This past week in Granada has been helpful for me to kind of ease into a routine. Having to get up at 8 in the morning will never be easy though. That has been probably the hardest thing to get used to, which says a lot about how westernized this culture is. The walk to school is also a new experience; having to walk thirty to forty minutes every morning  to get to school instead of being able to get up 10 minutes before class like at EMU. The trip this far has not been extraordinarily challenging in a “cross-cultural” sense, but more as a “cross-communication” experience.

We have however gone on a few tours with an amazing tour guide named Maria Carmen, I think. She has taken us to a monastery that overlooks the whole city of Granada and the famous mosque/cathedral in Cordoba. Both places have some real significant historical value in convivencia here in southern Spain. The place of worship in New York City that is causing this huge argument is actually going to be named the Cordoba House. This is a pretty cool fact because we literally just visited the mosque/cathedral which shows the harmonious existence between Muslims and Christians during the Moorish empire. This mosque/cathedral is the most elegant place I have ever seen, saying elegant does not even come close to justifying its synergy. No words can.

My host family has adequately taken care of me so far. The food is absolutely amazing. If I take a second to let the food go down throat my mom immediately asks if I don’t like it, which has led me to finishing everything on my plate before chilling out and watching TV.

This brings me to my next point of the Spaniards living a more relaxed life than Americans. People here in Spain work, usually, from 8 or 9 in the morning until 1 in the afternoon, then take one of the most ingenious cultural stress relievers-SIESTA. Yes all caps are necessary because if there is one thing that needs to be brought back to America it is nap time. The Spaniards definitely are living my dream. They get to go home for lunch and a nap until fiveish then go back to work for another 3 or 4 hours. This does make people stay up later and make more energy to go out at night, but is that a bad thing?

Adios Amigos!

-Patrick Fox