Estoy enamorada...

... en la ciudad de Granada. Y en la idioma, pero desafortunadamente mis amigos y mi familia no entienden español (pues, no los todos),y asi tengo que escribir mis pequeños noticias en inglès. Entonces...

I´ve been thinking about writing my blog every day since I arrived this saturday night, but it´s been five days already, and I haven´t even had time to unpack! I was planning to sit down, quietly, and write some incredible descriptions of the city and get out my deep thougts, in norwegian, on my laptop with my special characters, but it looks like it´s never going to happen, so here I am; sitting in a shitty, hot little internet café, being charged by the minute (a few cents, that is), and typing like crazy in english instead.

I left pretty Norway on saturday, after spending some lovely days in my cabin on Jeloy with my parents and friend Marit, barbequing inside cause of the rain, and catching fish the size of 4 kilos. I jumped straight on a bus from Málaga airport, going to the bus station, and I didn´t even manage to ask how much the ticket was, or where to put my suitcase! That´s what happens when you don´t practise your spanish... But I got to the station, and with a little help from the nicest bus driver ever managed to get on the bus to Granada. I picked up the keys in a hotel, got to the apartment where I´m staying for two weeks with other students, and found it to be HUGE! So no primitive student life so far.

The first night I met my french roommate. She´s 33 but looks like she´s 20, her english is terrible, and her spanish worse. We´ve been hanging out every day, and have had the funniest situations trying to communicate in english/spanish/french/norwegian. You wouldn´t believe the misunderstandings! In short, we´re having a blast.

On sunday, our roommates arrived, a couple which is the portuguese version of Audrey Tatou (Amelie de Montmartre) and Gerard Depardieu. She´s the most beautiful little creature of 24, and he´s the 34 year old guy who knows everything there is to know in the world, never stops talking, calls his girlfriend "the little flower" and tells her "you didn´t put enough salt!" after watching her cooking for 45 minutes.

On saturday, after finding the apartment, I ran out in the night to find something to eat. Our place is by the river, a bit outside of the center of the city, and I couldn´t find any open shops, but I spotted a bar, and went in saying: "Necesito comer!" (I need to eat). Very classy. But I got the most wooonderful tapas and chicken salad, and was happy as never before, although being the only person in the bar.

After this, I´ve had four days of 5 hour classes in spanish at the language school, and the transition´s been enormous. I´m speaking spanish! (!) I always thought it would pop up when I moved to Spain, but I didn´t know it could happen so fast. So now I´m speaking spanish with all the people at the school, inventing stories in class, and even thinking in spanish during the day! Still a bit nervous about starting uni in september, but guessing I will be superfine=) Although: the first day I was put in one of the MOST advanced classes. (Haha!). I was lost. And my confidence dropped to the centre of the earth, and I felt like an idiot. But then I remebered: it´s not my fault they put me here! So I charged and reboosted and asked to change, and now I´m with a lovely group of people who are speaking just as funny and incomplete as myself.

The things I don´t miss about Oslo:

- Spending hours on the buses, the metros, the trams, getting around and to and from work. In Granada we walk EVERYWHERE! No need for pulic transportation! I´ve been here five days and I already know my way around (well, as well as you can with my disastrious sense of direction). Walking to class at 8.30 in the morning, breathing the fresh and still not so hot air, watching the city awake... Qué alegría.

- Checking my email five times a day and spending I-don´t-know-how-many hours on the computer every day. Not having access to internet is like cleaning out your head!

-Watching TV... Need I say more? TV is opium for the people.

- The food. How can I have been eating knekkebrod, kebab and Fjordland??? Granada is about cheese. Wine. Ham, the most amazing kind. Seafood. Apricots. Paella, aioli, churros...

- The beer. I´ll probably loose several pounds giving up those pints in Evergreen. A señorita drinks wine, and she likes it dry.

Tuesday we went to the beach, in Motril, a small city by the coast. Depardieu and Amalie have a car, and it took us less than 45 minutes to get there. The water was the most refreshing thing since I got here, the sun was of the afternoon, the sand of medium sized pebbles, and the book "Anonomous shoeholics". Aaah...

Last night was the ultimate spanish experience, though. We were ten language students, going to a huge flamenco show, in the "Generalife", the garden surrounding Alhambra. It was a full moon, extraordinary costumes, almost too loud singing (think: opera-like) and spectacular lightsettings, all for an hour and forty minutes. Me gusta. It was probably the most romantic night of my life, in one way. It´s quite bizarre to be at this point, less then a week from catching fish in the Mossesundet.

I have to tell you about the tapas. The FREE tapas. You go to a bar, any bar, and you order a drink, be it water (yes!), and they SERVE you food. For free. It comes with. And it´s delicios, and I´m addicted already! I can never go back to have a drink without tapas on the side, I have to stay here forever. I remember when friend Pia and I were ninteen, and we did our big eurotrip of five months, and we were saying to each other: "Ah! They are feeding us! Do they think we look hungry?".

Tonight I´m going for tapas with some of the other students, then to a free concert at the Plaza de culturas. It´ll be great. We don´t sleep much, as you might have guessed, but we always do our homework! Last night we did them at 2.30 at night. We catch up by taking siestas, which I find completely natural already. And the dinners at 22 in the evening: perfecto para mi! Oh, and the students, they come from all over the world... Russia, Poland, Austria, Australia, Ireland, France, Italy (I guess that was mostly Europe). No other scandinavians yet, which is not really a bad thing!

So, my first week is about to finish... The weekend will be eventful, and I´ll write about that later. I´ll try, at least. And put pictures. That is, I have to take them first. But perhaps, the next thing I should do, is unpack my bigass suitcase. It´s like there was una bomba in my room.

Miss you all, though not too much yet, and hope everyone is having a perfect summer! Hasta luego, los todos!

Marie