Historias de San Valentin

Last night I went out with Anne and Christina. We "botellíned" it in the park... (spent some time with our dear friend Don Simon) and then we went to the cine.

We saw "Historias de San Valentin" which was pretty good. Quite the all-star cast. It was weird without Ashton Kutcher or Julia Robert´s voices but... it was good.

It´s beautiful life, and it´s a beautiful world, and it´s a beautiful time to be here... to be here.

So not going to lie, the first three weeks here were really rough. It was hard to adjust to everything so quickly. I missed home, my family, friends, Luther... I really didn´t like Valencia (I thought I might have chosen the wrong city or something) and I wanted to get over with this as soon as possible and get home.

In the past few weeks though I have had a complete change of heart. (basically since we´ve gotten back from Barcelona) I absolutely LOVE Valencia, and it feels like my third home. It´s an amazing city, and I am just wishing I had more time here to do and see more things- and experience Valencia in the summer.

It just kind of messes with my mind when I think about how I was wishing time away, and now I feel like I don´t have enough time here. (But that´s kind of the way life is though I guess.)

Oh and in less than a week I will be in Paris!

We spontaneously bought plane tickets... so we leave Wednesday after our classes. Luckily I don´t have any classes on Thursdays, and then one of my classes is cancelled on Friday. So I´m only missing one class with the whole trip.

And it has been gorgeous here... 70s and sunny. perfect.

Basically, I love life right now! : )

Oh Valencia! How I love thee… Weekend of epic proportions.

Day # 1: (Friday)

It’s still dark here, so that’s a good sign… it might be 5 AM as I’m typing this out…

So Kelsey and I decided we were going to do something tonight, so we wouldn’t just sit inside on a Friday night. Then our roommates (both are named Anne) decided they wanted to hang out with each other… so in the end, we all decided to do something.
I was really tired and Anne B. (Kelsey’s roomie) decided we’d go to this restaurant to have coffee with Bailey’s. It was delicious. I love coffee, I love Bailey’s… put them together, and you have something special.

Anne B. has many amigos espanoles, so we went to bar and said hi to all of them, but then we decided to go to Portaland’s since we have many free drinks there. We chilled there for awhile. I saw one of the guys I talked to on Wednesday- dos besos. We stayed there for a really long time. Finally it was time for Portland’s to close, so we decided to start walking home.


Kelsey and I in Portland's

Then this group of English/Irish/Scottish lads started talking to us… they talked us into going to a bar across the street with them. It was a super guay bar, and then the guys bought us shots. They were quite the group of funny blokes. We chatted with them all- there were only like 10 of them. I was talking in Spanish with some of them, and then the one guy told me that he wishes he could have my Spanish accent… which was funny. (The competition is really improving my Spanish, not going to lie.)

Then the blokes found out I was from Wisconsin, so they were quite excited about that. Apparently they know some people from Wisconsin in Madrid. Then it was about 4 in the morning and the guys wanted us to go to a club with them underneath the City of the Arts and Sciences. The one guy really wanted to have a dance-off with me.

However, being the Americans that we are, we were tired so all of us but Anne B. decided to go home. On the way home, we met some Spaniards. We were waiting at a stop light when they asked us our opinion on calling someone who gives you their number at the bar. (My roomie Anne H. just had a horrible experience with this, so we were indifferent…) Then we got to talking to them since we were walking the same way home. I talked to the girl, Melia, and we found out that we take classes in the same building and we all go to the Universat de Valencia. Pues, when we came across their apartment, we kept talking with them for a good 10-15 min or so on the sidewalk. In the end we exchanged phone numbers, and we are going to hang out to improve each other’s English/Spanish.

So, a random chain of events that has led to one of the most fun and best nights I have had in Valencia…

Day #2: (Saturday)

First off, my roomie Anne H., got up after approximately 3 hours of sleep and went to Alicante today.

I surprisingly woke up around 9:30 AM, so after a few hours of sleep I was somewhat awake. Kelsey and I were going to go to Xativa and we made plans to meet the night before… she text me, and I told her that we should meet later, after more sleep, comida, and that maybe we should just stay in Valencia after all. (I had the blinds closed and I assumed it was horrible weather like we have been having here.)

Then I went to the kitchen, and was surprised by the glorious sun. So, I called Kelsey back and told her to ignore my text and continue on with our plans.

We met up and then went to the train station, bought a ticket for there and back for 6.90 Euros. When we got to Xativa, Kelsey received a call from her roomie, Anne B. who wanted to meet up with us there.

Kelsey and I ate lunch in a park, went to Mercadona and bought a baguette, soda, and chocolate. Then we made our way up the mountain to the castle. (This mountain is bigger than the one in Sagunto… it took us about an hour and a half to make our way up there…).


Making our way up to the castle...


We stopped in a cave to drink our sodas!

Then we were right outside of the castle when we ran into some other girls from our program… so random! Then we went in the castle, and Anne called and said that her friend Fran was just driving her there in his car and that she’d be there soon. So we made our way in, explored around for a bit, and then finally Anne and Fran caught up with us.







We stayed in the castle until it closed and then made our way down the mountain and proceeded to try and find Fran’s car. It took awhile, but we found it. Then Kelsey and I had the choice of either using our train tickets to get back to Valencia, or Fran said he’d drive us back. We decided the car ride sounded nice, and so I rode in my first car in Spain! It was comfortable and warm and if I hadn’t wanted to see the landscape out the window so much, I would have fallen asleep immediately. Then he drove us all home, so we didn’t have to walk in the cold. : )


Sunset.


Kelsey, Anne and I


The city at night...

So, another fun day, but I am exhausted. There is no one home right now, and it’s cena time so I’m debating whether I should stay awake for a little while longer, or just go to bed. Vale.

Day #3: (Sunday)

Today was kind of an icky day… cold, rainy. We caught up on some missed sleep from the other night, and I was going to go to church and the market in the center, but since I’m coughing/sneezing/blowing my nose every 5 minutes I decided that walking 45 minutes to the other side of the city in the rain wouldn’t be a good idea. So I started to read the packet of homework I haven’t started to do yet.

For comida, our madre made us a warm rice dish with chicken, mushrooms, beans, garlic, and a bunch of other random things in it. Not going to lie- Elvira’s been uping her game on the cooking. This past week she made musaca, and the ever-so-famous paella.

During comida we had an intense discussion that started out about smoking. Elvira’s like 71 years, she’s never been able to quit… She talked about how the government keeps telling you it’s bad for your health, but at the same time they love the money that they get from the tobacco industry. It was really interesting. Then she talked to us about prostitution, and what she calls a “puta.” She said there’s a difference between the woman on the street who’s selling her body to feed her kids at home, and the one who loves money so much and has a house, husband, kids but hooks up with the German guy coming into town for the weekend to get a couple thousand Euros (this is the “puta”.)Some very interesting conversation for comida?

Then Anne and I took a three hour siesta. : )

When we woke up we decided that we needed to get out of the apartment for awhile. So we walked to the old part of town. We wandered into the Basilica and there was a mass going on, but it was half over… so then we went to the cathedral and mass was just starting. So we went to mass. The cathedral is SO huge, and the priest’s voice really echos, so at times it was difficult to understand what he was saying. But for the most part it was really nice, and contrary to Brian Doudna’s belief, we didn’t have to pay to go to church in the Cathedral. Haha.

Then we wandered around a bit more. Anne bought some stuff in a shop. Then we saw a bunch of fireworks and we started getting really excited for Las Fallas. It’s like 3 weeks from now! Can’t wait! It’s interesting too, because they are redoing the flooring in the Plaza de la Reina. It’s been going on since we got here… they’re almost done. (They have to be for Las Fallas.) But it really doesn’t make sense to me… they’re redoing it all only to have a ton of people come, trash it, and then blow stuff up on it..? Idk.

But I really love Valencia right now. I kind of wish we would be here for the summer. I bet it’s just gorgeous…

Vale.

This week has gone by quite quickly, it’s hard to believe it’s already Friday. I’m currently working on our trip to Ireland and then we’re trying to figure out a weekend trip to Paris. There are only 2 weekends where I don’t have a plan yet…. It’s going to be crazy from here on out.

The competition is going well. Vale vale.

Wednesday we went to this bar called “Portland’s.” The guy who owns it is originally from the U.S. (Portland, Oregon). Every Wednesday they have intercambios take place- it’s mostly Spanish people who want to improve their English. So we speak English with people, and then the owner of the bar gives us a card for 4 free pints of beer and also gives us food. It’s a pretty good deal, and it was a fun way to get to know some different people. Eve and I sat at a table with 5 guys. One was actually French, but had had a girlfriend in the US, once was a substitute teacher, one worked with Bio in a factory, and the other two were students. It was a pretty good deal, and actually the first time I’ve gone to a bar in Valencia.

Anne received a care package… I might have been more excited for it than she was. It contained: Macaroni and cheese, cappuccino things, a water bottle, 3 Anne of Green Gables books, and TWILIGHT! We watched the movie last night… it was glorious.

Today I only had one class, the other was cancelled. My professor (whom I like to refer to as Slughorn) calls me Sa-menth-a. Like “menta” or mint. So then he’s started calling me peppermint. I had to turn in a card with my picture on it… and then he looked at my picture, and says in front of the whole class- “Oh how beautiful. I bet the Spanish like to kiss you. It’s customary to get kissed twice on the cheek, but I bet you get more….” Awkward. I really didn’t know what to say…. Then he moved on to a girl named Hannah, but he calls her “henna”, and a girl named Colleen that he calls “Cow- leen.” Needless to say, that class is interesting.

This weekend Elvira’s grandson will be staying with us. I am excited! He is a really fun kid.

I think I might do a day trip somewhere tomorrow, but we never plan these things out ahead of time. We just go to the train station and more or less take the next train leaving for somewhere. I always feel really spontaneous on our day trips. It's fun.
All for now- Hasta luego!

“¡A Por Todas!”...o en otras palabras- “Bring it On!”

Right now I’m in a competition with Eve and Kelsey. We are trying to go a whole week without speaking English.

There are 2 exceptions:
1.Talking on the phone/Skyping with parents.
2.Singing to English music. (It’s all Spanish people listen to here anyways.)

We’ll see who will be the winner… but I think if we can all get through the week without English, we will all be winners. Vale.

Another weekend has come and passed...

If you could not tell from my previous post, on Thursday we went to Sagunto for the day. It was really nice (despite the wind.) We chilled on the side of the mountain and ate lunch overlooking the sea and various other mountains. Then we called our friends that we made in the castle in Almansa.


Eating lunch...

The first number we called was the lady, and she was at work. So she told us to call the other number and we left a message. Then we climbed towards the top of the mountain and wandered around in the wilderness outside of the castle. There were pine trees, cacti, and normal trees… all in the same location. It was interesting.
Then after sitting on a big rock and looking some more at the sea/mountains we received a call back from our friends. They told us they were eating lunch and would meet us down the mountain in an hour or so…


Chillin on the side of the mountain...

So we took our time and climbed our way down and found a place to warm up. It was a neat little restaurant that was rail road themed, and I was finally able to get some real chocolate con churros! : )


Chocolate con churros.

Then our friends called us again and said they’d meet us in the restaurant. So they get there, and the person that met us was the daughter of the couple we met in Almansa, and her friend/boyfriend?

The first thing she said to us was, “So…how exactly do you know my father?” lol. So we explained the story of the castle…. They were both super cool, and wanted to know everything about our home states and schooling and various other tidbits of information. She is only a couple of years older than us, so that was cool.

After chillin in the restaurant for awhile, we went back up the mountain to the castle. They gave us a tour of it, and then a tour of the rest of the town too. It was really fun hanging out with her, and we hope to return to spend more time with our random Sagunto family in the near future.






The castle.


Our Sagunto friends.


The coolest Spanish chick I know...

Random Note: Brian Doudna has told us that he plans to return to Valencia to teach English and live here for 10+ years. Eve and I have every intention of visiting him… he has said we can stay with him and that he will “cook us sandwhiches”? fo free. Anyways…. So we really want Brian to live in Sagunto. Mountains, and the Sea , and depending on where he lives he could potentially have a castle in his backyard. So, our current project is to make Brian fall in love with Sagunto… we need to formulate a plan of attack though... TBD.

This weekend was freezing in Valencia, and for a good portion of it raining. On Saturday I went with las chicas to the Ceramics Museum. Muy guay! Saw some pretty sweet stuff. Then we wandered around the old part of the city for awhile and then I had to go home a cook dinner since our madre went to the country for the day. After la cena, Anne and I went to the City of Arts and Sciences for the MTV Winter Valencia concert. It was Arctic Monkeys and some other bands. Let’s just say it was really crazy. The best way to describe it: “Halloween on drugs.” It was not really our scene, so after about one song or so we peaced out.

Then Sunday I woke up with a sore throat, so Anne and I went to OpenCor <3!!! My favorite place ever. I bought some mint tea to soothe my throat and a book- “Querido John” otherwise known as “Dear John” which is/has been made into a movie. (I really don’t know what’s playing anymore- it’s so hard to keep up with that kind of thing here.) I guess they can tell I’m a regular at OpenCor now though, because they gave me a card and with 10 visits I can get a free something or other, plus 3E off of my next purchase. Just one of the many reasons I love OpenCor!

Then after comida, Anne and I met up with Eve and we went down to the port. We saw some of the fancy yachts and watched some of the races on this screen- (if you want to watch it for real you have to be super rich apparently). But it was still cool.






The port.

The locals here don’t really like the America’s Cup… but then if the government took away my money to finish the metro system in order to build a fancier port I guess I probably wouldn’t like it too much either.

Then we took what’s finished of the metro to the other side of the city. Bought some crepes and then bought each other Valentine’s Day suckers and then returned home in the unbearable cold. (This is definitely the coldest it’s been here yet for us, inside or out. And probably why I’m getting sick now…)


Us with our Valentine's Day suckers!

I cannot wait till it warms up here.

Final note: As I have been sitting here at my desk typing this I have seen yet more fireworks. This is the second night in a row. People just shoot them off all the time. I’m trying to grasp what it’s going to be like for Las Fallas- things blowing up. Fire everywhere. Fireworks at all hours of the night. I think it’s going to be one of those things I can’t fully comprehend until I see it with my own eyes. Eve’s intercambio told her that we are going to have to stay out all night and then come back home in the morning, eat breakfast, sleep for a couple of hours and then go out again. I can’t help but think that I need to start stocking up on sleep now. I don’t think I can function for a whole week like that… we’ll see. I have a month… but time seems to go by quicker every day here.

What did I do today?

Climbed a mountain.
Gazed at the sea.
Walked through a castle.
Saw some ancient Roman ruins.
Met some new Spanish friends.

Sagunto… palabra.

A couple of SUPER GUAY things that have/will occur this week:

1.My Spanish Culture class was huge (30+ students). So they broke the class into two sections. I happened to get the new prof. Basically my new prof= Slughorn from Harry Potter 6. The face, the way he talks… I love it. Because who doesn’t love a little HP in everyday life?

2.The America’s Cup is here. I’m going to watch it on Friday. : )

3.There is a free MTV concert downtown on Saturday. I’m going to this as well. : D

This week everyone has started freaking out. I have 16 weeks left in Europe- which means 13 left in Valencia. One of these weekends we go to Granada with ISA, another weekend is right after Las Fallas (so I have a feeling we won’t be doing anything but sleeping that weekend). Another weekend we’re planning on going to Paris, and another we’re going to Alicante. Then my birthday is the last weekend we’re in Valencia, so I think we’ll be staying here that weekend. So… all of a sudden we don’t have as much time to travel as I thought we did.

For Easter break we have off from March 25- April 12. Yesterday some of the girls and I decided that we want to go to Ireland (my homeland) during this time. So we bought the plane tickets already. I'm SUPER EXCITED!!!

I also bought my plane ticket to Malta for traveling after classes this week with Allison. So basically I am becoming an expert at finding cheap plane tickets online… haha.


Last Note: I miss singing. And choir. And pretending to plunk things out on the piano…

Top reasons why Valencia trumps Barcelona

1.There are too many creepers wherever you go in Barcelona… you always feel like you’re going to get robbed or something… Valencia’s just more tranquil of a city
2.Catalan. You can’t read anything in Barcelona… I know they want to be separated from Spain and all, but still. A little Spanish on the side of a building or menu would be nice.
3.Valencia takes more pride in the antiquity of their city. Barcelona is currently turning its bull ring into a shopping center… lame.
4.The dogs are soo well behaved in Valencia. It’s amazing how well behaved all the dogs are here. In Barcelona, a dog came and stole my friend Emily’s turkey in the park…
5.People are nicer in Valencia.
6.Chocolate con churros… they don’t know how to do it in Barcelona…
7.Valencia’s streets are cleaner.
8.The metro’s quite sketch in Barcelona. The machine to buy tickets broke down, and then the door wouldn’t open at our stop, so we had to get off one down, wait 5 mins for the next one to come along and take us back to where we needed to get off.
9.Stuff is way more expensive in Barcelona than in Valencia.
10. It’s difficult to navigate through Barcelona. Valencia is pretty straight forward… (old river here, park there, old city here, new center there, beach here, mountains there---)


As one may guess, I went to Barcelona this weekend with ISA on one of our excursion trips. We left early Friday morning, had a 5 hour bus ride and got in Barcelona around lunchtime (2PM). When we got there we decided to just walk around and so we went to a restaurant and got some coffee. We there proceeded to walk around and wandered our way into a chocolate museum. I got a GOLDEN TICKET….! (Actually it was silver, but still very cool.) So that was good times… learning about the coco bean and whatnot. Then we found our beloved OpenCor, got us some bread, cheese, chocolate and box wine and had ourselves a fiesta in the hotel room for the rest of the night.

Saturday was a crazy long day. I woke up super early for some reason, as in 7am and then got ready and made my roomie come with me to get some b-fast in the hotel. We did that, chilled, and then everyone hopped on the bus and we went on a tour of the cathedral, some churches, random streets… Our tour guide was Guillermo. He had a habit of ignoring everyone else on the tour and talking to just me. People started asking me how my personal tour was going… it was funny.

Thus after that, me and the girls went and grabbed some coffee quick and then headed into the Picasso museum. We spent a couple of hours there, and it was amazing! Probably my most favorite part of the trip. I grabbed some postcards of my favorite paintings, and I plan on framing those to make a little wall collage when I get back home. I really liked Picasso’s paintings from the blue period. There was one that I literally went back to look at 5 times- “Azoteas de Barcelona.” I don’t know why, it was captivating… I also liked his collection of “Las Meninas”, which are 48 renditions of the Velazquez painting (which we happened to see in the Prado Museum in Madrid). So that was super guay too.

After that, we went to las Ramblas, which is a big market street that you can buy some really neat things in. (You have to be careful there though… people like to rob you there more than anywhere else in the city I guess….). Then we made our way to the Sagrada Familia, which is really amazing architecture by Gaudí. But it was never finished and is still a work in progress…

Then I went and had some chocolate con churros with some other chicas. (Except it was hot chocolate like we have in the US. So that was kind of a letdown.) After that excursion, I came back to the hotel, and there were a ton of people in my room as always. : ) So, I was coerced into going out with all of them… First we went to this bar DowJones which was like the stock market of alcohol. It was the COOLEST thing ever. Depending on what drinks were being sold and which ones weren’t, the price would fluctuate. So I got some Heineken pretty cheap, and then the market crashed, so my friend Kelsey and I got some Strongbow as well. It was sooo much fun. We just loved sitting there staring at the screen. Haha!

Then the group decided it was time to move on so we took the sketch metro the beach area. There we split up, some of the people went to the Ice Bar, and then some of us went to a discoteca. I chose discoteca: A. If I wanted to drink in the cold, I can just go sit outside in the snow at home and drink something… B. I didn’t have to pay cover to get into the discoteca.
However, both of our groups ran into some kind of scary situations with guys trying to grab us and take us somewhere… Luckily we had our heads on and were able to steer clear of trouble for the most part. No one got back until approximately 5am or later… crazy. And the norm is to stay out even later… =/. So after taking the longest shower of my life in the hotel and sleeping for a couple hours a new day started.

We went on a tour of Parque Guell and Paseo de Gracia (more Gaudí architecture), which was cool, but due to a severe lack of sleep I (along with a good majority of the group) was dragging. So after some free time for lunch (and seeing a guy get chased around by 20 policemen at the port) we finally got on the bus and I slept the whole way home.

So, an interesting weekend. There were some aspects of Barcelona that I thoroughly enjoyed- mainly the museums and architecture. However, Barcelona is a huge city with A LOT of creepers and I have no ambition to return there… enough said, I have more appreciation for Valencia now and it was really nice to get home and sleep in my own bed.


Roman columns.







Gaudí architecture.

I have now been in Spain over three weeks. It’s kind of hard for me to get a grasp on the time, because at times I feel like I’ve been here forever and that time is going by really quickly while other times I feel like time goes by slowly. This past week has been flying by though.

I finally feel like I live in Valencia. I decided that the other night when Eve and I went for a walk. We started at ISA and then walked through downtown- to the older part of the city- and then separated ways to go home. I knew where I was the whole time, and I’m starting to figure out how to get around the city and what connects with what to get where I want to go.

Up to this point I have taken:
-The buses (in Valencia and outside of Valencia)
-A taxis
-The metro

All I have left to try out is the train. Tomorrow we’re going to Barcelona, but next weekend we’re going to take the train for a couple of Euros to visit our friends from the castle in Almansa that live in Sagunto… haha.

Last night I had an intercambio (a meeting to sit and chat with a true Spaniard- half the time in Spanish and the rest of the time in English). It was really fun, and I LOVED it. My intercambio was a girl named Sila. She was really nice and she told me I speak Spanish really well and I can say I am officially bilingual. (So that made me really happy and excited!!!) She spoke English really well too and she’s been to the US multiple times (San Francisco, New York, Washington D.C.) and she’s been to England. She spoke with more of a British accent which I enjoyed.

She told me that the people in Sagunto want to set us up with their children… I laughed. I think that the trip to Sagunto might be the funniest thing ever. Can’t wait! So, I’m going to meet Sila next week again to hang out, and hopefully this will be the start of meeting more Spaniards to chat and improve my Spanish with!

Final note: Today I am officially Euro chic. I now have a leather jacket… tan guay…

Alamansa, Spain----

Bus ticket: 15 E
Admission to Historic landmark: 2 E
Bread: .45 E
Chillin’ outside of a castle: priceless

So this weekend I went on a day trip to Almansa, Spain with some peeps. My neighbors- Julieta and Emily invited me, and Jenelle and Brian also came along for the journey. It started early in the morning, we had to be up at the crack of dawn to walk downtown to the bus station. So, five minutes before the bus left, we got there, got our ticket, found our bus and left. Haha.

On the bus I was seated in the middle, Brian in the front, and the other girls in the back. There was a guy in the back coughing and hacking up so much that we all were gagging and thought we were going to puke. It was ridiculous. Then next to me there were some smelly Russians? They weren’t speaking Spanish and they tried to talk to me in horrible English, and it was not good. I was trying to ignore them, but their eyes were burning holes through me (a feeling that I seem to have a lot over here… hmm.) Luckily Julieta saved me from the Russians and came up and sat by me, and then she didn’t have to sit right in front of the guy practically dying in the back of the bus.

On the bus, they played Evan Almighty. Brian seemed really into it… we kind of watched it, but were too far back to read the subtitles…
We eventually got to Almansa, and started walking around. Brian fell in a fountain… almost. (Janelle and I saved him). Then we went to “El Paso” and had some café. Watched some skiing—we think it was the Olympics? Idk.

Then we continued walking downtown. We stopped in a park, ate our sandwiches. Then finally we saw the castle on the top of the hill, and we made our way to the top. Unfortunately as everything over here does, it was closed down in the middle of the day. Siesta time.

Moment of thought: (How is it that everything can just shut down over here for a couple of hours and a whole country can just take a nap. Blows my mind sometimes… But we were talking about this while we were waiting for everything to open back up…. If Spain’s economy is not good, and there is a crisis for jobs, wouldn’t it just make sense to have everything be open through the day so they could have business? Idk. Just a random thought we were pondering…)

Anyways, back to our story. After we found out that the castle wouldn’t be open for a couple hours, we went to this mall.. they have a different name for it here, but it was a mall. There was one store open. A pastelería! So we bought some chocolatey goodness, ate that, and walked around looking at the windows of the closed stores. Window shopping, it does exist. (I thought Gilmore Girls was making that up.) I found a jacket that was 15 E in a window, and I needed to have it, so we sat outside of it on a bench staring at it. It was great. Then we discovered the best public restrooms I have yet seen in Europe. They were amazing. Just chilling out in this mall.

Since everything would be closed yet for awhile, we went to Mercadona (grocery store) and bought fresh bread and I got an orange Fanta. (Orange Fanta is quickly replacing my need for Cherry Coke.)

Thus with bread and soda, we trekked our way back to the castle. We sat on the steps, soaked in the sun, and shot the breeze. It was glorious.

Finally the castle was open, and we made our way in. It was sooo guay. Super guay. We were in heaven… or a castle. It was really windy though, and there were really tiny steps, and that kind freaked me out. I felt like I was going to trip and just fall off the edge or something. A few sweet things happened in this castle though:

1.It was a castle. And apparently it was part of a big battle between the moors and the catholics. Interesante. (I just like seeing things that have a history and story behind them….so that made me happy.)
2.There was a group of people- 2 couples together- that were walking around at the same time as us. When we got to the top, they took our picture. When we went down into the main hall, Janelle took their picture in front of some cardboard cutouts. It was the funniest thing ever!!
3.We met another group of 2 couples- this group a little older… They asked us where we are from, what we’re doing here… ect. Then they told us to come visit their city, and then gave us their number so they can show us around, have us over for dinner, and have us meet their children. ***Basically the coolest thing that has happened since we got here. So, next weekend we’re in Barcelona, but 2 weeks from now, we have our trip already lined up. Haha!!

After the awesomeness that occurred in the castle, we went to the mall. Waited a little bit longer for the store to open up- came across our first group of friends from the castle again. And then finally I bought my jacket! : )

Then it was getting late already, so we started walking back across town to where the bus was picking us up. It was really cold, so I was glad I had my coat and not just my fleece. We found a bar/café, and so we sat and had some coffee. It was super cute, because there were a ton of old men hanging out in this place, and they were playing dominos with each other. Loved it.

So we played 2 truths and a lie/2 lies and a truth--- which I am horrible at, because I really can’t lie… So I failed at that, but it was fun nonetheless, and we got to know each other a bit more.

Then we went outside in the bitter cold and waited for the bus to arrive. Janelle almost had her hand bitten off by a crazy dog, and then the bus finally came.
I sat with Emily on the ride back, and we chatted the whole way back to Valencia. When we got here, we took a cab home and split the cost—it was beyond freezing out and it was late.

So, that was my day in Almansa. Pretty epic. Most definitely my best day in Spain yet, and I can’t wait to see what’s next in store for me…



The fountain Brian almost fell in... haha.



The group. (We took this pic using self timer and a random window...)



View of the city from on top of the castle.







pics of the castle...