenovelas [like korean soap operas] from anywhere, let me know. i just realized that i will not be able to see the rest of the episodes from my beloved telenovela before i leave spain. sad.