API Granada: Un Programa Excelente!!

API is a wonderful program provider to go with. They are one of the cheapest program providers for Spain, but everything they do is very high quality! We have always stayed in nice accommodations when traveling, the housing they arranged for me with a host mom was perfect, and they really do a great job of taking care of the students. There are several excursions built into the trip, all of them worthwhile, informative, and fun experiences! API makes sure that students get to see the highlights of the cities they visit, arranging tour-guided trips to El Prado and El Palacio Real in Madrid, and El Escorial, and around the city of Toledo rather than just releasing us into foreign cities. I highly recommend studying abroad with API!

Granada is a beautiful city. Though API bills it as a smaller city, there are over 200,000 people and it has a big city feel in the main shopping district (at least, it does to a midwestern suburbian girl like me!). After dark, it is NOT wise for girls to walk alone, and in fact it is not advisable for girls to walk alone in empty streets. One afternoon, I was approached by drug dealers when walking with a girl and a guy in a deserted neighborhood close to the Alhambra. That section of town is a little sketchy.

But on the whole, Granada is really a perfect location. The weather is temperate, the people are reasonably friendly (more so than in other Spanish cities I visited), the scenery is GORGEOUS, and it is a perfect picture of the typical Spanish town. Street vendors display colorful goods, some priced and others for barter; buses, motos, and pedestrians fill the busy streets; and cute little shops line the roads, some very sophisticated and expensive, others selling cheap souvenirs and hand-made goods.

The Alhambra, a great palace and fortress built in the 1300's by Moorish rulers in the area, overlooks Granada, and it is well worth seeing at least once -- ESPECIALLY the gardens!! They are gorgeous. I could have spent hours in the gardens, snapping perfect beautiful photo after perfect beautiful photo. And the views of Granada from the gardens of the Alhambra are hermosa, as well.

The food in Granada is very much like what we are accustomed to in America. Though it is Spain, and some native dishes are foreign to the American tongue, I have found very mainstream food selections everywhere in Granada, from the Burger King on the corner to the dinner my host mom cooks at home! But beware, the Spanish have bread with every meal. At first, it is tempting to load up on the ever-present carbs available at mealtimes, but soon you may notice that your pants don't fit as well, and you'll have to cut back. I certainly did!

API stood out to me as a fantastic program provider from the start. Before deciding to study with API, I was actually planning to study in Australia with AustraLearn, and I spent several months working with AustraLearn. But when they informed me, two months before I was supposed to leave, that the program cost was going to be $3,000 more than the printed price, I started researching other abroad programs and found API Granada and quickly applied and was accepted last-minute.

With API, the prices were exactly what they said they would be. API was candid about EVERYTHING. In contrast to AustraLearn, API had all the questions answered upfront, and they were very honest about the pros and cons of studying in each location, and even about ordering a cell phone through API. They made all of the information very easy to understand, unlike AustraLearn, and were always cordial and helpful over the phone. After comparing my experience with AustraLearn to my experience with API, I am convinced of API's superior quality as a program provider!

Not only is it a more efficient and more user-friendly company, but API really makes an effort to accommodate students. Before taking our Spanish language placement exam to determine which classes we could take, the directors informed us that if we didn't do as well as we needed to do to receive credit, we could appeal the decision and probably get moved up where we needed to be. This was a HUGE relief for me, while taking the test. It's the little things like that, that really distinguish API from other program providers. They want us to have a fantastic experience, and it shows. I HIGHLY recommend API as a fantastic study abroad experience!