New Things in Granada!

I officially have my first week of living in Granada, Spain under my belt! What a beautiful city with so many things to offer! In this blog post, I will share some of the NEW things I have experienced in Granada! Lema nueva (New Motto) Say “YES” to everything that is SAFE! I have decided …

I’m Off to Granada!!

(With a few pitstops along the way:) WOW!! I can’t believe that I am writing a blog for Hope Off-Campus right now, AKA, I can’t believe I am about to start a semester ABROAD! Preparing for this crazy adventure has surprised me in so many ways. In moments that I thought I would struggle to …

MOROCCO

As you may have noticed from earlier blogs, my program strives to balance between immersing us in Granada as well as having us experience other locations nearby. By this point we have been to Alpujarra, Ronda, Sevilla, Málaga, Córdoba, and now MOROCCO! Yes, that’s right, a beautiful country on a different continent. IES Granada has …

Classes in Coming to Life

One of my courses here at IES is Historia y Memoria de los Judíos Sefardíes or History and Memory of the Sephardic Jews. Through this course I have been learning not just about the Jews of Spain but naturally the historical context as well, therefore giving me a broad understanding of Spanish history. Semana Santa …

Choir and El Clásico

Most of Spain follows two religions: Catholicism and Fútbol! Recently held was El Clásico, the ultimate soccer match between Real Madrid and Barcelona. This match is the equivalent of the United States Superbowl, complete with intensely loyal fans, advertisements galore, and houses and bars full of people glued to the screen. In fact, nightlife throughout the …

Semana Santa Part 2

As aforementioned, Semana Santa, or Holy Week is a very important religious holiday for Spain. Therefore, most everyone is given the week off from work, include us students! During this week, many of us take advantage of being in Europe and travel. First stop: Dublin, Ireland. I had to pleasure of visiting a good friend …

Visiting the Capital

On occasion we have a long weekend in which we don’t have classes on Monday. Naturally this means we have time to travel around Spain. For our first long weekend I went to Madrid, capital of Spain. Madrid is like the New York City of Spain, but prettier and less structured. With the largest city …

Semana Santa Part 1

3/19/16-3/27/16 Happy Easter! He is risen! I just returned from a week of vacationing aka traveling during Spain’s Semana Santa or Holy Week leading up to Easter. (More to share about my vacationing in Blog post Part 2) Being that Spain is a very Catholic country, this week is extremely significant and full of events. …

Moorish Spain: The History and Religion of Andalusia

03/12/16 Getting to know a foreign place involves taking winding side streets and in the process discovering the most amazing coffee shop imaginable. It means getting absolutely lost, asking someone for directions, and wind up becoming rather good friends. Tasting every food in front of you, making a fool of yourself trying to explain that …

Another Week, Another City: Seville & Cadiz

03/05/16 This program does an amazing job of showing us a lot of Spain! Today’s blog: Seville and Cadiz. Seville is the largest city of Andalusia with over 1.5 million people. Like most of Andalusia, Seville used to be under the reign of the Moors until being taken over by the Catholic King Ferdinand during …