Casa, casa dulce.

Home, sweet home!

After 11 days of running around Europe, I am safe and sound in Granada and it feels lovely. Over the next few days, I will hopefully be posting several blogs, chalk-full of pictures from Paris, Brussels, Bruges, and London. Also, I will be sending out some major postcards to the States soon. I tried to mail them yesterday (yes, the day after I got back) but the post office was out of stamps. I tried again today, still to no avail. I can't decide if it's because everyone is mailing things for the holidays or if Spain is closer to the verge of economic collapse than I thought it was. In any case, family and friends will be receiving postcards in a couple weeks, fingers crossed.

Before I start organizing photos and anecdotes to post, I want to talk about my Granada life for a minute. There have been many changes in La Casa de los Locos (our loving nickname for our house on Calle Jesús y María). Tony and Fernando had a kitchenette built upstairs to alleviate the mad traffic in the downstairs kitchen. Also, Tony has a full kitchen in his flat upstairs that he has now opened for use to the top floor and myself (who lives between floors). While I was gone, they moved my kitchen stuff upstairs and were sure to give me all top shelves as I am "Laurita la Alta" (Little Laura the Tall). So now I cook upstairs with most of the Californians, Yuri from Japan, Julie from Belgium and Hamza from Morocco.

Speaking of Hamza, there are new additions to our house as Bryant from Seattle and Sara from Italy have moved home. Paco (a Spaniard) has moved in downstairs. A woman named Laura (a Spaniard) will be moving in soon. Hamza (from Morocco) will be moving in upstairs in a week or so. He was really good friends with Bryant from Seattle who just moved out, so we all already know him. Xanthe changed rooms, so now Natasha has her room and Brandon's new roommate (who used to be Natasha) is going to be Hamza. So the house is in all kinds of chaos right now. There's still a bit of construction going on upstairs, as doors and archways are being altered to fit the new lifestyle up there.

The majority was completed before we all got back from our vacations, but we're still looking forward to some total calm in the house. Chelsea is battling some kind of awful chest/coughing/throat illness and is going to the doctor today. Arisa is still battling her cough. And I, too, am trying to clean out my lungs and get rid of this nasty cough. But! Gracias a Dios, we have 5 full more days of winter break before our winter course starts. I hope we all heal and relax by then.

Next Monday, I begin my "Autores Granadinos" course (Authors of Granada). It is with the same teacher I had for Renaissance and Baroque Literature, so I am stoked. Then in February, the real Spring Semester starts. But more on that when the time comes.

In any case! It felt so good to get back home! However, my trip was amazing in every way imaginable. I will try and get started on a Paris blog tonight for you guys!

Happy New Year!