mi familia me visitan

After many weeks of skyping, facebook chatting, emailing, and scheduling, it was finally time to see my parents! I was so excited for them to come so that I could show them also just a small piece of my world here. I was ready to show off Granada and my Spanish to them. I was ready to have my two families meet and to travel again the Huddleston way. (p.s. I had left my camera in my room so my parents have all the pictures and have yet to send me any...cough cough dad when you read this; luckily Dustin took some that I have obtained)

Day 1: I met my parents in Algeciras after an intense day (or days for them) of traveling. It was almost like the typical movie scene of me having to fight through the crowds to finally see my parents step off the train with all of their suitcases. A part of 'home' had finally arrived. I walked them back to the hostel pretty smoothly since I had already gotten lost once that day.Next was dinner,which we accidentally walked more than we needed to since the restaurant we were going was right outside the hostel door and I had us walk a couple blocks and back...opps! But as the Spaniards say, no pasa nada. From dinner to bed for my mom and to the bars for my dad, Mary, Dustin, and I to watch the Spain vs. Czech Republic game (which was actually being played in Granada!).



Day 2: AFRICA!! It had been on my sister's list of things to do to go to Africa so we were off to Morocco. It was quite the morning having to translate between the coordinator and my parents but everything went as smoothly as it could and we arrived to Morocco, by ferrying across the still beautiful Mediterranean Sea, mid morning. In Morocco we had quite the humorous and energetic tour guide that showed us some of the cool sights and streets of Tangier. Even though I had been to Morocco before, my excursion only spent 3 hours in Tangier and it was in DARNA, not the actual city.


The coolest part of the tour for me (I mean carpet stores and herb stores are neat and all buuut...) was walking through the open air market and walking through one entry way to see a fish still alive and flopping! The market started slowly with just olives but grew with intensity of color fruits and vegetables, to dead cleaned chickens, to finally millions of fish staring at you! Quite the sight.
The funniest part of the trip was when we were offered to ride camels (camels!!). My dad's words were quote 'I'm riding a freaking camel!' It was hilarious to see the little boy in my dad reappear. Another funny site, regarding my father of course, was when he tried on the traditional Moroccan clothing of the full dress and hat. I'm sure he makes my mother proud.

Day 3: Back Home! Okay not really but for me it's home--Granada. It was even better being able to show them after Algeciras because that town just doesn't have quite the same character as Granada. We arrived and the weather was beautiful so we walked down the two main roads of the center, stopping for pictures and history buffs. They saw the parks, the Cathedral, my school, my house, and everything in between.

We ate at this great ice cream place that turned out to have amazing food too! It was so good, we went back again for lunch the next day. I'm sure we made our waiter's day each time. Sunday we also conquered the Albayzin in order to look out all across Granada and marvel at the Alhambra from a distance. It was another hectic day fill with fun, food, drinks, ice cream, and coffee.

Day 4: Alhambra! I love how my family is such history buffs because I knew they'd really enjoy seeing the Alhambra inside and out. We got tickets to see inside and I was so stoked to see the inside again and be able to marvel at all of its intricateness. Unfortunately I had this lame thing called class right in the middle of our tour so I had to deck out early, but nonetheless it was really cool seeing their faces light up as the entered a room and tried to take in everything there. I was able to show off the knowledge I had learned about the palaces, temples, castle, and gardens. It was spectacular! Later on in the day, my family met my host family for some coffee and desserts. It was insane to try and translate back and forth--I guess I didn't have to translate the whole time because my dad used the 20 (...5) words he knew to communicate with my host mom and little brother so that really (really) helped. For everyone else, its luck that smiles and laughter transcend through every language. After coffee time, my parents headed to Barcelona and I was back to the world of classes....until London the following weekend! (stay tuned for the next blog post)