A Roller Coaster of Emotion!

             This may seem an odd title for a trip to Valencia, Spain for their annual festival Fallas, but it certainly is well deserving for the trip we had this past weekend. Cait, Diane, Amy, Sadie, Sean, Chris, and I headed down to Valencia this past weekend to partake in the last night of their big festival Fallas. I won’t go into the history or what all happens in Fallas because I am still tired from the weekend, so if need be Google it! But in a nutshell, Fallas is a big festival where they build wooden/paper mache figures and burn them all on the last night. Sadly when I studied in Valencia 4 years ago I wasn’t able to go to this festival because it is always in March. Ever since I had been to Valencia the first time, going to Fallas has been on my list of things to do at some point in my life. And I certainly accomplished that this weekend!

            We took a bus down to Valencia on Friday night and got into the city at 5:30 am after a cramped, zero sleeping, miserable bus ride. We stopped in the bus station café for some coffee to start the day off right. We headed to the beach around 8 am and relaxed there for a bit. On our way to the beach we saw a bunch of the fallas and heard many petardos (firecrackers). After taking a nice nap on the beach I, of course, woke up with an awesome sunburn on my face due to the fact that I was wearing sunglasses during my entire nap! We headed back into the center of the city to get some paella for lunch and see one of the mascletas (one of the events in the ayuntamiento where they set off a bunch of fireworks). The center of the city was insane and completely packed with people. After “viewing” the mascleta we met up with my friend from Sevilla who now lives in Valencia. We all decided we needed a break from the craziness in the center of the city so walked along the river and in the park to the Ciudad de les Artes y Ciencias, one of the famous areas in Valencia. After getting yet another café con leche we headed back into the center for some food and to start drinking.  We were able to see the fire parade that took place to start the last night of the festivities. The Spaniards in general are pyromaniacs, however the Valencianos are the worst! Firecrackers were being thrown into the crowd, all while little children squealed with excitement. After almost being burned by the parade we decided to wait in the ayuntamiento for the burning of the big falla. Long story short, we waited for almost 6 hours, got pushed and shoved around too many times to count, people got in fights all around us while the police did nothing. Luckily the actual event of the fireworks show and burning of the big falla made up for the miserableness of waiting for it to occur. After the burning, it was complete and total chaos and I was actually quite nervous for a bit of time that something bad was going to happen or someone was going to get hurt, but luckily that didn’t happen. After the big show we walked around the city for a while more until we made the trek to the bus station around 7 am. Our bus didn’t leave until 11 am, so we hung out at the bus station with the rest of the Fallas partygoers who also didn’t have a place to stay. Note to self: always, always, always get a place to stay when traveling. It is not as exciting as it sounds to be homeless for 48 hours! After another 6 hour bus ride we finally made it back home and I fell asleep at 7 pm and slept for the next 15 hours to make up for lack of sleep for the past 48. All in all it was a crazy and intense weekend and something that I am thrilled to say I have witnessed, although if it happens again I will find a place to stay!

La mascleta

Plaza del Virgen

One of the Fallas!

Apocalypse or fireworks for Fallas?

The big falla that got burned!

“I’ll Be Baaaack!!”

            Yes thank you Arnold for putting it so eloquently. And yes you read that correctly, I will be back…. back to Spain that is! Yesterday I accepted my renewal position to stay here in Logrono another year teaching English with my same program. I am going to try and teach high school next year, as well as stay with one of my elementary schools. I am beyond excited to be given this opportunity again and live out my dream of living and working in Spain. This year has been so wonderful and I knew that it was something that I couldn’t pass up. So that just means that now everyone has a whole extra year to start saving their pennies and planning their trip to come visit me in the wine region of Spain!

Robin Hood Men In Tights

            This past weekend was Carnival here in Spain, which is their version of Mardi Gras. I had never been in Spain to experience Carnival before, so I was very excited to partake in this festival, and it certainly didn’t let me down! Through a random twist of fate (and knowing people haha), Cait, Diane, and I ended up marching in the Carnival parade here in Logrono with Intermon Oxfam. The parade was on Saturday and it seemed to be extremely popular. The theme for our group was Robin Hood, so we got to spend the evening and night dressed as Robin Hood, and man did we look awesome! I have never been in a parade so was quite thrilled about that opportunity and it was hysterical. We waited around with the rest of the groups while they got everyone organized and I was handed a sign with our group name on it and thought nothing of it. When we were getting ready to line up, I was informed that since I had the sign with our name on it, I would be walking first and had to stay a full 10 meters in front of everyone else! Am I surprised this happened to me? Not one bit! I don’t know whether I should feel honored that since I was the only blonde in the group I was picked to lead the way, or if I should feel offended that since I was the only blonde in the group I didn’t fit in. Either way it was a ton of fun! The parade lasted about an hour and then the awards were announced at the end! After the parade we continued the Robin Hood theme out with everyone dressed for Carnival. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was dressed up and it was definitely a fun night and an experience I will never forget!

Robin Hoods before the parade!

Enjoying Carnival!

Leader of the pack.

Why yes, we are that cool.

Study Abroad: Just Do It!

              Not to be too cliché and steal Nike’s slogan or anything, but seriously just do it! Last week when I was skyping with my cousin’s high school level Spanish classes, I was amazed by how few students raised their hands when I asked who wanted to study abroad when they got to college. Maybe it’s just the way I’ve been brought up; to fully appreciate traveling and seeing the world and learning about other cultures. Or maybe I just take for granted the opportunity I was given to study abroad. But I was certainly flabbergasted to say the least when only a couple of students raised their hands saying they were interested in studying abroad. I fully understand that not everyone has the opportunity to study abroad for various reasons: their field of study, college athletics, or finances (although many times studying abroad can be cheaper than taking classes at your university for a semester), but if you do have the opportunity to do so, I greatly urge you to do so.

            Studying abroad was one of the greatest experiences of my life thus far, and I have a feeling that it will continue to rank highly up there! It was such a wonderful experience for me that it is hard to put into words exactly how amazing it was! As I said before, I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity and for everyone who gave that opportunity to me I am eternally grateful. I not only learned another language while I was living in Spain, but I also learned so much about another culture and people and about myself as well. I would absolutely not be the same person I am today if I had not studied abroad. First off I would not be bilingual, which is something that I highly value in my life and think is extremely important (and it makes me so upset when people don’t see the benefit in being bilingual, both in your personal and professional life). I would also not have met many of my friends and the people that I know today if I had not studied abroad. And I certainly would not have the same goals and aspirations as I do today in my personal and professional life. I would also most likely not have returned to Spain, not once but twice and would not be (hopefully) returning next year. So if you are reading this and are A) in college and considering studying abroad, B) in high school, or C) know someone who is in either of those previous situations, I highly urge you to study abroad. Follow Nike’s take on it and Just Do It!

This Goes Out to All Those 90s Kids.

Any child who grew up in the 90s will surely appreciate this wonderful and hysterical website. So many awesome things happened in the 90s (well certainly with TV, movies, and games), and I am thrilled beyond belief that someone created a website devoted just to that!


If you love the 90s, click here.

Platform 9 and 3/4

This past weekend Diane and I made our way to one of the greatest cities in the world, London! Diane’s cousin lives there and my aunt and uncle live there as well so we went to visit some family and enjoy being able to speak the language and not get stared at everywhere we go. We just went for a quick visit, Friday through Monday and it certainly wasn’t enough time to see everything in London, although you could easily spend a week there and not see everything. That was my 8^th time to London and I continue to see and do different things every time I am there.  Friday morning we caught a bus at 7 am (after running to catch it haha) and went to Zaragoza where our flight was leaving. We ended up miscalculating the time and were the first ones at the airport, even before the workers! Luckily the cafeteria was open so we got some bocadillos and just hung out and waited for our flight. Diane’s cousin was nice enough to pick us up from the airport on Friday afternoon and we just hung out near him on Friday night. He lives in Milton Keynes, which is a bit outside of the city so it was a pretty low-key night. We had some beers (which were delicious) and some burgers (which were even more delicious)!

            Saturday morning we woke up early and caught a train down into London to meet up with my aunt and uncle. After we met up with them we walked along South Bank and went to Borough Market (heaven in market form), where we had some amazing chicken sandwiches and chocolate. Then we headed off on Adrian’s very own pub-crawl and headed to the Market Porter right by the market. After some delicious pints we headed to The George, where Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare (or Chuck and Bill as A refers to them haha) used to hang out and drink. The weather was unbelievable so we were able to sit outside and enjoy our beers! We walked down towards the Tower of London and then headed to Gordon’s Wine Bar, the oldest wine bar in London commissioned in 1364. It is one of the coolest spots (in my opinion) in London and the wine isn’t bad either haha. We enjoyed a bottle of vino and some chocolate once again sitting outside. After dinner we headed to the bars in Leicester Square, although most of them closed around midnight so it was an early night. Sunday we woke up and met back up at the Tower of London where we went inside. I have been inside the Tower before but it had been a while and I forgot just how cool and historical it is! And the royal jewels are amazing as well! After the Tower we took one of the double decker tour buses, which was a fabulous way to see the entire city in a very short time (2 hours to be exact). Sunday night, after some more beers in the city, we headed back to Milton Keynes where we grabbed dinner and headed to bed.

            Monday morning was an early morning, as we had to catch an early flight out of London. We left in plenty of time to catch our flight, but with traffic it took us almost 2 and a half hours to get to the airport, so by the time we got there we had to (once again) sprint to catch our flight haha, but luckily we made it! It was a fabulous visit, albeit too short and it was so wonderful to see A and E and Joy!

London Eye with Parliament and Big Ben

mmmmmBeer!

Tower Bridge

Having fun in the Tower of London

Yes of course we went to Platform 9 3/4!

Where Are You From?

            A couple of weekends ago some of our friends here in Logrono decided to have a ‘Where Are You From/De Donde Sois?’ party. It’s certainly a great idea since there are people here from all over the world, not just from the U.S. And those of us from the U.S. are not all from the same place. We have people from England, Wales, Ohio, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Colorado, Oregon, and Chicago just to name a few. The costumes were great and ranged from a cowgirl to Eminem to space to (quite literally) a sperm and egg haha. Cait and I decided to represent Chicago in the most worthy of characters and dressed up as the Blues Brothers. We even had our own little dance segment to ‘Shake Your Tail Feather’ in the middle of the party. It was certainly a fun night, complete with sing along and dance party.

Blues Brothers breaking it down!

Snooki from Jersey Shore and the Blues Brothers together in harmony.