Its Official!

August 22nd

I wanted to see what it took to open a Spanish bank account in the morning before my dad left to return to Barcelona.  I thought it would be good to have a Spanish bank account in order to avoid fees from Spanish ATM (not to mention the cool factor of having "an off-shore" bank account).  As it turned out, it wasn't a very good deal.  We first spoke with "La Caixa" a large bank that I had seen all over Madrid and Barcelona.  It took 50 euros to just open the account and another 100 euros to keep it open.  Ridiculous.  We then spoke with a smaller bank "Caja Granada" which also had an opening fee (18 euros) but no minimum balance.  To open one with "Caja Granada" I would have to get a local police non-residency clearance.  My original intention of avoiding ATM fees wasn't that great as the Spanish banks only had no fees at their own bank.  To use another bank's ATM I might as well use my American debit card as I received the same percentage and penalty as the Spanish bank.

My dad left for the airport at around 10 and I stayed in the hotel room until 12:30.  I went down stairs and asked the concierge to call a taxi to take me to the "Residencia" where I had to check in before 2:00pm.  I thought I would have arrived early, but a lot of students were already there.  I met some people and then checked in; receiving my key and internet cable along with a lunch box and instructions on what to do. 

My room is great.  I definitely didn't expect it to be this nice.  I have a single room with a desk, mini-fridge, microwave, lamp, large closet, own bathroom and shower.  From my window I have a view overlooking Granada (the residencia is up on hill).  There is a 16th century church in my "front yard."  I have yet to explore it.  I unpacked and got settled in right away.  It would have been fun to have a roommate but I think this is a much better set up.

At 2:00 we had a short meeting addressing some generic points of interest.  We would have a test the next day for placement into ILP classes.  We went back to our rooms and then met up at 4:00 to go explore the city and buy groceries (there is a dining hall but is closed on the weekends).

The majority of the students are from UC Santa Barbara, followed by UC Santa Cruz.  There are a few kids from UCLA, UC Davis, UC Irvine, and my own small group from UCSD.  No one from Berkeley.  There are 54 kids in total but not everyone is staying for a year.  Also, some students had gone to a summer program with UC in Cadiz, Spain so they had already met each other. The ratio of girls to guys is 4 to 1.  Like first week freshman year, everyone is excited to socialize and meet people.

We went out that night to a restaurant in the center of Granada.  There are too many kids to all tag along together, but I went along with a fairly large group.  To me, it didn't really matter where we went.  The reality that I was in Spain with other kids my age was too much for me to absorb all at once.  Wandering around Granada and talking with everyone, I think I made the right choice.