no soy español español español

Ok, lots to catch up on. Let's see...yesterday I went to classes in the morning and after class we came back to get to work on our essays. I managed to write most of mine yesterday, all four pages. So that took up most of the afternoon. Amanda and I took a break around 5 pm to walk around and stretch. We walked over to la Ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias which is a really amazing looking museum. The architecture is very modern and it doesn't really fit with the rest of the city, but it's very pretty. I'll definitely be putting pictures up, either on here or definitely on facebook.

Then last night was the Spain/Germany World cup semi-final game. So we had tapas at around 8:30ish in the apartment, and let me just say that I tried some really weird foods. First of all, I ate octopus, without even knowing it was octopus. I think if I had known what it was, I probably would not have tried it, ha, but it was actually not that bad. We also had crackers with salmon, chips, cheese, and dates wrapped in bacon? I don't even know, ha. But we left the apartment around 9 pm, even though the game started at 8:30, and we headed to the bar/restaurant behind the stadium where we went to watch the last game. Again, there were a TON of people there and when Spain scored a goal, the crowd went LOCO. They were flinging beer all over everyone and using noisemakers and jumping all over the place with the flags. I took a couple of videos, but I don't think anything can capture the essence of that experience, ha. The police were everywhere and the end of the game was just as crazy. We hung around with the rest of our uva/valencia program group, but they were all super drunk, so we hung out for a little while and then headed back. Walking the streets was so much fun, what with all of the honking and shouting. One of the chants that they all do is "yo soy español, español, español" which means that "i'm spanish", i guess. But all of us usually say no instead of yo, because we're not spanish, haha. Yeah, we're creative.

And today, I went to classes again. Pretty boring, just long and blah. During a break, I walked with some friends over to una zapateria, a shoe store, to look around. I think I'm definitely gonna buy some shoes here, ha. That store had some pretty cool ones. And I need a new bag because mine that I'm using for school books is almost broken, ha. But after classes Amanda and I had lunch in the apartment and then headed off to the beach with Kyle. This time we walked around the beach street and looked in all of the little shops there. They have a ton of cool stuff like Spanish abanicos(fans), jewelry, dresses/shirts, flags, purses, the works. We both bought some fans. We also found some horchata, which is a spanish fruity drink that is very popular here. I think it's made of water, sugar, and chufas, which are tiger nuts. It cost me 3.5 euro for one cup of it...so expensive! Everything is so expensive here. It's crazy. But it was really good, I definitely liked it. And tonight I think I'm going to some sort of jazz concert in the nearby park...es gratis! So we're going to check that out, and then maybe head out to a discoteca? Not really sure. I don't really like going out when I have class in the morning because it is so difficult to get up, but ya veremos (we shall see)...