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!!!!