Spring is in the air

Hey all!
Thursday was a gooooood day! I woke up and went to the Mercado Central with Natacha so we could buy some fruit and such there!! We walked around looking at everything the people at the stands had to offer and then decided to buy some fruits. And we got ripped off!!!!! I paid 10 Euros for 3 apples, 2 avocados, 1 mango, and 3 tomatoes... I know avocados and mangoes are usually expensive, but still.  At least I can say I bought something there right? We then met up with Jonas and ate lunch at a cafe. Salad, paella, and ice cream. :) yum. We walked to the Turia and chilled on the grass and enjoyed the sunshine for a while afterwards. beautiful! Then I met up with my friend Joan to practice my Spanish! I am trying to take more opportunities to speak to people because I really need to use my time here wisely since I don't have much time here.

Friday, I went to class, and between classes I went and said goodbye to my friend Ruben (Josh's roommate) because he was leaving to go back to his hometown since his job here in Valencia wasn't working out. :( It was sad! I hate saying goodbye, especially when you don't know if you'll ever see that person again! We will see I guess...After class I went and took a nap and then met up with Jonas again to grab a kebab before we headed over to Plaza de Honduras for KARAOKE NIGHT!!! We got free tea with our kebabs. Awesome waitress lady!! Yay.  We got there and Josh and Natacha had already arrived and were singing their hearts out! It was awesome.  Some guy pulled out a harmonica randomly from his pocket and started playing with the singers. It was pretty funny.  Too bad I didn't bring my 7 piece harmonica set I got for Christmas a few years back, we could've done a harmonica duet...
Fun night fun night, should not have worn high-heeled boots though.
It was really warm that night too! 68 degrees at 11 at night...not bad! It's starting to FINALLY get warm and nice!
Today, I woke up late, and went exploring with Natacha to the western side of Valencia.  We went to the jardin de las hesperidas (garden of the nymphs), which had some pretty flowers and sculptures, and also looked over run by homeless people, so we didn't stay there long... we then made our way to the botanical gardens, so pretty! There were so many different flowers and plants from all over the world.  There were also a ton of cats running around! One of them looked like my kitty back home...aww I miss her! After that, we wandered around some streets and went and bought clothes! yay.  Then we made our way back into the city center, bought ourselves a kebab, and I went to buy my daily groceries at Mercadona.
General conference this weekend!! :)

Also, it sucks carrying your box full of 6, 1 liter boxes of milk 15 minutes from the store to your apartment.  When I get back to the States, I will NOT complain about having to carry groceries in from the trunk of the car to the house.  That is child's play compared to shopping here.

The air is smelling DELICIOUS now with all the orange blossoms blooming. It is so nice it makes me want to just sit in the middle of the street for a while. hehe :)

It's now getting to be bedtime, so my minions reading this, you'll just have to wait until next post to hear more. :)

P.S. cool random fact.  You know Doctor Nefario on the show Despicable Me?  Nefario in Spanish means "evil"... I had no idea!

Bye bye!

Only in Spain......

Hey guys! It seems that this whole blog thing is becoming an every other day thing. Eh. One of these days I'll make it a daily routine again. haha
Let's see.
Monday! I went shopping and did not find any shoes.  I ironically bought a shirt with a pink and green version of the American flag on it. haha. Natacha and I may have eaten at mcdonalds........I wont lie. It was pretty good to have something American. I was then running late for my night class, or so I thought.  All the stations for Valenbisi were having problems connecting to the network so we walked from the Estacion del Norte to my place, grabbed my books, and found a different Valenbisi station next to the Torres that had some free bikes! After, Natacha and I went out and hung out with our friend Juan and his friends.  We also tried a sundae from KFC since that was the only place open at 1 in the morning....baaaaaad idea. Not good whatsoever.
Tuesday! I didn't do much.  I wasn't feeling very good, so I stayed in bed for most of the day.  I did go to my night class though, and afterwards I went to Josh's apartment and hung out with him and his roommate Ruben.  Ruben is from Spain and doesn't know English=good practice for me! yay! We also watched some television, good practice as well.
Today! I didn't go to my first class. I didn't feel very well again, but I went to class at 3.  We watched a movie which I had seen before! But the professor kept pausing it every 1 minute to comment on the way the actors were speaking.  It's called No sos vos, soy yo. It's a pretty good Argentinian film I believe? I went home and cleaned my room and then went and ate at a Chinese buffet near Primat Reig with Natacha for dinner.  I was not that impressed.  It was confusing and not that tasty.  But the waiter guy offered us free drinks! Nice guy haha.  I then went and hung out at Josh's place again with him and Ruben.

Guess what.

No class tomorrow!!!!!

Wanna know why?!?!

A huelga is occurring throughout all of Spain!!!

What is a huelga?  A strike.

So they are closing all of the schools!!

Only in Spain man.....

We close school for snow, they close school for huelgas.

So I'm going to bed now! Until tomorrow!! :)

Language exchange!

Natacha and I decided to go to an intercambio language exchange last night.  It was good! People got to practice their English on us and we got to practice our Spanish and meet new people! I think that is what we will start doing every Sunday night.  Pretty neat I think!

I did end up sitting next to this one guy who would not shut up in Spanish or English...

Oh well...
I think it's funny that the most common thing to find to eat that is cheap and easy are kebabs.  Which we don't really have in the States, especially in Poky.  They're like a middle eastern kind of burrito.  But they are delicious.

I got my Valenbisi to work yesterday too! Yay! Valenbisi is a bicycle system here in Valencia that is pretty sweet.  It makes getting around a lot faster.  Much faster.

Natacha and I had slept Saturday night on my couches thinking that would make us get up early since they aren't very comfortable....yeah, that didn't end up working at all....stupid daylight savings time.

Well general conference is next weekend! Hopefully the weekend after that I get to church, I really want to go.  And now that my Valenbisi works, I'm hoping I'll be able to find a station close to the church so I can just ride a bike there! cause 6 km is a long ways to walk.

I did go on a walk on the Turia yesterday.  It was so nice outside! And spring is in the air, with all the trees beginning to blossom and everything. :) I also watched part of a soccer game going on in one of the fields on the Turia next to my house.  I love watching soccer, it reminds me of watching intramural soccer last semester at random times in the evening at ISU.

I'm off! To see if I can find me some new shoes.  Mine are super gross, and I'm getting tired of only having high heel boots to pick from and tennis shoes.  bah.

Daylight savings time...I don't like it.

Sorry guys! I haven't written in a few days..........baaaaaaad. I know. let's see... I walked all the way to campus for class to find out it was canceled...So I slowly walked home and sat in the park for a little while, reading a book for one of my classes.  I then went home and cleaned and hung out.

Friday. I went to class, and had lunch with Juan and Jonas at a Chinese restaurant...expensive, but delicious. I got a ticket for a free drink at Starbucks cause they took so long with my drink afterwards and we hung out there for a little while. I then went home and took a nap and went on a run! I also found out I only have 3 more classes to finish my anthropology degree at ISU!!! I have decided to do a double major in Spanish as well...why not??! Anyways, Jonas and I went to dinner at a little local place after my run.  I had paella, patatas bravas, kalamari, and dessert! Yum....I went home and watched a movie. Today I went to the beach with Juan and read some of Pride and Prejudice. Yay! But it was REALLY cold and overcast, so I went home after a few hours. Then I made some potato chowder for dinner! And now I am hanging out with Natacha here. Talking and watching T.V.

It's daylight savings time!!!!!!! So It is now 8 hours different between here and Pocatello again...sad. haha Anyways, I'm kind of impressed that I have been writing short blogs lately.  I tend to ramble on.

Spaniards love to walk slow.  I hate it. It's almost like they are walking in place they go so slow.

Also, when you are walking on the sidewalk and someone walks past you, they don't move away if they are coming right at you, you have to move for them and when you do move they don't let you move with much space between you.  I have my bubble people!!!! And the Spanish don't seem to understand that concept!

Funny people. :) They also think I'm crazy when I wear shorts.

It needs to get warmer here!!!!

Voy de compras

Shower.
Yoga.
Baking.
Walk.
Class.
Walk.
Lunch.
Walk.
Shopping.
Walk.
Home.

That is what my day consisted of. :)
Need I say more?

March 20....post Fallas festival...

This is my song for today...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDzO8gh5Cgo


What a short and sweet blog :)

Las Fallas part 3, and FINALE

Ok guys, I know you've been dying to read what I've been up to for the last days of the Fallas festival...so here it is! Sunday, there were lots of things going on.  I tried going to the Mascletá at 2, but woke up at 2, so I was like eh, whatever.  I did some yoga, and my flatmate Ana made arroz en horno for a late lunch, or a dinner for us Americans haha.  Natacha and her friend Marie-Eve who is studying in Alicante came and met me to see if we could find what was suppose to be going on at 6 in front of the Torres de Serrano.  We didn't see anything, there were just tons of people and lots of falleras walking around.  There was a group forming to watch a group of breakdancers though, so we joined in that.  In the end, they grabbed four people from the crowd to come up for their last dance act.  It wasn't me thank heaven!! No re-run of my belly dancer in Egypt incident.  I am usually picked for those things, but they picked Natacha!! They had the four girls bend over in a row and one of the guys jumped over them.  I was scared for them! But all went well.  After that we walked to Natacha's flat so they could eat.  We ended up watching a movie and hanging out there for a while.  Then one of Natacha's friends invited us over to their flat and to later watch the fireworks with them that started at 1.30 a.m.  My Danish friend Ben was there, with his whole attire consisting of zebra print.  Interesting. And I convinced Josh to come as well.  We went over to someone else's flat to their roof to watch the fireworks.  Ben and his girlfriend wanted me to go with them to one of the bridge's to watch the fireworks, but everyone else seemed to want to stay and it was getting too close to the time it was going to start to get to the bridge on time.  In the end though, some huge apartment buildings were blocking our view of the lower fireworks. :(  At least we saw the huge ones! The best ones hehe.  After they ended, the city looked like Gotham city with the amount of smoke that was in the air.  It was pretty awesome looking.  After that we walked over to the city center near my house to hang out.  We found another street party with a live DJ and danced there for a while.  Then we found a churro place to eat churros! Yay!! More churros and buñuelos!! I was happy.  That night was the last crazy night of Fallas before they burned everything called Nit del Foc.  Night of fire in Catalan.  Before going home, early in Spanish standards at 4.30, we ate a bocadillo de salchicha, a sausage sandwich, that so many people were selling on little grills on the streets.  Delicious! So delicious! I was very happy with the amount of food I got to taste that night.  Everyone headed to my house for a little while, and then Josh and I ended up talking until 7 in the morning, when my flatmates and their friends finally came home haha.  I talked with Kim on Skype for a little while and ended up going to bed at 9 a.m.!!!

Natacha and her friends ended up coming to get me for the final Mascletá yesterday at 1 p.m.  I woke up at 1 p.m. and just went haha.  It was the shortest mascletá! But we had a good place in the street to stand so it wasn't too big of a deal.  They wanted to go eat paella, but I wanted to take a nap.  I got ready for the day, blow-dried my hair, and everything, and took a nap.  Then Kim and I Skyped again and she bought her plane ticket to come see me on April 9th!! I'm so excited to have someone from back home come see me! Everyone had their friends and family visiting this week and I had wished I had someone come see me, so this will be awesome and it's super soon when she comes. :) After that, I met up with Natacha again in front of the Torres de Serrano to watch the infantile, small, falla in front of them burn.  I missed it somewhat though.  My fault for being late! But then we decided to walk past Plaza de la Virgen and see all the flowers.  It smelt sooo  nice!! They were beautiful and I can only imagine the amount of money they spent on all the flowers in the plaza!! We thought we would try and see the infantil fallas at Plaza de Ayuntamiento burn, but we couldn't even get close enough to see it burning there were so many people! So we headed over to the da Vinci Falla that we had decided to go to watch burn.  So many of the Spanish people I had asked said that was the one to go to.  The petardos were RIDICULOUS tonight.  I seriously was scared I was going to lose my hearing or something.  They threw a petardo in an open portapotty while I was waiting for Natacha and I thought it had blown up the whole place! Geez.  Everywhere I walked I was so suspicious of every single guy standing there, afraid they were going to pull out a petardo!! Not just the little ones either, one of them that went off behind us once made an alarm on a building go off!! So insane.  I am not sad about those going away after Fallas.  We got to the Falla and it was already jam packed a half hour before, we tried moving closer, and pissed a lot of Spanish people off by standing in front of them.  Eh well. We just ignored them.  We were in front of some funny English people.  All the Fallas were suppose to be lit at 12, but we had to wait for ours to go off around 12.45...and while waiting we got rained on by other debris from other fallas.  So much ash coming down haha For every Falla, they have a set of fireworks that go off in front of them before they light the fuse to burn it down.  Not just little fountains either, they were huge ones that were so beautiful!! They turned off the lights and lit the thing on fire.  Awesome.  The da Vinci one was so sweet! His beard was made with 50 kilometers of bamboo and it really was just a spectacular and huge Falla.  I am surprised the maker of that one wasn't holding onto it changing his mind about burning the thing!! So much time and effort put into it all of the year to be burnt down in 15 minutes.  Since it went off late, we couldn't make it to the burning of the Falla in Plaza de Ayuntamiento at 1, which is the last event before Fallas ends, so we walked around and found a few little ones that were lit late to watch.  We ate a kebab on calle Caballeros, and then it started raining.  It was so light at first, but then it turned into a DOWNPOUR.  It was raining so much...Good timing though! I'm glad it didn't rain during the burnings! Good for the city also to clean up the pee that was all over the streets and all the trash from all the people.  My feet got soaked, I'm afraid I may have to buy some new shoes since mine were soaked with dirty gross water...and it seems that every time I actually try to make my hair all nice it rains or is way too humid and just ruins it.  That is why I don't do my hair in Spain hehe ;)

All in all, Fallas was definitely unforgettable.  My schedule is totally messed up now, and I have class again! But it's amazing how much detail and effort was put in by so many people to make Las Fallas 2012 a memorable time.

Fallas round 2

Yesterday!
I didn't do as much.  I am so tired every day!  No matter what time of the day or night it is there is always a band or drums or firecrackers going off or someone yelling.  INSANE.  They expect you to stay up until 8 a.m. to celebrate, but then they start more activities at 9 or something.  It's crazy. So crazy.  The firecrackers that everyone sets off are louder and more frequent every day.  Seriously.  I understand why all the old people in Valencia leave for this week!
Anyways,  I woke up and tried to go to the mascletá at 14.00...I took at shower, since that was the only time I could get to the bathroom at my flat, and ended up leaving for the mascletá at 13.50, bad idea.  It has progressively getting more crowded, and I didn't even make it to the plaza de Ayuntamiento there were so many people.  I heard it still of course.  I guess in all reality you don't see much, you just plug your ears from the extremely loud noise of the fireworks.  I then went home and hung out there for a little while before leaving for Plaza de la Virgen.  They were starting what was called the Ofrenda at 15.30.  La Ofrenda is where the falleras, representatives of each falla or barrio (neighborhood), come to the Plaza de la Virgen to offer flowers to the large figure of Mary in front of the cathedral.  They cover Mary's entire body with flowers that were offered and other flowers are placed in the fountain that is there as well.  It takes 2 days of this Ofrenda to cover all of it.  The falleras are dressed in extravagant gowns and in traditional dress.  I think at least hundreds of falleras walked past me while I watched, and I stayed for 2 and a half hours.  They are starting it again here soon.  I then went home and slept.  I am not used to this crazy schedule.  I am sick too, :( so I figured I needed to rest.  I then stayed in my apartment until around 12 when Josh came and we went over to Jonas's house and watched the fireworks on the rooftop of his flat.  We had an excellent view of all the fireworks without the ridiculous crowd.  We hung out at his flat for a little while, and then went down to the streets to check out what was going on.  They have street parties on pretty much every block.  So many fiestas!! We saw one of Josh's friends in the Plaza de Ayuntamiento from England so we chatted with him for a while.  They had some petardos, so I lit one so I could say I participated in Fallas a little more! But then I felt bad! Cause some of the debris got in some guys' eyes.  So one was enough.  I learned my lesson.  Not nice! Starbucks was open at 4 a.m. so we went in and sat there for a while.  Then Josh walked me home and I got some more churros con chocolate!! I gotta get 'em while I can! :) Yummy.
Today.  I'm probably going to head over to the Plaza de la Virgen to see a little bit more of the L'Ofrena.

I'll update again soon! Xx

The figure of Mary that they are covering.

Falleras with their flower offerings.

P.S. a good popular Spanish song right now you should listen to- Rayos del Sol by Jose De Rico or Bailando por Ahi by Juan Magan.

Fallas round 1

Alright!
This week has already been crazy.  And there is more to come. oh. man.  =) Welcome to Spain.
As I have already mentioned, it is the week of Fallas.  Insane.  Wednesday night, Natacha, Daniel and I went to look at the different Fallas around town. There were suppose to be fireworks at one of the bridges at 00:00 so I hurried and tried to get there in time, but I guess there really wasn't much to see, so I didn't miss anything.  So we decided to go to Calle Sueca again where all the awesome and mass quantities of lights are.  We found our way so much easier this time!!! I was proud of us.  I got some delicious Churros with hot chocolate!  That's right people.  Churros, a dozen for 3€, and ACTUAL hot chocolate, not the powdered junk we always pay $3.50 from the gas station for.  So good. I was so content.
Thursday, I woke up and went to the mascleta since they have one EVERY day at 2 p.m. this week.  So I went there like a crazy person and tried to embrace the chaos.  The amount of people there in the plaza de Ayuntamiento is insane, and it is ever increasing each day.  It was still extremely loud. Louder than the last one I went to.  I think the loudness and intensity is also growing every day as well! It kind of sounded like there were big drums playing along to the beat of the fireworks, but it was all in my head. haha I then ran into my flat mate Natalia walking to my flat, and she was meeting up with Ana and her Italian friend who had just arrived.  So we went and met them to eat Italian food on a side street near Plaza de la Reina, next to the one I ate at last weekend with my friends Kildine and Orla for Kildine's birthday.  We shared some montaditos (sandwiches) pesto gnocchi, and a pizza con jamón serrano.  I got home and tried to calm my frizzy hair down.  Then I did some yoga and got ready for the party we were having for my flat mate Ana for her birthday.  It was last week, but her Italian friends and her boyfriend from Germany arrived just in time to be there for the party Thursday night.  It was fun.  Jonas and I were going to make something for the party to share, but I ended up being late to meet him, ha, go figure, so we really didn't have time.  So we did the American thing and brought chips and salsa. hahaha.  I'm really glad some of my friends came.  It is hard trying to mingle with a whole bunch of people that are close friends already, especially with the language barrier.  We went to a place called Radio City to dance, Josh, Jonas, and I waited for Josh's flatmate Ruben and went to the discoteca later.  Ruben is cool! He is from Spain, so it's nice when he hangs out with us because we are forced to speak Spanish since he doesn't know English.  He is my age, and was living here in Valencia as a dental assistant.  But he got laid off the other day so he is going to move back to his town.  Thursday was his last night in town so I had to make sure I got to say bye to him!
Today, Friday,  I woke up, and decided to walk around the city.  I was pretty homesick today...most of my friends have other friends or family visiting them this week so I felt quite alone.  I tried to think of it as a good thing, but during Fallas, you want to be out with your friends!  I walked along the Turia for a while and thought about just randomly showing up at Josh's apartment, but I was afraid he wouldn't be there and that would be a long ways to walk to not even see him.  I walked back to Plaza de la Virgen and on the way, ran into like 4 bands.  Some were just drum players playing for the crowds, others were full on bands.  Crazy.  I met up with Natacha and her friend Chloe that is visiting her from Montreal, but studying in Seville.  We walked to Natacha's street and shopped at the stores on her street for a little while.  I bought a dress. :)  We then went to Natacha's and ate dinner, rice and vegetables, bread, and barbeque potato chips.  hahaha delicious! I was VERY full.  I then walked to Josh's house to see him, he was leaving to go to a friend's apartment, so I went with him.  There were actually a TON of Americans! ridiculous.  The most I've seen in one place since I've been in Spain I think! haha 5 or 6! Amazing.  After hanging out there for a little while, we went to the puente del Aragón to watch the fuegos artificiales (fireworks).  Man, this week in Valencia, especially at night with the fireworks is not a good time to drive.  There are TOO many people.  The whole bridge was filled with people, and I can imagine the other bridges were as well.  The fireworks were really awesome though!! You kept thinking they were going to end, and then they would start back up again! Super neat though.  I hear they got better than the one's that they had last night..but I don't know.  I walked back to my flat, and my flat mates had a whole bunch of people over playing music so I knew I wasn't going to be able to sleep as early as I had hoped.  We went out to the Torres de Serrano where there was a live DJ playing music and people in the huge crowd were throwing petardos, firecrackers, and fireworks in the crowd!! Freaking crazy Spanish people sometimes....I am tired of those petardos!!!!!!!! Everywhere I go I get scared to death because of them going off every 5 seconds. And so close to me too! One piece of one tonight hit me in the leg.  I got burnt! Not bad, but it hurt!  There are a TON of street parties here right now too.  Just mass loads of people dancing and all jammed into little places.  A lot of the times it's not even fun to dance because there are just too many people around you and wanting to pass you.  Along with churro vendors now, they have places where you can buy a sausage sandwich.  They smelt delicious...Tomorrow night I'll buy one for sure!  Ana's Italian friend Alecia is really cool.  I can see why they are friends she is extremely nice and friendly.  We danced in the streets, and went and bought churros.  Good times.
Well...I know it's a fact that you sleep in the day, and wake up at night during Fallas!! It's......almost 6 a.m. here.  There is so much noise outside my window, it's not like I could really sleep anyways if I wanted...I'm definitely going to try though! I'm sick... :( Not much I can do about that now! All the events are at night!
Off to bed! Hopefully I'll be awake for all the other things going on tomorrow!!!

Goodnight all!!

Essays...

Well, here's an update on what's going on in my crazy life.
Nothing is going on.
Not yesterday at least.
I had my friend Jonas come over and we had a study day! We each had things to do, so we stayed at my house and worked on those all day.  I had an essay to write, and he had morphology homework...I just love morphology! I would have traded him assignments any day! I got my memory refreshed with what are inflectional and derivational morphemes...ahh the memories from my phonology and morphology class were coming back from last year...that was a good semester in good ol' ISU. One of my favorites I think! My essay was an analysis of the poem "Hierro" which means Iron by José Martí.  Analysis essays suck.  Eh well, I got it done at least!
I changed my keyboard to a Spanish keyboard! It's taking some time to get used to where the symbols are on the keyboard in comparison to an American keyboard...for example. I use :) quite regularly...which now usually ends up like Ñ= hahaha it's quite humorous.
Jonas and I took a break to go eat someting, I met Natacha's friend from Montreal named Daniel, and we ate some buñuelos, mmm... They reminded me of mom's scones...but of course not as good ;)
Well I have to go meet my group for a project in my American and English history class.. I forgot today was Wednesday and totally slept through class! Eh well, it's Fallas week, we shouldn't have class anyways!
Until next time Ñ=   hehehe :)

It's not Christmas time..it's FALLAS time!!

Alright. I am a horrible human being.  I haven't posted yet again in days. I am extremely and sincerely sorry.  I kept thinking I would write something and then decided, no I'll wait.  And here we are!  Today and yesterday I've been trying to get myself to write my essay for one of my Spanish classes, but there are so many distractions it's hard!! I've now told myself I can't leave my flat until I get this sucker done.  Which still hasn't helped me. haha.  So today and yesterday really consisted of my wasting my time being on Facebook or looking at interesting things instead of working on my essay.  That was my excuse for not posting yesterday... I'm gonna update you guys backwards!
Today, I did nothing.  There's really nothing to report.  Nothing.  I slept, edited photos, updated my iTunes library. Nada.
Yesterday! I woke up late. :( I really wanted to make it to church, but slept through my alarm.  I didn't even hear it! I'll have to change the noise or something I suppose.  So I looked up information for my essay and cleaned! I also Skyped with Aneka and the girls and my dad.  :) Josh then came over and we went to go pick up Jonas at his house, to go find the "lights."  His flat mates decided they'd like to go with us so we were like okay! Natacha also met us at Jonas's apartment.  We headed out to a neighborhood (barrio) called Ruzafa.  Calle Sueca was the name of one of the streets we were looking for.  It took us a little while to get there.  We had to ask a few times if we were going the right way.  When we finally got to the right street, we were SO happy we went down it! Oh my, it was amazing.  On both sides of the street, the buildings were COVERED, absolutely COVERED in lights!  They also had a huge "Eiffel Tower" made completely of more colorful lights! It made Christmas lights in Pocatello look weak to say the least.  They also had one of the biggest Falles (big huge statues of paper mache) that I had seen so far.  They weren't even finished building it yet.  Very neat.  The streets branching off from the falles there were spectacular.  I felt like I was at a Carnival or something!  They had little carts to buy churros and hot chocolate and candy and waffles! I got some cotton candy!! It was funny.  Seriously, the cotton candy was HUGE.  Overall rating for last night on a scale from 1 to awesome, it was ridiculously fantastic!
Saturday is next up for updates.  I played tour guide for the afternoon! I woke up and met my friend Will in Plaza de la Reina to show him and his friend around!  Will went to high school with me in Poky, now he's studying at U of I, but for the semester he's studying in Alicante, which is only about 2 hours south of Valencia! So they took a train up to see Valencia for the day.  We went and bought churros first, yay since we had a little time before the Mascletá.  So we went to the Mascletá at 2 p.m. in the Plaza de Ayuntamiento.  A mascleta, if I haven't explained it before, is a daytime firework show! Nothing like the huge ones in the sky on the 4th of July, they are mostly ground fireworks and extremely huge fountains kind of? There's so much smoke afterwards! It's also extremely loud.  I don't know if I have heard anything louder in my life.  Seriously.  It was ridiculous.  We were in a sea of people as well, not so much fun to get out of.  I then took them to one of my favorite places to eat in Valencia called "La Rentadora."  It's on a sidestreet off of el barrio del Carmen.  It has delicious brie and sandwiches.  Oh man.  The menu is also printed on a sheet of paper and you just circle what you want and had it to the waiter.  I think they agreed that it was delicious.  They didn't have too much time cause their train left a little before 5, so we walked to the Turia to show them how awesome it is and also to take a glimpse of the Torres del Serrano.  I then walked them back to the train station, Estación del Norte.  I went home and grabbed my shopping bag and went grocery shopping since I had no food in the house.  I also bought myself a plant finally, yay! I hope it survives. :) I then got ready to go to dinner for my friend Kildine's birthday.  She made reservations at an Italian restaurant near Plaza de la Reina.  It was fun :) We shared a tomato, mozarella, basil salad and I had a pesto pasta...mmm...I love pesto...I also got to have Tiramisu for dessert!! Lucky me. :) I've been craving that stuff since I got here! After dinner, I met up with my friend Joan to head over to Jonas's apartment.  He was having people over since he just moved into a new apartment.  Joan is from Calpe, a city near Valencia, it's good Spanish practice for me and it's good English practice for him when we hang out. Hehe.  Jonas's apartment is SO NICE.  He doesn't even pay that much more than me in rent! It's probably 3 times bigger than my flat.  Huge.  Nice.  It was fun, he had quite the assortment of chips and Lemon Fanta.  I am really missing Mountain Dew lately, we did find an American store though that sells maple syrup, Pop Tarts, and Mounatin Dew!!! I'm excited to go there later.  Anyways, we watched the fireworks that went off at 12 on the roof of his apartment complex! That was cool since he lives really close to Ayuntamiento.  Josh and his flat mate finally showed up.  I knew no one but Jonas and Joan before he showed up.  Of course I talked to other people! But it's nice to know SOMEONE haha.  Josh's flat mate Ruben is cool.  Of course I've met him quite a few times whenever I go to Josh's house, but Josh was busy mingling and Ruben didn't know anyone else at Jonas's so I got to know him better.  He likes to go camping! He's going this weekend, I'm really jealous.  He had looked at the pictures of my backpacking and camping trips on Facebook and couldn't believe how pretty Idaho is.  Yay, score one for Idaho! He's from a little coastal town here so it was some more Spanish practice for me! It seems like I end up speaking English to a lot of Erasmus students just because everyone knows it and it's easier. No bueno.  So whenver I get the chance to talk to a SPANISH person, I am happy to practice.  Anyways, Natacha and Juan finally showed up as well.  We had a good time laughing and dancing and meeting new people. :)
Friday, I went to a birthday party with Jonas, just because he was going alone and said I was cooler than anyone else that was going to be there.  Flattery can get you anywhere, that is what this story teaches us.  So we showed up to this girl's apartment I didn't know, and it turned out to be the apartment of my Irish friend Orla as well!! So Orla and Kildine were there! I was excited that they were there, it made that night much more enjoyable! I also met a girl from Denmark named Tina.  She was extremely nice and very pretty!
The only thing I cannot stand are the fireworks that people put off all the time every day!! They don't like pretty fireworks, the only fireworks that matter here are the NOISY ones.  It scares the crap out of me every time I am walking down the street!! But, overall, this weekend was very enjoyable.  I saw a lot of stuff, and it got me way excited for all the activities going on this week for Fallas!!!

 My cotton candy! Yes, I finished it.  Don't judge me.

Breathtaking.

Crazy to think that this will be burned by next week.
I'll update more! Promise.

This week has passed me by faster than Speed Racer!

Oh man.  What is it with the weeks going by SO fast?! I feel like it was only yesterday that I arrived in Valencia...then again it also feels like it's been a lifetime that I've lived here at the same time.  Very weird feeling. So, let's see, I had  my first test yesterday in my "Gender and sex in English texts" class.  I made sure to wear my lucky Egypt pin for good luck.  It's tradition! :) It turned out to be a little less scary than I though, but I'm still hoping I did alright.  I didn't do much else yesterday, I walked home and stopped in the Jardines del Real since that's the place to hang out when it's beautiful and sunny if you ask me! I brought my sketch pad, so I spent a little while just scribbling and such.  Great day.  So nice and warm.  I went home and took a nap, I love naps, and what better place is there to take a siesta than a country that even has it's own official time for one?! haha Siestas just call my name once the shops start closing around 2.  I also cleaned the apartment and worked on my "Smash book."  It's like a scrapbook, but messier, and I love it.  I then spent some time Skyping with Kimberly! We were trying to decide the best dates for her to come visit me! Fun fun.  It was my flat mate Ana's birthday, so we went out to dinner at a little place off of calle Caballeros that we really enjoy...except I forgot the name right now haha.  I'll write it in here when I remember. Fun!
Today, I really just went to school.  That's what my day mostly consisted of.  I went to class, met with my group for a group project we needed to decide on a topic, then went to lunch with my friends Juan and Jonas at a cafe behind our faculty building.  It's super cheap! I like it a lot. We had sandwiches that costed 1.75 Euros with a drink for 1.50.  A 3.25 Euro lunch with free olives and peanuts?! Yes please.  Delicious.  The sandwich of the day had a type of sausage and patatas fritas on them! yum! I then had to wait forever to go to my next class at 4 instead of 3.  The teacher does this thing every Friday where you only go for an hour of class and depending on what letter your last name starts with, you go first hour or second hour.  And she switches what group goes first or second like every week.  Our group had met in a really cool study room before so I went back there to pass some time.  So cool! They have a place where you can sit and do homework and another room with computers with a spiral staircase up to a room with just lots of round tables for groups to work at! I'll be going there more often.  It's on the first floor (meaning 1st not ground floor for us Americans) of the Philology building! Cool! Anyways, that's about it, I walked home, they finished the pedestrian bridge across the Turia next to the Torres del Serrano today, which I was happy about.  The rickety metal one they had before sucked. Tonight, I'm going to be lazy and watch a movie, maybe do some yoga and clean up my room, because tomorrow my friend Will from Poky that is studying in Alicante (an hour and a half away from here) is coming to tour Valencia! So we are going to hang out and have fun exploring the city! Plus there is a Mascletá at 2 p.m. tomorrow that I'm planning on trying to attend! (Fireworks in the day) And my friend Jonas is having friends over to his new flat tomorrow night too.  I'm excited because he lives in the city center now pretty close to me! I love having friends that live close to me it's the best!! Anyways I'll be off, thanks for tuning in!

BUSY?!!!!

Well folks, this week I feel like I'm a student again.  My fun and games that I had on my excursions last week are now over, and it's time to get to work.  I have a test tomorrow, my first one!, and an 8 page essay due next week for my literature class.  8 pages...IN SPANISH. I think I'm gonna faint.  This is definitely going to be tough.  I haven't done much this week.  Monday I went to class and went to Josh's house for a little while.  Also got some laundry done and blow-dryed my hair! Yesterday, I went to class and went to an Erasmus get together at a place called Johnny Maracus or something like that.  We found a cool place to hang out at called "Chill Out," they have cushions and bean bags for you to sit on on the ground and they serve snacks and have tv's playing movies.  Cool! There weren't many people at the get together, nore were there many people out at all anyways.  I did buy a churro from one of the many stands that are starting to pop up on many street corners now that Fallas is around the corner! (and by around the corner I mean next week is the main celebration!) Pretty decorations and lights are starting to light up on streets! Today I went to class, and now I should be studying for my test! So this is a short and sweet post. Yay.  I have walked to class every day this week! It takes about 30 minutes, but so far I've saved 12 Euros not taking the bus. Go me! It's beautiful weather anyway, I don't mind enjoying it. :) Tomorrow my goal is to do well on my test and go grocery shopping! Since I have no food in my flat. See you guys!

Andalucia: Granada, Seville, and Córdoba

I'm back from my excursion!!!! How fun. It's been great being able to travel so much this past week, but I am very happy to be back in Valencia for a while. :) I just love this city.  Every place I've been to lately has been so different, but Valencia is still my home away from home.
So! I didn't sleep at all last week pretty much.  I had to wake up or stay up till random times to catch taxis,  planes, and buses most days.  Thursday night I stayed up packing and had to meet at the mestalla (futbol stadium) at 2:15 a.m. That was lame. There were 4 bus loads of Erasmus and foreign exchange students that went on this excursion through a group called Erasmus Life.  It took 6 or so hours to get to our first stop, Granada.  It was overcast and rainy when we got there. :( The pictures there could have been much better if it was partly sunny or something. We checked in at the hostel we were staying at and headed over to the historical sites of the city.  Granada is the birthplace of the Alhambra.  If you don't know what that is, you should definitely look it up.  It's super legit.  We went on a guided tour for the beginning of our day there, starting with a view across the valley at the Alhambra and made our way down into the valley visiting patios, buildings, and alleyways.  They sold a lot of Arabic themed things, which interested me immensely! We were on our own to eat before heading over to the Alhambra, so Natacha and I had a sample of montaditos (sandwiches) which were absolutely delicious.  Some had chorizo on them, brie with raspberry jam, tomato sauce, tuna, you name it.  It was wonderful.  We then walked to the buses and took them up to the Alhambra.  Man that place was amazing!!! It had arches and inscriptions and hallways of historical beauty! It really demonstrated the Arabic rule that Spain was under for centuries.  It's a UNESCO world heritage site, and now I know why! I was extremely glad that I decided to carry around my nice Sony camera to take pictures with.  Using a small portable camera is never the same, and you never get as dramatic of an effect with them either.  It was a lot smaller than I thought it was.  It didn't take very long to go through, though we were still some of the last of our group to finish haha.  The courtyard was beautiful with a great view of the city below.  We then found out that out of the 4 buses we took to get there, only 1 was coming to pick us up since all the other drivers had gone over the driving time they are allowed per day.  So we were shuttled to and from the hostel.  One group went, and then the others had to wait about 40 minutes for them to come back and get the next group.  It sucked.  It was cold and rainy and no one was very happy about it to say the least. I did buy a little souvenir and scarf though, so that's good.  I didn't have time to shop in any of the other cities.  We got to the hostel and were exhausted.  We took a nap and then we were suppose to get up and go out to eat tapas and go dancing with the group.  I decided to opt out and take a shower and sleep for the rest of the night.  It was wonderful.  I got to sleep from 9 p.m. until 8 a.m. the next morning.
I don't know why they punish us college students with making us get up so early on vacation. But I'm glad they did, we didn't have a lot of time to visit the 3 cities we got to tour.  We ate breakfast at the hostel and were then on our way to Seville! (Pronounced se-vee-ya) It was about a 4 hour bus drive to get there from Granada.  We stopped at a small restaurant/cafe for lunch.  Man I felt bad for the people working there.  Out of the hour break we had to get food and hang out, we spent probably 50 minutes waiting in line to try and get a waiter's attention to make us a fast sandwich.  Whatevs. haha they did a good job considering there were only 3 of them working in the front.  We then went to the Plaza de España in Seville for our first stop.  It is a large semi-circle of buildings built in the 1920's with little alcoves of tiles around the Plaza, each representing a province in Spain.  There is also a moat with extremely beautiful bridges crossing it with boats going up and down it, and a large fountain in the middle.  We then went back to our buses and had a bus tour of most of the rest of the downtown part of Seville.  We then got out near the Cathedral in Seville to walk around that neighborhood.  Near the cathedral, they had a whole bunch of horse carriages going up and down the cobble stone streets making it seem like we were in a totally different era.  After walking around the barrios, we had the chance to go inside the cathedral if we wanted.  It costed some money, maybe 3 euros or so, but Natacha didn't seem like she wanted to pay the money so I was debating on not going inside.  I had seen so many cathedrals before. But then I kept remembering all of the things that I didn't do on my last trips that I wish now I had done them, so I convinced her to go inside with me.  We ditched the tour group and did our own exploring inside.  It was well worth going inside I am really glad I didn't skip out.  There was treasure, gold plaques, mirrors, goblets, you name it, in one section of the cathedral.  The stained-glass windows left colored patterns on the tiled floors that you walked on.  It was amazing.  We also walked up the tower (34 levels up) to see a view of the city.  Spectacular.  It was definitely hard getting up there though! haha.  We didn't have much time to view all of the cathedral, so after that we met up with our group again.  We went to check into our hostel, which was a nightmare.  We had originally planned out 4 people to a room, but when we got to our hostel, they told us we needed 5 per room instead and it became complete and utter chaos trying to find another person to fit in their room.  After wasting so much time trying to find someone, we ended up just having 4 to a room.  The coordinator said if there was any problem, then he would just stay in the other bed in our room.  I think he was tired of dealing with the reception there.  We dropped off our stuff and headed over for the Flamenco dancing show at a theatre downtown.  It was 10 Euros extra, but man, that was I think the HIGHLIGHT of my trip.  The women in the show were spectacular.  They were so good at showing emotion to tell the stories in their dances.  The men were also amazing.  The leading man was fantastic.  His feet moved like I've never seen someone's feet move before.  He never looked like he was tired and the stomps and claps and snaps added so much to the whole atmosphere.  All of the dances were so full of passion.  I will never forget that!  After that, we were hungry, so the bus dropped us off and we went to a cafeteria and ate pork, fries, bread, and a fried egg.  I felt like we were at Denny's back home haha.  We went back to the hostel and hung out there for a while.  Some of the coordinators were trying to get us all in the spirit of living up the trip by trying to have a "toga party" in the hall of our hostel.  The 2 had brought mini speakers and their phones to play music and were wearing their sheets as togas.  They went to every door on our floor trying to get people to come out in their homemade togas, but it ended up just being them dancing around in the hall.  Hahahaha it was pretty funny.  My flat mate Ana was in Seville for the weekend with her mom and sister, what a coincidence!, so she wanted to meet up and go dancing, so we all got ready and went down to a pretty street down by the river.  It was great fun and the music was good too! Gotta love that American music they play everywhere! I feel so special being able to sing along to it all. :) Yay, then we took a cab back to our hostel for the night.
Sunday, we left the hostel at 9, after eating breakfast that was included at our hostel, I had 2 chocolate croissants :) so yummy! We had a 3 hour bus ride to Córdoba.  Once we got there, we split into tour groups and toured the main historical part of the city.  It was a beautiful day, with only a few clouds to make my pictures look better.  We crossed a bridge, the oldest bridge in Córdoba, and went through the different old naighborhoods of the Jews, Christians, and the Muslims.  There were a lot of scholars that came from Córdoba or who lived in Córdoba, which I didn't know before.  Sadly though, I don't remember their names haha.  They had lots of statues of them! But I didn't really ever get close enough to take a picture of their names.  All 3 of the cities we visited had a lot of Arab influence in the architecture.  Very interesting.  We ended our tour next to the Córdoba mezquita and cathedral inside the courtyard.  It costed 8 Euros extra to go inside, but I again decided I would definitely regret it if I didn't go in.  This building is the one with the famous yellow and red striped pillars and arches.  I'll leave a picture on here because I'm sure most of you have seen a picture of them before.  There were hundreds of them!! They stretched on forever.  And in the center there was a cathedral, with beautifully carved statues in the pink marble.  So pretty and so spiritual.  I am not Catholic myself, but it still left you in awe to see all the work people put into building such a massive and marvelous thing.  We didn't have enough time to explore this place either, we left and ate lunch that had dessert included in the price, yay :) We then got on the bus and started the long bus ride back to Valencia.  We left around 4 and got to Valencia around 10:30 p.m., earlier than we thought we would arrive.  All in all, WONDERFUL TRIP!!! Granada was not my favorite of the three cities, but it may have been because of the bad weather and us having to wait for the buses and such.  Still.  So worth it.  for 119 Euros that it was, I don't think I could have done it any cheaper on my own! Sorry this is such an excruciatingly long entry, but I just had so much to write about!!! Hope you enjoyed :)
P.S. Here are some pictures!! If you read my whole entry, this is your prize. ;) There are 2 from each city, the first two from Córdoba, next from Seville, and the last 2 from Granada.

Peace out!

Heading to Andalucia (Southern Spain) for the weekend!! It should be an awesome time :) I'll make sure to update my blog when I get back! Have a fabulous weekend everyone!! :) xxx

Portugal, part II

Alright! So. Monday.  We got up around 10 and headed down for breakfast. So good. :) There was a lady there from a walking tour group that said if we wanted we could go on a free walking tour of the city at 11, so we figured why not?! It's by a local girl so she'd be able to tell us a lot about the city.  So we went on that which ended up to be 4 hours long, but I think it was time well spent.  We went past many of the places we went on Sunday, but got a more in depth description of the significance of the buildings and bridges and such.  We got to go into the bookstore called Lello, which was the bookstore where J.K. Rowling was inspired to describe the library in Hogwarts in Harry Potter.  It was an amazing bookstore. They wouldn't let you take pictures though! It was sad. I still took some with my crappy camera on my iPod though. ;) shhh....don't tell anyone! But this link has an awesome gallery of breathtaking photos inside the Lello bookstore: http://www.pbase.com/hphdk/lillo  Very pretty. We went past the old prison which is now turned into a photography museum. We didn't have time to go in, it probably would have been pretty cool.  We went past a shrine for a saint on a wall of a building that was meant for good luck, but someone stole it! They must have needed the luck very much.  There's also a guy who loved Porto so much, his body was buried in another city, but he asked that his heart be left in Porto.  Creepy, but very interesting. Porto like I said was very pretty! The roads are a lot like San Francisco though as they are almost all steep hills. Their streets are cobble stone though instead of asphalt.  It was weird not being able to speak the language there.  I felt helpless haha, for a long time I just sat there silently until someone would say they spoke English.  I was very relieved to be back in Valencia on Wednesday, Spanish is much easier for me to understand haha.  Anyways.  After the tour, we decided to go to the beach! We took a bus for what seemed like forever out to a nice beach.  Nice sand! I brought some back for my collection.  The water was freezing!! I haven't been at the Atlantic ocean for a long time! Carol really wanted to see the sunset on the beach, which meant chilling at the beach for about 3 or 4 hours, but that's okay.  How many times can you do that?! Who knows.  In Valencia you can only see the sunrise on the beach.  Like I'm going to EVER be up that early to watch the sunrise in Valencia. hahaha.  We met this guy from Oregon who was with a group of people from Germany, the states, Portugal, and who knows where else.  He has been traveling around Europe for 5 years.  He got a one way ticket to Switzerland and just has been couch surfing and finding places on the street to sleep at night.  They also go and ask for old food from bakeries and other stores for free and also go dumpster diving.  After saying so he pointed to a big bag of food and said we were more than welcome to any of it....um. No thanks. They were all extremely loving with each other.  There were some girls that decided to kiss in front of us, but then later were holding guys' hands. It was all extremely weird.  They were all very free spirits to say the least. But having a lot of fun, doing capoeira and singing at the top of their lungs.  Very interesting characters.
The sunset was fast! We watched the sun go down and then all of a sudden disappear.  It didn't even disappear beneath the ocean, it disappeared much before it touched the ocean.  Weird.  So then we took a bus back to the hostel where they had dinner for 8 euros of the local dish called Francesinah.  It's a sandwich with 3 or 4 layers of different meat, melted cheese, and a fried egg on the top.  Then it is drowned in this spicy kind of sauce, not really like barbeque sauce, but that's the closest equivalent I can give you guys.  then they put out a huge bowl of french fries and you put fries in the extra sauce around your sandwich.  Very heavy meal, but very delicious!!! We then met some people that were also staying at the hostel with us, 2 girls from Quebec, Canada that were studying in France and Italy,and  a girl from Brasil that was living in France with her boyfriend from France that we met as well.  We all decided to karaoke to some songs that Paula (Brasilian girl) John (French guy) and Josh knew on the guitar.  That was fun, and then we found out that the hostel actually had a karaoke game on the Playstation we could play so we pulled that out.  Josh got a guy from Australia to come join us as well.  Since there were so many of us, we split up into teams.  I got to know the Australian guy better, his name was Reilly, and he lives on an island in Australia that's only 60 or 70 km long.  He said that it's only a 2 minute walk from where he lives to the Great Barrier Reef. I am so jealous.  He went backpacking in New Zealand last year for 4 months, and now he is traveling around Europe at the moment for 3 months.  He doesn't have a set plan, he just picks where he wants to go a few days before or goes to a train station and just picks a destination.  Jealous!!!  He still has a month and a half until he goes home to Australia.  Really cool kid! Also extremely cute! ;) We went out and walked around the city for a little bit, and went to go get McDonalds! We all sucked at speaking in Portuguese.  Pretty funny.  Mcflurries taste the same where ever you order them by the way. With the extreme humidity there (it felt almost like you were breathing in clouds) it was really cold so I didn't stay long and wanted to go back to the hostel so Reilly made sure I got there safely.
Tuesday!! :
I didn't sleep very well on Monday night, but I still reluctantly got up around 9.  Josh decided he wanted to sleep, so Carol and I ate breakfast and then decided to go shopping.  We went first to this tower over by the photography museum where you can walk up to the top of it and have a breathtaking view of the entire city.  It was very beautiful and well worth going up the 240 steps it took to get to the top.  While we were up at the top we even got to hear a cute little song that the bells on the tower played at 1 o'clock I believe. That is something you can't hear in America! We were going to go to the photography museum, but they were closing for the afternoon.  We instead went back to the Lello bookstore and I bought "The Count of Monte Cristo" because I really wanted a book from that bookstore and it was in English! I can't wait to start reading it.  Carol and I then after getting a bit confused at which direction to head, went to the big shopping street in Porto called "Rua Catalina."  We also got some pastries at a bakery. Yum! Then we went through the different shops on the street to see if there were any good deals! I bought a shirt for 4 euros, but that was about the best deal we really found.  I did find a gift for Cortney there. We then had hot chocolate at the Cafe Majestic, since that was one of the top 10 things to do in Porto.  It has an absolutely beautiful interior! Very old and ornate.  We met 2 older couples from New York that we chatted with for a little while.  We then went back to the hostel to get Josh.  We left and went to find a store that had the best chocolate cake in the world supposedly.  I wanted to go to a chocolate store but it was really far away from our hostel, so it didn't seem worth going so far, but the store with the chocolate cake was only about a km away.  Well we got lost on all the windy, hilly roads!! It said it was a 10 or 15 minute walk, but we ended up walking for about and hour and a half! hahaha I almost got run over by the archaic trolleys they have that go around the city, I didn't hear it right in front of me! We finally found it.  The cake is made with 70% cacao. Wow. It was pretty good, very good.  We then headed back to the hostel and had fire roasted chorizo and olives for dinner at the hostel.  :) We chatted with a guy from Porto that worked there, he was pretty funny.  We then just hung out and played Uno with the Canadians and Reilly.  Paula and John had left earlier that day.  Josh and I ended up talking for a long time, until about 2:30 and we had to wake up at 4:30 to catch a bus to the airport so we wouldn't miss our 7:30 a.m. flight! That was a bad idea.  But we got up, and said goodbye to Reilly, he was Josh's roommate at the hostel, and headed back to Valencia.  I slept in the airport, this time there was no hassle getting on board, no extra fees! haha
We got back to Valencia, and I was so happy to be hearing Spanish over the intercom!! I never thought I would say that.  So relieved.  We took the metro into town, so much cheaper than the 30 euro taxi drive we had to take TO the airport when we were going to Porto.  I then took a nap and went to my dorm to bring all of my luggage over to my flat.  Thank heaven my roommate was there.  Every time I asked if I could come over and get my stuff last week she was "never there" which made it frustrating since I had half of my stuff there and couldn't go get it.  So I got all my stuff and now I don't have to deal with the residence hall anymore!! Yay!! I went and paid for my Andalucia trip and then my friend Natacha and I went to a meeting about the Andalucia trip to decide which bus we were on and who we were going to room with.  Natacha, Clare, Shanon, and I are roomies!! Yay! We are leaving at 2:15 a.m. Friday morning to head to Grenada first, Seville on Saturday, and Cordoba on Sunday.  Cool!!! I am excited.  I then went home thinking of all the things I should get done before I leave tonight, tomorrow morning, however you want to see this 2:15 a.m. thing!