jueves, 13 de junio

Thursday morning wake up came too soon.  We enjoyed a buffet style breakfast and finally had “normal” scrambled eggs and bacon!  To our surprise, the eggs resembled those of Longwood’s Dining Hall and the bacon was more like a rubbery piece of grease.  So we stuck with the good ole toast and butter and called it a day.  Our bus then picked the group up from our hotel to go to the Alhambra.  It was a short bus ride so we didn’t get much of a rest before our long day again. 

We met our lovely tour guide at the entrance and she was a hoot.  She spoke Andalucian Spanish, which is normal Spanish, but they leave the “s” off the ends of words.  So good morning in Spanish would be “Buenos dias” but in Analucia it sounds like “bueno dia.”  Can be quite confusing at times.  She gave out head sets that we put a piece in our ears so we could hear her talk as we went through the palace.  We started at the Generalife where the gardens were.  It was quite a sight to see, with beautiful views of the city below from all angles.  After the Generalife, we went to the main building.  This was where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel lived and where Columbus got the okay from Queen Isabel to sail the ocean blue.  Truly a goose bumps time when we were in that room.  Along the way there were groups of little kids from a school on a trip that were all dressed up as Arabs.  They were all so cute and held hands through the tour and so fun to watch the leaders keep all the little ones together.

Generalife gardens

Looking over the fields at the Generalife

Reflecting pool

Little kids dressed up

All the little kids together

At the Generalife with our ear pieces in

After our tour of the lands the lady finished up and Dr. Holliday continued.  At this point we were all hot and exhausted and wanted nothing else to do with tours.  But we all persevered and followed Dr. Holliday.  He took us to one building that had so many special features for battle.  The walls on the outside were slanted so no one could hide from arrows, the windows were long and skinny so arrows couldn’t be shot inside, and there were many twists and turns in the hallways so men on their horses couldn’t pass through easily.  We climbed the small twisting stairs to the top and the roof overlooked the entire area of Granada.  It was absolutely beautiful and neat to see the three flags flying high on the roof.

After our day of touring, we had the rest of the afternoon to ourselves.  A few of us found a small pizza place that was reasonably priced and cooled off there for a while before heading out to the shops.  After our little break we got back onto the lovely bus and began our trek to Cordoba.  After a few hours we made it there and had to lug all of our luggage to the hotel.  We had to maneuver around the town’s cobblestone streets and deal with the heat but surprisingly we all made it.  It was quite the work out and I don’t think I have ever been so excited to feel AC shortly after. 

Yummy pizza

We had about an hour from the time we checked in to get ready for our dinner.  Dinner was interesting as usual.  We were told we were having two plates and when we arrived there was a salad on the table.  The entire group was thrilled to see our second plate come out being spaghetti!  Good ole normal spaghetti.  I have never seen anyone scarf down food so fast than when the plates landed in front of each person.  To our surprise there was another plate and the salad didn’t really count as the first plate.  We were then served a “hamburger” with french fries.  Quite the interesting combo and not to mention the hamburger was not normal.  It was more of a turkey burger meets a bad chicken patty with extra breading and rubbery texture…far from a normal hamburger.  So we requested ketchup and doused the mystery meat in that and tried to stomach a few bites.  I ate maybe 3 bites and we all decided to stick to the french fries.  Our desert was amusing as well.  The lady at the restaurant ripped open a cardboard box of ice cream on a stick and literally dumped the box onto a serving platter and gave us the ice creams.  Not complaining because it was very good, it was just amusing to witness the process.

That night everyone returned to their rooms to shower and clean up.  A few of us ended up hanging out in our friend’s room for a little while before calling it a night.  The long tours and hot days really take a lot of you and we wanted to be smart and get our sleep for the next long day ahead.

miercoles, 12 de junio

The dreaded morning had come…it was time to leave our Valencia home.  Our alarms woke us up bright and early at 6:45 to be ready to leave by 7:30.  Our parents told us the night before they would help us with our stuff in the morning but we were a little weary about that when they went out the night before.  So as 7:30 approached there were zero signs of movement coming from their room…we knew they weren’t going to wake up.  Not exactly morning people, but we waited til about 7:34 while making noise in between to see if they were going to get up and we made the executive decision to leave without seeing them.  It was sad at the time because we wanted an official bye but we kind of had one the night before and we didn’t feel comfortable knocking on their door.  Even though we didn’t get an official Adios, it was kind of better that way because I knew I would’ve been a wreck on the bus.

Our room

The bus left at 8:00 on the dot and we began our 6-hour journey to Granada.  I checked my phone messages around 2 o’clock at one of our stops and our host mom sent us the sweetest Facebook message apologizing and said we are always welcome at their house and we are their daughters.  So it was nice to get a little something from them, and not to mention it was sent at 1:30…aka when they probably woke up from being out too late; definitely our host parents :) 

When we arrived in Granada we settled into our hotel rooms.  Ours had two beds that were literally side-by-side touching each other, which was a little strange but we were fine with it.  We cleaned up a bit and then headed out with the group to tour the Cathedral in the city.  This was one of my favorite places so far because it was where the Catholic King and Queen, Isabel and Ferdinand were buried.  I got chills when I saw their burial tombs because they were underground and you could walk down and see into the window.  It was really neat for me because I have learned about them in many of my Spanish classes, and to witness their final resting place was creepy yet kind of amazing.  The Cathedral was a magnificent building with gold plated items all over and just gigantic everything.  It was one of the prettiest Cathedrals I have seen.

After the tour, we hurried back to the hotel to spruce up for our Flamenco dinner.  A bus picked us up at the hotel and we literally weaved in and out of tiny, narrow, cobble stone streets.  If the windows of the bus opened I could’ve put my hand out the window only 6 inches and would have touched walls.  How the man managed to maneuver the bus through the streets was crazy.  He dropped us off at a quaint restaurant for our dinner…which was interesting.  We were al expecting a good ole appetizer first and dinner plate second but we dined on tapas.  The first round was a salad, which was a nice change, but then came the interesting items.  We had calamari (which I really liked), then bread and olive oil (my favorite), a plate of meats and cheeses, and then an odd plate of french fries with lomo (pork back) meat on top all drenched in some sort of broth. The meat was literally grey…yuck.  The dessert was probably the best part because it was just plain vanilla ice cream.

The Flamenco restaurant

When dinner was over we walked up the street a bit to get a good view of the Alhambra at dusk.  We all took pictures and wandered around to waste time before the Flamenco show.  While we were all hanging out, a toddler came out on her patio in her diaper, which she was clearly too old for, with her shirt hanging off her head yelling “HOLAAAA, HOLAAAAA.” So we all shouted “Hola” back and she just kept back and forth.  The kid looked just like Honey Boo Boo but the Spanish version so we all got a kick out of that.

The Flamenco show was next on our agenda and it was where our dinner was.  There were two sets of performers so we got to see both, and it was very intense.  All the dancers were very good and seemed to know their stuff.  They were all pretty young except for Grandma, and she performed with the little hand clapper things which was pretty cool to see.  Our bus picked us up after the show for a short walking tour of the old Jewish neighborhoods that overlooked the Alhambra.  We got to see the palace all lit up at night and it was very pretty.

Flamenco dancer

Flamenco dancer

"Grandma" Flamenco dancer

Alhambra behind us at night

After the tour the bus brought us back to our hotel where we quickly got ready for bed.  I have never felt so tried at night before then and we quickly went to sleep for another busy day ahead. 

martes, 11 de junio

After tossing and turning all night and getting virtually no sleep, I was pleasantly surprised to wake up not feeling tired at all.  Good thing too because I had to be at school 15 minutes early for my Spanish exam.  Jen slept in a little longer than me because she didn't have to be at school until our English exam began.  Everyone was in the same room for the written part of our Spanish final and my 302 class left by twos to do our oral part.  We were given a few minutes to read over our prompt and discuss it with our partner and then had to talk freely with our professor watching us.  My partner and I did really well and I was over joyed to see I got a 100!  I was very proud of myself.

We went back to finish up the written portion and had a short break in between the Spanish and English exams.  English wasn't difficult because it was a short letter to a public official that we were allowed to prepare for ahead of time.  Also, if it was written in Spanish you would receive 10 extra points, so I obviously wrote it in Spanish.  Should be interesting to see how I did on that one. The history exam was after English so a few of us just hung out in the computer lab for them to finish so we could head off to our farewell lunch!

The entire group including Dr. Goetz and Dr. Holliday as well as the professors of the Institute all attended.  The restaurant was very big and we were able to all sit at one large table.  The kitchen had windows for you to watch them make the large pans of paella in over the wooden fires.  We enjoyed tapas and a little vino tinto while we waited for the paella to be served.  We started off with a plate of "tuna jerky" with roasted red peppers and cod fish in olive oil.  I tried the peppers but they had a fishy taste so I stopped after one.  After that dish, calamari and patatas bravas were served.  Some people got mussles as well but the lady failed to bring them to our end of the table because "Americans don't usually like mussels" but nearly our entire group loved them.  I tried everything except those, it was something I just couldn't bring myself to do.

The Paella Kitchen

The paella was served next and it was the traditional kind with rabbit and all.  I wasn't able to distinguish the chicken from the rabbit meat so I ate it all, (since I was just recently told I ate rabbit two weeks ago unknowingly) and it was actually rather tasty.  Oddly after paella a salad was served.  No one touched the salad because we were all so full and me and Jen certainly steered clear given the fact that it had tuna on top...  We were then served a dessert of cut oranges with caramalized sugar on top and a dollop of whip cream and a wedge of what we think was butter peacan icecream.  It was an excellant lunch.

Paella for 27 people!

Paella con Pollo y Conejo

"Fake" Dessert

Real Dessert

After lunch we headed home to cool down a bit after nearly melting from the walk home.  We rested and then got to packing, which surprisngly wasn't as painful as I expected plus I have an extra 15 pounds to fill in my suitcase, shopping anyone?! :)   Our host parents came home to us packing and Gemma immediately said "No No Nooo" we became very said and they said we couldn't go anywhere.  Shortly after they came to our room with presents for us, we got a tortilla de patatas apron and a pretty magnet of Valencia.  The gifts made us all extra sad.  Gemma asked us what we wanted to eat for dinner and we decided on pasta carbonara.

Pasta Carbonara

We enjoyed a lovely dinner at the little table in the living room together and talked a lot about the news and everything we were watching.  It was so sweet because after dinner while we were cleaning up Jamel asked how our exams went and we said we thought we did pretty well.  It made me extra sad when Gemma said to us (in spanish) "You girls know we have to ask about your school work and see your grades because we are your parents! :)"  She is too sweet.  We hung around a little and just chatted before they headed off to bed and we gathered our last things together.

I surely am going to miss Valencia in general and more so my host family.  They have been the most welcoming and helpful people on the trip and have helped us both a ton with our Spanish skills.  They are helping us bring our stuff to the bus in the morning to leave and we all know it's going to be a very sad morning leaving lots of memories here, but we all plan to keep in contact on Facebook and through writing.  I told them when I get a job and have enough money to spend I am going to come back and visit them with my sister :) so Christina, hope you're down!

We head off to Granada in the morning and then Cordoba and Toledo.  I'm not sure what the wifi situation is going to be yet so everyone may have to hang tight until my arrival Sunday.  I'd say that's a pretty great Father's Day present :)

lunes, 10 de junio

Monday was a little easier waking up since we did not do much of anything on Sunday.  We had our final day of normal classes, which was actually a little sad for me to think of.  It was my last official day of taking a Spanish class after nine years.  We didn’t do much in our classes except going over what our final exams were going to entail.  After school we headed back home for lunch.  Jamel made us chimichurri marinated steak sandwiches on a baguette.  I finally got to eat some hummus for lunch after failing miserably when looking for it in Greece. 

After lunch I took a good ole siesta to try and feel a little better before heading back to school later that afternoon.  All Spanish classes had to do a post-assessment oral recording to compare our Spanish before the trip to now.  After a lot of technical difficulties with the computers, one other girl and myself figured out how to just use our iPhones to record and email it in.  Thankfully that worked otherwise I would’ve been there much longer than 30 minutes.  Jen was hard at work on her El Cid paper when I got back and we went for a little stroll around the area to take a break. 

We went to the “chinos” store looking for postcards because that is the store that literally has anything you could think of…besides a simple postcard.  We stopped at the grocery store to pick up some snacks for the week and headed back to continue work.  I started packing a bit and that ended quickly…did not want to open that can of worms.  So I just hung out for the rest of the day while Jen worked until dinner. 

Dinner was...interesting…thankfully we were eating in the kitchen by ourselves this time.  We had a large bowl of gazpacho, plate of queso, hot baguette, and a traditional Andalucía dish.  The dish consisted of a bowl of breadcrumbs and ripped up ham, and I’m pretty sure the breadcrumbs had cumin all over them as well.  It wasn’t a bad dish but it wasn’t my favorite either.  As far as the gazpacho went, I could only eat a little.  Something about cold soup just isn’t my forte so I stomached a few spoon fulls and poured the rest down the sink…and Jen made me take care of hers as well...oops.  So for our lovely dinner we ended up eating yummy bread, cheese, and water.  So filling…  After dinner Gemma and Jamel’s friend stopped by with GOLFA!  We were so excited to see her again and play a little; she is literally one of the sweetest dogs ever.

I began to get a headache again so I went to bed pretty early, only to wake up wide-awake an hour later.  The rest of the night I tossed and turned wide awake not able to sleep probably because of exams fast approaching and our stay here ending soon as well.

domingo, 9 de junio

Sunday was a relatively uneventful day for us.  I woke up feeling a little under the weather and knew it wasn’t from the night before.  When Jen and I eventually made our way out of bed we headed down to our favorite café again and got our favorite, bocadillo de tortilla de patatas.  We enjoyed our brunch and then Jen began some work and I headed back for bed to rest up.  Eventually I woke up to get the rest of my homework done and just relaxed for the day.

When I finished up my work I got back to reading my book for fun because I could not put it down.  We basically just hung around the house for the day and tried to get work done.  Gemma made us our lunch, which consisted of nearly all my favorite foods here.  We had a tortilla de patatas with bread and the best queso on the side.  Gemma also made up a fresh strawberry and watermelon smoothie.  

I ended up falling asleep for a while again hoping to catch up and feel better.  While I was asleep Jamel had talked to Jen about dinner but she didn’t quite catch it all.  So to our surprise when the door buzzed, 4 of Gemma and Jamel’s friends came over.  We were all eating dinner together, which then all made sense because they had been preparing a ton of food throughout the day.  We had a large ceramic dish filled with couscous, chicken, potatoes, carrots, and a bunch of other things cooked in chicken broth.  It was a nice light meal and very tasty.

Weird contraption to cook couscous

It was a little difficult to understand all the conversations at the dinner table but I was able to pick up on majority of it all.  One guy is originally from Australia and I could definitely tell Spanish wasn’t his first language.  I talked with Gemma’s friend, Matilda, the girl from Italy and she’s very easy to talk to and very helpful with me.

After dinner we headed back to our room, surprisingly still tired and I finally finished my book before my nook battery died and headed off to sleep for our last official day of classes.

sabado, 8 de junio

We woke up Saturday excited to head to the beach! It was beautiful weather with a slight breeze but was supposed to reach around 80 degrees.  Getting our stuff together in the morning was quite a hassel because as I went to sit on my bed to get my stuff togeter...my bed fell to the ground.  Me and Jen couldn't control our laughter and all I could say was "demasiado pan" (too much bread, given that is a staple at ever meal.)  Once I pulled myself together again we figured out that the bed literally just folds and pops into place, so it was a quick fix.

My fallen bed

We headed across the street to our favorite cafe and grabbed a bocadillo de tortilla de patatas before hopping on the tram-via for the beach.  We met up with a few girls who were already at the beach and settled down.  After about 20 minutes or so and when nearly the entire group had arrived we made the executive decision to rent beach chairs for the day.  The wind was a little strong down there and was sandblasting our faces and covering our towels.  The chairs were cheaper than expected and totally worth the purchase.  I tested out the water and it was a little chilly but then Beth and I just decided to charge on it.  I was amazed at how salty the water really was.  We headed back in to relax a bit until the next dive into the mar.

Perfect day

The boys all showed up later after us and immediately decided to dig a large hole.  It was funny watching 5 grown guys all digging in the sand building a "resort" for a lady bug they had found.  While they were doing that two randos approached our chairs asking where they could find paella.  They spoke to me but I was so thrown off because they weren't speaking Spanish.  Pretty sure they were speaking Italian and I couldn't help but just laugh because they were obviously trying to hang out with our group of girls and none of us could take them seriously.  So after I just pointed in a direction and said "paella, 5 min that way" they went back to their group.  Quite entertaining for us.

The boys hard at work

Their final product

Rando guys talking to us

We went in and out of the water a lot and were able to go out pretty far cause it was so calm and shallow.  It was annoying though, because every time we got out of the water and dried off our skin would be white from all the salt.  We hung out at the beach nearly the whole day and went to our favorite little pizza place before heading back home.  I got a pizza de jamon and it was delicious!  We headed back home after our little "snack" to get ready for the night.  We were all very excited because we were finally going to L'Umbracle night club.  It was a huge outdoor club with a club underground as well.  We had a few of our friends over to hangout before meeting wiht the rest of the group at the Cathedral as usual.  We met up with everyone and headed to a bar for a little because the club didn't open until 12.

Pizza de Jamon

After hanging out for a while we all grabbed taxis and headed to the club.  Normally the club is 15-20 euros to get in but one of our friend's home-stay sisters told her how to get all the group in for free!  I was a little sketched about the plan but we went with it and it actually worked.  The club was soooo cool, it was lit up with fun lights and had places to sit and hangout all throughout the gardens.  As you moved on you could head downstairs to the daytime parking lot which was turned into another dance club.  We went out with a bang as a group and headed home around 5 :)  We had to do the traditional Spaniard party night at least once of course.

Outside the club

The girls at the club

Creepyy

viernes, 7 de junio

Our last Friday of classes had officially arrived...and I was more sad to know classes and the trip was coming to a close soon enough.  We had our classes as usual and my Spanish class was sent on a mission during our class to buy 30 xuxu's (creme stuffed pastries) for the group as a surprise later.  We all had to stay for the history class for a guest speaker who told us all about Valencian oranges and how they're related to California and vice versa.  It was very interesting to listen to.  After classes we headed home for lunch.  Jamel made some delicious baked chicken served with ham flavored potato chips and rice.  Always the most interesting combinations but we enjoy it.

After lunch we headed off to Las Fallas museum.  We grabbed a taxi and when we let us off we acted like we were pro's of the city walking like we knew where the entrance was...psh of course we didn't so when we turned around the corner to find a blank wall we had to turn back around and pass the taxi driver who I'm sure was laughing at us.  Come to find out, if either of us had actually looked in front of us when we got out of the taxi we would have seen the LARGE orange sign that said Museo Fallero.  This museum holds the figurines from the Las Fallas festival that are saved at the end of the festival from being burned down.  They're all made of cardboard and styrofoam for the most part and look almost life like.  The actual sculptures in the festival are hugeee in comparison to the ones we witnessed.  I suggest googling the festival, absolutely crazy.  When we finished there we decided to cross the street and check out the arts and sciences area instead of paying for a taxi to go back.  It was cool to see again, beautiful place.

Money at Las Fallas

We were really tempted to do this

To keep the trend of getting everything done in one day we crossed the next street to go to Corte Ingles which is a oversized Macy's basically.  We got a little shopping done and then headed back home to "work" on homework a bit before getting ready for the night.  Gemma and Jamel went out and left us dinner on the table....tuna dinner...  So we left the tuna there for them to enjoy the next day and headed out for a slice of pizza.  We stopped at this place called Kebab Pizzeria.  Kinda sketchy but we were desperate.  I played it safe and got two slices of cheese and Jen...well Jen found out after she took one bite of her pizza that she got one with Tuna on it...hahah quite entertaining for me.

We headed back home to get ready for the night and Jake and John came over to hang out for a little before we headed to the Plazas.  We met the group at the Plaza as we usually do and headed to the cheap beer and sangria place again.  We hung out there for a while and then headed to Radio City again.  Radio City was fun for a while but we got sick of it pretty fast and were ready to move on so we gathered a few other roommate pairs and went elsewhere.  We didn't last other places long because apparently the outwardly gay couples flourish at the night time and it was...quite interesting...so we went back home with a few other girls who live near us.  The night was really fun overall but after a long week of classes and being busy we were ready to hit the hay and get rested up for a lovely beach day ahead!