Spain!

So my trip through Spain (or more precisely Andalucia) is almost over and it´s been incredible! Granada was awesome. We spent a day at the Alhambra which was super cool, I got to go out with a friend from the Pig and experience Granada´s nightlife (which Dad will corroborate goes late into the night... I went home at 4am, but I was ´leaving early´according to the people I was with). Then we spent a day exploring the city, including the old part of town and the archeological museum. On our final day in Granada, we took a day trip to Monachil into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains and got to take a hike up the hill and see some amazing sites and have a nice meal (not that either of those things are rare on this trip).

From Granada we headed further into the mountains to a little town called Capileira and stayed in a very nice hotel overlooking the town. We only spent one night there, but it was very nice, and I´m definately at peace in the mountains. I can´t believe I´m goign to be living in them ALL winter!

After being in Granada and the mountains, we needed to warm up so we headed to the coast We spent a night in Orgiva on the way through to Salobreña whch is a beach town which we pretty much had to ourselves since it´s ´winter´ right now. Let me tell you about their ´winter´. They seem to think it´s cold, but on the coast it gets up to about 25 degrees during the day and only goes down to like 15 at night, MAYBE 10. I know everyone in Canada is jealous :-P We spent a couple days in Salobreña enjoying the weather and the beach (while I didn´t go swimming, it was definately as warm or warmer than some Nova Scotia beaches in the summer).

The next stop was Málaga, which Mom and Dad had already been to, but I hadn´t. It was nice, but it turned out our only full day there was a national holiday so almost everythign was closed :-P But we still enjoyed ourselves wandering around the city. They have all their Christmas decorations up, which is beautiful. At night, all the main street are lined with all sorts of lights and pointsettias and tons of people. The weather doesn´t exactly make it feel like Christmas, but Málaga certainly did!

Today, we´re spending my final day in a small town called Antequera. This morning we took a taxi out to El Torcal national park with cool rock formations (if you know Dad, you´ll understand why we went :-P) and gorgeous views of what seemed like all of Andalucia. Our taxi driver, Paco, was one of the highlights of the trip! Despite not really speaking english, he was very excited to be taking us on this trip, pointing out interesting things and stopping at nice views for us to take pictures. This afternoon we had a nice walk around the town and an awesome meal in a small restaurant. I notice that that people in the small town are so much friendlier than in the big cities! Even though none of them really speak english they are all very eager to help any way they can. A quick question to the hotel receptionist leads to a 10 minute explanation about all the nice parts of town :-)

So tomorrow I head out, flying to London for a night. I´ve decided I want to go to a movie, but I haven´t decided whether to see Harry Potter, Narnia or Rent (I know, I´m a huge nerd, but I don´t care). Then on Sunday I´m flying to Geneva and heading to Les Gets where the next (and pretty much last) leg of my trip begins. An extremely nice family (friends of Laura and Chris) have offered to take me in, are picking me up at the airport and have even been looking for a job for me! The mother, Marielle found me a job at a restaurant, but unfortunately I can´t get a visa, so that´s not going to work out. Hopefully I can find enough odds and ends of stuff (probably mostly babysitting) to not go TOO broke this winter. But most important of course is that shortly, I will be in the Alps and will get to start skiing!!!!! I can´t wait!!!!!

Anyways, I guess that´s all for now :-) I hope you´ve enjoyed my update and will comment, because I love hearing from everyone!

Merry Christmas if I don´t talk to you!!!
Kaila