This post has now been eaten twice due to poor internet connection. I am not a big fan of excuses so I apologize for not making it happen sooner anyway. Should have had this up Monday at the latest. Anyway, as you have probably already noticed, I am going with a little different format for this post. That is because this is the prologue to the much anticipated picture post! Over the next couple days, I will be throwing up pictures of the IES hike in the Alpujaras, the weekend trip to Marbella I made with friends, the day trip to Cordoba (including pictures of the Mosque/Cathedral, a truly awesome work of humanity), and of course, the lovely city of Granada. For the trips to the Alpujaras, Marbella, and Cordoba, you can check out some of my older posts for some background information on each adventure. The pictures will be put up with captions during the rest of this week. Before that, however, I would like to get caught up in chronicling my time here in Spain.

In the last post, I mentioned that I was having a particularly difficult time staying awake in my comparative politics class at the University of Granada. While I have not, and will not, take an all out nap in class, I usually start combating some extremely heavy eyelids 5 to 15 minutes into each lecture. I am not too sure how to proceed. Perhaps caffeine is the answer. Perhaps a short nap before class. If you have any suggestions let me know. I will keep you updated on this front, and we shall see if I am able to make any progress.

The past two weeks, with a few exceptions, have been pretty routine. I have been going to class, getting a lot of tapas, and indulging a little extra on the weekends. However, in this context, the word routine has no connotation of boredom. Instead, I look at is as something exciting because it demonstrates that I am beginning to adapt to my surroundings, and I am somewhere in the transition between tourist and resident. The other exciting development has been my language skills. While I still struggle quite a bit, I have definitely improved since I first arrived. The best indication of my improvement is that recently, I have found myself in conversations with Spaniards that were real conversations, not simply talking. I think there is an innate difference between simply talking to someone versus engaging another in a conversation, but I think that when we only have to use our native tongue, this difference goes unnoticed. However, when the solid ground that is language suddenly becomes unstable, as it has for me in Spain, this difference becomes clearly obvious, and the real conversations you have in Spanish, though few and far between, become cherished moments.

With that being said, there have been some breaks in the routine. Last weekend I went with two friends to Cadiz for Carnival. We bought bus tickets, and at noon, we began the four and half hour journey southwest to Cadiz. When we arrived, the excitement in the air was tangible, and there was a general vibe of anticipation as charter bus after charter bus unloaded dozens of 20 somethings in costumes ready to party until dawn. For my friends and I, the first order of business was getting costumes. Unfortunately, none of us had prepared and purchased/created one in Granada, so we had to make it happen in Cadiz. We looked for close to an hour, and finally I settled on a Chinese-style shirt with one of those traditional Chinese skullcaps with the tassel in the back. So essentially, I was a really tall Chinese man for Carnival. For a good part of the night, we hung out with some Spanish kids that were on our bus, and a few of the girls were calling me “Super Chino.” In all honesty I would have let them call me just about anything. We began celebrating by enjoying our respective drinks of choice while looking out over the ocean. It was a great view, and the socializing, in Spanish and English, was great. After that, for the rest of the night we essentially wandered around while enjoying our beverages. Carnival is a huge party in the street, with a good portion of the city shut down and costumed people of all ages packing the streets. We stopped at a concert that was being held in a plaza for a while, but the majority of our time was simply wandering the streets and enjoying the spectacle of it all. I know that this might come across as almost a letdown of sorts, but that could not be further from the truth. It was a really wild experience. Unfortunately, the hours of partying caught up to me around 3 in the morning, and I hit the wall that many of my friends who had been to carnival the weekend before had warned me about. For the next hour I really had to battle to stay awake, at times literally falling asleep in the street. Not too fun.

I was able rally sometime between 4 and 5 in the morning, just in time to start heading back for the bus, which was scheduled to depart at 6 am. We were all pretty worn out, but like many great nights, there was one pleasant surprise waiting for us. Near the buses, there was a hamburger stand set up, and at 5:30 in the morning, business was booming. I met up with my buddies at the stand, and when I arrived, they had already struck up an animated conversation with a Cadiz local. I do not remember this man’s name, but over the next 15 minutes, I probably laughed as hard as I have ever laughed. Right off the bat, the guy had two things going for him: 1.) He was just a funny guy, and 2.) He had the trademark thick Cadiz accent. The topic of the conversation was generally Cadiz and what an awesome place it is. He explained that in general Cadiz was laid back, and always ready to party. He compared Cadiz to other cities in a combination of words and gestures: for Madrid, he ran in place, alluding to the hustle and bustle of Spain’s largest city and capital. For Granada, he acted out a leisurely stroll, for me an accurate description of Granada’s laid back, yet subtly dignified, character. Then came Cadiz. For his hometown, our new friend gave a couple textbook “could care less” gestures like a shoulder shrug and a spaced out stare skywards, followed by some gesture to his crotch, which I took to be a local gesture for really chillin’ out without a care in the world, though I could be wrong. I was dying, laughing so hard I was getting an ab workout. The hits kept coming too. Whenever he would talk about Cadiz, he would begin his sentences with a passionate “En Cadiz…” only with his accent, Cadiz is pronounced something like “Cahdee.” The funniest part of the encounter was when he explained all the great times to party in Cadiz. What I gathered from this part of the conversation is that, Carnival, March, June through August, September especially (I emphasize September because he said “en verano, septiembre…SEPTIEMBRE,” and that was it…I can only imagine what goes down in September), November, and Christmas are great times to party. I could be missing a few. He also had a great gesture for drinking. I was using the classic thumb-and-pinky-form-an-imaginary-glass-then-drink-from-it gesture, but our new amigo had a different, more subtle approach. He would simply take his hand, a few inches from his lower chest, palm inward, and give a slight downward movement. It kind of looked like he was about to shake someone’s hand, only way to close to his body. Regardless, I got a big kick out of this gesture, and I plan on using it when I can.

After this wonderful chance encounter came to a close, we boarded our bus, and headed back for Granada. Within 5 minutes, everyone on the bus crashed, most not waking up until we returned to Granada. We got back to Granada around 11 in the morning. I walked back home, and essentially slept for the rest of the day, taking a few food breaks. It was an epic Saturday, and I needed to recover.