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!