Hi friends!

Here comes a ton of pictures! Love you guys and miss you. Really really do :)

This is my school! UGR is split up into a bunch of Faculties and they each have their own building... mine is the faculty of psychology. Its on the very top of this huge hill, takes 40 minutes to walk there from my house.  Its a nice walk tho and I only have to do it twice a week. Half of my classes are here, the other 2 spanish ones are in a faculty by my house.

This was the first day of school! We're sitting in the outside cafeteria area in between classes. They serve beer! Figures. Everythings pretty cheap, which is nice. Such a pretty view from up there!

This is where I have my 2 psyc classes. They are hardddddd. The psychology part isnt hard, the understanding-what-the-heck-the-teacher-is-saying part is hard. But it makes me laugh more than anything else.  What can you do, ya know?

My roommates Laura and Jessica. Laura's kind of a tight-ass. She got mad at me for having people over too much, being too loud, using her olive oil, and taking too long showers. But she's chill, spaniards are just more straight-forward and direct. Jessica is sooo nice, thrift shop queen, and can speak english. 

Other roommate, Isa! She likes to drink and smoke a lot. Shes crazy! But super funny and we've clicked pretty well pretty fast. All 3 of the roomies are from a small town about an hour away and im gonna go visit it with them sometime! 

MY MOM CAME! it was theeeee best having her here, showing her around, introducing her to my friends, and catching up. This was the day we went shopping for gifts for the fam in the muslim marketplace.

On her birthday, we went to a granada soccer game! It was soooo fun. Fans are NUTS here... like, nuts. They dont even sell alcohol inside the stadium because people are already crazy. All of their cheers involve some dirty configuration of cuss words. Oh, and we won!

I got a spanish boyfriend! Dont know how that happened butttt it did! He's great, his names Alberto. Twenty-two, civil engineer, super sportsy, studied at UC Davis last year. He took everyone to the game and then had us all over to his house for lunch. 

This is lunch after the game... literally, a feast. His family cooked us like a 5 course meal. We ate out on the terrace for like 4 hours, and my mom got to meet almost everyone in my program. It was theee best.

This is Paella... what they cooked for us. HUGE. Its a rice and seafood dish. Famous in southern spain.

Look at the little kid to the left behind us... he was yelling curse words at the team, too!

This was one of the funnest nights, Alberto's best friends birthday. We threw him an american party because he studied in florida last year. The american version of drinking is really different than how spaniards normally drink, so we taught them our ways! It was perfect because a bunch of spanish friends came, and almost all of the california kids (from my program) came too and we got to meet people and speak spanish and teach them drinking games! Thats like unheard of here.

I taught a table of girls how to play beer pong which was probably my favorite part of the night because A, they had never played before, B, my spanish is terrible, and C, they loved it! 

Thats the update for now! Really love you guys! Adiooooooooos for now :)

Holyyyy CRAP a lot has happened since I last wrote on here. 

1. I moved out of the dorms! I'm in an apartment now in the center of the city with 3 spanish girls who study at the university of granada also. They're nice and fun! And sometimes scary cuz i have no idea what theyre saying. But theyre generally pretty understanding of my terrible Spanish. Only 160 euro a month!

2.  I passed all my finals for the intensive language school that all the UC students were in last month. They were easy! 

3. Real school has started--opposed to the language school I was in last month. Itssssss crazy. Spanish spanish spanish back to back to back. Im taking a grammar class, a bio psyc class, developmental psyc class, and a spanish to english translation class. I basically only have class monday to wednesday though, and monday and wednesday my earliest class is at 1pm... so thats nice. The campuses are beautiful and one is really close to my house. 

4. We went to the Alhambra! That old castle slash city built on top of a hill in the 1200's. Sooooo so so insanely cool. So much history/complexity/detail/beauty! I took like 200 pictures.

5. I swam in the Mediterranean! We took a beach trip to a city about an hour away called Nerja. It looked like Greece with all the white houses scattered across all the hills. It was reeeally nice and so beautiful. No waves tho. But not too 
cold :)

6. Last night I had my first date with a spaniard! Got to ride on the back of a vespa like a freakin european! We went to tapas and then this lookout point where you could see all of granada.

7. I went grocery shopping for myself, and cooked for myself! Its like im an adult! Believe it or not im going healthy... I brought freaking bran cereal for christs sake. Heres to you, mom!
So yea! Still lovin it here. Oh and heres my new address...


Breanna Eastman
Calle Obispo Hurtado, 25 - 2D^o
18004 Granada
Spain

You can look it up on google maps and see the satellite view of it if you want! 

Alright, bye for now!

One part of the alhambra.. its huge.

the hightest point of the alhambra. you can see almost all of granada from here

an inside plaza area of the alhamb. these are my good friends kaitlyn (left), laura, and tim.

my room!

the beach we went to!

this is the city that had the beach that we visited

just a funny picture of my friend tim... he wear a do-rag.. hehe :)

Week 2

Hi guys!!!!  Oh my gosh gosh goshhhh Granada is awesome.  I love it love it love it.  Granted, as of now, I live with 30 fun californians in dorms and I'm in an easy language school just for the month of Septempber.  I also rarely have to speak spanish, but all that will change in 2 weeks.  I'll be in an apartment with 3 spanish girls and in real spanish University!  I got sick this week and wanted to come home :(  It suckeddddd.  But my friends and program director took care of me and now I'm healthy!  Lovin life  :)  Here's some pics...

This is Granada! That castle thing to the left is the Alhambra.  Its a muslim fortress from the 700's and its the most famous thing about Granada.

This is everyone in our program!  Everyone is sooo nice and chill and fun. All UC students.

ICE CREAM.  It always looks like this here.  SO GOOD.  = 1 euro

This is what streets look like here! So so pretty.

This is my school and dorm!

View of Granada!  And my new best friend Tim!!! 

The Alhambra

This is what we have for breakfast everyday... its called a tostada.  Its like a baguette cut in half, toasted, with pureed tomatoes on it, and olive oil and salt. Deeeelish.  = 2 euro

 

This is "the botellon"... its like the one designated area in the city where its legal to drink alcohol. Its always really crowded and a fun social place to go before we go out.

 

The botellon again. 1 liter of coke, 1 bottle of rum, cups and ice = 8 euro. Score!

 

My classroom! I have 2 super intelligent, super talented teachers (history and grammar) and 2 completely crazy ones (literature and comprehension) and one really boring one (oral communication).

A basic street in granada :)

 

My favorite people here.  From left to right: Lauren, from ucsb, crazy, hilarious. Tim: from nor cal, gay,  sarcastic, funny. Laura: ucsb, surfer, hilarious. Callia: ucsb, sooo nice, dancer, "the mom"

Granada is full of graffiti! Like everywhere. Not sure why. 

First Days in Spain

Hi guys!!!!!

Sooo this was originally a blog about Kenya, but now I’m gonna use it to share about my time in Europe this year!  I’ll try to write on it once every 2 weeks or so and include a few pics. 

Basically, I love this place. The people are SO nice, its fun getting better at Spanish, there are so many young international students here, everything is SO SO beautiful, the 30 other kids from California in my program are all really nice people, I just love it!  You know how lots of times we cant appreciate things til after they happen?  How we can look back on times in our life in a good light, but cant always appreciate them during that time? Studying in Spain for the year is NOT one of those things.  I’m so stoked on this opportunity… even though I already really miss you guys!

Thanks a billion for your prayers.  Seriously.  Alright heres some pictures…

Tanya and me in Madrid, fresh off the airplane.  Shes the other person from UCI. 

Heres a couple of the other kids in my program... all from UC schools. First night on the town!

 Bad picture, but this is what the streets of Granada look like.

2nd night on the town!

The guy on the left, Jose, is a local spaniard who studies at the University of Granada and his job is to help us acclimate to life here. He's super nice!

Wellllll, until next time! Love you guys! Adiossssssss 

Goodbyes

One if my favorite parts about Kenya is that I KNOW, forrrr sure, that anytime I say the word "fart" in swahili, kids will laugh. Hard. Guaranteed. The word is a little funny in America, semi lame slash juvinile, but here... holy cow. Guaranteed haaaard laughs every time. I'll miss that.

The thing about Kenya is it's easy to serve here, it's easy to spend time with God here, it's easy to be challenged spiritually here. The real challenge is to not look at America as any different than Kenya, in terms of how I live. School and jobs still need to happen, but the point remains the same: Jesus, God, loving people, caring about the poor.

It sucks to say bye to everyone. SUCKS. Especially because this time I can't leave with a "don't be sad, I'll see you next summer!" I know I'll be back, but I think it'll be a few years. Saying goodbye freaking blows.

Well, thanks for reading, thanks for praying, thanks for being apart of this summer. Love you guyssss. Tuonane! (see you soon)

Shimo

The past couple saturday's our team has been splitting up and walking through shimo la tewa, the slums near our house. It's crazy you literally walk half a mile down the road and go from huge gated compounds to mud houses. I feel surprisingly comfortable there. We've been attempting to make a map of this huge community; basically a more focused attempt at meeting and knowing every family in shimo. It's been pretty cool walking into these houses, hearing about the families that live there, talking about faith (or no faith), praying together, giving out bibles, and building relationships.

People are generally really welcoming. We know a lot of the kids that live there, because a bunch of them go to oasis during the week or school nearby. Last saturday I followed pastor steve right into this group of like 15 older guys sitting behind some houses drinking. It was 11am. It was scary and intimidating, walking back there not knowing what would happen or how they'd react. Steve is crazy.

My new favorite thing about shimo is baby peter: the youngest in a family of 7 that we know really well. They live in one room with their mom in a tiny mud house connected to other houses. Mama margret collects firewood from the forest and sells it in town for hopefully enough money for dinner at the end of the day. Her kids are all big personalities, so I assumed it would be pretty hard to make peter laugh. P.S. this kid is never wearing pants. Even when we buy him pants, he doesn't wear them. So all morning I ran around with him, carrying him in my arms, running after other kids and tossing him up in the air. He smiled the whole way through and I looooved it. Making kids laugh anywhere is fun, but in kenya its even better because it feels like you're apart of creating these sincere moments of childhood for kids that don't really get one. So yea, Peters the best.

Kyleigh and I on a shimo walk-through with little Mia, from the family that moved to kenya

Some shimo houses. Laundry day.

Dan and Augustus and sisters making funny faces

Mama Margret, Peter's mom

Peterrrrrr.

The shimo bridge, super pretty.

On the left is Peter's older sister Erica, the right is Esther (one of the girls that we just sent to school for the 1st time), and the middle is Esther's brother Chris.

Dan! This guy is sooo ticklish, he's really fun

I can never remember this kid's name, but he is one of the first houses we walk by.

A mama making beer

Elvino!

There are so many young young girls with babies on their hips. It's crazy.

Kevin! This guy has cerebral palsy or something with his leg. He always comes out to play when we walk through shimo. He asked me to take this picture. What a stud.