De Moda

I finally caved--I went shopping. I was going to wait for the last possible moment to go so that I wouldn't spend all my money, but I had the whole afternoon free and so it was too cold to lay out, so...I caved.
You would not believe the shopping here. It's incredible. As opposed to the US where shopping consists of an endless vista of chain stores carrying the same clothes, it's all about boutiques here. Often that means that the clothes are pretty pricey, but they are gorgeous to look at. Right now I'm in love with this long black dress and pink jacket combo costing around 325 euros. The dress has an empire waist and this gorgeous print on it and everytime I see it I can't help but stop and stare.
However, there are some good deals now. It's the week after Corpus sales, and I've heard at the beginning of July there are really good sales too. Today I went to a bunch of stores but only bought one thing--really cute purple dress for 12 euros ($15) so not bad at all.
Now here's the really interesting thing about shopping in Spain. All over Europe (I'm assuming. It was definitely true in London and in Spain)American music is really prevalent. I guess I see why, since we have the biggest centers for the arts production what with Hollywood and NYC and all, but it seems really strange to me that people would want to listen to music that they don't understand. So when I went shopping today, all the stores were basically playing American pop music and I sort of chuckled inside, because here is finally one situation where I am the only one who understands what is being said and everyone ELSE is clueless :P
I will definitely have to go shopping again though. There are soooo many stores to see. Today I went for 2 hours and only made it down about 2 blocks of Recogidas (one of the main stretches) and that is only 2 out of probably ten blocks of ONE of the main roads--not even counting the other big roads and all of the side streets! I could go shopping every day and not step in the same store twice. Increible!

Yesterday was a fun evening as well. I had intercambios, so 8 girls from my group (including myself) met up with 1 girl and 4 boys from the University of Granada. AIFS paid for 2 drinks for everyone and we all sat around a big table and drank and had tapas and just hung out. It was a complete blast. We got to practice our spanish (and finally enjoy a little testosterone ;) and they got to practice their english. We taught each other funny phrases and gossiped about people in our program. The spanish boys had such personality! After that a bunch of people in my program went to this Irish pub for karaoke :) Needless to say I was a little tired in class today, but oh well.
Off to bed for me! Tomorrow is Sevilla and Sunday is Cordoba. I'll fill you in on the details when I get back!
Abrazos y besos,
Meredith