Whew! This was an exhausting, but fun and eventful week! We had many adventures and lots of exploration, mixed in with another week at our internships!
We started the week with a hike on Sunday into the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The trail we took traveled along a stream for a while, before climbing farther into the mountains. It was probably about a total of 5 miles, and wasn’t too bad except for being a bit steep. There were three different rope bridges, which were a bit sketchy to cross, especially the last one! Below one of the bridges was a waterfall that you could walk down to. After the hike up, we were all hot and sweaty, so we waded into the stream and dunked our heads into the waterfall. It felt so good! After we hiked back down, we drove to a restaurant that looked over the valley. Professor Mike ordered us all traditional Spanish foods, like marinated tomatoes, cured cheese, fried eggplant with molasses, jamón (cured ham), chorizo sausage, morcilla sausage, and fried potatoes. It all tasted amazing! I’m definitely going to miss the food here when we leave.
On Monday, my classroom ended up only having one student again, so I was floating between my room and with Sarah, since our rooms are connected. We ended up helping them finish the mobile made from the t-shirt strips, adding more hoops to make it extend out further as it went down, making it cone shaped, and filling in the gaps with more strips. While we were doing this, the room next door was playing meditative music and using Tibetan singing bowls. We both started to get even sleepier than we already were after the hike the day before. A few minutes later the teacher from the room came an got us, brought us in, and told us to sit and relax. It was so hard not to fall asleep! I felt much better afterwards though; it was almost as good as a nap!
Tuesday there were two students in my room, so there was a little more to do, helping with feeding, and with mobility exercises. The neighboring classroom did the relaxation exercise again, but this time instead of having us participate, the teacher had us help run it. She had us walk around the room with essential oils and small chimes, then showed us how to use the Tibetan bowls to make a soothing noise for the children. Later in the day we had another Spanish class, this time making it on our own and on time!
Did you know that the word "Granada" in Spanish means "Pomegranate"? These are flowers from a pomegranate tree!
On Wednesday I had another day with feeding and helping with mobility exercises, but in the afternoon a few of the teachers brought me outside to help set up the stage and decorate for their graduation ceremony. In the afternoon we had another Spanish class, this time learning about physical descriptors for people. This ended up resulting in lots of laughs as the teacher would draw cartoons on the white board as we learned the words and practiced using them. We played Guess Who, then played a guessing game where each person was given a photo of a celebrity or movie character and had to describe them to the rest of class.
Thursday was the graduation ceremony at the San Rafael School, so it was a huge party atmosphere all day. At the ceremony they had a dance routine with some of the aids and more able students. After this the graduating students were called up, and their teacher and parents gave a short speech. After there was snacks and music, with everyone having a good time. Two out of the three students in my classroom graduated, so my teacher was taking it hard that they were going to be leaving.
That afternoon we went on a tour of the bullfighting ring. The fighter for this year was super popular, so all the tickets to the actual fight were already sold out, but it was really cool to see the ring. The arena was much smaller than I was expecting. Besides the arena we got to see the stable where horses were kept, the pens for the bulls, the chapel, and the trauma rooms in case something happened to the bullfighter. Apparently by law, before the bullfight starts, there needs to be a trauma team of 10 people, as well as an ambulance on scene, otherwise the fight is postponed or cancelled.
On Friday we all left for our weekend away, headed south to Nerja and the beach! Our hotel was about a two-minute walk from the beach, so we all went there for a few hours as soon as we got checked in. It was beautiful, but the water was much colder than I was expecting. For lunch we went to a beach-side restaurant for Paella, one of the most common dishes in Spain, made from rice, saffron, and in this case, a mix of seafood and chicken. It was so delicious! I could’ve eaten a lot more of it, but it was very rich! After lunch, we went back to the beach for a while, and some of us got brave enough to swim. At this point the waves were getting quite big, so it was a lot of fun to float and ride over them as they came in. At one point, I was standing up from one wave, only to turn around and see a wall of water come crashing over my head, taking me completely off my feet and carrying me tumbling to shore. Apparently, it was quite the sight, but I thought it was fun! For dinner we traveled to the nearby city of Frigiliana, where we walked the mountainside streets of bright white houses and cobblestone, then had an amazing dinner on a balcony overlooking the city and the ocean. I had dorado, a type of fish, on top of cous-cous.
Saturday morning, we left Nerja early, and made our way north to Cordoba. Our first stop was an archeological site of Medina Azahara, a palace and city of the Moors. It was incredible to see the arches and rubble of the walls, trying to imagine what this place would’ve been like when it was built 2,000 years ago. We continued from there further into Cordoba, and had yet another incredible lunch, this time I had grilled tuna with a mint and caper sauce, along with some sample of cheese that Professor Mike got for us.
After lunch, we went to the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba. It was a massive building, originally built as a Moorish mosque, and undergoing several expansions. In the middle of these expansions through the centuries, it became a Christian cathedral after the Reconquista. Inside were red and white striped arches across the entire interior, the pillars and arches changing slightly as you moved from section to section, moving through the centuries. In the center, there is a section where the Christians blew out the ceiling to build an impressive cathedral, with towering organs, paintings, stained glass, and wood carvings. Even though the two building styles were polar opposite, they seemed to blend easily together, as though it had been planned, and not an afterthought. I think the mosque was my favorite building that I have seen yet, simply because of the sheer size and intricate detail. Standing at one side, it was candy striped arches as far as you could see, until it faded into darkness.
Next week is the festival of Corpus Christi, where there are parades, religious processions, and fairs across the city all week, along with continuing our internships! Check in again next week to hear all about it!
