It has been extremely HOT the past 5ish days here. Finally, today we've gotten a little break from the heat. It's nice to not smell horrible or be dripping in sweat for a change. Anyway, now that I'm done complaining, let's talk about what I've been up to.
Friday night I went out to finally try tapas at a restaurant called Kategorri with Emily, Ricardo, Joey, Fabiana, Neals, and Jason. This was a little bit of an upscale take on tapas, but Emily's teacher recommended it and they were delicious! She also said that this restaurant's tapas are more similar to those in the north, which is where they originated. After tapas we decided to walk towards the old neighborhood with lots of bars, and ran into this amazing little corner where a group of people were dancing the tango--moments like this are so fun and feel surreal to me. Unfortunately, it ended about 10 minutes after we got there. But anyway, we headed over to the bars and popped in and out of places for an hour or two. Nothing spectacular, just lots of funny drunk people and awkward dancing.
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| Delicious (kinda fancy) tapas |
Saturday was the second (and last) excursion with our USAC group--we went to Altea and Calpe. Altea is a very old city and there were beautiful views from there. I also met a very friendly couple from Denmark, and it was really fun to speak to strangers in english. :) All we did there was walk around and see the sights, but it was fun. Then we went to Calpe, which is a much more modern city, and had comida at a restaurant called "Andaluz." It was all tapas, but was very yummy. I even tried fried calamari for the first time! Emily, Joey, Ricardo, and I also had a really good time playing with our food. Emily just kept picking up a piece of tortilla española and slapping it on a plate... one of those things where you had to be there, but trust me it was funny. And there will be a video at some point! After comida we all went to the beach and the water was absolutely gorgeous, but for some strange reason this water was very cold compared to other beaches.
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| Calpe-- a huge rock that you can climb! Wish there had been time :( |
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| (Altea) Oh yeah, we dressed like twins that day :P |
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| Gorgeous--Altea |
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| Fried Calamari rings... very chewy |
On Sunday Emily and I got up around 8 so that we could head over to catch the boat that went to the Island of Tabarca. This was really fun! I realized on the way that I have never before been on a boat in the sea, and it was a really rocky ride. I didn't get sick though, yay! The island itself is pretty small (only 68 inhabitants as of 2011), but we had fun there and it was also my first time on a real island... and by real I mean in the sea, not a lake. We watched a small marching band play a rendition of Lady Gaga's bad romance and a group of people stood around them and danced. This was just really funny for some reason. Then we explored the island, dropped our sunscreen in the sea, Emily rescued it, and we took lots of pictures of the amazing scenery. After that we went into the one-room island museum and watched a video about Tabarca (with english subtitles, yay!). Next we relaxed on the beach for awhile and then decided to go snorkeling. I had never snorkeled before, so this was awesome! The sea surrounding Tabarca actually became Spain's first marine reserve in 1986, so it was pretty cool to snorkel there. We say tons of fish, and I was nervous enough to get a good workout swimming away so that they wouldn't brush up against me haha. :) We took the boat back last night and relaxed for the rest of the night. I tried to watch one of Eva's (my host mom) movies called "Mar Adentro" because it's supposed to be a really good Spanish film, but unfortunately there were no subtitles at all. Instead I started watching "El león, la bruja, y el armario," but fell asleep quickly afterwards.
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| The little band in Tabarca |
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| Beautiful beach on the Island of Tabarca |
Side note: I've been doing pretty well with hearing and understanding native spanish speakers, but speaking has been a very difficult and frustrating process for me. However, I think my speaking is definitely improving, which gives me hope! I say this because last night Emily told me that when she came in the room I said, "Lo siento, estoy muy cansada." (In english: "I'm sorry, i'm really tired.) I really don't remember doing this, so my brain must be thinking in Spanish easier! Also, Eva told me at comida today that I'm speaking in complete sentences now (yay 2nd grade haha!) and that I've really improved since the first day.
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| A helpful visual of where I went this past weekend |
SarahBee
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