We Were Ate by Waves

So we may or may not have skipped class on Thursday to go to the beach...

Now don´t go getting the wrong idea...it was professor approved! The Barcelona soccer team won the Championship game Wednesday night and this was our celebration. We took the tram to San Juan beach again...the less crowed, cleaner, bigger beach down the way. It was a beautiful day with giant waves! Granted they were giant for the Mediterranean sea...usually pretty calm here. So we spent the day attempting to body surf and jumping waves and laying in the sun...it was so much fun! We had to leave the beach a little early to have time to shower and get ready for a trip to a vineyard. The University took a bus out to the vineyard...there were close to 30 international students that went. It was definitely an event set up for people who know little about wine...they didn´t even give us different classes for each type of wine! We tried one white, one blush, and one red. The white was pretty good. It was also really interesting seeing how wine is made though the presentation was in Spanish so I didn´t catch some of the technical descriptions, lol.

On our walk home from the bus, Jenny and I stopped at our favorite tapas place. We are attempting to try all the tapas before we leave, so we never order the same thing twice...usually with a glass of wine though not yesterday, lol. The two servers/bar tenders know us know and always talk with us as we sit up at the bar and eat our tapas...I would consider us regulars, lol.

The trip to Granada this weekend was cancelled since the minimum amount of students didn´t sign up...big bummer. So tomorrow Jenny and I are headed to Valencia. We are planning to spend the weekend there seeing art and cathedrals and gonig to see one of the most famous aquariums in Europe. It should be fun!

The group at San Juan!

Looking down at half of the beach

At the vineyard with lots of barrels of wine.

There was a John Deere on our way to the vineyard... M. Nicolas and Sons.

This is the only tractor they had out front, lol.

My Room

Here are few pictures of the room I am staying in here. It is small, but cozy and nice :)

Alicante

So I have been in Alicante for a week now. Classes are going really well and I am enjoying my time here. Everyday class gets out at 3, we ride the bus home for 40 minutes, eat lunch, and then go do something in the city until it gets dark and return home for dinner at 9:30. After lunch Jenny and I have been walking around town shopping or going to the beach. Here in Spain all of the people are extremely fashionable making shopping pretty interesting! While we wander around we stop once a day for either ice cream or tapas. The ice cream here is amazing! And there are so many different flavors...we never try to get the same one twice. We found a tapas place on our way home and have decided to visit often for a glass of wine and a new tapa every time. Tapas are hors d'oeuvre served with drinks in Spanish bars and restaurants; they are like mini appetizers.

I also have more pictures...these are from Alicante:

Here I am on the boardwalk!

This is the beach in Alicante...it is always crowded.

I´m not sure what this building is, but it is one of my favorites in Alicante!

This is the castle located in Alicante :)

And here Jenny and I are on top of the castle with a cannon--it was really cool!

Pictures from Barcelona

Some sort of palace and the statue of Columbus pointing.

A statue overlooking the city at the National Art Museum.

A bullfighting stadium they are turning into a shopping mall.

Casa Batllo by Antoni Gaudi [a very famous architect who has work all over the city]. This house is designed to look like the skin of a dragon. It is very beautiful.

Here is another one of Gaudi´s works. It is the most beautiful church I have ever seen. Construction began in the 1880's and they don't think it will be done until 2050 or so. Gaudi finished one side, but after his death the plans for the other side were destroyed in a fire. The other side of the church is being designed and built by a (?) Japanese architect--it is called the modern side.

This is a market we went to visit. Here you can buy fresh seafood, bread, fruit, vegetables, nuts, sweets...anything you can imagine. It was extrememly croweded.

Dried fruit and nuts at the market. All of the displays were so colorful and pretty...except for the fish, they just smelt bad.


On our last day in Barcelona we also visited the Olypmic Statuim of 1992. Here you can see part of the stands, the large clock on one side, and the holder for the olympic flame!

My new School & Family!

Today was the first day of class at the University of Alicante. The campus is beautiful with palm trees and marble everywhere. I am in the intermediate Spanish class with 3 other students from Coe. Class was so much fun! It was 3 hours long though it seemed like 1. Our class is made up of 1 other American girl from Arizona, a girl and a 48 year-old man from Sweden, a couple from Russia, a girl from China, a boy from Japan, an elderly couple from England, and Danny from Indonesia. Danny was my partner today since I did not have the book. They have already been in class for 3 weeks, so we are joining in the middle. Danny graduated from fashion school, has worked for 8 months in Paris, and has a job with a shoe designer in Alicante for which he needs to be fluent in Spanish. He was a lot of fun to talk to [he has perfect English], really funny. He can´t wear his highheels here like he did while in Paris--the people here just wouldn´t understand!

The University has many international students so they offer lots of field trips. Jenny and I are signing up for a bunch--an afternoon at a vineyard, a weekend trip to Granada [the last Islamic kingdom in Spain until 1942], a boat trip to a nearby island, and a day of water activites like sailing and wind surfing!

My family here is very nice. We have a very full apartment [actually 2 apartments they knock the dividing wall out of]. There is my host mom and dad, their 2 sons, a grandmother, and another exchange student from Italy. Her name is Tia and she is extremely nice. She also speaks English which is helpful at times when I don´t understand. I am not sure how typical my family is; we don´t eat together, people are rarely home, and we do not have wine with our meals [a common Spanish tradition that I am apparently missing out on!] Either way they are extremely nice and make sure I have everything I need. My first impression of my host mom seems to say a lot: she was wearing skin tight, snake-skin pants, drives a black truck like vehicle with a lift kit and a large exaust pipe on the hood [it is by far the largest vehicle I have seen in Spain!], and the first thing I saw when I walked in to our apartment was a zebra print lava lamp! LOL! Again, they are extremely nice.

I have pictures to post to liven this up a bit, but I am not on my computer right now. I will have them up soon--promise!

Te vias bien!

Toilets

In our hotel a few days ago, I was sitting, using my computer in the lounge near the front desk. I was with a friend who needed to use the restroom. Soon I hear her at the front desk, "I don´t know how to flush the toilet...the toilet...toil-let...el baño...sí...I can´t make the water go down...the water...agua...doesn´t go down...agua no down...eh...SÍ!" I was nearly on the ground laughing! Lol.

But the event did bring to my attention the different and random ways to flush a toliet here. No one is the same. I have see ones with buttons that you push, knobs that you pull, petals to step on, switches to click, and chains to yank. Oh the variety! And it is only after you find the location of the flusher that you must discover whether to push, pull, switch, click, stomp, or whatever. Most are located on top of the toilet though are those which hang from the ceiling or are on the wall or on the floor. Tricky these Spainards are. I just hope I never have to ask the front desk how to flush the toilet!

Today a Pigeon Pooped on my Foot :(

It was in the middle of Barcelona in this plaza and the people in front of me decided to scare up some of the hundreds of pigeons that hang around. Apparently one of them was quite frightened. I'm luck my book bag is so well stocked for such emergencies and the disaster was cleaned promptly.

Today in Barcelona we were able to walk around and visit the sights we saw on our bus tour yesterday. The people here are all so fashionable, the architecture is breathtaking, the art is everywhere, and the food is to die for. We started today with the open air market--so cool! There are booths filled with fruit, candy, fresh nuts, meat, bread, fresh fish...anything you could every want. It was filled with people and you need to use your elbows to make it through the crowd. In Spain it is normal to bump into people when you walk--even when it is not that crowded. We then took the bus up to a palace that serves as the national art museum. I saw a few Picasso's and a ton of other great work dating all the way back to the 1100's! You can't find that in America. The Olympic Stadium from 1992 was just a short walk from the museum, so we stopped by.

Our way back to the train station took us through the most popular street in town...La Rambla. It is lined with the hippest stores; from Dolce & Gabana to Puma to Jimmy Chew to H&M. The middle of the street has a large grassy area filled. Here there are all sorts of venders [lots of people selling pigeons--keep them away from me!] and one-man acts. There are the clowns that squeak while they try to take a picture with you so you have to pay them. There are human statues that come to life when you drop a coin into their hat. There are acrobats who can jump over three standing people! It is a whole mess of people and things to see.

Tomorrow we leave for Alicante where we will spend 3 weeks taking classes. After a tour of the University we meet our host families. I'm really nervous--I hope they are as great as my Ecuador family!

I'm in Spain!

It was 1:30 am Iowa time when we arrived in Barcelona. That was 8:30 am here...just in time to start the day! Except the fact I have slept 9ish hours in the last 48 [the majority of which were on a plane]. Walking out of the airport we were met with a hot, humid haze making the streets seem fuzzy while tall buildings disappeared into the fog. Adding to the almost claustrophobic haze was an overwhelming aroma of cigarette smoke. Apparently smoking is still extremely popular here...everyone walks around and stands outside buildings with cigarettes.

Since then we have arrived at the hostel we will be staying at through the weekend and I have had a short nap and a hot shower. We are heading to lunch soon with our professor and her family. Apparently lunch in Spain is around 2 or 3 every afternoon. We plan to walk around the neighborhood a bit afterwords though it is cloudy and looks like rain.

I must mention the trip here. I think I could live on that plane! We all had our own TV screens on the back of the seat in front of us. These were touch screens where you could browse numerous movies, music, and games--all free! Most of the movies were new releases and the music selection was awesome. I watched Marley & , played Bejeweled and chilled the rest of the night with Jack Johnson. At the beginning of the flight everyone received earphones, ear plugs, and an eye mask, lol. Dinner was a tray of tortellini, salad, bread, and a brownie. We were served a midnight snack/breakfast [depending on which time zone you want to go by] consisting of a bagel and banana before we landed. I only wish there was a comfortable way to sleep on a plane...

New Adventure!!

Ok gang, it is time for a new adventure! I'm traveling to Spain for 3 weeks as part of a May Term through Coe. I leave the 13th...so...5 days! Ah, I still have to start packing.

In Spain I will be spending a majority of the 3 weeks in Alicante, along the East coast. I will be taking 4 hours of Spanish class every day and living with a host family. I am one of 7 Coe students going on the trip. We will spend a weekend in Barcelona and have 3 other weekends to travel as we please. My friend Jenny and I are already planning on a weekend in Madrid!

Anyways...expect updates as soon as I leave!