Okay, I know, this post is incredibly delayed, but...better late than never, right? Here goes!
I finally finished my year of teaching on April 18th. It was very sad but also very sweet, because I was flooded with a pile of goodbye cards, notes, and drawings from my students, which was just absolutely adorable. All of my students were sad to see me leave and some of them kept asking why I wasn't coming back next year =( I felt so bad! Here is a picture of all the goodbye cards/notes/drawings I received:
However, I wasn't completely done with teaching because I had agreed to participate in an English language workshop for high school students at one of the high schools in Nîmes. It was definitely interesting working with high schoolers because I'd been working with primary school students all year, and quite a change. I still had fun though. I actually had a harder time disciplining them because it was only me teaching and I hadn't been disciplining my kids during the school year since that was the actual teacher's job and not mine, so I wasn't used to it. Plus, high school students are just brats.
Once I finished the workshop, I stayed in Nîmes for a week just hanging out, going to the beach, watching lots of tv shows, etc. It rained quite a bit the second half of the week so there wasn't much I could do except hang out with my friend Kath and watch lots of 2 Broke Girls (which she introduced me to). Finally, though, on May 2nd, Kath and I left for our long-awaited trip to Spain and Italy!
Our first stop was Granada, by way of Marseille and Málaga. We took the train to Marseille with a stopover in Avignon. Here's where our trip gets ugly. Our second train from Avignon to Marseille was AN HOUR AND FIFTEEN MINUTES LATE. Yeah. So time was a tickin' since our flight was at 4:50 and originally, we were supposed to get to Marseille at 2:50. Since there was an hour and 15 minute delay, our new arrival time would be 4:05, which only gave us 45 minutes until our flight. So we waited, and then waited some more, passed the time by playing old-school games like Geography and spin-offs of it by using different categories like animals, names, transport-related words, etc. Yeah. Finally, we made it to Marseille, and rushed to our gate with some confusion in-between. What kind of confusion, you might ask? Well. This is what happened.
When we first got to the airport, we went up to the door to get to security and an employee told us that I needed to get my boarding pass stamped since I was from the U.S., so we went over to the information desk where I was supposed to get it stamped. We told the woman at the desk what we'd heard and asked her if I did actually need a stamp, and she said no, that we could just go through. So we went through the door after showing another employee our boarding passes, and went through security (except of course I had to be manually searched because for some reason I set the scanner off), after once again showing our boarding passes. No one said anything to me, but when we finally got to the gate, the woman at the gate said I needed a stamp on my boarding pass. I stared at her in disbelief because I had shown my boarding pass to two people before that and NO ONE had said anything. We only had about 5 minutes until the official boarding time, so I ran back to the information desk way before security, and got it stamped, and when I got to security again I asked if I could just go through since they had just seen me run past, but they made me do the whole process again. And I once again set off the beeper and they manually searched me, AGAIN (I think it was my shoes or something). So I raced back to the gate, threw my boarding pass at the woman while thoroughly annoyed, panting and sweating heavily, and having to hear, "Calm down!" from her in a condescending tone just made me even angrier. They checked the boarding pass, let me through, and it turned out that our plane hadn't even finished letting off the passengers from the previous flight yet. So we had to wait there for another half hour, at least, and while waiting in line I was muttering a string of curses about how inefficient Ryanair was and being the stereotypically loud, obnoxious American (I really couldn't give a damn). Finally, we got on the plane, but we had to taxi for another half hour and ended up taking off about an hour after our scheduled time.
When we finally got to Málaga, our friend Billy was there to pick us up, since we were visiting him in Granada. He was doing his ERASMUS there for a semester and we figured we'd visit him in Spain instead of going somewhere where we wouldn't know anyone! We took the bus back to Granada, which took a couple hours, but we finally made it. Once we got to Billy's apartment, we unpacked a bit, freshened up, and then we went out to get some tapas for dinner. We didn't go too crazy the first night since we were really tired, and it was kind of late. So we had some tapas and sangria (which was delicious), and then headed back to Billy's.
The next day, we went and got churros and chocolate for breakfast with Billy and his friend Francesca. I know, it sounds like a heart attack waiting to happen. But it was SO FREAKING GOOD. Plus, they took us to a legit churro place, with churros that looked nothing like what I expected them to. After churros, we walked around Granada, saw a few sights, and went to the Alhambra in the afternoon. We had planned on going in, but a few things made it too complicated so we ended up only seeing the outside.
After the Alhambra we went and had paella for dinner with one of Billy's other friends, and it was DELICIOUS. The only thing is that it stained all of our hands yellow because it had so much saffron in it, haha (except Kath's because apparently she's the only civilized person when it comes to eating paella). Photo below.
Then we went back to Billy's place, where Francesca met us, to get ready for going out that night. We tapas bar-hopped quite a bit (including this one place called Poë which had AMAZING tapas, if you are ever in Granada, go there!), and then went to a shot bar called La Chupiteria, where we got pretty drunk (1 euro shots, I'm sure you can imagine), and also where I think I lost my camera. Yup. I'm pretty sure it was stolen, because Kath started talking to this guy, and during their conversation she noticed that his hand was in her pocket. She didn't think that much of it--just that he was feeling her up, but...well, the rest comes later.
After La Chupiteria we went to a club called Vogue. Did a lot of dancing, had a ton of fun (except Francesca went home earlier than us, boo), I danced with a sexy Spanish man, but then Kath saw the guy she had been talking to at the shot bar earlier and began talking to him again. This time, halfway through the conversation, she noticed that his arm was ELBOW DEEP in her bag, rummaging around, and of course she started yelling at him about it. Anyway, due to that, I think he was probably the one to steal my camera. I was really sad because we had a lot of fun pictures on it! I didn't even notice that my camera was gone until we were on our way home, at...guess when? 7 AM. Yup. We had a true Spanish experience, haha, staying out until 7 in the morning! And of course we got schwarma on our way home--I have to say, that is some truly awesome drunk food.
Once we got home we obviously crashed, didn't wake up until well into the afternoon. Post-wake up was coffee time, and then it was pretty much about time for Kath and I to get ready to leave. We got our bags from Billy's place and he sent us to the bus station, along with Francesca. We parted ways, sadly, but thanked him for our wonderful time in Granada, and then left for Seville because we were flying out of there in the morning.
So that is what my time in Granada was like! I really wish I had pictures to show you all, but...sadly, it's not to be. Until next time!
I finally finished my year of teaching on April 18th. It was very sad but also very sweet, because I was flooded with a pile of goodbye cards, notes, and drawings from my students, which was just absolutely adorable. All of my students were sad to see me leave and some of them kept asking why I wasn't coming back next year =( I felt so bad! Here is a picture of all the goodbye cards/notes/drawings I received:
However, I wasn't completely done with teaching because I had agreed to participate in an English language workshop for high school students at one of the high schools in Nîmes. It was definitely interesting working with high schoolers because I'd been working with primary school students all year, and quite a change. I still had fun though. I actually had a harder time disciplining them because it was only me teaching and I hadn't been disciplining my kids during the school year since that was the actual teacher's job and not mine, so I wasn't used to it. Plus, high school students are just brats.
Once I finished the workshop, I stayed in Nîmes for a week just hanging out, going to the beach, watching lots of tv shows, etc. It rained quite a bit the second half of the week so there wasn't much I could do except hang out with my friend Kath and watch lots of 2 Broke Girls (which she introduced me to). Finally, though, on May 2nd, Kath and I left for our long-awaited trip to Spain and Italy!
Our first stop was Granada, by way of Marseille and Málaga. We took the train to Marseille with a stopover in Avignon. Here's where our trip gets ugly. Our second train from Avignon to Marseille was AN HOUR AND FIFTEEN MINUTES LATE. Yeah. So time was a tickin' since our flight was at 4:50 and originally, we were supposed to get to Marseille at 2:50. Since there was an hour and 15 minute delay, our new arrival time would be 4:05, which only gave us 45 minutes until our flight. So we waited, and then waited some more, passed the time by playing old-school games like Geography and spin-offs of it by using different categories like animals, names, transport-related words, etc. Yeah. Finally, we made it to Marseille, and rushed to our gate with some confusion in-between. What kind of confusion, you might ask? Well. This is what happened.
When we first got to the airport, we went up to the door to get to security and an employee told us that I needed to get my boarding pass stamped since I was from the U.S., so we went over to the information desk where I was supposed to get it stamped. We told the woman at the desk what we'd heard and asked her if I did actually need a stamp, and she said no, that we could just go through. So we went through the door after showing another employee our boarding passes, and went through security (except of course I had to be manually searched because for some reason I set the scanner off), after once again showing our boarding passes. No one said anything to me, but when we finally got to the gate, the woman at the gate said I needed a stamp on my boarding pass. I stared at her in disbelief because I had shown my boarding pass to two people before that and NO ONE had said anything. We only had about 5 minutes until the official boarding time, so I ran back to the information desk way before security, and got it stamped, and when I got to security again I asked if I could just go through since they had just seen me run past, but they made me do the whole process again. And I once again set off the beeper and they manually searched me, AGAIN (I think it was my shoes or something). So I raced back to the gate, threw my boarding pass at the woman while thoroughly annoyed, panting and sweating heavily, and having to hear, "Calm down!" from her in a condescending tone just made me even angrier. They checked the boarding pass, let me through, and it turned out that our plane hadn't even finished letting off the passengers from the previous flight yet. So we had to wait there for another half hour, at least, and while waiting in line I was muttering a string of curses about how inefficient Ryanair was and being the stereotypically loud, obnoxious American (I really couldn't give a damn). Finally, we got on the plane, but we had to taxi for another half hour and ended up taking off about an hour after our scheduled time.
When we finally got to Málaga, our friend Billy was there to pick us up, since we were visiting him in Granada. He was doing his ERASMUS there for a semester and we figured we'd visit him in Spain instead of going somewhere where we wouldn't know anyone! We took the bus back to Granada, which took a couple hours, but we finally made it. Once we got to Billy's apartment, we unpacked a bit, freshened up, and then we went out to get some tapas for dinner. We didn't go too crazy the first night since we were really tired, and it was kind of late. So we had some tapas and sangria (which was delicious), and then headed back to Billy's.
The next day, we went and got churros and chocolate for breakfast with Billy and his friend Francesca. I know, it sounds like a heart attack waiting to happen. But it was SO FREAKING GOOD. Plus, they took us to a legit churro place, with churros that looked nothing like what I expected them to. After churros, we walked around Granada, saw a few sights, and went to the Alhambra in the afternoon. We had planned on going in, but a few things made it too complicated so we ended up only seeing the outside.
 |
| Outside the Alhambra! |
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| PAELLAAAAA |
After La Chupiteria we went to a club called Vogue. Did a lot of dancing, had a ton of fun (except Francesca went home earlier than us, boo), I danced with a sexy Spanish man, but then Kath saw the guy she had been talking to at the shot bar earlier and began talking to him again. This time, halfway through the conversation, she noticed that his arm was ELBOW DEEP in her bag, rummaging around, and of course she started yelling at him about it. Anyway, due to that, I think he was probably the one to steal my camera. I was really sad because we had a lot of fun pictures on it! I didn't even notice that my camera was gone until we were on our way home, at...guess when? 7 AM. Yup. We had a true Spanish experience, haha, staying out until 7 in the morning! And of course we got schwarma on our way home--I have to say, that is some truly awesome drunk food.
Once we got home we obviously crashed, didn't wake up until well into the afternoon. Post-wake up was coffee time, and then it was pretty much about time for Kath and I to get ready to leave. We got our bags from Billy's place and he sent us to the bus station, along with Francesca. We parted ways, sadly, but thanked him for our wonderful time in Granada, and then left for Seville because we were flying out of there in the morning.
So that is what my time in Granada was like! I really wish I had pictures to show you all, but...sadly, it's not to be. Until next time!
