Student Journals: AIFS in Granada, Spain

Melanie Unruh
Rider University
University of Granada, Spain

March

ALBAYZIN ODYSSEY

One chilly Sunday afternoon I decided to trek up to the Albayzin, the old Moorish neighborhood in Granada, to explore the little shops and find souvenirs. As soon as you leave the main road and go up hill, you immediately know you’re in the Albayzin. The roads are cobbled and narrow (even more than the regular ones – at least on these you know you could only be nearly run over by a moto and not a little European car hell bent on making it through) and lined with eccentric stores.

I step inside one and am at once overwhelmed by sights and smells; the room is heady with sandalwood incense and warmth and the shelves are filled with cachimbas (hookas), multi-hued scarves, beaded pillowcases, Arabic tea sets, and opaque perfume bottles. I’m careful not to pick up anything fragile, “Do not touch,” it says in English and Spanish. Still it is tempting; everything is so pretty and ornate.

I enter the next shop and a man greets me and proceeds to follow me in my perusal, maintaining a European sense of personal space that makes me feel agonizingly claustrophobic. I leave this store rather quickly. As I make my escape to the store next door the owner welcomes me with great enthusiasm. He swears he remembers me. I tell him perhaps. I don’t have the heart to tell him that his store bears no defining detail that would make it stand out amongst the rest, had I actually been there before. He gives me the traditional Spanish kiss on each cheek and asks me my name. Then he scurries across the store and sticks something in a bag at the register. Two free sticks of incense. Maybe I’ll come back sometime, I tell myself. I thank him and continue on down the hill.

I stop at a small jewelry table and admire the necklaces displayed. I choose a large purple stone and watch in admiration as the merchant fashions a rope necklace out of it. He doesn’t charge me for the rope.

Further down, an earthy looking woman holds a sign up to me while I pause at her table. Even if I knew what it said in Spanish, I could never read this woman’s handwriting. I smile and tell her I don’t understand. She holds up a piece of dreadlocked hair and then points to mine. I say “no gracias” and laugh at the thought of me with dreadlocks, there’s a funny image. I start to walk away and I notice her tablemates admiring my purse, a woman bag with hippie flair. One of them asks me where I got it and tell him in the United States (I suppose it would be futile to even bother to say Kohl’s).They stare at me incredulously and I wave goodbye.

I swing my little bag of purchases beside me as I arrive at the base of the hill. I’ll definitely have to return again someday soon.

May

Viaje a Portugal

When I heard that the bus ride to Portugal was going to take 12 hours, I´ll admit I was skeptical. I tend to enjoy road trips a good deal, but the thought of spending that much time cramped on a bus with 50 other people wasn´t exactly at the top of my to do list. But inevitably I bit the bullet and wasn´t sorry that I did.

The bus ride itself ended up being 10 hours (Oh the AIFS rumor mill!) and it was filled with music, books, movies (in English!), and of course, plenty of pit stops. I had heard we were staying in a 4 star hotel, but upon arriving in Costa de Caparicia I was still rather pleasantly surprised to see the elegant edifice before me with the beach sprawling directly in front of it.

Of all my AIFS trips (of which there have been many), this was my favorite. I had enjoyed seeing all the cathedrals and living history of Spain, but to me, Portugal represented a real vacation. There were optional excursions to Lisbon if we were interested, and the last day, I did finally go. I spent many hours exploring the charismatic little city on foot, in a taxi, and on a trolley (that went nowhere, the joys of not speaking Portugese!).

The best part of the trip for me though was just spending time on the beach with my friends. The water was clear and cold, bathing suits were optional, and Europe had never seemed so simple. I helped my friends build a mermaid out of sand, watched a Portugese surfing competition (set to a soundtrack of five songs on repeat), swam in a part of the Atlantic I had never seen, watched my friends rent surfboards and wetsuits and try to emulate the surfers, and breathed in the feeling that I had never been so alive.