FALLAS

PAELLA!

ME BALANCINA A BEER AND CUP ON MY HEAD FOR LIKE 10 MIN

SO MANY PEEPS

PARADE FINALE

BEACH, I'VE OFFICIALLY BEEN IN THE MEDITERRANEAN--IT WAS COLD

YO <3>Hey guys I had an exciting week!

Wednesday was St. Patty's day, so I went to Orange, a bar in Arguelles, with the gang. It was 5 to get in with free drinks for an hour (if you were wearing green) and one free shot after that. It was a fun time except that the bartender tried to skeet Laura out of her free drink cup and by the time it was figured out free drinks were over! That night I spent the night at Laura's so I wouldn't have to take the night bus home which really isn't working out well for me..

Last Thursday, I went to a mexican restaurant with some american friends and it was awesome! Free chips and salsa and guac (no queso or tortillas) None of us, however, knew what mole was, so all of us ordered the enchiladas with mole on top. We then discovered that mole is a nasty sauce made from chiles and chocolate. but the chalupa I had was delish! After that Laura and I went to Jano's basketball game. They lost, but its ok! After that we went to Burger King with his team where I ordered a BK Fusion, chocolate cake flavored. Then I went to Janos house and later home to pack for Valencia!

Friday I had to be at Plaza de Espana at 9 to get the buses to Valencia! woooo Of course, the whole thing was completely unorganized, but still fun. We stopped halfway at this rest stop where literally EVERY bus going to Valencia stops. There must have been 1000 people there. Then, when we got to Valencia, we went to the beach! We had sandwiches and tinto de verano that the ESN provided! Then we decided it would be a great idea to walk downtown from the beach to meet up with our other friends. 2 hours and a bottle of sangria later, we found them! Laura bought us chocolate covered churros which ranks very very very high on the goodness of foods that I've eaten lately scale. Then, we walked around downtown for a bit and looked at some of the statues. Again, there were people everywhere. Every street was like walking through a mosh pit. Then at 7 the parade started. It pretty much consisted of music, dancers, girls in fancy dresses (falleras) and at the end fireworks! The fireworks were really cool because it wasnt like in the US where there usually far away; it was right up the close and the whole sky was smoke and everyone smelled like fire. Then we went to the bar where we were supposed to meet the coordinators and had agua de valencia (orange juice, brandy, champagne and other shiz) and beers of course. We got really mad at ourselves that we didnt think ahead and buy stuff to drink outside. Laura and I had dinner at the restaurant next door to the bar. Later we went to watch the burning and that was when we had the most fun probably. Afterwards we went to a discoteca with everyone from the erasmus trip and were reallly tired by that time and some biatch stole Laura's sweater...hmmm I also realized that every single song they played was the same song. They would play 5 seconds of the beginning so I would get excited and then go right back in to the techno beat. We left at around 6 and got to the hotel around 7 which was of course super organized and we could go straight to bed...not. I ended up sleeping from around 8 to 12:30 and then got up to have Paella!

Saturday was a chill day for most normal people, but, as I discovered, Italians either snort coke or have extra batteries somewhere because they were drinking, having water fights, stripping, fighting with table legs all day. (straight out of Jersey Shore) We left at 6 and got back to Madrid around 12:30. No comment about the night bus...

Sunday I went to see Shutter Island with Jano which was reallllly weird but it was pretty cool.

Today I found out I won one of the MLLL scholarships! I don't know how much it's for yet but I'm still pumped!