March Madness

Well I have been called out for the lack of blog entries lately... you know who you are! A lot has been going on here. School is starting to pile up with lots of homework and tests. But nothing too difficult so far. I am just so shocked that it is already March, time is flying by!
On the weekend of Feb. 18 (wow I really am behind lol) USAC took us on a 2 night trip to Granada. I loved the city, it was very beautiful and had so much history. The first day we walked through the city, the arabic tourist shops and up to a viewpoint of the city and the Alhambra. The next day we spent a day at the Alhambra, which is gorgeous!! The architecture is so unique and breathtaking. The one bummer was our timing. We went when the gardens were a bit dead and the oh so famous Plaza de Leones was under construction. Oh well that's life. We still got to see the lions, but we were not allowed to take photos because the staff didn't want pictures of the lions in the wrong place. After the Alhambra my friend Michele and I walked back to the city and wandered around a bit, doing random stuff like cartwheels in the streets and stopping at what we thought was a juice bar. The juice bar turned out to be an awesome little hookah bar (no we did not do hookah!) We stopped there and got some smoothies and crepes, which were so delicious. We then decided to go out and experience the night life, since we were lame the first night ( which involved Mean Girls, wine and chocolate in our hotel room :)  So that night we got ready, I even put eyeliner on, which is a lot for me lol. We ended up not doing anything with our refusal to pay 5 euros for a drink and the clubs were in no way appealing to me. So our night ended up in a search for a good bar playing the Real Madrid game, but we happened to be in the one city in Spain that does not care about fútbol. So we went back disgruntled and watched some TV. The next day we drove back to Alicante, the bus ride being around 4 1/2 hours.

La mirador de La Alhambra

Los jardines de género (meaning Pleasure Gardens)

I loved this plaza

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Absolutely stunning

And this is when my camera died... 

After Granada my next adventure was a climbing trip that I randomly decided to sign up for. And I am so glad that I did. It was a blast. We started with a 40 min hike up to the first cliff that we were going to climb. There was a sort of ladder going up the wall, so it was pretty easy. I impressed all the Spanish guys with my determination to be in the very front, and there I stayed with two other guys in the group. The trip involved climbing cliffs, crossing wire bridges and walking on the side of a mountain. Of course I fell, of course I got mauled by a bush, and of of course it was AWESOME!

a bush got me...

On what my friend called "the wire bridge of death"

Michele y yo

This weekend was Carnaval, the equivalent of Halloween in the States. So I was extremely clever with my costume, aka jeans, t-shirt and a mask. Michele and I walked around carnaval a bit, but I am starting to realize that no matter what country I am in, I will never be a party girl. And carnaval is one giant party. They close the street down, and everyone dresses up and gets wasted. And I mean EVERYONE. The guys there also have no shame. A friend of mine had a guy get quite handsy with her as he walked past, ruining the night for her. One thing I have to say though, costumes are so much better here. I didn't see any lingerie/bunny ear costumes, except on guys, which is another story. All the costumes were in groups, since Spain loves community. I saw people dressed as fried eggs, Spongebob, Romans, Native Americans (this one cracked me up.. idk why), my personal favorite was a guy dressed as a boat. The party took place on La Rambla aka the barrio. There were several free concerts, a giant bar in the middle of the street and many churro stands... Ohhh Spain. I lasted till 2 am, which is almost party pooper status for Spain... haha.

Photo credit to other USACers, I didn't want to get my camera stolen.

La Rambla

Cute kids :)

This sort of thing was all too common...

My costume (aka mask :)

Sunday, instead of sleeping, I went to a nearby town called Santa Pola with my intercambio. We met up with some of his friends there and watched a small parade about the Moors and Christians. Afterwards we watched the town get wasted, mainly the teenagers (16-18). We went to a tapa bar, then to another bar to play foosball, then we hung out on the beach. It was pretty awesome, but I was so tired by the end of the day. And sorry for no photos, I am getting kinda lazy with those :(

Well that is all I can think of so far. A huge thanks to Mr. Cathcart for the Valentine he sent me :) 

♥

Now I gotta go do my mountain of hw and eat chocolate because come Wednesday I have to go without! Sad day.

Upcoming Events:

This upcoming weekend: Suecia (aka Sweden) to visit mi hermano George y su prometida Anna :)

Marzo 17-20: Irlanda con mi hermana Jilly

El primer fin de semana en abril: Alemania para visitar mi amiga Anna-Pia

Abril 21-29: Semana Santa en Cartegena con mi familia española

29 de abril hasta 6 de mayo: Italia con mi hermana española (Maria) para visitar mi tia Colleen.

Busy times ahead, but having the time of my life! :D

¡Hola!
So I have had quite the busy week, between classes, errands and of course my weekend trip to London!

So to begin the week, I had classes. Those went well, as usual... although my advanced grammar class is a little too easy for my liking. For example, we learned the genero, aka masculine and feminine nouns. Yup, I believe that I learned those my first day of Spanish class 4 years ago. So that resulted in my notes from that day looking like this:

But, the bright side is that this comic is completely in Spanish, and about the genero! Yup, I am thinking about going pro.. ;). In cooking class We learned how to make a tomato sausage stew, a fish soup with potatoes and some green sauce, and my favorite... Churros and chocolate :) 

 The ingredients and some churros :)

On Wednesday, a friend and I climbed the castle and passed some guys playing soccer. They decided that it would be cute to kick the soccer ball at us (our heads) and that we would be flattered. We, mainly me, were not flattered in the least bit, and refused to run after the soccer ball to retrieve it for them. This made some of the guys mad and they started swearing at us, to which I replied that I would throw the ball back once I reached it, but I refused to run for it.  They continued to swear at us, and only one guy thanked me for throwing their ball back to them. Later, my friend and I are convinced they threw a shoe at us... We were walking on the sidewalk below the field, and all of a sudden we heard a thud, and saw a shoe on the sidewalk... And I have now given up the hopes of a cute Spanish boyfriend... that should make my dad happy.

And now... Londres :)

My London trip was a blast. I arrived on Friday morning and made it to the hostel around 3 in the afternoon, thanks to a ridiculously long customs line and some traveling by trains. I met up with my friends ( one who goes to NAU with me and is currently studying in France and one of her friends) We then walked around the area looking around. Later we got some fish and chips and a Guinness beer at the hostel. I had never tried Guinness before, but I must say I am a fan ;) The fish and chips weren't bad either. We then just hung out and talked. 

The next morning we caught a bus into downtown London and wandered around, catching sites like Big Ben, the London Eye, Westminster Abby, Parliament Building, Buckingham Palace, the London, Waterloo, and Tower Bridges, The London Tower, St. Paul's Cathedral, and a few more, but those were the main ones. We didn't pay to go into anywhere because it was really expensive, especially with the exchange rate, but we all wish that we could have gone into the Tower of London. We walked everywhere too, and that is saying something since all the main attractions are along the river, so they are definitely spread out and not near each other... But we had a fabulous time just walking around London and being tourists. We even ran through a park, just for the heck of it (and all screamed when we found out that there was a giant mud puddle in the middle of the field haha, the looks we got were priceless). 

After a busy day of sight-seeing we hurried back to the hostel to get ready for Les Mis. We ended up getting off one stop early and started running to our hostel, which is when we realized that the bus stopped in front of our hostel... and the bus passengers were laughing at us. I feel like we got a good workout that day though haha :) We were in such a hurry to get ready in the hostel that our dinner was nutella sandwiches and we had to take a cab to get there on time. While waiting for the cab, we had to head to the gas station on the corner to get money... what my friends did not realize was that it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to speed walk in high heels. Without them fine, but with I am painfully slow. And they were trying to run. Eventually I said eff it and ran in my tights. Like my mother always says, you can dress me up, but not take me out. My friends also realized that I had quite the temper, which I took out on the ATM machine (because my feet hurt) and they found it extremely amusing to watch haha. The cab was waiting for us when we returned and we had a nice cab ride there, which included the cab driver laughing at me (I was still a little agitated lol, apparently I am amusing to watch when annoyed??) and us when we started singing I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys, haha. We got there with about 7 minutes to spare, and realized that no one in London dresses up for musicals. We and aprox. 5 other people were dressed formally, everyone else was wearing jeans. The woman who sat next to us was a real riot though. She told us that we all looked gorgeous and that it was nice to see that other people still cared about formal occasions (she was also dressed nicely). She then explained that the reason she was there was because her boyfriend was in the doghouse, but it wasn't anything an expensive musical couldn't fix haha. 

The play was amazing and I cannot believe that I finally got to see it live! When the opening music started, I just started grinning because I was there, even though the musical is beyond depressing. The only thing that bothered me is that because I grew up watching the dream cast 10th anniversary concert, some of the characters didn't work for me. I wasn't too big of a fan of the man who played Javert or the woman who played Cosette (but then again, I never really liked Cosette) The actress who played Eponine however was brilliant, and so was Valjean. I also liked Marius and Fantine. I shockingly made it through the musical dry-eyed, unlike my companions, but it was incredible. Once it ended, I wanted to watch it again!

After the musical we headed to a restaurant for some wine and desserts. We ordered a nice rose wine that tasted like strawberries, and a coffee dessert. Afterwards, we ordered some real food haha. It was so much fun just hanging out, dressed to kill and talking about the musical. We caught a night bus back, which apparently surprised some of the English, because we were Americans on a night bus. They also explained to us that we are supposed to call them English, not British, because they are from England, and I forgot the rest of the reasoning.. But they were a super nice couple who we talked with on the bus ride back.

The next day is when all the trouble started... due to my great time management skills. I ended up leaving for the airport later than planned due to losing my room key and having to find that, one of the trains I needed being closed and having to wait for a cab. I also underestimated how long the express train took to get to the airport. Like I said, great time management skills...

So after sprinting through lines and the airport, I missed my flight by 5 fricken minutes!! >:( I ended up being stuck in the London airport for 20 hours until the next flight.. I saw others in the same situation, my favorite being the guy on a computer drinking a bottle of wine haha, but I guess I learned my lesson. It's okay to be late for anything but flights. Those I need to be on time for. So you will only hear me say this once... It was my own stupid fault for missing the flight. Ask me about this any other time though and I will blame everyone or every thing but myself, and I will deny ever confessing it was my fault ;) But I made it home, and am now back into the routine of school and other fun stuff. 
Granada is this weekend.. YAY! And it's a lot harder to miss a bus than a flight :)
Oh and I decided that England is the Northwest of Europe, the weather is even more gloomy than Washington! I was starting to miss my sunshine (ironically it's raining here right now... )
Well I believe that's all for now folks, sorry for such a long post!
♥