Just a few random thoughts......

So I am in Granada for my birthday weekend and though this will not be a very cohesive post, I thought I would share some random things with you just to hold you over until my next juicy post!

So on Thursday the students from my sixth grade English class sang Happy Birthday to me! It was so cute and yet barely understandable. I am tempted to take my camera in on Monday and have them reinact it and then I will post it on here so you can hear how adorable they are. I was so touched. A few other students from my 4th grade art class also told me happy birthday!!

Tad and I went to the Alhambra today at the bright and early hour of 8am. My host mom thought I was crazy getting up that early but it almost wasnt early enough. There was a huge line when we got there and we kept hearing announcements of the dwindling amount of tickets as we waited in line. We started talking to a couple in front of us who was from California and finally, Natalia got out of line and checked out these self-serve kiosks which we thought were only for people who had pre-reserved tickets online and needed to print them. Lo and behold, you could purchase tickets there. So we got tickets for an afternoon visit starting at 2pm. Meanwhile, what do we do with 5 extra hours before we can enter? Well, this is where tourguide extraordinaire Emily steps in.....we had a mini tour of Granada. We had coffee at cafe futbol, had chocolate filled muffins from the infamous bread lady (see old posts for pictures - and not to worry, we did a sufficient amount of exercise today to burn off those calories). Then, we did a tour around the Cathedral and the surrouding touristy areas. We did a walk-through of Plaza Bib Rambla (styled after Las Ramblas of Barcelona). We then climbed up to a very cool pottery shop that I visited with my parents when they were here and we all picked up some things (We all got new mugs for the house and Natalia and Oscar bought some gifts for family and friends). Then we went to a place for some drinks and tapas and by the time we knew it, it was time to go to the Alhambra.

The Alhambra visit was fun - granted it was my third time there and I am officially exhausted but it is worth it. I got some really cool pictures of some of the flowers in the gardens there and am thinking about investing in some pastels here to do some drawings. If they come out well enough, I may take them to a shop to see about selling them since I am already a famous artist in my school, I might as well try my hand at it in the real world (this is a joke!) We got Natalia and Oscars email addresses and hope to stay in contact with them. Can anyone say trip to California to visit them when I get back? yes, please!!

I think we are going to meet up with my friend Juan Carlos again tonight and have a little birthday celebration. At this point, all I want to do is sit and rest my feet for a while. Oh, I almost forgot some of the best news............WE WILL HAVE INTERNET NEXT WEEK!! YOu can all stop hearing me complain about the lack of internet and we can all stop going and hanging out at the McDonalds!!! Hallelujah!!!

Bye for now!