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.