Granada, London & Windsurfing, Oh my!

Ah! It's been so long since my last blog post, so I apologize.  These past few weeks have been crazy with traveling! So after my last blog post I went to Granada for the weekend with my program.  It was cold & raining the first day, but on Saturday morning the sun came out for a glorious visit to La Alhambra.  Friday night we went to a Tablao which is a Flamenco performance, which is stereotypical of the Andaluz tradition. We got back late Sunday night and then on Thursday I headed to London to visit Carrie.  We got back to her dorm around 1 am, so we made some mac & cheese (first time since I've been in Spain!). On Friday after her class we had Chinese food & birthday cake! We saw Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Parliament & Big Ben, and walked along the Thames for our evening activity --The Eye! After that we went on a Pub crawl with a tour guide who told us about the history of the London fire & the differences in the two sides of the river.  It was very cool, but we were so cold that when we finished our pint at the first pub we decided to go grab some dinner & head out on our own.  We ended up at a casino, but Carrie & I weren't interested in gambling so we shared a bottle of wine & caught up, it was great to see her! On Saturday we went to the grocery store because everything is super expensive in London, so we tried not to eat out much.  We went to the National History museum to see dinosaurs & that night we went out to a bar close to her 'flat'.  Sunday we went to a market and came back to Hobgoblin's (her local pub) to watch Chelsea get cheated out of an upsetting game against Manchester United, but we had a traditional English roast for lunch, which was cool.  Monday we went to Cyberdog, this crazy RAVE store, and walked around cool markets.  We also went to the National Gallery & the National Portrait Gallery which was probably the highlight of the trip for me because we saw lots of Monet & Van Gogh paintings!  We also saw a portrait of M, from James Bond, and Alfred, from Batman.  That night we went to Fabric, one of the top clubs in London, to see Apple from the Black Eyed Peas DJ, it was AWESOME.  I woke up early for my flight on Tuesday, but I missed it by 5 min so I ended up back in Alicante around 9 pm (that was a long, horrible day but hakuna matata).  Then just 3 short days later Carrie came to visit! We went out Friday & Saturday night, went windsurfing Sunday & she got to meet my awesome intercambio, Lucia.  Monday after my classes we went shoe shopping at the outlet mall & Carrie got some cute boots.  Today we said goodbye & she is off to Madrid to continue her adventure.  This weekend I'm planning to go to Madrid & Salamanca with Gwen, so much traveling!