It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

I'm starting to catch some of the Christmas spirit in Granada. The weather is finally cold (relatively speaking--Ohio is much colder right now). Christmas candies are beginning to be displayed in grocery stores, snowflakes are hanging from the ceiling in El Corte Ingés, Christmas lights are slowly going up around every tree in Granada, and roasted chestnuts are for sale on almost every street corner. It reminds me of home and makes me very, very happy. :-) I'm excited to see what Christmas really looks like here and the day slowly approaches. Apparently Papa Noel (Santa Claus) isn't very famous in Spain, although he's becoming somewhat popular...I haven't seen one house with a chimney, so I'm not sure how the tradition would work here. Instead, they decorate with nativity scenes and images of the Three Kings. Our family said there would be both of these in our house around Christmas time. In fact, instead of dressing up like Papa Noel people dress up like the Three Kings! I'm really interested to see that. I've heard rumors of a Christmas festival beginning in a couple weeks in a famous plaza in Granada, where they will sell everything Christmas--food, ornatments, nativity scenes--for the whole month of December. I'm so excited for everything going on here as Christmas slowly approaches! I haven't heard any Christmas music yet, but I'm really curious to know what that sounds like in Spanish.


It was nice to come back to Granada and feel a little bit of the Christmas season after a nice Fall weekend in the mountains. I spent this weekend with the ISA group in a region of the Sierra Nevada mountains called Las Alpujarras. The Alpujarras is made up of several small towns high up in the Sierra Nevadas, and many tourists visit all the time to hike through the mountain terrain surrounding the towns. The bulidings in the towns were all white, so walking through them felt a bit like walking through Greece, or what I think walking through Greece would feel like since I haven't actually been there. We stayed in one of the towns for 2 days and walked through two others which are close by, and the trip consisted mainly of a couple 3-4 hour guided hikes through the mountains with ample time to relax and enjoy the scenery. The mountains were absolutely beautiful and I felt satisfied finally getting to experience a little bit of the fall season, which I'm so sad to be missing in Ohio. All the leaves were turning and glowed orange, red and yellow against the bright green grass of the mountainside, and the little towns were like globs of white paint splattered in the middle of the grenery. The mornings were cold but the afternoons were warm, and we all were unexpectedly hot during our hikes. The weather was even warmer than Granada, which is strange for how close we were to the snow-capped mountains! It was a trip filled with good conversation, beautiful scenery and lots of relaxation--definitely on of my favorite trips with the group (although now my legs are feeling those hikes)!


Now I'm back in Granada and finally starting midterm exams for my classes. They kind of caught me off gaurd and reminded me that I'm actually taking classes here...I thought this was just vacation! I've been kind of stressed out about them, not knowing what to expect on an exam in another country and just really nervous about trying to remember all that I'm learning. I've said before that my classes are pretty easy here, which is true as far as work-load goes, but at the same time I'm learning a ton of information! I realized that this weekend when I had to start studying for my exams...

Well I need to get ready for my next class. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of Las Alpujarras because I forgot my camera! But hopefully I'll get some from other people and be able to post them for everyone to see what it looked like. I do have other pictures up of other places in Spain, though. They're all on www.picasaweb.google.com/kyla.snow.

Hasta Luego.