For Those About to Flamenco, We Salute You

Since I've been in Granada, I have been lucky enough to see 2 free flamenco guitar concerts at a small local venue. To say the least, this style of music is very soothing and nice to listen to, and to watch people play is truly amazing. The manner in which they actually strum as well as pluck the strings is insane, and when they get into these really intense sections of songs, its like their fingers are not even real, they are moving so fast. Alfredo Mesa is a local guitarist who is an absolute machine and who I was lucky enough to get to watch at one of the free shows. Go to this link and check him out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T13JL5ngnfQ&feature=PlayList&p=88183CA358AF68DF&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=29

now,being someone who has always enjoyed playing music and watching music be performed, I decided I wanted to dive deeper into this massive interest I have discovered in flamenco guitar. I was sitting in class and saw a girl with a sheet of classes that you can take at the University of Granada, like yoga and what not, and it turns out there was a beginner flamenco guitar class. I have since bought a cheap Spanish guitar, signed up and realized that the style of music is just as hard to play as it looks, if not harder. But the instructor is a fairly well known local artist as well and has already shown us some pretty cool things to start practicing. The nice thing is that much of the teaching is by showing things on the guitar and not by long verbal descriptions because the guy talks insanely fast and I'm one of only 3 english speaking people in the class. The language of music is much more forgiving than the language of Spanish! More to come...

Monachillin in the Sierra Nevada's

This weekend I decided to stay in Granada with the hope that I would be able to experience something fun and unique about the area in which I live. A 45 minute, 1,10 euro bus ride and a 35 minute walk later I got to do just that. Monachil is a small pueblo at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains that is a fairly popular destination for hiking and outdoor activities that was actually recommended to me by my program director. The hiking trail that my two friends and I decided to take was called Los Cahorros and it consists of a huge valley at the beginning followed by a long suspension bridge that takes you into this thin sliver between two rock faces where you walk along a small river for the duration of the hike. My friend Richie and I went climbing around on several of the rocks that would go up into these little caves, and also some of the boulders that we found later on in the hike in some of the vast areas of the Sierra Nevadas. Also with us was our friend Lindsay who functioned as the voice of reason when we we're maybe being a little stupid with where we were trying to explore / climb, and she also took some very cool pictures. One gentleman actually started yelling at us in Spanish when we were going up into this small cave. The only thing we could make out was that some guy fell before and had to get carted out be a goat drawn gourney type thing. It was akward and hilairous all at the same time, even thought the old man was upset. After eating lunch next to the water, we headed down the side of a mountain where I completley ate it after falling backwards, but luckily the rump broke my fall. For how close and easily accessible our hike was today I am hopeful that I can make it back up to check out another close by destination. Then the next thing on the list is to go Snowboarding at least one time in December. But a wonderful use of a Saturday (it was about 75 degrees all day long) and a great first experience in southern mountains of Spain.

Germans Invade Spain (In Speedos)

So anyone who is closely following this blog can realize that I haven't posted anything in two weeks, but I have some valid reasons. I have essentially been in Germany the last 2 weekends. The reason I say essentially is because I did in fact go to Munich Germany 2 weeks ago for Oktoberfest, yet, this past weekend I went to Mallorca, Spain which, if you went there knowing nothing about this island off of the east coast of the country, you would think you were in a different version of Germany with a beach. Let me slow down.
Oktoberfest in Germany was an unbelievable experience. The atmosphere of being in one of the beer gardens is unbelievable in the sense that you are surounded by 2,000 people from all over the world who want nothing more than to be in good spirits and drink very good beer. I went to Munich with a large group of friends from Denison which really made it a blast because it is probably very easy to be overwhelemed at Oktoberfest if your with a small group, or people you don't know, since everyone is drinking and screaming out songs such as "Heeeeeey, hey baby (ooo ahhh) I wanna know....if you'll be my girl" and others all day long. A very fun weekend overall that left me wanting to go back before I even got on my flight back to Madrid.
Now to Mallorca, where I just returned home from yesterday. This island off of the east coast of Spain is absoultely beautiful. However, it is a VERY popular tourist attraction for Germans, and not even in the sense that a lot go there, but literally restraunts and stores that advertise their sales in German, have menu's primarily in German, and German songs all the time. But the location was beautiful and our hotel was 200 yards from the beach in Palma de Mallorca, so everything was just fine. I guess the only annoying part was trying to use Spanish to order things and being answered in either English or some German accented English Also located there is what is renowned as "Europes finest aquarium" which actually turned out to be a lot of fun on our last day there, with some enormous sharks and a giant sea turtle.
The last two weeks have been very busy, but both were a great opportunity to get outside of Granada for a little bit and see some very interesing and beautiful parts of the world. However, I'm pleased to say that I am still reminded of how great this city is whenever I travel because I there are really so many awesome things about where I live (maybe #1 is how inexpensive it is here). More to come, and thanks to whoever has been following, I will attempt to be more consistent!