Due to an internship I have on Mondays and Wednesdays (I
work with an elderly woman, helping her do various tasks and providing her with
company), all of my classes were scheduled for Tuesdays and Thursdays. Those
days are long ones indeed, but absolutely fantastic in terms of Spanish
practice.
In any event, my first class begins at 8:30 am, so I am
always frantically scrambling about in the mornings, as expected. The sun has
yet to rise and my roommate does not have class until later, so I clamber
around in the dark, typically. Naturally, coffee is worked into my routine, so
I always run downstairs to fill up my mug. The coffee is made the night before,
I think, and stored in jars, so I toss (literally) it in the microwave when I
return upstairs. Yesterday, I managed to microwave the coffee for far too long,
and seeing as I did not have time to both wait for it to cool down and drink it
before having to leave, I opened the bathroom window and placed the mug on the
window sill. Success! During this time of year, Granada is consistently pretty
cold in the mornings, so the coffee cooled down quickly and I got to endure a
solid, bone-chilling breeze while touching up my makeup. On the plus side, I
could hear the doves cooing outside in the abandoned building next door– so peaceful.
Actually, I will be honest. I am pretty sure those birds are pigeons, but doves
seem more preferable, especially if one’s coffee is chilling on a ledge,
wonderfully exposed to any and all flying creatures. Doves it is.
The normal overcast skies of the morning remained throughout
the day, producing rain on and off, a rare occurrence here. While Granada is so
beautiful on fair weather days (the streets are filled with finely dressed
individuals and the snowcapped mountains can be seen so clearly), rainy days
are just as wonderful. Elderly couples walk under shared umbrellas with arms
linked, and at night the old-fashioned street lights reflect off the wet roads.
On multiple occasions yesterday, as a result of both being distracted by
Granada’s beauty and in a hurry (typical Rachel), I nearly wiped out while out
and about. This I brought upon myself, though, as walking around Granada on
rainy days truly requires some focus; most of the sidewalks are tiled, which
provide quite the classy appearance… and also a very slippery surface. Someday,
maybe I will learn.
After my last class, which finished around 6:30, I booked it
across town (quite haphazardly, once more) to make it to a showing of the movie
Hitchcock. By saving most of my Spain
preparations until the last minute, I did not have the chance to see this
movie, so you can imagine my immense delight upon finding it at a nearby
theatre. On the way, I got stuck behind one of the sidewalk scrubber trucks
that are always plugging around the city Granada is known for being super
clean, and these Zamboni-like machines, complete with at least two huge
scrubber wheels (like one finds in a car wash) certainly help maintain this
reputation. With the narrow nature of some streets, one can hardly squeeze by
the scrubbers. It was raining, so I was not too bothered by the extra,
momentary spray of water as I rushed past. As the Spaniards love to say, no
pasa nada (no worries).
The movie theatre had just about as much business as one
would expect for a Tuesday evening. The individual theatres themselves were
interesting in that the floor developed into an incline as one got to the front
rows. Smart! Much easier than having to crane your neck. The movie was dubbed in
Spanish, but it was not too hard to get the gist of things. According to one of
my professors, each actor and actress has the same dubbed voice consistently in
all of their films. Makes sense.
The movie was so fantastic, of course, and almost makes me
long for Netflix to revisit some of Hitchcock’s classics. Project for the
summer. For now, so much more exploring to be done!