Tuesday, Day 20

¡Hola mis amigos!

It was back to reality this morning. Katie and I started off our day with toast for breakfast, which was oddly comforting to eat. I guess we missed our toast and PB after all! Jamel even woke up a little early to make me some coffee, a great start to the week to say the least. He left cream, sugar, and a Longwood mug (a gift from a past student, Tate) by the coffee maker. So sweet!

We started our morning of classes by singing songs in our Spanish class where we all meet together. We literally had a dance party and sang ¨Ave Maria¨ by David Beisbol (spelling?). It definitely lifted my spirits for the day. The professor from next door had to come tell our professors and the students to keep it down, haha.

(Left to Right: Justin, Shana, & Beth leading the class songs)

We headed back to our homestay after classes and Jamel made us a huge lunch. Gemma wasn´t home, so we are assuming she had to work today.. although we still don´t know what she does exactly. Jamel made us croquettes with chicken, meatballs, fries, white rice, bread, and salad (aka carbs on carbs on more carbs). We ate until we were sick and still didn´t even make a dent in the big plates on the table. After lunch, we skipped out on a siesta and packed our school stuff up to go to the gardens. We laid out on a grassy area that we found and did some homework for awhile (aka Katie slept and I people watched while attempting to read). It was really relaxing and way better than lugging all of our stuff to the beach.

(Lunch that Jamel made us)

(Relaxing in the Royal Gardens)

Around 6, we walked with John and Jake to meet up with other people from school and all of our intercambios. We met at the same wine cellar tapas bar that we met last week. It was quite the group with Katie, John, Jake, three girls from class, and me paired with Mai y Carlos (Katie and I´s intercambios), Manuel y Lorenzo (John and Jake´s intercambios), and Samantha (intercambio of the other three girls). We talked about everything from the economy, cars in different countries, likes and dislikes. I found out when comparing cars that I have the same car as Lorenzo (a volkswagon Passat). Turns out, my small car in the USA is thought to be a massive car in Spain, haha! I love that we are able to talk to the group about pretty much anything and we can all help eachother with our different languages. I´m really coming to be fond of the group and I am going to be so disappointed to leave them in a week! We plan to hangout with them some more before we leave and Carlos even offered to make the group a big dinner on Thursday.

(Left to Right: Samantha, Katie, and Lorenzo)

(Left to Right: Katie, Carlos, and me/ teaching Carlos the KD symbol)

(The whole group! Minus Manuel)

We walked back to our homestay with Jake, John, and Samantha. On the walk back- Samantha and I had some time to talk and got some bonding time in. She only lives a block or two up from Katie and I and is the sweetest girl. She´s been studying english for 6 years and she´s 27. Her dream is to live in the United States with a host family and practice her Spanish and English, mostly English, for awhile (she´s from Argentina and has lived in Valencia for one year). She told Katie and I could come visit her whenever we like and she secretly likes us better than her other intercambios, haha. It was so rewarding when she told me that Katie and I were good teachers for English and that she liked hanging out with us, considering us great new friends. I´m happy that we are leaving so soon with some great contacts in Valencia. Who knows, maybe one day we will come back to visit!

We ended the night by eating leftovers from lunch, which was perfectly fine with me. Gemma and Jamel had invited us to go out to different tapas bars and dinner, but we had already made plans with our intercambios. It´s a good thing we didn´t go out with them because we were with all of our Spanish friends from 6:30-10. We worked on homework for awhile before finally calling it a night. We talked for awhile, too, about how much we really are going to miss Valencia and all of our new friends when we leave next week. I never thought that the trip would fly by so fast and there is still so much more I want to experience. I guess we have to definitely have to take advantage of the time we do have in the next week! Until next time, Hasta Luego!