Weekend windup

Well hello there, everybody that I love! Happy Saturday!

This week was, well, long. Haha. But now it's over, so all is well!! :)

The biggest thing that happened this week: I am officially (I think?) an Alicantina!! :) At least temporarily. I had the lovely pleasure of going early two mornings in a row to basically ensure that I'm here legally (ha), dealing with the police and other government agencies, waiting in line unnecessarily for 3 hours, applying for my "I'm a foreigner staying here in Spain for a year" ID card, and all that good stuff. It was sort of a pain, and I missed a little bit of class for it, but at least now it's done. And I wasn't alone, I always had at least a couple other students and sometimes even Pepa, our program director. Even though we sort of felt like we were fed to the sharks a little bit, I am so thankful for the help that Pepa and Marisa give us. There are some people that we've met here that are just here, on their own, with no help, no program, just going to school. I cannot IMAGINE. Things are so confusing as it is half of the time!!


On Thursday, when I worked with Paula, she gave me a bracelet. And we put chalk on our faces and we were "payaso indios" ...yes, Indian Clowns. We paraded around the house chanting "I am an Indian! I am and Indian!" She is the funniest little thing I have ever met. I just adore her. I have the best job ever. AND, the mom of one of her friends called me and wants me to tutor her daughters, ages 4 and 7, in English too. I'm not sure how I'm going to make it fit into my schedule, but I absolutely LOVE working with Paula so I'm sure it'll be the same! Plus...can't complain about getting paid to do basically nothing. :P

Me with my new bracelet from Paula! All the colorful stars :)

Then on Friday, DUN-DUN-DUN...my FINAL EXAM for my grammar class! Haha, which I (of course) did not study for until midnight on Thursday night, would anybody expect anything different than that? Of course not. :) But it went alright, I didn't feel bad about it overall, and now that class is over and I'm excited to have something new in October! PLUS! Good news: I was supposed to have class at 8am but it turns out that my class isn't until noon, which conflicted with another class, but I have enough credits that I could drop that class without any problem! So my schedule in October is lighter now, and later. I'm so glad I can still sleep in.

Speaking of October, I've been here for a month. When did that happen?!

After my exam yesterday, I took a nap. Haha. And then my host brother and sister took me out to a tea place, but they were celebrating a year anniversary or something, so everything was free (nice!) and it was CROWDED (not nice) and HOT. It was damp and hot and sweaty. However, Zoe and I had a good time anyway. :) Then, after trying to figure out more Morocco stuff (haha, story of our lives), my hostsiblings took us out to a Chinese restaurant! It was...weird, and the portions were HUGE, but it was good! It's sort of funny to me that they like Chinese food here, but whatever. :)

OH! It RAINED yesterday! Like, rain-rained. It never rains here. I even used an umbrella (guys, don't judge me, it was really the only way.) I was one happy little Oregonian. :)

Today, I had my first foods class, we went to el mercado central (the central market) and just sort of looked around. It's not exactly like a store in the states...see look:

Rabbits. Quite ugly without hair.

Pig heads! Pig skin! Pig face!

Pig skin. Pig balls (yum?). Pig hooves. Pig liver. Pig heart. Pig tongue. 

OFFER! Pig kidneys: 3 kilograms for 4 euros! Yum. Just try to ignore those little pig heads lookin' at us there.

This, my friends, is horse meat. See that up there on the right in the bag trying to hide behind the glare? Horse brain. That strange, darker meat hiding in that same corner? Horse liver. Cool.

Mmmm, lovely, huh? Don't worry, there are some normal things at the market, too! Like this:

Pretty flowers!

Fruit and ... dried peppers maybe?

Oranges. I had my first orange today. It was delicious.
Also, these oranges are .60 euro (roughly a dollar) for a kilogram...which  is like 2.2 pounds.  And they are delicious.

LA FRUTA!

Hahaha, sorry, I kind of went picture overload there. This post is getting long. I should be writing two a week. Oops. :)

Anyway, after we went to el mercado central, we trekked our way to a flea market-esque market, which was really cool! And I had a really yummy orange that cost me 30 euro cents and was SO WORTH IT.

Anyway, the rest of this weekend should be pretty chill. Weekends are always fun to catch up with you guys back in the states! :) This weekend shall henceforth be named "The Weekend of Planning" also, because I feel like that's all that's been on my mind -- planning my trip to Morocco, trying to plan a trip to Paris, planning my December trip with Tyler, planning a day in Sevilla, looking up cheap flights to ANYWHERE and everywhere, figuring out the cheapest way to get places, and basically just trying to stretch what little money I have here as far as it'll go! Any suggestions or places I just CAN'T miss? Let me know!

Also! I found a church pretty close that I think I'm going to check out tomorrow. Wish me luck ;)

And, because I'm so excited that I figured out how to post pictures, here's one of Zoe and I from today:

Ignore the fact that my head is huge.

Love and miss everyone!! <3