When you're working 12 hours a week...

How to Stay Busy in Spain, When You're Working 12 Hour Weeks
(Sarah's Version)

1. Get into an exercise routine

I go running about four times a week. I run along the Río Genil, where there's a bit of a long narrow park popular with strolling couples and dog owners. The other day I had a rather large dog chase and bark at me for half a length of the river, which was pretty fun.

2. Take public transport.

When I'm working, I probably spend about 1.5 hours per day getting myself from home to work and back again. This pales in comparison to my Buenos Aires commutes, but it's still a lovely, relaxing part of the day (except when I have to run to catch the bus). Though the actual bus ride is only 20 minutes each way, it is an excellent time for jotting down ideas in my notebook and grinning to myself because of the fabulous views of the snow-topped Sierra Nevada, which look something like this on my bus ride. Sometimes I have trouble not singing to myself as I rock out to my iPod, and I must look quite silly to my fellow travelers.

3. Go out for tapas.

This is a great way to spend hours and hours. Go for dinner, go for a late night drink and snack, go in the afternoon for lunch. Tapas are all-purpose, and come in many varieties. We have two favorite tapas bars so far in Granada: Café om Kalsum for Moroccan flavors; Poë for other international flavors, mostly Brazilian.

4. When you're not eating tapas, always eat home cooked meals.

I cook every day, except for frozen pizza days, which come around about once a week. I have lots of time to cook, so if you have any recipes that don't require more than 30 minutes of oven time (ours starts to act up after that), send them my way! I've become a big fan of making banana chocolate chip (cut from a chocolate bar) pancakes on weekends: that is, sometime between Thursday and Sunday. This weekend I'm giving scones a second Spanish go-round for a friend's birthday.

5. Read.

Okay, so my reading so far hasn't exactly been educational, other than the 100 pages or so I've read of Multitude, but I swear, I will go to the library to get a card one of these days. But, I did read the entire Twilight series in eBook form, courtesy of a friend. (Stop judging me.) I'm also a big fan of Samanta Schweblin's short stories, and I've downloaded several Very Important Foundational Texts of Latin American Literature to get cracking on. I'm trying to stay up to date on American news by reading the Washington Post and Slate (my favorite!), but I tend to prefer watching their election sketch videos... Sarah the Diva! The Anti-America America in Pro-America America! The Mainstream Media Needs a Hug!

6. ...And I guess I've strayed into the realm of video.

Sometimes I watch episodes of classy television shows, like Gossip Girl and Supernatural, illegally on the internet. One of my flatmates -- who's a student, not a language assistant -- is addicted to TV series (her words, not mine), and routinely watches entire seasons of television shows. Today, to reward myself for SENDING IN MY VOTE I watched a Real Movie, which I'd brought with me on DVD. It's called Me Without You, and it was just about as heartbreaking as I remembered.

7. Commit to do something completely insane.

I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short, a writing project in which crazy people like me attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in November. I've been busy planning and plotting, and am very excited to start. I'm in the process of compiling a grocery list of novel-writing snacks to buy, and I've already stocked up on coffee. Anyone crazy enough to join in?

Some other day I'll write a more serious list of things to do in Spain, but really, this pretty much sums up what I've been doing recently. Let the mocking begin.