Valencia - LAS FALLAS

Hola todos,
sorry its been so long since i've written, i've had a lot going on in my classes and have done a lot of traveling these past couple of weekends. first off: Valencia. its a city on the eastern coast of spain and we went for a puente which is what they call four day weekends here. We took a bus there and arrived late wednesday night and got up on thursday, the main day of the fallas and fathers day (dia de san jose, the father of christ, aka carptenter, hence why they have big fires) and we wandered around valencia seeing all the fallas we could fit into the day. fallas are huge, three story high wooden statues that are super ornate and at the end of thursday they burn them. we staked out our spot and on thursday night watched the burning of the main falla in the city center with a huge fireworks show following the burning. Friday we slept in a little bit and then got up and went to the beach all day. It was maybe 70 or 75 degrees and beautiful, the water was a bit cold but we weren't about to pass up a chance to swim in the mediterranean! we went home and made a wonderful spaghetti dinner that night. Saturday we decided to hit up the museum of arts and sciences and the aquarium which all were really cool. The aquarium had this underground tunnel thing where you were surrounded by sharks and tropical fish and whatnot, plus we got to see a dolphin show! After a day full of tourism we decided to do a flamenco dinner and show. We got an amazing three course dinner of Paella followed by an awesome show of flamenco dancing! Sunday we got up and went to the falla museum which houses parts of fallas dating back to like 1930 or something like that and after that we headed home after an amazing weekend!

Este fin de semana

hola todos! We have what they call a"puente" here, which is one day longer than a long weekend, aka i dont have school on thursday, so tomorrow i'm leaving for Valencia to see the Fallas [google it, its cool] and i won't be back until Sunday night, in which i have a lot to get done homework-wise, but i'll get pics and stories up here for all of you to see very soon after! besos!

Hangin with Franco

So last friday we had an excursion with one of my classes to go to el Pardo (Francisco Franco's palace) and el Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen) which are both very close to Madrid. It was pretty sweet hangin at Franco's pad, but kinda weird too as he was such a powerful dictator and the civil war and Franquismo and everything happenned so recently. The place itself was very pretty with a lot of beautiful artwork and it was furnished very lavishly. from there we had some free time where we bought big loaves of homemade bread and ate them in the sunshine of Franco's garden. We then headed over to the valley of the fallen, which was amazing. It was on top of this mountain, so high up that it was snowing and raining and the wind was blowing at about 800 mph, but it was so cool. Franco built this place 1. as a burial site for himself and his cousin and 2. as a memorial for all of the people who died in the name of spain during the civil war. It was enormous and somewhat tunnel like with a pulpit type church part at the other end. The picture with teh cross is the outside of it - lots of arches and a huge cross up on the hill. Because of the snow/rain up there there was also an absolutely ammaaaaazing double rainbow up there. the rest of the weekend was good, we just hung out Alcala style, oh and on sunday we ventured into madrid to go to the rostro, a huuuge street market which was really cool but also very overwhelming. the weather is getting beautiful! its about 65 degrees every day and i love it!! besos, Nat

cuenca + last week

so last friday we went on another free trip to Cuenca, a small city about 2 hours away from us. Cuenca is gorgeous, and also famous for its casas colgadas, which are houses built out off of a cliff, quite crazy actually. We went to a modern art museum which was interesting but the tour was very long (and we all know i'm not a huge fan of guided tours) and then we went through the cathedral and had the rest of the day free. I wasn't feeling well but i sucked it up because i'm in spain for crying out loud! we ended up walking around the cute little streets and finally out onto this cliff - believe it or not i ventured out kind of to the edge, you'd all be proud - and had an amazing view of the ravine with all the casas colgadas and could see all the city. overall it was really fun. i stayed in most of last weekend other than that to study and recoup a bit from being sick, which i still am a bit, but my host mom gave me these amazing pills that work like magic and i feel great now. tomorrow we have a field trip to the valley of the fallen and Franco's palace so that should be really interesting, i'll post pictures and everything right away!! Mommo i hope you're feeling better!! Love you all, un besito!