The weekend of the 23rd of May, my host family and I traveled to Granada. We stayed with a cousin there, who was a fantastic tour guide (no sarcasm there at all, he seriously knew his stuff). The main part of the trip was the visit to the Alhambra. It's one of those places you always end up talking about, but rarely ever travel to, so I was excited to be able to visit it.
The next big thing that happened was "graduation." Here, they call them Las ORLAS. A few of the big differences are that the ceremony is slightly less formal. Dress varied from dress shirts and jeans to suits for the guys, although all the girls got dressed up. Also, the majority of the people talked amongst themselves throughout the ceremony, which was in the school's parking lot. Instead of calling each person, they named off the people in the groups that signed up and the groups went on stage to receive their ORLA. The ORLA actually isn't a diploma, just a posted with pictures of everyone from the class. There were also some recognitions of other awards and a speech by class representatives, but that's it really. Then on to the class dinner and party, an aspect I really liked, doing one last thing together as a class (a little easier to do here, with no more than 70 people in my class). The open bar at the class party was interesting, but that's just Spain for you.
Next on the list of news is my Germany trip. An exchange friend was stopping in Alicante on their way to Germany and from there, I was eventually invited along on the trip. We went to Freiburg in the south to visit some of her (Canadian) family's friends and then we went to Berlin. We spent 5 days in Freiburg, just relaxing and enjoying the feel of the laid-back city and then an overnight train to Berlin and 5 days in Berlin, doing as much sightseeing as we could. If you want to know about all the places we went to and the things we did, check out my Germany photos on Flickr. (The word Flickr is the link to the page).
Speaking of Flickr, I got all but my most recent photos up now. So that's the photos from Granada, graduation, class photos (high school and language school) and Germany, as well as some photos from around town too, to give you all, my readers, an idea of where I have been living. (Each name is a clickable link to that specific album on Flickr, for those of you that don't know).The Germany link is above in the previous paragraph.
I'd love to go into more detail about each step I listed and maybe even about my day-to-day life, but that day-to-day life is exactly what prevents me from that. 3 days after I got back from Germany, Las Hogueras started. Las Hogueras is THE festival in Alicante, from the 19th to the 24th of June, and what a festival it is! In order not to miss anything, I'm afraid I'm going to skimp a little on this entry. No hard feelings? Alright then. I hope these brief explanations and all the photos satifsy the curiousity of what I've been up to lately.
So, that didn't turn out quite as long as I thought it would, but anyways, I'm off to the parties. Until next time (which should be soon[er than this last wait]).
Erik
Currently listening to:
Song: Come Back
Artist: Foo Fighters
Album: One by One
(Granada)
Song: Keep On Trying
Artist: Poco
Album: Head Over Heels
(Graduation)
Song: Lovestoned/I Think She Knows
Artist: Justin Timberlake
Album: Futuresex/LoveSounds
(Germany - this was kind of the Germany trip anthem, for some reason it was stuck in our heads the whole trip)
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