The end of an era...goodbye 2010

So, in the last 80 minutes of 2010, I will just say that I am ridiculously ready for 2011. 2010 was a looooooong year. 2011 will be infinitely better. Oh and, you know, going to El Salvador on Sunday is pretty exciting. :) I will be ringing in January 1 by reading articles and finishing a book I bought a long time ago called "The Monster of Florence" (it's a true story about a serial killer in Italy).

Happy New Year!

santiago, soda, and sunshine

Above I have posted a picture of pilgrims hiking the way of St. James (Santiago de Compostela), a trail that spans the entire length of northern Spain. This summer I learned about it in Valencia, and it is something that I would really like to do at a date in the near future. It takes about 40 days (700 km...don't know what the equate to in miles). Many people, Catholic or not, have hiked this path and say that is a deeply spiritual experience, regardless of your religion.

There are soooo many things to do out there. Tonight I was talking to someone about how I really want to go see the coca-cola factory in Atlanta. Anyone who knows me knows I carry this drink around me essentially at all times. It seems fitting to go see where they make it. I also really want to go see the old antebellum mansions and plantations in the deep south...i've never been to the south really (i don't consider florida the actual south).

A few years ago (actually the day after the trial of the horrendous speeding ticket senior year), my mom and brother and i went back to merritt island, florida after quite a long time. Merritt Island is...well like it sounds...and island about 5 minutes from cape canaveral and the kennedy space center on the atlantic. It's 50 minutes east of orlando. I think this is a tangential anecdote that is subliminally conveying my deep desire for sunshine and warmth. i despise the snow and cold. altho i must say i would never live in florida again if i could help it. once is enough.

In other news, I changed the background of my blog (idk how really i clicked a button and it looked ok so i'm leaving it for the time being...thank you science and tech high school for my inability to operate a computer) to outfit a more globetrotting outlook. I'm going to El Salvador in a week...which is so EXCITING! I haven't had time to be excited about it at all, and i'm slowly but surely getting through the feminist and microfinance readings (not my 2 favorite topics to be sure)...but it's interesting stuff. which i am going to read now.

so happy boxing day (altho it is technically the 27th now) and a belated christmas to everyone. wow. :)

procrastination part dos

One last spanish essay of the semester and then i am finished with spanish essays hopefully for a very long time. it is actually quote atrocious of me to be blogging at the moment, especially because i am about 8 pages away from being finished with the first draft of a paper due tomorrow afternoon. can someone say unfortunate life decisions¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?

soooo in other news it is the christmas season....and that translates to holiday shopping¡! which i normally wouldn't care about except that i work at Bath and Body Works up in NOVA. talk about some ridiculously rude people. not all of them obviously, but it is amazing! i feel like navigating the store is metaphorically related to driving in 66 during rush hour and having people cut you off and honk their horns and be altogether unpleasant. i got an award (well award might be stretching it but it was at least a distinction?) for providing excellent customer service! some person went online after black friday and filled out a review that said i was an excellent salesperson. my manager was super excited because it was the only compliment the district got that entire weekend. good job me. oh the hilariosity that is retail.

also did you know there are a bajillion types of lotion??? there is body lotion, body cream, body butter, shower cream, hand cream, antibac hand cream, shea lotions, and don't even get me started about the ridiculous amounts of aromatherapy stuff. yeah. lotion is complicated. who knew?

in other news here is something interesting. my birthday is well i guess tomorrow (since it is technically now the 14th) and today i went to the good old DMV to renew my license. procrastinate? yes perhaps i did but NO ONE likes the DMV. anyways i show up and they tell me i have to retake the permit test because i got a ticket under 21. i got a ticket two years ago for going 75 on 495 right before the braddock road exit (for those who know - this is not speeding at all, in fact i was the slowest person on the road in the very right hand lane about to exit and some unmarked car pulled me over...am i still bitter? not until today¡¡!¡!¡!¡!¡). even tho i went to defensive driving, went to court and plead guilty, paid the fine, and have been driving just fine for the past two years, i know have to retake the test. the man says to me - you will be fine you should know all this stuff. like i know how many feet i need to stay behind an ambulance. just use common sense, numbers are unnecessary! anyways this entire ordeal irritated me so now i have to go back tomorrow and take the test i passed literally 4 years ago (sophomore year of high school???) to reinstate my license. and the ironic part? if i fail the test i can just drive away! at least until wednesday.

well it has not been a fun semester, but at least it is wrapping up. in honor of lisa reading this blog and lorenzo, sofia, and paloma in valencia.......besos y que vaya bien.

Ramblings of a stressed college student

hello all! so i was recently reading my valencia blogs - a shame since i never finished them, and got a bit nostalgic about the blogging process in general. it is also a little fitting that i am procrastinating epic amounts of spanish homework while writing this post. some things never change.

here is some exciting news about spanish...tomorrow i am set to write approx 10 pages (possibly more) on the symbol of el gusano (the worm) in the poetry of Delmira Agustini. For those who don't know...and that is probably many people seeing as I had no idea until I had to sit in the class for 4 months...was probably the first recognized/esteemed Latin American Woman Poet. She was from Montevideo, Uruguay. Her life basically sucked, and ultimately she got murdered by her lover/ex-husband. But her poetry was amazing. eerily disturbing, but amazing nevertheless.

not to be a downer about school, but i am ridiculously excited for this semester to be over. it has been stressful in the way that e^x (an exponential function) approaches infinity -- don't mind my awful attempt at math humor.

december is always an eventful month at our (as in the fam's) house. Feast of the Immaculate Conception (which i only mention b/c it is the day before nick's bday and a Holy day of obligation so he complains about it every year), then nick's birthday, then my birthday, then xmas, then new years, them mom's birthday....and this year working is so fun! I have never worked in retail before, so it is a very enlightening experience. oh wow totally didn't realize it's like 1:30. getting up at 4 am to do homework = must sleep now. maybe i'll blog again in the future?

An attempt to correct my lack of updating

Hello all blog-readers (which is surprisingly more than i expected because there have been some requests). So today is July 25 (also the feast of St. James the Apostle, patron saint of Spain - learned this at the cathedral this morning) which marks the 2 month date for my stint here in Valencia. Going home on Thursday, the 29th. So. Since i am lacking about a months worth of posts, how can I summarize my time here in Espana? I have brainstormed a list of my top 15 favorite things that i did/experienced while I was here.

15. Becoming quite adept and navegating and reading maps

14. Climbing the Torres de Serrano

13. Watching the World Cup games

12. Getting asked for directions by confused spanish tourists and then knowledgeably directing them to their destination....in spanish

11. Fallas workshops

10. Bullfights (Madrid and Valencia)

9. Chocolate y Churros in the Plaza Mayor (thank you Doctora Konz)

8. Ibiza and the Dalt Villa

7. Parque Gulliver, el Rio, Valencia

6. Sitting in the Plaza de Ayuntamiento

5. The Flamenco dancing in the caves of Granada

4. El Miguelete/La Catedral (and the Holy Grail) - Valencia

3. Aimlessly walking around the city of Valencia for extended periods of time

2. Seeing the grave of Charles V at El Escorial

1. Campo de Criptana Windmills on the train from Madrid to Valencia

So this would be my master list documenting my time in Valencia. Truthfully, I did a lot of stuff (a lot of things I didn't even realize were significant while doing them) and it's hard to say which were the most interesting! However, allow me to elaborate.

15. Reading maps. For those of you who know me - and a lot of you wouldn't know this because you haven't traveled with me - prior to coming to Valencia i was a horrendous map reader. I could never tell you where i was, what street i was looking for - i didn't even use maps. HOWEVER upon my roommateless arrival to Valencia, i lived and breathed by my map. I have it now and still use it, even in it's frayed stated (currently in 4 pieces from overuse). I learned how to read the metro map. I learned how to figure out what street i am on. I learned how to hail a taxi. I am now an acute and adept traveler. This was not anything that interesting in terms of Valencia, however it is an important life skill and i am quite proud of the accomplishment.

14. the Torres de Serrano is the oldest standing gate to the old city of Valencia. Actually, here's an interesting fact - Valencia was actually founded by the Romans and they layed out the structure of the area by the cathedral and irrigation/water and all that - there is actually a set of the old ruins called the Almoina that is right next to the cathedral, but I saw it a long time ago and cant remember the reason the romans left. Anyways so sorry for that side note but the point of this was that Valencia used to be surrounded by a wall/guarded against invaders. Hence, the Torres de Serrano. It is located at the northern most part of the centro (city center). It was the first thing that I did in Valencia that was touristy - my friend and I walked around for 5 hours the first weekend we were here and climbed it. It's really neat because they have every level opened for public viewing and you get really nice views of parts of Valencia and the cathedral. At the time that i did it (day 2 of my residence in spain) i thought it was ridiculously cool and i just did it again 2 days ago and hey guess what - it was still ridiculously cool. Entrance 1 euro instead of 2 for students.

13. Oh the World Cup. Well what a good time to be in Spain, considering it was the first time in all of the history of the country that they have been to the finals or won a world cup title. So for the games versus Ghana and Germany, we went to this plaza next to a Doner Kabob (which i actaully don't care for that much - but many of my cohorts are fans) which had about 4 tvs playing the game. But there were TONS of people. Wrapped in spanish flags, waving spanish flags, jerseys - a lot for the player Villa because apparently he is from Valencia (but he was recently sold to FC Barcelona for about 40 million euros). So there was a ton of smoke, noise bombs that kill your eardrums, screaming (the 2 favorite cheers - something about Villa and the second (and my personal favorite) yo soy espanol espanol espanol). witnessed a few drug deals go down, or at least the handoff portions. Saw more alcohol consumed in one place then thought was possible, while police just watched. and when they won, it was NUTS. i have some videos of it, i need to upload because words don't really explain these spaniards. and the uva group, after germany, climbed the statue like locals in the celebratory maneuvers. Also for the rest of the night all the cars would honk at each other and speed by with spanish flags hanging out the windows. I actually was not in Valencia for the final - I was in the Ibiza airport with Catherine and there was not 1 tv in that entire airport. however we watched it on a computer screen with about 100 other people outside of check in.

12. Directions - pretty self explanatory from the title. The most common questions were for plaza de ayuntamiento (my fave place ever) and la mestalla (the football stadium).

11. Fallas - pretty much the coolest festival in valencia. There are 2 origins of the Fallas - one is a prehistoric pagan love of fire, the other is a slightly more concrete manifestation of the old carpenters guilds. They would use these mechanisms called parots (think of the hangman shape) made of wood to hold their lights in the winter. by the time march would come around the carpenters would burn the parots as a symbol of the new spring, longer daylight hours, and no need of the superficial light. pretty neat. now the festival coincides with the feast of saint joseph because he is the patron saint of carpenters - march 19. Fallas is basically a yearlong process, almost every neighborhood chips in money to build a falla - enormous caraicatured float - that is presented to valencians for a week and then burned on the feast of saint joseph in a massive city wide bonfire. pretty interesting stuff. i didn't get to see the fallas - which is too bad but i did go see their museum and then we walked around and saw all the workshops and how they actually assemble the floats. it was soo interesting and soooo valencian.

10. Bullfights - All the stereotypes that American have about spanish bullfighting is incorrect. I went to see my first bullfight at the corrida de toros in madrid and i was really nervous that it would be horrendously gory, and agonizing death for the bull, etc. It wasn't at all. It's actually really interesting because the torreros are more of dancers and dare-devils then they are killers. There are 3 official rounds to a bullfight. But before the rounds begin first everyone has to assess the bull - make sure it is physically able to fight and will attack, not just be idle. A toro is never allowed to enter the plaza and live (unless it is an outstanding fighter and is pardoned - which is really rare). So they assess the bull. Here is an interesting fact - bulls are colorblind, so they actually don't respond to the pink and red capes, the just respond to the movement. Anyways the first round is when picadores - men seated on blindfolded horses - come out and stab the bull a few times with lances to get it's energy down. 2nd round is when the men holding banderillas (sticks with metal on the end in bright colors) jab them into the bull. And finally the last round is the torrero alone in the corrida with the bull and interestingly he usually doesn't kill it - he just has to jab his sword into it. A lot of times a crew comes up after the sword is in and jabs the brains out of the bull. Amazingly it's not as graphic as you might think. all you see is some blood (and not even that much) on the bull. However a lot of spaniards are against bullfighting in general - they have banned the corridas in Catalunya - aka Barcelona and there is a petition to ban it all through spain. I hope they don't.

Def should probably be sleeping right now (12:06 here) butttt writing this post. Today I went to the Lladro Factory, which manufactures all the Lladro porcelain and is the only factory in the entire world...and it just happens to be located in Valencia. They showed us the process to make one simple piece. It's ridiculous. The people who make them have to be trained for 3 years before they are allowed to work on even the simplest pieces. It's really too bad they wouldn't let us take pictures inside the room because it was really neat. and for anyone who hasn't seen Lladro pieces (which I really hadn't so I'm betting you haven't either) they are gorgeous. The pictures really don't do them justice. For example we saw the woman making flowers. She made every single one of them by hand. Amazing. I really liked one that was a flower cart. Unfortunately it was a few thousand euros. NBD of course compared to the one that was 120,000 euros. Let's not even try and think about what that costs in american dollars. Luckily for those of us who are at times more frugal, they have a locked other store where they have the "defective" pieces at lower prices. Many of them did not have flowers, sadly, but they had some cool stuff. I really want to go back next session.

Today I met my intercambio, Andrea, in the Plaza de Ayuntamiento. I think my spanish has improved soooo much more than I expected it to because we basically talked fluently in spanish for 40 minutes. Nonstop. I mean she translated some words for me, but still. Impressive I must say.

Yesterday I went to the Cathedral for the thousandth time, but this time for the tour and the Holy Grail. Sooo the Valencian Cathedral is basically REALLY legit. It has the relic arm of San Vicente Martir (ironic that it's in the Cathedral because the church dedicated to him is literally 50 yards away) and none other than the HOLY GRAIL. The actual Holy Grail. I feel so accomplished that I have seen it. Who would think that it's in Valencia? I forget the reason that it's here, but I bought books on it from the Nun in the bookstore. She was nice. I like Nuns. Also there are just random works of Fransisco Goya hanging in the Cathedral, no big deal. He wasn't important at all. Its basically like a giant art museum. Gotta love the Catholics...or the patrons of the Church 500-600 years ago.

Last night I went to a class on how to make paella. SO NEAT. Ok I have seriously tried to upload pictures to this blog/facebook but there is some sort of server failure when the uploading finishes and it will never work. So paella valenciana - the staple Valencian dish - has rice, vegetable, some type of bean unique to Spain, assorted spices and broth, chicken and rabbit. Rabbit does not taste good. It is noticeably tougher than chicken and there is a conejo named Thumper that lives in our kitchen here. Needless to say I did not eat any rabbit. We also made some sort of black rice squid paella and a blood sausage and squash paella. And flan and sangria. It was really good. I am not a chef and cannot do any justice in descriptions, hopefully my picture will upload at some point in the near future.

Oh and just an fyi for all you world cup fans, Spain has redeemed themselves after the disastrous outcome with Switzerland (i think) and beat Honduras yesterday night. Viva Espana.

This past weekend I went to the beach all weekend instead of Barcelona...best decision ever. Less intelligent decisions of recent noteworthiness include typing this entry when I need to get up in 6 hours. Oh before I publish this, stay tuned for my thoughts on Coke Zero. Why does everyone drink it? I am trying it tomorrow...i.e. today.

Que vaya bien

I will make this post as quick as possible (and without pictures) so that the 2 people who have asked me about this will be satisfied until I can make a satisfactory post. Wow, I'm such a bad blogger! But that's ok! In the time that has elapsed since my last entry I have done many thing. Allow me to list them

1). Went the Granada and the Alhambra in Andalusia.

2). Went to the City of Arts and Sciences Aquarium and saw the dolphin show.

3). HAD MIDTERMS.

4). Went to the beach a lot (always fun times).

5). Painted some spanish fans.

6). Went to the Museum of the Fallas and saw actually fallas being created.

7). Went to the Modern Art Museum - IVAM.

8). Walked the streets of Valencia numerous times in various incorrect attempts at following map directions.

9). Went to an authentic paella restaurant.

10). Discovered coca cola CON CAFEINA at mercadona.

I am sure there are lots of things I am forgetting but let this be a preview for descriptions to come. Here is an overview of the rest of June. Tomorrow, Monday is the cooking class where we get to make paella in hugeee pans and apparently some other types of typical valencian cuisine. Tuesday I am meeting Andrea, my Intercambio (spanish student learning english) to practice speaking and such. She seems SUPER nice i'm quite excited. Wednesday I'm going to the beach and cramming, barring inclement weather. Thursday I have a semi-final. Friday I have 2 finals, comida de despedida (even though I didn't sign up for it and am not actually leaving Spain I still had to mark pollo o verduras so not exactly sure what's going on with that). Saturday Claire and I are going to Madrid until Tuesday night when I will come back to Valencia for round 2 of summer school.

Tomorrow I will update this for realsies (I hope?). Expeditions for the day include finally going to see the Holy Grail at the Cathedral. I have tried 3 times and every time it is either closed for siesta or actually closed. tragic. But tomorrow's the day. In other news I am doing what I do best - which is studying. More to come. Besos.