School Day 2

Daily Drena: Resfriado

It is our second day of school and Drew is so sick that he attempts to get up and get dressed, but then heads back to bed and doesn’t make it out. In class, I learn the difference between “enfermo” and “resfriado” and pass all the notes and homework on to him, hoping I understood the homework correctly. I also do a trek to the supermercado, and stop at the post office along the way and the pharmacy on the way home. To go to the store roundtrip, we need about a 2-hour window of time. Although today I did spend a lot of time trying to find resfriado medicine at the grocery store. The security guard was looking at me funny because I kept circling the aisles that apparently need guarding. But I guess no medicine can be found in grocery stores. All the over-the-counter stuff is at the pharmacy, even the candy-strength sore throat drops we got in Portugal when I had the sore throat.

Back to School…Back to School….

Daily Drena: How do you say “Beginner Level”?

Today is our first day of Spanish class. The front desk guy asks us if we can understand any Spanish, I say “un poco” and he brings us to a room of students where they are all speaking Spanish and we sit there understanding at most a quarter of it. But at least we aren’t the oldest people in class! I fear we got put in the wrong room and should have said “nada”. But later we got separated to the beginners level with only one other person and away we go with the first lesson of the day! My brain is full now, and we have homework. Bah. Drew is battling the Portuguese cold that I had earlier, but hung in there for the lessons. It seems to be hitting him much harder than it hit me unfortunately.

I ventured out for a run today and I didn’t even get lost! Besides biking, I think running is one of the best ways to explore a town and I came home with a newfound excitement for Granada. I found a great hiking trail to explore farther another day – I can’t wait! The rocky, hilly streets made it seem almost like a trail run and going through the trail up to the Alhambra was even more amazing the second time around.

When we went shopping, we each bought two chocolate bars; dark chocolate for me and milk chocolate for Drew. Today I made the analogy that we are like the tortoise and hare when we eat it, with Drew eating large chunks a time, then not eating any for days. I eat a little bit each day. So that turned it into a competition (of course) of who will run out first. This is not good. I don’t have much will when it comes to chocolate. But I’m finding that Drew really doesn’t either, hehe. He even has been so kind to hand me my chocolate bar from the cupboard while sitting at the table. We’ll see who “wins” this game.

Last Day of “Vacay”

Daily Drena: There’s (a little) snow here too!

Happy Groundhog’s Day! We heard about the shadow, and I’m trying hard not to be jealous of the record-breaking snow dumping in Colorado. I know, I know. But I can’t help it. Also, our friends are gearing up for the Superbowl, but it doesn’t start until 12:30am here and we need to get our beauty sleep for our first big day of school tomorrow. We worked on the travel blog all day and it’s looking good for a soft launch! Funny, what was going to be a simple upgrade from blasting Facebook has turned into a big weekend project.

We also took our daily exploratory walk, back to the ATM where we seem to be frequent visitors. I chatted with our neighbor from Holland, who has been out of work for over two years and just landed a job here because wages are cheaper. He said that Spain is worse than Holland in terms of the jobs crises, but he got this job where he’ll be working 7 days a week for maybe 12? hours a day. We feel so lucky to have the flexibility and the demand that the U.S offers.