Dias Extranos.

On top of a mountain looking at Segorbe, Spain

city bus attempt #1 The past two days have been so bizarre and random. I love when you don't plan things, but somehow your day becomes a silly adventure! Yesterday, I went to class and on my way back to el colegio I passed Tay! She asked me if I wanted to go to this market in the streets down by the beach that her professor told her about -- por supuesto, yo dije sí! Naturally we had absolutely no idea how to get there, so we started at the bus stop in Plaza Reina. We asked this old man which bus to take and he sent us to Plaza Ayumiento. Of course there are about 10 bus stops in that plaza so we asked more people where to go. Finally, we were directed to the bus stop where we could catch bus 32. We paid our 1,25 and were on our way (no clue if we would actually get there considering we weren't sure if we even had the right name of the market/street). After about 10 minutes on the bus we realized that we had no idea where we were supposed to get off so we asked the bus driver -- somehow the stop we were at was the right one! So, we got out and wandered around the market. Sounds cool, but it honestly was such a crappy market. It kind of looked like an ourdoor Goodwill (not the cool stuff at goodwill -- yes I shop there -- the gross stuff). We expected to see a lot of jewelry, art, rosaries, you know...but it was more like bras, underwear, ugly clothing, shoes, purses, belts. It was cool to see because it was pretty big, but we were quickly over it. Tay had to get to her next class, but I was done for the day so I just "headed home." Well, Tay took a cab to school because she had no idea what bus to take, so I just decided to get back on bus 32 because it had to go back where it came from. NOT THE CASE...tehe. Let's just say that I had a pretty darn long tour of the city. I immediately noticed that we were going the opposite direction than home, but I figured they would quickly turn around. Ohhhh noo...I saw the entire city before I got home. I saw an entire couple of "barrios" (neighborhoods) that I have never seen before, went by the beach (where my bus driver decided to get out and walk around for a few minutes??), and spent about 45 minutes on the bus at this point and wasn't even CLOSE to home. Eventually this sweet old Spanish women sat next to me on the bus and I asked, "conoces si este autobús va a la plaza del ayumiento finalmente?" (Do you know if this bus gets to the plaza ayumiento eventually?) and she kindly answer, "Más o menos, salías cuando tú estás cerca de la mezcla porque el autobús no va a la plaza del ayumiento nunca más ya durante fallas." (More or less, get off when you are close to the Mezcla because this bus doesn't go to the plaza during Fallas anymore.) Great. I had no idea what the Mezcla was and had her explain it to me. What was really strange is that she thought I was from France? Haha, but I was SOO thankful for this little old lady. After she got off the bus, I realized that the entire bus was full of people above the age of 60...no idea why. I must've been in old fart valencia at the time. Anyways, about an hour and fifteen minutes after I left the market, I reached the Mezcla which was actually right next to the plaza I needed to be in. It actually turned out to be such a fun adventure. I had fun seeing parts of the city that I had never seen and wondering where in the world I would end up! And I got to talk to a really NICE spaniard for once and practice my Spanish. After that, I came home, did P90X, ate lunch, sat on the roof, did homework and chilled for the rest of the evening...

Next Stop, Segorbe aka Middle of Nowhere

Orange Trees...We only took this pic because it looked like a mini version of the "whomping willow" from Harry Potter..hahahah

Ryan contemplating jumping in this fountain..Suz and I are great persuaders

Success.

I'm always eating...why.

segorbe last night, a group of us decided that we wanted to go HIKING! Sounds awesome, right? Well, Ryan found the spot to go, talked to a guy who worked at the national park, and figured out what bus we had to take to get there. Me and Suz woke up this morning around 8:00am, put on our hiking gear, had breakfast, dealt with the hungover boys (Ryan and "grateful" dave), grabbed out picnic lunches, and headed off to the bus station. We had no idea where we were going, as usual, but got there with 5 minutes to spare! We paid our 5,20 bus fare and were on our way to good ol' segorbe, spain. It took us about an hour with the MANY stops in itty bitty spanish towns (sooo weird by the way...I don't know what people do in these towns, they seem to be EMPTY), but we eventually got to the great city of segorbe. It wasn't so great. We got off and asked these young girls to point us to the "parque nacional" and they didn't even have a clue what we were talking about. They called over an older lady and asked her and apparently, Spaniards aren't much for the outdoors. Not only do they not drink, go out more than once a week, workout, oh no...they also do not hike. We had no idea what to do so we just decided to walk towards the mountains in the distance and see if we would eventually get there. At one point we saw this random playground in the middle of the city that had a map on it and it showed us some trails! We followed the arrow and surprise surprise, we still were walking on concrete with no national park in site. We just decided to keep walking towards the mountain and make our own path. It was interesting....we passed by a lot of oranges trees, lemon trees, rabid dogs, goats, poop, farmland, a highway, no trespassing signs, etc. Of course we continued. FINALLY...we got to a point where we could climb up into the woods. We point to a rock on the top and decided to make that our destination. A couple of thorns in my knees and rocks up our butts later, we got to the top :) We looked out over the farms and sat down to eat our lunches. I ate two bocadillos, a pear, a nutella and jelly sandwich, peanuts and sunflower seeds -- I eat an unnecessary amount of food. Anyways, we decided to head back down because it was starting to rain. On the way back, Suz and I spotted a fountain and decided to convince ryan to get IN the freezing cold fountain and climb on top of it for a picture -- of course he did it, idiot. I was almost peeing in my pants I was laughing so hard. I am almost pretty positive Ryan wanted to kill us, but it was sooo worth the it. Hahaha! ...We found our way back to segorbe and had 15 minutes until the bus came for Valencia. The boys decided to get a beer and Suz and I got Cola-Cao (its the best hot chocolate on earth). We could see the bus stop from the bar and panicked because we saw the bus that we were supposed to catch back to Valencia -- the next after this didn't come for another TWO hours and considering we were in the middle of NO WHERE, that was the last thing we wanted to do. The awesome people that Suz and I are, chugged our Cola-Cao and sprinted towards the bus. The bus driver laughed at us and recognized us from this morning and held the bus until the boys made it. We loaded onto the bus and listened to the sweet american jams all the way back to Valencia. On our way back to el colegio, it started raining and Suz and I wanted to RUN to beat the boys, but we were stopped in plaza virgen by these fourteen year old spanish girls screaming "excuse, excuse, excuse!!!" Haha...I believe they were trying to say "excuse me"...tehe. They came up to us, asked if we spoke English and said that they were going to Ireland in a couple of weeks and was wondering if they could practice their spanish with us. We said yes and they asked us a bunch of silly questions. When they asked us where we were from and we said "the united states" they covered their mouths and said "que guay!!!" (how cool) and were like so excited, haha. Anyways, they asked us why we were here in their broken spanish and asked to get a picture with us. The next thing we know, a swarm of fourteen year olds were taking a picture with us...it was so funny. Suz and I were just happy because our Spanish was better than a fourteen year olds English -- I know, pathetic, but people always tell us that we are all equivalent to about a 12 year old...greaaaaat.


The past two days have been awesome, very random, but awesome. Everyone keeps complaining about how we are halfway through our program, but I personally think we still have sooo much time left. I have nothing to complain about -- I feel like I am taking advantage of every single day that I have here and don't intend on slowing down or missing out on these little adventures. You have NO idea where each day can take you here.......


live it up!

Us with the little Spanish kids