well i'm home and printing out pictures from the trip and realized i hadn't written about the last week's worth of memories from the trip.

the last thursday of the trip, we had an extra class in the afternoon so that we could leave on friday afternoon for barcelona.

we spent the afternoon in texts class talking about los girasoles ciegos, a book with four different short stories about life after the spanish civil war. thursday night katrina and i arranged to cook paella with our madre and we both took lots of notes to hopefully recreate the dish at home but had a hard time figuring out which spices translated and which we'd be able to find here in the states. it was amazing paella as usual and the pictures make me drool now. madre was so adorable too, she kept calling us the cocineras and that we were having a fiesta and made us a few tapas to snack on while we were cooking. afterword a bunch of us went out to umbracle for one last thursday night out at a discoteca in valencia and had a crazy time again, taking turns with the gogo girls dancing on platforms and enjoying all sick remixes downstairs.

friday morning was a class full of "why are you all so tired" from professor valle but there was nothing better than the cure-all of a doner kebab for the train ride to barcelona. rach cat and i made our way to rachel's friend caroline's apartment once we got to barcelona that afternoon. we immediately realized the differences in accents and heard/read a lot of catalan around us, but everyone still understood and spoke to us in castellano once they realized that's what we spoke. caroline's apartment was absurdly cool, a huge brightly colored apartment right in the middle of things in barcelona within walking distance to most of the major landmarks in the city. we got settled a little before walking down la rambla, a long street that leads from the city to the beach that is full of crazy street performers and vendors (also known for pickpockets but i finally learned my lesson and didn't lose a thing!) there were people imitating edward scissor hands and captain jack sparrow, one guy on stilts dressed as the nightmare before christmas and countless other people dressed up more and more absurdly the further you walked. also wandered through a cute little market with tons of smoothie drinks and fresh fruit but decided to stop at a cute little foccacia place for some dinner.

caroline knew a lot of people from all over (holland, turkey, switzerland, boston) and had them all come over to hang out at the apartment along with some of our friends from the program before going out. this led to a little trouble the next day as we were apparently a little louder than we thought but it all got worked out after being yelled at in spanish at 8 am saturday morning to wake up and clean. we tried to get into one of the bigger discotecas by the beach friday night but we had a lot of people with us and some of the boys were a little rambunctious for the bouncers' taste and the cover charge was ridiculous so we decided to hit up some discopubs instead which were really awesome anyway. we ended the night hanging out on the beach for a while before catching taxis home.

the next day was extremely productive with sightseeing.

we started at the sagrada familia and got some breakfast at a little cafe but after seeing the line that wrapped around about 5 blocks to enter the church, we decided to head up to park guell first instead. this park is absolutely stunning, it's all decorated with beautiful mosaics and the entrance looks like a gingerbread house park of some sort. Gaudi designed the park along with some other houses in barcelona (and coined the term gaudy) and there are countless viewpoints of the whole city from the mountains to the sea. we spent a few hours walking around taking in the views and enjoying the musicians and vendors. the musicians have to audition with the city to get dibs on certain spots in the park so there were some really talented performers in there.

we ended up buying some cool jewelry made from forks from this really interesting guy from columbia; he travels around and spends the summers in barcelona and gave us all little wire star rings that he made right in front of us while chatting me up in spanish about stars and light years. there was one guitar player who fell in love with rachel and was singing the wrong lyrics to american songs to her but with thrown in phrases of "yeah let's party tonight" and "meow." we even walked through the walkway that was on america's next top model and i had a blast imitating all the people looking at

everything through their camera lenses because they wanted to get pictures of everything.

we headed back toward the center of town and ran into some people from the group trip while shopping around in desigual, a store that was insanely cool but unfortunately out of my price range. we considered going into one of the cool gaudi houses but decided to do the sagrada familia instead since there were slightly hefty entrance fees for both. (i guess i'll have to go back to see them, bummer).

one of the girls from the program who had already been to barcelona recommended that we buy the audio tour of the sagrada familia and it was awesome advice because we learned so much about the themes and inspirations for every element of the church, inside and out. everything was planned out so deliberately, from the themes of the different sides and which side faced east/west to the colors in the stain glass windows.

it was so elaborate and my jaw literally dropped when we got inside because it is so incredibly immense, and the columns that are based on the form of trees and branches just make it even more awe inspiring. it was interesting to walk through and learn about gaudi's interest in the mathematics of nature and incorporating natural forms and light and color into the architecture. i'm glad to have contributed to it's (eventual) completion. we got shooed out at closing time and grabbed some sandwiches to head over toward the plaza españa for what we thought would be a light show in the fountain; but there was some sort of band/orchestra being set up instead so we just watched the sunset and tried to figure out what they could be doing because we never actually heard them play anything and the setup was there the next afternoon too. saturday night we met up with some program friends at a bar called the dow jones where all the drink prices change based on demand like on wallstreet which was cute. we headed out to a discoteca close to the university (a good idea because the places near the universities are always more likely to have people our age) and had the best time ever dancing and taking ridiculous pictures like we were superstars on the little stages. cat and i ended up taking an adventure around the dance floor to avoid some creepy not-so-guapos. we headed back in taxis and began giggling at around 5 am and started again when we got up at 9 and didn't stop until tired hit at around 1 pm the following day.

i honestly have never laughed so much in my life. we took the metro to plaza cataluña and were going to hit up the hardrock cafe (my first and only american food while in spain) but were told we couldn't get lunch food until noon so we headed over to a restaurant called, what else, "restaurant." we had some amazing fried eggs (my new favorite) that i had demanded for breakfast and some batidos; rach had spaghetti of course. we realized that we were all still hungry and wanted to get hard rock so we paid our bill and literally ran across the street to hard rock cafe to eat again. yes, we ate two meals in a row. but it was so worth it, a cheeseburger has never tasted so good in my life. we convinced chips and curtis to ditch their walking tour and join us for lunch so we had a big loud american group eating everything in sight, we represented the usa very well i'd say. that afternoon we made our way to montjuic where there were more amazing gorgeous views of the whole city and sea with the opposite mountains as the landscape. that's one thing that made barcelona feel so cool is that it's kind of trapped between gorgeous green mountains and the clear blue sea. we were all really bummed that our giggle and incredible sight filled weekend was over but we made our way to the train station to head back for our last few days in valencia.

i was a little behind for monday's class after only skimming the readings we were supposed to do but was able to catch up and went to meet cat to get some work done in the centro after class. i wrote so many papers in spanish in the month of july and i got them down to an art by the end, four page papers only taking me an hour to write. we shopped around plaza de la reina for souvenirs and gifts for family and friends (merry christmas everyone) and met up with the uva crew that night at our favorite little dive bar by school. oh but we had planned to do dinner at a place called los bestias which is a crazy kind of joke restaurant filled with fallas-type overly sexual art but that fell through so i'll have to go back to do that too. tuesday i went to lunch at a wok all you can eat restaurant with nick seeing as both of us had been craving asian food all month, and it was pretty delicious and you can pick out whatever you wanted them to grill up for you and they'd do it and bring it back to you. that night everyone had to study and pack but i got really anxious so i went for a run through the rio.

i ran through the ciudad de artes y ciencias and the rio and by the palau de la musica and had a slight breakdown watching the sunset over such a beautiful place, wondering when i'd get to come back. there were people doing bike tricks and roller blading, people playing guitar and having picnics in the grass, strolling by the blue reflecting pools and chatting on the benches. ohhh i already want to go back.

wednesday was full of exams, both of which went a little rockier than i had expected but my grades ended up fine in the end so i'm happy. the goodbye lunch was a little more sentimental this time seeing as i was actually leaving. the food was still insanely delicious; we got croquettas instead of mejillones this time but the rest was the same and amazing. there were lots of toasts and pictures with professors who we all came to know and love. a lot of us realized we still needed some mementos and souvenirs so we shopped around and found this really cool authentic-feeling ceramics shop off of plaza de la reina. i had to get another little carryon suitcase after buying so many extra things and almost jumped on my suitcases to get them to zip up but got it all in order after about two hours. we all decided to do something memorable for our last night and head to the beach to start the night. we found abandoned wooden boats to sit on right by the water and pretty much everyone showed up, which was perfect for our last night. i finally got to go to akuarela, a discoteca right on the beach that my host sister had told me about the first week i got to valencia that is free monday-wednesday. that place was really cool and i'm kind of upset we didn't spend more nights hanging out on the beach, but it also helped to make it feel special and memorable.

it also helped to make the day of traveling with heavy stuff through airports a little more awful. madre woke us up with pancakes made from the cake mix sent from a former student that she didn't know what to do with, and chocolate dipping sauce. she sent us on our way from the soccer stadium but i think she left before she could see me bawling my eyes out. we all beat the suckiness of going through the airport by reminiscing and planning my uva visits and all our spain reunions, not to mention going through the duty free airport stores. the flights weren't too bad but it was a long day of traveling since my flight from new york to north carolina had a two hour delay, putting me in my bed at home at about 4 am. as if my body and sleep cycle wasn't messed up enough. the jet lag messed with me pretty badly the next few days but i'm mostly back to normal now, just left with memories and pictures calling me back.

where to start about the world cup final? I went to the stadium where I had watched the last 2 games at around 5:30 and there were already a ton of people there posted up in the street. chris curtis and i decided to go try to grab refreshments from a grocery store and end up running into a ton of friends at the doner kebap with a great view of the game on tv, so we watch the first half there. we decide that we need to experience the madness though after seeing the port of valencia on tv so we all hop cabs out there and i was blown away by the number of people there. i couldn't see the end of the sea of heads bouncing around screaming for their team,

singing for their country. it was pretty unbelievable. after a little while of trying to find the best spot to actually see anything over thousands of heads, we ended up getting a great view for overtime right in the middle of the crowd on the ground. when iniesta scored, i think my eardrums broke, and maybe my cheeks too from smiling so much. everyone was hugging and dancing and singing and just in a state of pure euphoria. for like 30 or 40 minutes we were there in the middle of it all watching people's reactions and freaking out ourselves. we walked past a fountain that was filled with people who had jumped in and i decided i had to go for it and jumped in.. so worth it. after struggling to find our group we ended up splitting up and heading toward the centro and ended up in plaza ayuntamiento which was the exact right place to go. everything there was chaos. it seemed like everyone had fireworks, and there was the incessant noise of the song we've all come to love, "yo soy español español español." also, everyone loved giving us face paint in the colors of the spain flag. after climbing a couple statues for a better view of everything we made our way toward el barrio carmen to continue celebrations. from there the night ended up getting a little wierd, waiting for pizza with some friends in the street for about an hour and dancing a little before calling it a night and taxiing home for class the next morning. the next day when the spain team arrived in madrid, their bus couldn't go anywhere because of the absurd amounts of people in the plaza.

all in all, i am so so glad that the odds ended up in my favor, i mean what are the chances that this year, this month, while i'm here, spain wins the world cup?? awesome.

the next week was spent a little in recovery mode, doing lots of homework and finding some new fun bars around my neighborhood. there's a feria de julio en the rio this month that has a ferris wheel (noria) and fair games and food, which i LOVE. it reminded me of the dixie classic a little, but way smaller and way fewer people getting stabbed. we had some awesome drinks and grilled corn with lemon and oil on it, you have to try it, it's amazing. the prizes for the games were a little more interesting than in the states though, for instance, you can win a coffee maker or a leg of ham. we went up on the ferris wheel with perfect timing right as the sun set so we had insane views of all of valencia with cotton candy clouds in the background so that was really nice. that night turned into one of those nights where everyone wants to go out but we never end up going anywhere, just walking around for a while and stopping in random fun places when our ADD kicks in.

thursday was fun because uncle nandi was in town and i got to go to lunch with him and eliseo and pilar. we went to a place right beside the school basically but the food was INSANELY good. it's fun to go out to eat with spanish people and try to keep up with the conversations, i can hold my own alright but luckily they're all teachers so they help to correct me when i mess up. also help me when i order coffee at the beginning of the meal instead of at the end (rookie move.)

we went to the cathedral for our afternoon class with profesor valle, and learned all about the history and the "holy grail" there. i think i'm just going to believe it's the holy grail until it's disproven.. why not, right? and we saw some cool art pieces by goya and the ceiling at the front of the alter is gorgeous. also, they have some arms and bones of dead saints, which was kinda creepy and gross. thursday night though we went to umbracle and a lot of the people i went with hadn't been before so that was fun to see their reactions to the gogo dancers and purple lights and cabanas. it was a fun night of dancing and a fun next morning in class when we all laugh at eachother's tired faces.

friday we left for ibiza in the afternoon, and the trip started off at a hectic pace when we realized 10 minutes before boarding that we needed our passports and that our copies wouldn't work to go on the boat. so 3 of us had to grab taxis and go james bond style through the streets back to our apartments, sprint up the stairs, sprint through my apartment while trying to yell an explanation to my madre in spanish, and back to the port before the boat left. luckily, we all made it (20 euros in cab fees later). the boat was a little longer than anticipated but in all,

a good way to travel and we all were really impressed with the quality of our 17 euro/night hostel that was in a prime location in san antonio. one of the rooms had a balcony overlooking the port there and all the clubs and nightlife so we hung out there for a while before heading downtown to es paradiso to see guru josh project. his song infinity was basically played in the background of every other song he mixed in, but it was so much fun. i went to the bathroom right before he came on to dj and when i walked back to meet everybody i looked up and all the lights were pointed on him in a fur coat with his arms in the air and i was like 10 feet away front and center just in awe. it was pretty sweet. we stayed there until pretty late and made our way back with some late night food to the hostel. the next day we got complimentary breakfast

and hit the beach for a few hours and none of our ears worked properly until late afternoon. yoori and i bought floatees to float and tan in the ocean while the boys played on their paddle boat in the shape of a car with a giant slide into the water from the top. we were all tuckered out in the afternoon and took a powernap to prepare for saturday night. we ended up at an awesome tex mex restaurant for dinner and then got ready and started walking toward the bars on the ocean front but got stopped at a mini carnival for people to go on some rides. we found the bus that would take us to the club called space but i ended up heading back early with a friend to the hostel and calling it an early night after leaving my mark on ibiza but they all told me there were dancers hanging from the ceilings and stuff at the club so that sounds pretty awesome. i wish i could've spent more time in ibiza to balance relaxing and going out a little better and to see some of the views and other beaches and islands around there, maybe take a boat tour around. so i guess i'll just have to go back. i spent all of sunday recuperating pretty much and catching up on a little bit of work.

monday i went to the beach after class and that was probably my last chance seeing as my schedule is chock full until we leave thursday : ( i can't believe i leave so soon. but we found another new fun bar by the school and hung out with friends there for a few hours monday night. that's one of my favorite parts of spain is just relaxing with friends at a bar or restaurant (they're basically synonymous) and chatting with friends, there's no rush to get you in and out and the waitresses and bartenders let you take your time to enjoy it.

yesterday i went to the bioparc in the afternoon with cat yoori chris and john and it was awesome. i liked it way better than the aquarium to be honest. we ended up getting off the bus too early so it was a bit of a hike to get out there, but so worth it. they let you get so incredibly close to the animals, like i could have reached out and gotten licked by the giraffe that kept walking by.

and all of the animals were really responsive and playful with you too usually, there was a hyena that fell in love with john and the hippo opened it's mouth so big for us to show off it's yucky teeth. there were zebras and porcupines and elephants and rhinos, everything you could ask for pretty much, oh except there were "technical difficulties" with the lemurs;

we thought this was pretty funny seeing as all you have to do is let them exist so we were trying to figure out what could be technical about that. we got pretty lost trying to find the right bus home but got to explore a little bit of the city none of us had seen before, and found some swan boats at the end of the rio that we might try out before we leave next week.

today i went to lunch with carol harris, again at an amazing restaurant right by the school. we had the menu del día, which is popular here to have a set price for a first and second course, dessert drink and coffee. i got some sort of rice dish which was phenomenal (i'm going to have to figure out what kind of seasoning they use so i can try to recreate it at home) and solomillo which is like the best cut of pig with potatoes which was incredibly tender and delicious and flan for dessert. it was nice to get to know carol on a level more than just my advisor here, and it was interesting to talk to her about living here permanently and raising a family here and comparing her and her family's story to that of carrie and nandi and their family cause i guess uncle nandi kind of did the opposite of carol. i met up with caroline for tapas at bar pilar (finally) and it was so worth it. the food was awesome (had clochinas and patatas bravas and jamon and croquetas de mejillones) and it was a really cool environment where it was packed so we stood up at the bar to order and eat. as i was walking home from dinner i got really nostalgic thinking about my time here and how it's ending so soon and how much i'm going to miss the lifestyle and the people and the food. but also how i can't wait to come back and experience it later with family or friends and compare where i've been with where they've been or discover new places. again with the feeling of wishing i could wrap it all up and bring it home with me to appreciate it more, but all i can do is live it and watch it.

last week was pretty tame, which was probably a good thing considering the insanity of this weekend. i wrote 3 papers and did a presentation, all in spanish. writing in spanish isn't actually that much harder than writing in english, which i think is a good sign about how much i've learned over here. however, writing 4 and 5 page papers three times a week isn't my idea of a good time in the summer. at least i'm enjoying my classes i guess. last week in culture and civ we learned about festivals of spain and a little about the camino de santiago, which were both cool knowing we were headed to pamplona for san fermín on saturday. also perfect timing to learn about fallas because a few of us headed off to the ciudad fallera on friday afternoon to check out some of the saved fallas from previous years in the museum. each year at fallas the crowd votes on their favorite fallas to be saved from the flames, and most of these fallas go to the museum in valencia or other areas for people to check them out years later. fallas are paper machet and wooden sculptures that are worked on year round by artists who live in la ciudad fallera with their workshops and funded by local patrons. they're lit on fire and burnt during fallas in march in valencia every year and they're usually hilarious or satyrical like caricatures. we got to see lots of hilarious ones and walk around some of the artists workshops a little so that was really neat.

oh wait, i said this week was tame? i left out the spain vs germany game on wednesday. the opposite of tame. we all went back to the bar at the stadium with

the blocked off streets and kids climbing all over statues and insane crowds of rowdy spain fans. it was just as crazy this time and we actually caught on to some more songs and chants to help us blend in a little more, but it is kind of easy to tell we're not from around here when there's 50 of us yelling and giggling and speaking english. this game was even more difficult to pay attention to with everything going on, but luckily the crowd responses helped me keep pace with the game, with "ooooooh" s and "buena!" s and "villa maravilla"s. after germany killed argentina, i was pretty nervous for that game, but the boys came through yet again, that was an insanely sick header too. after the win we decided the safest place to be to avoid getting showered with more beer and sweat and getting shoved around was the top of the statue in the square so we all climbed up. that night we did a lot of walking around getting cars to honk, running around in the streets, yelling "VIVA ESPANA!" and banging on random car windows at stoplights. i'm not really sure what to expect out of tonight's championship game other than the fact that the world's best pyro technicians live in valencia so i imagine there will be a lot of fireworks and other things on fire, and a lot of people climbing city structures. i'm going to be careful not to fall off of anything high. we'll see how it goes, i'll have to give an update after the big win.

speaking of potential danger from celebrating spaniards... PAMPLONA. oh my god. i can't believe that festival lasts for a week, i don't know how anyone could survive a week in that place. our bus took off at 10 friday night and after lots of jokes about which of the boys would get gored and a few pitstops and tiny little bars for bathroom breaks, we arrived in pamplona at 4:01 am. you would think this would be awkward with no body really out and a lot of time to kill, but you'd be so wrong. there were so many people walking around the streets, young and old and even some families with kids, everyone in their white outfits with red sashes and bandanas. we all stopped at the nearest vendor to get our own sashes and bandanas and then stopped at a cafe for some caffeine and drinks. new record for everyone to crack open the first drink at 4:15 am. we realized around 5 that it was a good idea to go ahead early to check out estafeta, especially for the boys who were running. we headed over and set a meeting place and tried to stake out a spot for the girls and chris to watch the run, somewhere safe but exciting.

liz ended up meeting some older guys who asked us all to come up to their terrace for the run; at first this was a sketch idea that we rejected but when we realized there were no good places to see the race left and the idea of having a birds eye view was incredibly appealing. so we all decided to stick together and be extra cautious until we felt it out and they let chris come up to so we figured it couldn't be too sketch. WOW, we got up there and we were literally the highest terrace on the street with a perfect view of about 200 meters of the run right before the bullring, not to mention they had laid out a full breakfast spread and a fully stocked bar. after being fussed at for being hesitant about eating the food, we enjoyed pastries and chorizo and morcilla and endless jamon serrano. these guys must've been loaded the way they were throwing around that jamon. so we hung out and watched the sunrise (another one of those moments mom) over terra-cotta rooftops with birds flying over the mountains. you could feel the intensity mounting as the police cleared the people out of the street to prepare for the race, and then they let the runners onto the road.

it was nerve wracking watching them all stretch and try to get warm, anticipating all the danger they were putting themselves in for the sake of this festival and to say they had run with the bulls. and then the rockets sounded and people took off; it ended up being a pretty mild race, it all happened a little quicker than i had imagined and all the bulls stayed together for the most part. i'm glad because i don't think i want to see someone get torn apart by horns anytime soon.

after the race we stalled meeting the boys for as long as we could so we could be respectful to the group of guys who had been so sweet to us on the terrace, but headed down at around 9:30

to stick together. the rest of the day was a big blur of daytime discotecas, marching bands, drunkards singing about the spanish futbol team, dancing in jamon stores, walking the streets filled with thousands of people in white and red and hanging out in the big central square. we ended up getting separated from one guy for most of the day and one guy got a horn to the face during the run and ended up with a bruise on his cheek (so worth it) but otherwise had no major issues. i got some glass in my feet and got carried piggyback to the redcross tent by some nice spaniards, but

they were only tiny cuts. there were 20 foot tall figures with giant heads and a couple of the boys in our group got in touch with their musical sides and got to borrow some horns and accordions to play. we also learned the effects of bringing a group of 15 girls to pamplona during a festival that is dominated by drunk men. the end of the night was wrapped up by the best fireworks i've ever seen and a bit of a lost trek to find the bus. all in all it was an insane experience and a very long day, but one that i will always remember. i'd love to go back someday.

we got back to valencia at around 6 this morning after a long ride of embarrassing story telling and zombie marched home to our apartments to get some rest before tonight's game. so now i'm off to meet up with friends before the game to stake out a good spot to see the screen, tonight could be the best night of anyone's life in spain, come on boys make it happen.

alright had to make a new entry, too much has happened since my blogging got a little relaxed before my granda trip. so here goes, part two of my little hiatus:

i slept most of tuesday recovering from my very uncomfortable train ride home, until the soccer game that night. we played portugal and i watched it at an outdoor bar with a new friend named jaime since i couldn't get in touch with my friends to find them. everyone was in a great mood after the win so we went out with some new friends from the program to, where else?, la bolseria. after some fun dancing and classic bargaining with the moroccan salesmen outside in the plaza, we all found our way home and to class the next morning. i'm in texts and interpretations and spanish culture and civilization. they're both a little intimidating as higher level classes with a lot more work than my first session classes (we're talking several papers each week), but i think i'm really going to enjoy them. no better place to learn about spanish culture than in spain, and the class covers history, night life, food, family, geography, language.. everything. and we get to take two fieldtrips! to the cathedral and mercado central. texts is really fun actually because i've been wanting to buy a book in spanish to get some extra practice in anyway, so this is perfect. we read a short story, poem, or play every night and discuss it in class the next day. i haven't taken a literature/english class since high school so it was actually nice to do some literary analysis, ok call me dorky.

headed off to the beach that afternoon with some new girl friends from the program after classes and pulled the cool card, knowing where to go and which buses to take. the next night we met up at plaza de la virgen and ended up meeting pretty much everyone from the program at fennigans and rambling around carmen for the night. that was cool, this session is far more open to everyone hanging out together, which i like. we ended up talking to some british guys until way too late in the morning and my alarm clock sadly failed the next morning, so i woke up and freaked out, already 10 minutes for class. my panicked mind misread the bus number so i ended up across town and had to take a taxi to school, luckily i got there with enough time left to only be counted late, not absent, so i've still got my freebee absence if i need it to travel one weekend. i've currently gotten into a gym mode again, which is nice, and the guys that work at the gym are starting to learn my name and joking around with me. hey, i'll take any opportunity to speak spanish.

friday night was awesome, chris took me with him to meet his intercambio diego and some of his friends, who are all students at the universidad de valencia. we hung out in a little park near the school district, which is apparently an extremely popular hangout because come 1 am, it was packed with spanish kids my age and there was an amazing late night pizza place that we stopped at once.. or twice. (note how much miguel on the far left looks like aaron varnell). we made our way around valencia all night laughing hysterically at our language errors and got back late so that i spent all of saturday sleeping and trying to recover from my throat/ear ache.

saturday night was absolutely absurd, since spain won yet again in the

mundial. we watched the game by the stadium, where there was an outdoor tv and streets blocked off for standing viewers. there were people EVERYWHERE. and i mean, in the streets, in trees, and even on top of the plaza statue. it was an insanely good time with tons of singing and chants of "yo soy español, español, español" which we changed to "no soy español" discreetly. we learned some of the other songs too and sung them all night through the streets to see how many honks we could get waving our spain flags. the game was intense with a goal taken back from each team and then finally an official goal from who else but villa maravilla. that night was also our welcome to valencia party in corona 15 so after a brief dinner stop in plaza de la reina and some directional difficulties, we started out the night with some dancing and american music and made our way to las animas later. it was awesome, this open air disco on the top of a building with tons of stages and bars and couches and whatever you could want, with a great view of the ocean. all was great until i realized that my iphone had been stolen out of my purse, along with my spain flag. i really must have the worst luck in spain to get robbed three times in a month. maybe i just scream tourist when you look at me or something. i don't know but i'm going to be so stealthy with my possessions from now on, look out pickpockets. so some new friends helped out a ton and got me home and calmed me down until i could talk to my parents about a plan of action for the phone, but nonetheless it was still a fun night and at least it's just stuff. still got my health and my memories, and now an excuse to maybe upgrade when i get home...?

one of my only regrets about being in spain all summer though is missing the fourth of july yesterday, i spent it catching up on some leftover work and leftover sleep but i hope all of you had a great ol american time. oh and i do regret that i won't be joining the rest of my team/friends in boone tomorrow for summer school, don't forget about me guys : (

ah so much has happened in a week! i guess there´s no better way than to start from the beginning..

thursday was a rough day of class after la noche de san juan but all the teachers took it in stride and just kind of made fun of us for looking exhausted and ridiculous, some of us more than others. i could hardly open my eyes because they were so puffy from fire smoke and stolen bookbag tears. the rest of thursday was spent napping and studying for friday´s finals, with a brief descanso for dinner with alicia and peter, who were visiting valencia for the weekend. we got an awesome dinner at a place close by and it´s always awesome spending time with them and hearing about their trip through spain so far.

i took my finals on friday, not too bad considering the heinous amount of vocabulary i had to learn thursday night and friday morning. i finally joined a gym on friday afternoon and it felt really good to get back into an actual weight room, although i think i´ll still exercise outside too cause it´s just so pretty and appealing. but i did the whole "i don´t know how to use this equipment" thing and it was kind of awkward but a nice gym. it´s a good thing i worked out that day because our goodbye lunch was an insane amount of delicious food, bread and mejillones and salad and olives and paella and helado. saying goodbye to kara proved a little more difficult than i had anticipated, and by that i mean that buehler basically had to drag us apart while we were bawling on the street causing a scene. luckily the rest of the night was busy to help me keep my mind off the fact that most of the friend i´ve made here were leaving that night. watched the spain soccer game to qualify for the next round and celebrated afterword with chris´family, who was in town, and then a last trip to casa blanca with everyone. a few more tears and some goodbyes later, i

headed to the trainstation for granada to meet hannah and her friends. the overnight train wasn´t too bad, a little uncomfortable but a good way to travel so that i didn´t miss any day time sight seeing opportunities.

i hopped a cab to the hostel from the trainstation at around 8:30 am. this hostel broke all my previous notions about hostels being scenes for murder movies and gross dingy places where all your things will get stolen. it was clean and cute and we got free breakfast and free guided tours and free storage after checkout and nothing got taken. and there was a beautiful rooftop terrace with couches and beanbag chairs that was perfect for hanging out to rest after a long day. i went and woke up hannah and her friends and we all showered and had some delicious toast and cereal (what isn´t delicious when it´s free?) and some tortillas de estuarte (stu´s homemade pancakes).

we walked up to the alhombra, which was like a 20 or 30 minute walk. did i mention our hostel was in an insanely perfect location for everything? the alhombra was built in the 1300´s as a stronghold and palace grounds for muslim royalty, and was taken over by Christian rulers in the late 1400´s. King Charles V put a more Roman Catholic style palace on the grounds in 1527, which contrasts with the style of everything

else and in my opinion was kind of boring and ugly. we walked through the gorgeous gardens and up around the palaces and castles. the views were incredible and

the architecture was mind-blowing. serioulsy, so elaborate and planned out and precise, with walls and overhangs that looked like concrete lace. there were reflecting pools and gardens everywhere, and the day´s perfect weather made it even more enjoyable to stroll around thinking about what it would be like to live as a king there. it was pretty moving to be in a place with so much history, dating back to the 1300s. we stood in the room where christopher columbus proposed his idea to sail west toward asia and that the world was not flat. how absurd.

we were all exhausted and starving after 4 or 5 hours of walking around the alhombra, so we stopped for shawarmas (kebab style pocket pita kind of things with chicken and veggies and delicious sauce) in a plaza. we walked around the town a bit and had some ice cream. we went to a normal ice cream place and then saw a different ice cream shop two stores down with insane works of ice cream art and double the flavors for half the price. i´m talking like watermelons shaved into roses and stuff. we rested up a little on the roof and showered off before the USA v Ghana futbol game and were sorely disappointed after the loss and after making a scene in the bar starting lots of USA chants.

After some serious enthusiasm rallying efforts and some more shawarma, we ended up meeting a girl in a bar who got us in free to the largest discoteca in granada, granada 10.

it used to be an old theatre so it had crazy high cielings and lots of old movie chairs and couches lining the entrance. we danced the night away to a really wierd selection of music (spice girls, i will survive, eminem, and some salsa) and got lots of stares from the spanish people who don´t

typically dance as enthusiastically as we do. we called it a late night saturday but made sure to set extra alarms for sunday´s waterfall hike.

it was so worth the early wake up and trek to bus stops (since buses here don´t really come when they´re supposed to on sundays) to go out into the country side a little. we walked through a little cave town where all the houses are built into the mountain to hide from the heat and had a nice walk past a pretty waterfall and followed the river up into a gorge. there was a little path but with cliffs right beside you so sometimes we had to squat and duck and hold onto rocks in order to pass, and there were lots of rock climbers half way up these huge rock faces. henry and greg and i got in the freezing water to freshen up before heading back, because it gets a little hot and tiring walking in spanish heat for 4 hours. it was so refreshing to see some nature after being in the city for so long, i hadn´t even realized how much i needed that but it felt really nice.

that evening after a siesta and shower, we all made our way up to saint nicholas´viewpoint overlooking the city for sunset. talk about surreal. sitting on a wall overlooking all of granada and snow

capped mountains watching the sunset with amazing people. and then we walked to the other side to look at the alhombra all lit up and reflect a little on how insane it was that we had the opportunity to go in there and how we wished there was something more we could do besides just look at it. like hug it or hold it or soak it in more somehow. we had a big classy dinner at a restaurant at the viewpoint and felt like proud young adults. after some toasts and lots of delicious food with lots of bread for sopping up the yummy sauces, we walked back toward the hostel and stopped for tea and hookah at one of the many hookah bars. that night really couldn't have gotten much more perfect i don't think. i didn´t know how moorish and arabic granada was before i went but the whole atmosphere is so different than outside of andalucia.

the next morning was spent in search of souvenirs in this cool arabic marketplace, after meeting up with hannah and rebecca who had a nice sister breakfast. it's always nice to see rebecca, she's like the little sister i never had/cooler than me so maybe older sister. we all bought tons of tea glasses and hookah periphenailia and i bought a little magic lamp style oil lamp and some gypsy pants and various gifties. hannah and her crew had to catch a 1 pm bus so we split up at around noon and i left my stuff in the hostel and explored granada a little more until the hostel sponsored street art tour in the afternoon.

granada is renown for its graffiti artists, who are actually encouraged to paint up the buildings, especially in the less touristy parts of the city to bring in people to the businesses there. we also stopped in a few cool places, the first was a cueva or cave house of this man who was so cool. he knew like 7 languages (with awesome accents might i add) on the spot and our tourguide guy told us he'd never seen him not know the basics of any language in the group. he walked us around his cave house (they live in caves to protect them from the extreme hot and cold temperatures, but still can have all the amenities of daily life, electricity and water, some even have jacuzzis and swimming pools..??) and it was full of cool pictures of his worldtraveling life style. he's apparently carlos santana's cousin and has met the beatles? who knows if he was pulling our leg or not but he gave us all incense in exchange for donations to his biannual trips to india to help out kids there. next stop was at the highest mirador in grandada, overlooking the whole city, followed by a trip to a viewpoint overlooking sacramonte, the famous cave town. there are also people who live up in tiny caves in the woods, about 500 people in fact, who are squatters but the government kind of leaves them be to keep them from coming into the city and squatting in old buildings there.

later that evening i had paella at the hostel and met some cool people there, and ate dinner

on the rooftop terrace watching the sunset, while a canadian girl with a regina spektor voice sung and played guitar. nothing better. i was pretty overwhelmed with unidentifiable emotions as i gathered my stuff and walked to the train station after dinner to catch my overnight train back to valencia: starting a new session with new people, missing my first session friends and family, overwhelmed with how amazing my weekend had been, leaving hannah and my new awesome friends of hers and making plans to visit them in colorado next year. just a lot. luckily it helped me get a little sleep at least on the train home that night.

the spain game was awesome on monday, we had to pass up like 3 bars because they were so packed with people and there was nowhere to go but we ended up at a place called a lo loko, casi un bar haha which means almost a bar. strange. but it was so fun with all the rowdy university age kids yelling at the tv and freaking out when we (i'm gonna go there and call myself a spainard now) scored. we got some free tapas from the nice bartender since the only seats were bar stools at the back next to him, delicious. i'm going to miss tapas a lot. and paella. anywho, we tried to learn some of the songs and chants they were singing but the only one we picked up on was "maravilla villa, villa villa villa." he's somewhat of a hero around here. which reminds me, there's a commercial here for something that i can't remember but the guy in it goes "soy batman" and goes around the city telling everyone he's batman, which i find hilarious. i've also fallen in love with piqué on spain's team as a side note

tuesday was spent napping on the beach to celebrate the completion of my toros en españa project that went well, but i found out there's a sucio meaning for corridas (bullfights) so i gave a presentation that turns out was a little scandalous.

wednesday tony sam lauren kyle and i had our last shindig at casa blanca, and amad showed up (claro) and gave me the good kind of mixed nuts, which weren't even available that night. talk about vip

and then the usa game was last night, i met up with a bunch of people at portlands but they were playing the inglaterra game live, and the usa game was being streamed in online so it was very stoppy and frame by frame. this was excruciatingly painful to watch and we were about 18 minutes behind. i got an update that the score was 0-0 at 89 minutes so i called it quits and assumed we lost and were out. so two hours later when i found out we won in the 91st minute, whoooowhee!

last night was also la noche de san juan. i'm so glad it lived up to its rep. thousands and thousands of people gathered on the beach with bonfires and a huge concert. we got there to post up a spot around 7 after a mile long search for firewood. lauren and i were disappointed to see groups with legit setups when we got to the beach with our two parcels of wood and our towels. like one group of high school aged boys beside us had a shopping cart full of wood and herbs and stumps to sit on and everything. we met some really nice guys from madrid who kind of showed us the ropes and shared their cheetos, not to mention all the practice we got in for our oral exam today (that's what she said). no but really, it was really fun to speak in spanish for a couple hours and learn a bunch more slang words and find out which words we learn in class that are too formal for everyday life. we successfully got a fire going and hung out until the rest of our friends got there around 10 and chaos ensued for a bit. there was a big caricature sculpture (think fallas) of a guy smoking that they blew up around 11:30, and i mean exploded. at midnight it's tradition to jump over your fire and then go jump in the ocean and wait for seven waves to hit you so lauren and i led the pack of people into the ocean. it really looked like we were about to go to war or something, just a line of people waiting at the water's edge as far as i could see in both directions. it was just such a cool thing to be a part of, this huge tradition celebrating the summer solstice. and there were all ages and types of people there. abuelas with their herbs to burn and families with little kids and gothic teens and drunk middle aged women. too much fun. i ended up walking toward the stage at around 2 or 3 to hang out down there and dance and swim a little more. that's when my bookbag got stolen when a guy from the program decided not to watch it for me anymore. luckily there wasn't much in there because i knew there was a chance it'd get taken in such a crowd, just my old busted camera and my polaroid camera : ( and my keys. so i had to call katrina in the middle of the night yet again to let me in, bummer. she's the best such a sweetheart. but my madre wasn't upset since there was no identifying info in the bookbag with the keys so i'll just have to get copies made, not too bad. but my shorts were in the bag so i had to walk home in my swimsuit and a flannel, crying of course, but my friend ben was my knight in shining armor last night and rode home in a taxi with me and walked me to my door. so not too shabby in the end, certainly not enough to tarnish the good time. oh and i even aced my oral exam today, but i think everybody in the class did too, pelaez is such a terrific summer school teacher.

christina has been wandering around the house singing the world cup theme song for like an hour now and it's awesome. it's really nice to come back to my place in valencia and my bed after a weekend away in madrid, actually feels like home.

this weekend was great in madrid, i rode the train there on friday afternoon. I missed my class on friday morning after a late night thursday involving lots of dancing at umbracle until i realized that i had forgotten my keys in the apartment and had to call and wake up my roomie katrina at an incredibly indecent hour. she was great about it though, totally knocking my plan b to wait outside on the street until 7 when she would wake up for class anyway. so i got to madrid after a 3 and a half hour train ride, during which i had a 2 hour silent battle over the shared arm rest between me and the prissy woman next to me. after 2 hours of sneaking my elbow on to the armrest and not budging no matter how nonchalantly she tried to knock me off, she finally fussed at me and actually told me to let her have it, talk about awkward.

i got to madrid around 6 and met up with alicia and peter and walked around a little and went to a little art exhibit on cultural awareness. there was a collection of photos of pakistani women who had been attacked with acid that was particularly shocking and uncomfortable.

we walked through the puerta del sol, which is a huge square in madrid that is home to kilometro cero; that's the point from which every place in spain is measured. there were all sorts of street performers and crowds hanging out in the evening weather by the fountains. i love big cities that have people who take advantage of the allure of the city instead of being locked up inside all the time.

i met up with my family after that to check into the hotel and we headed off to grab some food from plaza mayor and el mercado de san miguel. the mercado was seriously the most awesomely delicious place i think i've ever been with gourmet food EVERYWHERE. booths for cheese and jamon and olivas and wine and mariscos and pinchos and postres and everything you could want. we had olives stuffed with muscles, which were insanely good, and topped off the night with some truffles. john and i headed out to a bar to meet alicia and some of her friends from spain and the states, giving me a chance to practice some more spanish and hang out a little. we started at a place described to us by alicia as "a bohemian gay type of place" with cool black and white photos of tatooed people on the walls and some fun techno music, and later headed to a discoteca courtesy of her friend bruno, who apparently knows like everyone in madrid. told lots of funny stories (including one about accidently ordering a bocadillo de polla instead of pollo), learned how to say "i'm the shit" (soy la leche), and learned that about 10 years ago, the discotecas stayed open until 3 pm the following afternoon. how's that for crazy night life? ended up getting back to the hotel pretty late before an early wake up call to go explore the city the next day, but definitely worth it.

the next day we went to the prado and saw tons of famous paintings and sculptures, from goya and velasquez and el greco, etc. after walking around for about 3 hours i sat down to take a quick break but was freaked out by HANNAH VARNELL jumping on me and hugging me in the museum. i knew she'd be in madrid but to run into her in a huge museum in the largest city in spain? who knew. so we did lots of introductions and hellos with her friends and hugs and freaked out for a while and promised to meet up later that night after dinner.

we got some delicious tapas for lunch in plaza mayor (i'm really starting to love tapas, i don't think i could get sick of them. what a genius way to eat) and wandered around the city and walked to the royal palace and cathedral for a few minutes to give us a slight hiatus from museums. We next went to reina sofia which is the popular art museum near the train station, to see lots of sick picasso and dali paintings, which i definitely preferred over the more traditional stuff in the prado. after a solid siesta we went out to dinner with alicia and peter and alicia's dad and uncle who both speak pretty limited english, so i once again got to whip out my mediocre spanish to try and keep up with the accents and speed. they were so sweet though, i'm so glad i finally got to meet them, and hopefully if i go back to madrid for a day or two next weekend i can meet back up with them.

after dinner i called hannah and with her awesome directions (and i quote, "find the homeless lady with the bicycle") i found her and her whole group ready to leave their hotel and go to a cool 7 story discoteca downtown. after about 2 hours and a ridiculous metro trip later, we ended up getting turned away from the club because some people didn't have id's but don't think the night was a loss. we wandered around puerta del sol all night and had some insane laughs and absurd interactions, and got some late night pizza to watch the sunrise. needless to say i was once again feeling terrific when we got up to leave the hotel this morning about 2 hours after sunrise, but the delicious breakfast buffet with unlimited chorizo and sandia helped to soothe the pain of the morning. i said my farewells to my family as they headed off to the airport to go back home and met up with hannah and friends again to laugh histerically over the night before, recapping everything over what else? more pizza.

had a seamless train ride home and bought some hammer pants for only 5 euros that are ridiculous and for some reason super stylish here, so now i'll blend right in. now i just need to get in some studying and finish my project on los toros de españa so that i can enjoy my day tomorrow and cheer Spain on in their game tomorrow night.

Oh and I can't wait to redeem myself playing soccer on tuesday night because last week, we joined in with some local guys who already had a game going. the week before, my friend maddie wasn't allowed to play with the boys so i was stoked i was even allowed to play, and what is the first thing i do? score an own goal. great showing. so i guess that whole just-like-riding-a-bike thing comes and goes.