Ya te extraño, Granada.

I would wholeheartedly recommend IES Granada to anyone even remotely considering studying abroad. The program is very focused on meeting its students' requests and providing the best experience possible. To outline a few instances....
•As I had signed up to stay with a host family, I was paired with a host mother and host sister that live in an apartment ten minutes away from the IES building.
•I didn't do very well on the written portion of my Spanish language entry exam, but the staff was very responsive in making sure I was placed in a class that reflected my true level of Spanish speaking/writing/listening.
•One night I returned home around midnight after having had a tiny hiking accident. Once my mom noticed my scratched face and crippled gait, she called the program staff member on duty that night and asked her to escort me to the hospital. Within fifteen minutes, she was at our doorstep to help me down the stairs into the taxi. She waited with me for about an hour until the doctors were finished with my MRI, then she brought me home. It was so nice to have her with me--I'm so glad I didn't have to deal with that hospital visit on my own.

One of the more annoying parts about returning to school has been that some people want me to condense my entire experience abroad to a thirty second conversation. I simply can't do that. I treat those people to some friendly chatter, smile a bit, then wrap it up by saying something like, "Yeah, definitely a pretty cool experience!" But then there are others that want to hear more. I've found some people who've travelled, or studied abroad themselves, or are considering studying abroad in the future, that earnestly want to hear about my Argentine host mother who devoted nearly all of our two hour sobremesas to converting me to Catholicism.....and how I took an Islamic Art and Architecture course that offered four guided visits to the Alhambra and one to the Great Mosque of Cordoba, both of which (I remain steadfast) stand as two of the most beautiful pieces of architectural mastery one can ever hope to see.....and that I got hitched with a group of musicians from my program, and that we jammed with locals in the Andalusian courtyards as the sounds and heat of Granada's nightlife pulsed around us....and how we became buddies with the owner of an adorable hole-in-the-wall crepe shop called La Creperie, and how his rotund, cheery face and bulgy French belly always welcomed us with free crepes and delicious imported beer. I've talked to some friends that have even given me enough time to explain that I missed the morning bus for our trip to Morocco and, with the periodic help of the IES staff, managed to find my way to Tangier alone.
Now that I'm "home," I can't help but tear up as I think about my host mom, tapas, Javier (the IES program director), La Qarmita (a friendly cafe in town with a very personal waiting staff), the view of La Alhambra from El Mirador de San Nicolas, hiking in Las Alpujarras, and my friends and how we spent three and a half beautiful months actually living a dream.