4,5,6!!!!!!

My bad, my bad...I've been busy being busy in Granada that I haven't had the opportunity to sit down and write! But here I am!!! So lets start with Day 4: Amigos y Mas!!!!!! Friday was a day of new friends for sure! I had my first orientation on campus which was really fun! I got to meet other kids in my CEA group who had just come in as well! I've met some really cool people and I know I will have great friends by the time I'm done here! That evening after orientation and my siesta (my favorite part of the day), my host sister Ana and her boyfriend Alejandro, took Lizzy and I out on the town with some of her friends! We went to a tetaria (a tea house) and then we walked around the city till we found a cute little restaurant where we got shwarma! If any of you have seen the movie The Avengers, shwarma is a meal that all the superheros eat at the end of the movie. Since I LOVE superheros, I was so excited to try it. It was soooooo delicious!!!!!! By the time we got home it was around 12:30 and Lizzy and I were so exhausted! But we had to wake up early the next morning because CEA was taking us to Ronda!

Which brings me to Day 5: Ronda is the Place to be! We got up at 7 to be at Correos (the local post office where we always meet) by 8. There was about 30 of us CEA-ers and we got on a bus to start the 2 hour drive from Granada to Ronda. The views were amazing! I felt like we were in a different world!!

Lizzy and me on the bus to Ronda!




One of the beautiful views from the bus!

When we got there, we all got off the bus and met up with our tour guides! There was one who gave the tour in English and one who gave it Spanish...I chose the English speaking tour guide because I love tours and wanted to understand everything that we were seeing. It was all so interesting!! Ronda is such an old beautiful town that is divided by a giant gorge! Its so impressive and beautiful!!!! I would've loved to climb down to the bottom of the gorge to look around but we didn't have enough time!


That bridge that you see above is the newest bridge of three that connect the two sides of the city together. Even though it is new, that bridge is still over 250 years old!!! It was so beautiful to see from this angle, but it was even cooler to walk across and look down!

This place was seriously gorgeous! Everywhere you looked had a view of something new and breathtaking! I was in heaven! We also visited an old Arab bath house there in Ronda, where people used to go to clean their bodies in hot steam rooms and cold rooms! We got to see inside them which was so interesting!

This was the view from above the bath houses and one of the hot steam rooms inside!

After we visited this bath house, we went to a museum and an old house with more amazing views of the countryside of Ronda!

I had so much fun in Ronda!!! It was a beautiful city full of history and culture! I would love to back there again someday to spend more time walking around the countryside and the gorge area. It was spectacular! I highly recommend it to anybody visiting Spain, especially southern Spain! You can find more information about the city of Ronda at Turismo de Ronda.

What was even better about the day was that night, Ana and Ale took Lizzy and I to an actual working Arab Bath House in Granada, a few blocks from our house! It was so fun! There were 6 hot pools (different temperatures of hot) and one cold pool! It was silent in there and dark and steamy. The atmosphere was so cool!! Also, we each got to have a 20 minute back or leg massage! It was so nice! I got the back massage and the lady that did it did a great job! They had Arab tea in the rooms so you could drink that and completely unwind! After all the walking around Ronda, this was the perfect end to the day! If you want to check out the bath houses, you can click here.

On Day 6, we visited a neighborhood of Granada called Sacromonte! This was just as pretty as Ronda was and right in my backyard here! We got to visit an old abbey there, and walk around in a cave underneath the abbey! It was a very Catholic place, which was very interesting and historical! My roommate, Lizzy was in heaven because she is a deeply religious Catholic girl (which I adore). I have been so blessed with her as a roommate (or companera de cuarto :D )! So after, we visited the beautiful abbey, we went to a high point of the city named Mirador de San Nicolas where we watched the sunset over Granada. It was sooooooo beautiful!!! Plus we were right next to the Alhambra (old moorish castle) which I will be going to on Wednesday, so be on the lookout for more pics!

I will try to be better about posting every day! There is just so much to see and do all the time!!!! Yes, there are siestas where I have time to relax, but I'd rather sleep and get ready for the second half of my day!!! But I will be better, I promise! Stay tuned!

Kenzy