The month of April.

I can't believe that my last post was at the end of March, and this post is on May first. I really was alive during April, I promise.

The first noteworthy thing that I did (I think) was that I participated in Santa Faz. :) I went with my host brother and his friends, and we had a really good time. The Santa Faz is, apparently, a cloth that they put on Jesus face as he was carrying his cross, and his face ended up imprinted on the sheet...? And now there's one in a church in a city called Santa Faz and every year there's this huge (like 300,000 people or something) pilgrimage to Santa Faz to see the Santa Faz and people have big rod things with rosemary sprigs at the top and it smells good and it's like 5 miles or something walking from Alicante (although people walk further) and it's really cool! For the adults it's more like a pilgrimage...but for the kids it's more like an excuse to drink in the morning, as in there were a bunch of maybe 16 year olds running around with shopping carts, obviously drunk by 10 am. Welcome to Spain.

Anyway, we didn't drink. :) But instead of waiting in the loooong line to see the Santa Faz, we went to the beach and spent the day talking and laughing and it was wonderful!! :) I really enjoyed myself. It was nice and warm but not sweltering hot, too, so that was nice.

Then we had some GORGEOUS weather in the beginning/middle of April and I worked on my tan a bit and went to the beach a few times. It's less nice now but I'm hoping it gets back to gorgeous status again soon. :)

I've really dove headfirst into my internship and I LOVE my time that I spend at the school! Other than that, I've been studying a LOT and doing a lot of homework and whatnot! Booooooo. But that's just during the week. On the weekend I've been enjoying some country hopping ;)

A couple of weekends, I went to Amsterdam, and OH. MY. GOSH. I absolutely loved it! I don't know what it was really, but I really enjoyed my time there and I just felt so welcome in the city!! I was comfortable and wonderful and the canals are BEAUTIFUL and the city is just so cute (minus the Red Light District which made me terribly, terribly sad) and Zoe, Tonada, and I just really enjoyed ourselves. We did a lot of walking around and looking, and we went to the Anne Frank house, and a science museum (which was so much fun), and a couple of other things. Basically, we had a blast and all of us fell in love with the city. :)

Then last weekend I went to Copenhagen, Denmark...and we hopped over to Sweden for a little while too. We saw a bunch of castles and just kind of walked around a lot. We stayed with some of Zoe's family, which was LOVELY and the food was amazing and they were really nice and extremely hospitable and I enjoyed myself a ton!! However, as a city, I didn't fall in love with Copenhagen like I had been told to expect. I don't know why. I mean, the city is very beautiful and there are things to see and do but I don't know...we didn't go to Tivoli so maybe that's why I didn't absolutely adore it. :P

Anyway, this weekend Zoe and I are off to Budapest (which I'm SUPER excited for) and then it's just more pedal to the metal with school!! This is my last big trip...and the next time I get on a plane it'll be to go home for good! WEIRD!

Hope things are wonderful at home :)

Busy bee.

GUYS.

I promise that I'm alive.

I have been having so much fun but I have NEVER BEEN BUSIER IN MY LIFE.

I will update you all when I can!!! <3

Easter!

First off, Happy Easter to everyone!! I hope that Spring Break was lovely and that you all got lots of rest and enjoyed remembering and reflecting on how much God loves us. We are seriously blessed!

This week was one of the best weeks of my liiiiiiife, because Tyler came to town!! Yes, my handsome and hunky boyf here in Alicante, IN THE FLESH. Praise God. It was much needed and really awesome and being able to sit down and just talk again, face to face, without the weird ambiguity that comes from texting sometimes was SO nice. I also enjoyed holding his hand whenever I had the chance. Ah, the little things.

Anyway, since he was here I basically just gave up on doing anything productive and I don't regret it one little bit! I decided not to do tutoring or class or my internship or anything (I knew the internship one was going to happen and had talked already to Monica about tutoring one of the days, I didn't just straight up ditch, haha) so that I could have more time with Ty since I never get to see him. :) We went out a couple of times with the girls (and Zoe's friend Vincent who was here), hit up the castles, had tea and cupcakes, walked around a lot, and had a good time. Also, since it was Semana Santa (Holy Week) there were a lot of processions, and one of the nights we hit up the Barrio to go see a procession there and OHMYGOSH.

I wish I could describe it in a way that would do it justice.

First off, there are the nazarenos:

(I found this picture on google...it's not mine. Hahaha there were not good chances to take pictures)

At first, that's a little weird, you know? Depending on the church they come from, they have different colors and stuff (I think that's why at least), so there are a lot in black, or white, or burgundy, or purple, or a mixture of colors (like a black antifaz (weird hat thing) over a burgundy robe). From what I've gathered, these people are basically in penitence (is that the correct usage of that word?), confessing their sins and repenting. Which is why they wear the head things -- they can go about this without anybody knowing who they are. At least, that's the traditional reason. Now I think it's just to keep tradition. Also, there are these ladies:

I think they wear that stuff because they're in mourning that Jesus is going to be/has been crucified? Because I didn't see any of them in the videos of the Sunday processions that I've seen.

Anyway, along with those things there are little kids who give you candy (yesss) and some CRAZY float things that take a BUNCH of people to hold them on their shoulders. Like, guys, they're huge.

Look at all the guys carrying it! Anyway, the one we went to was in the barrio so they seriously had BARELY enough room to fit down these roads, and they were walking down hills and down stairs...they had a ton of people under them, carrying them, and then people literally pushing up on the people coming down the stairs in the front, and pulling on the people in the back so that they wouldn't all just go tumbling down the stairs. Because that thing is HEAVY. It was really, really neat actually. I'm glad that we went.

Anyway, besides that, Tyler and I went to Madrid for a couple of days. We cooked ourselves dinner for our 8 month-aversary and it was DELICIOUS and I was proud of us and it was so much funnnn. Then Tyler had to leave and I was sad BUT we only have 9 weeks left!

Guys, I come home in 9 weeks!

That is the most exciting and terrifying thing at the same time. I cannot believe I go home so soon! I have so much to do in these nine weeks left and I'm planning on making the most of it!!! :D

Hope everyone has a blessed Easter! These next couple weeks I have school off, so I'll just be trying to get caught up and hopefully get ahead (!!) in school and classes and stuff. My friends here in Spain are scattered all over the world (or Europe at least) so it'll just be me and my fam, havin some time together and getting stuff DONE. Boooom.

:) Miss you all!! <3

Internships, Classes, and London...oh my!

The weather is finally looking up here in Alicante -- as in I am RED as a tomato because I spent yesterday on the beach with friends, eating our homemade guacamole and enjoying the sun, and later finishing the day with kebaps and some sour candy straws. Winning.

But let's baaack it up. I haven't given an update in forever! I've just been all over the place. My internship has sort of started!! Or rather, I did my internship for a week, then I went to London (!!) and missed a week, and today Tyler is coming so I'm not doing my internship this week, and then the next two weeks are vacation. So THEN I start and it's pedal to the metal!

Anyway, I absolutely love my internship and I'm so excited for it to really start! (Minus the fact that I have to be there at 8...back to real life!) I'm working in an 'instituto' which is like secondary school, the ages of American 7-12th graders. At first I was only going to be in English classes to help the teachers and students and just see how Spanish schools work, but now I'm going to be in math classes too! There's a trilingual program there (because here everyone already learns Castellano ('Spanish') and Valencian so English is their third language) where the students take English every year and also take math and science and some other classes in English...so I'm going to be helping in a math class taught in English! I'm so excited. The teacher is AMAZING and so passionate about what she does, but she sometimes still has questions about how we say math terms in English or what certain things are called. So basically, she's thrilled to have me since I absolutely love math and I know it all in English, and I'm thrilled to be in her class because she is RAD. She works SO hard, so I hope I can make her life a little bit easier by being there to help! I absolutely cannot wait to start after the break and really get into the swing of things!! Plus, I'll be working with every age group so I'm excited for that!

Other than that, I've really just been going to class, studying, trying to figure out stuff at home for this summer and next year and fall classes and whatnot, and trying to spend some time with my friends here as well! I also picked up a new tutoring job with a woman named Monica. She's about 40 years old and I'm just helping her with her English, we chat and have a good time. I really enjoy it!

Also, I got the RA job!! I'll be an RA in the whites next year and I absolutely can't wait! I didn't think I was going to get it, so the email was a VERY pleasant surprise!

Anyway. This last weekend (the 15-20th) Zoe and I went to London! It was seriously so awesome. I really like London. We met up with her friend from high school, Vincent, and had a really good time. We stayed with one of her dad's friends from college (random?) and it was SERIOUSLY SO GOOD. It was nice to be with a family (mom, dad, and two sons aged 18 and 10 or 12ish?). They cooked for us, we had pizza one night, we went out to a pub and had shrimp one night (so good), she made BLUEBERRY PANCAKES and we had BAGELS and oh my gosh I just can't even...I don't...it was wonderful.

We did so much in London! After getting a little lost the first day, we caught up with Vincent and made our way to the London Eye. At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to but, seriously, so worth it. I really enjoyed it. Afterwards, we eventually made our way to Chipotle. So yeah, there are only Chipotles in two cities in Europe: Paris and London. We made it to both. Don't judge.

We seriously did so much...over the course of our time there, we saw Buckingham Palace, went to Borough Market and got some deliiiicious food (curry...you're about to see a pattern), Kings Cross to Platform 9 3/4 (such a Muggle-y thing to do, I know...), saw Big Ben, the London Bridge, Tower Bridge, the London Tower, Picadilly Circus, shopping on Oxford Street, St. Patty's parade on St. Patrick's Day, Trafalgar Square, had Indian food (curry=yum), walked around Leicester Square, Tate Modern (museum), British Museum (where we saw real mummies...uhhh), China Town (spiciest food ever), went to Camden Lock Market which was HUGE but it was raining and that made us sad (but hey...it's London. What do you expect), Portobello Market, English afternoon tea...AND WICKED!

Yep. For Zoe's (belated) birthday, I got us tickets to go see Wicked and [Oh. My. Gosh.] it was so good! Best decision ever!! We really enjoyed ourselves. It was a cute little friend date!

Overall, I really liked London. It was sort of a breath of fresh air to be somewhere where I don't have to worry about possibly not having the right words or saying something reeeally weird and having people look at me like I'm bizarre. Not that that happens THAT often but I mean...it was nice not to worry about it. That being said, it was so nice to come home, too. My host mom was THRILLED when I got home (I was home earlier than she thought I would be) and it's just nice to be back where things are familiar and I don't feel like such a tourist.

Yikes, this is a long post! And without pictures...sorry. I would upload some but I've got a lot to do still before Tyler gets here! He gets here in like 3 hours and I am THRILLED because that means he's currently in Spain and that makes me happy! :D Vincent (Zoe's friend) is here again this weekend so the four of us should probably get into some shenanigans and have lots to write about for my next blog. Then again, maybe not. We'll see!

Love and miss everyone at home and hope your Spring Breaks are absolutely fabulous and that you get some rest!!!!

La Tormenta

So obviously, blogging is not going to be my career because I can't seem to get myself to WRITE for weeks at a time. Although really, there's not that much to note! Life has been pretty chill. Just spending time with friends and my family here, enjoying the Spanish life!

In terms of school, I have two classes right now. One is a sociology class and the other is a class about contemporary art and culture. Both of the profs are really nice and I enjoy both classes, so that's nice! I FINALLY am going to start my internship at a middle/high school on Monday, so wish me luck!!

Last weekend Robert, my host brother, invited me to a party with like 16 of his friends downstairs in his apartment. They made paella and broke out the mojitos at noon...welcome to Spain. I stayed until like 8 pm....it was a lot of fun but really tiring! We talked a lot, there was a lot of laughter, and we played Assassin. Haha, so funny! I had a good time, but next time I'm DEFINITELY bringing Zoe because it was a tad overwhelming haha.

A couple weekends ago, Zoe and I went to Benidorm which was fun, nice to get out. I like Benidorm because there is a really pretty park-like thing and you can look over the sea and stuff and it's really pretty...but the city itself is super touristy and gets a little old...fast. But it was good to go!

Other than that, I've been busy applying for jobs for when I get back to the States, figuring out a topic for my thesis, planning trips (be looking forward to updates from me from Amsterdam, London, and Budapest!), trying to plan more trips (Greece, Ireland, Prague, or northern Spain, anyone?), and getting excited for Tyler to show up in like 23 days! WOOH!

I'm sure I'll start having more to talk about here soon with my internship starting and whatnot. Hope everything is good back at home! It STORMED here today. Like, stormed. Downpour, hail, thunder, the works. Makes me a little lazy...gonna be interesting getting used to Oregon weather again. ;)

CARNAVAL!

And, yet again, I suck at getting blog posts up.

Welp, let's see. Scholastically, I had my final in my grammar class at the end of January. I did well, got an A in the class. Now on to bigger and better things at the university! I'm taking two classes, I have class on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays...and I really am excited for my classes! They seem really interesting and they should be good. Here's hopin'. :)

Last weekend my host family took Zoe and I to a Medieval Market thing about an hour away from where we live. It was fun! I have noooo idea why all of the little market-like things that they have here are medieval themed, but it's kind of funny. The market was pretty neat, and my host parents are the cutest thing ever. It was really windy but I still had a lot of fun. :)

Then Zoe and I went to a fiesta thing at the colegio where she works...I saw Paula, the girl I tutor. She was so confused as to why I was there! Haha!! It was fun, though! They had a medieval themed mercadillo thing (again...lol) and then there was mass and then HUGE paella pans and paella...yum! It was also really warm. I was really glad Zoe took me. :D It was fun!

Thennnn this weekend was Carnaval! It was a fun weekend. Me, Zoe, Tonada, Maraya, and Anya decided to dress up as the Spice Girls for Carnaval (think Halloween on steroids, minus the scary...or maybe Mardi Gras-esque.) This weekend we climbed the castle, had some ice cream, had a 'movie night' (minus movies...cool), found our costumes, and then last night went out! Carnaval was crazy. We didn't go over to Tonada's until like midnight, but even at midnight there were CHILDREN in the streets (along with the multitude of young people and adults and whatnot). Everyone was dressed up. There were DJ's and bars and whatnot in the streets and everything was just PACKED. We danced a bit and then I just enjoyed people watching....seriously SO many people in the streets, I wish I could convey to you! It was crazy! The DJ's in the streets didn't pack up until about 4 am...guys, this is normal here. (For Carnaval at least) Whaaaaaaaaat. Drinking in the streets and whatnot...I mean, people live on this road and there is no way they were sleeping with all that noise! Ha!

I had a really good time, but I really just feel sorry for whoever had to clean the streets afterwards. There was SO MUCH trash in the streets, bags and bottles and cups and anything else. And I also saw at least 3 people puking at different points during the night, right there on the street. So uh...yeah. There's that.

Anyway! Today was a nice little recovery day, and now I'm getting ready to buckle down on some stuff I need to do for home! (Applications, registrations, essays, and the like.) Miss you all terribly and hope life is treating you well!!!

El tiempo va volando

Time has seriously been FLYING here. I cannot believe it's been two weeks since I last posted...things have been crazy!! Hopefully everything will slow down here soon... anyway. My life.

I feel like there have been un montooon (a ton) of birthdays recently, but I think it's just because they've all been nicely spaced out. We celebrated mine, which was on the 8th, and then Zoe's on the 16th, and then my friend Maraya's on the 22nd (or somewhere around there). There has been much cake and drinks and dancing and merriment. Which is MUCH needed, because these 8 am classes 5 days a week are killin' me! Luckily, there's only one week left of this and then I'll slowly ease into my schedule for the rest of the semester. I'm going to be doing an internship at a middle/high school (I'm not sure where yet), along with taking 2 classes at the university. I haven't chosen my classes yet, but...

HERE'S HOPING THEY'RE EASIER THAN LAST SEMESTER.

I finally got my history grade. I got a 5.33, which should transfer as a C, I believe. In other words: I PASSED!! I really think that for how much I studied and knew, I should have gotten a better grade, but I'm honestly just thrilled that I passed because there were a good number of F's from the class (the professor basically sent out a sheet that had EVERYONE'S grade on it to everyone in the class.......lovely). For the first time in my life, I can say "C's get degrees" and have it apply to me. Special.

Honestly...I don't really have anything exciting to say. My days have literally been as follows: Wake up. Go to class. Come home. Eat lunch. Take a nap. Do homework. Possibly hang out with friends. Eat dinner. Go to bed. Not all that exciting. I'm soooo looking forward to starting university classes and hopefully having more energy and free time!

Oh, I guess I do have one interesting thing to say. This month has been CRAZY with people from my program going to the hospital! First, Zoe fell and hurt her arm and had to go in to make sure it wasn't broken (it's not, but she's still hurting and in a sling and whatnot), and there is this nasty intestinal virus thing going around that has put a few girls in the hospital (not like admitted...just making sure things are alright). I was nauseous last weekend a little bit, but that's all...so I'm hoping that was my super studly defenses fighting off the icky virus going around! ;)

Miss you all!! I'll try to be better about posting more in the future...life should start to get a little bit more interesting, so we'll see. :)