Silencio.

I just noticed there are no sounds. I can only hear my own thoughts....

Ugh, I still think in English. Learning Spanish cannot come quick enough! During my Islamic Art and Architecture class today, we watched a movie in Spanish with Spanish subtitles. I could vaguely identify the topic of the film, but mostly all I got was a lot of dramatic music and the word "Al-Andalus" (the parts of the Iberian peninsula governed by Muslims between 722 and 1492) over and over. When can I be fluent? This is frustrating.

I am currently looked out many windows from the fourth floor of the IES center. I can see all the rooftops of the buildings here. It seems almost unfair to call them buildings, because to me, buildings conjure an image of skyscrapers or run-down school buildings. These structures look more like over-sized cottages haphazardly squished together between winding roads. The N-S, E-W road map of so many US cities is missing in Granada and the squareness of the buildings is absent as well. It honestly seems more like a town that absent-mindedly grew to the size of a city without inheriting any city-like qualities. Roughly the size of Pittsburgh, the two look nothing alike in layout or architecture.

What I was saying before though, is that I am sitting on the top floor of the IES center and I am by myself. Everyone is at home for lunch, but I didn't have enough time to go home for lunch (here, 2 hours is too little time to walk home and back AND have lunch since lunch is about 2 hours in itself) because of my class schedule, so I am here, waiting. Whenever I wait, I make lists. Lists in my head, on paper, on the sticky-note application on my computer... Lists of things to do today, lists of projects to complete, lists of people to send postcards to, lists of homework... Lists of things I make lists about... (Forgive my rambling. My writing mirrors my thoughts with an unfortunate lack of editing.) I will end with a list.

Ten things to do before I leave (please live vicariously through me as I cross them off through the semester):
1. Visit London (and my 8 friends studying abroad there)
2. Learn to cook a Spanish tortilla
3. Speak Spanish fluidly and understand fully
4. Visit Italy and eat an entire pizza for lunch
5. See the Mediterranean Sea
6. Learn the streets of Granada (and throw away my map!)
7. Make Spanish friends
8. Go to a soccer game
9. Play tennis on clay courts
10. Buy European clothes so I don't always look so American