San Juan... patron saint of bonfires and boxed wine.

As I type this entry I am laying in less than a socially acceptable amount of clothing in my bed trying to recover not from a hangover by any means, but instead from approximately 60 minutes of sleep last "night" followed by a few hours of needing to be bilingual and excited about teaching English to Spaniards.  But I'll start from the beginning of one of the best weekends I've spent in Spain...

Friday a group of four of us Americanos decided to take a day trip outside of Valencia (about an hour and fifteen minutes driving) with a tour guide to experience the hot springs we'd heard about on TripAdvisor.  We all headed out to a meeting point and were picked up in a semi-sketchy white van by a man named Miguel who I loved almost immediately upon climbing into his cramped front seat.  Miguel told us he was 30, a native Valencian, and very sorry for being late, but we would be picking up a couple of Canadians and Brits before heading out to the springs.  I knew the day would be a grand one when Miguel double parked to run out and meet the English couple, and, no sooner had he rounded the corner of a far off building than the man whose vehicle was trapped behind his laid on the horn and backed up threateningly toward our car.  This event was followed by a lot of yelling things like "WHO CAN DRIVE A STICK SHIFT? WHAT IF WE CRASH THIS CAR IT'S NOT EVEN OURS.  EVERYONE JUST CALM DOWN, OKAY?!" As I tried to calm the angry driver down, Miguel finally ran back over laughing and joking about the news headlines in the paper the next day: "American tourists beaten in public marketplace".  Not that funny, Miguel.  The trip went really smoothly though as we drove out to see some incredible waterfalls, cross some not-so-incredibly-engineered bridges, and finally started to wind our way through the mountains to the hot springs.  The sky wasn't particularly sunny, but we started to get a little worried when we stopped for lunch and it started drizzling.  But hey, we were going to "hot" springs, right?  No big deal.  As it turns out, the "hot" springs when being drenched with a freezing torrential downpour don't actually feel that "hot", and aren't actually even warmer than your typical 5-day-old bathwater.  This did not stop us from snorkeling and swimming out to an area with beautiful cliffs which we of course wanted to dive off of with 20% vision due to the rain.  I had a lot of questions about the depth of the water, why I was in a bikini in 50 degree weather, and why I was about to cliff dive at all when the hail started.  At this point we all YOLO'd it and jumped off the cliff anyway.  We all survived barring a rock stuck in the bottom of my foot and no one even got eaten by the fish all the girls were screaming about the whole time.  Overall the trip was incredible, and ended with a great Spanish chat between Sara, Miguel and I in the front seat about hitchhiking and rock climbing as we drank tinto from a wineskin and ate nisperos that Miguel had so kindly robbed from a small village tree on the way back into the city.  70 euros well spent, believe me.

Saturday was sort of a "recovery day" so Sara and I decided to go to the Central Market for some shopping and too many pastries and then headed to the beach where we scalded our Caucasian skin for 4 glorious hours.

Sunday a group of us headed to church, checked out the "Taste of America" store (6 euros for a small can of Jif?  Worth it.), and went back to our houses for lunch and a pre-San-Juan-festival-preparation-nap.  Around 7 we went to the only grocery store open in the entire country (barely exaggerating) for some overpriced sangria and snacks and went to the beach for San Juan.  Now Spain is notorious for having ridiculous festivals for seemingly no reason, but San Juan is really one of the best/most ridiculous.  It is the feast day of Saint John, so obviously to celebrate Spaniards build huge bonfires on the beach, drink way too much, and then jump over them at midnight and run into the sea afterward.  To celebrate.... the sanctity and devoutness of the life of Saint John.  Sure, sure.  So of course that's what all 90 of us Americans decided to do too.  I made it until about 5:30pm with only one nap on the beach interrupted by a couple of drunk Americans stepping on my head and maybe a few sparks falling into my sand-filled hair, but the cops kicked us off the beach with all the rest of the crazy Spanish kids before we could watch the sunrise.  I split a taxi home to catch my beauty nap before work this morning, but some troopers in the group actually stayed out until they could watch the sunrise from the comfort of the sidewalk and so kindly walked a few of their less-"awake" friends home.  Overall it was a fantastic evening filled with late night ocean swimming, smelling like a good old fashioned American campfire, and in the company of some pretty fun friends.  A group of four of us is headed to Milan and Venice this next weekend - so more to come!!

Barcelona and Luke's first flights!

Well I'm sitting here in the Barcelona sunshine enjoying the people watching and McDonald's free wifi. Man imagine what people did before McDonald's existed, and before free wifi was offered at every single one. They definitely didn't find their hostels on the first try. 

Luke and I had a super fun three days in Spain before he had to head off to Prague to meet his brother and start their European adventure together. We saw many beautiful Valencian sights, Luke tried saltwater for the first time (and even learned to swim a little better!) and made friends with a non-English-speaking bar owner who gave him a huge hug and a bottle of free sangria at the end of our short stay at his empty discoteca. We didn't sleep much in order to better soak up the nightlife but I'm sure he'll have a big meal somewhere in the Czech Republic and make up for lost time. 

Now, since Luke and I toured the Sagrada Familia yesterday, I'm enjoying the streets of Barcelona and contemplating a park bench siesta.  Tonight we'll get some paella for dinner and head to a couple of beachside discotecas to see just how crazy they are and just how much of my money they can take before our train leaves tomorrow. 

Waiting for Luke takes forever

Well good thing I rushed to the airport, sweat away my straightened hair and turned down an offer of free lunch to get here two hours before Luke's delayed flight will!  :). But hey -- now I get to write a blog post about it.

So I've been pretty excited for Luke's virgin plane trip to come to Spain and learn about places other than Tama, Iowa ;) and I thought I was gonna hyperventilate from overall lack of exercise in the past month on my rush to the metro station. I ran excitedly into the terminal to fiiiiiind... No Luke. Turns out his flight into Spain was delayed which made him miss his flight to Valencia. What are you gonna do. I wish I would've paid someone to videotape his attempted conversations when purchasing a new plane ticket, though. In fact I might document this whole trip as I force the poor boy to learn Spanish in a "full immersion" type setting.

So this morning, besides giving my calves the best workout they've seen since we ran to the Ames Dunkin' Donuts the morning it opened, I got to work some more with the kids in the elementary school.  I did a lesson and game about the USA and some stereotypes of what things or activities people do in each state. Since the only states they know are "California" and "New York" they guessed those two almost exclusively and were horrified to find that "Disneyland, Paris" is not in fact where Mickey and Minnie originate. It was a pretty fun time overall and I'm so glad I've gotten to work with the schools during my stay in Valencia!

Today it's approximately 27387 degrees outside so I'm hoping there will be plenty of time this afternoon to head to the beach. In the meantime, gonna go grab a coffee and wait for my little American buddy to arrive!

.... Metro hair

Getting settled.

Ahhh the second weekend in Valencia has arrived and it is muuuuch needed.  Jusssst kidding; even weekdays are like a super-cultural vacation, but truthfully my internship was slightly more demanding than usual this week.  One of the teachers at the English Academy called in with bronchitis on Wednesday and my boss turned to me and said, "How would you like to substitute for her classes in about five minutes?"  I said "UHHHHHM" and accepted... somehow a licensed professional had made the decision to let me pour my knowledge of the English language (yikes) upon young, mold-able minds and I wasn't going to pass it up.  The fact that I couldn't think of a synonym for "mold-able" in that last sentence indicates what a bad choice that was on her part.  But things actually went really well with the little kids and besides getting walked all over at the end of the older kids' class (which ended in a completely non-English-related soccer game and the promise of candy for everyone on Monday) that went great as well.  The same teacher didn't show up the next day either so I got to teach the Tuesday-Thursday kids, too.  I really liked it and felt very comfortable in front of the classes (besides the few times the students asked me the meanings of certain English words in Spanish and I had no idea what they could possibly be.... such as "alien spaceship"?  Weird how that one never got inserted into my lexicon).

Thursday night Sara and I decided it was about time we attempt to pull an all-nighter or at least stay out past midnight to prove to everyone that we are not, in fact, old ladies.  So around 10:30 we hit up a karaoke bar where we performed a rousing rendition of "Colgando en tus manos" much to the joy of the Spanish locals who I'm sure assumed we knew no songs at all except for "Call Me Maybe" and "The Wobble".  Boy were they wrong.  Our drinks there seemed way more expensive for some reason... likely an added fee for people with especially horrible voices and poor accents.  After we had destroyed the love of music for as many people as possible at "Karaoke La-La" we headed down to the Ciutat de Artes y Ciencias in a cab to go dance at the discoteca.  It was a really fun time minus the three stolen iPhones of various girls in the Valencia program and a stolen wallet.... ladies:  please watch your stuff while Spanish twenty-somethings are standing there telling you how "bonita" you look tonight.  We went down to the main floor to get our dance on where I met a very nice Brazilian guy who insisted that in his country, you kiss on the mouth to greet each other  (which I politely declined, Luke).  We hailed a cab at around 4:30am (not exactly an all-nighter but hey, we're working on it) and collapsed into bed to absorb a whole two and a half hours of sleep before waking up for work again.

Although upon cracking open my eyelids at 8am I was cursing every discoteca in the country, I am extremely glad I got my American tail out of bed because it turned out to be an awesome morning.  Thanks to my boss's husband being the director of the English department at one of the local schools, I had the opportunity to go to an actual Spanish elementary/middle/high school (system is way different here) to observe some classes.  The kids were super fun and asked me questions in adorable accents and gasped in awe whenever I said I was from the United States as if I'd achieved some sort of incredible success being born in my giant comfortable mono-lingual country.  I am now fully regretting not bringing several trashy American tank tops to wear everywhere.  The littlest kids even hugged my legs and asked if "I was naughty as a child" (apparently it's part of their vocabulary list for the week) and if I would stay and teach them English.  Miiiiight try and take them up on their offer if they'll give me a salary...  Chocolate paychecks will suffice.

This afternoon was great and relaxing; we walked around in the Plaza de la Reina near the big cathedral and I chatted with a man who was browsing in the bookstore to get some recommendations for Spanish novels.  After his friend told me that one of the books I was holding was great and "de puta madre" (don't look that one up, children) I think I made a solid purchase.

Tomorrow a few friends and I are off to Alicante which is located on another beach about 2.5 hours away from Valencia.  We will hopefully be living through an ocean jet-skiing experience and eating paella on a catamaran.  If I blog again it's because a gorgeous Spanish lifeguard dragged me out of shark-infested waters.

Thanks for reading and e-mail me your address for a postcard if I don't already have it!!!