Poco a poco

The looming threat of finals on Friday, the poopy weather we've been having the past couple days, and the lack of wifi in my house/unreliability of the wifi at school have all combined to make Monday and Tuesday really, really boring. Here's what I did, in bullet form

• went to class (still have perfect attendance)
• played Plants vs. Zombies on my computer from the beginning and beat Adventure mode
• read an entire book (Graceling by Kristen Cashore, quick read for sure)
• went to an art museum with my art class -- interesting experience
• walked around a lot
• reloaded my bus card
• made "surrealist food"
• tried to write a blog post
• struggled in writing a blog post
• won a bet for a dollar
• hung out at Café de las Luces

Yep, that's about it. Last night was my last real night of going out in Valencia, and we had an excellent time. Nothing out of the ordinary, just El Castillo and High Cube, but we're at the point where we know exactly what we want to do when we go out and so we just do it. If that makes sense.

This morning in art we all shared our "surrealist food" or dadaist project... things. I still can't put a finger on how I feel about the class. We all have fun during class, I guess, but I feel like our professor thinks we hate him (mostly because he always asks why we hate him). Oh well. I've learned a decent amount, at least I think I have. Medical Spanish has taught me more vocabulary than I've ever wanted to know, so at least I'll have that when I go back to the states.

One of my suitcases has a broken handle, and I still haven't really gotten presents for anyone (sorry!), so I think Rach and I are gonna make a run to the mall tomorrow afternoon after we're done with finals. I can't believe I leave on Saturday. I'm excited to get back and see everyone, and have reliable high speed wifi (at least until I get to Charlottesville, because I totally just realized that we don't have an internet connection in our apartment yet oops), and drive my car, AND PAINT MY NAILS (it's been almost 5 weeks and I'm at the end of my rope), and pet my dogs, and annoy my sister, and be able to buy 20 ounces of coffee at a time.

I really am going to miss Valencia though. Here, I'll make another bulleted list of things I'll miss:

• my host mom and sister arguing
• Café de las Luces every day
• bocadillos
• small children and small dogs everywhere
• cheap coffee, cheap (legal) alcohol
• everyone around me speaking Spanish
• the weather
• my friends here
• exploring the city
• murcielago
• clubbing until 5/6/7 am
• siestas
• Ralf and company at the centro
• the weather
• did I mention the weather
• the excellent public transportation
• the pace of this city
• the lack of smartphones when not at home or school (everyone's less stressed and plugged in)

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can think of for now. Sorry my life isn't that exciting, but whatevs.

Hasta luego!

9 hours of sleep in 96 hours

Warning: this is going to be a MASSIVE entry. I'm putting headers in so you can read the parts you want to read and skip anything you may find boring (but my life is super interesting so you might as well read the whole thing).

Wednesday night: High Cube

After doing homework or maybe taking a nap or something to that effect, Kate, Erica, Rachel and I all went out to High Cube on Wednesday night. They were having some sort of event involving ties, I believe. Before going to High Cube, however, we went to El Castillo (as usual) to take advantage of their wonderful deals and avoid having to pay 8 euros for one drink at High Cube. On the way out, we somehow ended up talking to these two Spanish people -- both 18 years old and had just finished with their exams. They were hilarious and really really nice, and we had a drink with them at a different bar (since El Castillo had closed) before hopping in a cab and heading to the port.

I don't know if I've described High Cube before, but it's seriously so cool. The entire thing is basically a dock out on the water in the port. Which is awesome, because you don't get the whole in the club super sweaty everyone smells bad get me out of here effect that some places get. Anyway, we stayed there until probably 4 or 4:30 before finally heading home. Keep in mind this was a Wednesday night.

Thursday day: the struggle

In retrospect, I'm really impressed with the fact that I managed to get to class and survive through four hours of instruction on Thursday. Between classes, Will and I meandered over to Café de las Luces (as usual), where a very small dog peed on Will's backpack and I almost died laughing as a result. After I finished class, I met up with Jordan, Erin, Will, and Maggie, and we wandered around the old part of town for a little while -- Plaza de la Virgen, Plaza de la Reina, all that good stuff. We also went to a chocolate store and I finally got to try the famed churros and chocolate! They were delicious.

Thursday night: clubs on clubs

I eventually went home for dinner and laid in bed trying to decide whether I should go out or go to bed early in preparation for our 11 AM train on Friday morning. Obviously, I went out. Once again, we headed over to El Castillo to meet up with everyone. Rachel and I wanted to go to l'Umbracle again, since we had only been there once, but the general consensus was Las Animas, so we decided we'd just go with the group and see where we ended up.

Thankfully Las Animas was free admission, because it was honestly pretty terrible. They're really stingy about the number of people they let in at a time, and the result was this ridiculous most pit of people trying to get past INITIAL security -- basically the gate you go through to go wait at the gate where you pay your entry fee. Like I said though, we got in for free, so that was cool. It almost made up for the complete lack of anyone dancing and barely being able to hear the music (Las Animas is like a rooftop club, all open air, so if the music is low it just gets completely swallowed up by the sounds of the wind and people talking).

Everyone was kinda bummed about Las Animas sucking, so at around 3 or so we all decided to head out. Rachel and I immediately made the decision to continue our night and grab a cab over to l'Umbracle. This was an excellent choice. We got there, paid the entrance fee, and somehow met some French guys, and this Irish girl, that were all pretty cool. We spent a really long time trying to teach them how to curse in English, and they tried to teach us how to curse in French. It was a bit of a struggle, but hilarious nonetheless.

Eventually we all headed downstairs to the part of the club called Mya -- it usually has more dubstep-y type of music and stays busy a lot later. From then until 6:15 it was just a madhouse of dancing. Found some really funny British dudes and hung out with them for a while. I think Rach and I were just happy that we had taken our kind of lame night and completely turned it around. Anyways, at some point Rach went to the beach to see the sunrise and I walked back to my apartment with the Irish girl I had met before. Her name was Laura, so I knew she had to be cool. I eventually got in bed at 7:30, and proceeded to pass out.

Friday day: train, hostel, nap

I woke up at around 9:30 and rushed to pack and meet Rach at her apartment so we could go over to Joaquin Sorolla, the train station for the high-speed trains. We got to the station, got some breakfast (sort of), and hopped on the train for Barcelona at 11:05. I spent the entire train ride (a good 3 hours) trying to sleep, but I don't know if I ever actually managed to fall asleep. It was fine either way, I was just happy to be resting.

Our train got into Barcelona at around 3 o'clock, and Rachel and I took advantage of the free wifi at McDonald's to figure out where we were, and where our hostel was, and how to get there. After some struggles and detours to China stores (like dollar stores here) and Mercadona, we finally got to the hostel and met up with Adam, who had taken a 6 AM train to Barcelona and so had been there for a few hours already. Luke, on the other hand, was supposed to be on the same train as Rachel and me, but somehow missed it and so had to get on a later one. Either way, the three of us who were actually there checked into the hostel, went up to our room, and laid down to rest/nap until Luke got there.

Friday night: food, SONAR, taxi issues

Once we were all together, we decided that we should probably eat dinner before heading over to Sonar, so we took a bus to the old part of town (I think) and picked a restaurant and walked in. Our restaurant-picking skills were on point that night, because the food we ate was absolutely incredible. We chose to split two dishes among the four of us -- a creamy lobster and rice dish, and then a paella. And we splurged and got three desserts to share -- tiramisu, catalan creme brulee, and a chocolate molten lava cupcake thing. Once we finished, we asked one of the managers if he could tell us how to get to Sonar. He gave us some instructions involving a bus and a metro and we just ended up taking a taxi there.

Finally, we had made it to Sonar. Rach and I have been hyping this since like April or May when we had both committed to going on the trip, and it was so amazing to actually be there. The event location was really cool, it was basically four or five enormous interconnected rooms with a stage in each one. We got there a little early, around 9:30 or so, and walked through the whole place before going back to SonarClub, the stage where the first act was going on at 10:45.

While we were waiting for Kraftwerk, a German 4-man band that is basically the grandfather of all electronic music, this interesting duo of DJs called Raime was playing. Their style was very movie-soundtrack-esque, with lots of buildups and no dropping of beats. We decided that instead of dropping beats, Raime just kind of gently sets the beats down so they don't break. It was a very frustrating 30 minutes, but eventually Kraftwerk came on. Their show had a 3D screen behind it, so everyone got 3D glasses at the entrance to the venue. It was hilarious to see thousands of people all rocking those at the same time. Kraftwerk was pretty good, I prefer my music with more beats and less weird singing, but they really were one of the biggest influences on today's dance and electro, so it was cool to see them in person.

We left Kraftwerk at 11:30 or so to go over to a different stage (don't remember the name of that one, SonarLab maybe?) and see a dude called Nicholas Jaar, who was awesome. His stuff went between being really chill and relaxed to just absolutely insane, and I really enjoyed his set. We were pretty far back from the stage, but that was actually nice because we didn't get completely smushed by the crowds. Once his set ended, we headed back to SonarClub to check out Baauer.

Let me just say that I personally was completely unprepared for how absolutely sick Baauer was live. I knew he had Harlem Shake and that's fine, but I wasn't really expecting to be blown away. I was completely wrong. We walked in and most of the lights were on and people were just going crazy dancing everywhere. Of course, that's our kind of concert entirely, so we wove our way through the crowd and went crazy with the rest of the world. Baauer knows exactly how to work the crowd, and some of the stuff that he did was completely insane. I've never enjoyed a single artist so much. His set ran until 2:00, and I was sad to see him go.

That sadness didn't last long though, because immediately after Baauer it was time for Major Lazer. Their show had a very different feel to it than Baauer -- they had on-stage dancers and a lot of lights and fancy things, while Baauer was just a dude with his table. Anyways, Major Lazer also killed it. They were big on hyping up and interacting with the audience, which I found pretty cool. Also at one point Diplo got in a giant hamster ball thing and crowdsurfed/ran all the way to the back of the audience and then back to the stage (I think I have a video of that somewhere, now that I think about it). They had an awesome set, and ended at 3:15, at which point we decided that we needed water more than we needed to see Alvin Risk, so we bought some bottles and went to find a place to sit down.

The rooms that didn't have any shows going on in them had turned into little mini refugee camp looking things by this point. There were drunk people everywhere, people on harder drugs just kind of wandering around, this one girl cried for like an hour... it was ridiculous. We also saw one guy getting arrested/carried away while his crying girlfriend followed after him. It was definitely a good idea to just pause and take a little break for a while, plus we could still sort of hear Alvin Risk from the room we were in so we didn't really miss that much.

Skrillex was scheduled to go on at 4:15 so at around 4 we left our camp and headed back into SonarClub to find a spot. We stayed pretty far back for his set, which was fine with me because at that point my feet were trying to leave my body and I was a little danced out. BUT, Skrillex also put on a great show and had this really cool spaceship looking stage thing. Also he had some sick lasers.

After Skrillex, Diplo came on at 5:30. We stuck around for 10, maybe 15 minutes before decided that we had experienced enough and were ready to call it quits. After walking around a puddle of what I'm pretty sure was the contents of an overturned portapotty (yum) and weaving through crowds of people, we finally exited Sonar, 8 hours after entering. We tried to grab a taxi, but the taxi drivers were doing this AWESOME THING where if you lived too far away for their liking, they would just say "No" and drive away. So it took us almost an hour to find a taxi driver that would take us back to the hostel.

Saturday: Sagrada Familia, Park Güell, and heading home

After showering off and sleeping for an hour or so, we began our touristy day in Barcelona. We all headed down for breakfast at around 9:30 or so (the hostel included breakfast -- if you're ever in Barcelona I would definitely Alberg Pere Tarres Youth Hostel) and planned out the rest of our day. We decided on Sagrada Familia first and Park Güell second. Both of them were designed by Gaudí, one of the coolest architects ever.

I saw the Sagrada Familia when I was in Barcelona last time, but they've completed so much more of it in the past three years. The entire left side of the church I'm pretty sure is new (I could be completely wrong though). We didn't want to pay to go inside, and the outside is absolutely gorgeous as it is, so we finished taking pictures and hopped on the metro again to go to Park Güell.

It took a little bit of time to get our bearings once we got off the metro station, and some nice people carrying a TV helped us find the escalators up to the top of the hill where the back entrance to the park is. I'm glad we went in that way -- last time I was there our tour bus dropped us off right at the front, we saw the chameleon and the columns and all of the important stuff, but this time we spent a long time wandering around the paths up at the top of the park and seeing a lot of really cool sights. The park is so high up that you can see Barcelona perfectly from multiple places inside it. We also met some Australian girls that hung out with us for a while in the park. Near the end of our park adventure, we sat down in a cave-thing and listened to a guitar-violin duet (they were incredible).

After Park Güell, we ate lunch at a restaurant right next to the park and eventually made our way to a metro station to get back to the hostel. We had already checked out, so we just kind of hung out in the lobby area (free wifi what up) and played cards and made friends with this Australian dude. Also, the hostel was nice enough to let us leave our stuff in storage there all day while we wandered around the city.

Our train for Valencia left at 7:30, and since we weren't on the high speed train it took a whopping 3 and a half hours instead of only 3. Is my sarcasm working? Because Spaniards don't understand sarcasm so I feel like I might be getting out of practice. Anyway, our train got into Valencia at around 11, and I eventually got home, showered, and completely passed out for a solid twelve hours. It wasn't until after I woke up that I realized I had slept for 9 hours between Wednesday morning and Saturday night.

Sunday day: the aftermath

I woke up a few times this morning and considered getting out of bed each time, but eventually decided to get up at 12, at which point I finally sat down and started writing this massive blog post. Mi madre and sister got back from shopping at around 2, and we had lunch together before everyone went off to siesta, which is what I'm about to do right now.

This weekend was insane. I'm so stoked we got to go to Sonar and see all of those amazing artists, and I was really happy to get to tour Barcelona again, since last time I went we got straight off the train from Paris and did Sagrada Familia and Park Güell in like two hours.

My feet are definitely feeling the events of the past four days (they're definitely swollen but it's going down) and I'm like 90% sure I picked up whatever sickness Rachel and/or Luke had/have -- pretty much everyone in the program is sick at this point though, and the Mediterranean sun does a good job of beating the sick out of you so I'm not worried.

Today begins my last week in Valencia, so I'm going to try to do as much as I can in these next five or six days. I can't believe how quickly time has flown. Keep an eye out for pictures from this weekend, I'll try to upload them after a nice long nap.

Hasta luego!

¿Has cenado?

Nothing really exciting happened today, so I'll take this as another chance to talk about something that's really different between Spain and the States: food.

First, breakfast. In the States, it's a big deal. Americans love brunch. We love coffee and waffles and bacon and eggs and IHOP and orange juice and the whole production of breakfast in bed and all that fun awesome stuff. In Spain, breakfast (el desayuno) is exactly that -- break "des" fast "ayunas". A cup of coffee if you're lucky like I am, and a couple mini muffin things, and that's it. Maybe an apple to eat on the way to school or work, but even that is rare. So that´s thing number one.

Next up, lunch. LUNCH IS A BIG DEAL IN SPAIN. It's the biggest meal of the day, honestly. Both size-wise and importance-wise. Usually businesses close around 2:00 so everyone can go home for comida y siesta. Oh yeah, that's another thing you don´t learn in Spanish 1 back in high school -- "almuerzo" is like an afternoon snack, and "comida" is the real deal. With my class schedule I don't have enough time to go back and eat during the afternoon, so my madre packs me a bocadillo (like a sub, but usually just with meat and cheese or tortilla de patata like I had today) to take to school with me and eat there. But anyway, everyone goes home and chows down on a huge lunch and then rests and digests for a little bit and then businesses open back up around 5 or so and close at 8 or 9. Which brings us to...

La cena, or "dinner". Since la comida is so much later in the day than traditional lunchtime in the states, it sort of pushes everything else back a little bit too. And, as I have heard Rachel explain to people probably sixteen times, people around the world generally eat dinner when the sun goes down, and the sun here literally does not go down until 10 PM. Which is awesome. SO, with la comida y siesta and businesses staying open until 9 and the sun not going down until 10, la cena is generally around 9 or so. Before 8 PM, absolutely unheard of. In my casa we usually eat between 8:30 and 9:30, but I've sat down to dinner at 10:15 and it's totally normal.

So with everything pushed back so far and people not even done eating until 10 PM, what does that all mean when it comes to going out at night? It means that we don't even leave until midnight. Which, for Rachel and me, is completely normal cause that's how we roll in Charlottesville anyway. However, all of the establishments here have completely adapted to this whole schedule thing that we have going on, and so, as I have mentioned before, nothing really gets going until 2 or 3 AM. Cool, right?

One last thing though -- since nothing gets crazy before 2 AM and you don´t even get home until after 6 AM, you´d think maybe people sleep in or something to make up for it. Nope, you just get right back up at 8 AM even if you've only had two hours of sleep, and you chug your coffee and eat your mini muffins and grab your bocadillo and continue on your way.

Hasta luego!

Chicken or egg?

I'm going to attempt to articulate something that has been on my mind for a while while being in Spain, and it probably is just going to be a massive brain fart so I apologize in advance. Adding to this that my English has been steadily worsening, I'm honestly expecting this to not be understandable but we'll see where it goes.

Behind the scenes info for anyone not familiar with money or euro notes or whatever (if you already know then totally skip this). As of right this second when I just googled it, 1 USD is equal to .75 EUR; so 1 EUR is equal to 1.33 USD. In addition to the difference in value, there are few key other distinctions that make each currency unique. You can get USD in coin denominations of .01, .05, .10, .25, .50 (rare), and 1 (but everyone hates dollar coins); bill denominations of 1, 2 (rare again), 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100. Euro coins come in .01, .02, .05, .10, .20, .50, 1, and 2; bills come in 5, 10, 20, 50, and then 100, 200, and 500 for larger denominations (I personally have never seen with my eyes a note larger than 50).

Euro coins by themselves are a really awesome thing, compared to coins in the States. If I'm rummaging through my backpack in the library in Charlottesville and come across three quarters, I'll probably throw them in my parking meter fund and forget about it. What am I supposed to get for 75 cents? Half a bagel at Greenberry's? An almost-refill of coffee? An hour of parking behind Clark is about as good as it gets. Accounting for the exchange rate, however, if I open up my wallet here and see a euro coin, which is value-wise exactly equivalent to those quarters, it is AWESOME. That's two cups of coffee, or three loaves of bread, or 2 liters of water, or a shot or beer at El Castillo. That little coin is worth so much more than its monetary equivalent in the States.

With that said, the question that I have is kind of a mess and not really easy to articulate. First, why are things so much "cheaper" here than they are in the US? Even without accounting for exchange, the idea of buying anything for a dollar back home is absolutely laughable, unless it's Survivor Hour at Bilt in which case go for it. A single euro can take you so much further (farther? I never remember which one) than a dollar can. Something I think seems kind of related is the whole tax thing in the States -- when you see the ticket price for a cup of coffee, you mentally add in that extra little bit of tax and adjust accordingly. Yeah no, if your coffee is a euro twenty (the price of a café americano at Café de Las Luces, my favorite place ever), it's a euro twenty. So you hand over a dollar coin and a twenty cent coin and it's cool and you go on your way and come back tomorrow and it's the same song and dance all over again.

So. I am obviously not an econ major but I think all of this is probably economy based. Why is a cup of coffee here a euro twenty and like three or four dollars in the States? (Keep in mind Spain does kind of suck economically right now and I'm totally aware of that). AND, and and and, I believe this is my main question, does the cheapness of things lead to greater need and/or use of the 1 and 2 euro coins, or does the presence of the 1 and 2 euro coins lead to lower prices due to the convenience of carrying around lots of value in a tiny chunk of metal? This is like the whole chicken and egg thing only the question of the gallinas can be easily answered. Aaaaand we have a title for this blog post.

Does any of this even make sense? Once I get back to Charlottesville I know I'm going to take a look at all of these and laugh at how absurd my English sounds, because I already know that I'm using Spanish grammatical constructions in place of English ones but I can't help it.

Also, we watched Planta Cuarta in Medical Spanish and I was SO EXCITED to get to see it again. We watched it in my Spanish film class last fall (any Spanish majors or even just normal UVA people reading this TAKE THAT CLASS if you can because it's honestly one of the best classes I've ever taken and that's saying a lot) so I got to skip the whole "what's going on what is this plot why are they bald wow their accents are thick" and notice a lot more things that I didn't see the first time around. Also I'm supposed to come up with a cubist painting/drawing/creation for art class tomorrow which I completely haven't started but I'm pretty sure I could sneeze on a piece of paper and talk about how I deconstructed reality and put it back together in a way that looked like a still life and Enrique would totally buy it. Tempting.

Hasta luego!

Getting lost in Spain: Madrid edition

Every time I think I've had the best day ever, another absolutely amazing day pops up to prove me wrong. This weekend in Madrid was no exception.

Friday night after dinner we (Me, Rach, TeJota, Luke, and Will) went to a discoteca called Kapital. I'm going to do my best to describe it, but words honestly don't do it justice. The place was absolutely crazy. It's a seven floor club with a different style of music for each floor -- the bottom floor was your typical electro/dance/EDM stuff, there was a floor with all hip hop, a floor with Latin music, a karaoke floor that we apparently missed, and a bunch more that I honestly can't remember. We rolled up around 1:30, I think, and proceeded to absolutely lose our minds on the first floor, after running around to check out all of the other floors. At some point everyone started cheering and I turned around to see the main stage and a dude with an ELECTRIC VIOLIN was standing up there, and he started playing CANON IN D and this entire seething crowd of bodies just went completely crazy. I don't remember exactly when it happened but Rach and I realized at the exact same time that he had ended that song and started DON'T YOU WORRY CHILD -- no one around us really realized what song it was, but we were standing there screaming the words and everyone eventually caught on and proceeded to lose it once again and you could feel everyone getting hype for the beat to drop and RIGHT as it did, the coolest part of Kapital happened -- they have a system that blasts freezing cold air and fog and some sort of smelly stuff into the center of the dance floor to both cool everyone off and make it smell less like sweat and dancing and help everyone go insane. I know that entire last part was word vomit, but it was honestly incredible.

So yeah, Kapital, and electric violin guy, and the air fog thing, all of those things combined to form an incredible night. I think we ended up leaving at 5:30 -- Luke and Rach had both disappeared so it was just TeJota and Will and I at that point I believe. Our wake up call Saturday morning was at 8 AM, which was really great considering I went to sleep at 6:15 or so. I may or may not have skipped breakfast in favor of sleeping until 9:15, and eventually mustered the willpower and strength to throw some clothes on and make it downstairs by 9:30 to catch the bus over to the Prado.

Going to the Prado made me so completely stoked that I chose to take Modern Spanish Art, and also made me appreciate just how awesome my art professor really is. He's been asking us if we mind if he teaches us about Spanish painters that aren't technically "modern" -- namely Velázquez and Goya -- and I'm so happy he did, because I got to see all of the paintings we've talked about in class, and since my professor cares more about the stories behind the paintings rather than memorizing medium, artist, and date, I had a much greater appreciation for everything that I was seeing that I think I would have otherwise. I almost lost my mind when we finally got to the gallery that had Goya's pinturas negras in it -- in the last years of his life, Goya was living alone in this old house, he was deaf, he was depressed, he had lived through a war, all of his friends were dead, and so he painted these images on the walls of his house that are somewhat disturbing and somewhat enthralling and one hundred percent portray all of the parts of humanity that no one ever wants to talk about. They're incredible. But anyway, the Prado was sick and I'm really happy I got to go. We also chose to do the guided tour in Spanish, which was another excellent decision because the lady giving the tour was the same one that we had for the Palacio Real on Friday, only when she speaks Spanish she's much more animated and interested in what's going on. At least that's how it seemed to me.

After the Prado, we had a bus tour of the city, which really gave me a feel for the sheer size of it. I guess it is the capital of Spain, but I honestly had no idea what it was going to be like considering before this trip the only place in Spain I had been to was Barcelona. We got to see most of the major landmarks in the city, including the bullfighting arena which was gorgeous. The bus dropped us off at Plaza Mayor, which is in an awesome location and is close to a ton of shops and restaurants and cool things. At this point the crew consisted of me, TeJota, Luke, and Will, and the four of us wandered around and ate stuff and saw stuff and got rained on and ate more stuff and went to this AWESOME market called El Mercado de San Miguel, where we ate anchovies in oil and vinegar (side note: my English is such a struggle right now and it took me six tries to spell vinegar right), and then we found a pastry shop and got some cream filled pastry things and I think you get the picture. Eventually we decided to try to head home, got completely turned around, turned ourselves back around, and got back to the hotel for a siesta at around 5 PM. The original plan was to sleep for an hour, rally, and then go check out more stuff, but that was a complete failure and everyone woke up at 8 PM.

After a lot of effort trying to make a decision for where to go out, we all realized we should probably eat dinner, and wandered around for a bit trying to find a place before finally settling down at a restaurant pretty close to our hotel. Our waiter was this dude, probably in his late 30's or so, that was super nice and very funny AND GUESS WHAT he lived in Charlottesville for 3 years not too long ago and we got to talk to him about that for a while. The world truly is a small place. Oh yeah, and Will and I decided that since our anchovy adventure had turned out so well before (we had picked something on the menu that we didn't understand and hoped for the best), we would do the same thing for dinner. The food came out and looked suspiciously organ-like, but the sauce it was in was spicy and delicious and we had enough bread, so we ate it first and asked our waiter what it was once we had finished -- yeah, it was pig stomach. Possibly also intestines, the waiter just kind of patted his stomach and laughed. I guess this will be my story for "weirdest thing I've ever eaten" unless something weirder comes along!

Dinner ended and we spent a little bit of time with our good friend Don Simón and decided to try to go to an ice bar, which apparently was a bar literally made out of ice. TeJota decided to sleep instead of come out with us, so at this point it was me, Rach, Luke, and Will. We hopped in a taxi with a really cool taxi driver and got dropped off at the ice bar, but it was 15 euro to get in and the place seemed kind of dead, so we did a quick 180 and went to check out the area of town that we had ended up in (I think it was called Las Letras?). We asked for suggestions from some really excited dudes in a cafe, and proceeded to completely ignore their advice and instead go to this completely crowded kind of crappy bar whose only saving grace was the bowl of pork rinds sitting on the bartop that we completely crushed while waiting for drinks. Unfortunately, the struggle became more and more real and we ended up back at the hotel before 2 AM, which may be some sort of lame record.

That brings us all the way to today. The wake up call this morning was at 9 AM, which was heaven compared to yesterday. Also, I got 7 hours of sleep as compared to 2 the night before, so I was loving it. I also got the chance to eat breakfast in the hotel, which for me consisted of a ton of pineapple, some bread, and far too little coffee. I also had the pleasure of hearing all about the shenanigans that the guys got into after we all got back last night, but some things are blog-worthy and others aren't, so I'm gonna leave that one up to y'all's imagination.

On the itinerary for today was Reina Sofía, the modern art museum named after the current Queen of Spain. There was a huge exhibit for Dalí, but you had to pay to get in and we were cool with just seeing the stuff that we had free passes for, so we just stayed in the main part of the museum. There was a lot of Picasso in the museum, along with a lot of really, REALLY strange pieces of art that I am obviously not cultured enough to understand, let alone appreciate. It was still cool though; we got to see Guernica, which is arguably Picasso's most important painting -- he painted it after a town in the Basque Country (northern Spain) by the same name was bombed during the Spanish Civil War. It's absolutely enormous, and honestly a very impressive and moving piece. Maybe I am cultured enough to understand modern art, who knows.

I think I would have appreciated Reina Sofía a little more if we had done it before the Prado, but it was definitely worth the trip. Afterwards, we had free time until 4:00, so Rach Will and I walked around Madrid for a while, and got lunch at Café Gijón, which is this place where the "intellectuals" -- writers, journalists, artists, scholars -- of the Generation of '36 used to gather and do intellectual things. We had gazpacho, which was delicious, and eventually finished up and wandered back to where we were supposed to meet the bus. It's four hours from Madrid to Valencia, and the first two hours consisted of some serious nappage. We made a quick stop at what may be the coolest rest are ever, and then hopped back on the bus and watched Deja Vu, this movie with Denzel Washington in it. It was actually kind of funny now that I think about it, but we watched Disturbia on the way to Madrid and while everyone enjoyed it, it was nothing compared to today. The entire bus was completely invested in the movie, complete with ooohs and aaahs and swearing and cheering and the whole deal. I don't know if that was the reason I enjoyed it so much or what, but it was an awesome bus ride. We got dropped off at the Plaza del Ajuntamiento, which is basically the center of old town, and Rach and I hopped on a bus and headed back to our respective homes.

All in all, this weekend was solid in every sense of the word. I had an awesome time looking at museums and going to touristy places and wandering around the city (actually, today might be the first day that I didn't get lost at ALL while walking around). With that, the weather in Madrid is kind of lame, and by lame I mean cold, and by cold I mean 65 degrees. We got back to Valencia and it was sunny and gorgeous and warm and it made me so happy that this is where we live. I'm definitely not excited about the presentation I have to give in Medical Spanish on Tuesday, but I guess I'll get around to it tomorrow at some point. Only four days of class this week, and then on Friday we're going to Barcelona for Sónar, a huge annual music and arts festival where we're seeing a concert that runs from 10 PM - 7 AM and features artists such as SKRILLEX AND DIPLO AND MAJOR LAZER AND BAAUER and if you can't tell I'm really stoked. So yep. That was my weekend.

Hasta luego!

MADRID!

Alright, let's do this. 

After a really uneventful week filled with midterms and sleeping, our weekend in Madrid has finally begun. 

Last night we decided to go out to celebrate being done with midterms, and went to a really cool club called Las Animas over in the port. It's an open air club on the roof of a building, and it was actually pretty sweet. We also took advantage of El Castillo once again, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed dollar chupitos and dollar cervezas. 

After a solid three and a half hours of sleep, we hopped on the bus to Madrid! It took four or so hours of driving to get there, and we stopped once to eat lunch and get coffee and pastry things. I'm pretty sure the mayoria of people just slept, and I definitely crushed a nap or two. 

Once we got into down, we went straight to the Palacio Real for a guided tour. You weren't allowed to take ANY pictures, which was really frustrating because it's seriously gorgeous on the inside. Literally every single room has a completely different color scheme and design, and even the "less important" rooms are crazy ornate. The royal family doesn't live there anymore (I think our guide said that once Franco came into power the royal family stopped living there). 

After the tour, we got back on the bus and went over to our hotel. Rach and I are sharing a room (hooray!) on the fifth floor, and Will Luke and TeJota are sharing a room on the floor below us. 

Rachel and I took a nap immediately after we got here, and the guys went to explore around a little bit. The five of us went to this AWESOME restaurant for dinner at around 9 or so. They make everything in house, and everything we had was delicious -- a potato egg ham dish, a salmon red pepper blue cheese dish, a tortilla (that's like a potato pie sort of thing) with onions and goat cheese, and a plate of all-legs calamari. And a bottle of wine. 

We swung by a little store on the way back to the hotel, and we're currently listening to music, digesting, and preparing for what should be a really fun night. We have tentative plans to go to Kapital, a seven floor discoteca that my host sister and multiple other people said is a MUST go to place. Vamos a ver. 

Hasta luego!

Keyboards

This is just going to be a quick little post before Medical Spanish.

I don't know why it never occurred to met that it would be this way, but Spanish keyboards are completely not the same as American keyboards. Duh, we speak two different languages, but still, it's really awful. Well, awful is an exaggeration, but still. The wifi here is decent sometimes, but when todo el mundo is trying to make it work on their laptops and cell phones and everything, it goes super slow and they have to reset it a lot. However, we have like 20 communal desktops that we can use if we need to, which is what I'm doing right now (I have a presentation in Medical Spanish on Tuesday and since I'm going to Madrid this weekend I figured I should maybe get some work done on it before Monday).

So yeah, keyboards. None of the symbols are in the same place, like the ' is where the - should be and the - is where the ? should be and there's a ç button right where the enter should be... there's a button for ñ and a easy access button to put á é í ó ú accents on things. And in addition to Ctrl and Alt, there is also a button called Alt Gr that you use to make a third symbol with some of the keys -- for example, the button next to the P does ` if you hit it normally, ^ if you use it with shift, and [ if you use Alt Gr.

That's all really. I'll try to write some more later today when I'm not busy with other homeworky stuff. This week was full of midterms for everyone so it wasn't very exciting, unfortunately.

Hasta luego!

Fotos de Peñíscola

El castillo

La playa

La papa

#selfienation

The view from the top of the castle

Sangria y agua de Valencia

Crawfish brains mmmm

Oh yeah and Tejota got pooped on by a bird 

Sunburn for days

This weekend was seriously one of the best I've ever had, even if I'm sunburned on my back so badly that I can barely sit down and/or carry my backpack around.

Friday night a bunch of us went out for tapas, and they were as good as everyone had made them out to be. If you don't know how tapas works, it's pretty simple: there's a huge buffet-style lineup of slices of bread that have various stuff on top of them. You grab a plate and pick the ones you want. Every individual piece has one of three toothpicks in it, and each toothpick is priced differently -- I think the prices were 1.35, 1.70, and 2.00 depending on which toothpick you got. So anyways, you just pick the ones you want and hang out for as long as you want to, and at the end you just take your toothpicks up to the front and pay for what you ate. They also have sangria, so of course we were all over that. It's 10 euros for a liter, AND it's delicious, so you really can't go wrong.

After tapas on Friday, I went home and showered before meeting up with Rachel so we could go over to Will's side of town to check out the bars and clubs over there. We met up and walked up towards the train station and called Will to make sure we were going the right way (in retrospect we shouldn't have done that at all since that just ended up screwing us over), and he gave us some directions that we completely misinterpreted. So, instead of crossing in front of the train tracks and going, I don't know, four or so blocks down to meet Will and Ben and Sergi, we walked ALL THE WAY BACK DOWN our side of the train tracks, through a parking lot, the sidewalk ended, crossed a bridge that said "PELIGROSO" "ILEGAL" "NO SE USA", thought we were going to die, pretty sure we saw some drug deals, got stared at by sketchy teenagers in alleyways, and eventually found our way to the guys after a solid hour, hour and a half of wandering around Valencia. This appears to be a common theme in my life.

It all turned out fine in the end though, and we headed up to Barrio Carmen to see what kind of stuff was going on. Found a couple of fun clubs, and ended up at one that played mostly old school American music (Greased Lightening, among others that I can't remember, but seriously it was all American stuff). Those places are a time sucker though -- by the time we left there it was probably around 4 or so? We left and were going to check out somewhere else, and a promoter-type guy came up and told us about his club or whatever, so we decided we would go check it out. Now, normally these places are at the most a block or so away, but this one was a good ten, fifteen minute walk... First bad omen. We eventually got there and went downstairs and it was mad sketchy, and Sergi took one look around and said "Peligroso" (dangerous), and since he's actually from Valencia we decided that we could sit this one out and we all flew back up the stairs and out. We hung out by the bullfighting arena/train station for a little longer, and at around 5 parted ways and headed home. I'm really glad Rach and I live so close together, since it makes going home late at night way less terrifying (not that it's terrifying, but walking anywhere at 5 am is always a little frightening).

Saturday morning we left for Peñíscola at 11am. It was absolutely GORGEOUS, I'll put some pictures up later today. We spent a few hours at the beach, and then went up to the castle overlooking the city. After taking far too many pictures and spending far too much time laughing at absolutely stupid things, we went to a little café and got some sangria, paella, and agua de Valencia. I didn't actually eat any of the paella, because I had eaten my bocadillo pretty recently, but the sangria and agua were quite delicious.

After getting home from Peñíscola and surveying my lovely sunburn, Rach and I headed over to meet Kate and Erica at a place near school called El Castillo (I think...) where you can get a chupito or cerveza for 1 euro, which is crazy cheap. The bartenders kind of suck, but they don't make tips here, so there isn't that extra incentive to provide excellent service. Working in the foodservice industry, I can't decided which system I like better. In the States, you really have to make an effort to be nice to everyone, and you have the chance to make a lot more money than you would ever make here as a bartender. But you also might get a shitty table, or multiple shitty tables, or it could be a really slow Wednesday night and you only get two tables, and on those days you basically make nothing. At least here you're guaranteed some amount of money (technically we are too in the States, but let's be real that all goes to taxes).

After El Castillo the five of us (Phillip showed up eventually) grabbed a couple taxis and went down to check out the club scene down at the beach. We went to a place called High Cube for a little bit, and then wanted to go to Las Animas. Apparently if you go in before 2:30 it's free, but of course we were unable to take advantage of that little perk. We waited in line and ended up talking to these crazy British people the entire time. It was definitely amusing; we got in line right behind them and after about a minute one of them turned around and said something to the effect of "YOU'RE SPEAKING ENGLISH ARE YOU FROM AMERICA OH THIS IS GREAT". Apparently they had all been here 6 months to a year, so they also all spoke Spanish decently. We didn't end up going to Las Animas, and decided to head back to High Cube, but on the way we ran into a few people from Scotland. Well, one of them was from either Edinborough or Glasgow -- he was appalled that we didn't know the difference between the two but I never actually found out where he was from -- but the other one was from Reno, Nevada and spoke with a strange accent that was half laxbro and half Scottish bagpipe player. At some point we found Will, wandering alone out of High Cube, so we scooped him up and all sort of just walked into the club. Totally cool with not having to pay though. We ended up going home at 5 or so, once again.

Sunday was interesting, mostly because all of my electronic devices died and so our plans to go to the beach at noon completely failed due to the fact that I didn't wake up until around 2. Rach was apparently convinced that I was dead, but I actually was not. After eating lunch I hopped on the bus and headed to the beach to meet up with Rach, Kate, and Erica. We tanned and napped and chatted for a few hours, and at 6 got on a bus to the city center to go back and have tapas (seriously guys, tapas). Apparently there was this huge religious festival thing going on with candles and large fake people and turtles and wolf-dragons, so walking back through the crowds was an experience. Oh, and we got some ice cream at some point too. So yeah.

We meandered back through the city to get back home, and I think I got home around 9:15 or 9:30. I was planning on staying up and doing my homework, but I'm pretty sure I passed out at around 10... oops. However, that meant that I was able to wake up at 7:30 and head to school way early so I could finish it before class. Which brings me to where I am right now, sitting in the cafeteria, wishing I had more coffee, and trying to kill the next half hour of time that I have before I have to go to art. I'll probably end up studying for my supermegahorrible medical Spanish midterm that I have tomorrow. Or I might head down towards the Mercadona (one of the grocery store chains here) to get something to eat for lunch, because my madre was mysteriously not awake that I could tell when I left for class this morning. Vamos a ver.

Hasta luego!

Yes Grandma, I'm still alive

Well, things have definitely gotten more interesting since Tuesday!

Classes are going well -- midterms start next week, but I feel like we've barely had class... I'm not worried about art (seriously, we just have to be able to describe how the colors in the paintings make us feel and stuff like that), and Medical Spanish isn't going to be as awful as I originally had thought, since most of the medical terms are things I've already learned thanks to Kinesiology.

I want to take a second to appreciate how amazing the weather is here. Even when it's chilly or windy or less than 80 degrees (which it isn't often), it's still gorgeous. The sun is pretty much always shining. The people here are always happy. It's a great place to be going to university, and I'm sure it's an amazing place to live for an extended period of time.

So, I suppose a quick rundown of the past two days is in order.

Wednesday: definitely a day for homework. I spent a good chunk of the afternoon studying for Medical Spanish and trying to cut chunks out of my enormous list of vocabulary. We've also found an awesome little cafe really close to the school, so between my morning and afternoon class a few of us always head over there and have a café and tell awful jokes and eat our bocadillos before heading back to la universidad para finish all of our studying (except TJ, because he NEVER HAS HOMEWORK). We also discovered this wonderful store called "Quality Beers" -- it's exactly what it sounds like. They have beers from all over Europe, including some locally brewed stuff, and they also have an America section (woo) with a ton of IPAs from California, and also Sam Adams Boston Lager, of course. The Quality Beers people were super nice and told us we spoke Spanish well, so that was awesome too. A bunch of us were supposed to meet up for tapas, but Will and I somehow got turned around a little bit while walking there and everyone had already finished by the time we met up with them. I think we're trying to go again to a different tapas place tonight, so I might actually get a chance to try something.

Thursday: SUPERGUAY. Went to class, went to the café, went to my other class, and received a text from TJ as I was leaving class that simply said "Come 2 beach". Of course, I "went 2 beach", but it took a solid hour and a half to run home, say hi to my madre, drop my stuff off, go catch the bus to the beach, and then find everyone. But, when I got there, everyone had just started playing beach volleyball so that was awesome. We're all pretty awful, but it was more awful in a hilarious way. After we finished that, we hung out in the water for a little bit (THE WATER IS AWESOME, it's a bit saltier than the Atlantic so you can float really well, and it's really shallow for a decent distance out, so you can go out pretty far without drowning. We all headed home to eat dinner, and Rach, Katerina, Jane and I ended up meeting up at Beer to hang out and see our favorite bartender, Fani. She ended up talking to us for a while about her life and her son and her family, and she is seriously such an interesting person. She was saying how her son is about to start preschool this year, and she's singing him up for English classes in the afternoons so that he can have the opportunity to learn English at a young age (she speaks Spanish and Italian, but only a tiny bit of English), and I found that so awesome. I guess in the States we really take knowing English for granted, but don't really think about the fact that it's so widespread as far as business goes. Lots of Spanish people are really excited when they find out you speak English -- they all want to practice their speaking. Of course, that doesn't help when we're here to practice our Spanish, but whatever. I think it helps break down language barriers when both parties in a conversation know two of the same languages instead of one person knowing one language and the other person knowing two -- it's easier to look for words that both people know because you have access to two people's entire vocabularies in two different languages. If that makes sense.

So yep, that's been my week so far. I have my second class of the day in... sixteen minutes. I was going to study, but that sort of didn't happen. Oh well. I'm excited for it to be the weekend -- we're going to Peñíscola tomorrow so that's an entire day at the beach yay! And probably studying on Sunday, since I have exams at the beginning of the week.

Hasta luego!

No me gustan los martes

I've always said that Tuesdays are worse than Mondays, and no one ever agrees with me. Here's my reasoning: you're prepared for Monday to suck. You're coming off the high of two full days without having to go to school or work or whatever, you probably did really cool and/or fun stuff over the course of those two days, and on Sunday night you begrudgingly get into bed knowing full well that tomorrow you have to stumble into the shower and try to become a real person again. Maybe you almost get run over by a car (not like I'm speaking from experience at all because that TOTALLY didn't happen yesterday), or go the wrong way on the metro, or walk around in the rain and get a weird blister on your foot, but you don't care because you blame it on it being Monday.

Tuesdays, however, Tuesdays are sneaky. You're so happy when Monday is over and done with, and you're excited to be one day closer to the next weekend, but really you're still closer to the last weekend than the next one. Tuesday is like Monday, except instead of coming down from your awesome weekend high, you're slowly struggling up from your awful Monday, and you're still three whole days away from the weekend. So yeah, Tuesdays, not my favorite.

Not to say that today sucked, but it was the first really normal day that I've had here -- I woke up, I went to class, I ate lunch, I did some homework, I went to class, I went home, I ate dinner, and I did some more homework. I think it was good though, because I finally got some time to unwind while actually being awake (I've been doing all of my unwinding while asleep up until now), and once I finished my muscle-labeling worksheets for Medical Spanish, it almost felt like a normal Tuesday night stuck at home with nothing to do except waste time on the computer. I know I should be exploring the city or putting my time to good use by learning the eight hundred thousand vocab words I'm going to need to know for my Medical Spanish midterm next week, but I have six more days (I think) until that exam, so I'm just gonna leave it for now.

Tomorrow I promise I'll do something more interesting. I'm just blaming today's overall lackluster on it being a Tuesday.

Hasta luego!

Vale vale vale vale vale

Yesterday was Sunday (I think... I can't keep track of the days. Yes. Sunday) and Valencia c.f. played Granada c.f. -- those are soccer/fútbol teams in case you were wondering. A bunch of us, probably ten, maybe fifteen, bought tickets to the game and all ended up sitting together ten or so rows back, right on the corner of the field. Now, if you've ever been to a D.C. United game and you're thinking oh cool wow soccer how fun NOT, let me just say that on a Sunday night at 8:00, the stadium was almost completely full. It was amazing. Rachel and I bought Valencia tee shirts (actually pajama shirts, shhhh) and huge flags and wore them like capes, and as cliché as it sounds, it was really awesome to really feel like a part of this huge city. There was an adorable little boy behind me sitting with his dad and he kept asking questions like "cuando eras joven, eras futbolista?" y "papí, vamos a ganar, SI? SI? SI?" and his dad was super patient and answered every question, even if it was the fourth time he had heard it. It was precious.

Anyway, we won (WOOOOOOO VAMOS), and after the game a few of us went in search of something fun to do/somewhere fun to go, and happened upon the Festival of the Nations (I think that's what it translates to, I don't know if that's actually what it was even called) which was basically just a huge bazaar-type thing with food tents and buying-stuff tents from tons of different countries. I finally got my hands on some "Mexican food," something I've been craving since I got here. Okay, so maybe it was a ham and cheese quesadilla but it came from a tent that said Mexico and sold tequila so that's probably as close as I'm going to get in Spain so vale.

Oh look at that, a perfect segue into my favorite thing about Spain so far: the word "vale". Pronounced [ba-le], it's this beautiful interjection that you can pretty much use to mean any combination of "OK, yes, fine, sounds good, see you there, yes I admit you're right and I'm wrong" and anything else you can think of. I'm pretty sure it either starts or ends every single sentence that everyone says here.

Another really interesting thing I've noticed in the past week is how informal everyone is with their speech. Honestly I probably only notice this because I'm fresh out of Hispanic Sociolinguistics this past semester, but it's seriously fascinating. When people in the States start to learn a foreign language, the first thing everyone wants to know is "how do I say bitch?" "how do I say fuck" etc etc. But seriously, cursing is not a big deal here. People call their children, dogs, husbands, friends, really whoever, things like "coño" y "puta" y "cabrón" and no one bats an eye! The first time I heard it I was honestly a little shocked, because it's not really acceptable to call people those things in public in the States... But my art professor today was explaining the history of the War of Spanish Succession and every so often he would say, in English, "Espain es deeferent," and I think that sums it up perfectly. Everything here feels more hectic than at home, but more relaxed at the same time. I know that makes literally no sense, but you have to see it to understand.

Anyway, after the game and the festival last night, I went home and crashed. My sleeping patterns have been really weird the past couple days -- I wake up at around 4:30 or 5 every night and can't fall back asleep until 7 or so, and then wake back up at 9 or 9:30 to go to class. I don't know if it's jetlag or leftover sleep weirdness from finals or lo que sea, but hopefully it straightens itself out because I really really love sleep and I'd prefer a full night's worth of it if possible.

Oh, and I had my first experience with the Valencia Metro today! It's honestly exactly like the D.C. metro, only cheaper. It's a flat rate no matter where you go (seriously D.C., take some lessons from Valencia because paying 6 bucks to get to a Nats game from Vienna metro really sucks), and you can change trains as many times as you want. We may have almost gotten lost once or twice, but we eventually ended up at our destination, the mall! I told myself I wasn't going to buy anything, but there was this really awesome long knit blue, white and orange sweater, and this other orange dress, and they were both on sale, and how could I resist UVA colored clothing in Spain on sale? It was fate.

I feel like I'm finally settling into a schedule here, which is really nice. I'm definitely the type of person who likes to have her days planned out before they happen, so I'm glad that I have class at the same time every day, and can rely on having coffee ready in the morning before I go to school, and showering at the same time, y todo eso.

I guess to wrap things up, I'll say that even though I leave in 25 days (actually sad already), I'm still so excited for everything I have to look forward to. This weekend we have an excursion to Peñíscola, a beachy-place-thing about an hour away -- I'll actually wake up for this excursion, unlike Xátiva -- and then next weekend is Madrid (WOOO) and the weekend after we're taking a train up to Barcelona for this SUPERMEGAREQUETEGUAY music festival called Sónar. Seriously though, it's going to be insanely cool. The lineup for Friday night includes Skrillex, Two Door Cinema Club, Major Lazer, Diplo, Baauer... there are 30 or so acts scheduled between 10pm and 7am, and tickets are only like 66 euros. Like I said, insane. After that, I have a week left and then finals and then back to the States, I suppose. The UVA en Valencia people might have to drag me kicking and screaming onto the plane, though. I can tell you already that I'm going to hate leaving.

(Also, if my English sounds a little strange, can someone let me know? I've noticed in my speech that I sort of speak with the cadence of Spanish, but using English words, and every day it gets more difficult to communicate easily in English. I know that's the whole point of being here, but I'm still interested.)

Hasta luego!

Here are some pictures of what I've seen and done so far

Beach

L'Umbracle

The Asia store (like a dollar store or Five Below). Whenever you need something, this is where you get it. 

Estación del Norte

Palau de la Música Catalana (I pass this every day on the way to school, it's right along the riverbed)

Ladrones y playas y clubes, oh my!

The people at orientation weren't kidding when they said night life in Valencia never stops. A bunch of us went out last night, first to a bar a couple blocks away from where we live, and then to this INSANE WONDERFUL AMAZING MAGICAL place called L'Umbracle. Rachel and I somehow managed to take an entire hour to go approximately four blocks to the bar we had been to the night before. I honestly don't know how it happened, but by the time we got there everyone was stoked to go to whatever club they had found out about (it ended up being L'Umbracle), so we hung out for a little and then headed over. It was a 15 euro cover charge, which at first seemed really awful and not worth it at all because no one was really dancing in the area that we were in, there weren't that many people there, and it was already almost 3 o'clock so we assumed that it just wasn't happening. I was also a little frustrated that it was 15 euros and not really that cool, but I figured we had learned our lesson and just wouldn't come back

However, in a very fortuitous turn of events, Rachel and I went in search of a bathroom. We asked the bartender where it was, and she said downstairs, so we walked down the stairs, turned a corner, and discovered what I like to call the dubstep dungeon -- underneath the original place near where you walk in, there was this huge room with platforms and a giant DJ set up and a bar and TONS of people dancing. We called the people we were with and told them to meet us at the top of the stairs. They were kind of confused, which was understandable because it really didn't look like there was anything down there. There weren't any signs or anything to indicate that right below your feet there was something much, much better.

So we danced. And we danced. And we danced some more. It was awesome. So much house music, a little bit of dubstep, a lot of American songs. It was like Trinity's cool older European cousin on steroids. I think most of the guys ended up heading home around 4:30 or 5, but Rach Kate and I left at 6:30 in the morning and the sun had already risen and it was a very surreal experience. We grabbed a cab home and passed out. Rach and I were scheduled to go to this mountain castle place thing (Xátiva) today, but decided to sleep and go to the beach instead.

The beaches here are awesome. In the states, there isn't much of the sandy part, so everyone is crammed together and it's impossible to find a space and everyone is annoying. There's so much sand here, and the sand itself is so much lighter and finer than what we have back home. It's gorgeous. The water was FREEZING, but our feet were pretty sore after all of the dancing last night, so it felt pretty good. We hung out and tanned and buried ourselves in the sand. Some dude grabbed my beach bag and took my iPhone out of it (not my dinky Spanish flip phone), and Rachel ran after him and said something along the lines of "Tienes mi telefono? Ya lo sé, dámelo." and he just looked kind of sheepish and handed it back, so that was fun. Phillip met up with us right after that and we looked around this cool little store thing, hung out by the sand for a while, and then took the bus home.

I don't really know where my host family is right now... I took a shower and I guess I missed dinner since I was at the beach, but I have some croissants so that's dinner for me! I think Rach and I are going to go explore around our neighborhood tonight, apparently there are some cool smaller bars and places like that pretty close to us.

Hasta luego!

Clases y café

I've had two days of classes now, and since technically I'm in Valencia for "study" abroad and not "go clubbing and bar hopping and hang out in cafés with my friends" abroad, I guess I can talk about them for a little bit.

I'm taking two classes -- Modern Spanish Art with Profe Peleaz (I think that's his last name... we call him Enrique) and Spanish for Medical Professionals with Pilar. The art class fulfills some requirement that I have for the Spanish major, and the medical one is obviamente really useful considering what my majors are. Doesn't count for anything except a general elective for Kinesiology. Woo.

Entonces, art class. First off, we don't have to memorize names or dates of paintings REQUETECHEVERE I'm really happy about that. My professor said that he would rather us be able to describe and understand the though process behind the painting and whatever art movement it was part of than waste time memorizing things, so I am 100% behind that. The professor is hilarious; he's this little Spanish dude, probably around 60 years old. He's from a town outside of Madrid. He tells a lot of jokes that basically no one gets (and by that I mean that I think he's really funny and he tells a lot of jokes but no one else can understand him well enough to get what he's saying. Jokes in other languages are hard). The classroom is honestly a sauna, probably around 25 C, so everyone tries really hard not to fall asleep, with success of varying levels. We don't really have homework... this weekend we're supposed to "take pictures of things that are different" so yeah. That's fine with me though, because my OTHER class...

I knew from the start that a class on medical Spanish would be a whole lot of vocab, so I wasn't surprised when my class on medical Spanish was a whole lot of vocab. But it's a lot a lot a lot of words in a very short amount of time. Today we went over los prefijos y sufijos that are mostly the same as they are in english, and spent forever going over how to say "I had a cast" "I had a splint" "I had surgery" "I had my wisdom teeth out" etc etc etc. So that was fun. Not. But yeah we have daily homework and a lot of projects and things for that class, so I guess I have a nice balance between the two.

ALRIGHT also one other thing that Rachel and I have been discussing -- in the States, when you order coffee somewhere it is almost always in a paper to-go cup and you take it with you and that's that. Nope, totally not a thing in Spain. We're trying to find a place on our way to school where we can stop and grab a cup of coffee, but it's only been two days and we've almost been late both of those (I blame my alarm clock). I have coffee in the morning here but it's only a cup and I really, REALLY miss my Keurig. There are cafés all around the city but I need 20 oz of coffee not 5 ml. My theory is that because this is such a relaxed place (seriously, if you took Manhattan and gave the entire city Xanax, you would have Valencia) no one really needs that much caffeine to get through the day. It was the same way when I went to Europe in high school, but it's still just as frustrating. At least it's the weekend and I won't have to deal with needing coffee until Monday.

Tomorrow we have our "excursions" with the whole group -- half of us are going to Xátiva and the other half are going to Peñíscola. I'm in the Xátiva group. Apparently there will be some hiking and stuff. I think it's an old part of something with a castle and a forest? I actually have no idea. It's free. Next week I'm in the Peñíscola group -- it's basically a full day beach trip, so that's exciting!

There's a soccer game on Sunday that a ton of us are going to in the stadium right by school (probably 15 minutes walking from my apartment) on Sunday, so that should be really fun. I'll try to get some more pictures while I'm there -- this entire place is gorgeous, but I'm either half asleep and running late or half asleep and trying to trudge home when I'm out, and you don't really want to walk around with your mouth wide open taking pictures with an iPhone anyway, unless you don't really want that iPhone. I'm sure someone would be happy to liberate it from you. Anyway, Valencia c.f. is playing Granada c.f. and I guess Valencia is in 5th place right now and needs to win to continue on in whatever they're in... I obviously don't follow European soccer but WHATEVER it's going to be awesome.

I guess that's enough for now? I'm really bad at ending things, so pretend this is a cool wrap up paragraph. I'm going with Rachel to buy a new converter (hers doesn't fit in the wall and my big one broke so right now we're driving the struggle bus a little bit) and then come back, hopefully take a nap, eat dinner, and then go out. There are a ton of cool bars and clubs near where we live, so that's nice. Nothing as close as the Corner, but hey, it's an okay trade-off considering WE'RE IN SPAIN.

Hasta luego!

Supermegaguay, or learning about "Spanish time"

My first full day in Valencia. It already feels like I've been here forever.

This morning I woke up at 7:30 (!!!!!!!!! que temprano) and showered and ate some breakfast and had some coffee. We caught the bus over to school (it was decently quick but there's a big taxi strike going on right now so sometimes the buses get stuck behind their weird barricades or something so I think I'm going to walk since it's only like twenty minutes) and I was super early for our orientation session things.

We had two sessions, one for administrative stuff and one for academic. We got a map (supermegahelpful) in our folder of information, which definitely came in handy later in the day... Anyway, after the sessions, we split off into smaller groups that were supposedly "our neighbors" even though the only neighbors I know that I have for sure are Rach, TJ, and Adam; we had to sign THE PLEDGE there that says "something something I will not speak anything other than Spanish while in the school place area thing under penalty of death something something". Basically the rule is, if you're caught speaking English you write your name in a book. If it happens three times (I think), then you get sent home. I'm not really concerned for myself but everyone else... vamos a ver.

Despues de los sessions, we walked back towards where I live (Avenida de Peris y Valero) to find the phone store. Mi madre already had some phones from some of the girls that she has had stay with her in the past, so I only needed to buy a SIM card. Rach bought a phone last night, but TJ and Will needed to buy them. Adam too, but he needed to go home to see if his luggage had arrive yet (pobre de él).

HOWEVER, we forgot one very important thing: la siesta. Stores are literally closed between 2 and 5 in the afternoon. We got to Yoigo (the phone place) at 3, so it was obviously not open. Entonces we decided to all go home, eat, siesta, and meet back up at 5 ish when it reopened.

Backtracking a little bit (a lot) to our pre-departure meeting, one of the directors warned us that Spanish time ≠ American time. Today I realized that this is absolutely true. I went to meet with Adam to walk down to get Rach and TJ and head to the phone place, but neither of us had phones yet so we were relying on our sparse knowledge of the surrounding area. False. We both ended up at different bridges over the river (it's actually a dried up riverbed with garden and stuff but everyone calls it el río entonces yo también) and actually found each other by like 5:05. Only like twenty minutes late, not bad.

We went down to Yoigo, no sign of TJ or Rachel. Ok, we wait. 5:15ish, TJ shows up. Oh yeah, and Will lives kind of far away from the rest of us, so I told him we would meet him up by la Plaza del Toros a little bit north of where the phone store was. We wait for Rach. Still no Rach. 5:30. We go into the phone store and get started with the móviles. See Rach. I get my phone, she and I go next door to a little café/bar and make friends with the bartender (HE THOUGHT I WAS SPANISH WHAT UP). The guys get their phones and join us, and we hang out for a little bit before realizing we should probably go find Will. The guys head to Adam's to do... actually I don't know what they did, Rach and I stick around to finish our drinks, and we head towards the train station/Plaza del Toros area to finally meet up with everyone. By this point it is 6:30

OH YEAH and the original plan was to go to the beach. That was the whole idea. SO, we, using the handy dandy map so lovingly bestowed upon us by the UVA en Valencia people, headed up that way to find our people and head to la playa. I think we ended up at the train station at 7:15(ish). No sign of TJ, Adam, or Will. Ok, well we all (except Will) have phones now, so let's use them! Nothing. We wait. See some dogs. And some old people.

7:30, we get in touch with Will and Adam, they're "close"! Rach wanted to change her nose jewelry so we headed back to a tattoo/piercing place that we had passed on the way back. Got that taken care of, and while we were there, Adam got a call from Will! We told him where we were and finagled with the map a bit, and then headed to an intersection to wait. And lo and behold, we found him. Requetechevere.

Now, here is the really cool part of the story. Will ended up going by himself to Yoigo to get a phone so he could try to get in touch with us. While he was there, he asked the phone guy if he had seen a group of people, and described us. The phone guy told him yeah for sure they were in here earlier, and Will asked him if he could have one of our numbers AND HE SAID YES! Mil gracias, Yoigo guy, you helped us find our friend! (I didn't even think about the fact that Will supposedly didn't have a phone when we heard from him.) Supermegaguay.

So once we were all together (by this point it was already 8:30) it was obvious that our "5 o'clock get a phone and head to the beach" plan had completely failed. But it was totally okay. We had all walked around the area a little, got to know where we were, met some cool people, and eventually found each other in the end. We sat at a different little bar place right by my apartment for half an hour or so before all going home for dinner at 9:15, a totally normal time for dinner.

And now I'm hanging out in my room, typing this up. It's 10:30, and we have tentative plans to go out tonight at 11. At the rate today went, we'll probably end up meeting at 12:30 or so. But it's cool, no worries, supermegaguay.

Hasta luego!

He llegado!

(That means I have arrived)

In the past twenty six hours I have traveled in a car, on a train, in a taxi, on a plane, on another plane, on a large bus, and on a smaller bus. I have gotten approximately four, maybe five hours of broken awful travel sleep. I have eaten kind of gross airplane food and drank a lot of coffee. And after all of that, I'm finally here. 

My luggage fear was unwarranted -- my checked bag made it to the airport with me, AND the Mason jar cookie mix stuff I made for mi madre were still layered, and still in the jar. 

Mi madre is absolutely adorable. We got off the large bus at the stadium and all of the madres were holding signs with everyone's names on them. Mine is named Julia (that's hoo-lee-uh not jew-lee-uh) and she walked around and introduced me to all of her friends and kept saying "ya tengo mi niña y habla español muy muy bien!" (I already have my girl and she speaks Spanish really really well!)

Once we got my luggage we hopped on the noventa (90) bus to get back home. That's the bus I take if I don't want to walk home from school. Noventa from school, ochenta y nueve (89) to school, y ochenta y uno (81) to go to LA PLAYA (the beach duh). 

I have been fed and watered (Julia made something she called arroz al horno -- rice on the stove -- and a salad and some cake thing so now I am both completely full and completely exhausted. It's definitely time for a nap. 

Rachel should be getting here at some point today. Her flight left JFK four hours after mine. Also I think we may have lost TJ somewhere between Madrid and here. So there's that... I'm sure he'll turn up. I'm not worried (yet). 

Hasta luego! (Here are some palm trees)

VAMOS!

IIt begins! 

Rach and TJ came up to my place last night and stayed the night, and we left for Union Station at 6:30. Traffic wasn't bad; we ended up getting to the station at 7:30 and grabbed some breakfast at Potbelly before heading to the gate. 

We're currently ten minutes out of DC. I'm straightening Rachel's hair for her so she can get her life together. TJ has never been on a plane/train/out of the country before, so he's REALLY EXCITED AND INTERESTED IN EVERYTHING! Me too. So excited. By 4am Virginia time, I'll be in Valencia! Until then, we have a very, very long day of traveling ahead of us. 

Hasta luego!

(Here's TJ enjoying the scenic and picturesque DC train tracks)

Unpacking/packing

Exactly one week until I leave. I can't believe it's so soon. I'm currently in the process of trying to unpack and repack all of my stuff from school before I leave. My plan is to only take a carry on and my backpack with me, so that should be interesting. My host mom supposedly does laundry once a week so I'm not terribly worried about having enough clean clothes. I currently have all of these to go though:

So yeah. Plus the stuff still in my car. I'm bad at moving. But excited to finally be in Valencia!

Hasta luego!

Done done done done done

I'm finally finished with all of my finals/papers/all school related things, and I had my last night at work tonight (until I get back, that is), so I've just been sitting in my apartment for the past three hours pretending like I'm going to start packing since my dad's going to be here in nine hours to help me move all of my stuff back up to Fairfax.

I've gotten three grades back so far for this semester, and I have to say that I'm really surprised I managed to do as well as I did. Part of me thinks it's because I took easy classes, but the other part thinks that maybe it took three semesters to get into the right sort of study habits and learn how to balance my life while being in college.

I leave for Valencia a week from Monday. I'm so excited, but still utterly unprepared. I need to get a converter/adaptor and I realized while packing that I really need to get some new clothing that isn't just Nike shorts and white v-necks/free UVA tee shirts that I've somehow acquired. Seriously, y'all don't know about my tee shirt collection.

Hasta luego!

I GOT AN A+ IN PHONETICS

That's all. Still in the library.

Hasta luego!

Cuál es la fecha?

Solamente tengo un día mas antes de que terminaré mi segundo año en UVA. Entre ahora y mañana, tengo mi examen final para francés (este noche a las 7), mi ensayo final para la sociolingüística (antes de la medianoche mañana), y mi take home final para abnormal psych.

Ahora tengo casi seis páginas ya escritos para mi ensayo final. Elegí un sujeto para el ensayo -- que el catalán no ha sido tan influido por el castellano como pueda a causa de las fronteras lingüísticas y culturales entre el catalán y el castellano, aunque coexisten en el mismo lugar. No sé, espero que a mi profe le guste. Tengo un cien por ciento en la clase ahora, no estoy muy preocupada.

Debo estudiar para el examen de francés en algún momento... pues tengo un noventa y cinco en esta clase ahora, y una vez mas no estoy preocupada. La única cosa en que puedo pensar es España. Me voy en exactamente dos semanas. Todavía necesito un converter y un adapter para mi laptop. Y un traje de baño nuevo, creo. Ahora en Charlottesville está lloviendo, pues esto refleja bien el sentido de todos los estudiantes en este momento. Todos mis amigos son muy muy stressed out. Yo también.

Este post realmente no tiene un purpose. Quería un break de writing mi ensayo. Entonces,

Hasta luego!