Being Brave...

Let's see...I left off on February 2nd right before my nap--nothing too exciting happened after that. I FINALLY finalized my Germany plans. I am still flying SOLO, but I really don't mind. I will be in Germany for 11 days in April and absolutely cannot wait. It was a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders to finally have those plans taken care of. Hopefully someone will want to travel around Germany with me once it gets closer!

The next day, I just went to class and wandered around that side of town during my break in my classes. It was the very first time I had been alone since I came to Europe. It was a great feeling actually. I am so bad with directions so I pretty much walked in circles around the city so that I wouldn't get lost. Haha! But it was great to get to know the side of town that my school is in. Later that day I worked out Taylor (chico) and then took a nap on the rooftop while Greg played the guitar and sang. It reminded me of how I beg Alex to play the guitar for me until I fall asleep...it was wonderful and such a beautiful day outside. 

Tay, Molly, Caroline, and I before the botellón

That Thursday was pretty uneventful until that night. It had rained all day, Dave lost his backpack in a taxi, and it was a crappy day until the BOTELLÓN. 

Botellón is a custom that takes place mainly in the Spanish nightlife, which involves the gathering of a large number of young people mostly between the ages of 16 and 24 outdoors to drink beverages previously acquired in shops (usually supermarkets), to listen to music and talk.

In conclusion, there is a word in Spanish for my favorite thing on earth to do--pretty darn awesome. We went to a botellón in the Río with all the Spanish kids and it was AWESOME! I was supposed to meet up with these French and Italian kids that I met the first week in Valencia, but we didn't make it that night!

Me, Tay, and Molly at Forn -- One of the local bars

El Estadio de Valencia

Friday, Tay and I slept all day after class to catch up on sleep. I watched my new favorite cheesy show GLEE all day until we went out that night. I went to Forn and Radio City for a chill night with a couple of kids from my group! Please excuse how hideous I looked that night....thank you. Haha! 


Saturday was another very relaxed day full of Glee, sleep, and FÚTBOL. We went to our first Valencia fútbol(soccer) game! It was SO SO fun even though I don't know anything about soccer. All I know is that Valencia is 3rd in their league, they are really poor, and there are some cute players on their team. The fat kid in me was so curious what kind of "stadium food" they had and was super excited when I got sunflower seeds (las pipas). They are way better than ours too! They are larger and have huge chucks of salt on them... YUMMMM!

Me, Tay, and Molly at Max Max for the SUPERBOWL!

SUPERBOWL SUNDAY WAS AMAZING!!!!! Tay, Suz, and I went to a café near our dorm called "Café y Té" and worked on our essays and homework for class. It was nice to get our of the colegio for a couple of hours. It was also the first time that we found free WIFI in all of Spain! WAHOO! Hahaha. (The little things in life you learn to appreciate...) Anyways, enough of the boring crap...THE SUPERBOWL! We found ONE bar in Valencia that was staying open for the entire Superbowl. It was an Irish Pub called Max Max and it was PACKED! Tay, Taylor and I were ready to meet the other kids who already headed to the bar when we ran into one of our Spanish friends, Saad, and begged him to come with us! He gathered up some of his friends and we went to Max Max. It was awesome to walk into a bar and hear English EVERYWHERE. But it was also confusing because we had no idea what language to approach people in because we were so used to speaking Spanish. Anyways, Tay and I sat with the Spanish kids and explained the game to them the whole time. Colts lost. Molly was depressed. And we headed back to the Colegio at four in the morning.

Grace, Suz, and Liza at the Black Note

Monday(Feb.8) was boring -- class, Glee, laundry, homework, boredom. This was the day that it hit me that I was "settling in" and I wasn't very happy about it. Tuesday was awesome though. The true dork in me came out earlier that day after class. Suz and I decided to label absolutely everything in our room with notecards in Spanish and they are HILARIOUS. One of them on my closet says, "Mi ropa siempre huele a humo," which means "My clothes always smell like smoke." Haha! So you can only imagine what other silly things are written around the room. I am 100% that my cleaning lady thinks I'm officially the biggest freak. Especially because behind mine and Suz's desk are all of the "tacos" which is not a tortilla with beef in it but SWEAR WORDS. We found out that "taco" doesn't mean anything here but "swear word." All of the Spanish kids teach us all of these terms and daily things that we need to know so that we aren't oblivious and Suz and I write them down and hang them on our walls (including the wall next to our toilet..hahaha). Oh--and I also made verb charts as if I was in 10th grade again (anyone who has taken spanish will understand this, but it was well-needed so I don't care). Then after my nerdfest, I hung up all my laundry on the rooftop, budgeted, skyped dad, and ate lunch and dinner with Suz, María, and Blanca. Suz and I made a new goal recently that we HAVE to sit with spanish people for at least one meal a day and speak in spanish the entire time. We were very successful that day :) María is an English major here, but I think she is still too shy to practice her english, but we throw phrases back in forth to learn new things from each other! ANYWAYSSSS---That night I decided that I need to be brave and venture out. And of course convinced the girls to go with me. I kept in touch with the French and Italian kids that I met the first week I was here and we had been trying to meet up ever since. Fred(French guy) told me about a party his friends were having in their flat across town. Suz, Leah, Britt, Liza, Grace, and I decided to be brave and go to this party knowing that it would be a night spoken completely in Spanish. It ended up being one of the best nights I have had in Spain so far. We got to the party and met a ton of people from all over the world. There were kids from France, Spain, Italy, England, Canada and Poland...it was amazing! We went to a bar called the Black Note after the party and had the time of our lives. Also, we had so much fun that none of us took pictures, so I stole the ONE picture taken from Suz. Haha! We definitely will be hanging out with them again...

My FAVORITE Fountain in Valencia -- Next to La Playa

Me by a fountain we saw when we got lost!

Paella Mariscos

Suz and I playing on the playground en La Playa

Me by the America's Cup Flags!!

Wednesday, Feb. 10 was another one of the best days I had in Valencia. America's Cup is in Valencia this year and I was SO excited about it. America's Cup is an international sailing race that is extremely prestigious. Suz and I decided to branch out from the group and be brave yet again and head to the marina to check out America's Cup. The races were cancelled during the day due to "lack of wind" which I found absolutely hilarious, so we decided to go at night. Our original plan was to go see a concert they were holding, but didn't quite make the concert because of our awful navigating skills. We FINALLY made our way to the beach which was so beautiful at night. We could hear music that we thought was the concert but once we got closer we realized it was just a band playing in the middle of the street by the beach. It was so strange...it almost sounded like music played by soldiers when they marched in historical battles. It was a pretty awesome soundtrack for our adventure. We wandered around all of the playgrounds, fountains and statues and explored the isolated beach. It was awesome. We finally made it to the marina and looked at some of the boats and a gigantic yacht(that I WILL ride on/own one day hahaha). It was really cool to see and be around where America's Cup takes place. Afterwards, we ate a DELICIOUS Valencian dinner are Sal Marina next to the beach. We ordered the "menú del día" which is the option that gives you the most for your money! We got bread with sauce, mussels, calamari, salad, paella, and coffee for 15 euro! IT WAS INSANELY GOOD! Much better than the dorm food and we were ecstatic. We were proud of ourselves for our adjustment into the Spanish routine -- we ate dinner at 9:45pm until 11:00pm. We were SO proud. :) Our waiter made us soo happy because he asked us whether we wanted a Spanish or English menu and we said it didn't matter (No me importa) and he gave us a Spanish menu! You probably won't understand how happy this made us, but it pretty much meant that he believed in our Spanish..it was a huge compliment to us. People here are so impatient with us and it made our day that he had the patience to deal with us and our broken Spanish! After dinner, we were a LITTLE freaked out because we realized that the metro closed. Luckily, we spotted a cab in the distance waved him down, jumped in and headed to el colegio!


Next stop....DUBLIN, IRELAND!!!!!!