Granada 2016

During my time in Granada, I fell in love with the city. The atmosphere is great because there are so many young people, and while there is always a lot of activity, the people are very relaxed. People say the Spanish live in the calle, and it’s true. The streets are always bustling with Spaniards having a chat, walking to work, or meeting friends for a café con leche. There are always hippies playing music or blowing bubbles. People are spontaneous and will drop everything to meet a friend for a beer and a (free) tapa. Especially in Andalusia, people are very expressive and get excited over the smallest things. Living with a host family was definitely the most important part of my experience. Since this program is with American students, it’s great to live with a Spanish family to learn more about the culture, eat home-cooked Spanish food, and speak more Spanish. My family really treated me like a fourth daughter and constantly tried to give me the best experience in Granada possible. I also had an intercambio who I became good friends with, so I definitely recommend the intercambio program. Another way I interacted with locals was by playing on Granada’s ultimate Frisbee team. I ended up going to three different tournaments with the team to different parts of Spain. The IES staff does a great job organizing activities around Granada, and they will do their best to help you out with whatever problem you have. My Spanish class was probably my favorite because we always talked about different kinds of Spanish food or slang and lots of our assignments required us to try the food or talk about the slang with our host families. With IES we took lots of trips to other places in Andalusia and one trip to Morocco, which was my favorite. We stayed with host families, talked with Moroccan students our age, and even visited a family living in the countryside for lunch. I felt like with IES, I learned as much as I could in 5 days about Morocco. Overall, this is a fantastic program in a beautiful city.