Another gorgeous day in Valencia

sunny day :) 
Hello everyone. It is absolutely gorgeous today and its making me so happy. The city looks sooo pretty when it is sunny, not to mention the view from my balcony. My windows are constantly open. Tuesday was great because I got to talk to almost EVERYONE from home. I skyped dad, my brother, my sister, Amber, Al, and Mommy! It was soo great catching up with everyone. After that, Tay and I went to Suerte Suerte (Luck Luck), which is like our Dollar General, and bought some school supplies and a flower to put in our room :). Later we just hung out and watched Spanish TV because we couldn't get The Hangover to work on the DVD player.


Yesterday I went to class and my second class was cancelled so I got out early! Taylor, Suz and I went out to get more school supplies and just look in stores around the city. Our favorite stores that we went into so far was Espignón and Sfera. There are SO many sales. It made us angry in Sfera because the guy at the cash register immediately thought we couldn't understand him even though we were speaking Spanish? We were so confused. 

After shopping, we met up with the group and went on two tours. The first place we went is called La Lonja. We couldn't understand the tour guide at all. She spoke SO fast with a thick accent, so I Wikipedia-ed what I saw, haha. La Lonja is a late Valencian Gothic style civil building, built between 1482 and 1548. This building was used for all kinds of trade, especially oil. It was extremely prosperous and that caused for the reconstruction of the building. She showed us all of the additions they made and what each area was used for...I just had to idea what she was talking about. Haha. One cool thing about it that I DID understand is that the ceiling was made of pure gold and silver. It was beautiful. The picture of the ceiling has men carved into it. This part of the building used to be used as something like a "city hall" and the men on the ceiling were the important people on the counsel in the city.


The next place we went was called Torres de Serrano. It was this castle that has the most beautiful view of the city. We paid one euro and climbed a bunch of stairs to the top. We took about 1,000 pictures of the city. It was beautiful. 

After we got back, my feet were aching and I was exhausted. Our group decided to have a meeting about the fact that they gave us Friday classes when we were told we wouldn't have them. Everyone is really upset because we all want to travel on the weekends. We all sat around throwing ideas back and forth to figure out how to fix this. I believe three kids from the group are going to talk to our director today about it. Cross your fingers that they will take away our Friday classes. After the meeting, we ate a delicious dinner -- roasted chicken, rice, this yummy lemon custard thing, soup, bread, wine -- and got ready to go out on the town. We went to our usual O'Hara's bar and then headed to a new place to dance. I forget the name of the bar, but we had a BLAST. I saw this group of guys and decided that I wanted to have a dance off with one of them because he was such a good dancer. He kicked my BUTT but it was so funny and fun. Look at me go. :P I'm such a loser...


Just went to class, talked with my cleaning lady Antonia, and now I am headed off to eat lunch with Taylor and Diego. I'm starving as usual...

Sorry this took so long!!

WHERE TO BEGIN....I'm so sorry this took me so long. I promise to keep up with it now that I am in Valencia.I have so much to say about Madrid, Toledo, and Valencia. This is going to be a long one...


So I left for Spain on Tuesday and already feel like I have been here for a YEAR! When we met everyone at the Atlanta airport and it finally became real :) I was lucky that the guy at the front desk liked me because naturally my bag was three pounds over weight. Anyways, we had a long flight ahead of us. We flew Luftansa and I was so impressed with them. The food was good, free wine and beer, good movies, comfy seats with headrests, and really sweet flight attendants. We flew into Frankfurt to get on our connecting flight to Madrid (yes, we passed over Madrid to get to Madrid..haha!) I also decided that German will definitely be the next language I would like to learn. Its so awesome to me. Once we got to Frankfurt a couple of us found a bar in the airport and grabbed a beer! 

Then we were off to Madrid! We stayed in Hotel Tryp Gran Plaza right in the heart of the city. It was great, but my room was TINY. I kept saying that I was living in a doghouse. Haha! Suz (my roommate) and I didn't care at all though...I mean, we were in SPAIN. Anyways, Madrid reminded me so much of New York, but different. It was crazy and overwhelming at first to be completely surrounded by the Spanish language. People were different, the streets were different, the cars were different, literally everything was new to me. It was incredible. We found out about this huge department store called Corte Ingles which is this HUGE department store that has ANYTHING you could ever need, including a supermarket with lots of wine. We stocked up on our 2 euro wine (not a joke..its so great and classy) and headed back to the hotel to go out together for the first time. Going out the first night was ridiculously fun. None of us knew each other for more than 24 hours and yet we acted like we had known each other forever. My group got separated from the other group and ended up going to this empty hookah bar. We smoked hookah and had huge mugs of beer. We got lost on the way home, but it was a blast to see a lot of the city. Needless to say, I was already in love.


The next day we went on a "tour" of Madrid to get to know the city. Dr. Baker, our trip director, was our "tour guide". He told us that he lived in this city for years and by the way we wandered around aimlessly, I don't believe that he has even been to Madrid. We had no idea what we were taking pictures of the entire time, but thanks to my friend Tay, I know we saw --  El Palacio Real (The Royal Palace), also called El Palacio de Oriente (The East Palace). According to Wikipedia, it is the official residence of the King of Spain but it is only used for state ceremonies. It is also the largest palace in Europe. We also saw Los Jardines de Sabatini, named in honor of the 18th century Italian architect Francesco Sabatini. The girls started to get frustrated because we weren't being officiant and decided to find out own way to see a neighboring city...Toledo.  Hope, a girl in our group who had been in Madrid 5 days prior, was our little tour guide and I gave her the title "Mom" after that day. I would have NEVER found my way around if it wasn't for her. I was LOST. We had to take a metro to get to the train station and I was shocked to see how clean it was. But you have to look out for pick-pocketers big time. Then, I took my first train to Toledo :) I was like a five year old because I was so excited to take a train!


Toledo was INCREDIBLE. I was completely surprised by Toledo because all I had seen was Madrid. When we got off the train, just seeing the station was incredible to me. It was sooo old and beautiful. All of the windows were stained glass windows and the whole building was beautiful down to every detail. We had a long walk to the heart of the city which sat up on a hill. It was so beautiful...all you could see were castles and gorgeous buildings. I think I burned probably 1,000 calories walking up this hill but it was well worth it on old medieval roads. We just wandered around the city with no destination in mind. It was so cute and things as simple as walking through alleyways amazed me. Something I have noticed by this point is that every single window in Spain has a balcony, its so beautiful. My favorite part of Toledo was this little cafe we saw. We went inside to order Tanto Verano, which is a wine based drink that was a lot like Sangria. I was SHOCKED when they brought us free hamburgers just for buying a 2,50 euro drink. I didn't even know what to think! Apparently this is common. With the amount of food I consume, I was extremely excited about this. We sat outside of the cafe and were acting like goofballs and eating delicious tapas. Somehow we ended up deciding that our hamburgers were horseburgers because they didn't taste the same, hahaha. 


That night we all went out yet again. And it was a blast yet again. I stayed up until 8:00am and needless to say, I didn't make it to the museums the next morning. The lack of sleep was finally beginning to take a toll on me. I took it easy and went to El Museo de Jamon (Ham Museum) haha. It wasn't a museum, but a huge restaurant that treated us like dirt on the ground. My food was good, but they were so rude to us that we honestly wanted to leave. On my way out, this random Spaniard decided to call out to me and took a picture of me with his cell phone. I was so mad and he saw it written all over my face. Luckily, I was with all boys because otherwise I would have been totally creeped out. Thanks Ryan, Taylor, Austin, and Sean for all the comments on that occurrence by the way.

That night after dinner, we took a bus tour around Madrid. We were all so tired and were not wanting to comprehend Spanish so we ended up sleeping/talking over the tour guide (who was our other director, Aitor, who I love). One cool thing we did see was El Estadio del Bernebeu, which is where Real Madrid plays soccer. They are second place in the league. (I know all my "futbol" facts from my friend Diego..thanks kid.)


That night we had an ABSOLUTE blast downtown. We went to a tiny place with a small bar and dance floor. This was the first night that I put my dancing shoes on and we tore it up. It was funny because we are OBVIOUSLY American and all the Spanish people just stare at us like we are aliens. I had a blast here and Stefan got a little crazy. He has been a hit with the group, which I was not surprised by. We went all over Madrid that night and lived up our last night in the big city!

The next morning we packed up all of our bags and loaded the bus for Valencia! It took us about 4 hours to get there and I slept the entire way. I was in complete shock when the bus driver stopped to let us out in La Plaza de Reina. I have never seen anything like it. I couldn't believe I was living in a place like this. After we got to our new home, Colegio Mayor Rector Peset, I realized that I left my small backpack on the bus. I had a complete panic attack running around my dorm searching for Aitor or Dr. Baker, but couldn't find them anywhere. I emailed Aitor and he immediately call the bus driver and the bus driver claims that "he didn't see anything." I was so upset and crying my eyes out at dinner in front of everyone, including all of the Spanish kids. Aitor called the evil bus driver again for me and again, he said he didn't see anything. I lost my chargers, journal, books, money, and more. I am so upset. It was my own stupidity and I deserve the punishment of calling the bus place 100 times complaining, calling every credit card company, replacing travelers checks, etc. Its been a huge issue and still haven't gotten it back, but I am determined to make this bus driver feel like scum on earth. Sorry for this Debbie-Downer part, but a lot of people have asked and I wanted to explain....

On a happier note, my dorm is INSANE. My room is huge and has the most beautiful view ever. We were FREAKING out when we saw these rooms and the rest of the building. We have two beds in our room, two huge wardrobes, two desks, a large bathroom, and a BALCONY! I couldn't be happier. After we settled into our rooms, we walked around the city a little bit and fell in love with our new home. I liked it a lot better than Madrid...as the Spaniards would say, "Es muy antigua". It is very old and every single building is absolutely beautiful in its own way. We ate dinner in the dining hall in our dorm and it turns out the food is DELICIOUS! I was so happy because for some reason, up until this point, I had absolutely no appetite. I had this cream of asparagus soup and was ravenous after that point...thank goodness. After dinner, we went back to our rooms to continue unpacking when a Spanish guy, whom I now know as Rodrigo, barged into our room screaming in Spanish to be ready in ten minutes to go out on the town. We all were in a frenzy and were so excited to hang out with the Spanish students in our dorm. Especially because I spotted SEVERAL cutie Spaniards - hehe. 

We all went to this tiny bar right around the corner of our dorm to get a couple of beers and had a blast introducing ourselves. This was the first time I really just let go and was speaking Spanish the entire night. They don't speak much English at all so we both practiced our awkward languages with each other. They took us to this bar called Radio City to dance. On the way, I saw a guy on the streets selling fidoras and was SO excited. A fidora was one of the things I wanted so bad in Spain. Ryan and I haggled with the guy and ended up paying 4 euro for the hat. I was in heaven for the rest of the night with my first Spanish purchase. Stefan, the whole group, and I tore up the dance floor yet again and successfully celebrated Stockton's 20th birthday!

The next morning we met in the lobby for a tour of the city with Aitor. I was a long walk but I got a lot of beautiful pictures of the city. We got to see El Rio for the first time, which is where I was told I would be running. It is a dried up river bed that runs through the entire city. Every part of the Rio is completely different and it seems as if it never ends. There are fountains, playgrounds, futbol fields, statues, etc. Later in the day, Taylor and I decided to take our first run through the Rio. We made our way through the city just asking people to point us in the right direction. We loved the Rio and wish we saw more. We will spend plenty of our days playing soccer there with the boys and running..I'm sure! Later that night, Ryan and I went out on the town in search of PAELLA (which I haven't shut up about getting). Valencia is known for their paella and let me tell you, it is all its said to be. We got the Paella Valenciano and a bottle of wine. They brought out this HUGE cast iron dish and sat it on the table and I immediately started salivating. It had snails, rabbits, green beans, artichoke, large white beans, and rosemary. I had no clue I was eating rabbit at the time but it was delicious. I had never had snails before, but I loveeeed the snails. Paella was a HIT. After dinner, we met up with some of the group at a bar called Finnegans in Plaza La Reina. It was an Irish bar that was playing the Colts game so we were SO excited to find a ton of American Colts fans in there. Molly, who is from Indiana, was in heaven! We didn't stay long and headed back to the dorms because the next day we started classes bright and early in the morning.


We woke up for class and had absolutely no idea where the school was, what our schedule was, NADA. That is the one thing that has been super disappointing about the trip so far...our directors seem to have no clue what they are doing. The Universitad de Valencia is VERY far from where we are living. It took us forever to find, but eventually we got there. We had an short orientation with all of our professors and it was like someone lifted a weight off of our shoulders. We all didn't really know what to expect with the classes. They seems to be ridiculously welcoming and SO happy to be teaching us. They messed up my schedule and I am still not sure if it is fixed but I SHOULD be taking Business Spanish (Negocios), Intro to Lit, Adv Lit, and Adv Composition and Conversation. I absolutely loved all of my professors. I feel like we will get extremely close to all of them. I still haven't been to my business class, but I am really looking forward to that class. We all have class together and not with the Spanish students, which is comforting. We are all really happy with the classes it seems and it honestly doesn't seem like its going to be too difficult at all! After class, we ate lunch and Tay, Joe, and I walked around picking up things we needed to get. We got lost, as usual, but finally made our way back to the dorms. I had to call about 100 people because of my stolen bookbag and spent most of the night on my friend Austin's phone. Dad says that I need to get him a beer or two for helping me out so much! :) We decided to go the bar around the corner for a beer before bed. They have my favorite beer, Guiness, for cheap (muy economico as the Valencianos say) so I love going there!


Today I woke up a 8:00am for my 9:00 class. Lets just say that the group that I walked with made it to the Universidad at 9:30. We got sooo lost and walked for an hour. Our professor was hilarious and didn't care one bit. She thought it was funny. She also told us that if we ever want to skip class to just email her and she doesn't care, even if its a test. WHAT?! We love her, enough said. I came back here to my dorm, closed the curtains, and crawled straight in my bed to catch up on the much needed sleep. I feel reenergized and happy to finally be filling yall in on my new insanely wonderful life. I am so thankful for this right now. I don't think pictures or words can do this experience justice. The people I am with are incredible and beautiful people. The architecture is indescribable.  The food is delicious. The weather is perfect. School seems easy enough. I am in Europe. I WILL BE HERE FOR ABOUT FOUR MONTHS! I couldn't ask for anything more right now. I am thankful for my parents allowing me to have this experience and it will NEVER be taken for granted or be forgotten. I miss everyone so much...keep skyping. Especially my slacker friends ;) Haha, I'm just kidding...I know yall's internet is broken. Haha -- and every single one of yall said "what's new." I love you all very much and now that I am caught up, I will be able to keep up with this a lot better! If you have any questions, feel free to comment and I'll do my best to answer them! I know yall are super curious about everything! MUCHO AMOR CHICOS!

Getting ready to leave TOMORROW!

I LEAVE TOMORROW! I can't wait. I got back from Colorado two days ago and have been packing, doing laundry, and running errands ever since. I leave Atlanta tomorrow at 6:15. We have a connecting flight in Frankfort, Germany. Then, I should get to Madrid around 8:00am eastern time. We will spend about three days in Madrid and then head to my new home, Valencia! Pray that I don't sit next to a fat smelly person on the flight...
Mucho amor.

Packing for Colorado

MY FIRST BLOG! WELL...I left Athens yesterday and am ALREADY missing my crazy friends. I am sitting around now with the fam and currently showing my mother how to look at my blog and use Skype. I leave for Beaver Creek to go snowboarding on Wednesday and then leave for Spain the following Tuesday! AHH CAN'T WAIT!