last few days...

These last few days were just a complete blur! I had an absolutely ridiculous amount of homework/finals/studying to do and not enough time to simply enjoy being in Spain. But I made it through alive and now I am FINALLY home. So I guess I'm going to sum up those last few days as best as I can.

Let's see...on Monday I went to classes. I had to lead a debate in my Spanish Cultural Conversations class about the legal drinking age and differences between Spain and America. Spain is a lot more lax about drinking than America is, that's for sure. SO that was fun I guess, ha. After classes Amanda, Taylor, Caroline and I caught the bus over to the beach! We ate our bocadillos and then just hung out. Amanda left to go visit the Lladro museum, but Mridula met up with us and she and I hung out. We went swimming and then ran into some guy at the beach that she met at a bar earlier in the week, haha. That was a little awkward. But then we walked around and bought some things and the little tent shops along the beach street. I got some bracelets to give as gifts and some cool keychains. Mridula took a little while to figure out what she wanted to get, haha, but it was fun. After the beach, I started working on my paper for my Texts/Interpretations class and started studying for my written exam for Conversations class the next day. And I also had to study for a quiz for my Texts class. So much to do! So yeah, the rest of the night was spent studying. I'll spare you all the other gory details, but overall, I had two papers(one 3 page and one 4 page), two tests, and a quiz in three days. Talk about CRAZY! But now I am done, and it feels awesome.

Other random things I did those last few days as "study breaks", haha:

-Last lunch with the whole family on Tuesday :( I'm going to miss them a lot.
-Only had time for one siesta on Tuesday cuz we were utterly EXHAUSTED from Barcelona and all the homework
-went to a nearby dessert/drink place and tried mango juice! it was incredible!
-explored La Ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias - very cool, modern-looking building nearby


Oh and Wednesday was a complete blur...I had an oral test at 9:30 am, then had to write my final paper for Texts/Interpretations class. Finished that around 12:30, went to la Mercadona(the grocery store nearby) for the last time :( to buy snacks and then went to the beach. Went to the tent shops for the last time and swam, hung out at the beach til 3. Called a cab to take us to the closing dinner for the UVA Valencia Program session 2. It was a lot of fun, we had paella and sangria and our professors were all there too. After that ended around 5ish, Amanda and I bought flowers and chocolate for our family to thank them for everything, and we found a cool zapateria where we bought shoes on the way back to the apartment, haha. Then as soon as we got back to the apartment and sat down, I started feeling a cold coming on. It was not fun. Well, we went out anyways, even though I wasn't feeling well, cuz it was our last night in Valencia! Where did the time go? We met up with Gina at a little bar for a little while til about 1 am. Then Gina went back to her apartment to go to bed, she had an early flight back to Michigan on Thursday morning and still had packing to do. I'm gonna miss her. :( But after that, Amanda and I took a taxi to the beach where we went to some discoteca called Aqua. We hung out there with all of our UVA friends for awhile. It was a fun last night and I'm glad we went, but I felt awful. Definitely could feel a cold coming on. So we went back to the apartment around 3 am, last time we had to use our keys to get in :(

The next morning we woke up at 9, had breakfast, finished packing, and said our final goodbyes to MariCarmen and Gabriel. So sad. I'm going to miss my madre and padre in Spain. Gabriel told us some favorite refranes(sayings/proverbs) of his and I made sure to write them down. MariCarmen also gave us her recipe for gazpacho, our favorite cold tomato soup that she always makes for us. Leaving was sad, but we got our bags downstairs in the elevator and then ended up lugging them the 25-min walk to the where the bus was picking us up. We seriously should have just taken a taxi there, but we were stupid and decided to walk. Such a bad idea, especially considering both our suitcases were over 50 pounds and the wheels on mine weren't working well. Bleh. But we made it to the bus, and made it to the Valencia airport where we caught a flight to Madrid at 1:40. Our layover to the next flight wasn't bad at all and we left Madrid for JFK in New York at 5 pm. But that flight was pretty grueling. We finally landed in JFK at 7 pm local time, but it felt like 1 am Valencia time. I was already sooo tired. I dozed a little bit on that flight, but not much. So then going through JFK security was an absolute nightmare. My bag was 52 pounds, hence 2 pounds overweight, so they made me take a few things out and put them with my carry-on. Amanda's bag was 57 pounds, but they let her check it! haha, geeez, she got lucky. And then they called a bag check on my carry-on because I had some lotion and a bottle of face wash. They took at least 15 min to go through my bag. They went through it, pulled those things out and then put it back through the scanner to check again, ughhh. JFK security seriously hates me. All the flights to Norfolk were canceled last night, so I flew with Amanda to her house in Washington DC. We finally boarded around 10 pm (which felt like 4 am to me..ack!) and then landed in DC around 11:30 pm. I was such a mess, ha. Not even kidding. I called mom and talked to her for a few minutes while we were waiting to pick up our luggage. I was completely exhausted and just wanted to be home, but it just wasn't possible until today. So I spent the night with Amanda at her house and then Dad came and picked me up at around 11 am. I miss my roommate already! haha, we had a great time. So all in all...Valencia = one grand adventure! I can't wait to go back someday, but for now, I am glad to be home and glad to be able to eat as much peanut butter as I want. Did I mention that I found peanut butter at the grocery store in Valencia this week? Too bad I found out so late that it actually DOES exist in Spain.



El Fin!

Barcelona!

Woah, there is so much to write about and I haven't had ANY free time to do it. Ok, well here goes.

On Friday I was completely exhausted from the night before because Amanda, Kyle, and I went to L'umbracle, a discoteca, Thursday night. It was pretty fun, but we didn't get back til really late so I decided to sleep in. I only had to miss one class because we had 6 hours of class instead of 4 on Thursday, and we were allowed one skip, so I needless to say, I think it was a good decision. So Amanda got back from class and we headed to catch the bus to Barcelona!! The bus ride actually wasn't too long and we watched one movie on the way there, though apparently once we got to the province of Catalunya, the bus driver wasn't allowed to play any more movies because he didn't have a license for it. And I guess the police in the area are really strict...Catalunya seems to have a lot of really annoying laws. We were pretty shocked that they had such a ridiculous law about playing movies on a bus. Go figure. So I think we made it to Barcelona by around 6:30, where we stopped to visit La Sagrada Familia, which is a HUGE church that was started over 200 years ago by Gaudi and is still not finished. It was so beautiful! I took tons of pictures and they're predicting that it will be completed in 2040. But yeah, it was very cool.



After La Sagrada Familia, we checked into our hotel and hung out for awhile. I went with a few friends to a Chinese restaurant in town, haha. It was pretty good, and lucky for us, they had an English menu, ha. The bus took us to Las Ramblas, a section of town, around 11:30 and we went to a bar there for a little while. Everyone was just hanging out, dancing, getting some drinks. A little later we headed to a nearby club called The Boulevard, and hung out for awhile. It was fun, but most of us were pretty tired from the bus ride to Barcelona, so we left a little early, maybe around 1:30. It's funny how my definition of "early" has changed since I've been here. 2 am is not early, but in comparison to what it's been lately, it def is, ha.

Saturday was jam packed with stuff. We got up around 9, had breakfast in the hotel...muffins and orange juice and melon/watermelon! and then we had took a bus tour. We made one stop where we got to get out and take pictures. It had a beautiful view of the entire city. Barcelona is sooo HUGE. There are a minimum of 1.5 million people that live there. It was a gorgeous view and we got to check out some vendors that were selling recuerdos(souvenirs) nearby. After the tour, the bus dropped us off in the center of town and we found a place to get lunch. A few of us went into this really tiny little restaurant. Amanda and I got salmon on toast and a goat cheese salad and we shared both. It was pretty good. Then after lunch we walked around and tried to do some shopping, but the main road we were on had all of the big brand name stores, so most things were very expensive. The type of tourist/souvenir shopping that we were looking for was hard to find, so shopping overall was a little disappointing. We went back to the hotel via metro! haha, that was fun. My ticket didn't scan well when we had to go through the turn-stile so I ended up having to jump over it, ha. THAT was interesting. So at the hotel we took a mini nap and then went to dinner at some little Italian place nearby. Gina, Amanda, and I ate at one of the tables outside, but the waiter was really rude. We tried to talk in Spanish to him, but he kept mocking us and then charged us a lot of extra money simply because we were eating outside. Apparently that happens in most of the restaurants in Barcelona, which makes sense seeing as Barcelona is considered to be the most expensive city in Spain. Anyways, the waiter was not apologetic at all and we ended up talking to these two British ladies next to us because they were having similar problems with him. Oh well. Oh and another thing (Otra cosa) is that because Barcelona is such a big tourist location, most people there can speak English, so we didn't get to practice our spanish very much, which was a little disappointing. But yeah, most of the waiters and workers there spoke to us in English, so it was a little weird.

Later that night the bus dropped us off at the harbor/port area of the city and a big group of us hung out at various bars/dance clubs. We would dance/drink in one for awhile and then pop over in one next door. It was a blast! One of the first few bars we went into had a doctor/emergency room theme, ha, they were dressed up like nurses and had all sorts of props and hospital-related signs. It was pretty interesting. But yeah, hanging out there at the bars was a lot of fun, and then around 1 am we looked for our NC state friends from the program at the Casino across the street and ended up meeting up with them at a nearby discoteca called Catwalk. We found free tickets to get in, so that was awesome! Normally it costs anywhere between 10 and 20 euros to get into one of these clubs, so I'm glad we found passes. The atmosphere inside was actually really cool, but let's just say that there are a lot of creepers in Barcelona. I had fun dancing around with all of our friends, but around 3 am it just got really crowded and after dancing with a few random guys things just got weird and creepy so we bounced at around 3:30 with Graham, Mridula, and Amanda and caught a cab back to the hotel. I had a lot of fun though, except when I had to pay 6 euro for a bottle of water! That was RIDICULOUS! No wonder Barcelona is the most expensive city in Spain. Geeeez-oh-peak.

On Sunday morning, we packed all of our stuff, had breakfast, and then went on a 2.5 hour walking tour through the city. Unfortunately, it was very long and very boring. Not to mention most of us stayed out really late the night before and it was super hot outside, so that made the tour seem even more boring/annoying. Seeing some of the really old buildings and churches and architecture was cool, but 2.5 hours was WAY too long and it didn't give us enough time to do what we wanted to do.
The tour ended at 1ish at the Picasso Museum, which I really wanted to see, but we couldn't get in free until 3 pm, so we decided to do some shopping and come back. Luckily this time we managed to find some cool, fairly inexpensive shops so I bought some "Campeones del Mundo" t-shirts(we got the price down from 20 to 10 euro each, SCORE!) and a scarf and a few other cool things. When we got back to the Picasso museum, the line to get in was outrageous and we had to be back at the bus by 4 pm, so there was no time to see it. That was a bummer. And then as we were walking foreverrr to get to the bus, we passed all these other cool shops that we didn't even know existed. I wish they had told us more about where to go to find good tourist shops. I wanted to stop and buy a Spanish guitar cd from one of the musicians on the street but didn't have time. :( We got to the bus 5 min late and the chaperones were mad. Seriously? Geeez. And the bus ride back took over 6 hours instead of the predicted 4 hours due to an accident and traffic, bleh. It was not fun. We got back to our apartment in Valencia at around 10:30 and had dinner. MariCarmen was starting to wonder what had happened to us, ha. But then after dinner we had to do homework. Oh geez, the amount of homework we had to do was CRAZY, and we were already completely exhausted from the whole Barcelona excursion.

Anyways, overall, the Barcelona trip was not as much fun as the Granada one, but I am glad I got to see La Sagrada Familia and hang out with all the kids from the program more. I'm glad I got to see what I did of Barcelona.

tomate y pescado? Creo que no.

Let me just begin by saying that I only have one week left here...say what?! I don't even know how that happened. Time has just flown by!

Well on Monday I went to classes. It was a little rough getting up at 7:30 again considering we were still sleep deprived from the Granada trip, but it wasn't too bad. classes were ok, and afterwards we stayed at the center for a little while to get some work done. Amanda and I had a paper due Monday night by midnight. Just lovely. So we came back for la comida and after that, headed over to the Cortes Ingles, which is like a huge combined Target/Macys type of store. It was a good 25 min walk or so over there. We meet up with our friend, Kyle, and shopped a little bit. Then headed across the street to the nearby mall called Aqua. I love this store there called Zara, and apparently there are over 300 of them in Spain, ha. But anyways, I bought a dress there that I really liked and then we walked around looking in other stores. Amanda sadly lost her bag in the mall and we looked for it for awhile, but she couldn't find it, so she had to buy another battery for her camera before coming back to the apartment. We came back, finished up our papers and then had dinner with the family. After dinner we went back to the movie theater at the mall with Gina and Kyle and saw "Noche y Dia", the movie with Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise. It was really good. I was amazed at how much I understood just from the facial expressions and gestures. I understood a lot of the Spanish too I think. It was a pretty ridiculous movie, but it was a fun experience. Oh and apparently the popcorn there is multicolored?! Crazy! I had to get a pic with it. I think I'm going to tell my managers at Regal that they should give multi-colored popcorn a go...Spain knows whats up, haha.

On the way back to our apartment, Gina, Amanda and I stopped at la Ciudad de Artes y Ciencias - it's a huge museum type place with a lot of little fountains and things. And I guess there is a dinosaur exhibit thing going on, so we took some pics with the dinosaur, ha. Oh what we do in Valencia for fun.

On Tuesday after classes I went to the beach with Amanda and two other girls from our class, Taylor and Caroline. It was super hot, but we put our towels right on the beach next to the water so it wasn't so bad. Man, I love the beach. We brought our bocadillos with us; however, they were SO AWFUL. Like seriously, I wish I had taken a picture of them. I told know why MariCarmen would think it was a good idea to combine bread, tomato, and very fishy fish, in a sandwich that would be eaten on the beach when it's really hot outside. NOT a good combo, ha. I feel like we're all elementary school kids or something too, we all bring our bocadillos to classes and compare them, "how's yours today? oh man, mine's gross...i want yours!" haha

After the beach we walked around the little shops along the boardwalk area. We bought more abanicos - Spanish fans and I got some new sunglasses for 3 euro since I lost my other ones. Then we took the bus to La Casa de America's Cup, which apparently is all about sailing and Spain winning a sailing competition. It was an interesting building, ha. I don't even know, it was Amanda's idea.
So then we took the bus home. Then Amanda left soon after that to go see Grease the musical in Spanish. I opted not to pay 30 euros to see it and just hung out and did some homework. We have SOOO much work this week, it's not even funny, bleh. So I had dinner with Gabriel and MariCarmen, just the three of us. Haha, it was interesting. I got to talk a little more since it was just me and them, but things are still a little awkward, I don't know. I like them both a lot though. It was sad that all of the food was fried, as usual. Seriously, fried burger, french fries, onion rings, and a fried shrimp type thing, oh and melon. Another interesting combination.

Ok so today I had classes again, ugh, as usual. We've started doing debates in my conversations class. Yesterday we talked about the environment and today we talked about weapons and the right to bear arms, that sort of thing. It's a very intimidating atmosphere though, she wants us to use our debating terminology and say things like "dejame hablar!" which means - leave me to talk!" haha, the direct translation doesn't capture it's meaning very well. But I don't know, I don't like participating in debates. Oh well. During the 5 min break in the middle of my second class Amanda and I headed to la Mercadona next door and bought peaches for like .4 euro, haha. We ate them in the middle of class and when class ended at 12:35 we went back for more snacks because we didn't have any to bring with us today. Sad.

Tomorrow I have my presentation on the royal family of Spain so I've been working on that a lot tonight. But earlier today was fun. We came back for lunch in the apartment with the family. We took some pics of us with MariCarmen and Gabriel and their daughter and son-in-law, Pepe. And then we headed over to el Oceanografico, which is like the Marine Science Museum, only WAY cooler. We saw a dolphin show and went around looking at all the different exhibits. I was super excited about seeing the penguins, but it was a definite letdown because the glass of that exhibit was really dirty and they were all sleeping, and I didn't get a picture with them. But it was really fun! Most of it was outside, like the dolphin show, and walking from building to building to see the different exhibits, so it was really really hot.
Then we walked back around 6:30 and have been doing homework ever since. I have my presentation tomorrow, two longgg stories to read, and a 4 page paper due tomorrow night at midnight...AND we have 6 hours of class tomorrow instead of 4. Geeeeez-oh-peak. I'm soooo excited and ready for the weekend to get here so I can stop doing homework and experience life in BARCELONA!!!

¡Viaje a Granada!

Granada this weekend was FANTASTICO! I had a blast...so let me elaborate on what went down.

Friday morning, Amanda and I got up at 7:30 (which makes for about 4 or so hours of sleep, ackkkk!) and showered,ate breakfast, and got all of our bags ready to go by 8:10. Pretty impressive if I do say so myself. We wished MariCarmen a happy Dia del Santo because it was her saint's day, so it's kind of like her birthday in a sense. I don't really understand how that works, but we wished her a great day! Then we walked the 25 min to class and after classes ended at 12:35, we walked over to the stadium with our stuff and got on the bus to Granada! We ate our lunch that MariCarmen had packed on the way to the stadium because the bus driver wouldn't let us eat on the bus, afshhhhhh. Most of us tried to eat sneakily anyways. We had a pretty big group, about 50 kids, half from NC state and half from UVA and a few from Michigan State and Princeton, etc. So the bus left at 1:30 pm and we made it to Granada by about 8 pm. The trip actually wasn't that bad considering we watched Harry Potter 3 and 4 the whole way and made a few pit stops. I bought some gummy bears so I was a happy camper, ha. We checked into the hotel and then a bunch of us headed over to the huge Cortes Ingles across the street...it's like a Target type of store that is located within a mall. The home section of the Cortes Ingles was actually located on the first floor of our hotel. So we hung out there for awhile looking at clothes and different things. They had a lot of neat stuff, but I didn't buy anything.

Then we met up again with everyone at 10 pm to explore the city and get tapas for dinner. We found a place around 10:45ish and tried all sorts of food. I tried some vino tinto, which is wine mixed with soda, kinda like sprite I think, and then we ordered some tortillitas con macarrones, which are shrimp tortillas, and also some chicken nuggets. And all of the tapas came with fries or potatoes. Everything was really good, but also very fried, ha. When people say that everyone in Spain eats healthy, I don't know what they're talking about, because the Spaniards sure love fried food. Shockingly, everything was so cheap at this place though and I only ended up paying about 2 euro for dinner. After dinner we walked around for awhile, ended up at a bar, but it wasn't really exciting. A few of us weren't that interested in taking shots so we headed back to the hotel around 1...party in the hotel! haha. Gina, Amanda, and I stayed in the same room, and the hotel was sooo nice(3 estrellas)! I got to sleep in a comfy bed without springs and we actually had room to stretch out and move. And our room had at least 7 different mirrors, ha, and a little balcony. So cool. The next morning, Saturday, when we got up at 9, we made it down to breakfast and they had all sorts of good stuff: tons of fruit, toast, pastries, churros, zumo de naranja, etc. I was impressed and managed to sneak an orange out with me even though we weren't supposed to, haha.

We hopped back on the bus around 10:20 and headed to La Alhambra, which is a palace city. It's name comes from the colour of its walls(al-Hamra in Arabic), which were made from local reddish clay. It was so beautiful. We also went to el Generalife, which is the summer palace with amazing gardens. Unfortunately my camera ran out of battery so I didn't get to take any pics, but I'm going to steal some from friends because they got some great pictures. It was such a neat experience, though it was a long tour and very hot. The gardens were surprisingly cool though. The way the wall bushes were shaped and the many fountains made it very cool and relaxing there. After the tour the bus dropped some of us off at the city center and a bunch of us found a restaurant and had lunch. This was about 2:30ish so we were starving! ha. I got a chicken, pineapple, lettuce sandwich and we all got water and tried to rehydrate after all of that walking in the heat on the tour. In Spain they don't bring you glasses of water, they bring you a jug of water (that you have to buy) and then you pour your own water. We take water for granted so much in the US because here there are no water fountains for you to refill water bottles or anything. You always have to buy water, and it isn't cheap.

After lunch, Gina, Mridula, Alison, Amanda, and I walked around various shops. We got some gelato/sorbet, I tried the mango flavor, which was awesome. And we bought a few things. Mridula and I actually bought the same dress, haha, deciding that we weren't going to wear it at the same time. And I bought a skirt at another shop. It was a very fun, successful day. After asking the locals for directions a few times, we finally made it back to the hotel around 5. We were pretty tired, but Gina and I went for a quick swim in the outdoor hotel pool. We ran into Josh, Dominic, and Carter from our UVA group and tried some of their sangria by the pool, ha. It was actually pretty good. Oh and while we were at the pool we also got to see a middle-aged black man who decided it was a good idea to wear a speedo the same color as his skin. hahahhh, we almost died laughing. I seriously though he was naked at first glance. Not that cute, ha.

So after swimming we had about two hours to relax, shower and get ready to see a Flamenco show in a cave! It was sooo incredible! It was a very narrow long cave and they set up chairs all along the sides and a long dance floor where the dancers would dance up and down the middle. They also grabbed people from the sides to dance with them from time to time. They are so strong and forceful with the way the dance, which I think really reflects the personality of most Spanish people here. It was a very cool experience. After Flamenco the bus dropped us off in the center and we found a pretty nice restaurant where we had dinner. We didn't get our food til probably 11 or 11:30 and I think left around 12. I actually tried pato, which is duck, and it came with a fancy looking fruit concoction. We also got bread with the meal, and Amanda and I split some gazpacho, which is a cold, tomato soup with onions and celery. SO GOOD. Our whole group consisted of about three tables and the waiter put us all on the same bill, so sorting out all of the money was VERY interesting. Apparently we got charged 18 euro for all of the bread baskets that they didn't even ask us if we wanted. That's a lot for bread! And we had to pay for the water too, of course. Because our bill was so high, we got free shots. I took a sip and it was sooo gross, ha. I was not a fan.

After dinner we walked with our UVa group down the streets, but when we passed the Burger King we ran into a bunch of the NC state kids. These kids are crazy and a ton of fun, so a few of us hung back from the UVa group and hung out with them. Some of them headed to a hookah bar, but the rest of us went ahead and went into Granada Diez, a discoteca that we managed to get free entry tickets for from a guy outside of Burger King, ha. This discoteca was SOOOO much fun. I had a blast. Things didn't get too lively til about 2 or 2:30ish, but it was great dancing around with everyone. When Party in the USA came on, we went crazy! All the Spanish guys def thought we were crazy too. They played a lot of Spanish and also American music, so that made it fun. The rest of our original UVA group made it there too so it was fun having everyone there, though it's sad how segregated the two groups ended up being throughout the trip. Sometimes I like hanging out with the NC state kids more, they're all so friendly and welcoming. The UVA kids are nice too, but a little cliquish. I don't really know. But at the club I ended up dancing with this guy named Alberto for awhile and then a guy from Germany, ha. Both of them spoke to me in English, ha, so I don't really know how much Spanish speaking practice I got this weekend. Oh well. It was a blast. We left around 3:30ish because we knew we would have to get up earlyish on Sunday. So we took a cab back and then went to bed. Man, what an awesome day.

On Sunday, we woke up at 9, so we still got 5 hours of sleep. It could have been worse. We went to breakfast, then packed our things and got on the bus for another tour of Granada. This one was of the Albacin, which is the part of Granada that best reflects the city's Moorish cultural heritage. The streets were very narrow and we did a lot of walking but we got to go to a lot of cool shops too. After the tour we had some time to do some shopping and then got some ice cream and got on the bus, ready-to-go at 2:30. The bus ride back was long too, but most of us slept at least half the time so it wasn't so bad. We made it back and MariCarmen had dinner for us :). I was so hungry. And now I have a paper due tomorrow night, ha. Well once I steal some pics from friends, I'll post them on here. But all in all, Granada = ONE CRAZY AWESOME WEEKEND.

echo de menos la mantequilla de cacahuete

So first I have to finish updating last week, before I talk about Granada this past weekend. So last week I went to the beach on Wednesday I think with Amanda after classes. It was really hot, so we didn't stay long, but I almost bumped into these two guys in the ocean and they started talking to me. Except I didn't know what they said...so I told them in Spanish that I didn't speak a lot of spanish and so they asked where I was from and when I said "Los Estados Unidos" they were like "America!" and then they left saying "Adios, guapa!" haha, I thought it was funny. A lot of guys throw that term around a lot here..."hola guapa o adios guapa!" On Wednesday night we went to "la feria" in the nearby park and rode the ferris wheel and another ride similar to the battering ram at Busch Gardens. It had a cage on either end of the "Vikinga" boat and you could stand in the cage and ride it, I didn't stand in there, but it was insane! haha..all of the rides were expensive though, it cost 2-4 euros to ride each ride. The event was so cool though, they had all sorts of food stands and games and rides. It was a lot of fun. Afterwards, our whole group headed over to a bar and hung out for awhile. *Side note* I discovered that apparently you can buy panties "one size fits all" in the girls bathroom at the bar, haha. I don't know if you really wanted to know that, but we all thought it was funny and pretty strange.*End side note* We were supposed to get tapas for dinner earlier, but I didn't end up getting anything to eat til about midnight, so that was a little unfortunate, but we did get to talk to the bartender of the restaurant where we bought food. He was telling us what things we need to do in Valencia while we're here and asking us where we're from, etc. It was fun..I really like talking to the locals. They're usually pretty friendly. So all in all, a good night.






Oh and one thing that is totally off-topic but rather crucial is that I miss peanut butter. SO MUCH. We talked to MariCarmen and she said that she's never even tried it before in her whole life and that they don't sell it here, though I'm pretty sure that the mercadonas do sell it. So I am seriously going through PB withdrawal, and will be consuming tons of it when I get home, ha.

So Thursday was pretty chill, we went to class and then came back and hung out all afternoon. Then Thursday night we met up with a bunch of friends and headed to a club to see Flamenco dancing around 11:30. It was pretty cool, and I got a free Agua de Valencia drink included with the price to get in! They kept encouraging audience participation too by grabbing you and making you dance with them, ha, which was pretty entertaining, though thankfully I wasn't sitting close enough for them to grab me.



Thursday night after the Flamenco dancing, I walked around with the group for probably an hour and a half as we walked back toward our apartments trying to decide if we wanted to go to another bar or a discoteca, but it was so late and I had an 8:40 class the next morning, so Amanda and I headed back around 2:30 am, Thankfully I had already packed because la próxima parada...Granada!!!

campeones del mundo!

¡Espana ganó la copa mundial! I still am in shock (Me quede helada) that I was actually here when they won. The game started here around 8:30 Sunday so we told MariCarmen that we weren't going to be eating at home because we wanted to watch the game with our friends out at bars and the like. We ended up stopping at a Burger King, haha, on the way and got some sandwiches, then we headed over to the bar behind the soccer stadium. I bought una vuvuzela, which is one of those noisemakers that you can see me using in my current profile pic on caralibro(my new spanish term for facebook). There were a ton of people there and we found Michael, from our texts/interpretations class, and headed over to another bar closer to our school center. We hung out there for awhile and could actually see the game. Then around half time we headed back to the original site where the crowd had multiplied since, haha. It was insane! Beer, food, trash EVERYWHERE and people shouting all the time. I was standing on a platform in a mob of people so I couldn't see what was going on. Whenever everyone cheered we were always asking around, what's going on?! haha...and this one Spanish guy behind us was in his own little world yelling cuss words like crazy at the tv...he had no clue that everyone around him was watching him asking "dude, what's up with this guy?!" haha, it was hysterical. When Spain scored a goal, the crowd went wild with people throwing beer everywhere jumping up and down, man it was crazy! So the rest of the night was spent wandering around the city observing all of the crazy antics...La Plaza Central and many of the other main plazas were packed with people shouting, waving flags, climbing street light poles, the works. Haha, it was so entertaining. I ran into some random spanish guys on the streets and we took a bunch of pics with them, ha, it was ridiculous. I think I went to bed around 2, would've stayed up later but had class at 8:40 am, bleh. But yeah, Spain winning the world cup: talk about AWESOME.

Oh, I forgot to mention, on Sunday at noon I went to a Catholic mass with Amanda and MariCarmen. The church building was AMAZING. It was very old and everything was very traditional, but the chapel was gorgeous. I didn't have my camera with me, so I need to go back and take a picture for sure. The service was hard to pay attention to: one, because I'm not Catholic and I didn't really know what was going on, and two, because it was all in Spanish, ha. It was pretty cool though. I liked it.

Ok so on Monday, nothing too exciting happened. Everyone was still super amped on the winning of the world cup (duh) and I managed to grab a newspaper that day with the huge front page cover about it. Totally saving that. Class was long, and then we headed back to the house for lunch at 2:30. I'm pretty sure I spent the whole afternoon just hanging out at the house, doing homework and the like. I had to start studying for a test that I had today and write a paper that was also due today, bleh.

Let's see...on Tuesday I had class in the morning again, and afterwards Amanda and I caught the bus to the beach for an hour or so until the movie hour at the school center at 3 pm. It was a Spanish comedy, and it was sooo ridiculous. It was about this one guy who was a famous soccer player and he falls in love with another guy, but there's a girl that likes him too, and I don't even know. So essentially, we watched a Spanish gay comedy and learned a ton of new cuss words, haha...oh geez.

After class, the beach, and the movie, I was exhausted, but headed back anyways to study for the exam and finish up that paper. I'm still not completely done with it. I studied a lot and eventually went to bed around 1ish I think?

Today was the last day of Las Corridas de los toros de la fiesta de las Fallas. We watched the running of the bulls on tv this morning, it happens every morning at 8 as we're finishing up breakfast. MariCarmen always watches it with us and shouts "Ay! Ay!" when people get hurt. It's such a crazy, dangerous tradition, but fun to watch. Once we got to school, I had the exam in the first class, which wasn't that bad at all, and then we had a guest speaker in my texts/interpretations class. She talked about El ángel del hogar and the like and then we analyzed a short story. Que bueno!

Let's see...other random things I've noticed here. I don't remember if I've mentioned this before, but everyone talks so loudly here all the time. Amanda and I can sit in our room and hear every word of every other conversation that's going on in the apartment, no matter where they are. Not that we understand every word, ha, but yeah, it's entertaining. Except at 8 or so in the morning, ha. Oh and mi bolsa, my school bag, broke so I had to ask MariCarmen for a needle and some thread. Thankfully she had some and I fixed it! haha. Though seriously, sometimes I ask her questions and try to talk to her and she just looks at me with a blank face, haha. She is very nice but sometimes I get very annoyed that she doesn't even try to understand what I'm trying to say. My spanish isn't that bad, haha...geez-oh-peak. Y creo que eso es todo. ¡Hasta la próxima!

and all that jazz!

So I'm a little behind, but that's just because things have been so busy lately! So starting with Thursday night, I went over to the nearby park (which is huge) where they were having a huge Jazz event. There was a singer on stage singing jazz music and a bunch of people just hanging around, dancing, drinking, etc. It was a really fun atmosphere. Our friend Kyle met up with us there for a little while and then when it ended around 10:30 we walked a little ways and ended up at a night jazz club called Black Note. The bartender lady tried to kick me and Amanda out because we didn't buy anything, but we stuck around for a few more minutes to hear the band when they started playing around midnight. The band was pretty sweet, and the drummer was absolutely incredible. We didn't stay too long though because so many people were smoking and the smoke was giving us headaches, bleh. It was really cool though. Then we walked across the street to a discoteca that Kyle said he went to his second night here. Apparently it doesn't get lively til about 3 am, ha. We didn't stick around that long cuz we had class in the morning on Friday. Having morning classes is definitely not ideal for livin' up the Valencia night life. But what are ya gonna do?

So then on Friday, we had churros for breakfast (awesome!) and then went to classes in the morning. Our conversations class was actually pretty interesting. We talked about Las Corridas de los toros, or "the running of the bulls." A bunch of our classmates headed out yesterday to Pamplona on a charter bus to go witness the running of the bulls, but Amanda and I opted to stay here. So yesterday after classes we walked around to the Plaza de la Virgen and that area and went in some shops. I bought some earrings at one tienda, and we made friends with the guy who owned it, ha. I also bought an awesome looking pouch to keep money and my camera in, and then bought an Espana jersey from another store. I'm stoked to wear it tomorrow night to the futbol game.

I took a little siesta Friday afternoon and then after dinner, Amanda and I headed out to see if we could find some mercados (markets) that were supposed to be open that night, which is usually weird for a market because they're usually only open in the mornings. Well, needless to say, that turned out to be un fracaso de proporciones epicas (failure of epic proportions, haha) so then we walked to the Plaza, got some gelato/granizado, and headed to the discoteca, La Bolseria. It was just the two of us, since most everyone else was already off to Pamplona. Ok, so we went to La Bolseria for about five minutes around 1:15 am, and it wasn't that exciting. Like I said, things don't really get going until about 2 or 3 am, so we decided to just sit in the plaza for awhile amongst all the other people out there. Shortly after we sat down, there was a relatively older man sitting near us and he asked us if we wanted a beer and kept offering us one, even though we kept saying no. Then he proceeded to tell us his whole life story, ha. His name was Yuri and he was Russian. He seemed surprised at how much spanish we understood after we told him we were from the states. Then, one of the guys selling beer that was patrolling the plaza (there were a ton of them) sat down next to us and started being a creeper, asking us how old we were and all sorts of stuff. So after awhile, we were like, "vamos a salir" aka "we're going to leave" and then dashed off to find a taxi. And THEN, Vicente, the guy who we met last weekend and has been stalking me on facebook, appeared out of nowhere and looked really angry when we got in a taxi before he got a chance to say hi or something, ha. I don't know, but I'm pretty sure he's a creeper too. So we got back around 2ish, watched the Swan Princess on a laptop (hahah, we just really wanted to watch it) and then went to bed.



This morning at about 8:30 I heard all sorts of chaos. The whole family was up and at it, ha. It's so ridiculous how loud they are so early in the morning. I think I heard someone say "shhhh!" but it didn't make much of a difference, ha. We got up around 10, ate breakfast, and headed over to the stadium to catch the charter bus to Peniscola! Oh my goodness, I'm pretty sure that Peniscola is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my entire life. I took so many pictures. The water at the beach was so blue and we got to tour the Castillo de la Peniscola, which is a huge castle/walled-in city that juts out into the ocean. God has certainly created some breathtaking places, and this is definitely one of them.

We hung out at the beach for a few hours before touring the castle, and then got to check out all of the nearby shops. I bought two bracelets for 5 euro, and then ended up buying a very cool looking Spanish bowl for about 2 euro. Not half bad. We caught the bus at 6 and made it back to the house around 8, just in time to shower and have dinner. Dinner was pretty awesome tonight. We had gazpacho, bread, a rice concoction, salmon, and honeydew and pineapple. ÑAM ÑAM. Gabriel didn't eat with us, and he usually doesn't, though I'm not sure why. He was chilling in the living room where we were eating though in his bathing suit and pj shirt, haha. He always lounges around the house in his bathing suit. He says it's comfortable, haha. I mean, cool. And then he loves to sing so he's always singing Spanish songs and national songs, some of which most of what he says is "viva, espana!" haha. I love living here. It's always so entertaining.

After dinner tonight, we took a taxi towards the beach and went to a dance exposition of Bailes: Ritmos del mundo at ll pm. It was sooo cool! I thought it was awesome. It was like a dance recital with kids, adults, teens, people of all ages in it, and they did dances to all sorts of different kinds of music, from Mary Poppins to salsa, to flamenco, and tango. They tried to capture different dances from around the world, and even did a number that looked similar to a Michael Jackson style, ha, but not quite. I took a few videos of the dancing. And at midnight there was an intermission to see the nearby fireworks. So cool. And tomorrow is the big World Cup Soccer final! It will be a very sad night in Valencia if Spain does not win tomorrow. Cross your fingers that they do!

Hasta pronto!