This past weekend I traveled to Morocco! My Moroccan trip began with a long day of travel. We started in Granada with a group of about 50 students (all American except one boy from Turkey) and began our trek towards the port city of Tariff. Although we left in the morning, we had eight hours to kill before the ferry left, only four of which were occupied with the actual drive. However, the day was saved by a stop in Marbella, Spain, a beautiful coastal town in S...

Two pretty awesome firsts this week: met my intercambio and watched my first futbol game. The intercambio program that CEGRI offers allows us to meet up with local Granadians (some students, some not) to practice Spanish, while also helping them with English. My intercambio is with Manuela, a mid-thirty year old woman training to become a flight attendent. Although it was kind of awkward at first, I think she'll be very helpful in bettering my Spanish skills. We...

This past weekend was by far the best one I've I had in Granada. It was filled with beautiful weather, good friends, and adventures into the city I now call home. Having every Friday is a luxury that I could easily become accustomed to. I usually spend most of it relaxing around the house, seeing as I have few responsibilities. It still is very strange to not have a million things to do a day. I am used to having a job, classes, clubs, family, friends.....Here I...

Yesterday, we had our final portion of orientation about culture shock--what it is and how to deal with it. We learned that the stages of culture shock include unconscious incompetence (is it ironic that I had to google how to spell incompetence...), conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and unconscious incompetence. Unfortunately, I am living in a constant state of consciousness of my incompetence. It can be difficult to communicate when you know how com...

It's a week since I moved in with my host family and I have to keep reminding myself that saying a bunch of spanish words does not in fact make a clear statement. I have this problem where I will start to say something and instead of translating it correctly, I end up saying many words that describe my intentions but never fluidly convey them. For instance, today I slammed my finger, a very painful experience which I would like to never repeat. I washed it a bit...