Pictures

Finally, the pictures you've all been waiting for !
Here's my beautiful, ecstatically jet-lagged face after I finally landed in Madrid. What better way to make friends and influence people than to look like a hungover American?


This is the view from the air. I am not entirely sure why I was awake to take this. At that point, I was on my flight from Madrid to Malaga, and I was bone tired. Thus, this must be from when we are landing. There's a lot of agriculture that is still practiced in Andalucia, but conversely, there is also a terrible draught, especially in Eastern Andalucia where Granada is. When we arrived at the hotel in Malaga, we were advised not to take long showers, use water only when necessary, and keep all appliances turned off when not in use. Certainly, in just paying the basic bills, there's a very different way of looking at consumption here in Spain than at home.

Yet in spite of the drought, Granada's many fountains still beckon. This city was really redone at the end of the 15th century to reflect the ultimate triumph of Spanish monarchy (and Catholicism) over the Moors. So although Granada does not have Paris' wide boulevards, its has many parks, plazas, fountains, and streets dedicated one way or another to the Reconquista. Although if one looks hard enough, one can still see many buildings have retained a vaguely Middle Eastern design. This is most noticeable near the center of the city, but fortunately, the old Muslim quarter has been preserved more or less intact, so the architecture is very reminiscent of Morocco. Or so I am told.

Anyway, to business. I'm going to put up two more pics and then leave the link here on the internet to the main album I assembled on facebook. But don't worry. You don't need facebook to see the album. They designed it that way. Or so I am told.

So voila, two more for the eyes:


The Alhambra, as seen from the top of the hill of the Albaicin, the old Muslim quarter.

And last, but not least, I can't resist showing this photo:

The umbrella fighting scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was shot here! Sweeeeeet. This is the beach in Cabo de Gata, the National Park I mentioned in my previous post. There are more pictures in the album.

The Link to the album.

In short, here's life.

I got sick this past weekend, a 24 hour stomach bug. Once I recovered, it did not stop me from taking a bus to Seville and meeting up with the rest of my program there, who had left on Friday morning. I didn't get to see everything (the cathedral, the palaces, etc.), but I did get to see a European soccer game. I had the best seats with my friends Scott Forman and Lauren Cordova, front row at centerfield. Seville was playing Huelva, a local city not far, and they kicked ass, 4-1. It was pretty cool. I didn't take any pictures of this, but Scott did and he's going to send them to me.

Upon returning, Monday was the first day of classes. So far, not so bad. Compared to my usual schedule, this is rather peaceful. Only Arabic and Spanish require weekly homework of any kind. Finding a math class at the university is proving quite a challenge. The main sticking point is scheduling. Almost all but 3 of the math classes are year round, and of the 3 that aren't, one would be great, but it interferes with my Spanish class, and that's mandatory attendance. One I don't have the prerequisites for. The last is a class on regression models, which would bore me to tears. I'm halfway tempted to try it anyway, because there might be more emphasis put on the technical details than what I saw in Econometrics, but I don't know if I could stomach a 3rd semester in a row of ordinary least squares. The upside is that if I take it, I can drop two of my classes for one. A class at the center is only worth 3 credits, while a university class is worth 6. Thus, it would probably be more work in exchange for fewer classes to worry about, and more free time in my schedule. I don't know if it'll be possible at this point, but I'm going to keep exploring my options.

The last piece of news is that I got a job working at the study abroad center. Its just running errands and such, but its a great opportunity in several ways. One is that its good to have a job during school hours (i.e., I do it between classes), as a way of supplementing my income. Even if it just winds up being 30 euros a week, that'll significantly help my living expenses, especially since I wasn't planning to make any money. Two, is that the pay is good. Its 7 euro/hr, which equals to about $9.80/hr, which is more than I would be currently earning state-side. Three, is that the job is mostly running errands around Granada, which is helping my Spanish immensely. Although I placed into the second most advanced Spanish class, my speaking is still far worse than my writing, understanding, or reading. I can speak grammatically, but very slowly. Hopefully, this will only help improve the situation.

Anyway, that's about all the news that's fit to print. Or at least, as far as I have told.