The past weeks in Granada have been an exciting blur of meeting interesting people, getting lost in a new city, stumbling upon cool bars and restaurants, traveling to new places, planning trips and excursions, suddenly remembering I still have schoolwork, and overall trying to say yes to as much as possible. I’ve now been in this city long enough to give a recount of what an average day for me might be like. Here’s what a day might look like for an IES student staying in a homestay in this city.

It’s Thursday and your alarm wakes you up at the unfortunate hour of 7:45 for your 8:30 Spanish class. It’s about a 12-minute walk to the IES center, and on the way, you chat in Spanish with your housemate about classes, trips, and life in Spain as you try to sneak around people on the sidewalk without getting run over by the cars passing a few feet away. Being in a class of only 10 people, Spanish is fun and interactive with a lot of practice speaking. You head up to the beautiful terrace on top of the IES building afterwards and take a moment to look over the edge at the busy plaza three stories below, and then over the tops of the buildings to the mountains. Friends are chatting, eating, and doing homework in the sun. Before lunch you might have more classes, or you might take a walk with other students to grab a pastry at one of the pastelerías that seem to be on every corner, and then shop for art supplies. After taking three wrong turns and accidentally discovering a lovely new plaza with people sitting out enjoying their coffee and churros, you designate a navigator and finally make it to the art supply store, where you buy a watercolor notebook for your class that afternoon.

You may have a class at the University of Granada that day, for which you take a 30-minute walk to Campus Cartuja set high on a hill overlooking the city, arriving out of breath but energized. The bus is also an option, but for some reason you are no longer phased by the frequent 30-minute walks you take throughout the city. Maybe it’s because with the Spanish lifestyle so you don’t feel like you must rush places, or maybe you just walk so much everyday anyway that you are now used to it. Here you concentrate with all your willpower to understand your professor while also asking the other Spanish and international students around you for interpretations. There seem to be many other international students in your class, and you walk home with a few of them who live close by to you.

For lunch at 2:30 your host dad makes empanadas by hand, and flan for dessert. Chatting in Spanish with him and your housemate, you learn more about what it is like to live in Spain. After lunch is a time for a siesta or homework, given most everything in the city is closed until about when your watercolor class starts at 4:45.

This watercolor session your enthusiastic professor takes you out into the city, and you walk to a lovely plaza where you sit with other students, painting the lamppost you have chosen as your subject. The hour-and-a-half flies by and after dropping off the supplies at the IES center, you walk a few blocks towards home chatting with other students, and then break off to take your separate ways. On the way home you stop at the tiny fruit and vegetable stand owned by a cheery man who seems to know everyone in the neighborhood, and who sells you the best oranges you have ever tasted.

You spend the next hour-ish researching travel plans and doing some homework. You leave at 7:30 for the walk to the Cartuja Campus again, where you play soccer with other IES students. When the game turns a little too competitive for your taste, you chat on the side in Spanish with one of the orientation leaders and watch. Returning to the city center, you grab a Shawarma (middle eastern burrito-type food) for €3.50 with other soccer players and then head home. It’s a Thursday meaning that it’s a “Friday” without classes the next day but depending on if you want to save yourself for the weekend you may just go out for tapas with some friends at a bar nearby and then head back home with your housemate at 11 for an earlier night.