Thursday September 1 – Placement Test/ El Albycin

                Today we had a placement test at the CLM. For some reason there were a lot who were nervous in our group. The test had three parts: writing (answering simple questions), comprehension (fill in the blank from multiple choice) and talking (a short, easy question interview). There are nine levels, nine being the highest, and I got a five in writing and a five in comprehension so they put me in level five. Most of the group was about a five or six, a few got sevens or eights and a few got threes and fours. One girl, Carrie, has never had a single class of Spanish in her life and knows only a few words in Spanish. We are all amazed at how gutsy she is to come to Spain.

                After the test a few of us went to the bar that we went to yesterday, which I now know is Catedral (Cathedral) because it is right next to a huge church. We had a beer and tapas (tapas is a small serving of food with your drink) and it was the first tapa that I had in Spain, it was cold tuna, noodles and peppers and again it was delicious. We have to Italian guys that moved in with us today, I am not sure how to spell their names yet. We talked Spanish with them at lunch while eating baked chicken, once again it is good food.

                At 5:00 our API group met at El Corres to go to El Albysin. It was a long walk but well worth it. The city of Granada is the best city I have ever been to. There were so many views of El Alambra, the castle of Granada, and so many other beautiful ones of the city. We hiked to the highest point in Granada but on our way there we talked with some people who lived in the caves of the mountains. They seemed to be originally from Jamaica and they had doors on their caves and multiple rooms and windows without glass. I could not get a good view of the rooms but they were all very friendly they played some African drum music for us, took some pictures with us and told us to come back at ten that night but that is a place I will never go to at night because there were many things that made it feel like a very dangerous place. I thought about how little those families living in the cave had and how happy they are, they make you look at like from a different perspective. The highest point in Granada was an abandoned church the view was incredible. Behind the church there was nothing but mountains and we decided we would hike them Saturday. The walk down was as beautiful as the walk up. This town is amazing! We had a Spanish tortilla for dinner, it was delicious. I am going to stop saying food is delicious and let you assume it was delicious, unless I say it was gross to save repeating myself. At 11:00 a small group went to Los Italianos, the most famous ice cream place in Granada, Michelle Obama even went there when she visited Granada. Also it is true that it is the best ice cream here because it is the BEST ice cream I have ever had!