october is ending...

Well, this was a pretty stressful week. It was time for midterms here in Valencia, which was an interesting experience. Luckily, I only had two written exams. I also had a presentation and a paper though, which were not fun. I did relatively well on all of it I think. Gosh... not too much crazy or funny stuff happened this past week. Well, one day I was walking home from school and walked past this big dog on a leash and he smelled my leg and I almost petted him. I didn't and when I got like 10 feet away from them, he started barking furiously and running at me. Luckily, his owner kept him still. I looked at the owner with some angry eyes. I was just thinking, "Are you seriously going to bring that beast out here where he can kill me?" But I kept walking, a little nervous. Ummmmm... Thursday night was a bust because I didn't feel well and ended up going home earlier. Note to self: Pizza para llevar is NOT a good idea anymore. So, Friday I got up, went to Starbucks, did some work, and then met Evan to walk to the aquarium to meet our school for a little trip. However, the walk was a liiiiittle longer than we expected. But, we made it and met up with the group. We saw a dolphin show. I was unaware that dolphins could like triple flip in the air. But, the whole time, I was just like, whatever, my roommate is ten times better than that. And he doesn't even have a dorsal fin. And the aquarium smelled bad. Like animal poop. And I don't know how. Don't the fish poop in the water? But whatever. After that, we went to this intercambio thing at Starbucks and I got to hang out with my intercambio, Nora, and her friends, which was fun. Then, we went and hung out along the Rio with a lot of Spaniards. Apparently, the Rio is where all the attractive Spaniards go because it was literally the first time I have seen more than 5 attractive people within close proximity of each other. I felt so at home. Haaaaaaahahaha. Oh wow. Saturday, I went to see the movie "Scoop" with Nora. The movie itself was good, but the person who dubbed over Woody Allen's voice in Spanish may have had the most annoying voice I have ever heard. It was painful. After that I met up with Chrandie and Bethany and went to dinner with a group of people at a nice (relatively speaking, clearly) Chinese restaurant. After that, we went to this bar outside and hung out. It was cold... but it was fun. Umm... I saw Gretchen, Jenna, and Emily today which was awesome. That's about all. So.. yeah.

girls poop.

Well, this past week was amazing. I can honestly say for the first time that I am loving being here. A group of like 12 of us went out both Thursday and Friday nights and just had fun and hung out. It was freakin amazing. On Friday night, we went to this place where you pay 14 euros and can eat and drink all you want. It was absolutely ridiculous. I ended up drinking like one glass of wine with dinner because I ate so much that I was almost sick. So, I guess I got my 14 euros worth. Haha. We went out on Friday night to the little bar by school. It was awesome. We just danced and were ridiculous. I got pizza from the place across the street called (in Spanish) Lord of the Pizzas. I mean, really? If you are old enough to own a pizza place, should you really think it is appropriate to name it Lord of the Pizzas? Wow. Of course, I ended up dropping a pepperoni on my shirt. I had just gotten the shirt cleaned. Awesome. My madre is cleaning it, so it better be good. I have decided that I am going to love my madre. We are going to be best friends, and she can't change that. So I have taken to calling her Maria (behind her back) and smiling at her and hugging her whenever I can. Probably, she's going to come to my wedding and be Godmother to my children, even though we don't really do that in the Baptist church. But we will now. For Maria! We had a very friendly talk about how much I despise my lunch sandiwches that she gives me every day. So now I will have lettuce and/or tomato on my sandwich regularly. Thankfully. Maria loves me. But, regardless. Saturday afternoon, the school took a trip to Calpe, which is this beach town in the Community of Valencia. It is beautiful and home to this huge rock that apparently looks like the Rock of Gibraltar. That's what Maria told me. So, we climbed the rock. We thought it was going to be a light trek. Oh no. We climbed for about 3 hours and were absolutely drenched in sweat. But, we made it to the top and got some amazing pictures, which will be posted tomorrow. It was a really cool experience making it to the top with friends. I know Christy was surprised my limp legs made it. But, speaking of Christy, she taught me something this weekend that I have tried to avoid my whole life. You may not know this, so brace yourself. But... girls poop. Yes. Hard to hear, but true. Christy decided that she should hold it the entire day. So on the way back down the mountain, she literally stopped every few minutes to make sure she didn't go in her pants. I, of course, was tickled by this and decided to poke her and make fun of her as often as I could. Because I am a loving person. That night, we watched the Moors and Christians parade. I don't know why, but there were a lot more Moors. I don't understand it because the Spaniards really don't like them. Oh well. We ate dinner at a restaurant where the evil waitress tried to overcharge us. Luckily, we had some Spanish speakers with us who ended that quite quickly. After dinner, I got churros. Not to brag, but I did. Sorry. I know you're jealous. Sunday, I met with my intercambio, who is a really cool girl. We hung out and spoke Spanish for literally three hours. Incredible. And then I studied alllll day at Starbucks. It was awesome. Kinda. Oh... and today I took the most vague test I have ever seen. Who knows what I will get. And I am now a member of a gym. Yes. And I might be playing soccer tonight. Holler.

oops

Ok, so it has been forever long since I posted. My bad. Well, let's see. The last weekend in September, I went to Munich for Oktoberfest. Seeing as I strongly dislike beer, I didn't spend very much time actually at Oktoberfest. Josh and I did a whole bunch of sightseeing. We went to Dachau, the concentration camp. So, there clearly are not going to be a whole bunch of happy-go-lucky events from that day. It was incredible, though. Umm, Evan, Josh, and I cracked each other up the entire time, which is always fun. Then, we came back and spent a week at school. Well, Monday night was amazing. We went to eat dinner, see a movie, and go to a mojito bar with one of our teachers, who is 24. And she's awesome. We saw this movie "Volver" with Penelope Cruz and I understood it all. I was so freakin proud. Well, this past week (October 5-12) Evan and I travelled to Italy for our fall break. It was the most beautiful place I have ever been. I just loved it. We started off by flying from Valencia to Florence on RyanAir. Well, let me address the airline situation first. I really felt like there should have been live chickens running up and down the aisles. The airplane felt like they taken a city bus and wrapped it in the shell of an airplane. The seats did not lay back. They were, in fact, made of plastic. We were cramped. But it was a blast. And the flight was only two hours. When we got to Italy, we realized that we were actually flying into Pisa, not Florence, so we had to take an hour-long bus ride to Florence. However, we missed the first bus so we had to wait an hour. In that hour, Cary got bitten on the chin by what we thought was a mosquito. However, judging by the fact that his chin doubled in size, I'm not so sure my guess was correct. So, he drank fome Benadryl, and we were on our merry way. We got to Florence, and peaced out from the rest of the UVA kids and headed to Gretchen's apartment. When we got there, she was mildly freaking out (which is SO unusual for Professor Presenell) because we were running late getting there. We hung out and when Jenna Wilson came in, we hid and then jumped out. I ran and gave her a hug, and we fell on the floor and... well, let's just say Jenna caused a mess. We stayed in Florence until Saturday just going out and having fun and eating lots of food. We woke up on Saturday intent on getting to Rome early. Well, as luck and poorly-researched train schedules would have it, we didn't get into Rome until 6:45 at night. Buuuut, we ended up being on the same train as Richard Roberts, which was amazing. We looked unsuccessfully for a pub that was showing the Wake-Clemson game, which, in retrospect, was probably a good thing. The next day, we woke up after our skeezy Spanish roommates left. We spent the entire day wandering the streets of Rome. We probably walked about 15 miles that day. We started the morning by seeing the Pope in St. Peter's Square, which was so awesome. We went to the Colosseum, Pantheon, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and St. Peter's Basilica. Every sight just blew us away. The next day, we got up and went back to Florence. Emily Stocks was back at the apartment when we got there, which was really exciting. We spent Monday and Tuesday kinda hanging out, eating, going out, and just being friends. It really made me happy to get to hang out with those three girls. Wednesday afternoon, I headed to Rome to meet up with the UVA kids to fly back to Valencia. As I was buying a metro ticket, I ran into Meredith Blunda, which made me day! We hung out, got soe gelatto, and met up with my friends. We went back to our hostel to figure out how to get to the airport the next day. It turned out that we had to leave the hostel to take a 4:30 AM bus, so we didn't go to sleep. We ate a huge dinner, played stupid games like Rapid Fire and The Newlyweds, and finally got back to Valencia at around 9:30 AM. I slept the entire day. Now... I am here. In Valencia. Finally updating. New picture on Webshots and Facebook. Check em.

for now

Ok... no blog for now. Maybe tomorrow. But... new pictures are up on Webshots and Facebook. And... my Mom learned how to use Skype. Yesssssssss.