Tour & Tea

Hey everyone!  This week has been pretty good.  I've been pretty busy with classes and everything.  On Wednesday, we had a tour of the "Realejo" neighborhood, which is like the old "royal" neighborhood in Spain.  It is where my school is located.  It is called that because originally Granada was a Muslim city, it was for 700 years (they're the ones who made the Alhambra Palace).  When the Spanish came in and took over, they considered their religion and ways superior or "royal" compared with the Muslims.  Anyway, that's where they lived.  

These first few pictures are just from around the neighborhood and some of the churches in the neighborhood.

This is the inside of what used to be an old convent, however now it is a residence hall for one of the colleges.  It is very cool!

 Isabella and Ferdinand's symbol; they were quite the power couple.  The noose (yoke) is yugo in Spanish, for Ysabel (Isabella), and the arrows are called flechas in Spanish, for Fernando (Ferdinand).  Interesting fact. :)

The next few pictures are from more of our tour of the neighborhood.

 The backside of the Alhambra from the "prison" building.

This is the street I live on.

That is the apartment I live in with the plant.

This is the entrance to the building.

After the tour, we went to an Arabic Tea House, or a tetería in Spanish.  There are two types of tea there, and they were really good.  One is a spiced tea with milk and the other is a green tea with mint.  The tea comes with a plate of Arabic pastry type things.  Some of them were really good, some of them were okay.  The tea was really good though.

Some interesting things:
Here, people are always late.  In fact, it is rude to show up to a party on time.  A half hour late is expected.
In the US, we say please, thank you, and I'm sorry a lot more than they do here.  If you walk around saying "gracias" for everything you are an automatic tourist.  I don't know why, I think they are just more direct about everything here.
I have yet to feel unsafe here - it's been great.

Well, I think that's all for now...