Bienvenidos a Granada

We arrived in Granada yesterday, after a five-hour bus ride from Madrid. The first night in Madrid was a great deal of fun-- typical big group of Americans drinking heavily & barhopping. Met some people I like among the AIFS group (which is itself huge, about 80 kids). It is somewhat odd spending your first night in a new country in one of its largest cities, though. The group I was with covered a wide range of linguistic capability-- several people other than Clare had almost no Spanish.
I slept much of the busride, and when I was awake the countryside was beautiful. We passed through some smallish mountains that were gorgeous, and mostly the country looks like a greener version of Southern California. Apparently it hasn´t rained in southern Spain for about a year, at least not in any significant volume. As a result water is precious, and if the winter passes without any real rain they´ll have to start restricting the water supply at night. Should be interesting.
My señora is a fun, energetic little woman named Sebastiana (Sebi). She can´t be more than 4´10¨ and she scurries around constantly. She´s a perfect match to her perrita, who I think is named Jara. It´s a little terrier that wanders around the house and seems friendly enough, but she and I have yet to strike up a friendship. I´m living with three other students-- two from the AIFS program, and one Español. Eddie, my roommate, is a really nice guy from Boston who doesn´t have much Spanish. Bart is from Texas, and is basically between Eddie and I in terms of language. My Spanish feels pretty decent-- I understand much, much more than I can express, but I think that´s going to change quickly. Rafa, the Spanish guy, is from a town south of Cordoba, and that´s all I know so far. Seems nice enough, and understands that when you look at him blankly it means he should speak slower, not louder. Last night we ate dinner and then the four of us sat and watched a soccer recap show-- seven Spaniards sitting at a table talking all at once about highlights and scores and trades. Bewildering, and I can´t pretend to have understood most of it.
There are about a dozen people waiting to use a handful of computers, so I´m going to bring this to a close. More later-- After sleeping most of the day and evening yesterday, I´m excited to walk around and get a bit more familiar with the city today before dinner.