Nursing School

Well, today was my first day of nursing school, and according to my professors, the first day of my nursing career. Yesterday my mom and Sage helped me move down to Cedar, a 5 hour drivew from Logan to Cedar City, then they made the trip back to Logan after helping me move in.

I'm living in a huge house with 11 girls, all of which are awesome! Its a bed and breakfast for the Shakespearean Festival in the summer and student housing during the school year. The owner is remodeling the kitchen and repainting, so we haven't been able to use the kitchen. Before my mission I left all my silverware and kitchen stuff at my old apartment, so I don't even have stuff for the kitchen yet anyway. This morning for breakfast I found a plastic cup and had cereal in it using chop sticks. It actually worked really well. I'll just be glad when I can cook in the kitchen.

Nursing school seems like it will be intense but fun. This morning we had a welcoming meeting with all the students from all four semesters. They call us level 1, level 2, etc. according to the semester we're in. I coudn't help but feel like Harry Potter on the first day of wizard school nervous to see what I'm going to learn in the next few years.

Well, I have 2 chapters to read for tomorrow from a 3 inch thick nursing book so...that it all for now...

I'm home

Well, its been a while since I've updated my blog, so sorry to those who have been waiting to see what I've been up to. Like my life is that exciting anyway...
I'm back from Spain and am going through adjusting to normal life again. In the two weeks since I've been home I've haven't been too bored though. I've been to Bear Lake with my family, Provo with friends where I went to the Ute Stampede, and all over town on my dad's motorcycle. I'll keep you all updated.

tapas

Tonight we went out for tapas with Maite, Irene, and the neighbor next door. Tapas are like appetizers and they´re cool here because if you get a drink they´re free! We went to a place the neighbor owns so she actually gave them to us for free. We had Mexican pizza and tacos (they weren´t the real thing at all), shrimp, barbeque pork, chicken sandwich things, fries with ranch, and much more. It was amazing! In the restaurant there was a vending machine for cigarettes, which are really common in Spain. On the front of it it says For Adults Only! but that´s the only thing to stop kids from buying them. I thought it was interesting and added a picture. After tapas we went out for Italian ice cream. I´m going to miss the people here and the food!

Science Museum

I finally decided to go to the science museum in Granada the other day. Since I have school in the morning I went later in the afternoon with only 3 hours until it closed. I had actually met 3 nursing students from another town in Spain the day before and they invited me to go with them. 3 hours definitely wasn't enough time to see everything so I decided to go back the next day with Cindy. There was SO much to see, and most of it was really interactive. My favorite part was an expo on the human body that included real bodies and info. They had a presentation on the heart and the four of us nursing students went in to see it. The girl doing the presentation asked us if we knew anything about the heart and we told her we were nursing students. She got really nervous and said we could teach her. Some other highlights were the poisonous animal expo with real spiders, snakes and cool frogs, a huge chess set outside, a huge lookout tower, and a huge table and chair too tall to see over. Sadly I don't have pictures of those because my camera died. You'll just have to picture it in your head.

More pictures!

More pictures. That's where we ate last night, and the girls with Juan. He was visiting from Madrid and sadly he had to go back home today. That's the Alahambra in the background.

Back to school

Well, after a 5 day weekend we're back to school. Last week was the ferrial (fare) for Granada, so they saw it fit to give us a few days to take in the cultural experience. Some of the students from SUU went to Portugal for a few days but the rest of us decided to stay back and get to see more of Granada.

On Wed we went to la Tarasca, a big parade for the kids. They didn't throw candy or anything, but it was better in my opinion. The parade started with police men on horses, followed by 4 big people in costumes, representing the first king and queen of Spain, and the Moroccans, who used to live in Spain before the Catholic kings took over (the whole celebration is based on the Spanish kings and the Moroccans). After them is a lady manican on top of a dragon, representing a disciple of Christ overcoming evil. Legend has it that many years ago there was a dragon invading Granada and she was sent to kill it. Now, in the parade, each year she wears a new dress which supposedly represents the new fashion for the year. Its a big secret what she'll be wearing until the day of the Tarasca. The dress is never very pretty however, and if you're told you're dressed worse than the manican, you know your clothes are way out of style. Following the dragon are the Cabasudos, people with big head costumes on representing people in the culture of Spain, such as Don Quojote, and bull fighters. The best part about them was they carry around ballons made of pigs bladders and hit people on the head with them. The little kids get scared and cry and the old ladies try to duck to avoid them. An older lady in front of us totally got wapped one. It was hilarious.

That night we went to the actual fair ground and rode a fare ride. The rides here are a lot more fun than the ones in Logan. It was more like Lagoon. We just rode one but after we all got sick and thought we were going to hurl. Actually, when we got off Shaka and Cameron (2 guys from SUU) put on a big scene acting sick and scared a lot of people into not going on the ride.

On Thursday we went to the Corpus Cristi (body of Christ). Its more of a religious celebration starting with Mass at the Cathedral and a long procession. We skipped mass but decided to see the procession. It was a hot day (over 100) and after 45 minutes of watching people walk by with candles we decided it just wasn't worth it. Two older ladies had already passed out next to us, and I just knew that I was going to be next. We decided to go get an ice cream instead. I guess when the actual Corpus Cristi comes by at the end you can look at it and its just like partaking of the sacrament for them. That way they don't have to actually eat it. It was interesting.

Friday we caught a bus and went to a beach called Almuñecar with 4 or us girls from SUU, Jared, a student from New Hampshire, and 3 member guys from the ward here. We sat in the sun all day and all got burnt. The water was cold but very refreshing. I´m learning to be very careful when I go to the beach because there´s a lot of topless girls. You wouldn´t see that at Bear Lake, that´s for sure.

Saturday we walked around Granada for most of the day and tried to recover from our sunburns. That night we went to Stake Conference and hung out with some of the members again.

Sunday was Conference and more time hanging out with the members.

Today we had school and had to force ourselves to get up early and get back into things. Its always hard to go back to school, even when you´re in Spain.

The Members ROCK!!

So today I've decided that the members in Granada totally ROCK!! Since I've been here they've been the source of about 70% of our fun, not to include how much they've helped us on our Spanish. There's a group of young single adults who call us all the time and invite us to hang out. My first Sunday here I didn't know a soul in Granada but I went to church and made some instant friends with 3 girls who not only fed me lunch but hung out with me all day until I had to meet the rest of my group that night at 8. Since then we've been to the fair, to eat tapas (typical in Spain), to play pool, to the beach, to a baptism, and FHE. Tonight while playing pool we played Americans vs. Spaniards, which was totally uneven because it was 4 American girls vs. 4 Spanish boys. Anyway, we almost won but then they put in the last 4 of their bolas (balls) and won. We owe them Italian Ice Cream now, but it was totally worth it. We'll pay up tomorrow.