with passing time

so i haven´t been so great at maintaining this blog, only 3 entries, pathetic, i know... but, it´s hard if you don´t have a computer. whenever i have computer/internet access, i usu. only have time to check e-mail. i would like to give my sincere apologies for not responding rapidly to e-mails, but please keep sending them because i do read them. i´m definately exhausted, i´m not so sure if i can become accustomed to staying up to 7 in the morning. when they say the spanish stay out all night, they really do stay out ALL night. the typical "going out" night: meet for drinks and tapas at one of the million bars at about 11 and either go bar hopping or stay there until like 2 or 3 and then continue to a bar/club with a dance floor or to a discoteca. it´s pretty fabulous that in granada tapas are free... fyi, tapas are sm. portions of food, could be anywhere from toasted bread with cheese or ham (they LOVE ham), a sm. hamburger, fried calamari or once i had half an avocado- an avocado with mayonase, but definately took the mayo off. so continuing on with the night, if you so wish, you go dancing or just continue drinking at a bar. return home at about 7 and hope that you don´t have to get up until lunch the next day. i definately love the discotecas and bars with dance floors- so much fun. there´s a wide variety of music they play at bars- anywhere from reggae to r&b to techno, not a fan of techno though... it seems like my friends that are high enjoy techno the most. so moving on... i am actually staying quite busy with school. we have school from mon-thurs and have each class twice a week, 1 1/2 hours each time, talk about long, long, long... the fav is my european union class, so interesting. i have a very animated professor who definately takes up the full hour and a half. i need to start studying for the dele exam soon, i´ve definately been putting that off. recent excursions... i went with my program to madrid, segovia and toledo- great trip. in madrid, we hit up the museums- museo del prado, museo reina sofía, museo thyssen-bornemisza and saw garcía lorca´s "la casa de bernarda alba". i got a taste of velázquez, goya, zurbarán, ribera and so many others, only slightly impressive ;) . i went out one night with friends. i have some spanish friends in granada who have friends in madrid, so a couple of girls and i met up with them. two of them own bars, so we stopped by both and stayed at one after it closed- it was pretty rad, we had a bar to ourselves. we stayed there for awhile and then went dancing. the next day was rough with touring, but it was worth it. outside of madrid, we passed through san lorenzo de el escorial (a mausoleum of the spanish monarchs, palace and monastery complex) and afterward "el valle de los caídos" (the valley of the fallen)- a place i totally recommend you read about. it was breathtaking- situated up on a mountainside with a spectacular view. the site contains the largest basilica in the world which hollows out a hill and makes it seem like a cave. atop the basilica is the tallest memorial cross in the world. the fascist history surrounding the valley, the remains of the 40,000 from the spanish civil war the monument sits atop on and the slave labor involved in constructing the memorial gives the valley an eery feeling. the basilica was frigid and dark, but left a sense of awe. the next day, we toured around segovia- such a picturesque city. we passed through the cathedrals, aqueducts and visited the castle that appears in snow white. toledo, the old capital of spain, was more fortified, as could be expected, and had a much different appeal. consider the side of a building to be a face, if more decorative and "pretty", the architecture is labeled feminine. more simplistic and fortified architecture is more masculine. if i can ever upload my pictures at a decent rate, i can show you how toledo is considered a more masculine city and segovia, more feminine. i got to run, until next time...