Madi - Basketball

Basketball in Spain has been great for me. It has given me a group of friends that, I think, will be friends for life. It has really improved my Spanish. And, it has given me a new perspective on basketball. Almost every day of the week I am with my team, in practices and in games. We play five days a week for two hours each day. It’s pretty cool. Because of how often they are playing, my teammates are very good at attacking and finishing. Their dribbling is very impressive. They are with their ball 24/7.

My team is a “cantera” team for Fundacion Granada - the professional team in town. Which means we get sweet gear (backpacks, shooting jersey, uniforms, jacket and pants), very intense coaches, and we get to watch the professional games for free. …but, we play on eight foot hoops.

Every Wednesday, we play a game called “the Shooting Game,” which is a game where everyone gets to shoot from the foul line. If you make the basket you are safe. If you miss the basket, you go to the back of the line to try again. You go until there are only two people left. These two players are the losers. To make this clear, these players, the losers, have to bring snack to practice next week. While you are shooting, the rest of the team screams and yells to try make the person who brings the best snacks miss. I think this game is awesome, if I win. If I lose, I want to scream. Overall, I think it’s good for me. I like the pressure and I bring bad snacks.

- Madi

Opening the new fundacion gear

LoLo Training - No Days Off

LoLo spends a significant amount of time watching her sister’s practices.

As of late, she has started training on the sidelines herself.

She tells us she’s getting good.

At the very least, she’s getting tired. …ish

Good news. Wall sits are no longer necessary to correct poor behaviour. Poco a poco. Paso a paso.

Elliott's Granada CF Soccer Team

A couple of weeks ago I joined a soccer team. I was put on the benjamin team [the older age division]. Being on this team has been awesome I’m always pushed to do my best even when it’s hard and feels impossible. And I’m growing so much, it is always something that I look forward to.

My coach played for a prafechinal womens soccer team. She is really nice and we have team practices two times a week. Sadly I’m not able to play in the games but I can still go to team practices. Our jerseys are red and black and white and black.

I have been really busy living in Spain.

I love this soccer team

-Elliott

Madi - Paris!

We went on a side trip to Paris.

WE SAW THE EIFFEL TOWER! We went up all the stairs, it wasn’t that exhausting, because we walked so much in Granada. The view was amazing. You could see all of Paris! The only bad part of the view was that there was a creepy kid poster on a building who was glaring at us.

We also saw la Louvre, which is a museum. It had a lot of paintings, statues, artifacts and even the Mona Lisa, or in french la Joconde. if you look at her closely you can see she is kind of smirking by the lustre the artist put on her lips.

They also had really sweet and amazing bakeries. They had chocolate in most of there pastries. They tasted so good!

Talk to you later!

-Madi

Elliott - School

School is fantastic! Hice una nueva amiga llamada Carmen. In English that means I made a new friend named Carmen. After school they have a program named comedor that’s where we can eat after school. They also have activities like flamenco, dance, soccer, basketball, roller skating. ...I had a teacher named Sonia who was truly awesome. What I liked most about her was that if she was mad she would scream at you but if you did something good she would give you a hug or a kiss. I liked this because it made me feel like part of a family. But sadly she couldn’t continue teaching us because she had a surgery so now we have a new teacher named Elena who is really nice. In the end I love school in Spain

-Elliott

Ellie - the Eiffel Tower

I went to the Eiffel tower. We climbed the stairs instead of taking the elevator. It actually wasn’t that tiring because we walk a billion stairs in the Albaycin every day. Afterwards we bought a small keychain of the Eiffel Tower to hang on our Christmas tree. I felt amazing!

Adios.

-Elliott

11 Years Old Madi - My Birthday!

It has been very busy here in Granada, so I haven’t been able to blog about my birthday. But I’ll tell you about it now.

At the start of the day I got two presents and saved the last present for later. One was from Lolo, who gave me two of her drawings. Ellie gave me three Euros to go get candy at golosinas. So we went for candy! I got two lollipops and two bags of candy, one for me and one for Ellie. They were delicious. Then we went and ate patatas bravas. The translation is brave potatoes but it’s these fried potatoes with two sauces, a creamy tomatoey sauce and an aioli sauce.

Then we went to get helado (ice cream) in the centre of Granada. I got two flavours, kinder and ferrero rocher. They were very tasty. While we were at the centre I saw in the window of a nearby shop, a small toy motorcycle. I thought it was perfect for in Granada because there are so many motorcycles. I was excited because we were moving to a new house that day and I wanted to have a little something to put in my room to make it feel like my own.

We moved into our house for the year. It is old and small and cool, with a beautiful balcony and view of the Alhambra. The Alhambra is a very famous fortress and palace. Today was amazing!!!

-Madi

Tasty foods in Spain

There are so many delicious foods in Spain.

We often go for tapas. When you order a drink, any drink at all, the restaurant brings you free food, but just a single serving. You can keep ordering drinks and they will keep bringing tapas. The tapas get better each time you order one, it’s amazing.

One example is patatas bravas (brave potatoes). The sauce is a little bit spicy and a little bit tomatoey.

Another food that I love in Granada is olives and my favorite is pan arabe. It is a soft, squishy bread that tastes great with oil and vinegar, we eat it a lot.

P.S. the one thing that doesn't taste that good is the milk, but if you hide it in enough granola it is ok.

Elliott

Madi - Watching a Basketball Game With My Team

My basketball team is a part of the professional club, Fundación. My team went to their game to cheer them on.

At the start of the game, 13 seconds in, the team I was cheering for almost had the ball go out of bounds when someone on the team bounced the ball off of the other team’s foot. That was a very smart trick because if you bounced it off of the other team’s chest they would catch the ball, but when you bounce the ball off of his foot it works. The crowd went wild.

Then I felt amazing because my dad gave me money so I could buy candy with my team. With my money I had just enough to buy a bag of popcorn and a bag of candy!!!

The mascot was super funny. He was a giant bird and full of colours. He made it so much fun, cheering the team on.

-Madi

Elliott - Granada vs Barcelona

I went to see a professional soccer game, Granada vs Barcelona. The soccer game was so so so so so exciting, every move counted. We brought golosinas (candies) with us, one bag for me, one bag for my mom. They were tasty.

We needed to go up lots of stairs to get to our seats. When we found them we were right behind the goal and we could see everything perfectly! The fans on the other side of the field had the most enthusiastic cheers ever. Every time somebody did a cool move they would go crazy.

Before the game started we saw the keepers (porteros) warming up. Then all of the other players walked out but Messi and Ansu Fati, my favorite players did not come out.

The first goal was amazing. Granada stole the ball and beat two defenders and then made a high shot to the corner, one of the players may have even headed the ball in. It was less that 2 minutes into the game, they showed that they weren’t afraid of Barcelona.

At halftime I was so happy because Messi and Ansu Fati started warming up! They showed how easy it was for them to control the ball. In the second half Granada got a penalty shot where they faked the keeper and made him go to one side then scored in the other.

I was happy that Granada won and also happy that I was able to see my favorite players play!

Nuevo Estadio de Los Carmenes

Elliott - Waiting for Madi

Waiting for Madi is so fun, and boring. We are waiting for Madi because she has basketball, AGAIN! She has basketball four times a week. I am sure that when Madi comes back to Calgary she is going to be the best.

Me and daddy kicked my ball against somebody’s house. We stopped because their dog started barking at us. We were trying to kick the ball against their house, but we were not trying to make their dog bark at us. So we went across the road to the school where Madi was practicing her basketball and we kicked the ball there instead. No dogs barked at us.

We did that for a couple of minutes. I got bored so we went back across the road and worked-out at the park because we wanted to get fit for a couple minutes. There was a beautiful water fountain that sprang up, so I ran around the edge of it for a couple of minutes.

I played my drum. Two people left.

It felt good to have some time with my old dad. …just me and my old man.

-EGB

Elliott's Drum Lesson

You would think that drums would be easier, but when you’re sitting down in front of a big drum set. It looks like the hardest thing I might ever do in my life. There are so many different sounds that you can make with a drum kit. Some of them are good sounds, and some of them are not.

I started taking drum lessons. My teacher is totally punk. She showed my what I might be able to do when I get better. It sounded amazing. She has a tattoo on her shoulder and her neck. Everything she said was very easy to understand. She spoke to me in Spanish. I learned how to do a beat to we will, we will, rock you.

I have been practicing at home for two days. Two sets of my neighbours have moved out.

Madi started playing guitar, so we played together. I don’t think the neighbours liked that either.

-E

Madi First Day of School

I walked through the gate on the first day of school, and I saw how many people were there. It felt like there were thousands of people that I didn’t know. It was so overwhelming. I was just expecting a few people to be there, a class of sixteen. But there were so many more. Everyone knew each other. It was weird. I have never been the new kid.

I felt all alone. I was standing in my line - feeling like “…why was I excited about this day?” (sigh), when Lola, a girl in my class, smiled at me and asked “Hola. Tu es Madeline?” I don’t know how she knew my name. But I said, “Si, me llamo Madeline.” …which means, yes, my name is Madeline. I was so happy and so excited that someone wanted to be my friend. Then all the girls started being crazy, and loud. ….jumping on each other. …and I felt like I was at home.

But, this home can never be like Calgary. Calgary has grass, friends, and basketball, and you can actually understand what people are saying. Granada has singing, music, and Spanish and this old, ancient school with kids who tackle you on your first day.

-Madi

Sisters on the first day of school

Madi - Dribbling and Walking on Cobblestones

You can get very good at dribbling if you challenge yourself and well dribbling on cobblestone streets is a very challenging thing to do when you are dribbling on rocks the ball could go any where! It’s a really fun thing to because you have to concentrate on the ground and when you do that you will see interesting patterns and drawings made out of stone! There is something wonderful about seeing there crazy drawings every where even under your feet! Also once a year where the older rocks that were made and are staring to crack construction workers will take out the rocks there and put in new rocks and they will make new design it was very cool to see what they came up with, there were flowers and beautiful swirling lines!

-Madi

Madi - Street Musicians

There is something wonderful about hearing music, especially in an old town. There will be people that are playing by themselves but then see someone else playing a trumpet they’ll start to play together and make this incredible music on the spot which really shows how experienced and talented they are.

There was this one musician that at around eight o-clock would play this circular glockenspiel and it felt like he was playing a lullaby for us and as we fell asleep we listen to a beautiful lullaby.

There is something special about listening to music!

-Madi

Basketball Tryouts

I had 8 tryouts! Yes, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

On my first day of tryouts two of the players who were trying out, introduced me to all the other girls. Everyone is so nice and even though they don’t speak English they try, and the coaches explain so well…

…and after 8 days of tryouts they asked me my jersey size! I asked them if I was on the team in Spanish, and they said YES!!! I’m so happy!

-Madi, the basketball player

Elliott - Street Music

There is music everywhere. it is so beautiful, you could make a band in one minute. There is music in Spanish, English, Mandarin and more. The music sounds like they have been practicing all of their life.

See you next time. I wish you could listen to the music with me.

Elliott

Public Fountains

Public fountains are everywhere in Granada.

We stop at all of them.

Elliott - Lost at One AM

Me, Madi, and one of my friends were walking home at one o’clock in the morning. It was really scary, for Madi. It took one hour to find each other. It felt like you were in a labyrinth where you could not see what was coming next.

See you next time!

-Elliott

Madi - Lost at One AM

Today at one o’clock, and no not in the afternoon, I was walking with a new friend. A super nice guy. People stay up unbelievably late here in Spain. We were coming home from a party, and were walking ahead of mom and dad. The Albacin at night is pretty hillarious. Everywhere you look there are ten to twenty people laughing and talking, at one to two in the morning. It’s dark though. You can tell it is really late.

We kept talking and walking until we realized, where are the parents? We had gotten a bit ahead of them. So we backtracked, and went to were we last saw them, and they weren't there. We went to where we thought they might have walked, but they weren't there either, so we waited like five minutes. We knew our way home, but we didn’t have the keys to our house, our parents did. So, we chose to walk to Gabriel’s house. What are the parents thinking right now? I was panicked that they didn’t know where I was. Thank goodness Gabriel has been living here for two years because he knew his way around really well.

Finally, we got to his house and his Dad called our parents, and they came and picked us up. I was so stressed out the whole time waiting, but was calm on the outside. When my Dad came I was so happy. We walked home and everything was all right.

- Madi

The Albacin at Night