Working

Well, that whole "I'm going to write every week" thing lasted all of... um... one week...
Anyhow, life is good in Granada!
The weather is starting to turn cool (cold, at night), and we've had a fair amount of rain lately, but it's still pretty nice during the day.As I write this, I'm sitting on the third-floor patio of my friend Jennifer's house... it has a direct view to the Alhambra (and is super close to the base of the fortress) - can't complain about that! At times it's unreal to me that I live here. I got a job giving guided visits through the Albaicin (the historically Muslim neighborhood of Granada) and I've been doing some research in preparation. It's fascinating to read something in a book like "the original wall around San Nicolas dates to the ninth century and is based upon a pre-existing Roman wall that may also have connections with the neolithic artifacts in the area" - and then realize that that's the wall you pass every morning on your way to the grocery store!
Lately I've been keeping pretty busy by giving private and small group classes in dulcimer, piano, and English. I have about 9 students right now, ages 3, 4, 4, 5, 9, 10, 10, 11, and 39-ish. The 3 year-old is by far the hardest. I'm supposed to "teach" her English, but she's pretty wiggly and usually doesn't want to pay any attention to me. Yesterday she told me "shut up and go away, Laura. You smell bad. Goodbye, ugly." so that's always awesome. The music groups are also still going on.
Wadih got a job playing every night at a flamenco tablao called "Los Tarantos" - it's pretty famous in Granada. So that's been exciting! It's also RIGHT next to our house (well, not RIGHT next door) so that's an added bonus, for sure.
I wish that the leaves were changing colors here, but they're not (and they're not going to). I'm excited for Halloween, though! Jennifer is having an ex-pat, American-style Halloween party next week, so that will be FABulous!
Happy Halloween!