Friday, Day 23

Hola mis amigos!

Katie and I started off this wonderful Friday by grabbing breakfast at the café across the street again. They even gave me to go coffee which is rare in Spain; I was in heaven! There are 3 little ladies who work the café every single day, all day, we are starting to become somewhat regulars and they are always so sweet.

Classes went by pretty fast this morning. We had a jam session in our morning Spanish class with everyone, which put everyone in a pretty good mood (by everyone, I mean Katie and I-haha). We had a guest speaker who talked to us about Valencia Oranges and it was painfully boring, even though some of the material was interesting. The only thing we really learned was don't eat the oranges off the trees on the street because you could die.. the speech may have been a little bit more interesting if I could have understood more of her Spanish. After the speaker's presentation, we had a meeting about next weeks festivities and our professors brought us the sus sus dessert. We are going to Granada, Cordoba, and Toledo before we head back to Madrid to fly home next Sunday. There will be several bus rides, three hotel rooms, and very little sleep before we can back to the states. We are excited for the upcoming week though and the things we will get to see! We have final exams Monday and Tuesday before we leave too. I guess everything in Valencia is really coming to a sad end.

After classes, we headed back home to find Jamel making lunch for us. He made us delicious chicken with rice and bread. He also added chips to the table, the always included random dish. There was also tuna calzone hiding out in the corner that he offered as well, we politely declined.

(Lunch made by Jamel)

 

 

After lunch- we skipped out on a siesta and decided to go to the "Las Fallas" museum for our third, and last, cultural activity for our classes. Las Fallas is a festival in March for one of the Saints of Valencia. Committees create these paper mache/Styrofoam figures that they end up lighting on fire at the end of the festival. There is a ton of fireworks, costumes, and everyone from the city attends. The museum was interesting, but creepy to say the least. Imagine a wax museum, and then imagine you and a friend being the only ones inside. That was Katie and I... quite the experience, but of course we still had a blast.

 

 



(Me with the "Ninot": Las Fallas Figure)

 

(All the steps of making the figures)

 

Once we were done looking around the creepy museum, we headed across the street to check out the famous Arts and Sciences Museum. We can't afford to go inside, haha, but we just looked around! There are four separate parts with: Aquarium, Nightclub, Imax theater, Arts and Sciences, so much. It's supposed to be one of the best, if not the absolute best, museum in Europe. We goofed off for awhile and took some pictures before calling it a day. On our way out, we spotted some kids in the water rolling around in these blow up, plastic globes. If we had some extra euros, we maybe just maybe would have joined them.. You are only young once! We decided that it wasn't socially acceptable at 21 and 20 years old though and sadly moved on.

 

 

(Arts and Sciences Museum)

 

(Katie and I at the Arts and Sciences Museum)



 

Before heading home- we decided to procrastinate our work a little longer and went to the Corte de Ingles, the largest department store in Valencia. There are several different chains, but this one is the largest in the area. There is even a grocery store in the bottom, bizzare! There were like eight different floors, all with different brands. I ended up buying a shirt and Katie a few things too! Definitely a successful afternoon. We took a taxi back home to finally get some stuff done before the rest of the night started.

(Huge El Corte de Ingles)

 

Gemma and Jamel went out for dinner tonight and left Katie and I with leftovers to eat. Normally, this would be a totally fine plan.. except all that was left was the tuna in the fridge. We decided to skip out on dinner at home and went out for pizza at a place right around the corner. We each got two slices, a slice for one euro a piece! I was very excited until I bit into my first bite of my first piece. To my surprise, my chicken and cheese pizza was actually cheese and tuna. NOT FUN! I ate my single chicken, bbq, and cheese pizza instead.. which was still delicious. After we ate, we headed back to our homestay to get ready for the night's festivities! We went out on the town with everyone from the group and had a blast. It's sad to think this is my last weekend with all of these great people we just met! Hasta Luego!