Finally! This is what I call a GRANDE café!
First large coffee since I left the U.S... it was
long overdue...

Protest by the garbage workers in La Plaza del Carmen

        First full week of intensive program classes and they are, though helpful and needed, extremely boring. It's four hours of classes in the same classroom, needless to say we're all super tired and hungry. They have helped though already with understanding grammar problems. After class I've been exploring the city a bit before lunch. Everyday we have to be back at su casa (home) by 2:30 for lunch with the entire family. For my family, lunch is the largest and most important meal of the day. Mis padres don't even eat dinner but she does serve it late around 9p. When we do eat with them, they constantly offer us more food, we feel rude saying no so we eat it... by the end of lunch we're so full we don't feel like doing anything. That's when I'll sit and watch spanish soap operas while working on my homework. They get pretty intense at times but are so much more interesting than american soap operas.
    The big news in Granada has been the protest/riots of the garbage workers. They're on strike, refusing to pick up any trash making the dumpsters overflow with garbage (la basura= garbage in español). People have just started to throw the trash outside the dumpster creating a horrible smell when you walk by. Garbage bags after garbage bags keep filling the streets. Walking back from school, I've come across riots of the workers protesting for better pay and benefits. They're going to have to get their way since there's only so much garbage the city can have sprawled across its streets. In a way, I could see some benefits of this strike for the environment. With the garbage continuing to pile and create disturbances for the public, people may decide to consume less creating less waste and thus not adding to the garbage pile-up and lowering the human consumption level- just a thought. Now that people are aware of how much waste they produce since it's sitting right there, literally in front of their houses, work and schools, they'll see the impact of consuming less.

   While exploring, I stumbled upon a coffee shop called Época Coffee where when I asked for a coffee grande I was actually given a LARGE coffee! I was so excited that I wasn't getting a small shot sized coffee rather a coffee-size that could satisfy my addiction and it was delicious! I was extremely content while drinking that coffee, so good!
   Tonight is my first night of intercambios: It's when I work and speak with a spaniard to improve my spanish-speaking skills and they work and talk with me to improve their english-speaking skills. It's for one hour every week and hopefully by the end of the semester I will be able to hold a fluent conversation with my partner- that's the goal at least!
 Hasta mañana!