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!!!!
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