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.

i am incredibly sad to say this week has flown by. monday was a siesta day after a late night with amy and liz on sunday. we walked around the centro and caught up so that i could hear all their crazy fun stories from traveling around europe for a month. apparently their favorite place was italy, so i'll have to go back there some time soon and see it again for myself. we hung out in la plaza de la virgen in el barrio carmen for a long time, people watching and making friends with a hat salesman from mauritania and taught him some fun american slang words.

we quickly found out that liz is too sweet for her own good when it comes to turning down people (especially wierd men) who talk to her, and we ended up hanging out with a very random assortment that night, aside from the hat salesman, a beer salesman, some girl with like 3 patches of hair and 2 teeth and her wierd looking boyfriend who was selling loaves of bread, and a group of men who took us to a place called club congo, who we promptly ditched. our best friend of the night by far, however, was ado from the late night pizza place on the way to the bolseria. we got free margherita and jamon pizza all night and he even let us behind the counter to help make our own pizza! not sure how sanitary that is. and he was sweet enough to fend off some manguis who were bothering liz and writing things on her arms

the next night was also a little crazy and involved lots of walking around the city after the italy soccer game, which was especially fun because liz and amy both had on italian jerseys so people were all yelling and cheering at us walking around. something good happened with the valencian soccer team apparently ( i didn't think they were playing right now? ) because there were thousands of people in valencia jerseys walking around yelling and cheering and singing and blowing airhorns. ended up at the bolseria after amy and liz got home for their early flight back to the states and caused a bit of a ruckus by tearing down the american flag from the ceiling. gotta do what you've gotta do to get a good souvenir.

needless to say i was on my A game the next day in class, but we're learning all sorts of interesting vocab and phrases in cultural conversations because we're listening to the projects from our classmates on cultural aspects of Spain, and today's presentation was on sex. so that's entertaining to say the least; we of course all giggled like 12 year olds throughout the whole thing. yesterday we went to a bar near the ciudad de los artes y ciencias to watch the spain futbol game and were all sorely disappointed with the outcome. but don't worry, i had a talk with the defense and we're good to go now to go win a world championship.

after the game we ran over to our school discounted trip to el oceonografico, the largest aquarium in all of europe. we got there just in time to see the dolphin show, which was so so cool. totally reminded me of why i wanted to be a dolphin trainer when i was little, not sure why i let go of that dream. it seemed so much cooler than seaworld for some reason, maybe less gimicky? kara and i actually got a little emotional watching them, no lie. we walked around the rest of the aquarium until closing time, seeing some walruses and lots of cool birds and tiburones (sharks) and in the shark tunnel there was one thing that literally looked like a swimming rock. i asked somebody what it was and they mentioned something about "de luna" but it really did look like a big rock with fins.

after the aquarium i went to the intercambio program at portland's again to speak a little english and a little spanish with some super friendly españoles. i can't get over how nice the people i've met here are. maybe it's just their cute accents that make them seem sweet, but they're so sincere, and i must admit i'm a big fan of the dos besitos on the cheeks when meeting and leaving people. i might try to bring that back to the states, so don't be alarmed if i kiss you on the cheeks when i see you back at home!

today, i did some more intercambio and went and met a new friend paul at the beach between my classes. he's a part time kung fu teacher who likes his long hair when it blows in the wind. needless to say, it was a hilarious afternoon of spanglish with a really interesting guy. he taught me some more colloquialisms so i can attempt to blend in with the natives, because apparently i still stand out like a sore thumb as an american once i open my mouth. (but apparently i had amy and liz fooled because they both thought i was fluent!). i made friends with some teens on the bus on the way back to my makeup class this afternoon and they were so cute trying to speak english to me, they get really proud when they know english words.

tonight we had some awesome chicken and potatoes (and of course those awesomely terrible for you french fries) for dinner, and nothing beats freshly air-dried laundry like my real madre does at home. she also makes a lot of cakes randomly, she's just the cutest thing. however, my apartment has recently become a land mine obstacle course of dog pee. you would think that having a studying veterinarian in the house, there would be some attempt to help that situation out but i guess it's simple enough to just clean it up and wear shoes around the house in the meantime. a bunch of my friends have to wear shoes in their houses. another thing i've picked up on: people LOVE aluminum foil here. serioulsy every person with a bocadillo on the beach has alunimum foil, and they wrap their fruit and stuff in it too. also learned that you're not supposed to eat the oranges from the trees in the rio, thanks to madre i didn't have to learn that the hard way.

well, one of a world-traveler's worst nightmares came true today for me and the fam. we started off the weekend perfectly, with delicious tapas and so much laughter at the outdoor restaurants of the centro that we caused quite a scene. hit up the festival of the nations on friday night and caught up with mis padres y hermano, and went out for a night on the town with mis amigos y mi hermano.

we went to umbracle and had a fantastic time, thanks to our free entry, watching lauren speak to her new spanish lover, and stealing the thunder from teh girls paid to dance on barrels above the crowd.

had a wonderful day yesterday, despite a late start and missing the museo de los falleros. but we went and had THE BEST PAELLA EVER at blayet, thanks to the suggestion of peter. we took my madre with us and she was the chattiest little thing with my whole family, with my brother learning via rosetta stone and doing ok, my dad throwing in random words that kind of pertain to the conversation and my mom understanding everything but telling stories about 30 years ago in the present tense. not to mention aunt bonnie, aunt patsy, and uncle herb knowing about 10 words among them. i was impressed though at how well people can communicate if there are a few words they understand and some context, my aunt bonnie and madre had a full 5 minute conversation walking back from the beach, they may have been talking about entirely different subjects, but they did communicate. but it was a really good time, had tapas and a paella de mariscos and a paella de conejo y pollo. as much as i hate to say it, conejo is DELICIOUS (for those who know the other meaning of conejo, that's what he said).

afterword, madre took us to her favorite horchata place near blayet and then we found out that she has another apartment right on the beach in the town where blayet is, and were all shocked (having learned that spanish people seldom invite friends to their homes, much less 6 strangers) when she invited us up to her terrace overlooking the beach to enjoy the horchata. it was a perfect little afternoon, and just made me fall in love with my madre all over again. she really is the sweetest thing, and she said that she has never been to america but that she'll come visit for my wedding, what a muffin. we got some quality good-time photos of the family on the beach and then headed back into main valencia for a little siesta time.

we found an awesome place for mandeditos in el centro last night in la plaza de la reina and had some excellent chocolate postres at the chocolate shop nextdoor. mandeditos are little pieces of bread with some sort of topping on them, like little bruschetta style sandwiches. some can be boring, but the ones we had were with chorizo y queso or tortilla de patata or jamon wrapped dates or all these other exotic combinations that were insanely good. this was while watching the crowds of rowdy futbol fans who were watching the usa england game and the hoards of bachelor and bachelorette parties going on. after dinner i went out with my friends to fennigans, where everyone is irish, english, or american so it's nice sometimes to take a little break from thinking spanish. afterword headed out to high cube again to do a little dancing and chatting with the locals, but found some fun new german friends instead. i will find you again someday, anis.

so anyway, back to the nightmare of a day: this morning we went to the plaza de toros to see it and the train station to get a ticket for me to madrid next weekend to meet up with my family again before they leave spain. we parked in the estacion del norte and walked up through several plazas to the cathedral and another little mandeditos place (because they're my new obsession). we take our time walking through the city and enjoying the architecture and people and weather until we get back to the car and see the front window is bashed in and then realize ALL of their luggage was stolen. EVERYTHING. i immediately break down (probably not helped by my lack of sleep) and sprint to people histerically asking if they saw anything, but really only saying "ladron, ventana rota, maletas robadas." so eventually the police come and speak way too quickly for my frantic mind to keep up with the spanish but we figure out that we need to go to the police station to make a statement and file a report. long story short, we spend about 3 hours trying to sort all of this out in broken spanish and charades and then have to go replace the rental car. eventually it turned into the butt of every joke made the rest of the day, but it still makes me sick to my stomach to think about it. i felt awful. "hey welcome to my home and city i love so much, say goodbye to all your belongings!"

but after all, they're only material possessions (aside from my brother and uncle herb losing their passports full of stamps from around the world, that was a bummer) and nobody got stabbed or anything so i guess that's good. trying to look at the bright side here.

all in all, today was an epic fail. but i'm going to try my best not to let it ruin the other amazing memories from the weekend.

aaaand, amy and liz just got here so i get to go meet up with them and galavant around the city, watch out people.

so last night i ended up studying a lot instead of going out like a good girl, you're welcome mom and dad. but only because i broke my glass bottle of recently purchased rum all over my floor and failed miserably at trying to clean it up myself and got a few cuts on my culo. so my madre helped me sweep up most of the glass but i'm still playing the floor-is-lava game around my room to make sure i don't step on tiny glass pieces. that would sure be a pain with all the walking we do.

i love walking around the city. just watching the people and listening, and there's lots of interesting smells, some great, some not so great. like the mud for instance, smells AWFUL. i don't know what it is but it really smells like caca. i've made a pact with myself to walk up the stairs every time i go home (my place is on the sexto piso and there are exactly 101 steps) and haven't broken it yet; i especially like walking them during lunch or dinner time though because you get to smell what everybody's cooking. usually my floor smells the best. today though, i smelled something in the street and was like, wow that must be some pollo asada or something, yummy. that was only my hungry stomach talking because i started seeing a ton of smoke and ash fly by while i was waiting at a stoplight. i peek around the building i'm using to shield myself as the debris gets larger and larger and turns into actual flaming balls of paper and trash, to find out that someone had lit a trashcan on fire at the stoplight, una broma? not very funny seeing as i had to sprint through this death trap of fireballs blowing at me in the wind to cross the street (all while dodging traffic). sign me up for american gladiators.

anywho, made it home alive and had some excellente spaghetti for lunch, not sure if it's called spaghetti in spanish or not. i tried asking 6 year old alejandro what the name of it was, but to no avail because the twins and their 3 year old brother were fighting over popsicle flavors. oh and i actually made a successful spanish phonecall to book a reservation for all of us at blayet on saturday night, including my madre (so stoked about that), when my parents and tias and tio and hermano are in town! last time i tried making a phone call in spanish i got hung up on... hey i'm improving!

we're making it happen: becoming regulars at a quaint little outdoor bar called casa blanca. it has become the regular meeting spot for late night catching up, especially on days when we all do our own thing and go through some intense separation anxiety after 5 hours apart. this place has the best mixed drinks ever and it's right in the middle of the centro on a little side street near a bunch of big stores so it feels nice to be there. i intended to go out to the bolseria afterword but ended up ditching that plan when i realized how late it was that we were leaving casa blanca and remembering my plan to get up an hour earlier at 6:45 to study for today's midterm. don't worry everybody, i did just fine on it and i have one more midterm to go tomorrow before another week and a half or so of test-free study abroad fun.

took a serious siesta today to attempt to catch my body up on sleep. i actually had a cappuccino from the school's machine today (which is amazingly authentic tasting and delicious, not to mention only 50 cents. i never could resist a deal) to make sure i wouldn't fall asleep during my test and just turn in some pictures made from my drool.

oh but the exciting news was that for lunch i had fideua, which is like a seafood paella but with fideos (noodles) instead of rice. like the semicircle kraft mac n cheese kind of noodles that you make necklaces with. it was delicious, not to mention it had mejillones (muscles), crawfish things, clams, and calamari, all of which i am currently obsessed with. so needless to say, i downed a full plate and a half of it and went back to siesta. i'm pretty sure my madre loves that i eat so much, but then again she'd still call me cariña even if she hated it.

so i officially have a huge girl crush on christina, my madre's 22 year old daughter. and if my spanish understanding is correct, she invited me to hang out with her friends at a discoteca gratis tomorrow night that she says is really fun so that'll be sweet. she's just such a magdelena; always singing to Lou and doing this thing where she makes a pretend monster out of her fist and makes him play-attack her, and she loves throwing in random english phrases like "i like cheese" and "party party party, sex drugs and rock and roll."

i don't know what it is about getting a full night's sleep that makes me so exhausted but i fell asleep at 10 last night, intending to wake up and go meet chris' intercambio friend but just slept all night and was still exhausted all day. so i think i'm going to revert back to the late nights lifestyle for my health's sake. dad, you should be proud, it's a scientific process and i'm testing my hypothesis, right?

today i had my first test here, and did fine. it was in grammar review and was just on the present and indefinite tenses so as long as i look over notes for that class and make sure to study the picky exceptions to the rules, i should be alright. i have my first test in cultural conversations on thursday but seeing as we spent the day learning pick up lines and ways to tell boys to leave us alone at bars, i'm not quite sure what to expect. maybe a real life scenario of an annoying boy in a club??

went to the beach after classes and studied a little with some friends and of course, don and the baron. juggled a soccer ball a little with some people from england and switzerland and talked to the swiss girl about good places to visit there if i end up going to stay with charlie's parent's friends. i talked to hannah today and might meet her in granada since i'm not doing the school trip there this weekend? or might go somewhere with chris and buehler if any of us feel like getting it together? who knows, i'm free as a bird and want to explore everywhere so the possibilities are (somewhat) endless. just no random trips with random sketchy people, mom and dad i swear.

went for a run in the rio again and worked up a nice sweat before dinner and chatting with madre and christina in spanish. i really need to start speaking in spanish with my friends all day to keep practicing so that it's not just 4 hours a day in spanish and the rest of the day in english. it's hard to remember when you're in a group of english people to speak spanish though. but i'm going to meet up with my own intercambio as soon as i get an email from geraldine at school so hopefully that'll be helpful to meet some spaniards who can speak with me in spanish more often, and maybe if all my dreams come true, i can hang out with christina more often too.

i went for a run today in the rio, and i don't know if it's all the walking i've been doing or just the vivacity of the city, but i felt really great running. running in the rio isn't like normal running though, there are TONS of people out doing things in there (especially on a sunday afternoon between siesta and dinner). and let me tell you, they LOVE rollerblading around here. i think every other person i saw there this afternoon was rockin some roller blades. but i worked out for a bit before happening upon three guys with a boombox playing salsa music and grabbing girls off the street and teaching them how to salsa. all this was happening right in front of the fountain that frames the palau de musica and rows of palmtrees so i was hit by a kind of post-workout euphoria and walked around for about an hour just watching the people, walked through the skate park and checked out some hombres doing tricks. katrina said when she was in the rio this morning at around 8:30, there were still like a 100 people at the feria de las naciones from the night before and there was one girl completely naked talking to two guys like it was no big thing. certainly a different stilo de vida aqui.

i went to dinner with andrea tony and kara tonight at the cutest tapas restaurant in la plaza de la reina and got bravas, calamari and paella valenciana. muy deliciosos but i should've recommended they try patatas bravas con sweet potatos like at home :) we sat at the table being bombarded with people trying to sell roses, sunglasses, fedoras, and these wierd stuffed animals that were supposed to walk around but really just ran into eachother and fell over. also, you have to pretty much beg for a check around here, there's no in and out rush like in american cities, they really expect you to enjoy the food and company and maybe buy a few more pitchers of sangria before leaving.

ahh and then i got my first helado at a little heladeria across the plaza, which is surprising for anyone who knows my chocolate addiction seeing as there is an heladeria literally on every street. but i just don't feel the need to snack as often here, i think it's the spacing out of the meals, and i usually portion my bocadillos out so i can enjoy them all afternoon because i love them. i got trufa, which i assume meant chocolate truffle, and after eight, which was like mint chocolate chip. i absolutely love walking through the centro at this time of night though, right around 9:30 or 10 is sunset and it's like 24 degrees celcius (i have no idea what that is farenheit but it's just right for me) and there are tons of people walking through the plazas and sitting down at outdoor tables for dinner and there are people playing saxophone or violin everywhere. plus the lights from the plazas hit the buildings just right to make you really notice the gorgeous architecture on the buildings. ayyy i love it.

for the update: well most of thursday afternoon was spent napping and trying to recuperate from this week's late nights. i can totally see myself living here and fully appreciating the national emphasis on napping. definitely suits my style when people are literally insisting that i take a siesta after lunch. although it is a little difficult since i leave my bedroom window open all the time to get a little air circulation (there's no air conditioning in my apartment) and the neighbors windows are also open. there's a bunch of younger boys that live next door i think because i always hear them all shouting at each other in really fast spanish. for instance this morning i was awoken by a yelling match about somebody's room being dirty and the sounds from my own apartment of my madre's 4 grandsons (4 year old twins, a 3 year old and a 6 year old) loudly joking with madre's youngest daughter Christina who seems to be the favorite tia around here. She's 22 and really fun, always joking and singing; she's studying to be a veterinarian and has a shepherd mix named Lou. He can always be found begging at the dinner table and will stand up on your lap until you give him the rest of your watermelon rhine. He's really well trained but christina seems to be the only one who can make him do anything because when i say "BAJA! " when he jumps up on me when i get home in the afternoon, nothing.

anywho, thursday chris, buehler, and i went back to a little outdoor bar that we like in el centro (next to the movie theater and a lot of awesome shopping that i need to check out) called casa blanca and met up with the rest of the crew. After a slight incident with kara, me and some schweppes, we ended up following two local guys to the bolseria again because i had so much fun there, but i was reprimanded by tony because it was a long walk and he refused to pee outside on beautiful national landmarks because he's a stand-up guy. Once again danced the night away to the music that I just can't get enough of right now and met a group of italians here for a bachelor party. it's a huge thing apparently to go to valencia for bachelor/bachelorette parties. i've seen lots of group bachelor party t-shirts and groups of girls in devil horns or fireman hats or bunny ears to celebrate an upcoming marriage. Ended up hanging out with a cute Argentinean all night named Yago who is sailing around the world but sadly had to leave him to catch a cab home. Friday was hilarious to watch people struggling for dear life to keep their eyes open in class but we all made it through since the teachers (who are probably used to this trend by now) made the lessons extra fun and a little easier that day.

Spent the afternoon on the beach con mis amigos and after finding out that chris and buehler's apartment has roof access (and deciding we need to invest in some lawn chairs), headed to the feria de las naciones again, which has become the perfect meeting spot for all of us in the program. not to mention it's really fun with dancers on stage and music and delicious food from all over. friday night was a little hectic, heading to what we thought was the huge beach discoteca Las Animas, but actually ending up in it's smaller counterpart in the city but with the same name. we stayed there for a while until realizing that there was an overwhelming majority of 40 something single men; it wasn't until the next day that we all had that epiphany that it was most likely a gay bar, which helps to explain all the strange looks we were getting. We spent some time laughing our heads off on some park benches near "the other" Las Animas before calling it a night to rest up before our trip to Peñiscola the next morning.

Everyone was looking rather bright eyed Saturday morning as we met at the soccer stadium to catch the buses. It was about a one and a half hour trip to peñiscola, but it flew by seeing as everyone on the bus was knocked out until we were woken up by Geraldine

welcoming us rather loudly through the bus microphone. Peñiscola has a gorgeous beach, but the best part of the trip was walking up through the little vendor-filled streets on the way up to the castle. The castle was built by the Knights Templar in the 1300's, to later be altered by Pope Luna, but it gave us absolutely incredible views of the Mediterranean and the gorgeous outlying hills of peñiscola. This trip made me want to go to Greece all day because it reminded me of the postcard worthy pictures i have in my head of little white neighborhoods littering the side of a cliff above the gorgeous blue mediterranean.

We all thoroughly enjoyed spending some time at the top of the castle in the breeze and saw a bride and groom heading toward a perfect grassy area laden with palm trees to take pictures before their wedding that evening. Talk about a picturesque wedding location. We wandered back toward the bus through the winding cobblestone streets, stopping for some souvenirs and to people watch the wedding guests who all had the hottest heels i've ever seen, even the older women, straight out of vogue i swear.

The bus ride home was kind of funny because we all just seemed like elementary school kids tuckered out from a big field trip, we all had packed lunches from our madres and fell asleep on the bus ride home.

Saturday night was really fun, I went with chris and buehler to a little resteraunt on the beach and had some mejillones (muscles) and pan (which apparently they charge you for by the person so watch out for that) and a carra of sangria. After turning down several men selling roses, who are apparently allowed to wander through restaurants here in Spain, we went to a club on the beach called High Cube, which is basically an outdoor dock on the water framed

by neon green lights. There were lots of cushions to sit on and some bubble chairs suspended from the ceiling which are a great place to sit if you want to attract a lot of attention. We danced and chatted up a lot of locals who all seem to know a good bit of english, but we always worked out a deal that i would speak in spanish and they would speak in spanish to level the playing field a little. there was a live saxophonist there for a while who killed it and two dancers with fans and big red flowers in their hair to get everybody going. We decided to save the discoteca adventure for another night seeing as it's typically 20 euros to get in on weekends, but i've heard there are discounts during the week and college exams are ending this week here, so that should be pretty fun too. i'm signing up for the intercambio program with a student from the universidad de valencia tomorrow, and really hope i get a chance to go out with christina once she's done with exams so she can show me her favorite spots in valencia

so the past couple days have consisted of a lot of walking around trying to figure out and remember the road names. it's been really warm but a little over cast so the past two days i've been walking home after class and kind of exploring different routes (while trying to find an atm that'll take my card...). classes are really entertaining, we learn about phrases that are and aren't appropriate in different spanish speaking countries (don't say correrse here, or terminar in central or south america) and about colloquialisms and some slang phrases.

on tuesday night i played a pickup soccer game with some people in the program. i was expecting to be pretty awful cause i was never particularly talented and it's been about 2 or 3 years since i've played, but i actually kind of held my own, even when we were joined by two local guys who knew what they were doing. it was really nice to get out and run and stretch my legs and work up a sweat from something other than walking around in the heat. the heat really isn't as bad as i thought though, but maybe that's because the temperature displays are in celsius so i don't really know a reference point for them. it's typically pretty breezy here too so that takes off some of the edge. other than the occasional night time thunderstorm, which also helps to cool everything off, the weather here is pretty ideal.

last night was definitely the most fun i've had so far here. i went with two girls (samantha and lauren) to an american bar they found near their house where the owner, who's from buffalo new york, hosts an intercambio for spaniards learning english once or twice a week. so we got free drinks, they have their own microbrews, and free turkey and cream cheese sandwiches to just sit and talk to people in a little bit of spanish and a little bit of english. i spent about two hours with a guy named raul and a friend of his mary, who are both about 30. they were the sweetest people and they had the cutest american accents so that was entertaining in itself but it was funny to be on the other side of the language barrier for the first time over here. raul's english was pretty top notch and mary kind of struggled but they had obviously learned some key american words like "tipsy" because she kept dropping that one around a lot. also the phrase "i have to piss" is really popular apparently.

all three of us were split up with different groups of people but ended up having the best time with the people we met and are going to try to go back next week and meet up with the people we met. so we then catch a cab to head toward a flamenco bar near our school. talk about a crazy cab driver, he was blaring kelly clarkson and speeding around curves so we were all forced to play jello in the back seat. so we ended up missing the block we wanted so he proceeded to reverse through 3 blocks of traffic through stop lights and everything. it was one of those things where you feel invincible in a cab or else it would've been terrifying.

the flamenco was really fun, so much pride and personality in the dancers. it was a family of 6 and the two women were the mother and daughter, probably 60 and 35 years old respectively, and the men played guitar while the grandfather sang. after a few performances with fans and lots of wrist movements and some really quick footwork and a step performance that would make any college step team jealous, i got called on stage by one of the guitarists to dance with them and ended up doing the spanish version of dropping it with one of the waiters. and then the whole bar started dancing on the stage and in between tables and it was a blast.

we left after about 2 hours of that and went to a hole in the wall bar that served two beers for a euro, but was also the tiniest, hottest, smokiest place i've been so far. we talked with some local boys but didn't stay there long before heading to the centro to a place called the bolseria. again with the awesome music there, more spanish techno mashups of older american songs. oh and one song that i love right now that is a french song with accordions but a techno back beat that is oh so fun to dance to. i heard it the first time when we went back and had crepes at the feria de los naciones at the french tent.

got back a little late last night which made class a little tougher today, but so worth it since i took a great siesta all afternoon after lunch in the plaza near school. i'm getting more and more confident with my spanish, probably helped by my numerous encounters with bank representatives telling they don't know where i can find an atm to use my card. so now i'm just going to play the "let's see how long i can go on as little money as possible" game. it wouldn't be a summer in europe without that