Mi Viaje a Granada

I'm here!! I  made it to Spain in one piece, and am absolutely loving it. Sorry that there have not been blogs these first few days. Everything has been so new, exciting, and pretty exhausting with the jetlag and sightseeing combined. So many things to share!

The flight to Granada went pretty smoothly. Other than a slightly delayed takeoff, everything went well. I was so exhausted when I was getting on the plane and thought it would be super easy to pass out. Once they had served dinner, I was still sleepy, but couldn't fall asleep! Hopefully the ride home will be better for that.

 My first glimpse of Spain and the beautiful sunrise Wednesday morning after landing at the Madrid Airport.

My first passport stamp when I arrived in Madrid!!

When we arrived in Madrid, we had a 5 hour layover to sit out. The airport was absolutely stunning and had a lot of cool shops for us to explore, so we stayed busy. The only downside was that they wouldn't announce our gate number or terminal until only half an hour before our flight. It made us nervous initially, but we realized soon after walking to our gate that the Madrid airport is nothing like O'Hare and walking to any gate takes less than 5 minutes.

 Trying to get WiFi in the Madrid airport. No such luck... We were actually pretty sad after this picture was taken. Also, WiFi is pronounced either "Wie-Fee" or "Wee-Fee" here. I thought both were pretty funny.

Passing the time in the Madrid airport at a cafe. The drink here is called Capriche de Canela. The bottom layer is cinnamon syrup, followed by coffee with milk (cafe con leche), then cream, and finally topped with whipped cream and sprinkled with cinnamon. Yummm!

After our 5 hours at Madrid, we had a quick 1 hour flight to Granada. Here's my first look at the beautiful Sierra Nevadas of Granada:

Our Resident Director, Miguel Ángel, picked us up from the airport and had a bus waiting for us for the brief drive from the airport to downtown Granada. As we drove deeper into the downtown area, I couldn't help but think how I have truly never seen anything like this before. The buildings. The streets. The people. The buzz. Even from inside the bus, I could feel the energy of the beautiful city outside. Every person on our bus oohed and ahhed and pointed wondering if each calle that we passed would soon be home to precious memory in the weeks to come. Soon we arrived at our hostel, Hostal Atenas.

The hostel is much different than I had expected-- private rooms that are doubles, triples, or quads (we chose our roommates) and have a private bath. Everything is very clean and organized here, and I have been pleasantly surprised about the whole experience. Even the lights were a curious challenge. We couldn't figure out for the longest time how to turn on the lights in our room. Some of the other students in our program finally figured out that you have to put your room card key into a slot above the light switch before flipping the switch. The reason for this is to force you to turn off the lights. When you take your key to leave the room, your lights turn off. Power and other utilities are very expensive throughout Spain. Everyone takes care to make sure they conserve wherever possible.

The room my roommate Elyssa and I share. We found the beds made this morning with our stuffed animals neatly placed on our pillows. Our maid is super adorable and always says hi to us in the hallway. I'm sure she's the one behind Operation Pillow Pet Placement.


I know I just barely covered arriving in Granada, but I want to give my first impressions of the city an entry of its own. I'm sorry for the delay in the blogs, but I promise I'll get the hang of this eventually and have more consistent posts soon!

Besos!