Week 3 and Medina Azahara

Week 3 went by without anything TOO crazy happening, I got my CAMERA in the mail and I was STOKED! )the picture above is amy and i jumping for joy when our pacakges arrived... thats my one from last week from my family). I attempted a Flamenco class, but I'm not going to spend the money on that because I really want to travel more. I ended up cutting Mason's hair in my apartment lobby and gave him a fabulous EUROPEAN spanish haircut... which, if I saw someone with this haircut in the US, I'd laugh at them... however, it is completely normal here. PHOTO!



Tuesday we went to a place where we can volunteer with autistic children. I am going to help with the equine therapy I believe, and go to the zoo to help the kids feed-ride-pet the burritos... and NO, it doesnt mean mexican food. It means little donkeys. I got SO excited when I heard the word burrito... and then they clarified it did not mean food. Sad.

Wednesday Jenny Ilana and I met up with a Spanish guy named Almeyda... he's a friend of the brother in Ilana's host family. He showed us around different parts of town and we got chocolate con churros. DELICIOUS. PHOTO!

Thursday was a lot of fun. We tried to make Thursday the big night since Friday we would want to rest up because Saturday (aka Today) is the big trip to Cadiz for Carnaval! Thursday I tutored english for a while and then a whole slew of us, american and spanish, went to CONFUCIOUS, which is a japanese buffet. Yes, a japanese buffet here in spain. My little group got driven there by Graham's intercambio, Josefo or something like that. We hadnt been in a car in like 3 weeks and it was SO weird, especially with their crazy driving. Not sure I'll do that again. It was nice to bond with people who I normally only see at school. We got sangria for the first time and I actually enjoyed it. I like fruit. I eat oranges with my meals, its like a dessert apparently. No idea. We ended up at this bar called HOLLYWOOD PLAZA and just hung out, but Steph and I were actually really tired so we convinced the guys to walk us home, and on the way we found this park where you can see this really cool hotel that changes colors. Well, the lights on it change colors.


Every day I find something new in this city. It's rather small, but there is SO much. The jewish quarter, the roman bridge (YES, ROMAN... as in its lasted this long), and then all the modern stuff and the parks and gah, its wonderful here.


ANYWAY, on friday we took a trip to the Medina Azahara... again, I am probably spelling it wrong but its ok because i have PAMPHLETS! Its the city and palace of the Muslim califa, which is like the big boss cheese man, bigger than a king. It's basically where he kept his women. Very pretty. PHOTOS!
the muslims really like arches...

the house of ya'far


the ruins

gardens!

more ruins


oh AND i just found out that when I decided to not go out last night, my friends still did, and Ilana, on her way home, was nearly mugged. A guy hit her in the face with a beer bottle and tried to steal her purse... but she kept her purse and ran home. She lost her phone thursday night... things are not going well for her.

I promise I am being safe.