Lazy days in mid September...

I have had a really relaxing weekend.  It kind of feels like I'm still on summer vacation, and that is true, in a way.  Even though I have started classes, they are pretty low key, and it is just a summer session.  Maybe that will change when the actual semester starts and I am taking more classes.  So, even though I don't have too much I have to do during the week, I have even less over the weekend. Friday night my friends and I went to a party. It was geared toward Erasmus, another study abroad program that has students taking classes with us at the CLM, so there were a lot of international students, and they mostly played American music, but it was still a lot of fun.  The party was up in Sacramonte, the neighborhood where we had gone to see the flamenco show, and there was a really pretty patio where we could sit and had a beautiful view of the Alhambra at night.  Saturday I spent most of the day just laying around and relaxing at home.  I did go out to go shopping with some friends in the afternoon, and that was fun.  We went to Corte Ingles, H&M, Los Italianos (my new favorite ice cream place) a few little accessories shops, and Mango.  Overall the stores aren't too different from the ones in Chicago or London.

Today all of my friends went on a day trip to the beach, so I was on my own to explore.  I spent a good portion of the afternoon reading Harry Potter in the park, which was nice, until it started to drizzle a bit.

Once the rain stopped I went for a walk to Los Italianos for a treat. I figure the best way to learn the Spanish words for different flavors of ice cream is to just order them and find out.

I was just kind of wandering around enjoying my ice cream cone when I heard music coming from the plaza by the Cathedral, so I went to check it out.

There was a little flamenco performance going on, so I decided to sit on the steps and join the crowd of people watching them.

After enjoying the free show, I wandered around some of the little touristy shops around the area.  The lady in one of them asked if I was visiting, and when I told her I was a Spanish student and from Chicago she said my Spanish was rather good.  On my way home, there was a huge festival going on along the main street by my  house.  I had known that something was happening, because they had been setting up scaffolding by the church for the last few days, but I had no idea how crowded it would be.  Let me tell you, tiny old Spanish ladies are scary when they are pushing you and shoving their way through a huge crowd.  The festival itself was pretty cool though.  There were some street musicians and people selling religious artifacts and crafts, and a whole bunch of tents selling flowers.  As I got closer to the church I could see what all the flowers were for.  Some young kids (they looked like they might have been Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts) were up on the scaffolding, decorating the whole thing with flowers.  It was really cool, but it was hard to get a good picture because of all the people jostling me around, and it was getting darker at this time.  

I watched for a little while before I disentangled myself from the crowd and walked the rest of the way home.  At the end of the street I saw a bunch of people on horseback.  It looked like they were waiting in line for a parade.  It was pretty cool, but after I wanted to keep with the theme of my relaxing weekend, and not fight the crowd any longer to watch more of it.  So I went home for some more chill time.  I discovered that you can watch a bunch of Spanish movies on YouTube, including Spanish dubs of some of my favorite American movies, so that will be a good way to enjoy and take advantage of being in Spain, even when I'm just chilling at home.