Such a wonderful life!

My mom and I at the top of the Castle in Alicante

          It has been a while since I posted, but the good thing about that is that I have a lot to talk about! School has been going the same. I have started to feel a little bit behind because I have been slacking a little bit. It is really easy to fall behind because like I have mentioned before, we really don´t have homework here. We just have the final papers and exams at the end of the semester, so I should really get started on the reading and assignments!

          I had my first experience with a house in Spain a couple of weeks ago, and it was really nice! I made friends with a girl named Mireia and she invited me over to hang out and have lunch one day, so I went to her house. It was really nice, and the interior reminded me of the houses we have more up north. She had a really nice pool in the front yard which is different, and also a sweet garden with a bunch of different fruit trees! There were oranges, lemons, pomegranates and a bunch of other types of fruit trees!

View of the city of Toledo from the outside!

          I took another weekend trip with Ali to Toledo Spain as well. Toledo is a beautiful city close to Madrid, and it used to be Spain´s capital. The city was somewhat smaller than some of the other ones that I have been to, but there was a LOT to see and do there. The main attraction in Toledo is the Alcazar. We spent a couple of hours inside and outside taking pictures of the beautiful scenery. The nice thing about the museums in Spain is that a good number of them are free on Sundays! We managed to get everything done in two days, and we bought a bunch of souvenirs there as well. Toledo is also known for their marzipan, so we were sure to buy some of that while we were there! Also in Toledo we had our first experience with sharing a hostel room with strangers! I think we got pretty lucky for our first stranger experience. We were in a room with 2 other girls, one from Boston and one from Egypt! They were both really nice, so everything worked out well.

          Wednesday (March 19) I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity for my parents to come visit me! I picked them up from the airport in Alicante on Wednesday morning, and we started our weeklong journey in Spain together! I mentioned before that the people here all live in “pisos” which are basically apartments, and my parents rented one of those to stay in for the week so we wouldn´t all be stuffed into a tiny hotel room together. It was really nice and had a beautiful view of the sea and a nice kitchen, so I definitely lucked out being able to stay there for a week!

           Their stay in Alicante was amazing, and I didn´t want it to end. We travelled to Benidorm and Elche, walked around the city a ton, climbed to the top of the castle, spent endless hours at the beach and ate delicious food and gelato! My favorite part of their trip was when my parents and I got invited to have lunch with my host family. It was such an awesome day for all of us! My host mom prepared a GIANT pan of paella for everyone, and her nieces came over for a couple of hours as well. The thing was, my parents don´t speak a word of Spanish, and my host parents don´t speak a word of English!

My host parents (left) and my real parents (right) having a
typical Spanish meal together!

            For those of you who don´t know, my goal in life is to become a translator and work my way up to an interpreter. So, as you can imagine, I had an awesome time interpreting between everyone for a few hours. I got to know my host parents a lot better as well, because my parents were asking some good questions! It was definitely one of the best day´s I have had here. Tuesday morning my parents left to head back to the United States, and I was really sad to see them go. I am so lucky that I had the opportunity to spend a week with them in Spain!

           

           This week has been pretty uneventful; however I am getting a pretty bad cold! Next weekend Ali and I are going to Barcelona, and I can´t wait!!! J

·     Buenos días!

          I have realized that I have talked a lot about my travels and personal experiences, and not a lot about my city and schooling. So I wanted to make a post about how the school and city life is!

         Alicante is a really beautiful city. It is considered to be small, but to me it is pretty big! The thing that I love most about it is that everyone walks everywhere, because everything is in walking distance! For example, my host mom has a car, but she drives it maybe once a week. There are like 5 grocery stores less than a mile from where we live, and there are always people out on the streets and it is a very lively and fun city.

          The center of the city has a famous plaza called la plaza de luceros, and this is typically where you meet people if you’re meeting up for coffee or to shop or do anything. All of the other students from CMU live relatively close to this plaza; however I live more off to the side so I have to take the tram or bus to get there. I could walk, and sometimes I do, but it takes a while!

          Before I left, I had the assumption that most people in Europe speak English. I think a lot of people believe this because of what we see in movies or what we’re told. This may be true in larger cities like Madrid and Barcelona, but here I have not run into many English speakers. The locals are really nice though, and they are always willing to help you find places and get where you need to go!

          As for the living situations, people in Alicante don’t really have houses. They live in what they call “pisos” which literally translates to floors. For example, I live in a piso with 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living room and a kitchen. It is a decent size, but much smaller than the houses we are used to! It is basically an apartment, but they don’t call it that!

          To get around and to get to classes we have to take the bus or the tram. To be honest, I am already tired of the tram! I take the tram every day to and from class, and it sucks. It is always super crowded and it takes about 20 minutes to get to school, and it is also kind of expensive. It costs about 25 euro for 30 trips, and I have to take it at least 12 times a week. So my euros are being spent on the transportation a lot.

          Classes are getting a little bit easier I suppose. The schooling here is so different, and I’m not sure I’m ever going to fully understand how it is possible for education to be SO different in different countries. I have four classes, and they are all taught with the Spanish students by Spanish professors, in Spanish of course. There are some international students in my classes, but the professors pay no attention to that when they are teaching, and it can be pretty challenging.

          For me, I have to concentrate a lot when I am listening to someone speak Spanish that way I am able to absorb what they are saying and fully understand. So after 2 hours of a class taught by a Spanish professor who speaks ridiculously fast, my brain hurts!

          We don’t have homework here ever. And that scares me. What happens is you attend class all week just like we usually do, and you take notes and there are books you can buy or rent from the library that are recommended by the professors. The classes end in the end of May, and finals are not until mid-June. It is really stressful because there are no quizzes or tests or anything up until the point of the final exam, so you really have no idea if you’re on the right track or not.

           My classes have final papers (15-20 pages!) and a written exam at the end. So I am pretty stressed out about that already! The professors are extremely nice though, and if you take the time to talk to them and let them know that you are foreign and that you might need some further explanation on things, they are more than willing to sit down with you and go over any doubts or questions you may have. So once I get the ball rolling on some of my papers and studying, I’m sure I will be meeting with a few of my professors to go over some of the material!

           Other than the stress of classes, which is of course normal for any university, I am completely satisfied with my choice to study in Alicante, and I would definitely recommend the program to anyone who is studying Spanish! 

          It has been a while since I posted, but so much has been happening, and I haven't had a chance to sit down and put it all together! Last weekend in Alicante, March 1st, was Carnaval! Carnaval is something I have always wanted to experience, and I was really excited to finally get the opportunity! Carnaval is a huge celebration, and if you don't know what it is, I encourage you to look it up! It was crazy here, and I am so happy I got the chance to be a part of it. Everyone dresses up in costumes like we do for Halloween, and there are parades and concerts and just a bunch of activities going on throughout the entire city. 

          On Thursday 5 of us from CMU met up on campus to meet with our adviser. He had arranged for some of his students to meet up with us so we could get to know them and they would take us out for Carnaval. We met several Spanish students, and at the end of the day we each got paired up with one of them and exchanged information so we could figure out our costumes and plans for Saturday night. I got paired up with a really nice girl named Mireia. She told me that she and her friends are going to be dressing up as Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc. We made plans to meet up later that night to buy my costume so I could go out with them.

           We went to a few costume stores and I ended up buying a Mike Wazowski costume as well. On Saturday night, I met up with Mireia and her friend, and we walked to one of her other friend's houses and I met a few more of their friends. We all ate dinner and got ready together, and then we put our costumes on and headed out into the city. The thing about Spain is that their "night life" doesn't start until at least 12am. So we didn't leave until 12:30am, and the streets were crazy!

          We walked to this place in Alicante called La Explanada, which is this pathway along the beach, and there were thousands of teenagers there in their costumes all hanging out and having a good time. Mireia explained to me that this was called a "botellon," which is what they call it when a large group of people get together to drink and party. We hung out there for a few hours, but what I haven't mentioned yet is that Sunday morning at 8am I had to be on a bus to a different city to run a 10k with Amanda and her host family. So that was terrible planning on our part. Around 3:30am I met up with Amanda and we walked back to her host mom's apartment and went to bed. Carnaval was really an exciting experience and I hope I get the chance to celebrate it again someday!

          Sunday morning we had to wake up at 7:30 and get ready for our race. It was torture getting only 4 hours of sleep, but we made it to the bus stop and got on the bus. We ended up taking the bus to the end of the line because we didn't know what stop to get off at, and her host mom's son had to come find us in his car and we were late for the start of the race. It ended up being more of a hike than a race because it was in the mountains, and the whole thing was really challenging but really fun at the same time. After the race, I was incredibly tired, so I went home and showered and went to sleep for a few hours. 

          The next week at school went by pretty quickly, and then Friday morning Zach, Ali and I left for Valencia. For those of you who don't know, Spain is divided into provinces instead of states like the United States, and Alicante is a part of the Valencia province. Valencia, as you can guess, is the capital of this province, and the third largest city in Spain. We left on Friday morning and spent all day Friday walking around and exploring the city. We did a tour of the cathedral and an art museum, and then found our hostel and had some dinner. 

          Valencia is also the home of Europe's largest aquarium, and I am a total sucker for aquariums. We decided to spend the day Saturday at the aquarium, and that was by far the most exciting part of the trip for me. We got a dual ticket and were able to see a 3D movie about the fallas in Valencia. The fallas is another thing you should look up if you're unfamiliar with it. It is another giant celebration where the poeple spend all year building these figures out of wood and Styrofoam, and it is seriously just the craziest and coolest thing you'll see. Then during the celebration, all of these figures are burned and the whole city is on fire. It is incredible, and I wish I was going to be there for the actual celebration! We did get to see them putting some of the figures together though, because the fallas festival started yesterday! 

          Also in Valencia is a giant park that used to be a river, but they turned the whole thing into a huge and beautiful park. After the aquarium trip on Saturday, I decided to take a run through the park and it was so pretty and peaceful. Then Saturday night we walked around some more and had dinner. 

          Sunday was quite the day. We went to the beach and it was just as beautiful as the beach in Alicante. Our train home was supposed to leave at 3:20, and around 1:45 we decided to get lunch. We ended up missing the train, and had to buy a new ticket. None of us were really happy about it, and we were all pretty tired and crabby, so it was nice to finally get home and relax. 

          On Thursday 5 of us from CMU met up on campus to meet with our adviser. He had arranged for some of his students to meet up with us so we could get to know them and they would take us out for Carnaval. We met several Spanish students, and at the end of the day we each got paired up with one of them and exchanged information so we could figure out our costumes and plans for Saturday night. I got paired up with a really nice girl named Mireia. She told me that she and her friends are going to be dressing up as Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc. We made plans to meet up later that night to buy my costume so I could go out with them.

           We went to a few costume stores and I ended up buying a Mike Wazowski costume as well. On Saturday night, I met up with Mireia and her friend, and we walked to one of her other friend's houses and I met a few more of their friends. We all ate dinner and got ready together, and then we put our costumes on and headed out into the city. The thing about Spain is that their "night life" doesn't start until at least 12am. So we didn't leave until 12:30am, and the streets were crazy!

          We walked to this place in Alicante called La Explanada, which is this pathway along the beach, and there were thousands of teenagers there in their costumes all hanging out and having a good time. Mireia explained to me that this was called a "botellon," which is what they call it when a large group of people get together to drink and party. We hung out there for a few hours, but what I haven't mentioned yet is that Sunday morning at 8am I had to be on a bus to a different city to run a 10k with Amanda and her host family. So that was terrible planning on our part. Around 3:30am I met up with Amanda and we walked back to her host mom's apartment and went to bed. Carnaval was really an exciting experience and I hope I get the chance to celebrate it again someday!

          Sunday morning we had to wake up at 7:30 and get ready for our race. It was torture getting only 4 hours of sleep, but we made it to the bus stop and got on the bus. We ended up taking the bus to the end of the line because we didn't know what stop to get off at, and her host mom's son had to come find us in his car and we were late for the start of the race. It ended up being more of a hike than a race because it was in the mountains, and the whole thing was really challenging but really fun at the same time. After the race, I was incredibly tired, so I went home and showered and went to sleep for a few hours. 

          The next week at school went by pretty quickly, and then Friday morning Zach, Ali and I left for Valencia. For those of you who don't know, Spain is divided into provinces instead of states like the United States, and Alicante is a part of the Valencia province. Valencia, as you can guess, is the capital of this province, and the third largest city in Spain. We left on Friday morning and spent all day Friday walking around and exploring the city. We did a tour of the cathedral and an art museum, and then found our hostel and had some dinner. 

          Valencia is also the home of Europe's largest aquarium, and I am a total sucker for aquariums. We decided to spend the day Saturday at the aquarium, and that was by far the most exciting part of the trip for me. We got a dual ticket and were able to see a 3D movie about the fallas in Valencia. The fallas is another thing you should look up if you're unfamiliar with it. It is another giant celebration where the poeple spend all year building these figures out of wood and Styrofoam, and it is seriously just the craziest and coolest thing you'll see. Then during the celebration, all of these figures are burned and the whole city is on fire. It is incredible, and I wish I was going to be there for the actual celebration! We did get to see them putting some of the figures together though, because the fallas festival started yesterday! 

          Also in Valencia is a giant park that used to be a river, but they turned the whole thing into a huge and beautiful park. After the aquarium trip on Saturday, I decided to take a run through the park and it was so pretty and peaceful. Then Saturday night we walked around some more and had dinner. 

          Sunday was quite the day. We went to the beach and it was just as beautiful as the beach in Alicante. Our train home was supposed to leave at 3:20, and around 1:45 we decided to get lunch. We ended up missing the train, and had to buy a new ticket. None of us were really happy about it, and we were all pretty tired and crabby, so it was nice to finally get home and relax. 

          This weekend Ali and are heading to Toledo, which used to be the capital of Spain. There are a lot of attractions to see in Toledo, so I am looking forward to another fun-filled weekend! 

After we finished the 10k!

Inside the cathedral in Valencia.

                                       

Ali and I outside of the aquarium!