My host family's apartment in Granada is very different from my house in Birmingham. First of all, my host family doesn't know of of their neighbors in their building.  To me this is very surprising because in my neighborhood at home, I know most people in a four block radius and we have many social gatherings every year. I'm not sure if this is typical of Spain or only their building.

The lobby in our apartment. This is floor zero and we live in 1A.
There apartment is much smaller than my house. There are four kids (even though only two of them currently live here) and only three bedrooms, including the parents, and one bathroom.

Although the kitchen/ dinning room is very small and in order to move, one must suck in and slither, this is where we spend the most time. Meals here usually take an hour but I can always find my host brother at the table much later because he eats so slowly.

My family here consists of a mom, dad, 23 year old sister Trini, and a 12 year old brother Louis.
The mom spends most of her time caring for her 98 year old father who lives on Plaza de Trinidad so I only see her once a day when she comes here to cook for us. Her daughter scolds her for speaking too quickly to me and with local slang that I don't understand. Recently, she gave me this book which is a dictionary for all of the local slang.

The father, Andres, and I are usually the only ones at dinner and he speaks slowly and with hand motions to help me better understand.  He tells funny stories about when he was in New York City for a year about 20 years ago to learn English but claims he has forgotten most of it now.  He is a farmer and has a farm in Portugal, where he is from, and visits there twice a month but he also has a nursery in Granada.  He brings home copious amounts of cherries, oranges only for eating, oranges only for making juice and strawberries, dove eggs, and lettuce every Sunday- my diet mostly consists of these things. This is him on the phone in our living room. He is always on the phone especially at night and through my wall I hear him laughing uncontrollably.

Trini and I go on late night walks together frequently and sometimes I go to dinner with her and her friends.  Last weekend, we traveled to her family's beach house in Malaga with her friends. Although it rained most of the time we still had fun playing games while Ninja Assassin played in Spanish in the background.

Louis and I usually do our homework together in the living room.  He studies English while I study Spanish and we help each other with our pronunciation.

Finally, this is my room. There are two beds because Trini and her younger sister, Carmen, who is studying in Madrid, used to live here. It's pink and white and has pictures of the girls when they were young and many dolls. 

Nat