jueves, 30 de mayo

Waking up for classes today was tough as usual, but this time I was very excited to get the class day over with because we were going to the beach again, and I was ready for some good ole rest and relaxation.  Classes went as usual, nothing too exciting.  We got out a little early of my last class to "work on our research" which translated to all of us as "time for lunch!"  I went to a little store across the street with some people from my class.  The place was called "Comida para llevar" which means food to go.  They had legit meals already prepared and in cases to pick from and you could pick what you wanted and how much and they would tell you your price according to the amount.  I got 2 ham croquetas and 2 chicken ones, and they were very good.  I found out after I left that you could have them warmed up more but they were fine as is.  We ate our to-go lunches in the computer lab basement where it was usually all to ourselves but now there are other students from Oklahoma.  And saying it nicely...they're all obnoxious.  I had to listen to a girl talk for 30 minutes about her double major and how smart she was while I was trying to get work done. I eventually gave up trying to do work and we all just hung out down there until the history class was let out. 

When Jen was finished with her class we headed to the metro station to go to the beach.  We were a little iffy because it was slightly chilly walking there with a crisp breeze.  When we got to the beach though we were pleasantly surprised.  The sun was perfect and for once it wasn't windy.  We ended up taking a nice nap down there for about 2 hours and then headed to a small pizza place for a snack.  We tried a Carbonara pizza and it was veryy good.  But we still have to go to illRossi's for the best carbonara pizza.  We then took the metro back home and got cleaned up before trying to get our stuff together for Greece.

Carbonara pizza with bacon, an egg, mozzerella, tomato sauce, onions, and mushrooms

Gemma made us dinner because she was leaving for somewhere and showed us that it was on the counter when we were ready and then she left.  We checked out the dinner and...it...had...tuna.....again.  Jen tasted it and said it didn't taste like tuna, it could've been chicken but I tasted it and knew it was definately not chicekn.  We checked the trashcans for reassurance and of course there were cans of A'tuna.  As we have secretly done before, we devised a plan to make it look like we ate it.  We ended up spooning the tuna salad stuff into sandwhich baggies I had left over and this time it was my turn to hide them in my drawer...We had to have this covert operation completed in a promptly manner because we didn't want the Italian guests to see us.  Shortly after the lovely food marinated in my desk for a little, we decided to head to La Plaza de la Virgen to get a dinner we could fathom.  I put the baggies of lovely tuna into a old shopping bag to cover it up and threw it away in the big trashcan outside. 

We ate at the same cafe we did last weekend but this was another location and after debating back and forth of what we wanted to eat, we ended up choosing the same sandwiches we ordered last time.  We sat on the patio and it was prime time for people watching.  We were sitting pretty close to a lightpole that housed many of the plaza's piegons and as we were sitting there, the coulpe next to us got a lovely present dropepd on their table from the bird above.  Nasty.  About ten minutes later we were greeted with the same "gift" but it landed next to our table thankfully.  The waiter saw us getting grossed out and helped us move tables.  Jen said it was karma for throwing the food away...oops.

We headed back home after grabbing a small ice cream as a sugar pick me up before packing all our stuff for the Greece trip.  It took a while to decide what to bring but now all is packed and ready to go.  Now all we need is a good night's rest before our travels tomorrow!  I won't have my computer while we are there so you all will have to wait a few days to hear all about it! :)

Hasta Luego!

miercoles, 29 de mayo

Today began just as our other school days, except when we got to school another group from the US was due in as well...28 of them.  The school was packed in its small hallways and with nearly 50 American students, it was obviously very loud.  We had our Spanish classes and then English after, but class was cut short so we could have our special group meeting for our Greece trip Friday!  After the meeting we were all required to stay for the guest speaker about the hero of Spain El Cid.  It was very interesting to listen to the lady talk, but this was my first day with no break and I was ready to get out of school.  After she ran a good 20 minutes over time and we were all fidgeting we headed back home for a good lunch.  We had the left over lasagna from the night before because Gemma had made a ton.  It was delicious again and the toasted bread with garlic rubbed on it was my favorite...minus the garlic taste I still have.

Jen and I then headed off to the Plaza de la Virgen to complete a cultural activity.  We decided we were going to climb the bell tower next to the Cathedral.  We didn't think much of it, we just knew that it was supposed to be spectacular views.  When we found the staircase that led up the tower Jen and I both looked at each other like "what did we just pay 2 euros for..."  Needless to say after 207 steps, exactly, going up a spiral staircase of stone, I had never been so happy to be at the top of a building before.  The stairs near the very top were much skinnier and steeper and that's when my body and mind started to get achey and not feeling too well.  When I finally saw the light at the "end of the tunnel" I put the pedal to the metal and quickly got to fresh air and sat down for a moment.

At the start of the stairs

When I stood up and looked above the railing it was easily one of the prettiest sites I have seen.  You could see the entire city, the Mediterranean, and the ocean.  It was the best way to view the city and definately worth the climb to get there.  After we took lots of pictures up there and mentally prepared ourselves to go back down, we began our decsent.  It was a good thing we left when we did because the stairs are the asme for going up and down and when we got to the bottom entrance, two classes of elementary kids were about to go up.  I would not have had the patience to deal with them.

La Plaza

Arts & Sciences Museum to the left

We then wandered around the little stands in the Plaza and got some souvenirs before heading back home to get some homework done.  There are two ladies staying with us for the next week from Italy.  One lady is the mom of Gemma's friend and the other is a friend of the mom.  The lady's daughter lives near Gemma.  Gemma told us they would be staying for a week but I had forgot momentarily until I opened our fridge and saw a giant wedge, probably 8 inches tall and 10 inches long, of Parmesan cheese from Italy...my favorite!  Needless to say, I am veryy glad they are visiting for a little :)

We got some more homework done while we waited for dinner.  Gemma made us baked chicken with salad and bread which was veryy yummy, while one of the Italian ladies wipped up pasta with a fresh tomato and olive oil sauce for everyone else.  I was bummed we didn't get to try it but our meal was great!  After dinner we headed out to meet the group before heading to some bars.  We used the sales people in the streets to our advanatage and were able to scam free stuff along the way.  We eventually joined a "bar crawl" group that you are supposed to pay for but the guy let us all in for free and followed them to a few places.  All the bars were really neat and a lot of fun.  It started to rain so we were over being out real quick and headed back home to get ready for a day of packing for Greece Friday!

Cool bathroom sink at one of the bars

martes, 28 de mayo

I woke up today alive and ready to get the day started because it was finally going to be a nice beach day!  It was great incentive to get moving for classes.  While Jen got ready, I made us some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to take with us for lunch while at the beach.  We hurried off to class and I was very anxious to get out of there.  Unfortunately the wind started to pick up a bit as the day went on which meant only one thing...the sand was going to be oh so fun again.  While we waited for Jen and Holly to get out of the last class of the day I was able to get a little work done.

When classes were finally over, which felt like forever, we headed off to the metro-tram to head to the beach.  We had to reload our metro card because we were out of trips but when we tried to reload it, it ate our 7.25 euros!...well so we thought.  So we just hopped on the tram and if someone asked to see our tickets our plan was to act like stupid Americans who thought we had done it correctly.  To our surprise when we sat down I counted the change we got back from the machine that "ate our money" and come to find out, it actually just turned our 10 euro bill into change...oops.  Atleast we got a free metroride to the beach and avoided the metro ladies!  Of course now we have fully reloaded our cards for lots of beach trips.

The beach started off pretty well, the wind wasn't too bad as long as you weren't facing that way.  It was finally warm weather around 80 or so and the sun was veryyy hot when the clouds weren't covering it.  But of course as the day went on, the wind picked up and it was strongg.  I was dubbed MVP when I came up with the grand plan of moving to the random patch of sand that had previously been wet so it wasn't loose to blow around.  It was much better than where we originally were.  But we eventually gave up on the wind and fighting the sand and decided to get a refreshing pitcher of Sangria at Christina's favorite place, San Patricio.

I was so excited to finally get to go back to this place because all I could remember from our last trip was how good the Sangria and Patatas Bravas were.  We ordered both and they were just as good as I remembered them.  After relaxing with Sangria we headed back home to freshen up before meeting Jake and John to all go meet our intercambio friends.  Our intercambios are friends with each other so it worked out nicely that we were all able to get together for tapas.  Finding the place was quite the adventure as usual.  We got a little turned around and after the boys basically refused to ask for directions because "they knew where we were going" I finally just walked into a store myself and asked.  To our surprise, and the boys too, we were heading in the relatively correct direction just the long way around. We came to the intersection of the street and decided to try turning right to find the place.  Well thank goodness we ran into Lorezno, Jake and John's intercambio because he was walking the opposite way and told us we should've turned left not right...of course.

San Patricio - the restaurant on the beach

We all got a nice little table and sat down while we waited for Mai and Carlos.  Mai arrived and her friend randomly saw her walk in the place and came to say hi and we invtied her to join because she was suposed to meet wiht another group of girls but there was some miscomunnitaino and they weren't able to meet.  When we were all together it ended up being Me, Carlos, Jen, Mai, John, Samantha, Jake, and Lorenzo.  We all split 40s which was an interesting time and tried many many tapas.  We ended up hanging out for nearly 2 hours and we all practiced English and Spanish while exchanging laughs and jokes.  We really lucked out with such a great group.

Mai, Jen, Carlos, y Yo

Our cheers to Mom and Dad's anniversary!

Upon arriving back home, Jen and I ate a yummy lasagna dinner with Gemma while watching Revenge.  Gemma said she is officially hooked and can't stop watching :)  While watching I finished
up some homework before heading off to bed for another fun day ahead!

lunes, 27 de mayo

Today started as any other dreaded Monday would...forcing ourselves to get out of bed after pushing the snooze button a good six times.  The weather didn't help much because it was overcast and was supposed to rain.  We had our normal schedule of classes today and for once used our break time to actually get a good amount of work done.  After classes we headed home for our lunch time with our family.  Gemma made a lovely meal of croquetas (our favorite), a fried egg, muchrooms, a wedge of cheese, and a little bacon.  I can't say how excited Jen and I were to see a simple egg on our plate...something we've been craving for a while now!  We enjoyed lunch and had some nice conversations with Jamel y Gemma.  They explained the festivals of Las Fallas and Tomatina to us.  Las Fallas is when huge figures are created out of cardboard and paper machey and in the town's plazas for 5 days and on the last day they are all set on fire, sounds pretty dangerous but they said it's all very safe.  Tomatina is the big food fight with truck loads of tomatoes in August in Bunol.

We laughed a little over the festivals and I decided to show them the new fad of 5k at home, Color Me Rad.  It was pretty cool to talk to them about it because it was just as new for them as the festivals here are for us.  It was funny as well when I tried to explain to Gemma what "rad" means in the United States.  She seemed to get a kick out of that.  After lunch Jen and I worked on a lot of homework and caught up a bit before laying down to rest.  We then wandered around the shops nearby and hung out for a bit.  I treated myself to some new shoes that I could not walk away from :)

After our little break from work we arrived back home to hang out with Gemma and do some more work.  Jamel left for his job in Peniscola again today and won't be back until Friday so we won't see him until Monday.  We are sad that we won't be seeing him for a week, the house is so quiet already.  While we waited for dinner to be ready we enjoyed a nice glass of vino blanco con Gemma and watched my favorite American show, Revenge.  Gemma just started watching it from season one and it was pretty neat to watch it in Spanish from the beginning.

The three of us continued to watch the show during a lovely dinner of homemade chicken soup.  We had some cheese and small breadsticks before along side the homemade "greek salsa" we tried the week before.  I love it all!  The chicken soup was like our normal chicken soup from home with carrots, broth, pototoes, and chicken except there were pieces of chicken in the soup and then we each had a chicken leg.  Now we are sipping wine with Gemma and having a relaxing night watching Revenge until bedtime.  Hasta manana!

domingo, 26 de mayo

Sunday was a beautiful day to wake up to.  The cloud was perfect blue with minimal clouds in the sky, a perfect day to experience authentic paella.  We woke up a little early Sunday morning to get some last minute homework done because we knew we were going to be busy majority of the day.  Around 1 o'clock our family headed off to go meet our "grandparents."  It was quite the production getting there, we first took the tramvia which is the above ground metro, to the next stop to then get on the under ground metro, where we finally got off  in Alboraya to walk to our host mom's brother's house to take his car...public transportation had never been so annoying.  But as usual we always run into some sort of glitches and to get on the metro underground you must have swipe your ticket...you must also swipe your ticket to get out from underground.  Our host dad swiped us all in and when we went to swipe to get out, he couldn't find our card anymore.  After trying to get ahold of someone at the desk, we realized they weren't there because it was Sunday so we had to squeeze our way through the sliding doors to sneak out...quite the adventure for Lewis and Clarke.


After finally getting in the car we began our venture through el campo de Valencia.  The mountain side was on our left and the beautiful Mediteranneo was on our right.  It was about a 30 minute car ride before turning off onto a gravel road and up a winding street where we finally saw "Grandma's house."  There were magnificant views of the mountains because we were up a ways we were also able to clearly see the Mediteraenan.  The house was something from the movies, quaint with white outside and cute flowers everywhere.  The family had it's own fields with organge trees, lemon trees, peaches, all sorts of herbs, grapes, lettuce of some kind, watermelon, and even artichokes!  Any fruit or vegetable you could think of, you could probably have found there.  We met all 3 of Gemma's older brothers, her three nephews, and her parents.  Her parents were the sweetest people ever and her mom welcomed us with a warm hug while she was stiring the paealla.  Seeing old-fashioned paella being made was so neat to experience.

Gemma's parents farm land

View from their roof top towards the Mediterranean

View from their roof top towards the mountains

Grandma cooking the paella

When we all sat down to eat, I felt like I was at home.  They're family was just at loud and rambunctious as one of our family holiday gatherings.  Lots of laughing, hollering over one another, and passing food left and right.  Everyone was very welcoming to us and tried having conversations with us.  The paella pan easily fed over 22 people with some left over.  There was fresh chicken from the field, rice, artichokes, peas (I think), and so much more in the paealla.  It was veryy yummy, but I got a lot more than Jen did so she had to help me with some of it, such a great friend :)

Lotsss of paella

After dinner "grandma" brought out fresh Valencian oranages that were so big I could barely hold it in my hand.  Jen and I attempted to eat one (It was delicious!) but were only able to tackle about half of it because we were so full.  But of course Spanairds never stop eating so after fruit came cafe, and two cakes.  It was grandma's birthday so we all sang and she was very excited.  She turned 79 and told us her husband was 80, they are only 8 months apart.  We then got served a piece of EACH cake and felt like I was going to pop after that.  I loved meeting everyone and they were all so welcoming I didn't want to leave.  I was able to have a nice conversation with grandpa and was able to understand everything for the most part but he had to help me out a bit.

When we arrived back home a immediate siesta was needed after all that food.  We woke up to meet with our group to go to a partido del futbol!  The Valencian soccer team was playing Granada and we lucked out with some awesome seats all together for only 15 euros.  When we got to the stadium I was amazed by how many people there were.  Streets were closed and people were literally everywhere.  It was so different to experience because everyone was just walking aruond with one or two beers in their hands and hanging out before the game...definitely different than home.  After having a cluster of problems trying to figure out where our seats were, we finally sat down and were able to join the craziness of everyone else.  The game was a good fight, Valencia's defense was much better than Granada's so the game didn't involve Valencia's goalie much, but the tension in the crowd grew to a high level whenever Valencia was near their scoring goal and when they scored the entire crowd rose at once and screamed "GOOOLLLLLLLLLL" and everyone went nuts.  It was definately exactly how we see it on TV but way more fun being a part of the madness.

When the game was over and it was official that Valencia won we hurried out to try and beat the huge crowds...didn't work out too well.  But we were able to meander our way through everyone and get out infront of the major crowds to go home.  When we finally made it home Gemma made us a bowl of cheese tortelini with tomato sauce and we finished up homework and soon after headed off to bed.

sabado, 25 de mayo

The dancing definitely caught up to us when we woke up this morning and our legs were like jello.  It was a slow start but we were ready to get moving to get to eat churros y chocolate!  It was a short walk to La Plaza de la Virgen, where the group all met up at the restaurant.  The churros were perfect and the chocolate was decadent.  I was only able to eat two churros because the chocolate was too rich to eat much more than that.  After churros we went to explore the Roman ruins museum.  I was expecting to see items behind glass walls and small plaques with info on them but when we walked in it was amazing.  It was one large room with glass walkways so you could look down but below and all around us were the actual Roman ruins stones, streets, bathrooms, and everything else that had been excavated through the years.  Columns were discovered and even head stones and I was truly in awe.

Churros y Chocolate!

Actual Roman ruins walls

Standing on a glass walkway looking down on Roman bones

  

Jen and I decided to do a little shopping while others went to the beach since it wasn’t too warm out.  We stopped at a cute little café for lunch and I had a scrumptious sandwhich of mozzarella, ham, and tomato, which had THE BEST tomatoes ever.  They are officially one of my favorite things here.  Jen had a yummy chicken club sand which that was very good too.  After lunch we meandered to Colon street to begin our shopping endeavors!  We ventured to the famous Corte Ingles, which is like an oversized Macy's but we later found out the one we went to wasn't even the huge one with a grocery store and all, so we will have to find where that one is.  After shopping wore us out we grabbed a taxi back home, and enjoyed a lovely siesta again.  

Beautiful view at lunch

Once we were up and getting ready our host family invited us to go get drinks and tapas with them.  They took us to the locals places where you can get a drink and one tapas for 1 euro!  Such a great deal.  We went to three tapas bars and had a little something at each before heading off to meet up with our group for the night.  Our plan was to go to this "bar crawl" where you get to sample drinks and food at 5 different places but since no one is ever on time we ended up missing the time it started.  While we looked around for somewhere else to go we ran into the Hamdpen Sydney boys again and they told us a good place to go so our group and theirs went to Radio City Bar.  It had just opened and we were their first customers.  Once we grew bored of that crowd we wandered back up the street to a more "hip" place.  When we walked in it was lots of...older people which was kind of weird.  We made it to the back of the place where the younger crowd was and we got a free drink with the ticket we recevied outside...free drink meaning a drink with maybe 3 sips in it.

The place was eventually poppin but there were lots of people and it got hot really fast, so a few of us went outside to cool off and we decided to just leave given that we were so tired and over the scene of the night.  We grabbed ourselves a lovely baby pizza on our way home and dined in our quaint kitchen before heading to bed.

Catedral at night

viernes, 24 de mayo

Our first Friday of classes finally approached and we were all overjoyed to have the weekend so close!  We began our day with a small breakfast to hold us over til lunch time and had our normal classes again.  We had a guest speaker from the University of Valencia come talk to us in our English class about the different languages in Spain.  I was very interested in the presentation because I have already learned a little about the 4 different languages (Castellano, Vasco, Catalan, y Gallego), but never in depth.  The guest speaker had a lot of knowledge about all the languages and it was neat to hear her perspective as a native Spaniard. 

After classes the whole group went to the ticket store next to the Institute and we all bought tickets for the Futbol (soccer) game Sunday!  We were able to get seats all around each other so it should be a very fun time.  We enjoyed two very yummy pizzas with our host mom for lunch, one was cheese and chorizo and the other was spinach, ham, y goat cheese (my new favorite!)  Shortly after lunch Jen and I desperately needed to catch up on some sleep, so we casually took a 2 hour siesta  :)

When we finally were able to roll out of bed we hung out a bit with Gemma before getting ready for our night at the Discoteca!  When Gemma y Jamel got back from the supermarket they intercepted us on their way into the kitchen and asked if we liked fish for dinner...Jen and I looked at each other and said "ehhh mas o menos" which means more or less, because we didn't want to be rude but definately did not want to eat the fish and our host mom saved the day.  She laughed and looked at Jamel and said "mas o menos means No" and smiled and told us they would make us tortilla de patatas again and we were veryyy happy. 

We cleaned up dinner and finished getting ready, with Gemmas advice of what to wear to a discoteca, since we didn't want to look too out of the ordinary, and then we were off to meet our friends.  Jake's homestay brother got us tickets for a discounted price that included admission price and one free drink which worked out nicely.  We all met up and took seperate taxis to the club and walked to a small bar nearby to hangout while we waited for the place to open.  When it finally opened the line grew real fast so we hurried over.  After waiting for about 30 minutes we got in and danced the night away!  It was cool to finally experience a discoteca and see how different it is from America.

Our group was slowing fading out when we all got very tired so we grabbed a taxi and headed home to be ready to wake up for Churros y Chocolate en the morning!

jueves, 23 de mayo

Plaza de la Virgen

After a long night of fun with friends, it was back to the daily grind of classes for us.  We had an altered schedule and had a day of adventures ahead of us.  As every other day we began with our Spanish songs that are now permanently stuck in our heads.  We only had our Spanish class all together and a short meeting of what we were going to do for the day.  My Spanish class gave a short presentation on El Tribunal de las Aguas, which we were going to see.  After all was finished all of the class began our walk to La Plaza de La Virgen to see the Tribunal de las Aguas.  It is a group of 8 judges who regulate the distribution of water to the 8 districts of farm lands in Valencia.  They meet in front of the Cathedral every Thursday at 12 to discuss any cases that may be brought up by farmers and discuss them on the patio.  It is all in the Valenciano language and nothing is ever written down.  A man announces the 8 districts names and if someone has an issue they come forward.  Usually, cases are very rare but we lucked out at got to see one!  From what we could hear the man was mad that another farmer took water when he was not supposed to.

Judges area

During the cases

After that, we walked on to La lonja and el Centro Mercdado.  La lonja used to be a place of commerce and silk trade in the 15th century and I have never seen such a fantastic building.  There were large spiral columns throughout the building with giagantic doors on every wall.  We explored the area a bit before heading over to el Centro Mercado, a large scale supermarket.  Anything you could ever imagine was located in this market.  There was everything from fresh baked breads, spices, and meats that included every, and I mean everyyy part of certain animals.  We were all starving when we first when in and after we were done exploring...many of us weren't very hungry anymore.

La Lonja

La Lonja y me

Mercado Central

Cow heart

To continue our never ending day, we took the tram bus to the beach for a little relaxation.  The beach was beautiful as always and the temperature was finally very nice.  Us and two other girls met up with the rest of the group at the beach and were greeted with wind and lots of sand blowing...again.  The sand ended up covering our towers within the first 30 minutes of being there and we were shaking sand out of our hair and ears during the entire time of "relaxation."  When we were finally fed up with all of it we stopped at a small pizzeria for a little pick me up before heading back home.

Beach at Las Arenas

We arrived back home around 6 and had to turn right back around to go to the Institute to attend an English Conversation class with Spanish people learning English.  I talked with 4 different people for about ten minutes each and it was very interesting to "be on the other side" helping with English.  After an hour of that class we met with our intercambios for una cervesa and tapas.  I had the absolute best fresh mozerella and tomato with basil on a piece of bread.  I will definitely miss having the yummy cheeses here.  We spent half of our time talking in English and the other half of time speaking in Spanish.  The intercambios are so easy to talk to and are very nice.  We really lucked out and got intercambios we can relate with!  We plan to meet up with them Tuesday with Jake and John and their intercambios as well. 

After our time of tapas we finally headed home to work on homework.  We talked with Gemma for a little and told her we had a ton of homework to work on.  About thirty minutes later Gemma served us our dinner to our room and a tray of patatas fritas and ketchup, my favorite :)  We had a bocadilla (sandwhich) that was toasted with chorizo on it and cheese.  It was veryyy good but we were already so full and could not finish it.  We felt very bad and didn't want her to think we didn't like it, so we resorted to plan B...

Patatas Fritas con Ketchup y Queso con Breadsticks

Bocadillo with Choirzo and Queso

Jen ripped her sandwhich a little to make it easier to transport, and we put the pieces of the sandwhich in a plastic bag and put the bag in Jen's desk drawer...we told her it was very good when we put the empty plates in the kitchen.  About ten minutes later Jen opened her desk to get something out and all we could smell was sausage...and we didn't know what to do so casually we waited for Gemma to go to bed and we were going to dispose of it.  Jen refused to touch the food so I had to put my hand in the bag and seperate the chorizo sausage from the bread...nasty.  When I separated it all we figured out the best way to get rid of it was to throw it out the window into the run down neighbors yard...haha oopsss.  I chucked the stuff across little by little while we both kept scanning the area for people watching.  Needless to say it was one of the funniest moments ever.  We kept the bread in the bag and hid it under Jens bag until we could throw it away when we left for school the next morning...Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Once again a day we won't forget!