RHPM en Valencia, Espana

Easy Jet ain't that easy....just like back in Q203 (4/3)

2010-04-09T16:19:00.000-07:00

On to Switzerland: The land of chocolate, pocket knives, and neutrality

So i got my butt up at the crack of dawn and took a train to Madrid to catch my flight to Geneva, Switzerland. I was flying EasyJet and things were going smoothly with them until i got to our first gate (you'll see...). So about 15 minutes before our designated boarding time, we hear an announcement saying our gate has been moved and everybody scrambled over to the new one half way across the terminal to be there in time. When we get there, they tell us our flight has been delayed 30 min (awesome). Next, they sent us to a new gate when it would have been time to board again, but no, they told us we would be delayed another 20 minutes. Finally, they sent us to another gate (that makes it the 4th) when it was time to board and this time we actually got on the plane. I finally got into Geneva an hour late and felt bad cause Paula had been waiting for me at the airport then entire time.

(Drinkin my Brazilian drink in a Mexican restaurant in Switzerland...it all makes sense now)

I met up with Paula and it was so good to see her. We clicked back into it just like the old days at boarding school and in Q203. We walked around Geneva for a bit and went to eat at this Mexican restaurant (cause Swissland is where you go for good Mexican) and had these Brazilian drinks that Paula suggested (She's Brazilian, but just studies in Swissland) and they were pretty damn good. We took the train to Montreaux, Switzerland (where she lives/studies) and got in fairly late and headed up to her dorm. Of course a bottle of alcohol was there waiting for us. We had some drinks, told some stories, reminisced about the old days, and i attempted to play her travel guitar. Headed to bed after a few hours cause i was weary from the travel.

(Bear not wanting to share the Russian Standard)(Trying to fingerpick in Paula's room)

"I want that pirate ship!" (4/2)

2010-04-08T15:06:00.001-07:00

(Me and Sean and the view from the boardwalk/marina)

So with nearly everybody gone on their 2nd spring break trips, Me, Suze, and Sean decided to head down to the beach and relax and continue the celebration of our 2nd break.

We took the tram down there and headed straight for the beach. It was a little more crowded than usual, but we found a good spot and crashed. We layed out, relaxed, got some sun, and some ZZZ's. People watching is of course always on the agenda because there are always some characters at the beach, especially in Valencia. Also, there were a lot of people out there with kites...like a lot. The sky was full of them. After a few hours we got hungry and went to this small little cafe/restaurant and had some DYNAMITE tortilla (again, Spanish tortilla is different than Mexican tortilla). Me, Suze, and Sean all got the tortilla with onion and it was definately the best we've had since been here in Spain.

(Suze playing)(Me and Sean on the swings)

(Our pirate ship we wanted to steal)(Suze and Sean on the plank/dock in the marina)

After lunch we decided to walk around and head down by the marina. We found these cool little playground and watched all the Spanish kids play (no, that didn't sound creepy at all...). We found a set of swings on this one playground and decided to take a walk down memory lane. We hung out on the swingset and played there for a good bit before continuing on our exploration. Headed up and down the "boardwalk" and got to have a great view of the beach and the coast of Valencia. It was real pretty. We kept walking along past this restaurant named after its lattitude/longitude location and all the way to the end of the boardwalk and then down to the Marina. As we passed by the Marina, we saw this pirate ship in it and we all agreed that we should steal that badboy and take it out to open sea. As we were almost the pirate ship, we found this tiny little dock/plank/whatever-you-call-it floating in the marina and we decided to go out on it and relax in the water. After about 20 min, one of the security guards came over and told us it was too dangerous (complete bullshit) and we had to get off....whatever. We finally made it to our pirate ship and looked at it and all. We capped off the day with sitting on the beach, eating some gelato, and having the unfortunate pleasure of seeing this 75 yr old lady's boobs while she was topless (like two pancakes)....ugh. Then it was time to head back home and pack up for my trip to Switzerland.

Spring Break X: Round 2 (3/31-4/1)

2010-04-07T16:09:00.000-07:00

(3/31)
It was our last day of class before our 2nd spring break (yes, you heard me correct, our SECOND SPRING BREAK...in your faces everyone back at home). So after my business class, i got home and me, Scott, D.White, and Ben started getting into some fun and celebrating. We cracked open a few drinks to celebrate and decided to have a little haircut fiesta. In the last few days, i had buzzed D.White and Sean's head, and given myself a mohawk. Scott had been talking about wanting a mullet and it was the day i let him have it. Went into my bathroom (what has since been dubbed "Ryan's Chop Shop) and gave him a damn fine mullet. His mullet is my hair masterpiece. Grateful Dave joined us later and we continued to mellow out, relax, and celebrate the start of our second spring break.

Later, we went to O'Hara's again to watch the Champion's League games again. This time we watched Bayern Munich just edge out Manchester United 2-1. After the game we went back to "Ryan's Chop Shop" and i gave Diego a mohawk too as we all pregamed for the evening.

Most of the group headed out to Toucan which is across the Rio, but i went up and pregamed with Scott, Rebecca, Maryella, and Dave G. We partied a bit in Becks room and then decided to head out to this new club/bar that just reopened called Fox Congo. We headed there and found Taylor was there with Raul (one of our baseball coaches who does promotions for clubs) and we all had a blast. We talked with the owner, Acey, and he hooked us up with drinks and stuff during the night. Solid night at a new club that we'll have to go back to again sometime.

(4/1)
Did absolutely nothing today and had a lazy day. Napped, napped, and finished up some details for my trip to Switzerland.

Nothing like a day full of futbol (3/30)

2010-04-07T15:37:00.000-07:00

Gave my presentation for my History class today w/ D.White and Tay. It went fairly well. We were a bit rushed, but it went fine. Got out of class and it turned into another beautiful Valencian day that was fairly warm and the sun shining. I got back from class and me, Diego, Greg, and Scott decided to head down to the sports complex by school to play a bit of soccer.

We got there and there were official games taking place on the turf fields, so we started to putz around on the concrete court/field again. Then, this one guy from one of the teams came over and asked us if we wanted to play. The team they were gonna play forfeited and they still wanted a game, so the four of us and some other guys made up another team to play against them. It went surprisingly well. We dominated them. We've come to find that although someone or some team may be from Europe, it still doesn't mean that we can't kick their ass. Diego scored like 3-4 goals, Greg got at least 2 goals, Scott got a goal, I had 2 goals. It was a running riot. It was a blast to be out there in that weather and play some crisp soccer.

That night me, Ben, Diego, Greg, Scott, and Sean went to O'Hara's to watch the Champion's League matches on TV. We had some beers and watched Arsenal make a stellar comeback from 0-2 down to level the match at 2-2 and that's how it finished. Later on, Rebecca, Maryella, and Dave G came and joined us. Further on in the night, Kristen, Britt, and two of Britt's friends who were in town also joined us. We had some fun and people trickled out bit by bit until it was just me, Britt, Kristen, and Britt's friends. Had a good chat and shared some jokes. Another solid day in the VLC.

Not I, Not II, but III--Osaka III (3/28-3/29)

2010-04-07T10:04:00.000-07:00

(3/28)
Blogged, or at least attempted to catch up on my blog. As you can probably tell, i'm a bit behind. As i have told y'all before, Principes are these delicious little treats that equate to heroine in cookie form...yes, they're that addictive. Well i tried dipping them in peanut butter and it makes them 100000x better. Seriously, if i could, i would just get an I.V. with liquid principes and peanut butter. It is my greatest gift to man and my peers of UGA en Espana. I also knocked out some homework and attempted to get ahead on some schoolwork...key word there being "attempted".

Dave G. and I had talked about wanting to go get sushi for dinner over the weekend, so we decided to head to Osaka for it. There are 3 Osakas in Valencia and we apparently went to Osaka III...not sure why they don't just call them all Osaka, but whatever. Anyway, me, Dave G, Ben, Joe, and Juan Carlos (one of the students from the Rector) all went there and got the all-you-can-eat deal where you can keep ordering more and more and more. We got sushi, sashimi, miso soup, tempura, teryaki beef and chicken, salad, shrimp, "triangulo del mar", and other food. It was all so good and was so nice to eat my fill. It felt like i'd have to be rolled out of there and it felt oh so good.

(3/29)
Me, Tay, and D.White worked on our History presentation and me and D.White pulled an all-nighter to finish up ours. Procrastination is our greatest asset. Knocked out some other homework in the process too and found out my finals schedule. That's about it...

Anything else just wouldn't be our style (3/27)

2010-04-07T04:18:00.001-07:00

Headed out to the beach today with everyone. Me and Sean had gone to Corte Ingles the day before to try and find a cooler so we could all put some drinks in there, but they were like €35. So me and Sean decided we'd get a large plastic garbage can and a small baby pool to use to put the ice in. Anything else just wouldn't be "us".

So me, Sean, Grateful Dave, Liza, and Care all headed down to the beach together. Me and Sean filled up the garbage can with ice and put in our beers, waters, and water bottles of whiskey and coke. Got to the beach and met up with Kristen, Dave G., Tay, Britt, Mikael, D. White, Suze, Ben, and Molly, who had left a little before us. We all set up shop and it kinda felt like we were on our 2nd spring break already. We started drinkin some beers and soaking up the sun and everyone just relaxed and mellowed out together, it was great.

(Sean, D.White, Me, and Grateful Dave)(Us chattin at the beach)

At one point, all of the boys decided to get up and grab a few beers and go for a stroll. We walked to up and down the beach and shot the shit and cracked a few jokes. Good times. Saw a fare amount of boobs on the beach (Spanish people do go topless at times, even though they may not be the boobs you want to see...ugh). Also saw this runaway horse go running down the beach, with this person on another horse and a cop car chasing after it. We all got a kick out of that. Later, me and Sean finally convinced people to come in the water with us (we had been the only two to previously go in the freezing Mediterranean). Kristen, Suze, and D.White all stepped it up and came into the water. We had a good time in there and it was funny seeing them react to the cold. As the day was winding down, Me, Diego, Scott, Greg, and Sean went and played these Spaniards in beach soccer--we won. That made us 2-0 against foreign foes for the weekend. At one point, people started heading out. This one girl i had met earlier in the semester, who is also studying abroad from Oklahoma St, told me to come find her at the beach. So me, Diego and Sean went and met up with Allison and the other OK St. kids and we played some frisbee for a bit...oh how i missed frisbee. After that, we headed back, packed up our things, and went back to the Rector. Awesome day...

(D.White, Me, Kristen, Sean, and Suze in the freezing water)

Quite possibly an essentially perfect day (3/25-3/26)

2010-04-06T17:28:00.001-07:00

(3/25)

Nothing special about this day. Went and hungout and napped on the roof. Got a little sun. Did some homework. Me and Sean went out and had a couple beers at O'Hara's. That's about it

P.S. Suze stuck it out and gave her Cultura presentation that morning despite the dirtiest of hangovers. Suzanne Nanney, you are a champ at life!

(3/26)

This day however, was a dynamite day! You seriously can't ask for a more full and better day.

(Me reading a book on the beach)(Britt and I lounging around)

Kristen and I had decided the day before that we wanted to go to the beach after class since we'd been having some stellar weather. So after i finished with my classes, i went home, got my stuff, and took the tram down to the beach where i met up with Britt and Kristen. It was really fuckin windy, but still a great time at the beach. Tay came and met up with us too after her classes. We just lounged around and soaked up the sun and people watched. We ate at Pan y Company, think of it as a Spanish Subway, but not as good or as many choices. It didn't sit too well with Britt and Kristen and made them feel bad. The wind also blew over my cup of beer all over Tay. So after that, we decided to call it a day.

(Nap time)(My foot after barefoot soccer on concrete...a litte dirty and scratched up)

I got back home just in time to meet up with Greg and Diego to go play some soccer. Sean and Liza also joined us. We went over the sports complex by school and was gonna use the fields, but there were a couple games going on already so we settled to play some street soccer on the concrete courts. Well i had walked over in my flip-flops and had brought my cleats in my bag since i thought we'd be playing on a field. So since flip-flops suck and concrete destroys cleats, i decided to go ahead and play barefoot. We found this group of French guys and asked them if they wanted to play against us. It was awesome. So much fun. We battled throughout most of the game and then they said, "First to two goals wins and the loser must leave." That's when things started to get a little chippy. They started calling fouls that shouldn't have been, we started pushing and shoving, yelling, and this one big French guy bulldozed Liza over. We scored the first, then they scored to make it 1-1. We finally got the last goal and won 2-1. After we won they kept complaining about wanting to play more and to keep going to give them another shot. But whatever, we won, suck it up. My feet were TORN UP. They were black from all the dirt, a little cut up, and had a few tread marks from where people had stepped on me with their sneakers. All in all a brilliant game of footy.

(Me and Rebecca at Sherlock Holmes)(Me and Ben buying the megaphone)

Got back and showered up and me and some of the guys in baseball had passed by this bar called Sherlock Holmes a bunch of times on the way to the field and we'd been wanting to go there, so tonight we decided would be a good night. Me and Sean got there ahead of time to reserve a table. The bar was pretty cool; a lot of space, live music, good selection of beers, but a bit pricey for my liking. I got these beers called Hobgoblin and Black Wych. They're from this small brewery in England and they were fuckin delicious, especially the Hobgoblin. Finally, everybody (and i mean EVERYBODY) showed up. Like we had around 20 people there at one point. Grace had her cousin Danielle in town, Dave G. brought his two friends, it was crazy but awesome...crazy awesome. The highlight of Sherlock Holmes, other than hanging with everyone, was when me and Ben haggled down this street vendor to purchase this megaphone. We got him down from €15 to €7. We putzed around with that thing all night and when we got back home, we used it to wake up my roommate Vu.

Awesome day and great night. Nothing more to ask for.

Suze's 21st...what a shitshow (3/24)

2010-04-06T15:52:00.001-07:00

(Suze, our little birthday girl)

All that really matters about this day was that is was Suzanne's 21st and what ensued was a complete and utter shitshow...

(Me and Sean)

We'll fast forward to when things started getting good. It was about 10pm and me and Sean went up to Suze and Kristen's room to see what was going on and what time we were gonna start to get ready, pregame, and head out. Little did we know that all of the them (Britt, Grace, Suze, Kristen, Care, Tay, and Liza) had already been drinking for some amount of time. They were happy and loud and doing what most girls do during one of their friends 21st. They weren't drunk off their asses or anything, but definately having a good time. So me and Sean decided to head down to O'Hara's for a beer and to shoot the shit.

(Suze takin an upsidedown margarita)(Tay and Me)

We were gone for maybe 20 minutes and when we got back up to their room....it was all over for most of them. They were gone. They had been taking shots of Tequila and doing upsidedown margaritas and were pretty pretty damn drunk. It was hilarious to see. So we partied some more in the room and we took some more shots and did some more margaritas. Had a fiesta of photos taken and putzed around some more. Before we left, Kristen, Suze, Grace, and Britt were absolutely hammered. One of them (not gonna name names) had to have a puking rally in order for her to be able to go out. Nevertheless, we headed out to Bolseria because we had like 16 free drink coupons there. We got 16 Agua de Valencia's and me, Sean, and Taylor (guy) ended up drinking for the girls who were a bit gone. We had some fun there and cracked some jokes. At one point, I was talking to Britt, Kristen, and Grace and kept telling me to talk to them in Spanish, so i did. Then they said to speak in English to them (i think you see where this is going). So finally i told them i was only gonna speak to them in Spanish and they just couldn't do it or weren't making sense when they talked. Me and Sean got a kick out of it.

(Fell during the pic, i wasn't that drunk)(Me tryin to speak to Britt, Kristen, and Grace...fail)

We left Bolseria and started to head towards this club that we were gonna go to, but we never even made it across the Rio. As we walked by the Torres de Serrano, Suze kept wandering off into the street and i kept having to pull her back every 10 seconds. Finally, i guess she had had enough of it and just took off. Now Kristen had warned me and Sean that she was a "runner", but we had no idea what that truly entailed until that moment. She was just going through the drunk girl spiral and didn't want to be bothered anymore and started sprinting down the street that runs along the Rio. I stopped, looked at everyone, shrugged, said, "I guess i should go after her?" and then went sprinting off after her. I got her, and despite her struggles, managed to hold on to her until everyone else came. We all tried to talk her down, but she didn't want to hear it, struggled and fought against us, and went sprinting off again (Dad told me never to corner a wild animal). This went on about 3-4 times with the whole sprinting off, catching, and cornering/talking thing. Finally, she ran out of gas or something and plopped down by this building on this sidestreet close to Plaza de Virgen (at least she kept running in a circle and back in the direction of the Rector).

(Me chasing Suze in the distance)(Me, Britt, Taylor, Liza, and Care before the puking incident)

This is where things got funny and worse...worse first. We finally started to calm her down and Kristen started to talk to her (Two drunks don't make it right...) and then took her over to this bench. Her, Suze, and Britt all then proceeded to kneel down, lay with their stomachs on the bench, and hang over the other side as they tried to help Suze to throw up. Well it happened alright. Suze threw up. It was funny for us because here were the 3 drunkest girls all helping each other and working it out while Me, Liza, Tay, Care, and Sean, (Tay took Grace home after Bolseria) were standing back and just watching it all go down. But props to the three of them for toughing it out. Afterwords, we picked up Suze and helped her back to the dorm and there Kristen decided to watch out for her, which she did a spectacular job of by the way all throughout the rest of the night.

Because that whole event had sobered up the 6 of us who played Mom that night, we decided to go out and have some fun. Sidenote: I have honestly never had that much tequila and sobered up so instantaneously. Me, Sean, Tay, Liza, Taylor, and Care went back to Bolseria and had some fun of our own. We watched Care go dance around with some Nigerian guys, funniest thing ever. Then, we just kinda mellowed out had a few more drinks and decided to call it a night. Suze had a rough night, but that's what's supposed to happen on your 21st birthday. I'm just glad we all got to share it with her. At the time, playing babysitter may have not been the most fun thing, but looking back on it, i wouldn't have changed a single thing from that night.

"¡Los Americanos! ¡Los Americanos!" (3/23)

2010-04-06T14:08:00.001-07:00

Took the Cultura test and it went swimmingly. Got back to the Rector, ate some lunch, then headed up onto the roof for some sun and a nap because it was a gorgeous day in Valencia.

Before i knew it, it was time to get going to teach the little niños. We got together and then went to the office to make some copies of all of the worksheets Kristen had created. Next, we met up with Stockton and Maryella and had Aitor and Bea (our directors/liasons) walk us over to the school where we were gonna be teaching. As we got close to the doors, we heard little shouts of, "¡Los Americanos! ¡Los Americanos!" I don't know about the rest of the group, but hearing that made me excited, but a little bit more nervous too.

We got inside and there were about 10 kids going apeshit all over the room. It was what you would expect a typical 4-8 year old's after-school program room to look like; with posters, tiny chairs and tables, crayons/markers, games, etc. everywhere. Their teachers finally got them to calm down for a second so we could divide them up. Maryella took 2 of them to work with, Kristen and Suze worked with about 3 or 4 of them in another room, and Me and Stockton worked with 4 of the littlest ones. We gave them the worksheet of the farm animals on them and started teaching them the colors and they colored all of them in. I worked with this one boy named Mauro and he was awesome. Hearing all their little voices trying to say the English words for green, blue, pink, yellow, etc. with their Spanish accents was hilarious and pretty darn cute. However, there was this one kid named Ivan who i called "Ivan the Terrible" because he must have seriously been hopped up on something. He was WILD. He did that crazy coloring style and at one point while Mauro was trying to grab a crayon out of the box, Ivan just grabbed them all and literally started throwing them all over the room and in the air. It was funny, but also one of those times where you just sigh and think "It's gonna be a long day". But it turned out to be an awesome time. After coloring, me and Stockton taught them "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" and then we all combined again for the last 15 minutes and walked across the street to the park. We continued with songs and we played with them on the playground. Finally, we lined them all up and played "Red Light, Green Light". That was a riot to see, so funny. We let the two winners of the games, this little kid named Brian and i forgot the girl who won the second, come up and be the signal callers while we and their teachers participated in the final game. Before we knew it, our time was up and we headed back to the Rector. It was so much fun with those little tycoons and am looking forward to going back again.

On a quick post note, at around midnight Me, Austin, Scott, and D.White went out to Doner Kebab for a late-night snack. For the first time ever i felt horrible after eating it. I'm going to say that it was because it was also the first time i was sober while eating Doner.

Back to the Nitty Gritty (3/22)

2010-04-06T14:02:00.000-07:00

It was tough having to go back to school after such an amazing 10 days with going to Ireland, Belgium, and coming back to Valencia for Fallas. But i had to get down to it because i had a full week of assignments and tests. I studied for my Cultura test for Tuesday which was over all of the European countries, their capitals, and locating them on the map, Spanish regions and all of their provinces, Spains weather, and some cultural information about Spain and Valencia. Spent most of the day studying that.

Me, Suze, Stockton, Kristen, and Maryella had signed up to teach little kids English the week before and we were going to our first "session" the next day, so me, Suze, and Kristen met up to go over our game plan and try to have some sort of strategy for the kids. We decided the best thing would be to teach them through games and song. We decided to use songs like "Old McDonald" to teach them animals, "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" to teach them body parts, Kristen (the fine artist that she is) drew up some animals, bodies, words to the songs, and other worksheets to help teach the kids. Felt pretty good, as a group, going into it on Tuesday.

Post Fallas letdown (3/20-3/21)

2010-04-06T13:51:00.000-07:00

It was an absolute shame to have Fallas come to an end, but part of me was glad it did cause i needed to slow down and take some R & R (rest and relaxation). This is what my Saturday and Sunday following Fallas consisted of

Saturday: Sleep, Eat, Sleep, Sleep, Eat, Sleep....throw in a shower and a couple bathroom stops too.
Sunday: Sleep, Eat, Walked around with Grateful Dave for a bit, Eat, Sleep

Not the most exciting, but definately some of the most welcome days that my body has ever experienced.

Much love Fallas. You may have won some battles, but in the end, i won the WAR.

Fallas: Just one big blur: Part 2 (3/19)

2010-04-01T02:15:00.000-07:00

(Me, Hope, Suze, and Kristen at our first Falla)(Britt, Sean, me, Dave, and Liza goin gansta)

Woke up feeling a bit hazy (there seems to be a pattern somewhere in here) and after no more than 10 minutes being awake, Ben came to my room to convince me to come to the final mezcleta of Fallas at 2pm....i was down for it. Me, Dave, Maryella, Molly, Ben, and D.White walked down to Plaza de Ayuntamiento and tried to get a good "seat" (standing room) for the final mezcleta. Just a reminder, Mezcletas are technically fireworks shows, but these fireworks aren't made to look pretty, they're made to go BOOM and blow out your ear drums...always a good idea with a hangover. It was the best Mezcleta yet! Soo loud, so many explosions, so much smoke, so brilliant. You could feel the shockwaves from the explosions hit you. I love it. We fought our way through the sea of people and back to the Rector after the Mezcleta finished and i took little cat nap.

(Molly, Me, Ben, Grateful Dave, D.White before the final Mezcleta) (Mezcleta explosions)

(Falla de Ayuntamiento)(Fallas decorations)

Woke up from the nap and met up with Grateful Dave, Hope, and Greg to go out and walk around a bit, just to get out of the Rector once more and see some more Fallas before they all burned later that night. We met up with Celia, one of our teachers here and she is awesome. She is so sweet and so fun. She comes with us to the Valencia soccer matches too, she's incredible. She lead us around and took us to some really good Fallas and some little streets and neighborhoods we didn't know about or hadn't really explored. She also took us to the Falla that won 1st place. Now the Falla that wins first place is a HUGE deal because that's the only Falla, out of the hundreds of them that there are, that gets to save a little piece off it to not be burned and to be placed in the museum; everything else on the Falla is burned except that one little piece. I forget the name of the Falla, but we just called it the 4 Seasons because each side of it represented one of the 4 seasons. It was really beautiful and an amazing piece of art. They captured everything about each season and made it so detailed and interesting. There were so many people around it and it was in such a small plaza that we didn't have the opportunity to go all the way around it and see it all, but it was something special. We walked around a bit more, watched some more of the parades, said goodbye to Celia and went back to the Rector.

(4 Seasons Falla that won 1st place)(Me, Greg, Hope, and Grateful Dave)

(Us after dinner w/ Mr. Critz)(Puncturing holes in the Falla to let the fire breath)

Most of Tay's family had already gone back to Madrid, but her Dad hung around for a couple days after because he had business. We packedHe took a large group of us out to dinner and drinks. It was this awesome restaurant over by the other train station on the other part of town that we rarely go to. We had a some bottles of wine and some dinner; i ordered this black truffle ravioli which was crazy good. Me enjoying cooking as i do, i had never had any form of truffle (cause they're crazy expensive), so i was stoked to get to have some. It didn't disappoint. The wine we drank was also really good and a most welcome break from the 1-2 Euro wine we get at Corte Ingles. We finished up dinner and went off in search of some Fallas in order to see some more before they burned and to pick which ones we wanted to watch burn. Luckily, me and Sean were packing heat in the form of 3 water bottles of bourbon and coke and 2 flasks of whiskey. We of course shared our treasures with the group as we got underway with the final night of Fallas.

(Taylor, Me, Grace, Hope, Sean, Tay waiting for the first Falla)(Fireworks before the burning)

As we were walking around, fireworks and mini-mezcletas were going off all around us as the first Fallas around the city began to burn. We finally found this pretty cool Falla and decided that was the one to watch burn. As we waited, we went into this bar close by and took some tequila shots with Mr. Critz...he is a legit champ. Me, Taylor (guy), and Sean sat down w/ Mr. Critz and talked about whiskey and cigars for literally like half an hour, it was pretty awesome. As time drew near, we went back out and took our positions behind the barricades and got ready to watch it burn. They set off mini sets of fireworks before the Falla burns and the bits of paper and ashes come falling into your hair, the girls weren't big fans of that, but i loved it. Then they set it ablaze with some flairs. That thing gets going real fast and real hot. IT'S AWESOME! I loved feeling the fire's heat on my face. It's a pyro's dream (aka. my dream). It's such a shame to see these things that the artists take 11 months of the year to make be burnt to the ground in a mere 10 minutes, but that's what also makes it such a special occasion and sight to witness.

(Start to Finish)(Care, me, Hope, Suze, Kristen, and Grace during one of the burnings)

We walked around and watched a few more burn as we made our way back towards Barrio Carmen (our neighborhood). I was gonna watch the Falla in Plaza de Reina burn, but me and Sean had to go to the bathroom so bad that we left the group to find an alley to pee in, but there were cops and people everywhere and it was gonna be too difficult to get through the see of people back to our friends, so we just headed back towards to Rector to stop off and go to the bathroom. Along the way we met up with Grateful Dave, Ashley, Alex, Scott, and all them and they were headed to watch the Falla in the plaza right by our dorms burn, so we went with them. We were standing around talking and waiting for this thing to get going when someone, i think Alex, said something along the lines of "Dang. Just finished my beer. Now we're out of alcohol." To which i replied, "Don't worry, i got this. Sean and Dave, come with me." So we left and headed to O'Hara's and Juanjo greeted us with his usual happiness to see us and i said, in Spanish of course, "Juanjo, i need 9 road beers." He was a little shocked and stunned and didn't think i was serious and i told him that i couldn't be more serious. So he looked around in the back and gave me 9 pretty good sized plastic cups full of draught beer and a bottle of Delerium for a discounted prince (God i love that man). We saw Britt, Kristen, Tay and all them walking by O'Hara's while we were waiting and we went and grabbed them too to help carry (we ended up going to the bathroom in O'Hara's by the way). We made our way back to the plaza and passed out the beer and were just in time to watch the Falla burn at approximately 3am.

(Taylor, me, Sean)(Laura, Mary Clair, Caroline, Ashley, Scott waiting for another Falla to burn)

(Fireworks before the final burning)(Used fireworks to set it on fire)

After the burning, Me, Rebecca, Maryella, Dave, Chelsea, and Sean headed to the Bolseria Plaza to go to this bar called Infanta to have some more drinks, cause we just didn't want the night to end. We all chilled and talked and shared some laughs. At around 5:30am, the bar said they were closing, but i still had half a glass full of beer. So Rebecca, being the awesome person that she is, helped me smuggle/steal it so i could finish it outside....now that's a friend. Dave, Maryella, and Becks went off shorty after, but me, Sean, and Chels hung out in the plaza until about 6:15am. A brilliant and proper ending to a unique experience. The time in Ireland, Brussels, and during Fallas was easily the best week of my life.

(Me, Chelsea, Sean, Maryella, and Grateful Dave at Infanta having some drinks)

(The first and the last burnings we watched)

Fallas: Just one big blur: Part 1 (3/18)

2010-03-30T01:57:00.000-07:00

(My favorite Falla: Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde)

I could sit here and try to explain Fallas to you, but it would be a waste of my and your time because there is literally NOTHING like Fallas in the world. It's not like anything you could fathom. The only way to try to explain what it's like is by saying that it's a mixture of Mardi Gras, Carnaval, Macy's Day Parades and they're all blended together in the mind of a pyromaniac. Just Google it or type it into YouTube. It'll explain it all, but nothing will ever come close to being able to understand it without experiencing it.

(Other Fallas)

Woke up in the morning with a resaca (hangover) from St. Patty's day, always a sign of a successful night. Since Me, Sean, Hope, Liza, and Caroline had all been gone on various trips and had recently returned, we wanted to go walk around and get a feel for Fallas. For starters, i need to explain that Valencia is the 3rd largest city in Spain and the city triples in size during Fallas, there are people EVERYWHERE. There are parades literally ALL DAY long. There are kids and adolescents that throw everything from mere firecrackers to these giant explosives (like M80s x10) into the streets and into crowds (as strange as it sounds, it's just something that happens. you get used to it after a while). Back to the story, so we went and walked around and explored all that was going on: saw some of the parades, viewed the Fallas, ate some of the street vendors' food and drink, and got our first real taste of this magical time of the year.

(D.White, Care, Hope, Grace, Dale (Tay's bro), Me, and Sean on the bridge before fireworks)

Went back to the rector, took a nap, made some phone calls to the parents and friends and tried to explain what Fallas was...FAIL. Afterwords, me and Sean made a liquor run so we could be ready for the weekend. At around 11pm, Me, Sean, Taylor, Dale (Tay's bro), Care, D. White, and Grace went out to try and get a good spot to see the fireworks from. That night was the Nit de Foc (no, not the "night of fucking"), the "Night of Fire". It's this massive fireworks show that is rated the 3rd best fireworks display in the world, so we were pretty pumped. Valencia is the 2nd highest consumer of fireworks other than China (that means A LOT), and they're all used during Fallas. We got to the Rio, where they were going to be shot off from, and it was already packed. The show wasn't until 1:30am and at 11:15, the place was packed. The police also kept hearding people (aka Americans) off the bridges and sides (the best viewing points), so Tay suggested that we should go to her parents hotel and watch them from their since their balcony had a great view of the Rio. We got to the hotel, Palau del Mar (which was very nice), and met up with her parents, who were very sweet for taking us in. We hung out with them, talked, drank, and messed around with them before it was time for the show. When it was time, we headed down to the balcony and got set for the Nit de Foc.

WOW. That's all i could really say. The fireworks show was INCREDIBLE. It beat down every other fireworks show that i have ever seen. I'm sorry 4th of July, but the Fallas fireworks display kicked you in the nuts and made you throw up a little bit....it was that good. It was a combination of huge boomers, streakers, cracklers, awesome colors and designs, and just an overall wide variety of fireworks (evidence in the videos). I can't stress how awesome it was.

(Fireworks and the thousands of people there watching them)

After the fireworks, we went walking around and across the Rio to the other side of town for a little bit; the place looked like a warzone. There was smoke everywhere, dim lights, flares on the ground, bottles and trash littered the streets, people setting off more firworks and little explosives--it was nuts....and surreal....and cool. Everything about Fallas was just cool, even the little things like that. We decided to head back to the Rector to get a few things and i met up with Grateful Dave and Stockton outside of it and decided to head off with them. In turn, the three of us then met up with Caroline West, Ashley, D. White, Laura, Ben, Alex, and Scott. I had a fuckin blast with them. At one point we lost Alex, Stockton, and Grateful Dave, but the rest of us kept walking around and exploring....and drinking. Another thing about Fallas, there is alcohol EVERYWHERE. There are those sketchy people walking the streets with bags of cold cans of beer and selling them for 1 euro (which are a personal favorite of mine and those who like to be fiscally responsible while inibriated). After we were all sufficiently drunk, we stumbled upon this Fallas party, basically a big ass tent (like one of those at a wedding) and party for those who helped raise money for a specific Falla and take part in the parades, and we somehow came to the decision to crash it. So we walked in and people were dressed in certain themes and we felt a good bit out of place, but nonetheless we sat down and had some drinks. After a good number of dirty glances and such, we thought it best to move along. DARKNESS! I NEED JESUS AND MY FAMILY! (inside joke, sorry). We continued to walk around and eat drunk food until the wee wee hours of the morning (roughly 6am) and then we decided to call it a night. Awesome first night of Fallas and some great times!

(The streets looked like a warzone) (Me, Stockton, and Grateful Dave)

(Me, Mary Claire, and Ben at the Fallas Party)(the Fallas party we crashed)

Don't EVER count me out of a St. Patty's day (3/17)

2010-03-28T14:21:00.001-07:00

Headed out to the airport w/ some dirty hangovers for all. We had some issues getting through security, even though we never had before...ever. I got my carabiner (climbing clasp) that i had my keys on and my Polo Black cologne confiscated...cause those are such highly dangerous weapons. All of us got stopped and had to have our bags searched. No one else, but only us 5 Americans all in a row (for those of you playing at home, we call that "profiling"). So the day started off on a sour note, but we made it back to Madrid and then caught our train back to Valencia. We made it home around 5:40pm and left the train station and were immediately baptized by fire into the spirit of Fallas. There were people EVERYWHERE, fireworks, and little explosives going off all over--craziness. Got back to the Rector and just relaxed for a bit and took a nap.

I wasn't planning on going out at all, but Tay asked me if i wanted to go out to dinner and drinks with her family (parents, siblings, aunt/uncle, and cousins) who were here visiting and so i met up with them at this restaurant in Plaza del Ayuntamiento. I love her family. Her parents are so sweet and fun, her brothers are a fuckin riot, her uncle and cousins are cool as nuts, and we had a great time. Me, Suze, Kristen, and Britt all joined them and we just talked about our various trips and our experiences in Spain and shot the shit. I again wasn't planning on going out after dinner, but Taylor's mother made some comment about me being Irish and not going out on St. Patty's day, so i couldn't let that stand. So as Taylor, Britt, and Kristen went back to the Rector to shower up and change, Me, Dale (Tay's brother), her cousin, and Suze went to Finnegan's, this Irish Pub next door, to have a couple Guinness and investigate into the St. Patty's day merchandise we had seen them hand out.

Got into Finnegan's and it was packed (an Irish pub crowded on St. Patty's day? Naw...). So the four of us ordered 3 Guinness (like i hadn't had enough already) and a cider for Suze and started asking around about how to get the St. Patty's day hats and all. We found out for every 2 Guinness you order, you get a hat. Heirgo, we needed 8 Guinness. So we finish up the round we're on and i'm determined to get everyone, including myself, a hat. So i order up 5 more Guinness. Dale goes and has another one, but Tay's cousin doesn't want another and Suze is happily sipping her cider. So it was time for Ryan to step it up. I go ahead and finish the other 4 Guinness and secure us our 4 hats. SCORE! So that brought my Guinness total up to 5. At Finnegan's, me and Dale also had to deal with this guy who was drunk off his ass and kept spilling beer on us. By the second spill, Dale started getting a little peeved and looked a little anxious, but credit to him because he stopped, took a breath, and realized it definately wasn't worth it. We left Finnegan's with our bellies full of Guinness and to head back to the Rector to meet up w/ Tay, Britt, and Kris.

Met up with them and then we decided to head to O'Hara's for a few drinks after we spent like 30 min searching for this other bar called El Forn. Went to O'Hara's for a bit and had a few drinks. I had 2 more Guinness, which brought the tally up to 7 at that point. We initiated Dale into our group with our usual shot of tequila. We hung around there for a bit and then found out that Rebecca's parents were in town and that she wanted people to meet them over at this other bar called El Negrito. Beck's parents were cool as hell too. We chatted with them, had a glass of wine, and had a fairly relaxed time at Negrito with them...which was just what i needed to wind down the night. We left there around 3:15am and Tay, Dale, Kris, Taylor and them were gonna go to Rumbo to discoteca it up, but i declined and headed back to the rector to finally get some sleep and prepare myself for the Fallas madness the following day.

Belgium: Home of beer, waffles, and shit-shows (3/16)

2010-03-28T08:55:00.000-07:00

(Me, D. White, Grace and Sean in the Gran Plaza)(Building in the Gran Plaza)

Took an early, early flight from Dublin into Brussels and since the airport we flew into was far-as-hell away from the city centre, we took a 45 minute bus ride there. Once we got there, we had minor issues with finding out which metro we needed to take to get to our neighborhood where our apartment was. Oh, quick explanation about the apartment: Found this apartment on Hostelworld.com (you're welcome for the plug Hostelworld) that slept 8, had a full kitchen, 2 bathrooms, dining area, T.V., and this deck. I had booked it and the guy who owns it sent me the sketchiest e-mail that read like this, "Thanks for booking with me. Come to the Danish Taverne on ---(whatever the address was) at 2pm and i'll give you your keys. Please bring money to pay the full amount right then"...and that was about it. My mother would be so proud. We got into the neighborhood and little did we know how much i had scored with that booking. Since it was around noon and we had time to kill, we went to explore.

(More buildings in the Gran Plaza)

We were literally 2 blocks from the Gran Plaza! The Gran Plaza is this incredible plaza with amazing buildings and architecture on all sides. Carvings and sculptures laced the buildings, some had gold, others had different colors, and a few had awesome spires and steeples. It was incredible. We also found out that we were right in the middle of everything: restaurants, stores, little shops, parks, booze, grocery stores, you name it, we had it within a 5 minute walk. It was perfect. As we still waited for 2 o'clock to roll around we decided to find some place to grab some lunch. We walked down this one sidestreet about 2 blocks away from the plaza and it was peppered with little Greek stands/restaurants. As we walked down the street, each of the owners kept trying to get us to eat at their place. Finally we were torn between two that were right across the street from each other. Me, David, and Sean went to this one called Athens and Grace and Liza went to the one literally 10 yards across the street called Santorini. The food was good, cheap, and they gave you a lot of it. Mine was this big plate of lamb, this delicious sauce for it, rice, olive leaf wraps, vegetable salad, cabbage, and french fries. I also had my first beer in Belgium, a brilliant Hoegaarden. We came to found out that all of the restaurants on that street were all owned by the same family. All of them were either brothers, sisters, cousins, spouses....related. Haha. I guess that's one way to do it.

(The girls at Santorini)(My awesome food and beer at Athens)

(Dining table, kitchen [can't see it too well], and one of the beds in our apartment)

I met Xavier for the keys to the apartment at the Danish Taverne and headed to the apartment. What a score! The apartment was incredible! So much space, the top floor of the building, the kitchen fully stocked, the deck had an amazing view of the city, it was perfect. I really couldn't have asked for anything better. And for only 20 Euro each a night?! Dynamite! After we claimed beds and settled in, we took a little nap to recharge our batteries and then it was back out into the streets of Brussels.

(Walking out onto our deck, I win for housing find of the program)(View from our deck at night)

(Belgian waffles)(Messin around in the screets of Brussels...looks like a band's album cover)

We of course immediately went and had a Belgian waffle and it was everything i could have hoped for and more. It was so light and fluffy and i had mine covered with bananas, strawberries, and chocolate. It was so damn good! Next, we explored town and stumbled across the "patron saint" of Brussels---Mannequin Piss. It's this small statue of this little kid (looks like cupid) who is a fountain and the water comes out of his penis so it looks like he's peeing. Apparently he's a big deal. Then, we found this party store and we decided we were gonna have a mask party at the apartment that night. We each picked out a goofy paper mask for the character we were gonna be that night. After the party store we had to go hit up a pub and get our fill of fine Belgian beer. We sampled the finest that Belgium had to offer: Stella Artois, Delerium, Hoegaarden, and some other ones we had never heard of. It was delicious and great to be able to keep the string of great beer going (Spain has HORRIBLE beer...no joke, the worst possibly on earth). When we finished with our beers, we headed to the grocery store because we wanted to cook a nice home-cooked meal.

(At this cool record store we found...inside joke with the albums)(Drinkin my .5L of stella)

(Me and Grace makin our dishes)(Dinner: Bread, bruschetta, salad, pasta, wine)

We got back to the apartment and began the cook-fest. Grace prepared a delicious salad, Sean made some awesome bread appetizers, and Liza cooked up some pasta. We had an awesome dinner with which we tore through 3 bottles of wine between the 5 of us (some 2009 and 2010 bottles....so you know they were high-class...just our style). After we ate dinner, which was all delicious, we busted out our 6 liter mini-keg of Stella Artois, put on our masks, and began to play some drinking games and eat my guacamole that i had prepared while they prepared dinner. We played some Kings, Thumper, told some jokes, and just fucked around with our masks. At one point, we were out of booze and me, Sean, and David went on an emergency run and picked up a bottle of Vodka and Malibu and mixers. It cost much more than we should have spent on it, but desperate times call for desperate measures. We got back and dove into that. To save major embarrassment and just keep it on a medium level, Liza and Grace got wasted. They may hvae not known their limits that night and paid for it with the filming of some of their drunk moments and their hangovers the following day. Well us being the functional ones, we weren't gonna let the booze we had left over after we dragged them to bed (not joking) go to waste so we sucked it up and polished off most of it. We also then payed for it the next day, but we took one for the team. So all in all we worked through 3 bottles of wine, bottle of Malibu, bottle of vodka, and 6 liters of beer. Great success. What an amazing time in Brussels and such a solid experience. Wish we could have stayed there longer, but we wanted to get back to Valencia in time for the end of Fallas. Again, little did we know what awaited us back at home...

(Family pic before the mayhem)(Our "other" family pic w/ our masks)

Cork and Blarney:The REAL taste of Ireland (3/15)

2010-03-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

(Cork and the Cork River) (Blarney Castle)

I thought we should spend a day out of Dublin and really get to experience Ireland and the culture and people. Don't get me wrong, Dublin is great, it's easily one of my top 3 favorite cities in the world. But it's like going to Madrid, New York, L.A., Paris, or any other city with millions of people there, you're gonna get a taste of the culture, but it's gonna be too tourist-centered. So we used our EuRail passes and took a train down to Cork (Southwest-ish) Ireland for FREE. As usual, we messed around on the train and Liza, being the stellar photographer that she is, took some pictures of us all. We got into Cork and headed to the bus station so we could take a bus to Blarney and go visit Blarney Castle.

(Me in the Dungeons, told you it was cramped) (Carvin my name into Blarney Castle history)

Made it to Blarney Castle. The place is really nice and has a huge park surrounding it. We walked around it and explored all the rooms and hallways inside it and even the dungeon below it. I thoroughly enjoyed the dungeon. Me, Sean, and David were the only ones who visited it because it is an extremely tight squeeze to get there because you have to squat down and walk through these tiny caves/chutes and almost crawl at certain points. There's also this spot where everyone has carved their name, so of course we took out some Euros and used them to carve ourselves into Blarney Castle history. We worked our way out of the dungeons and went on into the main keep of the castle and journeyed up to the Blarney Stone. Along the way, there's all these little nuggets of information and facts about the Blarney Stone, Blarney Castle, and what famous people have come to kiss it (trust me, there's a lot...). We made it to the top and each took our turns kissing the Blarney Stone and receiving the gift of "Eloquense"...whatever i'm supposed to do with that. It's a little tricky to kiss the Blarney Stone, and you have to be fairly flexible to do so because the stone is actually on the outside of the castle. You sit down on your butt, lay backwards, grab these bars, pull yourself down and out and give the Blarney Stone a smooch. It's kinda scary because although there are saftey bars like 4 feet below you, you get a clear view straight down to the ground and you're like 9 stories up. I'm glad everyone got to do that and go to visit Blarney Castle and kiss the Blarney Stone because i think it's one of those things that you have to do before you die.

(Blarney, Ireland) (Bending back to kiss the Blarney Stone and receive my gift of eloquense)

(The long, winding stairwell to get to the top)(Hide and seek?)

Took the bus back to Cork and we went and messed around with the Corkies (people from Cork) and explored Cork. In Cork there is this giant walking street where stores, restaurants, and entertainers line the streets, reminds me a lot of Grafton Street in Dublin but slightly bigger, called St. Patrick's Lane and we walked along there for a while and it was pretty cool. We wanted to grab some lunch, so me, David, and Sean hit up some McDonalds for a little taste of home. Me and Sean tore through that place like a twister on the Texas plains: Sean got 5 double cheeseburgers and i got 4 hamburgers and a 6 piece McNugget. God that tasted so amazing. After we ate, the three of us went and explored the city a bit more and found some cool statues, cathedrals/churches, and some other cool little things along the way back to the train station. We caught the 5:30pm train and made our way back to Dublin for our last night in Ireland. I loved that we got to head down to Cork and Blarney and get to know the real Ireland and experience it. It's much more laid back than Dublin and you get a more intimate experience and feel for the culture, the people, and the culture.

(St. Patrick's Lane in Cork) (Cathedral on the river in Cork)

We got back in to Dublin around 8:30pm and headed off in search of a pub fairly close by and away from Temple Bar so that we could continue the non-touristy experience. We stumbled upon Baker's Pub. It was a solid joint, spacious, cozy, and had its residential drunk Irish men and women. We got a table and a few pints of Guinness and Murphy's and sat down. We decided to play the game "Who am I?". For those of you who don't know how this game is played, everyone thinks up a person, famous or not, and writes their name on a piece of paper, passes it to the left, and then takes their new piece of paper they have received (still not having seen the name), licks it and sticks it to their forehead. That way everyone can see everyone else's names but not their own. Next, take turns asking yes or no questions trying to figure out who you are. If you get a "yes", you get to keep asking questions. If you get a "no", you're done for that round and have to take a drink. It was a lot of fun and we came up with some funny ones. For example, we made Sean our director Aitor, and we made Liza my roomate Vu, and made Grace be Sasquatch. I was Teddy Roosevelt and Bryan Adams. We also had this lengthy conversation with this drunk as Irishman known as Patty who kept raving about America and how it was "fuckin brilliant" (the cat literally said that phrase no less than 20x). We called it a night fairly early because we had a VERY early flight to Brussels the next day. So as we went to Heuston station for the last time, we said our goodbyes and fairwells to Dublin and Ireland. As for me, I got just what my father had wanted me to...and that's all i could have ever asked for. Malo Mori Quam Foedari

(Baker's pub for the last night in Dublin)(Playing "Who am I?")

Dublin: Day 2: I'm a closet clepto (3/14)

2010-03-22T04:11:00.000-07:00

(Me outside my bar) (David, Sean, and Grace in St. Andrew's Green)

Woke up and took the train/tram into Dublin once again. We planned the day to be a walk around and exploration and get into some shenanigans day. It was a stellar day, sunny, good temperature. We walked by St. Patrick's Cathedral and took some time to hang in St. Andrew's Green, the park next door. It was nice to be able sit on some grass and relax (apparently grass to play or sit on is a foreign concept to the people of Valencia because it's a rarity). Next, walked over to Grafton Street, a very lively street with a bunch of stores and musicians on the street. It's pretty cool. Last time i went to Dublin there were more entertainers and musicians out there so i don't know if something was off but we only saw like 5 or 6 musicians, my favorite being this fairly attractive lady who played classic Irish folk music on her fiddle. After we walked along there, we took a turn and headed off to Trinity College and the Book of Kells. Trinity College is awesome. Each time i've been there i like it more and more. The campus is beautiful and how awesome to be located in a city like Dublin, right at the heart of it. The Book of Kells was a little bit more impressive this time than the first time i saw it, but still nothing spectacular. It's kind of just something you have to see. The Great Hall of the Library is far more impressive: books as high and low, far and wide as you can see, marble busts of the greatest minds in history line the cooridors...it's special. Sorry, but i have no pictures from either because you can't take pictures anywhere in there because those books are ancient...literally. We finished up there and then went on to lunch.

(St. Patrick's Cathedral)(Trinity College)

Some of the girls in our group had been to Dublin earlier in the semester and they found this really good Mexican restaurant (cause you go to Dublin for good Mexican) called Acapulco and said we had to try it. So we took them up on it and headed over there for lunch. Not gonna lie, the food was really damn good. I got una torta (like a sandwich) con pollo and a fajita (which isn't even a food item in Mexico. It's something us Americans created) con bisteca (steak/beef). It was great, and fairly cheap for us since we did the lunch menu. We putzed around in there for a little bit and then continued the exploration with some Hamlets, cheap cigars, that me and the bhoys (no, that's proper Irish spelling) had picked up the day before. We went to this chocolatier and i had a few pieces of chocolate that i'm pretty sure gave me instant cavities. Next, it was on to the Spire, or as the locals call it "The Erection in the Section". It was put in for the millenium and is the tallest monument in Ireland. Essentially, think of it as a giant sewing needle just sticking out of the ground and being a lot of stories high. It wasn't anything too special, just really really tall. After that, we decided to go pick up some booze, head back to hotel to relax a bit, and then we planned on heading back into Dublin around 10pm.

(Making it rain Monopoly $ (aka Euros) in Acapulco)(Park West station after a long day in Dubs)

After we had rested a bit, we started to play some drinking games like Electricity and Kings. During kings, one of the rules that was selected was to draw a mustache on your finger and hold it under your nose whenever you drank. I made myself have a solid 70's/80's thick mustache whenever i took a drink. We had some good fun with that. We also had some minor complications trying to order a pizza to the hotel. It ended up working out fine and we had our Domino's, but at one point i had asked Grace to call the front desk and ask about the delivery and she calls and just freezes, "Uh...well...with the pizza..." and then she just gave up and handed the phone to me. We ribbed her about that pretty good for the rest of the trip. We finished up our booze and decided we weren't gonna make the last train into Dublin so we went downstairs to the hotel bar. Little did we know what the night had in store....

(Liza and Grace with their staches and me and Sean with ours)

We all posted up and ordered some Guinnesses and began chatting with the bartender, Frank, and this other fellow who was sitting there, Frankie. Oh the times we had with them...brilliant. We all started joking around about shit and he was teaching us the proper way to drink a Guinness to reach it's ideal potential. Apparently you have to finish the pint within 15 minutes, you don't hold it, you drink it and then set it back down, that way rings/lines from the head settle on the inside of the glass at each point on its way down and when you finish, it should look like the inside of a tree with the rings. Also showed us a neat trick with a coin to test the density of a Guinness and know when it has finally settled and it's perfect to drink (see video). At around 12am, Frank closed down the bar and headed out. So it was just me, Sean, Liza, David, and Frankie....bad idea Days Hotel Park West to leave us, or at least me and Frankie, unattended. Frankie had already gotten 5 Heinekens for the road before Frank left and closed up, but he hadn't left yet. His wife had been calling him all night wondering when he was coming home and he kept putting it off and coming up with little stories--it was hilarious. So finally he got tired of seeing us without a beer and passed out his road beers to each of us. We were lookin for a bottle opener, and i thought there'd be one behind the bar, so i crawled underneath the bar flap/arm that was still open and popped open a couple of the beers. Now i don't know if Frankie was joking or serious when he said this, but he said, "While you're back there, why don't you get me a couple of beers?" and then laughed. So i was like, "Ok, why not?" And i returned with 2 Heinekens from the bar fridge. He replied with a, "2 beers? The fuck am i supposed to do with two beers?" My response, "Drink 'em, duh." Well i hate/am proud to admit that it wasn't my only trip back behind the bar. I stole about 8-9 beers that night from the hotel and we drank them all. Along the way, Frank gave us nicknames. He said to Sean, "You, you look like that Stifler fella from the American Pies." And thus Sean became Stiffler. He said to David, "You look like like Boufet girl's brother on that show Friends. Phoebe i think she was. Ya, ya, you look like her brother." And thus Frank called him Phoebe for the rest of the night. As for me, i didn't really get a nickname, he just said, "Since i already have an Irish son, you're my other Irish son...except you steal me beer." Heirgo i was his "Other Irish son"? We had a fuckin blast with him that night and we all got pretty blitzed off of Guinness and Heinekens. Thanks Frankie and thanks Days Hotel Park West Bar. Cheers!

(The gang with Frankie) (All the beers i may have....borrowed?)

Dublin: Day 1: A labor of love (3/13)

2010-03-21T12:42:00.000-07:00

(Guinness Storehouse) (Sean, Grace, me enjoying our pints of Guinness at SkyBar)

We took about a ten minute train/tram ride into Dublin, since our hotel was on the outskirts of the city, from the station that was literally like 200 yards from the hotel. Got in to Heuston Station and then immediately headed off to the Guinness Storehouse. I had been to the Storehouse before and it never really gets old, especially since Guinness is my favorite beer on this planet (never know about space beer, could be life-altering). It's pretty cool there. They take you on a journey of how the beer is made and all the ingredients that go into it and then show you about the history of Guinness and all their little tricks of the trade. Along the way you get to do a proper sampling, learn how to properly pour a Guinness, and then head up to the Gravity Bar and have a pint while overlooking Dublin. As we got to the Gravity Bar the song "Streets of New York", a very popular song in Irish culture, was playing and i got crazy stoked and started singing along while they poured my pint. Couldn't have started off the day any better than with some friends, a Guinness, and some "Streets of New York". I had my 4th best pint of Guinness ever at that moment (the 1st being the first one i shared w/ my father, 2nd being the first time i went to the Guinness factory, 3rd being the first Guinness i ever had w/ my friend Andy, and this being the 4th).

(Old Jameson Distillery) (Me during my sampling. Smelling the Johnnie Walker Black)

After the Guinness Storehouse, Me, Sean, and David ventured over to the Old Jameson Distillery. The girls weren't big fans of whiskey so they went and walked around. The Jameson distillery is awesome. It's different than the Guinness Storehouse in a few ways: First, it's a smaller and more intimate tour. Second, you have a tour guide who leads you along the way and tells you EVERYTHING about how it's made, the history, etc. It was really cool. I had no idea some of the processes they used and why they used them. For example, Jameson buys their casks/barrels directly from bourbon distillers in Kentucky. In the U.S., it's law to use a brand new cask to distill whiskey every time, but Jameson likes to have casks with some alcohol still engrained in the wood. It helps with the flavor. After the tour, i was selected to do a whiskey sampling. We tested Jameson against Jack Daniels and Johnny Walker Black Label. I preferred the Jameson the best, second was Jack, and i didn't really like the Black Label too much (too smokey). Got a few souvenirs from the Jameson gift shop too.

(Christchurch)

We next headed out to meet Liza and Grace and this pub called Porterhouse that was down in Temple Bar near the river. They had a good porter with a nice finish, it'll still never replace Guinness for me, but it put in a good effort. We got a table and watched the rugby match between Ireland and Wales while we had some drinks. Some of Grace's and Liza's friends were in town for a concert (they study abroad in Oxford, so not that far) and they came and met up with us too. As we were watching the match, we got to talking with some Irish guys and had a fuckin blast with them: Clive, Danny, Michael, and this Welshman who they just referred to as the "Sheep Shagger". Ireland ended up winning fairly handedly and that clinched them the Triple Crown (Wins over the other British Isles teams: England, Scotland, Wales) so everyone was going nuts. It got to be around dinner time, so me, Sean, and David went and grabbed some grub, mucked around a bit more in the city and went home around 9pm. Liza and Grace were going to the Avett Brothers (whoever they are) concert so they stayed in Temple Bar.

Got back to the hotel and basically relaxed all night. Watched K19: Widowmaker, She's the Man, and Troy on TV...ya, that's right, i said She's the Man. We made that movie fuckin awesome, especially David. He was busting out one-liners all throughout that movie. They all became inside jokes for the rest of the trip. We saved some money and some energy that night and went to bed around 12. We were then awaken when the girls came back and got a minor second wind and had some shenanigans in the room for a bit before we all went to bed. Drinks starting at 10:30am and not finishing until 8pm...a good day. Felt great to be back in my kind of town.

"I was 18 yrs old when i went down to Dublin..." (3/12)

2010-03-21T05:39:00.000-07:00

Done with school and started our Spring Break. It was time to head off to Ireland and Belgium for 5 days. We headed down to the train station and caught the 11:25am train into Madrid. Our flight wasn't until 9:05pm so we had a lot of time to kill. It was the first time any of us (Me, Sean, Liza, D. White, or Grace) had been back to Madrid since our first 3 days of the program. It envoked solid memories and it seemed like it really wasn't that long ago that we were there. As we killed time we just walked around the city some. We stopped at this wannabe Suerte Suerte in Madrid and i bought t-shirt for 3 euros with these wolves on it...another piece of "The Wolfpack" wardrobe collection. Next, we found what would eventually become an inside joke for the length of the trip, a sex shop called Mundo Fantastico. We of course went in and putzed around inside. We came across some things that we were glad we found, but also some things we weren't glad we found. Fun time in there. Next, went and ate some Haagen Das and then went to the Metro and took that to the airport where we got checked in and awaited our flight to Dublin. We had a smooth flight to Dublin on RyanAir. I've heard a lot of people complain about RyanAir, but none of us had any trouble with them the entire time on the trip or while planning, so they're fine in my book.

We arrived in Dublin around 10:40 and grabbed a cab from the airport. The cab driver was funny, but it didn't make up the cost of the 50 euro cab ride. Ya, we were apparently a ways away from the airport. We got to the hotel, which we had booked through an affiliate website, and expected to do the normal and check in smoothly...wrong. Apparently they weren't informed of our reservation and said they weren't offiliated with that website. They said that we could stay that night and then Sun. and Mon., but that they didn't have any rooms available for saturday because of the 6 Nations Rugby Semifinal between Ireland and Wales. She told us just to hope for one of the 8 reservations who hadn't checked in yet to cancel. So we left a little worried about tomorrow. We had 5 people, but our room was for 3. So we pushed them all together and we were all pretty comfortable. I went to bed eager to get out to Dublin.

OLE! and AMUNT! (3/11)

2010-03-20T13:22:00.000-07:00

We had a quiz in our historia class and it was fuckin ridiculous. Aitor, our teacher, i don't know what he's on because what we learn and what he teaches has absolutely nothing to do what is on our quizzes. We all left that quiz a little peeved.

Our cultural activity with the program for that day was to go to a bullfight....that was an experience. It's difficult to describe. It's kind of like a car accident, you just can't look away. I both liked it and didn't like it. I liked going to it because it was experience a huge and traditional part of Spanish culture and it was something that i felt you absolutely had to do while in Spain. For that, i'm thankful that i got to go. On the otherhand, it's horrible and difficult to watch what they do to the bulls. They are truly at such a disadvantage. If it was one bull against one man, then i might be more inclined to enjoy it, but it's so cheap to the bull. There is one matador of course, but he is helped out by so many people. There are "assistant matadors", if you could call them that, who distract the bull and handle him if he ever gets too close to the matador or chases him or something. Also, there's the picadores who come in shortly after the fight starts; they ride armored horses and take huge pikes/spears and stab the bull in the back or flanks several times. Next, the matadors are handed these spikes that they stab into the bull's back. They usually stab in about 6-8 of them. Then, after the matador tires out the bull with the whole "ole" bit and using his cape, he uses his sword and gives him a final death blow. However, the bull is one fuckin strong animal and it will usually take a few strikes with the sword. It's pure, raw strength from the bull considering the sword is about a yard long and goes all the way into the bull up to the hilt/handle of the sword. Next, after the bull drops down, one of the assistant matadors comes over with a dagger and severs the spinal column with a quick stab to end the suffering. Finally, they hook some chains around the bull's head and drag him out of the arena. If there's another slightly happy thought to take away from this it's that the bull doesn't go to waste. It is butchered and sold to the restaurants around the arena to be eaten. The girls in the group werer extremely uncomfortable and the large majority of them left before the first fight was over. We saw 4 fights that afternoon. No one got gored or run over or anything, even though we were cheering for the bull. The day we went was more of the amateurs/minor matadors who weren't full professionals yet, but we definately saw one matador in the 3rd fight who had some serious potential and charisma. Was a good and bittersweet experience.

WARNING: THE PICS AND VIDEOS OF THE BULLFIGHT ARE GRAPHIC

After the bullfight, we had about an hour and then we went to La Mestalla for yet another Valencia C.F. soccer game. This was another Europa Cup match. The round of 16, first leg, against former German Bundesliga champion Werder Bremen. We were expecting it to be a tough game, little did we know how much of an influence the referee would have and make it that much tougher. It was overall a very exciting game. We had 14 of us from the group go and one of the literature and cine teachers from school, Celia, came and met up with us and sat with us for the game. The ref was a real ass for the entire game. He went "card happy" and threw out a total of 6 yellow cards and 1 direct red card. Valencia had Banega, one of their better players, sent off for something that i still don't know. I watched the replays and saw nothing worthy of a red card. There was a stoppage for an foul and he must have said something to ref because he wasn't even involved in the play and got sent off. Before that, the ref had given Werder a penalty kick for what he thought was a handball in the penalty box (the replays clearly show it wasn't). So Werder was up 1-0. Banega got sent off about 15 min after that. The crowed started chanting "Hijo de puta! Hijo de puta!" (son of a bitch) and booing and everything. We thought it was gonna turn into a shit show. But shortly after Valencia were reduced to 10 men, Mata (my favorite Valencia player) got the equalizer and scored to tie it up 1-1. Valencia surpisingly dominated the majority of the game playing only with 10 men. It was fun game to be at, but a shit result and a shame the ref had to ruin it.

(Liza, Me, Britt at the game) (The penalty kick when Werder scored)

Study, Study, Study (3/8-3/10)

2010-03-20T13:12:00.000-07:00

We had our negocios (business) test on Wednesday of this week and it was over a shit-ton of stuff. We had like 200 new vocab words and definitions, how to properly write a business letter, numbers, job interview questions, and more. While this may sound easy at first glance, just remember it's all to be done in Spanish. It makes things much more difficult.

(3/8)
Studied

(3/9)
Studied and had a group quizzing session with Kristen, Liza, Sean, and me. I was up late studying, like around 5 am, because after the group study session, i decided to procrastinate and bit and have some long-ass conversations on the phone with my Dad and a few friends. I had an especially great talk with my Da. Just one of those real good father-son talks.

(3/10)
Had the test, it went alright. There were some things that i know i fucked up on. I'm hoping that i made around a B. After, i did some laundry.

Tay's boyfriend Travis was in town and staying with her for a few days. She really wanted everyone to go out that night and hang and stuff, but unfortunately it was just really bad timing. Everyone had a hectic week with school cause of the negocios test on Wed. and then a cine paper on Thurs. But me and Sean sucked it up and at least went out to O'Hara's with them to have a few drinks. He's a pretty cool guy and we all had a good time and some laughs. I went back to the Rector Peset feeling real good (not from alcohol or anything, just a good mood), but that was short lived when i had to deal with more shit from my roommate Vu. Just stupid questions and comments he makes toward me that start to chap my khakis. We're polar opposites and he just doesn't get me, or me get him. But whatever, can't do anything about it.

We really are the "Bad News Bears" of the league (3/7)

2010-03-20T11:32:00.000-07:00

Woke up in the morning NOT feeling like P. Diddy. Instead having a major hangover and having to go play a baseball game for the University of Valencia in about an hour. I somehow managed to drag myself out of bed, pop in the shower, put on my uniform and walk down to the baseball field for the game. Needless to say, doing warmup exercises and stretches before the game didn't exactly help my condition. Before i continue, i need to clarify something about this university baseball team--we are literally the Bad News Bears in an older and Spanish form:

Our uniforms are a of a poor material, we wheel out our equipment in a Mercadona shopping cart, our bats are older and have warn off grips and dents in them, we don't have any batting gloves, and for this game, because some of the players were up Bilbao with their semi-pro/club team and all the other Americans from our group who are on the team were out of town, we had to use 3 sixteen year olds who our coach coaches on another team. The use of non-university students made the game unofficial since we officially forfeited, but who cares. The other teams have nice uniforms, top-of-the-line equipment, and everything. It's really kind of funny. Oh, and then there's the fact that our team SUCKS. All of this equals....The Bad News Bears....but i wouldn't have it any other way.

So the game got going with me starting in the "hot corner" (3rd base). Our pitcher, Nacho (yes, that's his name), isn't the best. For example, he walked 2 of the first 4 batters he faced, then gave up a grandslam to the 5th batter. First inning, no outs, no one on base (anymore...), 5 batters later, and we're already down 5-0. Me and Jose, our shortstop, just looked over at each other and couldn't help but laugh. We somehow made it out of that inning only giving up one more run. I batted 4th and got walked in the 2nd inning for my first at bat. After the 2nd inning, i had a choice: be miserable for the rest of the game or throw up and hope i feel better....i chose the latter. I went over away from our bench and just forced myself to throw up. The game got much much better after that. I started feeling better and having a lot of fun. By the end of the 6th inning they were up 12-2 and that's when i stopped counting. But that's also when the best parts of the game happened. I moved from 3rd to left field. I had the best hit for the team in the 7th inning (that should tell you how bad the team is) and i made solid contact and drove it into left field. Then, in the 8th inning, we had to use one of our 16 year olds as pitcher because Nacho left. His second pitch and he beans the batter in the head. We had all been joking around since the game got out of hand and both teams knew it, so we had been jarring and joking and stuff so the guy who got hit pretended to rush the mound and he picked up the pitcher and put him over his shoulder and spun him around. It was all good fun. Then, 2 batters later, one of their players lined on through shortstop and 3rd base and he was taking his sweet time and just jogging to 1st base cause he thought he had a base hit. Well once i saw the ball hit the ground off the bat, i started charging in from left field and i picked it up and threw a great ball to first to get him out. The entire bench for the other team went nuts and started whistling and cheering and making fun of their guy too. It was an awesome time, once i started to feel better, and i'm so glad i got to play that day.

Got back from the game and passed out. Woke up just before dinner and Kristen had told me that she and Nikki had wanted to go out for dinner and asked me if i wanted to come, so i did. We went to this Mexican restaurant close by in this other barrio. We had never been there before and it was really nice. It was really low key, good music, great food, and i got some cheap, good beer--Dos Equis (XX). We ordered some chips with queso, guacamole, and bean dip...fuckin delicious. Nikki got some enchiladas, i got some pork dish, and i don't remember what Kristen got, but she liked hers too. Was a good meal before our week of cramming for our Negocios test.

Blood, Sweat, and Tequila (3/6)

2010-03-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

Woke up and was pretty unproductive until around lunchtime. Me, Grateful Dave, Dave G., and D. White (David White) did some stuff and then decided to head on down to Mercadona and the botanical gardens. We walked down to the botanical gardens and got in free with our ISIC (International Student ID) Card...finally this thing is starting to pay dividends. It was pretty cool and really relaxing. There are plants from all over the world and it's nestled in this part of town and inside these huge walls and you wouldn't realize it if you didn't really know about it. The two parts i liked the best were the cactus garden and this one greenhouse. The green house had some cool plants and stuff, but it was the motion-sensored sounds that were the coolest. As you walked by each plant, the motion sensors would set off the speakers to play the sound of water running off the plant and each one had a unique and different sound. When a few of them got playing together at the same time it made a cool beat and rhythm. The cactus garden was pretty sick too. There were so many types of cactus in different shapes and colors. I went to grab an agave plant and it ended up giving me a little cut with its teeth it has on the edges and so then i decided to something a little crazy and wierd...sign my name in blood on it. Ya, that's what i said. I'm not 100% sure why i did this at the time, or even now, but i did it. I kept squeezing out more blood and signed my initials on the agave leaf. We left the botanical gardens and went to Mercadona to go on a snack run. We bought like half the stock of their Principes (these Spanish cookies that are like heroine in cookie form) and some other snacks and tore into them when we got back to the Rector.

We wanted to go out big on this night since we didn't before, so we looked up a few discotecas and decided we'd go to this one called Las Animas down near the beach. We started pregaming and i may or may not have literally drank a half of a bottle of tequila...oh wait, definately did. Not the smartest decision i've ever made. So we were all pregaming and then Luis came in and told us that Laura, who he is there visiting for the weekend, went to Castellon without him. So somehow he got pawned off on us and ended up coming with us to Las Animas. We took a cab there and got there and paid 18 EUROS to get in. It was damn expensive, but i was almost to a blackout stage so i didn't really care at the time. It was definately a cool club though. We had a blast. We danced and partied and partook in some shenanigans and tomfoolery. It was a good time. Me and Dave G. left at around 5:30am and everyone else left within the next hour. Everyone except Luis that is. The next morning he told us that he fell asleep on one of the couches there and got his jacket stolen and stayed at the club until it closed at around 8:30. Since he didn't have any money left, he RAN back from the club to the Rector Peset. I can't tell you how ridiculous that is. A) He's not from Valencia. We've been here 2+ months and i wouldn't even know how to get back. B) That club is FAAAR away. Like a few miles. We all found it hilarious that he did that. An event like that usually signifies that it was a good night.

Coming 'round the mountain...kinda (3/5)

2010-03-18T11:22:00.001-07:00

Me and Suze had wanted to go hiking for a long time since we got here to Valencia, so finally we decided to actually do something about it and find out some info and plan the trip. Me, Suze, Kristen, and Grateful Dave (Dave G. was gonna come too, but he was feeling the effects of the previous night a little too much) walked over to the bus station and caught the 10am bus to this tiny little po-dunk town about 40 miles north of Valencia called Segorbe. The bus dropped us off there in the middle of town and nowhere close to a trail or anything so we were a little confused. We asked some of the locals about the national park or hiking trails and they looked at us like we were crazy and would say things like "We don't have any around here" (but in Spanish of course). So we just decided to walk towards some of the mountains. On the way, we found this sign that said the trails were this way and we followed it...and we were wrong. That sign essentially just lead us out of the city, across the highway, and to these private orange groves. So not giving a fuck, we trespassed and decided to be our own trailblazers and carve out our own trail in the mountain.

(Me, Kristen, and Grateful Dave trailblazin) (Suze and Kristen enjoying the view)

It was awesome. We were pushing our way through branches, jumping gaps, climbing over rocks...it was great to get back to something i love to do back in Georgia. Not to mention to be out in the fresh air doing it was birlliant. So we climbed to the top of this one mountain and had lunch on these large clusters of rocks. It was great view and another one of those surreal moments where you just gotta stop, step back, and appreciate what you're doing: Eating a packed lunch on top of a mountain in Spain. It was awesome. After we hung out at the top and enjoyed the view, we made our way back down the mountain, which was a wee bit more tricky than going up it.

(We found some little marker thing) (Eatin lunch on top of the rock)

On the way back into Segorbe, Suze and Kristen said i should go jump in this big ass fountain they had just on the outskirt of town. It really doesn't take a whole lot to convince me to do something like that: slim chance of injury or getting in trouble, no damage to anything, something funny...no problem. So i hopped in there, fuck that water was cold, sloshed around a bit, climbed this thing in the middle and putzed on there for a bit and then got back out. No harm, no foul. Headed back into Segorbe and caught the bus back to Valencia in time for a good solid afternoon nap.

(Eyeing up the fountain) (Gettin on in it)

We were too tired to really go out that night and have a big night, so we went to O'Hara's with Laurita and her friend Luis. We had a good night with them just shooting the shit, hanging out, and having a few drinks. Me, Laurita, and Joe talked for most of the night and she continued to help us with our Spanish as we helped her with her English. Solid day and relaxed night. Can't ask for much more.

"You're like Kareem Abdul Jabar..." (3/4)

2010-03-17T11:51:00.000-07:00

We had a three day weekend this weekend so most people headed off somewhere out of the country: a group went to Dusseldorf, Germany and the majority went to Paris. So there were a few of us left over for the weekend in Valencia.

(Dave G. gettin ready) (Grateful Dave skateboarding, using a cane, and drinking...that's talent)

I wasn't planning on going out that night, but Dave G. had gotten some tickets for this DJ show in the Plaza del Torros that he wanted to go to, so he and Dave M. ("Grateful Dave") managed to convince me to come along with a singular sentence. As they were trying to coerce me, Grateful Dave said to me, "If you come, think of it like this: You're like Kareem Abdul Jabar subbing in for some white guy." That was all it took and i was up and ready to go. If a statement and comparison like that doesn't get you going, you must not be human. So me and the two Daves pregamed in the room and shot the shit, then it was time to head out. We walked down to the Plaza del Toros and didn't really see anything that resembled a party going on and were a little confused. So we just decided to walk into the plaza to see. Apparently there is such a thing as being too fashionably late because they were tearing everything down and packing up the stages. We were shocked. It was only 12:30am and the thing had well been over. This is Spain, shit is supposed to start at like 2am not die an hour and a half before. So to salvage the trip, we took some pics inside the plaza and headed out.

(The concert we were gonna go to) (A solid handshake between me and Grateful Dave)

This is where the night started to just get plain wierd...on our way out, we ran into this group of 4 Spanish girls and 2 Spanish guys. I'm not exactly sure how, but we started talking and hanging out with the Spanish girls and they told us that the two guys weren't with them and to not get close to them because they would try and rob us. A bit dodgy, yes? So we literally were talking with them for like 2 hours and just messing about and we finally decided to head back home. So as me and Dave G. (Grateful Dave had left about an hour earlier) were walking home, this guy who was drunk as ever starts talking to us and telling us we needed to go to this bar nearby (which apparently was the gay bar). So as Dave continued to talk to him, i had to go take a leak, so i disappeared behind Las Lonjas and relieved my self and came back and they were still talking. His friend came up and essentially apologized and told us the same thing about going to this club. At the end of it all, Dave gave him his e-mail and we went and got some Doner Kebab before we called it a night back at the Rector Peset (dorms). Strangest night in Valencia by far.

I actually have to do work for school over here? (3/1-3/3)

2010-03-10T03:47:00.000-08:00

Not a whole lot happened these three days cause i was swamped with schoolwork, so we'll go with quick Reader's Digest version and save some pain.

(3/1)
Had class, i was really tired. Took a nap, blogged a bit, and went and watched the Mezcleta (spanish word for fireworks) in the Plaza de Ayuntamiento to officially signal the beginning of preparation for Las Fallas. The only difference here is that these fireworks aren't meant to look pretty, they are meant to blow out your freakin ear drums. They are so loud that they can be heard all over the city. Started to realized and think how wierd it was that we were now halfway through with the program...Stop...don't...don't wanna think about it.

(3/2-3/3)
Had a lot of homework and assignments this week. Had to do a presentation and write a paper for my Historia class on these movies. That basically consumed those two days.

Resacas Re-suck. Adios Barca (2/28)

2010-03-10T03:41:00.000-08:00

Woke up drunk again and thoroughly enjoyed my final breakfast at that hotel. Then it was time to get on the bus and head back to Valencia. During the 5 hr bus ride there were moans and groans as the group recovered from their previous night and tried to reassure their livers that all would be well someday. Kristen was hurting pretty bad and used me as a pillow for the majority of the trip and then eventually had to just lay down in the aisle. Taylor (girl) was also pretty out of it cause she had had a rough night as well. My hangover didn't kick in until we stopped at a rest stop and i started walking around outside...ugh. Then it kicked into overdrive for the next hour, but it eventually went away.

Got back to the Colegio and napped, ate, and then started working on some homework. Kristen came down to my room and we worked on our negocios business letters. She got to experience first hand the power of Vu's snoring, and trust me when i say that his snoring is like a chainsaw on steroids. I don't know how something that loud can come out of an asian man that small. Go figure. She gained a little perspective on what i go through regularly with this man.

Barcelona: Day/Night 2 -- Part 2 (2/27)

2010-03-05T13:23:00.001-08:00

(This car wash-esque maze of shower heads that were both hot and cold at the spa)

...Me, Sean, and Hope decided that since school in Valencia is so hard and we're constantly under stress and ridiculous deadlines (biggest overstatement ever), that we should treat ourselves to an afternoon at the hotel spa. Now before you get ahead of me, it wasn't like facials and massages and shit like that, it was a big fuckin jacuzzi with like 100 different jets, in one section of the jacuzzi you could lay down on this bed of jets, had a steam room infused with eucalyptus extracts (whatever that's supposed to do for you...), a sauna, these showers with 20 different shower heads and you could control which of them you wanted on and depending upon which heads you chose, the shower would change colors. All in all, it was pretty damn sweet. We were there just living it up. We had the whole thing to ourselves and we felt like a million dollars. It was extremely relaxing and well worth it.

(The giant jacuzzi)(Showers that changed colors: Sean in the left, me in the right)

Got done with the spa, took a nap, and then it was time to venture out for dinner. We had seen a KFC by the hotel before and settled on that because...well...what's better than fried chicken, cole slaw, mac and cheese, and biscuits in Spain? Answer: Nothing. Well we struck out HARD there cause they had zero biscuits and zero mac and cheese. What kind of business are they running there without those staples?! So we decided to head to the next most American place we could find--Subway. It was delicious, just like back in the U.S. of A. Went back to the hotel, took another nap, and had no idea what kind of shitstorm awaited me later in the night.

(Me making phone calls in the bathtub) (Using Hope's headband as an eyepatch)

So we started to pregame in Hope's room and i decided to dive into the tequila a bit...then a bit more...then a bit more, and before i knew it, Irish Ryan came back out to play. Not to mention, and i'm not overly proud of this, i went out on Hope's balcony (fyi, all the balconies on the floor are connected and you can essentially walk down to other people's rooms via them) and walk about 3 rooms down to the left and just take a pee right there on the balcony. Not over it, not in some corner of it, but in front of some random person's room. Whoever's room/balcony that was, i'd like to extend my sincerest apologies. I also ended up calling people from the bathtub in her room and apparently told Grace Choi (she's asian if you couldn't tell by the last name) that she was my favorite black person and that my name was now Timothy. There is a lovely video of my phone calls and other shenanigans on Facebook if you care to laugh at me for it. Finally, Me, Sean, and Hope headed out to this college bar we had heard about called l'Ovella Negra (Catalan for The Black Sheep). It was very cool, not like college bars at home--this place was HUGE. It had that great homey feeling like we were regulars, but had so much freakin space and a few different rooms with tables, benches, and big ass booths. We met up with Laura (Trickmaster), Dave, Austin, Alex, Caroline, Ashley and Stockton there and all had some beers. They left to head to Razzmatazz, and we bought a couple of .5 liter mugs and called it a night around 3:30am and headed back to the hotel to drink some more and mingle with the people who had come back already.

(Laura, Me and Sean at l'Ovella Negra)(Greg, Hope, Me, and Sean in front of a dumpster...not sure why)

That was about it for day/night two in Barcelona. Not overly wild, minus the shenanigans during the pregame, but a good and mellow night with friends and a few drinks. Barca was an overall awesome experience. I wouldn't want to live there or study abroad there, but a great place to visit for a few days or a week. Valencia > Barcelona.

Barcelona: Day/Night 2 -- Part 1 (2/27)

2010-03-02T13:56:00.000-08:00

(Morning the day before) (Suze at breakfast and feeling stellar about the previous night)

Woke up fairly early (9am) and reluctantly and walked myself down to breakfast at the hotel. Luckily, i was still drunk so there were no immediate repercussions from the previous night. It was funny to see everyone straggle in and sit down at the tables, most were still drunk as well. The breakfast there was brilliant though. They had an omelet station, real meat, eggs, hashbrowns, fresh fruit, fresh juice, cold milk, good pastries, yogurt...it was a slice of heaven. Breakfast was spent cracking jokes and cueing people in on various events from the previous night that they may have not remembered. Then at 10am, it was time to head off to our city bus tour.

We had a chartered bus tour for about 4 hours throughout Barcelona. It went through the main parts of the city and up to the parks in the hills. The highlights of the tour, or at least for me, were seeing the different types of architecture in the city and how the buildings contrasted each other. Some were older cathedrals or plazas, some had contemporary flare, and some were just abstract and awesome (like the waterfall/whatever sculpture). In a nutshell, although it was cloudy and drizzling rain that morning, Barcelona is a beautiful city. The best parts of the tour were when we stopped off to visit Gaudi's Park Guell, a park that he designed, and Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, his masterpiece of a cathedral/church that will literally leave you speechless. On to talking about Park Guell:

(Me, Liza, and David) (Hope, Sean, Liza, Joe, and Me in a hole)

Park Guell was essentially this place that looked like a mix between Disney World, Alice in Wonderland, Avatar, and basically any other fantasy land you could imagine. The planning of how things were carved into the rock/hills, the architecture of the buildings/houses there, the attention to the most minute detail, all of it was extremely impressive. It was an awesome place to get to visit. It just made me, as well as all of us, that much more impressed with Gaudi. We actually saw Gaudi's house where he lived at, played around in these little "caves", watched all these street performers do their thing in park, putzed around all over, and took God knows how many pictures. Me and Dave went up into these little houses that looked like they fell out of Candyland and into the gift shop and we found the greatest treasure of all....BATMAN BARCELONA. There was this book and comic book about Batman and his crime fighting in Barcelona (trust me, there's enough of it there to keep him busy for the rest of his life). On the cover, he was pirched on top of the Sagrada Familia. It was pretty priceless. When we all finished up at Park Guell, we hopped back on the bus and headed over to the Sagrada Familia...

(One side of the Sagrada Familia, depicts the Nativity Scene from the Bible)

As i said before, the Sagrada Familia is right up there and tied with the Vatican/St. Peter's Basilica for my favorite buildings i have ever seen. Time for a fun fact: The Sagrada Familia was Gaudi's masterpiece and was to be his final work. However, he died before it was completed. Then, during the Spanish Civil war in the 30's, anarchists took his drafts and blueprints and burned them. All that remains are two sketches of the finished product. For the last 50+ years, construction has been continuing on the Sagrada Familia, yet no one is for sure when it will finish or how it will end up. Architecture's best minds are in the works of trying to figure out how Gaudi himself would have finished it and to try and build it that way. For example, right now there are only 8 towers around the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi wanted 18: 12 for the disciples, 4 for the evangelists, 1 for the Virgin Mary, and 1 for Jesus. He also wanted each tower to play a different note, like an organ, when the wind blew through it, but since the plans for that were lost, that concept has been abandoned. Gaudi himself is buried inside; as it should be, because that place is amazing. The detail is stagering, the designs are so perfect, i love how he gives the people on the church squared and gothic faces/bodies instead of trying to make them more human-like. You just have to see it, it truly is a masterpiece.

(The crusifiction scene on another side) (The ongoing construction on the Sagrada Familia)

We finished up at the Sagrada Familia and headed back to FresCo for lunch, another brilliant pig-out session, and then back to the hotel. We had a few choices from there: 1) Go to the Picasso Museum, 2) Go back to Sagrada Familia and get to see the inside of it, or 3) Walk around and explore. Me, Sean, and Hope chose a different option all together, and it was GLORIOUS...

Barcelona: Day/Night 1 (2/26)

2010-03-01T13:21:00.000-08:00

Hopped on the bus right after school and we had a delicious 5+ hour ride up to Barcelona. We got to the hotel and it was straight ridiculous. It started off on a good note because i didn't have to room with Vu and i was again reunited with my Madrid homies, Austin and Joe. The rooms were huge and so nice. It had a bathroom with shower in it that just yelled, "Please have sex in me!". It was so spacious and had one of those huge shower heads in the cieling that just rain down on you. Brilliant hotel room. We settled in and then everyone met down in the lobby for dinner at this all-you-can-eat buffet places called FresCo. I'm pretty sure we caused them to take a net loss for that night because we all ate way more food than what we paid for, but it was heaven and it really hit the spot.

(Irish Ryan came out to play)

Once we got back to the hotel, we all showered up, got ready, and started to pregame. I pregamed a little harder than usual knowing that tonight would be fairly expensive with the bar and discoteca we were going to. In hindsight, i can 100% say that i stand by my actions and what occurred on that night...however random or influenced by alcohol they may have been. After all the pregaming, we decided it was time to head out to Chupitos. Just before we headed out, i had reached that level of drunk where i start to talk in my Irish accent (i don't know why, it just happens) and Irish Ryan decided to come out to play. Oh, but i wasn't the only one. British Grace, and Scottish Brittany also decided to come along for the ride. So the three of us continued to talk in our accents for a long time, i can remember that i kept talking in mine until about an hour after we got to the discoteca. So we got to Chupitos and waited for a little bit outside before we could get in, cause it's a tiny ass place. For starters, Chupito is the Spanish word for a shot (of alcohol). This bar was pretty damn cool; it only serves shots. It's got hundreds of different kinds of shots and all were fairly cheap and very cool to see made or taken (as evidence from the picture above). It's also a bar that will really take you to the next level of drunkness because you wanna take more shots to see more cool things, but at the same time you have to remember that you're taking shots of alcohol and these will all sneak up on you later in the night. Me and Suze decided to have some shots together. Suze asked for "el mejor chupito con fuego" (the best shot you have with fire) and that's what we apparently got. I still don't know the name of it, but it was damn cool. They set a hollowed out half of an orange on top of a shot glass filled with some type of alcohol, then filled the orange with something and lit it all on fire. Next, the bartender gave us each a straw and told us we had to suck up the shot in the orange with the straw, while we did this i think she massage/scratched our heads or she at least did something with our head/face, i can at least remember that much. Then we took the shot of what was in the shot glass. It was pretty darn strong, but a fun shot.

("El mejor chupito con fuego") (The swishing stage of the Black Widow)

I was talking with this French guy next to me and he told me that the shot i took was girly and i need to take a more manly shot (this is evidence of how drunk i was for 2 reasons: 1) When he asked where i was from, i told him Ireland. I was that into my Irish Ryan phase. 2) I let a French guy convince me something he took was less girly than what i took). So i of course bellied up to the bar and took a terminator. It was pretty basic, just looked like some colors swirled together in a shot, but it hit you and made your throat feel fuzzy. Then he suggested another shot called the Black Widow, which Suze and I unfortunately decided to act upon. The bartender mixed a red and blue mixture together in a shot. Then she said we had to take the shot, hold it in our mouths and swish it around for 10 sec. Well, we took the shot and swished it around, but she made us hold it in there for more like 30 seconds and it wasn't an easy thing to do. After she said to swallow, she told us to pause and then take a deep breath in. UGH...it did not sit well. The deep breath made our throats burn/itch/feel like they were rubbed raw...we have since coined it "Death in shot form" (as Suzanne can truly attest to). As you can tell from the progression of pictures, it really didn't taste all too pleasant. Shortly after, we left Chupitos.

(After the actual Black Widow shot) (the deep breath stage...my face explains it all)

We hopped in a cab, which are incredibly expensive in Barcelona by the way, and headed over to what is supposed to be the premiere discoteca in Barcelona--Razzmatazz. This place was huge: it had 5 floors and each floor had a few different rooms each playing different music. Unfortunately, you have to have an ID in order to get in (completely opposite of every other place we've ever been in Spain or Europe) and sadly Brittany, Taylor (girl), and Grace didn't bring one, so we missed them that night. While me, Caroline, and Taylor (guy) were in line, this huge fight broke out next to the line and the guys were going ape-shit. It seemed like one guy tried to steal something from someone and then the guy and his friends started beating on the guy, then like 4 other guys came to help out the guy and it turned into this huge thing. Was fairly entertaining to watch while we were in line, but also a little scary considering the security of Razzmatazz did absolutely nothing. If people in our group had gotten into a fight, it would have been a last-man-standing contest. So we got in and met up with Kristen, Suze, Sean, Hope, and Eliza and got to dancing. We explored all the levels to see what they had to offer. At some point while we were on the 4th floor, Kristen realized a strap on her shoe had broke, so she and i had the brilliant idea of me chewing some gum and trying to fix it that way. It worked well for about 3 minutes and then it just went to hell. Guess we watched too much TV as kids. At one point, me and Kristen decided to go back down to the main floor to dance and were dancing for maybe 2 minutes before all the lights went out. We were a bit thrown off, then all these lights came on and music started blasting and we turned to see this band playing a concert on the main stage. Awesome. They're music was pretty good too. They sang in English and sounded like The Killers a bit, wish i would have gotten their name. A few songs into the concert, Sean, Hope, and Liza joined us down there and we realized that it might be a good time to go looking for Suze. Oh ya, at some point during the night and during Suze's extreme drunkeness, she disappeared. So as the night was slowly winding down, me and Sean decided to do a sweep of the whole place to try and find her. As we were heading out from the room on the top floor, there was this huge bottleneck traffic jam of people all trying to go in and out of these 2 little doors. We were stuck on the stairs heading out and we were being pushed and pulled and then i guess the people at the top who were trying to come in gave a huge push and it sent everyone backwards and one guy on the stairs in front of me lost his balance and went flying back and clocked me in the eye with his elbow. That felt great (sarcasm, in case you couldn't tell). So we finished up the sweep with no dice and headed back downstairs and grabbed everyone and left and went back to the hotel.

(My mystery gash on my knee) (The next day. Can't see it too well in this pic, but the black eye is there)
Me, Sean, and Kristen got out of the cab and were walking back to the hotel and we were praying that Suze would be there. We were gonna be ready to go out on a search party for her if she wasn't. Luckily, we opened the door to Kristen and her hotel room and there she was, sleeping like a lost sheep who we had just found and would return to the flock (or like a blackout girl from the US who was lost in a foreign country and would be back w/ her friends). So we huddled around her and listened to her as she spoke nonsense and half cried/laughed. Me and Sean decided to write her notes to read in the morning so she could get a feel for what happened. Then we all spooned for a little bit to celebrate and went off to bed. What a night...

I love picking fights with Belgians. ¡AMUNT VALENCIA! (2/25)

2010-03-01T06:05:00.000-08:00

Brilliant day/night, can't be stressed enough.

Culture class was great. We turned in our Gimkhana answers and got to sample some of the fruits of our labor...literally. Part of the Gimkhana was to pick up these foods from the market and bring them to class, so we got to sample all of them in class. I tried raw Tiger Nuts (the nuts used in the drink Horchata), some cured sausage (pretty damn good), these marzapan and chocolate candy bricks or something (not the best tasting thing in the world), and some other treats. Was a nice change of pace and good to get to eat some of the local and country's cuisine while talking about it. After culture class, i decided to bail and skip my history class because it was such a nice day out and i didn't want to watch the black and white movie we were watching in class. So i came back to the Colegio and headed up to the roof w/ Sean, Kristen, Britt, Liza, and we were joined later by Suze, Diego, Austin, Joe and some others. Now on the roof, there is the main roof, which is very very spacious, and then there's this other little deck amongst the A/C units and stuff that you have to take a ladder to get up to. Me and Sean decided to head up there and took my laptop up there to jam out to some tunes. It was great. Just relaxing and sitting in the sun while your favorite jams play. It was another one of those moments where when I stood out on the rail, overlooking the rooftops of Valencia, the sun shining on my face, and i couldn't help but to think about how surreal this experience is and how truly blessed i am to have an opportunity like this. Left the roof cause it was time for our weekly game of soccer. It was a blast as always. I can whole-heartedly say that the weekly soccer game with everyone is always one of the best parts of the week. I look forward to it every week. After the game, me, Diego, Sean, Taylor, and Scott ran back to the Colegio because we had to get ready for another soccer game...

(Diego, Taylor, Greg, Me w/ Manolo...he's a LEGEND in Spain) (1. In the Mestalla, you don't whistle. 2. In the Mestalla, you get wild.)

The location: La Mestalla, Valencia, Spain. The teams: Valencia C.F. v. Bruges K.V. The time: 20:05 Kickoff. The Situation: Bruges leads 1-0 on aggregate after the first leg in Bruges. Valencia needs to win by at least 2 goals in order to progress in the EUROPA CUP.

After getting all decked out in my Valencia jersey and scarf and making my pregame water bottle of whiskey and coke, me, Taylor (guy), and Taylor (girl) took a cab to La Mestalla and finished up our drinks while we were in line buying tickets. Next, we met up with Diego, Greg and Austin at Manolo's, our usual hangout before every Valencia game, for a beer before the game and to soak up the atmosphere. There were a good number of Bruges supporters there and they were chanting the usual: "C'mon Bruges", "You'll never win the cup", "We love you Bruges, we do, We love you Bruges, we do...". I got to talking to this one fellow from Bruges and told him about me going to Belgium and he was telling me about all these things to do in Brussels and Bruges. So we traded info and he said that if i make it over to Brugges, he and his wife would gladly show me around the city. We finished up our beers, i said good luck to Heink (Belgian dude), and we headed off towards the stadium to get into our seats.

The atmosphere of a European cup tie is insane. You can feel something in the air and it makes people go crazy. For example, after we took our seats, which were right below the Bruges supporters, they kept jarring at us and chanting and stuff. So, in an attempt to be friendly, i started talking to some of them about me going to Brussels and asking what i should do there...they didn't even want to hear it. They kept chirping at me and some folks told me to sit down and shut it, so i felt no remorse whatsoever when Mata scored the first goal for us 48 seconds into the game and i decided to do some jarring right back at them and occasionally let a little birdie or two fly. That's when things started going a little south: They started chunking beer and sunglasses (sunglasses of all things. i mean come on...) at us, so the police/security guards decided to move us down a few rows to some available seats...BONUS. Back to the game, so after the goal, we were up 1-0 in the game and things were tied up 1-1 on aggregate. One more goal was all we needed to progress. We had the run of play and the better chances, but we didn't get that goal. So we headed to Extra time. 6 minutes into the first half of Extra time, Pablo drilled a low shot into the bottom left corner and just out of reach of the keepers finger tips. 2-0 in the game and 2-1 on aggregate. Bruges never really threatened after that and we went on to ice it with another goal in the second half of Extra time. Valencia 3 - Bruges 0, 3-1 on aggregate. Sweet victory and we're on to the Quarterfinals where German Bundesliga team Werder Bremen awaits us. Awesome time at the game and a damn fine experience.

After the game, we headed back towards school and decided we should stop in to O'Hara's for a drink or two. There we talked with Laurita, Ana, and Danny and had a couple drinks with them. We helped Laura with her English and she helped us with our Spanish. We talked about pickup lines in America and Spain and our bad hookups. It was some good fun and the ending to a great day and night.

"She was about a buck fifty..." (2/23-2/24)

2010-02-28T16:17:00.000-08:00

First off, i know i'm a bit behind on this bloggage, but i'm gonna make it up in the next couple of days.

(2/23)
Much love to my old man on this day cause it was his birthday and he gained yet another year, so i gave him a call and shot him an e-mail too to wish him well and joke with him about how old he was getting. Love you Dad. Otherwise, today was pretty dull and uneventful. Went to the train stationn to find out about what route and how long it was gonna take us to ride the train up to Dublin. Found out it's gonna take us a cool 22 hours. Haha. Sorry, you just have to laugh to keep yourself from thinking about how uncomfortable that may be. But at the same time that should be a lot of fun and a good experience to mess around on a train for a full day basically. Then, the usual pretty much happened the rest of the day: meals, homework, putzing around on the internet, hanging around with people in the dorm, and finally bed.

(2/24)
Only had my negocios (business) class today and that was pretty fun. We went over questions that could be asked to you in an interview, and somehow it turned into a show-and-tell of our little bad habits and talents. It was a good class. After i got back from class, i put all my clothes in the laundry so i'd have some clean and smoke-free clothes to wear for the trip to Barcelona this weekend. After, i figured i'd head up to the roof of the Colegio to do some reading of my Environmental and Natural Resources Economics textbook (it's about as much fun as it sounds). However, it was pretty damn windy and only got about 10 pages into the chapter before i had had enough of the wind blowing around the pages and went back inside. Me and Sean finished up our part of the Gimkhana (scavenge hunt) for our culture class and met up with our group to put together the presentation. Well, we eventually got the presentation put together, but not before we had a little tomfoolery and fun. I'm not exactly sure how it started, it think someone was eating an orange out on the balcony and threw a slice at a bus or something. Then i saw that Leah had some bananas in her room, so i grabbed one and started breaking off pieces and throwing them in a backward arching motion up on Hope/Molly's and Kristen/Suzanne's balconies. I was trying to get them to stick to the sliding doors of their balconies, but no dice. Later, Taylor (guy) came out to smoke on Austin's balcony so i started chunking banana at him and then before i know it, me, Sean, Grace, Chelsea, and Nicki are all chunking banana pieces at cars and buses. Gimkhana is a dangerous thing when raw fruit is around.

It being a Wednesday night and all and us not wanting to really go out, we did what has become a norm here and popped a bottle of wine and told some somewhat embarrassing stories. We made the, now coined, Naranja (pronounced like it sounds, not using Spanish accents but heavy American ones) which is red wine, Fanta Naranja, and some orange slices. So we downed that and primarily focused on bad hookup stories. One of mine that i told included the, now infamous story at home, night i suited up, spurned a very attractive Sigma Kappa in my drunken stooper and went home with a rather...what's the word i'm looking for?...in all honesty she was dressed pretty slutty, and weighed about a buck fifty (150 lbs or at least by my calculations, i don't know) and then had to take my suit to the cleaners the next day. Not my finest night and one that i'm overly proud of. Luckily for me, my story wasn't the worst at all. We kept shooting the shit and sippin our wine for the rest of the night. One of those good mellow nights at the Colegio.

Naps and Gimkhana vs Gymkhana 2.1 (2/21-2/22)

2010-02-24T08:28:00.000-08:00

(2/21)
Woke up at around 1:15pm today, a fully respectable hour considering i didn't go to bed until 7:15am. I ate lunch and thus began the day full of naps and rarely leaving my bed. I think i took a total of 3 naps that day and left my bed only for meals, a couple showers, and to make myself some tea and refill my water bottle (Don't judge me...). I worked on my blog from the days that i was behind before. Watched some movies on Ch. 131 and my DVD of Y Tu Mama Tambien. Much love to my good buddy Mr. Kristopher Rollins for enlightening me and giving me the rundown on Citizen Cope's new album, so i went ahead and downloaded that. I highly recommend y'all do the same. Also finished downloading the last songs from The Modern Skirts new (being a relative term) album. They're a band from Athens and they are awesome (especially live), so show them some love and check out their tunes. That was basically the day in a nutshell.

(2/22)
I reluctantly went to class and turned in my Spanish resume for my business class. Then i had the pleasure of returning to school later at 4:30pm for my Literatura class and its new Monday schedule (sarcasm folks). Got back and me and Sean worked on our Gimkhana (Spanish word for scavenger hunt) for our Cultura class. We also dove in and studied the art of Gymkhana 2.1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ48NQjouoE). It's a solid/funny video if you're a Rob Dyrdek fan and watch(ed) Rob and Big or Fantasy Factory on MTV. Finished up about half of our Gimkhana for class. Later, i got to talk to my folks and a few of my friends from home. Spent like literally 2 1/2 hours making phone calls from Skype. Was really good to hear from them and get to talk to them about what's been going on here and back at home. We had our group meeting and talked about what we're gonna be doing on our trip this weekend to Barcelona. Unfortunately we're only gonna have 2 nights and 1 day there, but we always make the most of it. Did some more homework and watched some episodes of Boy Meets World on YouTube before i went to bed. Nothing overly exciting these past two days.

Wine Tasting and Rumble in the Rumbo (2/20)

2010-02-22T09:51:00.000-08:00

Woke up for the day trip to Requena, a small city about an hour West of Valencia. We were going there to go to this bodega (winery/distillery) and then to these ancient caves that had cave drawings and everything in them from many many years B.C. We took a bus out there and headed to Coviñas winery to tour the facilities and have a little wine tasting session. It was essentially a big, fancy, state-of-the-art garage with hundreds (maybe thousands) of casks and bottles of wine. We saw the huge tanks where it's processed and bottled too. After we finished touring the facilities, our guide took us to a special room they had set up with snacks and little tables for the wine tasting. They gave us this blush wine first, which i wasn't a big fan of at all. It had a bit of a bite at the end. Next, they offered us tinto (red wine) or blanco (white wine). I chose the tinto. It was fairly good, it wasn't like it was their most classy one or from their private stock, it was their basement dweller and most basic/low-class (just how i like 'em). I felt like such an aristocrat being at a wine tasting, not really, but we joked as if we were. Me, Sean, and Chelsea joked about our "portfolios and 401Ks". After the tasting was over, i decided to buy a bottle of the tinto there for 2.55 Euros and take it back to the Colegio to have a special pregame with before we went out that night.

We left the winery a bit late and missed the last tour of the caves, so instead we went walking around Requena. Since it was the last day of Carnaval, there was a minor Carnaval festival going on in the town's center and a market too. There was this group of college students dressed up as zombies, cowboys, and tourists just partying it up in the streets. It was a little awkward but funny at the same time. We kept walking around and got lost...as usual. We ended up in this completely vacant junkyard/parking lot at one point and that's when Aitor decided we should retrace our steps to find our way back to the train station. Along the walk though we saw some nice fountains and churches/cathedrals. I reached another level in my Gargoyling career. There was this huge cathedral doors and these statues on the sides and one in the middle, all were like 10 feet off the ground resting on these stoops. Well on the other side of the cathedral, it was the same thing, but some of the statues were gone, so Dave and Sean gave me a boost up to the middle perch between the two huge doors and there i officially turned into a real gargoyle. Solid effort from the team. We decided to take the train back to Valencia and we had a bit of time to kill before the train came so we went to Mercadona to pick up a couple Kinder Eggs (so good, but i get 'em for the toys) and then to this cafe where i got the deal of the trip and possibly the century: Two delicious, good-sized tapas and a Heineken for 2 EUROS. What a steal! The lady even gave me a to-go cup for my beer cause we had to go...dynamite.

Once we got back i took a nap after dinner until like 10pm, then it was time to start getting ready and making the necessary arrangements before we went to the discoteca that night. Raul came through and scored us 35 passes to Rumbo. He said it was a mask party for the last night of Carnaval. Me, along with everyone else at the Colegio, bought these cheap-ass masks from Suerte Suerte for like .75 Euros. We started to rally everyone and got to drinking around 11:30 (God i love Spanish time). Dave dressed me and made me look sharp for the night by giving me one of his ties. I apparently looked like a history teacher with my tucked in button-down, rolled up sleeves, jeans, and tie (i can't deny it), but i didn't mind and i dug it. Me, Diego, Joe, and Nikki headed down to the TV room in the Colegio to hang out and drink with some of the Spaniards who were getting ready to go out with us too. It was really fun and good to get to hang and drink with them. We played "Never have i ever..." or in their case "Nunca nunca nunca he foyado...". Before long, all of us were down there interacting and drinking with the Spaniards. I hung out with Saad and Yusef, as usual, and got to meet a few more of them like Marta, Maria, Danny, Lucia, and a couple others. Me, Diego, and Taylor gave our passes to some other Spaniards who didn't have them so that they could come because apparently Raul had set a list aside for us too if we needed it. 2 am rolled around fairly quickly and then it was time to head out to Rumbo.

Took a cab to Rumbo and everyone went inside. Me, Deegs, and Taylor had to wait for the other Spaniards we put on the list to show up. Didn't wait overly long and then we joined the rest of the crew inside. It was a pretty cool discoteca. Two particular rooms for dancing: One was much larger, had the main bar, some gogo dancer cages, hired people walking around in costumes, much more dancing space, and the main DJ. The other room, which is probably where we spent most of our time dancing, was smaller, had different music than the main room, a smaller bar area, but i thought was more fun. We all started off in the main room for a bit more than an hour. Me, Kristen, and Taylor, along with a couple other people, took our ceremonial tequila shot and got to dancing. Not long after, i was talking to Maria, Marta, Danny, and Diego (some of the Spaniards who were with us), and me being drunk as nuts at the time, decided to buy all of us a round of tequila shots too. Bad move for a couple reasons. A) It got me drunker, not necessarily bad, but i could have done without it. B) I just blew 15 Euros on those shots...damn. So much for my gameplan of getting really drunk at the Colegio and not having to spend money there. A bit later, the gogo dancers in the main room left their cages/platforms and once Kristen and Suze saw that, it was all over. They were on those platforms faster than a fat kid on a cupcake. It was awesome! They were grooving and all of us UGA en Espana people were around them cheering them on. It was hilarious and cool to see. That lasted all of like a minute because the dancers came back shortly.

After a bit more time in the main room, Me, Molly, Care, Sean, David, Stockton, Diego, Suze, Grace, Kristen, and Dave went to the back room, where we remained for the large majority of the rest of the night. They played the staples that we've come to expect every single night we go out dancing: "I've Got a Feeling", "Wegue Wegue" (Portuguese dance song), "I Know You Want Me (Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro...)", etc. Then they started playing some kickass American music that we hadn't heard that often or ever in the clubs or discotecas. They played some Lady Gaga, some Michael Jackson, some Outkast...it was brilliant. We all just grooved for the rest of the night and had a fuckin great time. By the way, Molly and Suze made my night. They were a riot. They were so awesome that night with all the dancing they were doing and they were just cutting lose. Especially Suze. I remember at one point Suze got into one of her sprinting modes and she grabbed my hand and said in a very happy, upbeat, and high-energy tone, "Let's dance! You wanna dance?! Let's go dance in the main room!" And then we were off! I was swept away by one of those famous Suze sprint modes that we had heard so much about. Took us all of 3 seconds to get to the main room and we danced for like 8 min there and then Suze again was like, "Hey! Let's go back to the other room and dance there! I bet they have some new music!" And we were off again. It was brilliant. I love you Suze, your awesome attitude and energy helped make that night that much better. Slowly, but surely, people from our group started trickling out as we got into the wee hours of the morning. Me, Molly, Sean, and Stockton left the club around 5:45am because we were hot, tired, and starting to sober up. Also, earlier in the day we had seen a place that served pancakes so we of course decided to try and walk and go in search of it. After like 30 min of walking, we gave up and took a cab back to the Colegio. I ended up going to bed around 7:15am. Great night and great first discoteca experience. Lookin forward to doing it again.

Rain Delay (2/19)

2010-02-21T14:28:00.000-08:00

Woke up feeling shitty as ever. I knew i would be feeling bad, since going out while you're still a little sick always has repercussions, but i was feeling horrible. I didn't go to class...again. Kinda felt bad about it, but it's Jaume's class so i'm sure he's cool with it. Started pounding some Clarityne (Spanish spelling for Claritin), Tylenol, drinking some green tea, and napping most of the day in hopes of being solid enough for baseball practice that night.

By the time baseball practice rolled around at 8pm, it was raining again (of course) and had gotten a little chilly. Nevertheless, we made our way to the fields. We started stretching and doing warmups when the skies opened up and it started pouring so we all went inside to wait it out. After about 20 minutes, it let up enough to where we could go out and start practice. We all got re-warmed up and started throwing. The wet ball and raindrops that kept getting in our eyes made throwing a bit more difficult. We'd lose the grip on the ball and it would go sailing over someone's head or kamikaze down into the ground and roll to the person's feet. We then proceeded with the usual: some fielding work while others took batting practice. At times it can be a little boring when you're doing fielding in the outfield because you're just waiting most of the time until the ball gets hit to you.

Then it was our rotation for batting practice. We all decided that we were the equivalent of the Kekumbas in the movie Hardball because we don't have batting gloves that we can use and the grips on the bats are all pretty worn down. So anytime you make good contact with the ball, it stings your hands pretty good and you feel it after. Let's be honest, i'm not the biggest guy around, so i decided to use a smaller aluminum bat cause it's lighter and i can generate more swing speed. When i stepped up to the plate, John, one of the main coaches, joked with me and said something along the lines of, "You're gonna use that bat? That's the bat you use if you don't have any pubic hair yet." It got a good laugh out of everyone there, including myself. So i subbed in for a slighty larger bat, but still pretty small compared to the others. John gave me a little more grief when he saw i didn't choose a bat much different; that is until i started hitting. This was the best batting practice i've had since i've been here. I was getting some serious pop on the ball and generating some good bat speed. John stood corrected and said, "Guess you found yourself a winner then, huh?"

After batting practice, we did a little conditioning and stretching at the next station/rotation. Alberto, one of the trainers/players on the semi-pro team, was teaching us things in Spanish and we would in turn teach him the English. Like we went over body parts while stretching, learned the words for "stretching", "sprint", "jog", etc. It was great. He, Alfonso, and Raul definately help us with our Spanish. They're all also really cool and really mellow. Raul also does PR for this discoteca called Rumbo. So he asked us if we wanted to go on Saturday night. We of course said yes and he told us he'd get us 30-35 passes for it for us and our friends.

**Sidenote: Downloaded this song that we heard while we were in Granada, i recommend you check it out on iTunes. "Ayo Technology (Milow Cover)" by Milow

Sickness and Lost Nights (2/17-2/18)

2010-02-19T13:53:00.000-08:00

Sorry i haven't been overly punctual with my blogs this past week or so. Sometimes days aren't very eventful, which is why i'm cramming days together in the same blog...and it also makes it easier.

(2/17)

So the sickness finally caught up with me and i threw up (damn, i thought if i was ever gonna throw up in Spain that it would be from drinking). So i didn't go to school today. That was pretty much the highlight of the day and all that really happened. Fun stuff...

(2/18)

After not doing anything yesterday and resting, i started feeling better. The stomach cramps were gone and all i had left was messed up sinuses, clogged nose, and some dizziness every now and then. Hope's boyfriend, Colby, came into town that day to spend the weekend with her. So we met him and he was a real cool kid. Real friendly, nice, and a good lad. Poor kid was probably beat from the flight, time change, jet lag and all, but he rallied and met us out later at O'Hara's.

Of course the fact that i was sick couldn't keep me away from our weekly game of soccer, could it? Nope. We headed off to a new field this time that, according to Aitor (so you know it's relatively misinformed) was only a little bit further than the old one and was cheaper too. The cheaper part was correct, but this field was all the way at the other end of the Rio, much further than our old field. Couple that with it being cold and raining and Aitor taking us the most roundabout way (some things never change), there were some less than happy campers/players walking to that field. Anyway, i definately liked this field better: it was a bit shorter, more like an indoor field, was a "sunken field", sitting stands on both sides, proper and smaller goals. The only thing i didn't like about it was the astro turf, that really tore me up whenever i went down. It also wasn't very good for the rain because EVERYONE was slipping and sliding and it made the ball cruise across the surface. Normal through balls that would be golden on another pitch went flying by 3x as fast and rarely connected because of the slick surface. A bog started forming along the right side of the field which turned that area into a danger zone. Anytime anyone tried bringing the ball through there, someone ended up slipping and eating it on the turf. It was a fun afternoon though. It made playing a bit more challenging, but it was hilarious to see everyone slip and fall every now and then. I got matching, bloody rasberries on each kneecap and i got a lovely 3-inch strawberry the length of my left butt cheek.

Got back to the Colegio and pregamed later. A lot of Spaniards and a group of people from our group were going to this huge Carnaval costume party that night. It didn't start until 3, cost 10 euro, and was located outside the city, so i didn't bother going. Instead we settled on the usual of O'Hara's and Radio City to dance. For pregame, Sean and I made the ghetto/hood version of Tinto Verano (literally translated as "summer red wine"). We took some cheap, low-quality red wine and mixed it with Fanta Naranja (orange soda) and added some slices of orange in it and poof, you've got yourself a water bottle of low quality and rustic Tinto Verano. It was pretty darn good for what we had to work with. It gets you buzzed quicker than just straight wine too, i'm gonna give props to the added carbonation. Anyway, we all pregamed and then headed out to O'Hara's for some Guinness and Tequila shots (gee, there's a shocker). After we finished up there me, Sean, David, Kristen, Britt, Austin, Taylor, Saad, and some others headed out to an essentially dead Radio City. The dance floor was completely open and we had the run of the place. There was this stage in the back right corner and me being me thought, "Hey, there's a freakin stage...let me get on it." I wasn't on there more than 3.4 seconds before some guido looking Spaniard who worked there told me to get off...buzzkill. We attempted to pop up on there at another point in the night and were immediately shut down again. Bummer. Around 2:30am i started to feel shitty again, so i called it a night and headed out. Still fun for a somewhat mellow, yet not really type of night.

Field of Dreams (2/15-2/16)

2010-02-18T09:25:00.000-08:00

(2/15)
So once we made our way back to the dorms, it was about 5:35am. I usually get up for my 9am class at 7:30am, so i didn't even bother trying to go to sleep. Instead i uploaded my photos from the trip to my computer and to Facebook. Lucky for me too cause my roomate Vu's alarm clock went off at 5:50am and he didn't even wake up for it(this seems to be a reocurring theme), so i grabbed it and pulled out the battery to shut it up. Went to my business class tired as fuck and then once i got back from class i decided to slip into a mild coma for about 5 hours. What a glorious nap. I woke up from my nap to the tune of 3248972 notifications on Facebook from everyone uploading their photos from this past weekend's events. Later, Kristen and i swapped stories and i got to hear about their trip to Dublin (my 2nd home), which sounded great and made me more excited for when i go in March. I traded massages with Britt to try and relieve the tension in my back from the lackluster train seats. Otherwise, i worked on homework and had Vu bug me with some more random-ass questions about life and nothing in particular and went to bed.

(2/16)
Had class and all today. Found out we gotta give a couple minor presentations for Historia and Cultura classes on Thursday, so that's some work that needs to be done at some point. Got to talk to Alicia and Tyrissa, two of my friends and co-workers from IMG, in a conference call on Skype for about 45 min. It was great to get to catch up with them and tell them all the stuff i'm up to and find out what's goin on at work. After i got done talking with them, i started feeling a bit funky. I had a stuffy nose and some sinus pressure, but i shrugged it off and went to baseball practice at 8pm. Being out in the rain and cold that night at practice only increased my feeling of sickness exponentially, but it was worth it.

It's funny, and a little ironic, to think that the one sport that i'm playing in college, for a university, on a non-IM or club team, is baseball. I hadn't played organized baseball since 1st grade, yet here I am. Sports have been one of the few consistencies in my life and i've always been involved in them and am more passionate about them than most people i've ever met. I don't know if it was the atmosphere, or just being back on an official team, or the thrill of competing, but something did it to me, and tonight on the field, as corny as it sounds, i had one of those out of body experiences that just makes you step back and appreciate everything going on:

The field is torn up from the trotting of cleats on softened earth. Yellowish white spotlights just barely light up enough of the field to create an almost lackadaisical hue on the sod. There i am, standing out in center field working on fielding while other players are taking batting practice. Rain drops keep nicking my forehead and face and trickle down until they get stuck on my facial hair. Breaths are consistent and deep; they billow out from my mouth like smoke from a pipe. As the hot air from my breath rises into my eyes, a grey haze stunts my vision and almost lulls me to sleep. No sounds anywhere except the crack of the bat and the occasional yell of "afuera! afuera!" or "buena!" are all that surround us. Looking around and seeing Sean to my left and Austin to my right, each focused on the next pitch, the next swing of the bat, not sure which one of us will be called into action as the ball reaches the plate...and there it is, the low whooping sound of the bat against air, followed by a high sharp cracking sound like when a twig is snapped on a cold, dry day. Ah, it's me this time. The ball comes rolling quickly through the water-laden grass, kicking up water droplets like a buzzsaw kicks up sawdust. I square myself to the ball and then take a quick sidestep so that my glove hand is positioned behind it and i can pick it up on the run in one fluid motion. I scoop it up, bring it up to my chest and right hand. I reach into my glove as if reaching into a bird's nest to grab an egg; i want to be gentle with it so as not to fumble with it, yet make sure to have a firm grip so as not to drop it. In my hand, it's just one effortless cycle: cock back, step forward, bring the arm around, and release. I watch it sail to the glove of one of the coaches. "Buena!" At that moment, i don't care that i don't like baseball that much, i don't care that it's cold and raining, i don't care about much anything. Why? Cause for that moment everything is right in the world and it couldn't feel better.

If this is the Al-ham-bra, where is the jamon? (2/14)

2010-02-17T04:26:00.000-08:00

Before i dive off into this giant blog, a brief warning: Since there was so much from this past weekend, i have broken down the blogs into 3 sections. This is about THE ALHAMBRA. It's a long-ass blog. Heirgo, make sure you got some time on your hands so you can read all of it. Much love. -Ryan

So woke up on my last day in Granada around 9:30am with the promise of a hotel breakfast...EGH!! WRONG! According to the sign, breakfast is served from 8-10am, negatory on that one chief. I found no breakfast when i went down there at 9:40am (apparently it was just around the corner of the dining room and i felt like an idiot later). We all packed up our stuff and headed downstairs. Of course on the way down we said goodbye to these 3 Australian girls we had met the day before who are studying abroad in Granada. Hold on, i have to collect myself before this next part...all three were attractive, but two of them were gorgeous. One had a boyfriend, so i listened to her for the designated 11 seconds and then focused my attention on the other girl. Be still my heart...her name was Georgia (coincidence? i think not) and she was really really really really really really etc. etc. beautiful. She made girls at home look like donkeys. Oh and that accent...ugh. Anyway, we said goodbye to them and were off. The lady working at Hotel Niza was so incredibly nice because she let us put our 9 over-burdened bags/backpacks/suitcases behind the front desk until we returned later at night to retrieve them before our train at 9:50pm. So we headed out in search of the Alhambra. We went to this central plaza to grab a bite. Me, Sean, Liza, Hope, and Suze went to this little pasteleria (pastry and small snack shop) and i got an empanada, mini pizza, apple fritter, and coke for just under 5 Euro (what a steal!). Dave, David, and Leah went off to somewhere else to eat. After we finished eating, we had a minor photoshoot, cause Liza is basically a professional photographer. We waited for the other people to come back to meet us before we left for the Alhambra, but we never met back up with them and decided we had to go on without them. But guess who we did see again by the pasteleria...Georgia and her other hot Aussie friend (Again, coincidence? I think not). We swapped info (like we're ever gonna see them again) and said a final goodbye and headed off to the Alhambra. Oh, don't worry, i was the FIRST to admit (despite all the later reaming i would receive) that Georgia is out of my league i would basically need her to drink an entire handle of something in order to have any chance with her.

(As Liza has coined this pic "DJ RHPM") (Sean, Hope, Me, Taylor, and Liza)

We tried to take the shuttle to the Alhambra and the lady at the kiosk told us some very vague directions which never worked out, so we decided to walk it up there. On the way we found some awesome graffiti along the walls and streets. The graffiti in Valencia is nice, not like gang or stupid tagging, but more like art; but the graffiti in Granada kicked the graffiti in Valencia in the nuts and caused it to throw up a little...it was that cool. There were tons of different kinds. Some looked like they had been painted on, others were more traditional, some were funny, a few more beautiful. That, coupled with the view of the mountains from the streets, made the walk so much more worth it than taking a bus. Very very cool walk up.

So as we approached what we thought to be the gardens surrounding or next to the Alhambra, we stopped, looked around, and realized that the Alhambra was on the other side of the hill and we had just found some random, yet very cool gardens. So we decided to go in there and look around and see what shenanigans we could get ourselves into. The whole complex was real nice. There was a small cave, statues, fountains, hedge mazes, peacocks running around, ponds, and amazing views of the city and the surrounding mountains. We all took some pictures of the peacocks, gargoyled some stuff, played some soccer with an orange, played hide and seek in the hedges, and just plain enjoyed where we were.

(me hiding in the mini hedge maze) (Liza, Suze, Sean, Me, and Hope in the cave)

After we finished up at the gardens, we walked it on over to the Alhambra. The whole time over there we were worried that we wouldn't be able to get a ticket because it only accepts a limited number of people everyday and we had seen tens of buses pass us by, with each carrying like 30 people. So when we got there, there was about 15-20 people in front of us and one of us asked the guy working there if he knew how many tickets were left...he said 40. Now you think we would have been assured and relaxed cause 40-20=20 left. But then you have to consider that some of the people in line were buying for more than just themselves and for possibly a larger group. So we were on pins and needles until we got up to the ticket office and said, "Seis por favor" and heard the lady reply, "Vale." Ah, sweet success. Got some of the last, if not the last tickets of the day. For starters, the Alhambra is fuckin massive. I don't know the exact number or even a ballpark of it, but it is a good good number of acres. We went all over that thing: Bath houses, gardens, fountains, the several palaces on the land, the towers, the streams/creeks, everything. It was all so nice. Inside the palaces, the detail was amazing. It was so intricate and fine, makes you wonder how it didn't take hundreds of years for them to finish it. We took a shit ton of pictures everywhere we went. The girls even tried gargoyling some places...i was like a proud father. They could still use some work on their technique, but they're well on their way. haha. There were SO MANY ASIANS too (not surprisingly though). We kept making fun of them and their pictures by throwing up the double piece signs in our pictures. I would say things like "Moshi moshi onone" (which is how you answer a phone in Japan), "Gito Gito Hee" (which is Japanese for 'oh ya'), and "Spicy Tuna Roll". I think a couple of times some of them saw and heard me and shot me a couple looks, but i didn't care. The views there were amazing too. You could see the snow covered Sierra Nevada, the whole city, and the Morrocan neighborhoods, it was awesome. We used up the majority of our day there and still didn't get to finish looking around. We got booted out at 6pm.

After we had finished with the Alhambra, we still had no clue where Dave, David, and Leah were so we went back to Hotel Niza and got our bags and went in search of dinner. We went to TelePizza and got some good food. As we were sitting in there, we saw the three of them walk by and Liza jumped up and ran and yelled at them. Reunited again. Made our way to the train station and then hopped on our 9:50 train and got back to a cold and rainy Valencia (of course it was) at around 5:20am and walked from the train station back to the Colegio. Best trip/weekend of the study abroad so far. Brilliant time. Couldn't have asked for more: Snowboarding, snowed in, fun in Granada, and the Alhambra.

Classic Granada (2/13)

2010-02-16T08:39:00.001-08:00

Before i dive off into this giant blog, a brief warning: Since there was so much from this past weekend, i have broken down the blogs into 3 sections. This is about GRANADA: RANDOM STUFF. It's a long-ass blog. Heirgo, make sure you got some time on your hands so you can read all of it. Much love. -Ryan

Woke up the next morning pretty refreshed, sore, but refreshed. We all headed down to the best breakfast that about 90% of us had had during our time in Spain. It was still lacking pancakes, grits, bacon, and things of that nature, but the variety was great and it had COLD MILK (a rarity in Spain) and bunch of different types of juices. Before we knew it, it was time to head back to Granada. They had cleaned and plowed the roads during the night to make them safe. The bus company wouldn't honor our return tickets from the day before (assholes), which pissed us off, so we had to buy new ones, but we were too tired to dispute them when we got back to the bus station. Got back to Hotel Niza and we all decided to rest and relax a bit. Now here is where things got a little wierd:

-Spanish TV is....different; they have no fear of what they put on TV. Me, Dave, Sean, and Leah were in our room watching TV and mellowing out watching this very abstract variety hour when very very strange segments came on. Let me give you a few examples of the unique ones we saw:

1) There was this Asian girl/woman painting....topless. But she wasn't just painting anything with anything, she was painting a very good replica of the famous painting "The Scream" (Google it if you don't know it) with her breasts. She would just casually dip her breasts in the paint and use them as paint brushes. Needless to say, it was a bit awkward. However, that was the most mild of it.

2) Next, a middle-aged woman in 1980's spandex Jane Fonda workout clothes was on and she was laying on her side stretching, so we thought, "Ok, this is pretty normal." WRONG. We were WAY off. Next thing we know she starts rubbing her "koo-ha" (for sensorship sake) and talking about the proper way to massage it. Again, we were all a little shocked by this.

3) This one was what took the cake. A woman in nothing but booby-tassels and a lace garter came walking out to the stage area and pulls out a lightbulb and proceeds to screw it into her "koo-ha"----AND IT LIGHTS UP. Total mindblow. Then, she pulls about 5 ft of pearl necklace out of the same area. Spanish TV will really keep you on your toes and punch you in the face with a happy helping of insanity if you're not paying attention.

So we finished up resting and then decided we'd all go out and take a walk around Granada and try and get into some shenanigans. We found some very cool statues, fountains, and churches/cathedrals. We also went to El Mercado de San Augustin for a bit. Now i haven't been to the Mercado Central in Valencia yet, but everyone said that it is 10x better/bigger than the one in Granada. Either way, i still enjoyed the market. We got free samples of some good serrano ham and red wine, and i purchased 1 kilo of fresh cucumbers and 1 kilo of fresh apples, both of which we ate later and were delicious. Next, we kind of split off into 2 different groups. Me, Dave, Leah, and Hope were all hungry so we went off to find food and came across this fairly cheap Chinese place. That place was awesome and good for several reasons, but one stood out among all the others....SHARK FIN SOUP. I ordered shark fin soup for the main reason that it is ILLEGAL in the USA. They use the actual fin of the shark as the meat in the soup and since most sharks are endangered species or environmentally protected in the USA, it's not an option at home. The soup itself wasn't exactly what you would call delicious. It was kinda slimy and the texture just made it hard to eat, but i still forced down a few spoonfuls for the sake of it. The other food was good, especially the spring rolls, which were about the size of a fuckin Hot Pocket. So we left the restaurant and went and walked around some more and of course stopped off at this liquor store before we went home (Mom, aren't you proud?). I bought a bottle of wine, 3/4 lb of those Haribo gummy cherries, and a Kinder Egg (fuckin amazing) for 4.20 Euro. That's what i love about Europe, wine and little things like that are dirt cheap. Got back to the hotel and we all decided to pass out and take naps. When the other group got back from their excursion, me and Sean started watching this Spanish Basketball League game....wow. To quote Sean, "Ryan, with your height and my speed, we could dominate that league." Now granted he swapped it for comedic purposes, but using that formula, we could still dominate. Then we all napped some more.

(Me buying 1k of cukes and 1k of apples) (Leah, me, Hope, Liza, & Sean enjoying the cukes)

Got up from my nap around 9pm and started gettting clean and ready to head out in Granada for the night. Had to use the jaws of life to pry Sean out of bed at close to 10pm. Eventually we all got moving and got ready. Me, Hope, Suze, and Liza were pretty hungry after we got up so we went in search of food and found this pretty good pizzeria and had a quick bite and in the process played a fun and slightly awkward (just how i like 'em) game of Fuck.Marry.Kill. (another common theme on this trip). Got back to the hotel and began to pregame a bit before we headed out. Suze found this very cool discoteca located in these caves in Granada, but it was like 30 min away to walk. So we decided to try and walk that way and find other things if we could on the way instead. We stumbled upon this little dance bar called La Havana and we popped in there to check it out. Suze, Dave, Taylor, and Leah hit the dance floor and started grooving with these girls from UNC that we had met on the street, but Me, Liza, Hope, Sean, and David weren't really digging the place so we left shortly after in search of a local bar to get some drinks at. Now according to Suze's guide book of Granada, "Granada doesn't get going until around 3am". I call bullshit. Cause we went to about 7 bars between the hours of 2am and 2:30am and all told us that they were closed or were closing. So feeling dejected and starting to sober up, we did the usual and gargoyled some shit and messed around in the streets and then we headed back to Hotel Niza to relax and watch some of the NBA All-Star weekend that was on TV. We decided to go to bed shortly after the skills competition cause we knew we had a long day ahead of us with visiting the Alhambra and heading back home.

(Me & Sean being stupid as norm) (Gargoyling at it's finest. I'm a pro at it...not sure if i should be publicly proud of that)

"Those runs were totally nectar" (2/11-2/12)

2010-02-16T06:16:00.000-08:00

Before i dive off into this giant blog, a brief warning: Since there was so much from this past weekend, i have broken down the blogs into 3 sections. This is about SIERRA NEVADA. It's a long-ass blog. Heirgo, make sure you got some time on your hands so you can read all of it. Much love. -Ryan

(Hope, Me, Liza, and Suze waiting in the train station)

Pregamed a bit before our leaving for the train. Caught the train from Valencia to Granada @ 12:51am and it was a bit dodgy and sketch. But i guess that's what you get for 6.50 Euro and being a 2nd class passenger. Our group was split between the first two cars of the train: Me, Liza, Leah, and Suze in the 1st car and Dave, David, Taylor, Hope, and Sean in the 2nd. Apparently in car 2 there was this cracked out lady that kept wandering up and down the aisles. Some of the folks in car 2 found it funny and others found it just plain creepy. The only problem or issue i encountered on the train was that i was unable to really sleep on it (kind of a large problem). I'd fall asleep for like 15min and then spend the next 45min trying to fall back asleep. I got about 2 hrs of sleep on the 7+ hr train ride. We arrived in Granada around 8:30am and everyone was pretty tired cause no one had a solid night's sleep. Next, we caught a few cabs to transport us to our hotel, Hotel Niza. All in all, I/we were extremely pleased w/ Hotel Niza. It was located in the middle of Granada, it was cheap, and was very decent for what we paid for it. We got to our rooms and got changed into our ghetto-ass, tacky snow gear and got ready to hit up Sierra Nevada.

We took another cab to the bus station and hopped a bus up to the Sierra Nevada resort for about 4 Euro. Sierra Nevada is so beautiful. It's this lone mountain range in the south of Spain and it was all just so surreal. We got to the resort and went to the ski shop to rent gear. Everyone skied except me (gotta hold it down for all the boarders out there), i was the lone snowboarder. I was a bit nervous about snowboarding again because prior to this event, i was batting 1.000 on going to some form of ER everytime i had been on a snowboard. But no worries, this day was injury-free. Rentals were like 18 Euro and after we all got fitted, we bought our lift tickets and hit the slopes. It was Leah's first time skiing, so for the first hour or so i tried to teach her and help her out. It was a little more difficult because i was on a snowboard and couldn't really show her what to do properly. I didn't mind it at all and actually enjoyed it because: A) It was fun/funny to watch. B) She was a pretty quick learner, especially for something difficult like that. C) I hadn't been on a snowboard in a bit so it gave me a chance to ease myself back into it.

(Sierra Nevada resort) (Me, Liza, David, and Taylor at the top)

The mountain was amazing. It was more like being out West and having good snow instead of ice like in the Northeast. After i left Leah, i went off and did some runs throughout the day w/ Sean, David, and Hope. It started snowing pretty hard about mid-afternoon, which was great because it meant fresh powder, but also shitty because it made it difficult to see. I took a few spills, nothing bad at all, just a loss of balance here and there and some mental lapses. It was so much fun and such an awesome time and experience. We all had a fuckin blast. It makes me want to go again real soon. Just the way the snow and powder feels underneath the board as your carve out your path down the runs and the feel of the wind in your face and whipping through your clothes is surreal. We were all a little tired and sore by the end of the day, but it was SO worth it.

(Me after a day of boarding) (The group warming up after a long, fun day)

We finished up and went back to the ski shop to return our rentals, warm up a bit, and wait for the bus to pick us up at 6:30pm. While waiting, me, Sean, and Hope went outside and had a snowball fight, made some snowmen, and some shenanigans in the snow. However, due to the heavy snowfall, the roads were pretty dangerous and had actually caused a car to lose control and go off the cliff. This closed down the road and forced us to remain in Sierra Nevada for the night. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise. At first we were all stressed about it and frustrated, but after we accepted the situation it became one of the better nights of the trip for me. We found this cafe/restaurant where everyone settled into while me, Hope, and Sean went in search of hotel rooms. All of the hotels were very nice, so we swallowed the pill and decided to stay at this very nice and classy hotel called Mont Blanc. While everyone else ate at the restaurant, the three of us hit up the all-you-can-eat buffet at the hotel dining room for 12 Euro each and split a bottle of wine w/dinner...Easily tied for the best dinner of the entire study abroad trip (tied with the paella me and Kristen had). I did the typical American thing and ate until it would be considered wrong. But if that was considered wrong, then i don't wanna be right. I had a fever, and the only Rx was my seemingly never-ending visits to that buffet. I had appetizers, went back for entrees twice, and desserts twice. AMAZING! The three of us had a laugh at dinner while messing around with the food, playing "Never have i ever..." and Fuck.Marry.Kill, and swapping stories. After dinner, since the supermarket was closed, we went and bought 3 bottles of wine from this bar and met back up w/ everyone in the rooms. We continued drinking, playing games, and sharing more stories in our extremely nice hotel rooms. The only downer about that situation was that it was less than ideal to take a whimsical shower in those bathrooms and have to put back on your dirty clothes (since our bags were still at the hotel in Granada). I would do it again, and again, and again though. BRILLIANT DAY AND NIGHT!

(Sean, Hope, Me snowball fighting) (We'll take it!)

Nothin too special (2/10)

2010-02-15T13:25:00.000-08:00

Today was a pretty simple day:

School, took a nap (seems to be a common theme here). Went to play soccer in the rio with the group, which is always a blast. Aitor, our director, is such a riot on the soccer pitch. He's always yelling and complaining about us Americans and not doing the right thing. haha. This time he had a mouth like a sailor and it made him more hilarious. He was shouting things like, "Where is my fucking team?!" It's just a great sight to see him run around the field with his chicken legs and yelling out random things. I'm loving this weekly soccer game more and more. We also always seem to get someone new from the group to come out with us too, which makes things that much better and more fun.

After soccer, i went back to the Colegio and made some much needed phone calls and got to talk to my family and friends back in the states. Later, everyone was going out since it was our equivalent of a Thursday night since we didn't have class on Friday. I was so pumped all day to be going out, but when it came close to time to leave, for some reason i just wasn't feeling it. I don't know if i was still sore from baseball, then coupled with the tiredness from soccer or a combo of the two or what, but i just wasn't up for going out. So i didn't. Instead, i got a much needed massage from one of the girls on the trip to try and loosen up the knots in my back/shoulders. That was basically it for the day. Sorry, nothing too special.

Now We're Up in the Big Leagues...(2/9)

2010-02-10T13:51:00.000-08:00

Watched a movie called "Soldados de Salamina" today in Historia. It's based on a book by the same name that we have to read for Literatura. Was fairly slow and uneventful...now there's a new concept, a movie based on classic literature that is slow and boring. Man, what a shocker.

After lunch me, Sean, and Tay went to Suerte Suerte (Spanish equivalent of Dollar Tree, remember?) to search for some skiing/snowboarding gear and attire since we didn't exactly bring much or any with us. Let me tell you something, NEVER SLEEP ON SUERTE SUERTE. We found most everything we needed, to some degree or another. SUERTE SUERTE IS CLUTCH!! I got some gloves, snow mittens, long-johns, bandana, beanie, neckwarmer, possibly waterproof pants, toothpaste, paint, and some paintbrushes for about 15 Euro. The only bad part, which i actually think is one of the best parts, is that me and Sean's attire is gonna look pretty hood. They don't exactly scream skiing or snowrabbits or anything. For example, our pants look like basketball warmups and even have a wannabe Houston Rockets logo on them, but instead of the 'R', it has a 'B' blasting off. Still couldn't have gone better. We're still probably gonna be wet and freezing on the mountain, but at least we'll be doing it cheaply.

Later, the hits just kept on coming (no pun intended. you'll see why in a sec). This guy at the Colegio named Donny asked us if we wanted to play baseball for the University of Valencia baseball team a week or so ago. At the time we didn't think much about it, but he told us to come to practice that night at 8pm and that gloves and everything would be provided for us. So me, Diego, Taylor, Sean, and Austin went out to see how we stacked up. It was a fuckin blast. I haven't played organized baseball since 1st grade machine-pitch when i lived in Detroit. It was great to get out on the field/diamond and do some drills and batting practice. Now before i make this sound like we're hot shit and stuff, you should know that the team is 0-3 on the season and has lost by scores of 2-13, 5-12, 1-11. So the coach was pretty pleased when he saw that we were fairly coordinated, could field well, and bat fairly decently. They wanted us to play for the team so we gave them our info and had them register us. I always thought that if i were to play some sport in college at the university i wanted to attend, it would have definately been tennis. Now it's baseball: the sport i can't stand to watch on TV and used to hate with a passion. But hey, how often can you say you played college baseball? Haha. Well i can now. Lookin forward to more practice and some games. I know the group here is gonna come out and support us during our games, but half of me wishes they wouldn't. It just puts more pressure on us, or at least me, to play better and not look like a complete idiot out there in front of friends. Haha. I don't think things can get much worse for the Univ. of Valencia team, so hopefully we can help them get their first W of the season.

After practice, i was beat and went to bed before 1am for the first time on this entire trip.

Cadiz? No. Malaga? Negatory. Granada? Vale. (2/8)

2010-02-10T05:14:00.000-08:00

Nothing good today really for storytime, sorry kids.

Wanted to kill myself during school today. I technically did; i drew a picture in my literature notebook of me executing myself with a samurai sword in order to preserve my honor. Yes, i was that bored. I hate and suck at literature in English, so you can imagine how it is for me in Spanish. At least i'm learning some stuff. Got back from school and did one final load of laundry before the weekend trip. That way i can actually have some clothes that don't smell like the Marlboro factory. Speaking of which, let me break it down for y'all reading this in America. You think it's bad coming home from downtown smelling like smoke after a couple nights in various bars? You don't know shit! Try having your jacket, shirt, and pants smell like smoke when you just go to a casual bar or even if you walk around outside too much in populated parts of town. Not to mention that when you do go out to party at a bar or a club or discoteca, or something, EVERYTHING, and i mean everything, smells like smoke for a while. Even my boxerbriefs smell like smoke after a late night...not really sure how that happens but it does. Your clothes are braised in nicotine and smoke and it'll stink up your closet too if you're not careful.

Nothing else really happened until the night: Took a nap, ate dinner, had another random ass conversation about things that are far beyond my understanding with Vu.

Then, it was time to change our travel plans one last time. Now normally i would be pretty annoyed and aggrivated at changing our travels plans this much and this often, yet everytime we changed them it made the new trip a little more convenient and better. So upon trying to finalize our plans and hotels and everything for Malaga, someone, i believe it was Suzanne, suggested we look at Granada. !$$MONEY$$! We looked into it further and found some great deals on skiing/snowboarding, the hotel, and other things to do. Not to mention the train rides there and back are gonna provide a bit of excitement. So this is the gameplan:

Thurs/Fri: Train leaves Valencia @ 1:51am and arrives in Granada @ 8:35am (Can you say minor booze train?)

Fri: Drop off stuff at hotel, take 10am bus to Sierra Nevada to snowboard (me) and ski (everyone else) until like 4:30-5pm. Find somewhere to eat. Go out.

Sat: La Alhambra. Google it. It is this crazy beautiful palace built by the Muslims when they were here. Gonna be awesome. Then food and out.

Sun: Explore. Train leaves Granada @ 9:30pm and gets back to Valencia around 5am. I usually get up for my 9am class at 7:30am. That's gonna be a fun class.

No sleep keeps on coming on Super Bowl Sun. (2/7)

2010-02-08T06:25:00.000-08:00

So not the best start to the day this morning, my roommate Vu managed to wake me up twice this morning within a 3 hour period. He got up at 7am to do exercises and is not quiet about it. After he finished that he left and came back just before 10am and threw down this bag of shit the moment he got into the room and then slammed the dressers and woke my ass up again. Needless to say i was a little cranky, but i was ecstatic when he left and i didn't end up seeing him again until just before dinner time. This allowed me to nap from like 2:30-6....brilliant. Afterwords, got some of my homework done before we headed out to watch the Super Bowl.

So the Super Bowl STARTS at 12:30am here, yet another late night and lack of sleep under my belt. Me, Sean, Joe, and Molly, who is from Indy and obviously a rather large Colts fan, decided to leave early to find this Irish Pub called Max Max that was showing the game. We had heard from various sources that it was close to school and La Mestalla, but apparently we were a bit off. We spent about 50 min - 1 hr looking around for this place before we called our navigation specialists, Dave and Kristen, who attempted to guide us to it. In the end, we just got the cross streets from them and had a cab take us there. Glad we did that cause we would have never found it otherwise; it was down some back alleys and hidden.

When we got there it was pretty dead, there weren't many people there other than a few Spaniards and some other Colts fans who Molly had known from the AFC Champ. game. Molly and I decided to start the night off right with a couple shots of Ole Irish (half Jameson, half Bailey's). It was rough, we both felt it for the next hour or so. I also felt honored to be present during Molly's first sip of the nectar of the God's...Guinness. Unfortunately she didn't exactly love it, but i can count on Kristen to change that by the end of next weekend when them and some others go to Dublin and the Guinness factory. Kristen, Tay, and Taylor ended up coming a little before the game started. They got a ride with Saad, Angel, and a couple other Spaniards that i hadn't met, Sergio and Mickey. Taylor had an essay to write for class the next day, so he pulled that out and tried working on it at the bar during the game. It was a good laugh. The game got underway shortly after and it was a good one and unfortunately for Molly the Colts lost. Heart goes out to you Molls, much love.

We ended up heading out around 3:45am and got a ride home with the Spaniards. They drive pretty crazy and not to mention that Spain/European streets are bad enough. What most of us would consider to be a sidewalk are fair game to drive on here. There are also so many little back streets and turns everywhere; i'd get lost so damn fast. Fun night, but a late one. I got home and made sure to wake up Vu as minor payback and then crashed only to get up like 3 hours later for my class.

AMUNT VALENCIA! (2/6)

2010-02-07T06:52:00.001-08:00

Oh baby was today a full day...

Woke up to a text from Suzanne saying to grab our group who's going to Malaga/Algeciras/Gibraltar and meet her at the train station at 1:30pm....it was 12:30pm when i woke up to it. So i scrambled and got David, but Sean and Taylor were too lazy/sleepy/hungover to come. So we booked it down there and met up with Suze and Liza. We got the final schedules and got those sorted out and planned, but we had a real asshole of a guy at the reservations. He obviously didn't think we could understand anything or understand how a EuRail pass works cause we talked ourselves around in a circle for like 10 min and we kept trying to explain to him what we wanted to do and he just never got it. At least we got all the trains set up for the trip.

Got back and it was already time to start pregaming for the Valencia C.F. vs Valladolid game. Started hitting the whiskey with Grateful Dave and Taylor. Soon everyone was ready to go and we headed off to La Mestalla. Most of us were rockin some sort of Valencia gear to show our support, me and Diego are thinking about painting up for the next game we go to. We had a real large group that decided to go to the game, something like 16-18 of us. So we got down to Mestalla and went to the official shop to buy tickets (where we bought them during the week) for a few of the girls who didn't have them and after standing in line for 30 min, they told us we had to go to the stadium to buy them....damn. Went to the stadium and waited for like 3 min, got the tickets and headed inside. There was some confusion about seats because not everyone got to sit together, but i sat w/ Sean, Hope, Molley, Suzanne, Diego, Greg, David, Rebecca, Taylor, Mary Claire, and Leah. We technically had the cheapest seats money could buy, but they were pretty solid and we had a great view of the action.

Game kicked off and it took only 8 min before the first goal was scored. Banega unleashed a laser of a shot from just outside the 18 yd box and upper 90'd it and bulged the ole onion bag. Valencia 1 - Valladolid 0. Wasn't too long after that and Valencia scored again. Mata played out to Banega off a short corner and Banega put in a perfect cross to an un-marked David Villa and he connected with a diving headed to put the Murcielagos (Bats) up 2-0. For the rest of the game there were a bunch of scoring chances for Valencia, but none of them got put away. Mata, my favorite player for Valencia, played fantastic. He was putting in great crosses and through-balls all day long. Not to mention he forced the Valladolid keeper to make a hearted save off one of his headers. He and David Villa had a field day with the Valladolid back four. HIGHLIGHTS ON LINK BELOW. Great fuckin atmosphere, great match, great experience, great everything. Definately will be going again before i leave. AMUNT VALENCIA!

Got back home from the game, ate dinner, showered, and then it was time to pregame again...there's a shocker. Not too many people were up for going out that night since the soccer game does take a good bit out of you, but we still pulled together and had a solid crew turn out for some shenanigans. We hit up O'Hara's of course and then headed over to this other bar called El Negrito. El Negrito was packed, but we all had fun dancing around and belting some of the American tunes that came on and looking like the obnoxious drunk American stereotype (which i'm completely alright with portraying). Then me, Liza, and Brittany left El Negrito to go meet up with Joe, Austin, Caroline, Ashley and Laura at Radio City. On the way we found a NEW Doner place that, dare i say, may have been on equal level or better than Doner Kebab. They actually make the food in front of you and cook it instead of shaving it off some spinning rods of Grade D meat. We got to Radio City and started dancing, then Joe introduced me to this girl who he was dancing with. Her name was Melissa and then she introduced me to her friend Allison, they are here studying abroad as well and go to Oklahoma St. Allison and Melissa said that i had apparently met them before but that i was pretty drunk at the time (me? drunk? come on...) so i felt a little bad about that, but it was cool. So we all talked and danced until it was close to closing time, then we grabbed the two guys in their group who they were there with and left. One of the guys, Will, was drunk as fuck and was pretty damn sloppy, but it was a fuckin riot. Once we started moving there was only one thing to do--go get some Doner Kebab with our new found friends (don't worry, i didn't eat any this time). I said goodbye to Allison, Melissa, Scott, and kinda to Will and then Liza, Joe, and me, with Brittany piggybacking on me headed back to the Colegio. Solid day and night.

HIGHLIGHTS OF VALENCIA vs VALLADOLID:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phx4XcagW_k

Slow ride, take it easy... (2/5)

2010-02-07T06:02:00.000-08:00

Well surprise surprise, there was almost no one in our 9am Literature class. Our class has like 18 people in it usually, we had around 9. I will give some mad props to the people who did go out to Botellon and La Indiana and still made it to class. For example, Ben got home 45 min before we leave for class and he still made it out and participated in class. Kristen had a rough night too, and although she was not a happy camper that morning, she still stuck it out. So needless to say it was a bit of a slow and droning class.

Came back home and tried to nap, but i kept getting woken up by Vu, hearing Kristen laughing on the roof, and had a few people come in to my room at separate times trying to recruit me to come play soccer. Finally i caved with the last person to want me to play soccer and we headed out to the Rio to have a good kickabout. Me, Diego, Greg, Taylor, Sean, and Hope found one of the fields in the Rio that wasn't being used and set up shop there. We started just passing it around and then Diego started laying off some setup balls for shots. I, no lie, rocketed one close to the upper 90 and it clanged off the underside of the crossbar and into the back of the net. That was my only highlight of the session. We played some 3-on-3 and that just wore us all out cause the field was so torn up that it was just dirt. So after 30 min we were feeling it in our calves and quads and were starting to slow down. But it was a lot of fun and some good exercise. We all left with a few cuts, bumps, and bruises too.

After dinner, me, Sean, Taylor, Liza, and Dave went out in search of booze for pregaming and went to Mercadona (supermarket place) and we struck gold. I bought 3 bottles of red wine for 78 Euro Cents ($1.09) each, a bottle of whiskey for 5 Euro ($6.84), and a bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label for 11 Euros ($15.05). In a nutshell, got a good amount of booze for a little amount of money. We all loaded up with our alcohol and headed back to pregame. I'm pretty sure we, or at least Sean, drank everything under the sun. We drank red wine, white wine, vodka, whiskey, and beer. We pregamed and got hammered until about 1:30am, during which we used Hope's Magic Jack to prank call some of her and my friends. Good times. There were less people willing to go out tonight because most decided to take the night off and recover from La Indiana. So Kristen, Suzanne, Taylor, Diego, and David decided to head out with a few of the leftover Spanish kids to this small bar called El Forn. Hope, Mary Claire, Taylor, me, and Sean decided to head down to O'Hara's, with Vu's hat again, for some fun and spirits. We had a great time just shootin the shit, getting drunk, playin some "Never have i ever..." and "Fuck. Marry. Kill." We also tried teaching Juanjo how to say some English phrases and he tried to teach me some Spanish ones. After that, we of course ended our drunken night the only way we know how in Spain....Doner Kebab.

Mestalla Tour and Fiscal Responsibility (2/4)

2010-02-07T04:14:00.000-08:00

Went to the train station after school with some people to get the schedule for trains leaving from Valencia. Had to do the run-around with the customer service lady so that we made sure we got the right schedules on the right days and all. Not too much trouble though. Got us one step closer to finalizing our trip to Malaga and Gibraltar/Algeciras.

Although it was wet and muggy outside, a group of us went to La Mestalla, the stadium where Valencia C.F. plays, for the tour. Now it's kind of difficult to get overly excited for La Mestalla when you've see the Bernabeu in Madrid, but i still loved it. We started off in one of the boxes there, which are nice...if you wanna pay 5000 Euro per game for it. Then we headed out to the stands and the special section where the president of the club sits and all the players' wives and stuff...basically the beautiful and important people. Then we headed down to the field and unfortunately the dugouts had tarps on them so we couldnt sit in them or compare them to Real Madrid's. But i'm sure they were pretty similar, just maybe not as nice. That's the thing about Mestalla, it's a little "hood". They're in the process of building a new stadium, but they ran out of money and they're only 1/3 finished. So now they have to decide if they're gonna sell off their better players to fund the building or if they're just gonna wait. Anyway, we next went to the Valencia locker room, which i loved. At the Bernabeu we could only see the visitor's locker room. Our tour guide was saying that when Rafael Benitez (very famous soccer coach) was managing Valencia a few years ago, he made a huge change in the locker room; he wanted it bare, with few to no luxuries, no distractions. He wanted his players focused and thinking about the game and the community. That's why the visitor's locker room at Mestalla is nicer than Valencia's. Valencia's locker room was some benches and shelves, that's about it. We also went and saw their trophies, their press rooms, and where all the players eat when they come in for training. Very cool to get to see that. After the tour we went and bought tickets for the game on Saturday against Real Valladolid.

I was feeling a bit light-headed all day, so me being the idiot that i am, decided to go work out. Don't know what i was thinking, maybe that losing more fluids was the best way to rehydrate myself? Well it was a bad idea and i got a bit of a headache. That along with $ issues and that i had a 9am class the next day factored into my decision not to go out for the night. It was really a shame cause i wanted to go out with everyone, and i mean everyone. All the Spaniards at the Colegio just finished exams and everyone in the group was going out to Botellon (pregame/tailgating) in the Rio and then out to La Indiana, this big-ass discoteca. It costs 10 Euro cover and then drinks there are really expensive and seeing as how i had gone out Tues, just dropped $ for a ticket to the VCF game, spent a shit ton of $ booking my stuff for travel plans, and was planning on going out Fri, Sat, and Sun for the Super Bowl, i had to make a call and cut out La Indiana. A bit disappointing cause everyone apparently had a blast, but i gotta start picking my nights wisely, otherwise i'm gonna have to start dipping into my savings account.

Sean was in the same boat as me and was playing the fiscal responsibility card, Suzanne had to work on her presentation for her class the next day, and Hope wasn't really in the mood, so the four of us went out to get some coffee and i got some Burger King (nothing like a little taste of America). We came back and me and Sean messed around with Vu's (my roommate) hat and gargoyled my closet. Then me, Sean, and Hope rented Billy Madison via iTunes and had some laughs and called it a night after. Pretty mellow, but still some good fun.

Not as easy as we thought it was gonna be...(2/3)

2010-02-05T05:05:00.000-08:00

Sorry, nothing too exciting today. Here's basically what happened:

School, class, yada yada yada. After school, i went over to the official Valencia C.F. store to pick up a scarf and jersey for my supporting necessities. I'm gonna go ahead and blame it on the working out and consistent walking everywhere, but the muscles in my shins have been cramping like a motherfucker for the last few days. So walking home after the store was a real bitch because they started cramping up again and to everyone around me, i must have looked like i was walking with a baseball bat up my ass or like i was in a Frankenstein Jr. movie. Not the most pleasant walk back from classes i've had here.

Today was also magical in the realm of naps. I took THREE. Count 'em 1, 2, 3 naps. Uno, dos, tres naps. BRILLIANT. That was about as brilliant as the day would get. Then game the stressful situation of once again re-assessing our travel plans. I tell ya, you would think traveling in Europe would be easy with its size, all the trains, metros, and cheap flights....WELL IT AIN'T. Everything is more expensive than any of us anticipated, booking flights and train reservations are more difficult than expected, and hostels and accessory expenses will total out to much more than we thought. So once again, some destinations had to be cut. But we did make progress eventually. We set in stone two trips for sure: Me, Sean, Taylor, Suzanne, Liza, and David are going to Malaga and Algeciras/Gibraltar in Spain this upcoming weekend. Then in mid-March, Me, Taylor, Sean, Grace, Liza, and David are all going to Dublin for 3 days and Amsterdam for 2 nights before Las Fallas here in Valencia. Now we just gotta make sure we tidy up the edges, dot the i's and cross the t's. Would have been smarter to work on this earlier in the trip. Unfortunately none of us knew it would be anything like this.

Drunken Lullabies (2/2)

2010-02-04T16:41:00.000-08:00

School was fairly boring today. Culture class wasn't bad, but for the first time Aitor's class was incredibly boring. We talked about the Spanish Civil War and it was just a long-ass presentation. But whatever, those things have to be done. When i got back to the Colegio from class, i was going to take a nap. However, my roommate Vu (or as we call him Dave Matthews) was attempting to play guitar (keyword there being "attempting") in the room. He knows about three notes and doesn't play them in rhythm at all. It's not the most pleasant sound, but bless his heart for giving it a go. So with the napping idea shut down, i went to work out in our gym for a little bit.

Finshed up just in time for our cultural activity that day...churros and chocolate. It's a staple here and it's fucking good. Me, David, Austin, and Taylor sat at our table and anxiously awaited our gift from the Spanish pastry gods. While waiting, me and Diego decided to get an Horchata. Orchata is this drink that's pretty big over here. It's made with tiger nuts (whatever those are), water, and sugar...pretty simple. It was kinda good, but a little too sugary at the same time. It feels like you are eating/drinking raw sugarcane. But it was a nice contrast once our hot cup of chocolate was brought out. The churros were pretty good on their own, but when you dunked them in the chocolate--money. We each got two and then watched helplessly as almost every other table was brought an order of seconds and, in some cases, thirds. Whatever. Good snack and good experience.

It was two girls' birthdays in our group, Leah's and Rebecca's. So we decided to celebrate by drinking heavily and then we were gonna go out to O'Hara's and then dancing. So i got pretty drunk while pregaming. I finished off a bottle of wine and then Dave and Diego gave me some shots of rum and vodka. By the time we got to O'Hara's, i was feeling so solid. Started off with a couple more Guinness once i got there, cause Juanjo knows that's my drink of choice. Then our good Spanish friend Saad showed up and he and i sat down and argued about who's soccer team is superior, Barcelona or Celtic....obviously Celtic. We shot the shit, i jokingly asked him to put in a good word for me with some Spanish girls and he jokingly wanted to get in good with some of the Americans. We had a good chat and a good time until he left around 12:15 am. It got to be around 1:30am and everyone was pretty damn drunk. Out of the 18 of us that were planning on going dancing, i think less than 8 actually made it out there. But me and a couple of other drunkards had a Doner Boner by the time we left and had to satisfy it at the one and only Doner Kebab. Then it was back home and to bed to pass out.

I NEED SOME BACON AND PANCAKES...STAT!! (2/1)

2010-02-03T07:51:00.000-08:00

I'm really starting to get sick of Spanish breakfasts here at the Colegio and in general. For starters, all they serve here are pastries: crossaints, little sugary bars, bread, and that's about it. They have 3 types of cereal, none of which are too good, but they serve it with warm milk. The coffee is incredibly strong, which i greatly appreciate. Especially since i rarely ever drank coffee at home and now it's part of my daily routine here. But seriously, what does a man have to do around here for some fuckin bacon, or scrambled eggs, or pancakes, or waffles, or grits, or even some fuckin Cinnamon Toast Crunch with COLD milk?!?! I rarely eat a lot for breakfast because it's always the same and never very filling. So i'm always in class with a growling stomach. If i learn of a place in Valencia that has the magical breakfast items that i seek, i am immediately going there and will probably go there 3x a week for breakfast at the minimum.

Did my laundry today in two forms. Since there are only 2 washers and 2 dryers at the Colegio it makes doing laundry a game of survival of the fittest. I killed two birds with one stone when i decided to wash the majority of my t-shirts: I came back from working out and decided to bring my shirts into the shower with me. I washed up, then kept reaching into my box of laundry soap and scrubbing my shirts in the shower with me. It actually worked out pretty damn well. The only problem was that i didn't have enough room to hang all my clothes to dry. So my room was decorated with hanging, drying t-shirts. A couple hours later, i went down and was lucky enough to find an open washer and threw the rest of my clothes in there. Of course, when the washer finished, a dryer wasn't open. So i took my clothes and put them in my large duffle bag and back up to my room. I tried to hang up as many clothes as i could to dry, but space was limited with my t-shirts still drying. A bit more than an hour later, i was able to score a dryer and my clothes were finally dry after 3 cycles in it. Laundry is a hectic thing around here, ask anyone.

Our director, Aitor, had rented out one of the artificial turf soccer fields in the Rio for us. We had a group of 16 come out to play and we had some 8-on-8 going for a bit more than an hour. It was really fun and some great exercise, but boy was my body sore afterwords. My shins, calves, and quads were really feeling it. I also had a couple nice turf burns for my effort, the one on my inner thigh feels especially fantastic (that's sarcasm people if you didn't pick it up). Good stuff out there, some real good play at times. We ended up finishing the game with a 4-4 draw. Me being competitive and all, i think a tie is like kisisng your sister.

After that, we had dinner, our weekly group discussion/activities schedule and then it was back to the drawing board with plans for travel. Planning trips is a lot harder than one thinks at first. Once prices are determined and flight/train schedules are seen, the number of trips one is able to take is consistently shrinking. So we all kind of had to rework and reprioritize where and when we wanted to go places. So this is what it's looking like for me: Cadiz & Morocco, Dublin & Ireland, then maybe going with Diego and Taylor to visit Kristen while she is in Germany for Semana Santa, and some little day trips around Spain to Granada, Sevilla, and maybe another place or two. Thank you EuRail Global Pass for making my life that much easier.....but still slightly difficult.

Playa, Getting kicked off the tram, and Gargolying (1/31)

2010-02-02T10:41:00.000-08:00

Woke up on a weekend day NOT hungover at all for the first time. Why? CAUSE I GOT TO SLEEP IN. There's a shocker considering my rooming situation. Woke up around noon, had some lunch and then everyone headed down to the beach. We were all gonna go together and planned on meeting in the main lobby at 2:45, but somehow we ended up making it down to the beach in like 5 separate groups, oh well.

Got to the beach, took 1 picture fully clothed, found our spot where we were gonna settle in, tore off my clothes down to my swimsuit, and sprinted towards the sweet blue sea. As most of you know, i have always been near the ocean and love the ocean: i love to surf, scuba/snorkel/snuba, wave jumping, throw around a football in the waves, and anything else that involves being in the water. I AM Kevin Costner in Waterworld, minus the fact the movie sucked, and need the ocean near me or i go through withdrawl. Anyway, it being January and all and it being the Mediterranean, the water was a little on the brisk side (aka. instant shrinkage). It was also incredibly shallow for the longest time, so when i dove in, my shoulder immediately hit bottom. So i came shivering back to the group's spot and asked if my bud Sean would care to join. I didn't have to coax him much cause he's a solid cat and we frolicked (in a manly way of course) while holding hands (for moral support of course) down to the sea again and dove in. People got a kick out of our boldness and stupidity, but it was fun. If we had had a tennis ball or football to throw and someone was willing to, i would have stayed in that water for a good half an hour. As we ran back to everyone i collapsed in the soft (and i mean some fine-ass, nowhere near coarse, SOFT) sand and rolled around in it to absorb the water and get toasty. After i could feel my extremities again it was time to hit the shower with Sean (outside one with separate spouts, don't worry) and each rinse off. We played some soccer on the beach a couple times, very fun but oh does it wear you out. Running in the sand makes your quads and calves burn...great workout. Next, me and Sean had been Gargoyling everything in sight (Sidenote: Gargoyling is when you perch on something bend down and stay still and only move your eyes to survey. See pics for example).

When we were done at the beach, me, Hope, Sean, Diego, Nicki, Grace, Chelsea, Greg, and Laura went in search of a good place to eat by the beach. Since it was only around 7pm, thats incredibly, incredibly early to try and eat dinner, and most places were closed but we found this joint called 'Something' San Patricius. We ordered paella valenciana for everyone for 8 Euro each. It took FOREVER for them to cook it and bring it out. It was almost 2 hours after we ordered when it came. I had an ensalada rusa (think of it as tuna salad but w/crab and squid and some vegetables) and a Guinness while we waited. When the food finally came out, i was almost more annoyed than hungry. Not to mention it wasn't that good. The paella me and Kristen ate was so much better. It's tough to start at the top of the paella food chain cause nothing else is ever as good. The paella they brought out though was HUGE. It was sitting in a pan that i could have easily sat and taken a bath in. The 11 of us there didnt even put a dent in it. We finished up dinner and then went to catch the tram home.

So as we're buying our tickets for the tram it starts to arrive and we're all scrambling to get on. I hold open one of the doors and Diego holds open the other while we make sure we get everyone on. The doors and tram are beeping, but we don't care. Finally everyone gets there ticket and sits down and the doors close. Then, this 5'6" 30 yr old conductor walks over to all of us and starts pointing for us to get off. Diego asks why and it's apparently because we held the doors open too long. He's adement about us leaving right now and won't hear it. As everyone is getting off i tell him "Este es mierda" (This is bullshit). He says to me sarcastically in Spanish, "Oh, you can speak Spanish very well can't you." To which i reply, "Yes i can. Thanks asshole." Then he yells something back which i don't understand. So now we're kicked off the tram and have to wait for the next one, which luckily isn't too long. But it was a fun experience. And as payment, me and Sean gargoyled the tram too. We got back to the Colegio around 10:30 and this was the first time since i've been in Spain that i went to bed before 1:30 am because i was absolutely knackerd.

Uh...Stuff? (1/30)

2010-02-02T00:41:00.001-08:00

So i was a wee bit hungover as one may expect after a night of Karaoke and orange chucking, and by a "wee bit" i mean it felt like Rosie O'Donnell was sitting on my head. Started chugging water and by the time it was time (that wording sounds awkward. time...time) to go to the Museo de Faller (Fallas Museum) i was fine and just had a very mild headache.

Alright, quick intro, for those of you who don't know what Fallas is: 1. Google it. 2. Pray i don't die during it. 3. Let me explain...

Fallas is this week in Valencia where these specialized Artisans make these massive, and i mean MASSIVE, floats/statues with such intricate details and craftsmanship and parade them around the city. At the end of the week, they are taken down to the beach and burned in one firely blaze of glory. It's sick. Seriously, just Google or YouTube "Fallas" and you'll see. The Fallas Museum was a bit of a letdown. It had a parts of the statues from each year since like 1950, which were cool and all, but that was basically it. Not worth the 45 min walk for 20 min of museum. On the way back, Tall Dave, Tay, Me, Joe, and David found this little cafe/bar and since we were pretty darn hungry we stopped in for some grub and beer. Tay and i got 2 Argentinian Empanadas and a beer for like 5 Euro and Dave and Joe got Tortilla (not what you're thinking of. It's like Keish or pie) and a beer for like 3 Euro. It was pretty good and hit the spot.

Got back home and started to pregame soon after. We left the Colegio around midnight and decided to head out to O'Hara's for our usual staple: Tequila and Guinness. After we had our fill, Me, Suzanne, Joe, Kristen, Taylor, Saad, and Martin went to La Bolseria again. Saad is a student at the Colegio and Martin was his roommate from Denmark. Martin was leaving on Monday so it was one of his last nights. After we got into La Bolseria, i was greatly saddened because, alas, my fair Daniella was not working that night....damn. But no worries, cause we danced our faces off and had a good time none-the-less. I actually can't think of a time where we, or anyone else in our entire group hasn't had a good or fun time. We're batting 1.000 right now. Classic Spain, classic.

Rio, Wolfpack, Karaoke, and Oranges...Oh my (1/29)

2010-02-01T05:23:00.001-08:00

Today was a dynamite day/night. So busy, so full, no downtime, just awesomeness.

School was school and afterwords Me, Dave, tall Dave, Taylor, Hope, Nicki, and Sean decided to head down to the Rio for some exercise, fun, and fresh air since it was such a nice day in Valencia. We spent like 40 min on the spider web rope playground lounging around, trying to tightrope walk, bouncing people in the center, and telling some great jokes. I wish i could remember some of them, but Dave and Sean had like 5 of the best one-liners i've heard on this trip. On the way to Gulliver, we got into an orange fight and kept picking up fallen oranges and chunking them at each other. I got pegged with one on the back of the arm....not the best feeling. We kept finding more and more shit to mess with on the way there. Once we got to Gulliver we did the other slides, then we hit up the cou de gras....the big ass slide. There were a bunch of 10-12 year old Spanish boys running up the slide and their friends would slide town and try to take them out before they reached the top. They tried to do it with us when we'd run back up it, so we decided to play along too. Now it's a completely different story when you have a 4'8" kids who weigh like 100 lbs coming down at you and then you have Taylor and Sean who are a foot and a half taller and like 70 lbs heavier, they're not quite as easy to dodge. People would go spread eagle to try and take each other out and just as someone was getting close to the top, one of us would run up the slide and grab their leg and pull them back down. It was a fun game until this little girl got decked by this kid who was comin in hot and she started crying and ran off to "mommy" (was stoked to hear her call her mom 'mommy' and not 'mama' or 'madre'...Score: America 1-Spain 0. haha). After a few hours of fun, we left the Rio and headed back to the Colegio.

Got back, took a minor nap and then headed up to the roof to read a little more of my Agassi book in the sun. Our roof is pretty sick and has a great view and tons of space. So we started the pregaming with three speeches that i had written for Sean, Molly, and Hope, our three new members of the Wolfpack. Continuing the pregaming, we downed our wine and shitty rum until we got feeling good. As we began to leave and head to the Karaoke bar (or so we thought) half of our group decided to punk out and go out dancing instead. Now there is nothing wrong with dancing another night in Valencia, but Karaoke is straight up awesome. No skin off of my nose, they had fun, we had fun, so it's all good with me. Anyway, so we (Me, Taylor, Hope, Molly, Sean, Liza, Leah, Grace, Dave, David) took a cab to Lala Pub (what an original and Spanish sounding name) and started up some Karaoke. First song, Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond. Me, Sean, Taylor, and Liza straight sang it to perfection, even the buh buh buh's. However, the Spaniards didn't truly appreciate the greatness because only a few sang along or looked amused. We sang that and the group also sang, Blue (Dabadee Dabaday) by Eiffel 65, Toxic by Britney Spears, Barbara Ann by The Beach Boys, and a couple others. Me, Taylor, and Sean also danced with some slightly less than attractive middle-aged women at the bar for fun. Not gonna lie, but my lady could throwdown on the dance floor, she taught me a thing or two about a thing or two. Diego and Austin met up with us at the Karaoke bar but unfortunately right as we were leaving. But that's when things got good too.

On the way back to our neighborhood, we had a very solid "Who's that comin down the tracks..." chant in the streets of Valencia. Score: America 2-Spain 0. And then things just started getting random as fuck from there. Austin was running down the sidewalk high-fiving the parked cars' side-view mirrors and hit one what was secured with duct tape and knocked it clean off. Then, me and Sean started picking up fallen oranges from the trees and pretending to be Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine and just chuck those bad boys as hard as we could at walls. I also grabbed Molly's satchel (not man purse) and did my wannabe "You guys ready to let the dogs out? Who? Who? Who? Who? Who?" from Alan from The Hangover. I will gladly admit that Kristen still does a much better one of those than me. By the time we got back to the neighborhood there was only one place to go at close to 4am and being drunk....Doner Kebab. It was magical as always and was the perfect night cap to a most excellent day/night.

Organization and Trip Planning (1/28)

2010-01-31T22:49:00.000-08:00

Nothing particularly special happened today. Had school, still loving Aitor's class, my culture class is pretty bad ass too. Our teacher is like 23 and she is a cutie-patootie. She sang for us today in class and she has some nice pipes, really great voice. That's gonna be another one of my favorite classes.

The previous night we had all gathered in the big TV room in the Colegio to discuss some issues we were having with the program. We thought we were to be promised WiFi internet via the school and no Friday classes, however we received none. So we sat down and discussed proper ways to go about talking to Dr. Baker to try and get both accomplished. We finally came to the conclusion that Me, Molly, and Dave would try and talk to him. We found him today after lunch and sat down and tried to sort it out with him. He basically immediately shot down the WiFi and said it wasn't gonna happen because Univ. of Valencia won't give us codes. That's whatever now, doesn't really matter. We're gonna get our own wireless router and do it that way. He was kinda lame and rude about us questioning the Friday classes. Essentially we are gonna get like 2-4 Fridays off. The teachers we asked about it were incredibly cool with it and told us "Have a good time and enjoy it and i'll see you when you guys get back." Kinda makes me wanna take our teachers with us on our trips.

Finally got to talk with some of my friends on Skype and catch them up on shit. That was a bit of a relief. Then Me, Kristen, Hope, Sean, Molly, Greg, Suzanne, Taylor, and a few others got together, sat down, and started planning out our trips that we want to take and when we're gonna go ahead with them. We're gonna go somewhere this upcoming weekend, we just don't know where...we kinda gotta get on that. Then we're gonna head to Granada, Sevilla, Asturias, and maybe another place in Spain at some point. Also, we're gonna take trips to Dublin and around Ireland for like 5 days and Portugal later. Definately gonna head to Germany too at some point. Really lookin forward to all of it.

Once we finished that up, a small group of us headed out to O'Hara's for a few brews and we got to meet and actually have a full on conversation with some of the Spanish students here at the Colegio. We met and talked with Laura, Lea, and Katarina for most of the night and had a good time working on our Spanish and making some new friends in the process.

Wednesday, Bloody Wednesday....Oh, it is love (1/27)

2010-01-31T05:43:00.000-08:00

Didn't get much sleep the previous night cause i had some shit on my mind, so needless to say getting up for school was especially painful. But all good. After i got back from class, i went with Ben, Scott, David, and Greg to our little gym here at the Colegio. It's not horrible, but it's no Ramsey (technically nothing is). But we did some work in the gym and i started feeling the effects 30 min after leaving the gym. My muscles started tightening up a good bit, but it's one of those feelings that i missed. I hadn't worked out since first semester Freshman year at Ramsey. Definately gonna start workin out more.

Took a nap, ate some dinner, and then it was time to rally. We had heard about this thing called "America Night" from this guy on the street at this bar/club called La Bolseria. So we figured we'd give it a go cause for every 5 Americans that come, you get a free bottle of Champagne. Definately not gonna turn down that offer. We drank some wine as usual and then headed out to O'Hara's and our friendly neighborhood bartender Juanjo. He is honestly the fuckin man. He is what you would expect a little Spanish pub owner to look like (He's the one on the bottom in the pic of the alcohol ads). Then we went off to La Bolseria.

Got to La Bolseria and immediately asked for our champagne. There were like 13 of us, so we all had a glass from the 2 bottles. We were all over that like a fat kid on a cupcake. That got finished pretty fast so we went in search of other drinks, ordered some, and hit the dance floor. We were all grooving and dancing and then someone accidentally knocked a beer bottle out of Joe's hand and it shattered on the ground. So me, Joe, and Taylor started picking up the pieces and while i was hunched over, some guy accidentally ran into me or bumped me or something and i fell forward onto the broken glass. Now i didn't realize it until i was taking some of the pieces to the bar, but my hand was bleeding a good bit. Nothing that required stitches, but it did take some effort to stop the bleeding. But what was a little something bad, turned into a whole lot of something good: They had this incredibly gorgeous bartender named Daniella, who has now stolen my heart, and she told me to follow her and she would fix me up. She took me to a back room and put my hand under the faucet while she got the first aid kit. We started talking and stuff in English and Spanish and she was so sweet...and hot...and had a nice little convo. Anyway, so she cleaned my cuts and shit and put some bandaids on them (which didn't do alot cause it kept bleeding underneath them, but bless her heart) and we headed back out. So i got back to it and started dancing with everyone, except i must have looked like a total goof cause i had to wrap my hand in my undershirt so i didn't get blood on everyone (ya, ruined that undershirt, but worth the 99 fuckin cents it costs). We saw these three African guys in the corner of the dancefloor doing some America's Best Dance Crew shit by themselves and just doing some sidestep move together to the music...awkward. We saw them and Kristen wanted to go dance with them. Now Kristen is a great dancer, but this one guy kicked her ass ten ways to Sunday with his moves. She put in a great effort though. We decided to get some more drinks so we ordered 7 shots of tequila and 2 beers from my angel (Daniella) and she gave it to us for 12 Euros, which is an incredibly fuckin good deal. She said she felt sorry for me cause of my hand and i got to drink pretty cheaply for the rest of the night. We had a great time at La Bolseria and i will definately have to go back to see her again. Dave and I are working out a strategy and he's gonna be my wingman and chat her up for me.

Don't have a witty title for this one...(1/26)

2010-01-30T04:24:00.000-08:00

Back to school for my Tues/Thurs classes. Thought it was gonna be a real bummer because i have Aitor, our on-site director, and his history class these days. I thought it was going to be a very difficult and boring class, but i was WAY off. Aitor's class is one of my two, if not my favorite class. He showed us all these pictures of Spain and they were sick and then had a presentation about little known facts about Spain. For example, the #1 ranked restaurant in the world for like the past 7-8 years is right outside of Barcelona and it has a 2 1/2 year waiting list for reservations. Also, the rails/metros in London, Paris, Madrid, San Fran, and any other major city come from Bilbao in Spain. Gonna be a very interesting and fun class and am looking forward to it.

On my way back from school i had two first time experiences: First, i caught a glimpse of Mestalla, where Valencia CF (Valencia's soccer team. 3rd in La Liga) plays. I had no idea that it is literally a stone's throw from the school...literally...i could throw a fuckin rock from the roof and probably hit it. Can't wait to go to our first game there. Second, i decided it was time to get a haircut. I know, i know, i said i was gonna come back looking like Jesus again, like i had looked in my hayday. But once it gets to that awkward phase where it's not long and not short my patience has its limits. So i found some salon on the way home and popped in for a trim. I asked them to use the "maquina" or what we call clippers or buzzer, but the highest guard they had was a 3 (i usually use an 8), so then i had the pleasure/hassle of trying to explain to the lady what i wanted. It was a good experience, but difficult cause i'm not overly strong in the hair styling vocab in English or Spanish. She did have some magic hands when she shampooed and conditioned me afterwords....ladies. Also stopped by Suerte Suerte to get some school supplies for dirt cheap. Then i had to crash for a nap.

That was really the highlight of the day. Ate some dinner later. Me, Kristen, Suzanne, and Taylor tried to watch The Hangover in one of the TV rooms, but since the country codes on the DVD and DVD player don't match up we couldn't. Instead we watched this one spanish TV station for 15 minutes called "Aprende Ingles" (Learn English). It was essentially a guy with a soft monotone voice, much like that of the painter Bob Ross (Huge afro, used to paint on PBS), talking about how often he takes a shower or why he would take a shower or do common, everyday items...Stimulating. After we had had enough of that, didn't take much, the girls went off somewhere and i went to O'Hara's with some people for a beer. I chugged mine and then went back to the Colegio.

Back to school, back to school (1/25)

2010-01-27T07:25:00.000-08:00

Day kicked off with me having to get up fairly early for my first day of school at La Universidad de Valencia. We all walked over as one big ass group. We had our orientation first at like 10am with Don Vicente, who is the guy in charge of overseeing UGA en Espana's stuff from UVA (Univ of Valencia). He was a portly fellow who had a beard and was balding. Kinda reminded me of a mafia boss or some shit. He explained everything and told us about UVA and introduced our teachers and they put in their 2 cents. They all seemed extremely nice and very friendly. Spanish time is a little more laid back because we were in orientation and had not received our schedule for our classes. Then it got to be 10 past when our first class was supposed to have started at 10:45 and we still had not yet received our schedules. When we finally received our schedules, mine and Kristen's were fucked up. They had put us in the Spanish Film course, which neither of us had signed up for, and taken me out of my culture class and her business Spanish class. But by the end of the day we showed our director our OASIS schedule and he got it all fixed.

Went to my first class, Lit, and my professor's name is Jaume. He's the stereotypical literature teacher with his long waivy hair, scarf, jacket, the way he talks...just seemed like a good fit for the class. He was pretty cool and seemed like the class would be fairly easy. The only issue is that our grades come from two places: Participation is worth 35% and our Final Exam is worth 65%. Not too much room to fuck up in. So finished that class up and headed back to the Colegio for some lunch. On the way back, me and Suzanne stopped at this awesome Pasteleria (pastry shop) and got these dynamite pastries for dirt cheap. Pretty sure i got an immediate cavity.

Came back and did some laundry, or at least attempted to. The washers/dryers here in the Colegio suck hard. Me and Taylor braved the laundry room and i used one washer and she used the other (they are two different makes and models). Setting the temperature is a little bit more tricky than we thought, as we would soon find out. My laundry ended up turning out fine, but poor Taylor got hosed. The fucking settings on her washer were ridiculous and somehow the temperatures got all fucked up and she had a red item in her wash that turned 90% of her white clothes pink. The only other issue i had is the fuckin dryer, much like those in the dorms Freshman year, sucked out loud. You had to put them through like 4 cycles to get your clothes dry. They finally got done or whatever. It really is a ROYAL pain in the ass to have your clothes smell like smoke all the time. I'll walk into a pasteleria or something for a snack and then when i go to take a shower everything already smells like fuckin cigarettes: pants, shirt, jacket, underwear, probably even my skin.

Nothing really special happened after that until after dinner. Took a nap, ate some food. A group of us decided to go out to our friendly neighborhood watering hole, O'Hara's for some beers. We drank some and had some fun...nothing too crazy. Found a book about Hemerroids (spelling?) in the bar, which we had a few good laughs with. After we drank our fill we hit up the MECA of drunk food eateries--DONER KEBAB. It's this incredible place where you can get awesome food for like 3 Euros. They put this Grade D meat on a spitrod and shave it off with what appears to be the same machine i use to buzz my hair. It's magical though.

El Rio, Spider Web, Gulliver, and AWESOMENESS (1/24)

2010-01-26T09:17:00.001-08:00

So going to bed at close to 7am and then having to be up for another tour at 10:30am is not a good combo to help with a hangover. Went on another city tour with Aitor, one of our directors over here, and just spent an hour or so in the city. I got mildly irritated when as we were almost done with the tour I found out it wasn’t mandatory, but whatever.

We finished up the tour and me, Diego, and Greg decided we should buy a soccer ball and go down to the Rio for a kickabout. The Rio is this old dried up riverbed that runs the length of Valencia and is now a park. It has full soccer fields, fountains, all this cool little shit. Suzanne decided she would join us cause she wanted to get and about. Went to Suerte Suerte, the Spanish equivalent of Dollar General, to pick up a soccer ball, what we found was a non-spherical and slightly retarded cousin of a soccer ball. But for only 3 Euros, why not? We went down to the Rio but all the fields were taken by club games, so we found this patch of green in the middle of all these monuments/memorials/art sculptures. We kicked the ball around for a bit and realized we were all extremely out of shape. We went and sat down on this one sculpture and after about 10 min of not talking, we all just kinda turned to each other and we knew we had the same thought on our minds—We’re in fuckin Valencia. This is so surreal. We then verbalized our thoughts and decided to try and walk down to the beach, or at least to these buildings with amazing architecture that you see whenever you Google Valencia.

We walked the rest of the length of the Rio, a couple miles maybe, and found some incredibly awesome stuff in the process. There were ponds, fountains, and little parks all along the way and it was real…what’s a good word…quaint? Ya, pretty darn quaint. Then all the sickness and pure, un-adulterated awesomeness started to happen: We stumbled upon this rope course/playground that was like a spiderweb/castle shape rolled into one. We climbed all over that bad boy. It's a shame we didn't have a sharpie or some marker to write our names at the top of the highest tower where others who had climbed it had done. Maybe would have written something good like, "America Rules" or "Por Favor = More America Please." But alas, no marker. So we left there after some fun and stumbled upon GULLIVER. It's a massive playground built through and around and on top of Gulliver from the book Gulliver's Travels. There are slides coming off his hair, body, everything and little chutes and stairs. Whoever got the idea for this and how it was planned out is fuckin brilliant. The slides were insane and pretty intense. They are like those waterpark slides that drop off at like a 90 degree angle...you're comin in hot when you fly down those. We finally made our way to the Art, Music, and Science Halls/Centers. The architecture of these buildings blows your minds. They look so futuristic, but still extremely classy and well done. Not gonna lie, you could say the buildings were beautiful. Thats whats so great about Valencia, it blends old architecture w/ modern and w/futuristic.

When we had had enough of the time in the Rio, manly cause it started getting colder and rainy, we headed back to the Colegio. Me and Kristen went out to dinner at this place called El Fortcart for some pretty orgasmic paella. It was so fuckin good. The rice had the perfect texture and just the right amount of saffron and it had rabbit, snail, artichoke, some type of white bean, and other stuff. That paired with a bottle of wine was good eats. After we finished dinner, we went out to this bar Finnigan's to meet up with everyone else and watch the Colts/Jets game. Had a couple of beers and caught the end of the game. The rest of the night was pretty mellow cause i had my first day of school the next day.

VALENCIA (1/23)

2010-01-26T06:25:00.000-08:00

For starters, sorry i keep getting behind on this. We just found out we wont be getting WiFi in the dorms because apparently we´re not cool enough to be able to get our code from the school. So i have to keep using the computer lab at strange times. Hopefully ill sort it all out some way and then ill also be able to post the rest of the pics to facebook and this blog.

Right then, so we left Madrid and had a 4 hr bus ride to Valencia. Nothing overly exciting there. Napped for the first half and we stopped off at this rest station in the middle of nowhere, like literally all you could see was Spanish plains for days, to get some food and stuff. I'm not really sure if you could qualify what we at there as food. The paella looked like it had been sitting there for 3 days, my empanada was rock hard on the outside and luke-warm in the middle, and the rest of the food looked subpar. We got back on the bus and ended up getting to Valencia in one piece.

Valencia kicks the fuckin shit out of Madrid. The architecture is so much cooler, its fuckin everywhere, our dorms are right in the middle of the city....its awesome. We parked the bus in the Plaza de Reina and we all had to carry/wheel our luggage to the Colegio Mayor (place we're staying). We must have looked like the biggest american idiots; just this trail of Northface and suitcases as we all walked like a row of marching ants to the dorms. The dorms aren't half bad. I probably have one of the smallest rooms out of all of us, but its still nice. Other rooms are pretty damn big and have balconies, or porches, or other sick views. We all have our own private bathrooms and a maid service that comes to clean up and junk.

After we all got settled in, we went out on a walking tour and kinda just looked around at the city. Then, we decided to go to Corte Ingles to pick up the necessities--wine and food. Me, Liza, and Sean found these awesome, with the word awesome being used loosely, €.89 bottles of wine, which we immediately snatched up. We also found this sick juice boxes of wine (evidence of them on facebook now). Oh it was magical. We headed back to the dorms for dinner, which wasnt the best ive had in Spain, but maybe we caught the cafeteria on a bad night cause the food has been pretty decent since. Since Stockton was turning 20 that night at midnight we needed to go out for that. There is this small bar, very small, right by the Colegio called O'Haras and we all went there to celebrate a bit. €2 draughts were on tap and it was a fuckin good deal. Tequila shots were also another loved event. We hung out at that bar until we figured it'd be fun to go dance and shit. We found this place called Radio City and we lit that place up. I had a fuckin blast. Everyone was there: Austin, Kristen, Joe, Diego, Stockton, Brittany, Hope, Leah, Dave, Liza, Sean, etc, etc. Everyone in the group came along and celebrated. We turned that club upside down. Had some more beers, a few more shots to get me all loosey goosey to bust a move. Brilliant time. I do recall at one point we saw these 4 Spaniards just kinda standing around in a half-circle with their arms folded just looking like they had some huge as sticks up their asses, which they probably did. So Kristen says, "I think im gonna go try and dance in front of them or something." To which i reply, "No, i got this." Now to assume things that are do are smart and good is to assume that my mind is my ally....which is not the case. If i know something is hot, my mind says, "you should touch it, just to see how hot it is." So i decided to get a half running start and jump in front of them and start doing some fuckin blender/milkshake move and shake my fuckin ass and start turning around. Of course this doesnt sit well with them, and they HURL me back towards everyone. Don't think i'll be pulling another one of those again. Some people just cant take a joke. At like 3:30 am the lights came on and we figured it was close to closing so we jammed out and of course we were all pretty hot and sweaty. The cool Valencian air was a nice bonus. Anyway, the night was fuckin awesome, dynamite first night. We all had a blast.

Last night in Madtown (aka Madrid) (1/22)

2010-01-25T05:02:00.000-08:00

Last night in Madrid was insane.

Woke up around 12:30pm and me, Taylor, Austin, Kristen, and Sean decided to hit up Museo de Jamon (Ham museum) for lunch. Two things about this place that need to be said: First, never seen more meat in one place in my life. Second, i have never felt less welcome at any restaurant. We walk in, head to the bar area where some people had just left in order to get some food and the guy working there tells us we have to go upstairs and to the left to be seated. Fine, we do so. So we´re waiting and finally when it´s our turn, the hostess tells us that we have to go upstairs again to be seated in the dining room. Then as we get to the hostess on the 3rd floor, Austin is about to go ask how long the wait is and as he´s walking by, some old man with a cane pulls out the cane and puts it in front of Austin and starts getting all pissy cause he thinks he´s trying to cut in the line or some shit. Either way, the service was poor, the food mediocre, and the people sucked there. I swear, everyone at Museo de Jamon has sand up their vaginas.

After lunch, went back to the hotel to nap. Diego came in around 5 and woke me up asking if i still wanted to go tour the Bernabeu (Remember? where Real Madrid plays...). I said of-fucking-course and got dressed faster than i can ever remember. So me, Diego, and Dave hopped on the Metro and headed to the Bernabeu....UNBELIEVABLE! The Bernabeu is just plain sick (check the photo album on FB). We first went to the top of the stadium and saw it there, then to the trophy and history of the club hall, then on to the field, and finally got to see the visitors´ locker rooms. All of it was so amazing and i´m pretty sure i had to change my boxer-briefs afterwords. Just kidding....but seriously.

For the final night we all decided to go out to this club called Ceviles. Now, as most of you know, i don´t overly enjoy dancing in public unless its salsa, merengue, or at some concert. But thats the beauty of alcohol mixed with a foreign country. We tore up that club. Much love to the tequila shots and Heineken for loosening me up. Me, Joe, Taylor, Kristen, Suzanne, and Dave owned that fuckin dance floor. We all lost 5lbs via sweat in the process, but it was a fuckin riot. There was this Spanish chick who would occasionally come over and dance with all of us and she was cool as nuts. She also had an ass that you could bounce a quarter off of and get 50 cents back. She could also shake that thing like a moracca. After a couple hours we left the club cause we were so hot and initiated Liza into the Wolfpack (i´ll explain later). Then, as we walked the streets, she led us in a "Who´s that comin down the track..." chant. I´m sure the Spaniards more than loved that one. After having some fun in the streets, we headed back to the hotel cause we had a lovely 4 1/2 hr bus ride to Valencia the next morning. But Madtown was fuckin awesome and i hope to go there again some day.

p.s. My ass is the ass in the picture

2nd night in Madrid (1/21)

2010-01-25T04:46:00.000-08:00

First off, my bad cause i havent updated the blog in a while. There has been a lack of internet and been really busy. Now that i´m mildly settled in, i figured i can get back to updating this bad boy.

Waking up the first morning in Madrid was less than stellar due to the pounding i took the first night. But that is usually the sign of a good night. Me and Joe headed off to grab some lunch after we woke up at around 1. We went to this place down the street from the hotel called the Zahara Cafe. Had the Zahara Sandwich (their take on a club sandwich) and it was fuckin incredible. They had this tomato based cream sauce on it and they smeared it on the potato salad on the side and it was orgasmic....ok, not that far, but still pretty good. Bought myself a prepaid cell phone from Movistar so i could communicate with folks in the group in Spain. After that, headed back up to the room for another nap.

After dinner, we went on a group activity which was a night tour of Madrid on the bus. It was pretty cool to see the city lit up at night. We saw the Royal Palace, national library, national bank, main cathedral, and the Santiago Bernabeu (where Real Madrid plays for those who dont know....or have a soul).

We went back to the room to pound some wine and pregame before we went out again. Me, Taylor, Kristen, and Joe headed out around 2am and were gonna meet up with others in the group at this place called Star Studio, but by the time we got there, apparently they had already left. So we hung out there a bit cause they gave me and Joe free shots of Robitusson and free Mojitos for the girls. After a while we left and tried to go about finding the rest of the group but never did. So me and Kristen gave up and decided to go walk around ourselves. We found this jungle gym, a fucking jungle gym, in the middle of the city...not in a park or anything, but just there in front of huge buildings. Pretty random. We messed around on that for a bit and then decided to head back to the hotel room. When we got there, we were surprised to find a shit ton of people in our room smoking, drinking, and partying. So we just kicked it there for the rest of the night and had Dave and Diego freestyle rap for an honest-to-god 45 min straight. Pretty impressive. We went to bed around 8am.

Madrid (1/20)

2010-01-21T06:36:00.000-08:00

First night in Madrid....hard to describe. Pretty sure there isn't really a word to describe how incredibly awesome it was. We all ate dinner at the hotel as a group and then we kinda split up on our own. Me, Kristen, Taylor, Joe, and Austin (taking the pic) all decided to go to the Spanish mix of a Macy's and Wal-Mart called Corte Ingles to each pick up a bottle of wine for ourselves. We drank those and were up to our room to shoot the shit, party, and have a good time. I'm not sure how this next part happened, but my Bruce Spingsteen impersonation video on YouTube managed to pop up in conversation and we all watched that. Well they watched it, i turned more and more beet red after every 10 sec. But it was all good fun. After we finished in the room, we decided to head out and see what Madrid had to offer. Turns out it could offer quite a lot. We had an good time getting lost and never finding the intended bar, so we settled on this one called Impass Cafe down this dodgy side street. Turned out it was a hookah bar too. So we ordered some beers, shot the shit, i smoked my first hookah, and had some more fun running around Madrid. This morning however, not as much fun. But that's the sign of a good night. Got a night tour of Madrid tonight with the group, then it's out for Round 2. Do Work, Son!

A long day: Atlanta > Frankfurt > Madrid

2010-01-20T08:07:00.000-08:00

Finally made it to Madrid and just got settled in our hotel room (which has an Alvin and the Chipmunks theme. As evidence from the pictures) at about 5pm local time. My man Maxamillian at the Lufthansa check-in desk in ATL hooked me up with some nice seats on the plane and i had the whole row to myself. Despite this bonus I didn't sleep a wink on either flight, so i'm tired as nuts right now. Me and a group of people settled down in the Frankfurt airport and enjoyed some nice German brews. No worries about the tiredness, i'm gonna rally on and head out for our first night in Madrid. Madrid, from what we've seen so far, is sick. The city is amazing: the architecture, parks, everything. Lookin forward to soaking it up more tonight. Check out the pictures so far and i'll keep y'all posted.

Much Love

One week left

2010-01-11T21:54:00.000-08:00

Alright kids,

This is my first blog thing so cut me some slack if i don't do so hot at this. I leave for Valencia in exactly a week. Gettin kinda anxious about it. Still hasn't really hit me that i'm going yet, maybe when i start packing it will. Otherwise, i'll keep you updated as much as i can and throw some good stories, pics, and videos on here.

Much Love