Aventuras en Espana

Madrid and Toledo....

2009-04-24T09:10:00.000-07:00

So...I just gave up on the pictures from the last post... i tried several different times to get them up and it didn´t happen so...i dont know what to tell you.. enjoy the ones you´ve got haha. I am sorry though... maybe i´ll have better luck with the next ones...

we got back from Cordoba on Monday.. and Friday morning we got up early to get on a plane to go to Madrid... amazingly that was our cheapest option. So we got on the plane... got off like 30 minutes later...about the time we were going to turn our I Pods on we were landing. haha grabbed the metro and took off to the hotel/hostel. The man at the hostel was just so cute. He made sure we knew where we were and where to get a map and told us we were close enough to walk anywhere we would need to go because he didn´t want us to take the metro too much since we were three girls. he was telling me so much. it was so funny but it was nice to know that he was at least looking out for us and warning us (about the 2000th person) to be safe...we were safe.

When we got to Madrid we ate our lunch in our little room. it was quite cozy. and headed out to find our map. We had to go to plaza Mayor (famous plaza) to get the map so we were kind of killing two birds with one stone. so we went and started taking pictures of the plaza and the people dressed up in the plaza... uncle sam mickey, pooh bear (in a costume that was way too small for him) a really creepy bunny (kind of like the one from donnie darko for those of your who´ve seen it) and an incredibly overweight spiderman all made an appearance among some other weird looking things...we took pictures of them. when we went to the tourist center to get our map we also encountered some brochures... one of which was for the zoo. it said they had a KOALA BEAR at the zoo.. i do love koala bears...and they had a panda bear.. kelly does love panda bears. poor rhoda. it was done for. we decided we would go if we had time. After getting our map we looked and decided to go to the Palacio Real.. where the royal family lives. It was beautiful.. unfortunately we weren´t aloud to take pictures inside ... general rule for the weekend but it didn´t stop us... I still have pictures. I was just warning you not to judge the quality. :) haha. It really was amazing and beautiful and If anyone becomes a prince princess king or queen someday i just want to sleep over for a week... cuz it was just cool to think about living in a place like that. It was slightly nuts...

After palacio real we headed for a metro stop to go see some more landmarks (the were marked on the map... we didn´t know they were landmarks). On the way we found a pretty park (also on the map) and took some pictures.. as well as the senate and a monument to Cervantes with Don Quijote.OH! and a Starbucks.. yay starbucks! it was nice to get a drink and hang out. Afterward, of to the Puerta de Alcala and Parque del Retiro. After that off we went to the biblioteca nacional (national library). I know we´ve done a lot in one day. So at the Biblioteca nacional we saw an expo. about malaria.. yup.. in spanish. it was interesting. we really didn´t know what we were getting into but we walked into it anyway haha. so we had some fun with that. just being random. we did have fun with the don quijote room. haha.

After that...more monuments from the map! casa de america and a fountain that was suppose to have lights on it at night. no lights. so we started walking back home...on the way we stopped to get some souvenir shopping done. I got some post cards and what not and we headed back to the hotel for sleep... we had a tv again so that was really nice! haha

Saturday morning.. we were up bright and early..on the slate for the day The Prado Museum and the museum for Reina Sofia...and whatever else.... We got to the museums and discovered that Reina Sofia was free from 2-8 and the Prado was free from 6-8... we were going to the museums when they were free...so... remember that zoo?? that´s where we went. so we went to the zoo in the morning.. yay. it was so fun! I saw my favorite animal ever.. KOALA bear!!! ahh it was so so so so so cute and fuzzy!! this zoo was so fun. we were close to everything.. again and saw a sea lion show and a koala and a panda and a kangaroo and we have officially been to two zoos in spain... kind of sad i know.. but Kelly and I are both kind of obsessive! haha. I saw a koala.. i´m so very excited about it. The pictures are adorable. :) i think i may want one as a pet one day... :)

After the zoo we went to eat lunch. yay peanut butter and crackers! haha and then we headed out to the museums... we could take pictures in neither of them. However, i dont understand why I can take pictures in the louvre and not in these museums so i took some anyway haha!!! I saw a really famous piece from Picasso in Reina Sofia... my favorite by Picasso i would get a copy to hang up in my apt. next year except it´s kind of creepy so ... not gonna. haha. we left reina sofia... disapointed...and got a starbucks as a pick me up before we tackled the prado (we realized how much time we really saved when we can´t stop and take 30 pictures of everything... haha) the prado was great... we saw ALL kinds of amazing pictures we had learned about in class. Las Meninas, 3 de Mayo, etc. I loved it.. it was so cool to see all of the paintings we had learned about. we also heard man (american) explaining some paintings to his daughter... incorrectly...it was hard not to laugh or cut him off. He was so far off it was ridiculous... When talking about a Velazquez painting he said the faces were a very dutch style.. so dutch the were almost groteqsue... Velazquez is spanish...and actually the faces were normal. He would also act like he was reading the cards beside the paintings.. they were in spanish. he definitely did not know spanish. ohh people who think they know what they are talking about or at least try to act like they know what they are talking about haha. it was quite entertaining for us. We didn´t leave the prado until about 8 or so and the day was over. back to the apartment for dinner and to bed early because we were taking a day trip to Toledo (small city about 30 mins away by train) the next day..

Sunday... we woke up at 7:30 to get to the train station in time to get our tickets and get on the train to head to Toledo. When we were trying to get our tickets we had to help an asian man. he was doing really well speaking english to the lady (the all know english.. especially at the train station in the CAPITAL of the city. ugh.) she was laughing and talking about him to her co-worker like it was such a struggle for her. he asked if they train left at 10 and she nodded and then held up 10 fingers.. at this point we step in and help him. that really didn´t help us out as she was rude to us afteward.. we couldn´t get our ticket there so we got bounced around about 3 different places. and finally got our ticket. we were just happy to be on the train. The city was absolutely beautiful. it was QUITE the hike to get up to anything though. it is definitely on a mountain and there are streets of cobblestone. We saw the alcazar and couldn´t go in. The greco museum was closed and it was 7 € to get into the Cathedral. we decided to pay the 2.30€ to get into the iglesia santo tome (saint thomas´s cathedral). and see the big painting by Greco.. once again sneaking pictures haha. they rest of the day consisted of walking around, taking pictures outside, souvenir shopping, and chinese food (it was cheap and there was A LOT of it). It was beautiful and then we ended up going back and eating a cheap dinner and going to bed early to get up early to catch a plane.

Monday morning.. oh what a morning.. .we made it to the airport after much struggle to get away there...some guy ran kelly into the side of the metro...we had to buy an extra thing to get off of the metro at the airport. then we had a ridiculous time to get through security... kelly had a unforgotton sword in her bag and obviously we couldn´t take it onto the plane... so... we had to go back up check the bag and go back through security.. but.. God is great and likes to push my faith.. we made the flight. the plane was actually 30 mins late. but we got back to Valencia and I do love it.

More to come about the last three days of class and the final banquet...

<3 again.. pictures to come... i know you´re excited about the Koala bear.

Easter in Sevilla and Cordoba... How the Spaniards Celebrate Jesus

2009-04-16T08:41:00.000-07:00

Sevilla is known for their celebrations of Semana Santa so it was kind of cool to be there during that week. kind of an awesome experience. Sooo... here comes the break down of the weekend...

Thursday

We woke up kind of early to catch our train... we were on the train for 8 hours...quite the trip. It wasn't actually as bad as I thought it was going to be. I got a lot of homework done, watched Dan in Real Life in Spanish... which was good. and slept a little...got out and stretched our legs at random stops. tried to eat a bocadillo (sandwich) Maria Jesus had made them for us this time around....they weren't good. she should probably never make our lunch for us again. Just a thought. Thank goodness for the potato chips and granola bars we bough to snack on... the juice boxes were helpful as well. lol it was an interesting experience.

When we got to Sevilla we found our hostel...the bus couldn't run to where it normally does because of the parades.. therefore we had to ask for directions. I asked several times because all we got were pointings... they said oh it's up there (pointing) and that's all we got...ugh. but we found it without much of a problem...which was good. we were in a dorm with 3 other people (8 people in the dorm... Kelly, Anna, Rhoda and I. and Katie Boyd came down from Barcelona to hang out with us as well... so that only left 3 spaces in the room). I was interested to see how it would go but I wasn't too terribly concerned about it. When we got there a couple (Spanish) was already in the room. they were nice. the guy showed Kelly how to work the lockers and asked us if we need help finding anything on the map - where we were or how to get somewhere) very very pleasant to be around. we were however on totally different schedules- they were the out late people and we were the up early people...they never woke me up when they came in though so I didn't worry about it. :) The 8th person showed up the night after he was a little creepy.. but nice enough. When he got to come into the room he checked to make sure all of us girls were clothed. I appreciated it. Overall not a bad hostel experience...

We tried to get food that night.. emphasis on try. Every day is a Holy day during semana santa in spain... for this reason 90% of things were closed. We ended up with popcorn after dodging several processions...and we were worn out so we went to sleep to prepare for a fun filled Friday...

Friday

We woke up kind of early on Friday and got going.. we were going to visit the cathedral in Sevilla. It is the oldest standing Gothic building in the world and the third largest cathedral in the world.. cool...i know. I took about a zillion pictures of it and I loved every minute of being in that Building! I took so many pictures of it. They are all in a couple of albums. We found a cute little place to eat lunch because none of the stores were open to buy sandwich making materials.. we had pizza. it was good :) but the guy had a speech impediment. so that mixed with his ridiculous andalucian accent caused quite the problem. But we figured it out. After we ate lunch we did some walking around the city. just exploring really they was a fountain we saw while wondering to the bank so a friend could take out money and we stoped to get a starbucks- they are just as good in Spain! lol

That night we left to walk around to find some parades to watch. The parades were essentially men in costumes similar to those of the KKK but with a very different meanings- they are called nazerenos (nazarenes). they carry their crosses or candles or crucifixes around the city as a way to remember the sacrifice Jesus made for the world. It was muy interesante. We saw some parades. Unfortunately we really couldn't get a good view on Friday night. you have to pay to get the chairs that are set up along the street to watch the parade from that close- so we decide to just go early to the cathedral the next night and try to catch some more parades from there with a better view. SO we ate dinner at a little cafe and then headed back to the hostel for showers and sleep :)

Saturday

We woke up pretty early again on Saturday to go see the Alcazar... the oldest standing edifice that still houses royals. Once again.. be jealous. We took a lot of pictures and ended up getting in free because we are students. not a bad deal. It was really good. It was cool to be in the place and think about the fact that someone had lived in this place- this palace was/is a house. that just kills me. i can't imagine living in a place like that.

After the Alcazar we walked to the river in Sevilla to take pictures of the torre del oro and the plaza de toros.. 2 monuments and grabbed some peanut butter and crackers and what not for lunch :) It was good. we rested a little bit in the hostel and headed out at about 5 to get to the cathedral and get our seats for the parades. We had good seats and it was cool to get to watch the parades from that angle.. TONS of people came out for it. i can't even explain it to you. About half way through our time sitting watching parades a family came up and asked if they could sit their two boys up beside us (there was room) so they could see the processions.. we said okay. Adrian was 3 and Javier was 7. Adrian is a little ladies man and quite the outgoing child.. he ended up getting in trouble for pushing our heads (gently) to look at the floats while saying "MIRA MIRA LA VIRGEN" (look look the virgen) it wasn't the virgen mary but we looked anyway and humored him. He had to come down and his older brother moved up and looked so content with himself. He was proud that he was the good one and wasn't in trouble. after a little while Adrian got to come back and javier moved so that i was in the middle of the two of them. They both had their little balls of wax from picking it up off of the streets where the candles from the processions had dropped it- all of the kids do it apparently- so Javier was teaching me how he made he ball of wax and trying to teach me about the parades. He would frequently put his hand on his head in exasperation because I wasn't understanding him. oh the funny 7 year old trying to teach me spanish. He asked our names- I told him mine and he looked at me like I was crazy but repeated it and was content. then he asks- whats the blonde ones name? Meaning kelly of course as she was the only blonde within eyesight (she typically gets called the blonde one)I told him her name and got a similar reaction. They could only understand anna's name.. so they went with it and yelled at her a lot. basically... we were thankful for the entertainment and passage of time.They were funny... it was hysterical to hear them talk during the "quiet moments" the entire crowd would go silent.. except our two little friends of course. they were hysterical.

we headed back and went to sleep to get up the next morning for mass and a train to cordoba.

Sunday

We got up to get breakfast and head to mass at a near by church. it wasn't bad. It was actually really fun. I enjoyed being in a church on Easter it was just nice to have that experience and be reminded how awesome my God is. We went to the train station and headed to cordoba.

We got to cordoba and low and behold our hostel is an apartment... WHAT?!?! it was awesome. we got to watch TV that night and it was really just nice to have a place t ourselves that felt a little more like home that a dorm in a hostel. I was impressed and I would love to go back and stay there again one day... it was cheap and definitely a lot nicer than what we paid for it...but i'm okay with that.

We went to the mezquita..the cathedral of cordoba. It was built by the arabic people (moors) when they came through and conquered and now has some Christian chapels and crucifixes built in. Seeing the combination of the two was amazing. i took so many pictures of it and it was absolutely amazing. Cordoba is the one city in Spain i want to go back to. It was a picture perfect Spanish City and I think i could walk around those streets for days and never get bored.. they were just so beautiful to look at. We passed our one day their quickly in the mezquita and enjoyed dinner before heading back to the apartment for the night.

We got up the next morning to train for 6 hours back to Valencia.. home sweet home...

we went to see Flamenco on Tuesday night in Valencia at a place called Radio City. It was basically amazing.. i loved it. I really just love flamenco though..

We leave tomorrow morning for Madrid and Toledo. Get excited for another blog coming soon.

But for now... Links to the 8 albums of pictures from last weekend...

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=151201713&k=33LU5ZU546YM5DDIXDV6RV

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026635&id=151201713&ref=share

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026636&id=151201713&ref=share

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=151201713&k=32DX6VWZ4X2M5DDIXDV6RV

<3 and Enjoy!

Teruel, Albaracin, Soccer...

2009-04-06T07:46:00.000-07:00

So it was quite the busy weekend. Friday we went to the zoo (there´s a post about that). We met some friends friday night and went dancing at a club that is near us. Only... I did more watching than dancing (I´m not much of a dancer soo....it was fitting). It was about the most interesting form of dancing I think I´ve ever seen. It was a lot of bobbing back and forth with awkward hand movements. If I could only explain it to you! haha. It was interesting to go and watch. We are going to go back one more time to take a friend of ours who wants to go. It´s right by our house and free to get in (you have to pay for drinks.. thus.. i dont have a problem cuz I won´t be paying for anything! haha). It was really a lot of fun and kind of nice to experience/observe the culture that we are living in. The night life really is a big thing here. We live on a street with 5 or 6 popular clubs so I suppose we dont have much of an excuse to not go out at least a couple of times. The issue we have is that they start the party at about oh... 12 midnight. I want to be back at 12 midnight not starting at midnight. that´s just ridiculous! haha. oh well every once in awhile I guess is nothing major. haha. always good. Also, we got to sing a Spice Girls song with a British guy. A major event in the outting. hahaha

Saturday morning we got up to meet at the school to go on the second and final excursion to Teruel and Albarracin. Not a bad trip. We were on the bus for while before arriving at Teruel. It was really pretty. We went to the Mausoleum of the Amantes de Teruel (lovers of Teruel). Apparently, there were two lovers. Diego and Isabel. They were in love from childhood. Isabel was from a wealthy and Diego didn´t have quite as much. (this was the 12th century) and Diego made a deal with Isabel´s father that he would leave Teruel for 5 to try to aquire riches. If he came back rich he would be able to marry his love. He hadn´t returned after 5 years so Isabel was married to another man. Immediatey following the ceremony Diego came back and fell at the feet of Isabel pleeding for her to marry him. She couldn´t as she was already married. He asked for a kiss from her. She refused because she was married. He died there are her feet. At the funeral Isabel came dressed in her wedding dress went to the body of Diego and kissed her love. She died on him in the chapel. It was interesting to go on the tour. We got to go into the cathedral and see the chapel where they found the two dead bodies of the lovers we got to see their Tombs/sarcophaguses and mummies as well. interesting! haha. We were explicitly told not to take pictures of the mummies. I don´t know how you could´ve gotten a picture of it. It would have been hard haha. but we got to see that. It was even more hysterical because the professor we were with (Alfaro) would´ve given a much better tour lol she actually shut the tour guide down because she wanted to tell us the legend a second time at which point Alfaro said no, we have a schedule and you´re not going to be wasting out time. hahaha. she is basically amazing. I love that woman. The tour guide also told us it was the story romeo and juliet was rumored to based on.. alfaro made sure to inform us this was totally untrue and completely a rumor. haha. she is an amazing woman.

We got back on the bus and started eating our bocadillo (sandwhich) on the way to Albarracin. Albarracin is on a mountain. A big one haha. so we drove up the curvy roads in our charter bus to the city. We parked and walked up the mountain. This is also the sight of a wall that was standing when El Cid conquered the city in the 11th century. It was really awesome. SO we hiked even higher up the silly mountain to get to the wall and then decided that since we were already up that far we might as well climb on up and play on the wall and get some cool pictures. so we did. hah. it was a lot of fun and we spent a lot of time up there. my legs were really killing me. haha. I have some good pictures though and it was one of those things that was just cool to get to do. After climbing back down the mountain we got an ice cream and a coke for the way back. i napped almost the entire way back to Valencia. It was glorious. This excursion was actually a lot better than the last one. It was cool to see the difference from the last excursion (at the very beginning when we didn´t know anyone) and this one when we knew people and had all become pretty good friends with one another. it was a lot more fun and significantly more memorable. It was great!!

Saturday night we went out for Kelly´s birthday (she turned 21 in Spain). I know if you had only heard about this weekend you would think we were major party people. I assure we are not. lol It was just a good weekend to go celebrate and one of our last weekends to experience the night life in Valencia. :) It was fun and it was cool that a lot of people came out to sing happy birthday to kelly in english at a cool place in Spain. We had a lot of fun. We made it back a little earlier that night. and then slept in on sunday.

Sunday we got up and ate breakfast and got ready and Esperanza made a special birthday lunch for Kelly´s birthday. Basically Esperanza is the most amazing host mom ever!!! She is basically one cool lady! She loves us dearly and was really heart broken when she turned the calendar to April. She knows when she turns it to May we are going to be leaving. how terribly sad! Oh how we are going to miss dear Esperanza! So after lunch we went to Cafe y Te and I got some homework done and Kelly skyped her family and her boyfriend for her birthday! yay. we got back changed and headed to meet friends to go to the soccer game.

The soccer game was amazing! These people really do get into it! The tickets were cheap only 20 euro and we actually had good seats.Not the best seats but they were definitely good. we could see everything just fine which is what we had been worried about. We got into the game and were doing the wave cheering jumping up and screaming with the Valencianos! It was great! The don´t boo here though. they make really awful noises with whistles. It was almost painful! haha. but it was cool to see how much they got into it and they were actually fairly nice during the game. i was kind of surprised. But Valencia won 4 to 1! YAY!!! So it was an overall amazing evening.

I took a lot of pictures this week! a whole lot. I´m working on getting them up onto Facebook so I can post the links to pictures on here and you can see all of them! not too terrible I don´t think. I´m a big fan!

We only have 33 days left in Europe.. so not even that left in Spain. We don´t even know what to think about it! it´s a little ridiculous to think about the time we have here coming to and end. It´s almost become normal to be in Spain. As much as I´m going to miss Spain I´ll be happy to be back on US soil with English, Family, and American Food! But I´m definitely not wishing my time away here. I´m going to enjoy every bit of it!

We leave on Thursday morning for Sevilla and Holy Week! Apparently it is going to be ridiculous! so Go ahead and get excited for that Blog post!

<3

Bioparc!!!

2009-04-03T10:04:00.000-07:00

So this lovely Friday morning we got up and went to the zoo. The Bioparc in Valencia is apparently the biggest zoo in europe. it is pretty big now but I know it intends to become even larger. It took us about 4 hours to go through it today. Not a long time but they animals are all mixed together so we saw a whole lot of them!!! it was good. there were tons of monkeys but sadly no koala bear or panda bear. one day i´ll get to see them But i suppose I can´t complain too much after a good day at the zoo. I took way too many pictures though and we got a discount entrance because part of the zoo was close.. really really sad day that it was closed today of all days. but i guess we couldn´t help that and it was still fun. We met with Anna (one of the typical friends) and then some girls from the other school (naz) were there so we ended up going with them as well. LOTS OF FUN!!!! It was hysterical to see all of us taking pictures of these animals like we were 4 it was pretty great. haha we randomly popped in on a bird show which was awesome. they were shutting the doors as we ran in to get seats! haha. and then as we were leaving we asked a man to take a picture of all of us and he did and then took us into the theatre and ran the movie for the 7 of us! AMAZING OF HIM!!! so we officially saw everything we could have that day. definitely worth the money and the metro out there. it was a good day. i bought a shirt haha it was a kids shirt so it was only 8 euro.. you just can´t pass that up!

basically i can´t explain too much to you because it was a zoo (lots of pictures coming)... kind of like most zoos but not really. It is supposed to look like the real habitat of the animals in africa. they tried really hard to make it look that way and the succeeded. you are so close to the animals its ridiculus. close than I think you can be in most of the zoos in the US. They are so beautiful! also, the animals are all mixed in together.. you see 4 or 5 different animals together which was kind of neat. It really was one of the coolest zoos i´ve been too. they wanted it too look like you were stepping into Africa and they may have done it. obviously it still looked like a zoo... but it was still a really cool one!!! and right here in valencia!! yay us!

more to come on the rest of the weekend.. but i have plenty of pictures to keep you busy....

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=151201713&k=S2C22Z6RR4WM5DDIXDV6RV

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=151201713&k=4WEY6YQ6U65M5DDIXDV6RV

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=151201713&k=32D335Q2P6YM5DDIXDV6RV

Enjoy!!

jami renee

Another link..

2009-04-01T13:05:00.000-07:00

MORE PICTURES!!! I know... you're excited.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026107&id=151201713&ref=share

There you are hopefully it works!

38 days.. holy crap!!

Germans Italians Americans and Esperanza.. oh wow

2009-03-30T08:19:00.000-07:00

So... it was quite the interesting week. We had 2 italian girls and 2 german boys in the apartment all week. this made for an interesting time. They were all about 17 years old. Oh fun. The italians didn´t really know english so we spoke to them in spanish. The germans on the contrary didn´t know spanish well so they relied on us to translate what esperanza said to english for them. oh awkward. and oh interesting. So.. that was oh so fun.

The first night or so the germans just brought a huge thing of beer in. (kind of like the palletty things covered in plastic that water comes in) oh so terribly fun! so they went and did that. the next day or so their teachers found it so we were at dinner one day...

Germans: our teacher took our beer becuase she said we drank too much. this is not true. Teachers are S***.

Kelly: We´re going to be teachers.

Germans: But you will be good teachers. they can have beer.

Oh wow! Also, important to note. it took awhile to get through to them that we are goign to be teachers.. apparently they thought we said we were bisexual...oh wow. that is so not true and made for a really awkward moment with the really awkward germans. oh goodness.

SO.. we had the italians telling us how crazy the germans were. and how they didn´t talk to them. haha

Sooo....after about 3 days the germans couldn´t go out anymore hahah but they continued to eat meals with us.. probably because otherwise Esperanza just talked at them.. where as we could at least translate what they were saying.

We continued our lives.. laughing at how they were all trying to give us pastries and cokes and listenign to them speak broken english to each other. oh ridiculous.

Friday as there was rain in the forcast (that never came) we didn´t go to the zoo... kelly and iwent up in the tower of the cathedral.. after explaining to esperanza that we were almost certain we could and her assuring us we could not. WE could. I have a pictures. ugh. lol. so we went up. i can´t explain to you the hike that was. there will be pictures up soon. probably this evening. it was quite the hike and it was TOTALLY worth it. even though my legs and my butt hurt the rest of the day. I have some beautiful pictures and it was worth the heaving and huffing to get that check off of the to do list. having actually accomplished it.I was very proud of us. I´m sure you will be too when you see the pictures. if you aren´t... you should be. If you did it... you would be for sure. haha :)

The really fun thing... the germans went to the Mercado Central (central market... it´s huge...)and bought...
1. a carrott
2. strawberries
3. a coconut

I thought the same thing.. WHAT THE HECK!?!?!?!?!?!! what the heck!?!? so the germans come into our room... and ask us if we know how to open a coconut. We said no. and looked on the internet to find an instructional video. we found one. apparently you hold the coconut in your hand over a bowl and wack it on the equator with a machete or meat cleaver. we did not have the meat cleaver or the machete... but they went into the kitchen. asked for a bowl and a knife and proceeded to go at it. Yup.. the germans were opening a coconut in the kitchen. It wasn´t working well. but it was comical. then... maria jesus (mary jesus - daughter of esperanza that lives in the apartment upstairs)...went to her apt. to get a hammer to bang the knife with to get the coconut open. oh wow... how this scenario had escalated. eventually they got the coconut open.. they are really really hard raw.so.. in the end the coconut was thrown away because no one wanted to eat it. haha. wow. quite the hype for such a bad coconut... silly germans.

The last night they were both there... Saturday night. The italians made the mistake of asking esperanza about a taxi. not a good idea. poor Eliza and Claudia were about the cry from esperanza reaction when we brought them in to help them out and try to avoid the pain she was causing them. esperanza likes to talk at you .. kelly and i usually ignore her as she exaggerates a lot and doesn´t usually know what she is talking about anyway. (note cathedral situation). So we helped them out and it was nice. she then proceed to yell the germans for trying to take a picture of their room when she didn´t have the sheet on their bed! (we got more people-4 french boys.. last night so she told the germans to put their luggage by the door and watch TV so she could clean their room! ohhh wow). Poor children... we stayed in our room adn tried to avoid the drama.

Now we have the 4 little french guys... they are like... 12. k so they´re really 15 but they look 12. just saying. they are just like the other french boys. they dont talk at all. stupid stupid.

we only have 40 days left as of today... the number of days noah was on the ark as it were.

we still have to go to Sevilla and cordobda and recently added. toledo and madrid. so... we have a lot to do and very little time to do it in. at the end we are goign to italy (venice and rome) and Greece (mainly athens.. but maybe sparta and/or an island as well). awesome!!! haha.

well.. more to come!

<3

One last post from this weekend..

2009-03-24T11:21:00.000-07:00

Friday was internet play time becuase i was worn out from Andrew leaving. and being up so late.

Saturday we tried to go to the beach but it was too cold and windy. lame. But that was okay. we met at a cafe after lunch and sat and did some homework played on the internet and talked. it was really a good day.

Sunday... we went to the beach and layed out for real. it was nice. i got some sun. The fun part was the dancing beach lady. she came out onto the beach.. in nothing but a lime green thong. seriously no top or anything. she did have some little glove things on her hands though. She came out with this on. and starts doing aeoribs, tai bo, tai chi, yoga... i dont really know what it was but she was dancing around and punching and kicking and just going at it. after awhile she would run into the water jumping in. it was ridiculous. abosultely ridiculous. but that´s okay. I´m going to try to get a video- from a safe distance. to show everyone. as this cannot be explained with words.

Classes are back in swing. getting back into the routine. not a lot of time left. 46 days and 3 trips counting our week of travel at the end! yay us! we´re going to make it.

So... Engagement.

2009-03-23T11:15:00.000-07:00

So... Monday... oh monday.

so monday morning we got up and walked around.. I showered so my hair would be cute for the ¨date¨ Andrew and I had later. We were planning to go walk around and sit and talk and maybe eat a little at a cafe. I wanted to show him my favorite part of the city. Kelly was going to go shopping with some friends.

We walked to the Palau de la Musica.. it has really cool fountains that I enjoy. but the fountains were off that day for some strange reason. They haven´t been any other time we´ve been. I found out later this was a moment of breif panic for Andrew. It was no big deal for me. I walked him down the rio to show him the city of arts and sciences that I love so much. The buildings are just so cool. I love it.

So... Andrew and I come up on a place I had planned to sit. Looking out to the Palacio de los artes. It´s in the pictures. Really cool. He was hugging me and I was just excited to be in his arms. I was just enjoying being with him. He put his hand in his pocket and I was a little frustrated... I thought he was getting his phone. And I thought that was totally uncalled for and really killed the moment. It wasn´t his phone needless to say.

He got down on one knee and by the time he could say ¨Jami Renee... I love you... Will you marry me?¨I was crying and completely overwhelmed. he put the ring on my finger. I looked at the perfect little ring on my finer... thrilled. Then I slipped into I HAVE TO TAKE PICTURES mode. So... I took some pictures. Then we went to get our celebratory chocolate waffle. yay.

Not a bad day.

We went back later with Kelly and she took pictures of us in front of the Palacio.. some of them slightly ridiculous and some more like engagement pictures. I figure we aren´t going to be back in front of that place for awhile anyway. haha.

It was perfect and Amazing. Now I have two months to soak it in and love it. and about a year to plan it after I get back from Spain. Not bad considering I am a planner and will need to give myself time to do so... to avoid stress haha. So... Summer 2010 there could be a wedding you should be at. definitely not any sooner though!!!!

<3 you all and .. if you´re interseted in pictures.. because I know you are.

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=151201713&k=5VG26Z56RY2M5DDIXDV6RV

Fallas Pictures

2009-03-23T05:08:00.001-07:00

You have to copy and paste the links...

A LOT of fallas!!

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=151201713&k=Y2L4PZUR3VXM5DDIXDV6RV

Burning Fallas:

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=151201713&k=5WG55WV636XM5DDIXDV6RV

The Bull Fight, The Beach, and some other random stuff..

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=151201713&k=35M56XT6T63M5DDIXDV6RV

La Virgen with her flowers and some other stuff again...I think some lights and stuff

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=151201713&k=S2CT46PZS6XM5DDIXDV6RV

Random stuff around Valencia with Andrew..

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=151201713&k=5VDYZ4R4QV3M5DDIXDV6RV

more are coming of the fallas and the fires... But they aren't on facebook yet.

<3

Fallas...uno

2009-03-20T14:05:00.000-07:00

Oh Fallas...I don't know where to begin. I don't know that I can explain it to you. The pictures may have to suffice. It's one of those things I'm not sure I believe... and I saw it. WOW! What! it was crazy. Something I'm really glad I got to experience and I'm really glad I got to experience it with Andrew. That was nice. SO.. here we being with Part of the week.. I'll start with When He got here and maybe make it to the end of the week.. we'll see...

Thursday:

I took my last Midterm...all of the midterms were easy. I had three papers and 2 tests. The papers were cake and I almost laughed at the difficulty of the tests. I'm glad I wasn't motivated to study. :) After finishing the midterm I played for an hour on the computer and then left to pick up Andrew- still not believing that he would be coming. He was at the airport. I jumped into his arms and felt a flood of emotion come over me when i saw him. I was so glad and so relieved to be with him. We rode the metro back and I just hugged him. it was grand. We got back and he had paella to eat while Kelly and I got to enjoy a nice vegetable puree. BOO!!! I was quite jealous. We walked around with him showing him part of the city and keeping him awake to beat the jet lag. not a bad day.

Friday:

We went to school in the morning to put some pictures up to avoid getting utterly behind as a result of Fallas... it didn't help all too much as I took a ton of pictures. Andrew and I walked around and I showed him some of the older parts of the city and we walked to look at some of the bigger fallas in the center. It was nice to walk and talk and the Fallas were RIDICULOUS! I can't believe these people put this much money into the Fallas that are supposed to satire the economic crisis ... oxymoron?

Saturday:

I know the moment everyone is terribly curious about. The Bull Fight. oh wow. It was intense. haha. We got there following closely behind Esperanza...which was nuts! She essentially drug the 3 of us through a crowd. Losing Andrew and I and dragging us through people. It was stressful. She was dodging these things like a fly flying around a room. It was INTENSE!! Just saying. SO then we finally find our seats. after much stress and I called the friends that we were supposed to meet outside to tell them that we were not going to be able to meet them as we had already made it in. ugh. SO these things are just concrete slabs with numbers painted on them.it goes all the way around the stadium in rows on concrete slab seats...no stair cases or anything. Therefore, we were right next to the people beside of us. And.. they weren't made for comfort. As I had a mans knees in my back and my knees were hitting the man in front of me in the back. Poor Andrew being as tall as he was couldn't have been comfortable.

So the bull fight starts. It was kind of interesting and we were actually really enjoying ourselves. until the first bull died...it was all sport until it dawned on us that the bull doesn't die right off. What happens... they toy with it a little bit...bring a guy on a horse out and poke it in the shoulders (a picador). Then a guy comes out with these other speary things and stabs them (6 of them 2 at a time) in the shoulders of the bull. Finally, the matador comes out and toys with the bull some more. Bringing the bull really close to him to show how courageous he is or something. El Juli patted him on the back...what!?!?!?! Then the matador drives a sword through the bulls spine... killing it. But not instantly. The bulls stops.. waivers for a few minutes. Some of them try to keep going. basically the guys crowd around it for a few minutes. until it topples over. You can imagine my reaction as I tried (unsuccessfully) to watch the first bull die... a little unnerving.

Then, still a little shaken, but okay with being there (I had just decided not to watch the end) the second bull comes out. They come out and got through the two parts I thought were kind of neat (the horse and the spear things) and I was really just dreading the end. little did I know...a bandeador?.. the guy who stabs the speary things in. Took a horn to the gut because he didn't get away fast enough....ugh. He hit the ground. All of us Americans gasped (everyone else seemed strangely unaffected) a guy grabbed the bandeador to get him out the ring.. dropped him. and then a couple of others came to help and got him out. OH MAN!!!!! I did NOT want to watch the rest of this bull fight but.. we tried to continue. Luckily, this matador was arrogant and terribly entertaining.. otherwise i dont know what would have happened (we found out later the guy was okay and will be fighting again in the next bullfight Juli has - he travels with Juli).

So, by the end of the madness we found ourselves enjoying it. I know slightly barbaric right? i was amazingly unaffected by the gore by the end of it and stood up cheering with crowd. I was surprised too. NUTS. I couldn't believe it. The last matador got a standing ovation and 2 ears from the bull(as his prize) for putting on such a good show.

Also entertaining at the bullfight was the crowd! OH WOW! apparently one guy brings wine, another bread, another ham, another cheese and they all share! AH! Soo... somehow it got out that it was our first bull fight **cough**Maria Jesus**cough** and we kept hearing "EHHHHHH KENTUCKY!! QUE PASA?" And they proceeded offer us wine and a smoke on their cig...kelly and andrew got bad cheese and some decent ham thrown at them for awhile. I got out of it and the guy just called me stupid for not wanting it...I think I would've died watching all of that bloody goodness and eating at the same time. ugh.

Overall.. it was cool and an experience. I dont think I'll be returning any time soon. haha

After the bull fight we went to look at a street famous for lights during fallas. They were NUTS. I have pictures. But, I have to say for an economic crisis to be the talk of the country. These people sure didn't seem to be phased by it. This light show was nuts.. and had to use a lot of electricity as we could feel he heat coming off of them when they came on and we were close. I think I could have tanned myself with them. Just saying. haha. It was cool. We walked around and saw some fallas and admired the lights. Overall... not a bad night. But I was WORN OUT from taking it and trying to understand everything happening at the bullfight.

Sunday:

Lucky for us: 1. a Beach is 20 mins. away from the apt. and 2. Fallas = beautiful weather! Sunday morning we got up to go to the beach (andrew, Kelly, and I) and layed out there for about 3 hours. It got a windy and the sun went behind a cloud so it got chilly. We came back. We couldn't figure out where to swipe our metro cards so we got to go for free.. we figured it out now and are trying to avoid cheating the system that is basically on the honors system. The beach was nice.

That afternoon we looked at some more fallas... some of the big ones in the center of the city. We did a little souvenir shopping too...That night.. we thought there would be fireworks at 12 midnight to start off fallas. As that is what Esperanza told us. SO, we all went and sat. there was no one else there. and there were no fireworks. oh Esperanza.

Monday:

To come later... you'll know why when you read it...

Tuesday:

We slept a little bit and got up to go see more fallas- I think. That's basically what we spent the week doing. Looking at fallas. All kinds of them. I think Tuesday was the day we got up later and then took a LONG walk around the city to look at 3 of the big 5 fallas. The fallas that win prizes every year. There was one about 10 minutes walking from our apartment (we later watched it go up in flames) and the other 2 we saw that day were amazing as well!! those pictures are intense. They were so big and looked realistic.. amazingly. People apparently work on these things all year and they are incredibly elaborate. It was ironic that they spend millions of dollars to satire the economic crisis...bear in mind they were going to ignite these things in flame at the end of the week. I still don't understand it but I guess it's tradition and the Valencianos sure do love it. And I rather enjoyed seeing them. Though I am glad the people and small children with fireworks are gone.

Tuesday and Wednesday...there was an "offering of flowers" in the Plaza de la Reina. All of the falleras (girls in big dresses) took bouquets of flowers to the center to put in a big wood slatted form of Mary. The flowers made the design on her dress and basically surrounded her. We were trying to get to where we could see them throw them in. We didn't realize every major road in the plaza was going to be shut down due the falleras parading down. Therefore, we couldn't walk anywhere! you could cross the street at specified places. Hoards of people would gather there until a police officer told you to walk. it was nuts and you usually had to cross several times. Annoying. We ditched that plan but it still took us about 40 minutes to even get out of the traffic. Andrew and I were going to look for a beach towel (I dont have one and there were no shops on the beach... NO BEACH SHOPS!!! What kind of beach is that?????? I was confused. We gave up on that upon seeing the hoards of people still in the other plaza. We made our way to the metro ... we though we would avoid the crowds of people. It didn't work. There was a HUGE line for the metro. TONS OF PEOPLE!!!! we waited patiently and got on knowing it would be worse to try to walk through the people. We also swore we would not be in the plaza again when this stupid thing was happening ... From 4-11 pm on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Tuesday night we skipped out on fireworks since we were going to be meeting my intercambio (spanish friend that wants to learn english- so we help each other out) early that wednesday morning.

Wednesday:

We got up to meet Carmen. We went to the beach with her and she showed us the Americas cup Port - site of a big sailing competition a few years back. It was beautiful. So we took some pictures. We had a coke as usual and chatted. When we got back we ate lunch and Andrew and I took a nap (as was customary this week... we took one every day. it was a tiring week).

Wednesday afternoon we went to the Palacio de los Arte Reina Sofia for pictures and to the mall for a little while.. refer to the post about what happened on Monday.

Wednesday night was the final fireworks show at night. It started at 1:30 but we thought it started at 2. We met by the site and Andrew and I got some churros. We played cards and talked until the fireworks started. I promise... the 4th of July is now dwarfed forever. The fireworks shows here are insane. You can feel the force of some of the fireworks. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and you could see the MONSTER smoke cloud from the fireworks after they ended. They even set off car alarms! It was nuts. And some of the prettiest things I have seen. I also need to note that I am sad to see those fireworks go but thrilled that the small children will not be setting off firecrackers that sound like bombs anymore. I like not having to watch everyone I walk by to make sure they are throwing a firework I should be prepared for. I am also glad that spinning in the air fireworks will not longer come shooting at my body as I sit or stand waiting on fireworks. I can't explain to you how excited I am that 10 year old kids will no longer be throwing fireworks... their parents think it's cute. I think it's irresponsible and stupid. :) I know you wish you could have had the experience. I promise.. you would have wanted to punch the children just like we did. The booming sounds were constant... and frustrating...

Thursday:

The big day... the day of Burning. YAY! That means it stops. We got up later- we were worn out from the night before and the day before. We went to look at Mary full of flowers but without the inconvenience of the parade. I think that was a good Idea. She was beautiful and I can't believe that put that much into flowers either. but they did and it was sure interesting. The flowers were amazing and beautiful and you should definitely look at the pictures. We made it back in time for lunch... Every street had their own mini mascleta on Thursday... Car alarms were going off in the street. Kelly and I couldn't hear each other in the same room. Basically... it was intense. At least it's over.. no more mascleta. YAY!

Thursday afternoon...Esperanza and Azucena (the daughter from Madrid) informed us there would be a parade that afternoon on a street. It was supposed to be a reenactment of the battle of the war between the moors and the Christians in Spain. There were supposed to be dancing horses and great costumes and we HAD to go see it. Against our will... we went. Early... as they insisted we had to leave at 5 to secure our spot up front for the parade at 7...it was interesting. The parade...gotta say I didn't enjoy it at all. There were about o.. .2 horses. neither of which did any form of dancing. One did some crazy stepping thing (like a Tennessee walking horse)... over all not impressed. The costumes... were as authentic as... I don't know... a yeti? . I doubt they had the amount of feathers and things the moors would have worn... but it's whatever. We didn't stay for all of it. i hated most of it. but i guess not many people can say they've seen that... i wouldn't recommend you do if you get the chance.

Thursday night we went to watch the thing burn... We went to the big one down the street and secured our spot near the Obama part of the Falla to watch it burn. we wanted to be close to see it all. They lowered the flame resistant sheet blocker things, poured gasoline on the falla, lit some fireworks and lit her on fire. A brief moment of HOLY CRAP! and then...OH WOW THAT'S HOT!!! We ran away from the falla as did the rest of the people. and began to cover our faces and look away as it was too hot to be anywhere near it. The firefighters we thought were "just in case" weren't a precautionary thing. actually.. .they were totally and completely necessary. We watched it burn for quite a while. Took only a few pictures of the fires... that's very much sarcasm. I would also like to point out... barack obama was in this falla. And was also one of the last things standing. haha!!! Took pictures of that! it was quite a funny thing to experience.

I didn't sleep that night because Andrew was leaving super early. we got back at 2 or so... caught the Metro (subway) to the airport at 4 and i came back at 6:30 before he went back to get on his plane.

Thus fallas ends... I must see I am glad to see it go. The children with their fireworks and the hoards of people were just too much. I am also glad that Esperanza will no longer be asking us to go see the falla in ayuntamiento even after we've seen it about 12 times.

Hopefully I didn't forget anything. It was quite the busy week.

PICTURES!

2009-03-12T04:50:00.000-07:00

Pictures for most of Paris are up...only one more ablum to add! I´ll be adding it tomorrow morning.

I´m going to pick Andrew up in about 5 minutes. I am excited to see him. Fallas is this week so get excited for another interesting blog post after that..

Also..Esperanza is precious and asked if she needed to prepare the room with two beds for andrew and i so we could sleep together. she told me we could do what we wanted here it didn´t bother her. Awkward. i told her not to worry about the two beds he was fine in the room with one that it wasn´t a big deal. I was red I think. She must think we´re engaged! haha

Just a fun story!

Love you all have a lovely week!

The link for the pictures:

The Louvre, The Eiffel Tower, and Arc du Triopmhe etc. are the ones that are new!

http://jamirenee0610.badongo.com/alb/60514

Paris and Paella!

2009-03-08T10:39:00.000-07:00

Prepare for another novel...

We went to Paris this weekend. I can't believe I was actually there but I was. amazing. I decided to go ahead and start the blog post... i warn you. It will be another long one. haha.

So, we flew out on Thursday afternoon. Not a bad flight at all and got to Paris at about 7:30. Took a train into the city and found out hotel. The hotel was amazing and really cute. The couple who ran it was just precious. they really wanted to help us out and helped us find anything and everything we asked about. It was really nice. The room was precious! adorable! We had to go up an almost completely vertical set of winding stairs (pictures to come) and we had our cute little room (pictures to come).

The first night we went out and walked around to see where we were. about 5 minutes away from Notre Dame and about 10 from the Louvre (walking). I can't believe that's a true statement. soo.. we took pictures of them both at night and the seine river as well. ah! as we walked down the seine river we saw the Eiffel tower lit up and sparkling.. you can imagine my joy after the first night.

The next morning... Friday.. we got up early and got ready, I washed Laundry for Kelly and I- completely free. we didn't have to pay for the wash dry or detergent.. amazing... I really liked France at this point. Also, it should be noted that my pants fit again!!! We went down to eat breakfast. We were a little scared as the breakfast in Barcelona really wasn't up to par .. much to our surprise the breakfast in France was amazing. half of a bar of bread, strawberry jam, chocolate spread, butter, cheese, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, orange juice. amazing. it was really good. we took off walking found the metro stop (we had bought the 2 day pass the day before)and took the metro to the Arc De triumph. we took several pictures of it and walked around it a lot and then went to.....

THE EIFFEL TOWER!!!!!!!!!

I have to say...it's much more impressive than I thought it would be. we walked up to it and took pictures of it, took pictures under it and stopped in awe for a few minutes. we then walked down the lawn stopping at every point we could to take pictures of the tower or with the tower. We took pictures jumping in front of it (those took quite awhile- i have a pictures of Kelly kneeling in the street as we watched for traffic while one of jumped. there weren't many cars. and we weren't the only ones with cameras in the rode.) i also took some cool little "trick" pictures. looking like a I was touching it holding it kissing it hanging on it like a lamp post.. etc. All in all the fist day we spent about 2.5 hours at the Eiffel tour. haha. I think I'll probably have an album of just Eiffel tower pictures. :) If you could have seen us kneeling and holding our cameras in various positions to try to get pictures of us with the tower.. at one point all four of us were kneeling by one camera to get the eiffel tower and all of us in the same picture. I'm sure onlookers were amused. I had more fun than I can communicate trying to take pictures of Rhoda climbing the Eiffel tower. You'll see in a few days...

After the Eiffel tower we went to a nearby supermarket and bought peanut butter and baguettes and a drink to make peanut butter sandwiches and eat them in front of the tower. We have a small obsession...if you saw it you would too. I promise.

SO... we parted with our tower (it was our tower or the weekend.. in case you were wondering) knowing we would see it again the next night (we HAD to get pictures of it at night too...)

We went to see the Partner of the statue of liberty. She was small. very small. especially after seeing the Eiffel tower. but we took pictures of her anyway and wondered why she was so small. :)

We spent so much time at the tower we headed to the Louvre after the tower. It was free entry from 6 to 10 so we thought we should jump on that opportunity.. not many people can say they went to the Louvre for free. I can! haha. Then started the ridiculous picture taking part to. Us with the pyramid, the pyramid, the GIGANTIC size of that building.. you get the idea. we went in and.. I SAW THE MONA LISA. she's small too. but still impressive. we saw a lot of other cool stuff while walking around this monstrous building for 4 hours. I can't explain to you all we saw. (my camera died toward the end) but I'll be stealing pictures. Don't you worry. It was great.. we got lost as we tried to find our way out but we made it. and then walked to get crepes at a nearby creperie. I had chocolate and bananas. It was great. We went back and got to sleep for the following day.

Saturday,
we woke up and had the amazing breakfast again. it was really very good. and went to see The Pantheon in Paris (not the ancient one) and Luxembourg Palace. However, at the Palace... we encountered more action than expected. There was a couple (French I think) and He was sitting on her lap in a chair with a scarf over their heads... hmm. I guess he got too heavy or they got too into it because they almost fell out of the chair and decided to switch places. They put the scarf back over their heads and went in for round two (I still don't understand what the scarf accomplished) I have a picture of that too. :) OH the things I want to remember. The Palace was really pretty and really big. I enjoyed the rest of our walk through the park in front of it... trying not to get to close.

After the palace we went to Musee D'Orsay (across the street from the Louvre). It was smaller (thank God) and had a lot of artists i liked more. It was cheap to get into too (there are student discounts for things like that here...take notes American museums). I saw some Van Gogh things (He's my favorite) some Monet (bought a print of one of those) and a Renoir or two). I also got a picture with a polar bear statue. it was nice to walk through it and know we could see everything we wanted to see. even though the lay of the museum was kind of crappy haha. hard to figure out anyway.. for us. haha. lots of pictures from that too.

We went to get another baguette and make another peanut butter sandwich... we walked awhile and eventually started joking about God sending us a sign. He has a sense of humor. As we then saw a sign that was a bar of bread hahaha. oh that was funny. the funniest part was that we almost missed it. haha. we had our second peanut butter sandwich. :) I was in heaven.

We left the bread store and went to take our free tour at Notre Dame. We were there early and we were tired so we sat in Notre dame thinking about how cool it is that we were sitting in this place (we found out later it was from 1300 or so...old). we took some pictures. and then took our tour with a cute little french lady with a ridiculous thick accent. we spent about 20 minutes or more at each of the 3 doors explaining the significance and meaning of the sculptures of the three. IT WAS AMAZING! I learned so much about this building. about the sculptures and windows and stuff. I can't even begin to repeat it all unless I'm looking at the pictures. so each of the up close pictures of the doors hold some significance because of what she told us. My head hurt from soaking in the knowledge. :)

We went back and rested (Cameras needed to be charged...this is a problem since the night before we had to charge mine in the bathroom.. which is fine but the converter was too heavy.. so we propped it up with a big fleece blanket and a towel wedged between the sink and the wall...pictures of that too) haha. and then we went to eat at Hardrock cafe in Paris (YUP we went there) it was really good and nice to be in the environment. :)and it wasn't too entirely expensive. we left from the Hardrock and went to go to the Eiffel tower at night. we took a ton of pictures at night too. and it lights up and sparkles at 10 pm every night... HOW AMAZING!

It was beautiful.

We got another crepe after we waved good bye to the tower. Got up really early and took our plane back to Valencia. Kelly and I got home... threw our stuff on the bed and change clothes (the 40 degree in Paris to the 70 degrees in Valencia was quite the change). We went to the gigantic Paella at school. It was in street near the school and it was over a fire. it was great and the Spaniards were so welcoming and so nice and amazing. I just love the Spaniards on our street! haha. it was fun and the paella was amazing. A guy got up and sang and they acknowledged us being there. :)

So... Now... to put down a stereotype. The Parisians were SO nice! They were amazing. They were so helpful and so nice to us. they loved that I could say a few phrases in french (not enough to accomplish much) but it was just nice to see the real side of them away from what I've heard!

Just wanted to get that out..

so that was Paris.. an amazing weekend. I would love to go back to Paris and see everything again but i'm not sure I'll ever get that opportunity.. i'm glad we made everything of the trip I had!

Pictures are coming soon!

Oh Esperanza!

2009-03-02T10:17:00.000-08:00

So... several stories on Esperanza and a few on the weekend.

First... Esperanza stories.

We were eating breakfast and didn´t finish one of the cookies- we were both just too full for the last cookie. so as we walked out the kitchen she sighed and said ¨¨ ooo poor shamed cookie¨. hahaha PRECIOUS!

The next day or so at lunch we were telling her about classes and that we had to go read for our literature class.. and she said ¨yes.. go prepare for battle¨hahahaha even esperanza knows what the literature classes mean for all of us! Off to war!

Then.. .we were eating lunch one day and the phone rang... she stopped everything threw the knife she had in her hand on the table and RAN to the phone. hahahah. I just had to die laughing it was like she heard the gun go off for the start of a track race. haha precious precious

Last one... at dinner one night I didn´t really want to finish my tomato I wasn´t feeling the 2nd tomato for the day. for the 4th day in a row haha. oh well. well I asked about not eating it and she looked so sad. so i finished it. and said ¨I finished my tomato... can I have some cornflakes.¨she laughed and said ¨YES! I´m going to give you a prize!!!!¨hahhaa I get a prize for eating my tomato!!!! hahahaha

okay. so now on to the weekend we had ...

We went to an exhibition about the Holocaust on Friday with the most amazing professor ever (Alfaro).I basically want to bring her home with me. As another student said she is a wealth of knowledge.. but seriously if you have a question you as precious Alfaro and she will be the one to answer it! haha... so we went with her to see the thing about the Holocaust in Spain it was fairly interesting but sadly I could not take any pictures so I have none to put up.

Saturday morning we woke up and went to the aquarium. Could´ve had better weather.. it was kind of chilly and rainy the whole day. We´re all hoping we dont get sick from it. I seem to be fairing pretty well. I keep drinking my juices. haha but despite the weather I still had A LOT of fun! haha. We saw all kinds of fish and animals.. and lots of sharks. and a beluga whale and penguins and......A DOLHPIN SHOW!!! what! amazing. It made the day of cold and what not completely worth it! the pictures of this are soon to come!

Saturday night we went with our friends Rhoda and Anna and their host mom and her friends to a dancing show and dinner. We brought sandwhiches with us so we didn´t have to pay for food. we met the older ladies... they were all dolled up. Zebra print, leopard print, heels, fur coats, jewelry, make-up... all dolled up. it was kind of ridiculous. haha but they were precious. absolutely precious. WELL....apparently it was the day of Andalucia and a lot of them are from there (kind of like a state in the US). So we ate.. until 10:30 or so. when we asked one of the ladies when the dancing started she laughed and said oh well whenever they want it to haha oh spanish culture. no sense of time. the dancing started and we got one dance. then... there was a nice little farewell party for someone we didn´t know. oh well. and then we saw the dancing. .and it was marvellous. I have always known I love Flamenco.. but.. i really really LOVE flamenco! I think we´re going to try to find a place and take a lesson before we leave even though it´s REALLY hard...and that coupled with my serious lack of dancing skills probably doesn´t mean good things for me. haha oh well... i´ll take pictures and watch a lot and get a lot of spanish things with flamenco stuff on them haha. i´m okay with that. it was good. we left at about 1 am. The old spanish people beat us out... that´s a depressing moment in life.

Sunday we slept in a little.. I read a lot in a book I bough (twlight.. only in spanish) and we went to see mascletá. It is the sound fireworks show in a center here. it is amazing and big and it is going to go every day at 2 pm until march 19. So.. get excited..OH! and it´s televised. pictures of that are coming. they are the smoky things. :) you´ll know them... promise. After that we ate and went to a cafe to do homework. not really too eventful but fun enough for me! haha

We had three italian girls arrive yesterday and they are supposed to be at the apartment until Sunday. :) I oficially like Italians more than the French. :) they talked to us and are just so much fun and so friendly. I´m excited about the few days in Italy. hahaha

We are about.. 3 days away from getting on a plane and going to Paris. WHAT!?!?!?! Get pumped! I know Those pictures and stories are going to pretty much amazing!

That´s it for now!

Pictures...

2009-02-26T08:43:00.000-08:00

I´ve officially slaved and worked and waited... mainly waited. and pictures are up.

You should be able to click the one link below and look at pictures from the:

Prehistory museum, Science Museum, Ceramics museum, and Part of Barcelona- the Gaudi part. So... hopefully it works for you all!

If you want details about some of the pictures from Barcelona let me know. some of the other stuff is self explanatory but Barcelona has a lot of history behind a lot of the random pictures.. shoot me and email and i´ll send you what I can. - jamirenee0610@gmail.com

you may have to the next button below the list of albums on the left... I´m getting a lot of albums to my name.

http://jamirenee0610.badongo.com/alb/59540

<3

Barcelona....Gaudi and History... a small novel

2009-02-23T10:14:00.000-08:00

This weekend we went to Barcelona.. it was pretty fun. We got on the train early Friday morning and rode it for three hours to Barcelona. We got off took the metro and found our hostel. Upon arriving we freaked out a little... they had the 4 of us in a 6 person dorm. not supposed to happen. We chose this one specifically for a 4 person private. So we went down.. and after some convincing from rhoda and anna. they lady tried to give us a life lesson and changed the room. wooo hoo. After that drama we ate our packed lunch, jumped on the metro again and headed out to go to Park Güell.. a park designed by Gaudi that looks like it´s straight out of a story book. it´s amazing.

We got off of the metro and started following the signs. It´s on a hill. A Big one. We walked up a rather steep slope and then up about 4 escalators. the main entrance to the park was closed for construction (a very predominant thing in Barcelona). We snaked around following the crowd and assuming we were going in the right direction haha. we were. there were some creepy german? guys and a french couple- the guy was wearing a real berret (sp?)... so I took a picture of him. naturally. hah when we got to the park it literally took my breath away! i can´t believe someone actually designed it. you walk in through two houses that look like gingerbread houses. then you go into a staircase with ceramic work all over it. There were water fountains and all kinds of things. At the top of the staircase there was a platform with a roof with really awesome columns and such. and ceramic work on the cieling. you walked up and there was a park thing on top. the worlds longest bench is there. with lots of ceramic work around it too. GREAT view of the city. Palm trees line it and people were just out sitting and starring at the sky... hanging out. it was AMAZING! I loved it. then you walk a little to the right and you wind through a path to a museum of gaudi in a house that he lived in when working on Park Güell. He liked to stay where he was working. we walked back the way we came and left after passing about an hour and a half here and still not really seeing all of the park. how crazy. I got a book about it with pictures and lots of facts. it was cool.

After this park we continued our day of Gaudi... we went to see La Sagrada Familia. A church that Gaudi had started right before he died. It was supposed to have 18 tours but he only finished 8 of them. it´s really amazing. he slept there when he was working on it. he walked 2 kilometers from la Sagrada familia to a church to pray every day (devout catholic). he walked because he was afraid of trams. One day he got hit by one on this walk and died never finishing he work. They are still working on it and it is the worlds oldest construction sight. I got lots of pictures of it. It´s a good thing as they are planning to build a track for a high speed train under it which could cause it to collapse (according to experts). I´ll be sad if it does but at least I´ve seen it. We grabbed a starbucks sat outside and looked at in. At least I did... admiring how amazing it is.

We left la Sagrada Familia and went to go see Casa Batlló and la Pedrera... also from Gaudi. He totally redid the structure of Casa Batlló... he took a square building and turned it into something amazing. hah AMAZING. and pedrera was similar. we went into it. it´s a museum of all things Gaudi. It was amazing.I´ve got a ton of pictures from that museum. it was an audio tour so i learned a whole lot from it. haha. we went into the museum the 2nd day though.. so we didn´t get that done.

After these experiences we went to see Torre Agbar. Interesting looking little buidling. we ate some mexican food (yup mexican in spain.. it was AWESOME) and waiting for the tower to light up. after we finished eated we took some pictures of the torre and hopped the metro back to the hostel to sleep. haha.

On the way back we had a run in with a rather interesting spanish lady on the metro... she elbowed me. apparently i was in her way. but oh well. she then two hand shoved Anna..anna says ¨don´t touch me¨ the lady responds ¨you no toucha me¨ Anna says ¨I will push you out that door¨Rhoda yells ¨Anna! we´re in a foriegn country!¨and the event was over. thankfully haha.

There was more fun when we got back to the hostel...Anna couldn´t get the bathroom door open.. apparently someone saw fit to close it and shut everyone out. i went to help her try to get it open so we could get ready for bed. haha. oh how intersting.. put my shoulder into the door. I looked in the through the steam and there was a naked asian girl standing there... staring. at which point i shut the door back looked at Anna and walked straight back to the room haha. AWKWARD!!!!!!

haha we went to sleep and prepped to start the next day...

I realize this blog entry is getting ridiculous.. or entering absurd.. .thank you for bearing with me.. imagine experiencing it all in one day! haha

We woke up early and got ready and headed down stairs to try to get breakfast... it wasn´t good at all. so we went to the dunkin´coffee on Ramblas (american weekend.. we´re aware) haha. we got our breakfast bought some postcards (to be sent out shortly) and headed to meet the free walking tour we were planning to take.

The tour was amazing we learned SOo much. First.. the eiffel tower could have been in Barcelona. They turned it down when it was their turn to host a major convention or whatever. they said it was too modern and expensive. A year later they put it up in Paris with the extent of taking it down after the exhibition thing.They didn´t and now it is a land mark. intersting.

2 fun laws in barcelona:

It is legal to be nude.. you just have to wear shoes. and you have to either be fully clothed or fully naked. haha. what a law.

it is illegal to carry alcohol in the streets. so the venders see cops coming and throw it in a drain or trash bin and grab it out after the police are gone and sell it again. amazing. haha.

There were aqueducts and ancient roman things ALL over the place it was intense. It was beautiful too. to see the stuff the romans built that lasted for that long. how intense... terribly.

Paella (the food valencia is famous for).. legend has it paella came to be when a man decided he wanted to cook something for his woman but didn´t knwo how to.. .so he threw all kinds of stuff in a pan and make it and it was para ella - paella. interesting.. but could be just a legend.

The old patron saint of barcelona.. saint eulalia was martyred at 13. they tried all kinds of things. burning her at the stake and torture and what not and 13 times they failed. they 14th they rolled her down a hill in a barrel with knives and things in it. she died. but was named a saint immediately after. apparently. haha. we saw a thing honoring her. and the hill they rolled her down.

We saw the oldest synagogue in europe, a wall where they lined people up and shot them during the civil war (there were so many holes in that wall.. there will be a picture or two of it coming soon), the door to the headquarters of the spanish inquisition, a building built with gravestones from jews because they were so disrespected by the Spanish Reyes Catolicos. There are also pictures of that because it blew my mind that they would use gravestones to build a building and make a point. We saw the art school picasso went to along the road where he lost his virginity to a prostitute haha. A sculpture honoring george orwell for fighting with the spanish and taking the bullet that killed him. And heard a story about a holiday on april 23 celebrating a famous soldier who died and roses popped up..celebrated on international book day. the girls get a rose from their significant other the guys get a book.

Still more....

We walked and saw the statue of colon pointing out to the ocean (since barcelona is where he originally left from as this was the location of the reyes catolicas at the time). And we tried to find the Santa Maria- a model of it. because a professor said it was there. it was.. but 15 years ago they set it on fire during some political protest. that was a disappointing experience.

We saw the FC barcelona stadium and heard ¨It´s too late to apologize¨ being sung.

We went to a restaurant called Santa Anna for dinner...after walking in hard rock so they could look for souvenirs (i wasn´t about to drop that haha turns out they weren´t either) and it was good. really good.

We got up sunday and packed and went to dunkin coffee again. Meet katie Boyd (my friend from home) and she went with to visit Olympic Park- the site of the 92 Olympics. It was cool. I saw the torch and the track stadium. There are pictures.

On the way back we had the shakiest train ever.. but we survived and got back safely.

Last part... promise...

we went to watch the crida here in valencia when we got back. It´s the welcome to Fallas- the crazy festival that´s in three weeks. and it was already nuts. we couldn't get very close because of the number of people. but we got some decent pictures... and some good video of them singing the valencian anthem and yelling a lot. there were fireworks like it was the 4th only louder. NUTS!! afterward a parade in the street ensued! haha it was great to see but kind of makes me wonder how nuts the fallas are going to be! By the way.. my boyfriend does get to come over for that. I´m BEYOND excited! haha

That´s all for now... it was a small novel i´m aware. but it made for a good weekend.

Thanks for hanging in there! I know you really care if you got to this point!

<3 and maybe the next one will be shorter.

Weekend of Museums...

2009-02-18T07:51:00.000-08:00

So we went to a museum every day this past weekend. haha. That makes you feel cultured! Here we go with all three...

As mentioned before we went to the museum prehistory. i dont know why I felt it needed to mentioned again.. as it stunk. horribly. but i´m still putting some of the pictures up. maybe you´ll see what I mean haha.

Saturday, Valentines Day, we went to the museum of science Prince Felipe... yea that´s the full name... interesting. but it was AMAZING!! really. it was. it was interactive and fun and we got to play a lot and take lots of really silly pictures. it was good! haha I´m really excited for those pictures to go up. There was a section for health and well being, one for playing with and realizing simple laws of science, one for nobel peace prize winners (kind of boring) a space section and a hearing section and a dna section. the one that surprised me most however was the section filled with stuff about Marvel comics. Seeing all of the American comic book characters in a museum in Spain really puts American influence into perspective.. there´s a lot of it! haha. We took all kinds of silly pictures with the marvel characters. It was fun to be able to play with toys about Spiderman and Iron Man. I was fairly excited about those two. We bought two tickets that day because they were cheaper together- the other is for the aquarium. Apprently it´s huge. ACtually, Esperanza told us that it would take us a full day to see the whole thing. so we are going 2 saturdays from now to spend the day at the aquarium! get excited about those pictures and that post.. I know I´m really excited about going!

Also, for Valentine´s Day I got to video chat with my amazing boyfriend! always fun and it made me really really happy. Also, he just got his passport. So be on the look out.. he may pop up in some pictures from Spain!!! I can hope!! haha :)

Sunday, apparently a lot of museums are free on Sundays so Esperanza insisted that we go to the Ceramics Museum one sunday. so we went this past weekend as she was adament about how we would forget if we did not. It was definitely worth trecking through the nasty rainy weather haha. The building was INCREDBILY ornate to begin with. not to mention everything they had in it. It was crazy how much detail was put into this building that someone apparently lived in at some point. The most interesting thing for me, Picasso actually did some pottery special for this musuem and its on display and amazing. he signed the back of one of the plates. I have a picture of that coming up. After our 2 hours in the ceramics museum we decided to check out the Medieval Market Esperanza was also very adament about. It was intersting... but hard to spend any time there as there were a TON of people there and it was pretty interesting. It was nice to go and get some pictures! haha only like three though. Those will pop up in the album with the Ceramics Museum! After that we had a cute little coffee at the Cafe & Te here with Rhoda and Anna (the awesome friends) and went back to do homework!

haha, so that was the weekend. now on to the week.

Monday was pretty uneventful. Class and other things as normal.

Yesterday however, we went to the theatre to see a play. ¨La vida es sueño¨. Life is a dream. It was ... interseting. It is a play from a Shakespearen age writer.. only in Spanish... you can only imagine the language haha. so that was hard enough. not only that it was a modern interpretation.. oh that was fun. there we people playing a mountain, awkward scene Changes, and everything awkward you can imagine. Even really bad canned opera. it was amazing. haha. only not. so i didn´t really understand much other than what the english paper told us it was about- umm..a big conspiracy and a really complicated plot. I dont feel like typing the plot would do it justice. There was some groaping of men, a prince in his underwear, and a lot of sexual innuendo... and they try to say our movies and things are risque... yea... right!

Wednesday.. .also fairly uneventful.. i have successfully given you all a book to read and i am now off to learn about the conquest of america. I´m excited. I felt like it would up your spirits some :) haha

More to come soon... Barcelona in 2 days and only 80 days left as of today!

<3

Redflags, Frenchmen, and Intercambios

2009-02-13T08:52:00.000-08:00

Interesting few days...

We went to the museum of prehistory today. not really an interesting event but we went and I took some pictures. It was nice to go once but I´m not totally positive I ever really want to go back to a prehistory museum. Ever. haha. oh well. it was fun and Hopefully I got some decent pictures of arrow heads and stuff! haha

before we left school we had lovely meeting about things we should be aware of when we got to Spain. One of these things was a ¨red flag¨. These lovely things should fly out when you get annoyed by something.. its probably just culturally different and you need to be aware of that. So, Kely and I have discovered our big red flag. It´s walking in the street. In the US there is a system.. I move to my right you move to my right we walk on like nothing ever happened. The system here appears to be a game of chicken as you walk: if you don´t move I´ll just walk right into you. We´d been getting frustrated for a few days when we finally came to the end of it. We were walking to school on morning. We came up behind a lady walking slower than we are.. typical since we walk so much faster than most people here (we´re working on that haha) and she was walking in the middle of the sidewalk. there was really no way around her with out hitting her. so... we just decided to go around her in the cross walk when we had room.I went one way Kelly went the other. The lovely lady decided it was good to cut kelly off. As she did so Kelly stepped in a pile of dog poo that happened to be in the middle of the cross walk. our red flag was flying high! so.. my question for you all.. any idea why on earth we cannot figure out this pattern?? it´s getting a little ridiculous and we are starting to give into the ¨we´ll just hit you mentality¨. I´m VERY excited to get back and walk down a street.. just so that i dont get hit!!!!!

Second fun story.. Wednesday night we get home for dinner and esperanza says she has to go out. okay. not a big deal. she has to go out to pick up some boys. Some of her daughters friends maybe.. no big deal. WRONG! She was going to pick up three french boys who would be staying with us for the next three days and had decided to give us about a 20 minute warning. We had our freak out as soon as she left. We were very territorial. We did not want these boys in our bathroom. that was the main concern. So our 3 16 year old french friends arrived. They knew little to know spanish and didn´t speak to us the entire time they were in. Actually, the stopped talking when we were around. We came in the door for dinner and they stopped talking. Marvelous. It was an intersting? experience but I´m hoping for a great warning next time hahaha

Finally, our school does an intercambio program. I meet with a person who wants to learn english and we talk together and help each other learn the language better. i help her with english she helps me with spanish. basically, my intercambio is amazing! she is super sweet and very excited. She is older than I expected. She has 3 kids; her youngest is a boy age 21 and her oldest daughter is married and lives in London. She said she wants to learn english because she wants to be able to go to london and help her daughter when she has kids. It´s really very cute. She´s only been studying english for about a year and she is getting pretty good at it! i was very impressed with how good she was doing. very impressed. She was great and I´m very excited to continue meeting with her! we´re meeting again next Thursday!

We are currently planning trips to Barcelona, Sevilla, and Cordoba. We are traveling machines! I´ll keep you posted on those experiences and I´m in the process of putting more pictures up (from the museum and going out)!

We´ve been here a month...

2009-02-09T08:10:00.000-08:00

So we´ve been here almost a month and we only have 3 months left. three months from today we are going to be on a plane on our way back to the US. how crazy is that? I´m surprised. officially, 89 days left until I am back on US soil haha!

So, just a few fun things. I saw Mitch McConnel on the TV in Spain. i thought it was interested to see him on TV in Valencia. I was like oh! I heard him speak this summer! haha just an interesting fact.

Esperanze has moved on from my malnurished children - by the way. I think she thinks Andrew and I are engaged because the word for boyfriend and fiance is the same. I think she thought I meant the fiance thing because we´ve been together a long time (in her mind) and here they don´t do the ring thing quite as muhc. it just isn´t as important. that would explain why she was so concerned with my children haha interesting fact. Now she has decided she wants to fatten me up. haha so she is trying her hardest. Actually, at dinner last night she told me i should go get a scale so I can see how much weight I´ve gained since I´ve been her. If I am gaining weight.. I definitely do not want to know how much! haha She´s ridiculous. We´re probably going to come home to a scale in our bathroom before too long.I just think that woman is so terribly precious. Also,i dont know if I´ve mentioned it or not but there is a baby Jesus figuring..doll.. in her coffee table. i fully intend on taking a picture so that everyone can share the expereince with me!

We are officially going to Paris! We booked the tickets last week and I am looking at booking our hostel today! I get to see the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame and COOL STUFF! I´m SOO SOOO SOO excited for that trip! yay!!!!

I have been going to mass in Spain. it´s interesting. not only is it mass but it´s in spanish. I´ve finally figured out what was happening with that. for the most part. i think. We went to a different service last week and the week before where i can actually understand the priest. that´s a nice change. i love that! haha. it´s a really cute church and I´m growing to like it. though i cannot wait to get back to a good ol´english protestant church in the states!!!! haha

This past weekend was the birthday of a friend here, Rhoda. So we went to celebrate with Italian food in Spain (AMAZING) and with Flamenco. Only the flamenco thing fell through. haha. not too bad. hah we stil went and hung out and went to a cafe another night and a different cafe on Sunday to do homework. Nothing to terrible. Only people smoke like trains here! so we had to get febreeze in order to make our clothes smell okay. Then sunday, we went to a parky kind of thing and read for some of our classes. It was kind of windy but otherwise beautiful and peaceful. There are SO many people out rollar blading or biking or running. or basically doing anything active. I´m a big fan of that. I think most of the city was out doing something sunday (I´ve only seen like 3 obese people since i´ve stepped into spain..intense)we also discovered the chain of ¨cafe & té¨this weekend. that was an amazing experience and we fully intend to go back.

Also, important to note. they do not dry clothes here and do not use fabric softener. i am washing every piece of clothing I brought with me in fabric softener when I get back! I AM SO EXCITED FOR SOFT SOCKS!!!!! hahaha the simple things in life.

Kelly and I have mastered the metro. We know how to take it to get to the train station and airport as well as to navigate the city. it is definitely one of my favorite thing. i think i´m going to want to mandate ever city in the US to have a metro system. haha. i love it.

thank you all for the cards and facebook messages and everything! i feel so loved and missed! I appreciate it tons!

More to come later.. this one was kind of long and I have class! haha my favorite one!!

<3 you all a lot. hopefully i get more pictures up soon! hopefully!!!! and hopefully there weren´t a ton of typos in this post! haha

How to access pictures...

2009-02-04T13:58:00.000-08:00

So I think I've discovered the answer to this nagging problem. To access pictures you copy and paste the link (it wouldn't let me do the automatic thing). Then you will brought to a page that says badongo slide show or something. Look to the right. There should be three different albums. Click the "view slide show" link below the album you want to view and it should work. it did for me when I played around with it earlier... alert me if I need to play around with it some more! :)

Week 4....

2009-02-02T10:26:00.000-08:00

So hey, we are not going to london - just an update! we didn´t get the tickets in time and it was crazy expensive to go so we are celebrating a friends birthday instead. Flamenco dancing. I´m excited about it.

We went shopping this weekend. The prices are kind of ridiculous $8 and $12 shoes. roughly. it was kind of nice. I just couldn´t bring myself to pass up those deals! haha we have to walk about 30 mins (k... maybe 40) and then its the same walk back. at least we got our stuff. we are going to try to go souvenir shopping this weekend in light of changed plans. which could be potentially awesome.

we are under 100 days and that´s cool. and it´s into feb. time is going terribly quickly. we are in the process of planning trips to Paris and to Sevilla for Holy Week (it´s apparently intense there with parades and fires and what not) so I´m very excited needless to say. the thought of travel really makes me happy.

We went to see the cathedral this weekend... it was really beautiful. amazingly beautiful actually. and the professor we went with is like a human encyclopedia. haha. she knows so much. Kelly and I are happy to say we have pictures of the arm of Saint Vincent as well as a picture of us sorority posing with the arm. we thought it was marvellous. others laughed. we weren´t concerned. So, get ready for the pictures to be up when I finally have time to battle the terrible internet connection and put them up haha. We saw the holy grail too... really. I have a picture to prove. I´ll put it up soon as well.

The history in this place is amazing. I am forever astounded by the beauty and the history and the combination of the two it´s really very cool.

There is also this thing with bats here. (pictures coming soon) the mascot for the soccer team is a bat and there is a bat above the crown on everything. Apparently, the legend is that during a battle a bat came and landed on the helmet or sword or soemthing of the general and it was a good omen and they won. in reality though, according to Alfaro (the professor that knows all), it was really just because the bats ate the mosquitos and what not and it was good for the city (since it was by a river). so they retaliated against someone else having a lion above their sheild and put the bat above theirs. I prefer the legend but i´ll let you decided.

We had chocolate crepes for dinner last night. it was dinner. it was a crepe with chocolate pudding in it. it was good but i thought it was rather different to have that for dinner. especially considering our host mom is a health nut haha. she´s precious though and we love her already. she is starting to understand our personalities... or we understand enough spanish to communicate like that now. haha either way.

OH! also on the way back from hanging out at an awesome bookstore (FNAC- we got some pretty good spanish music- we´re working on understanding what it says... working on it). but on the way home we were on the metro.. and there was this couple...very affectionate couple really. they were all up on each other like...suction cupped together.. making out on the bus!!!! ah! and it wasn´t calm making out.. it was very loud and obnoxious then she went in for the neck! amazingly...Kelly and I were the only ones who noticed!!!! How is that possible? ugh. we don´t know but it definitely made for an interesting experience!

I think that is all for now.. i lost my list for the blog. so unfortunately i´ll have to make a new one. im sure it won´t be difficult.

96 days and counting.

End of Week three...

2009-01-30T10:21:00.000-08:00

So first.. here are pictures of Sagunto and the train station.

http://jamirenee0610.badongo.com/alb/56653

there are more added to the other link too! hah lots of pictures.. there will be more next week. of the cathedral here in valencia and of the parade of saint vincent the martyr and his mummified arm in the cathedral... oh and the holy grail! i just haven´t had time to upload those yet!

Love you all i hope you enjoy the beauty of sagunto and valencia like i have!

Third week...

2009-01-28T10:32:00.000-08:00

So.. lots of fun things. I´ve got a list and a little bit of time. hopefully I can get it all in. First of all- the weather there is INSANE. It´s like 55 degrees here so its hard to imagine the ridiculous storm you all are dealing with in the United States. Intense!
So.. first.. we keep walking down the street and seeing the strangest thing. First, we were walking into our apartment complex after school one afternoon. and a dad holds his son up... and lets his son pee in the potted plant thing next to our apartment complex, its a little park type thing. i was like ohhh wow! so i thought that was just one interesting parent. i didn´t expect to see it again though I wondered why no one else was giving the two strange looks. So, two days or so later we were walking to the school on afternoon. There was a mother holding her 9-10 year old sons hand as he peed on a tree. the tree was onthe corner of one of the busiest intersections in the city. WHAT!?!?!?!? I am still astounded and felt the need to share this crazy experience with the rest of you. If I have more sightings I will be sure to inform you.

Second, we went shopping with some friends on saturday. it was great. but Kelly and I desperately needed towels because Esperanze was washing the two we borrowed from her. So we went into this department store in the mall. only the wanted us to bag our bags in a vacuum sealed thing to enter the store. DUMB. so the others held our stuff as we ran in to get the towels. we were obviously not fans of this store wanting us to bag our bags... so then we´re standing in a LONG line to check out and the spanish man in front of us had potentially the worst dandruff ever! it was ALL OVER the collar of his shirt- similar to the roads you are seeing in Kentucky now. just saying.. it was terrible and so disgusting and really hard not to laugh hahaha

Third.. we used the metro for the first time. sounds easy enough. false. we bought our little metro pass which we figured would be the hard part- we switched the language on the machine to english and made it easier :) so we go in to try to use this pass and i see a thing where you can slide it in like a credit card at an atm. so i slide it in. Then the lady behind the glass starts shaking her head and making a pushing motion! OH! we thought.. we have to put it through AND put our hand on top so it goes through. duh. wrong again. in reality (i figured this out too late and i think she just let me through from being annoyed) you just have to tap the card on the top and the thing opens and lets you out. convenient and much easier than i wanted to make it.

Also last week, we went out for the first time as we did not have class on thursday due to Saint Vincent the martyr day. fun. so we went out with some friends to get tapas and chill (none of this get crazy drunk in a foreign country because that´s smart stuff). apparently, homeless people here dont leave you alone. they like to as you for things, money mainly. so we had guys come up and ask us to buy things. we ignored them. a guy asked us for money to get a drink so we tried to give him our water. he didn´t want it. wonder why? and then.. the most awkward for me. a guy came over trying to sell little trinket things (he had like 12 cowboy hats on his head and like 20 bags on his arms - intenseness)so he comes up to our table. stands directly behind me...and puts a dancing cow on the table and lets it go. i was like ohhh goodness this is not fun.. i wanted to laugh because it was awkward but I didn´t want to encourage him. so then.. he took it up and i thought iwas good... nope. he put a dancing bull on the table and did the same thing. the look on my face had to be hysterical because i had no idea what to do!!! haha fun times in Valencia!

Finally, we went to the theatre. Didn´t really understand any of it. the whole spanish language thing gets a little overwhelming sometimes. but we tried and it was really a great experience. i had a lot of fun with it. the awkward part came with all of the ridiculous inuendos and what not that REALLY caught me off guard. lets face it.. i´m a faily modest person. seeing men rub themselves as they talk about having sex with a woman (i can only assume-remember i didn´t not understand the words) is incredibly awkward. Then, Sunday we were watching Carmen with our host mom. Once again, holy crap! there was no holding back with the naked women and the sex scenes. VERY interesting hahahaha. we were incredibly happy that our host mom was dozing by the time these scenes came on. WHEW!!

Theres an interesting update for you! lots of fun stuff and i´m sure there are plenty more to come. 101 days until i´m home in the states!!!

Second week....

2009-01-23T02:51:00.000-08:00

So we´re not even really to the weekend yet and we have already done a whole lot... hopefully I can remember everything I´ve wanted to talk about.

Inaguration of Barack Obama... it was EVERYWHERE! for like a week i was all we heard about. strange right.. since we´re in spain! haha oh well. then it was all over the papers. hah we have some barak obama papers it was excited. watching the inaguration was rough though. we had to try hard to listen to the english when itw as being translated rather loudly into spanish... our host mom now goes on about the good things he is goign to do and the turn around and how the market it still doing badly... haha it´s really strange how much they pay attention to what goes on the states. kind of cool to think about.

Friends- we have them now! haha we´ve found people to hang out with and do things with so that´s been fun. We went to a restaurant Wednesday night since we didn´t have class on Thursday (I´ll get to the why in just a bit) we sat and ate and talked it was fun. Despsite the poor homeless guys who come up asking for money for something to drink and when we try to give them water they walk away...guess they weren´t that thirsty haha. It was fun. Then a guy came up and wanted to sell us these things. so he sat the little dancing bulls and cows on the table beside me. it was reallly awkward. and kind of funny.

Then yesterday, thursday we went with them to see War of the Brides only it was in Spanish. It was interesting to see Kate hudson and Anne hathaways mouths moving in english but other awkward spanish voices were coming over them. strange. haha. it was kind of fun. we understood most of it but it was still weird to not laugh when everyone else did. I wonder what was so funny. i guess I´ll see when I get to watch it in english in the united states. haha

So.. Why we didn´thave school on Thursday. It was saint vincent the martyr day. there was a parade. Apparently, when the romans came through he had his hands and feet tied to 4 different horses and they pulled him apart. they have his mummified arm on display in the cathedral here... apparently it houses the holy grail too but I haven´t gone to see that yet haha. So, they take his arm out and put it in this big gold and silver statue thing of him and the parade it around the city with a band and incense and priests and the archbishop. everything is closed that day in valencia. it´s big deal. there were news crews. i have pictures that are sure to come. i know you are super excited to see the arm. I´ll try to get one of the grail while i´m here as well... our host mom was pretty adament that it is in fact the holy grail.

So.. we took the metro to get to the movie theatre here. Seems easy enough right... not so much. We finally decided which pass we needed and bought them. not actually that expensive. The hard part comes when you have to try to get into the station. i thoguht, sicne there was a slot you slide your card. wrong. the lady was behind the glass motioning us to push so we thought put it in and put your hand on the top. wrong. you really just tap the card. it was embarrasing. and really a lot harder than it needed to be. but it makes for a pretty funny story.

Classes have been great. i like some more than others and i´m slightly unhappy about all of the reading heading my direction but i should be able to accomplish it. I´m ready to go to the beach and read though... that is going to be marvellous.

more to come later... i hope that covered a lot

Pictures of Valencia!

2009-01-23T02:34:00.000-08:00

More will come later in the form of a blog post... but I have lots of fun things to post!

I love you all I hope the link works. if not.. i´ll play with it and make it work!

http://jamirenee0610.badongo.com/alb/56347

First Weekend...

2009-01-19T07:36:00.000-08:00

Hopefully I have time to type all of this one before my next class in like..20 mins... haha... So the first weekend..

Friday we had classes.. which was kind of nice because we had something to do and we weren´t sitting around.

Saturday.. we went to Sagunto Spain. it´s a town that has roman ruins. So we got to walk around in the old theatre and i nthe castle/fortress... it was a hike up a mountian but totally worth it!! i have some awesome pictures. It was amazing to get to go there and see all of those amazing things! i am ever more impressed with the beauty of this place! Hopefully i can get pictures of Sagunto up soon!

Sunday...i went to catholic mass.. in spanish. it was definitely different than i am used to. I was suprised but how upsetting it was for me to not be at my church- either calvary or at bethel. I was amazed that. the Catholic mass was incredibly interesting.I would like to keep going.I hope to maybe understand some of it before I leave! haha After church, our host moms oldest daughter (she´s grown she was just in visiting) showed us the market thing in the square by the football stadium(HUGE and right by our house haha). It was like a flea market sized yardsale! it was crazy... and rather intimidating. There was some cool stuff there though so we´re planning to go back haha. We then walked around the city taking pictures which I hope to put up sometime in the near future!

Now fun facts... So our host mom says ¨Madre Mia¨ all of the time.. kind of like oh Mary mother of Jesus.. which is funny. She worries a lot about me because I dont eat a lot. So she keeps talking about how I need to eat more and she doesn´t see how i survive and she doesn´t understand how i can´t eat more. And then she told me that I need to learn to eat more because when I was pregnant (WHAT?!?!?!- not for a LONG while) iwould need to eat so that I had a health baby. I was taken aback and had to try really really hard not to laugh. OUr mom is amazing though. She asks a lot about our classes, our families, our boyfriends, our friends... she wants to get to know us and she is really good to us. We really lucked out on having her. We are very blessed.

Barack Obama is EVERYWHERE... every morning, afternoon, and night we have watched the news and it´s been about him and the inaguration... kind of wierd that it´s around here that much.. i guess I expected it just not to this degree hahaa...He is on the news papers and all over. Our host mom asked about him day one.. her daughters within hours.. and in Sagunto a clerk at a store was even like oo you get a new president soon! ahah our host mom goes on and on about how if the US does good the rest of the world does well.. so this is a great change and it´s going to affect everyone haha...

The only american made car i´ve seen is ford.. there is no speed limit here.. well there is but they don´t use it.. they just try to catch who ever is in front of them. .even in the city which is SCARY lol. Bikes are everywhere. The streets here are fun to walk on.. it´s a really interesting environment. Hopefully the pictures capture some of it.

I´m really excited to beging travelling and i´m hoping to post pictures in the near future!

That was long...... haha if you read it.. thank you for loving me that much!

Primeros dias...

2009-01-15T10:03:00.000-08:00

Wow.. so... we are really in Valencia Spain and we are really going to be here for a long time! Ahh haha but it's good. I really like it. The weather is wonderful- much warmer than it is for you all back in Kentucky. It is comfortable most days. until it's night time and we're trying to go to sleep haha. but it's all okay. Our host mom is very sweet. She can cook and she takes good care of us. She is really understanding with everything; us being tired, being new to the country, new to the food and customs, and wanting to talk to people b ack home a lot. She's really amazing. We don't have internet at the house but we ahve it here which is really awesome. We get to talk to people from here and it keeps us out and about sometimes. I like it.
The city is beautiful. Palm trees and orange trees are everywhere. We can walk to school from our house which is awesome. It saves a lot of money.
It's still incredible that we're here but it's a lot of fun. We are goign to Sagunto, Spain this weekend with the school. We should be able to take some awesome pictures then so Hopefully i'll be able to figure out how to get some up on the internet! haha
<3 you all and i hope things are well back in the states.

Airports....

2009-01-12T13:22:00.001-08:00

I'm sitting in the Charlotte International Airport. Kelly and I are hanging out. We've been here awhile haha. I still can't believe I'm really going to be gone until May 9. It's strange to think about leaving my family and my friends and my boyfriend.

last night- right before departure- I was almost sick from worrying about leaving. I had a horrible dream and a horrible night. This morning-I was ready to go. I haven't cried yet but I'm really trying not to let myself. I'm very excited for this opportunity to learn a lot about Spain and a lot about Spanish. I'm also excited to see the changes in me in the next few months.

I'm still amazing, astounded, and intimidated by this opportunity but that's okay. 24 hours from now I'll be in Spain. Actually... about 12 hours from now.

In Prep.

2008-12-21T15:54:00.000-08:00

So, a friend of mine (Kelly) and I are jetting off to Spain in about three weeks. We'll be in Valencia for about 4 months. Now... I have plane tickets, 4/5 classes (should probably work on that), a visa and passport (I'm not a fan of Chicago at all), and lots of packing left to do.
It's interesting leaving family, friends, and boyfriend for 4 months to go off to Spain. Hopefully it's fun and worthwhile. I'm sure it will be.
I expect letters, cards, and fun things from all of you back in the states.

Jami Dick
Institute of Spanish Studies
El Bachiller, 13
46010- Valencia SPAIN

More to come as I await January 12 when I fly out....