5-10-09

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Happy Mother’s Day!! Better yet, Happy Mather’s Dog!
Woke up around 10:30 which was just wonderful. I love sleeping in and that’s all there is to it! I had some breakfast then got ready to leave. José, Mitch, and I left and went to pick up Whitney at the gas station (the only one in the city, everyone knows it – corner of Recogidas and Ronda). He drove us to Monachil, the cute little pueblo of Granada where he used to spend his summers. We hiked ALL afternoon long – so fun! We were up, down, and all around those mountains. We saw several swinging bridges, waterfalls, and had lunch in the crisp, fresh air. The weather was perfect and I got a little tan line even though I was wearing sunscreen. There was a long stretch of the hike where we were walking along the path by the river and we had to hang onto rock-climbing hooks or crawl under the gigantic rock formations on the banks. It was so much fun but a little scary! Once we had to jump down from the cement into the water to hop across the rocks since there were so many people, but we got trapped! Mitch was tall enough to push himself up onto the ledge then climb but José opted to just wade through the water to the next big rock. Neither Whitney nor I are tall/strong enough to pull ourselves up and we definitely weren’t about to get our feet soaking wet so we made quite a scene trying to climb/push/pull each other out of the water. I think all four of us had a really good time with the senderismo J I’m so thankful that José was willing to take us! And I do have to admit that I’m in a lot better shape than I was the last time we went hiking – I wasn’t breathing nearly as hard or sweating as much.
After we got back we decided to go for some ice cream so Mitch, Whitney, and I ended up at Flamboyant, the pastelería I pass every day. It’s also where Taylor’s birthday cake was from – delicious if I remember correctly.. I opted for the cheesecake – different but still good. Cake instead of a graham cracker crust and strawberry jelly almost instead of topping. We took a little paseo and ended up at another place I walk by every day and have been wanting to try. We just assumed there would be tapas (I always see people with them on Sunday afternoons..) but this place was just stingy I think. So after a pastel and a clara what do we do? Go for churros, obviously. We met up with Cassandra and went to Café Futbol which was delicious as expected. Not as good as Alhambra but definitely high quality. Afterward I decided that enough was enough and I needed to quit eating and start studying! I sat by the river for a while and prepared some Art History stuff for the final. Yuck, I hate studying and I know this week is going to be full of it L
After that I came home and Mom called me back! I got to talk to her, Dad, and Mandy for a little bit until I had dinner. After dinner I went to the internet café and Skyped with them for a while. Man, do I hate that place – creepy, smelly people and crappy, overpriced computers. But, I got to talk to Mom, Dad, and Laura! Definitely worth the tradeoff. Everyone sounded good – I can’t wait to see them next week!!
Oh, I forgot to mention that at dinner Julia and I were talking about churros and I asked the Italian girls if they had tried them. Since they said no I invited them to go but they were definitely not interested. They seemed to know what they were and by the description “fried bread with melted chocolate” I’m not sure what put them off. I couldn’t think of a better treat to tell you the truth! I also asked them about tapas and they weren’t too impressed.. Either way, I give up on trying to take them out. And, Julia told me that they don’t eat breakfast – just a mug of ColaCao. I think she’s a little offended that they don’t eat her food; she seemed a little insulted at dinner.