I will definitely make this shorter than the past blogs! We are coming up on the final week in Alicante. Madre mia I can't believe it. Since my last entry, I completed my exams and the scuba diving class, and sang in 2 chorus performances, and went out to dinner with the chorus folks 3 (or 4?) times!

So exams: Coloquial was the first and pretty easy. The next week was Civil War and that was actually fun. That was my favorite class this semester and the 6 page paper was a cinch to write. The exam was absolutely a breeze. The next day I had Feminine Literature with the same teacher who taught Civil War but my attitude towards the subject was quite the reverse. I didn't even learn the material till the day before and studied the wrong stuff for the exam, so I bombed it. Luckily, the teacher is a lenient grader and plus even if I get a 6/10, in Spain that is a C, not an F, so I'm good to go.

The weekend before exams we ended up doing the rest of the diving sessions. This time we went to the cape, in a town called Altea about 1 hour away. There they have a big rock, popular for diving, called Penon (with a nya sound)which literally means...big rock. This time the diving was so much more natural, although still not graceful. We repeated the exercise of taking the mask off underwater and this time I didn't panic, and I also got a handle on using those flippers to propel my movement. And my ears popped just fine--phew! It was really fun actually and we saw some starfish and interesting things like that. Now I have my scuba diving license for life!

Wednesday I went to the chorus concert, which to be honest annoyed me a little bit, but I won't get into that except to say that composers choose their notes and crescendo markings very carefully, not to have an amateur choir destroy the musical art by omitting/changing notes and singing everything with a careless forte sound. The end. Afterwards we went to Burger King (yeah, great, eh?). I had a frosty, and when I picked my friend's french fry to dip it in the ice cream, everyone just stared at me. They called the attention of all 20 people there and had me dip my fry in ice cream again. They were absolutely amazed and I said "What? All my american friends do it all the time!" and one said in reply "Americans! They don't care what they eat, they just stick it all in a blender and eat it like that!" and I said "...actually, we did do that once..." and they were completely grossed out.

Thursday we had the closure ceremony for CIEE. My group from Colloquial did a very painful skit. I say painful because our audience was disrespectful, the lines were ridiculous, and our actors were...rather bad. The lowest level had a funny video about Ali and Cantara (they legendary princess of Alicante and her lover), and the middle level had an embarrassing video boasting of how much they partied this semester. Then we went to lunch at an Italian restaurant, just like the first meal here. That night we had a goodbye festival on the beach--that's where I stepped on the glass, but thinking back it might have been broken plastic since I didn't even notice it until 2 hours later.

Friday was beach day and even thought the water is still cold, the day is hot so it evens out. By 6:30 I was in the CAM theater by my house awaiting our classical music concert. Apparently my Spanish comprehension skills are lacking a bit because when I got there I found we had a live band-thingy with a cello, violins, and a bass (maybe) and one of those little not-piano-but-tinny-sounding things. Plus, a Valencian group of 5, I'm assuming an academy of some sort, sang with us and did some solo pieces. One of the guys was a falsetto. I mean, he had a normal male voice, but he sang with us altos in falsetto instead of with the tenors. It was kinda creepy, not gonna lie. One of the german girls left the stage in the middle of the performance and fainted right as she got backstage, but she turned out alright.

Afterwards, we all went out to dinner again, this time at a little tavern. I asked where we would eat and Paco the director said "un restaurante, pero de pie" as in a restaurant where you stand up and eat. So I'm thinking informal Cook Out kinda thing where we just stand around with our plastic containers (I just realized we don't use styrofoam here EVER). But when we got there, it actually is a restaurant standing up! I guess with our amount of people (about 30) they didn't have enough room for chairs...but there were plates and glasses and silverware and food, but no chairs! I ended up eating my dinner kneeling on the floor. Tortillas (=omelettes, not mexican tortillas), Mushrooms, Calamari rings, fried cheese (I took a picture of that), etc. The chorus friends said eating standing up was definitely not normal.

So that's the news until now, with a couple of beach days squeezed in between. Tomorrow and Thursday I have class for 2 hours and then....and then it's over. Then my mommy comes and we travel for 2 weeks and then I return to life, to reality, to money problems and relationship problems, to my dog and cat, to my home...and second home...and third home. And I think I'm finally ready. It comes at a good time--life is all about moving on--and I'm moving on. I <3 Alicante a lot but I am ready to go home. Although how can I answer the question "How was Spain?" because there are just too many fabulous, horrible, and/or boring things to tell!

And 10 minutes later I’m back to finish my update. April 26th we returned back to school after 2 and a half weeks. I spent the first 3 days writing my final paper (hallelujah no more!!) and oops, missed an assignment in the meantime. Thursday my German friend and I went to the last Inquiro concert of my time here. They were great, like always, and before them played a band called Exit that was really good as well. Friday I met with the same girl and we went to the beach for a while, but the clouds came and within 2 hours it went from hot and sunny to a downpour. Luckily I had just gotten home when the rain started.

My scuba diving ‘class’ was supposed to meet that afternoon at 4:30 and me and the other girl sat in the sun (which came back out stronger than ever) at the meeting place for over an hour and a half while the instructor dealt with his broken down vehicle. When they finally came, we did the lesson then afterwards had a good long chat about lots of different stuff. That night I went out despite the early 8am wake up call. The next morning, though, I was up and ready to go when I got a phonecall saying the excursion was canceled due to the car problems. When I told my madre, she said “Well, I don’t believe it—he probably went partying last night and just doesn’t want to get up! Oh, he’s an older fellow? Well, in that case it might be true…” Haha, oh madre, you make me laugh except that you’re not kidding. Anyway it turned out really well because FINALLY the weather was beach worthy and I spent from 10:30 to 5pm on the beach and finally got the tan I was supposed to get 3 months ago! I stopped by a mall, Plaza Mar on the way back to look for another witch doll (long story) and upon entering I saw Luis my bartender friend—oh man I love that guy. He walked me to the store I was looking for and when we found out it had closed down, he offered me a ride home (because it was a 30 min. walk back) and so I followed him and helped him pick out an outfit for his little cousin’s birthday. XD

So Friday night I met an interesting guy from Sweden who speaks perfect English and has also lived in Spain for almost 2 years now. I introduced him to all my Spanish friends and he hung out with us 2 nights in a row. One of the nights he turned to me and said “Ya know, I know why you like this place so much—it’s unique. The only place that doesn’t play annoying loud music and you can actually talk to people and learn Spanish.” FINALLY someone who actually understands why I’m there for 6 hours at a time!!! Anyway he’s pretty cool.

Sunday morning we ended up doing the scuba diving and….I had gone to bed 6am that morning :o but I’m willing to sacrifice a little sleep if it means I get to spend time with my dear friends. (and I hope some people can understand that *hint hint*). Anyways, there were 8 of us: me, another American student, the instructor, the translator [for the other girl ;-) ], another Spanish girl, her Mexican husband, and their baby, but only 4 of us actually went under water. Oh man, with my sunburn getting that wetsuit on was a tad painful. Then we put on the weight belt, and the float jacket with the airtank attached. Once in the water we put the flippers on. Ugh, try reaching your feet gracefully floating in the water with 30+ pounds strapped to your body and an unforgiving wetsuit limiting your movement…not fun.
As far as the actual underwater part goes: a destroyed fantasy. First of all, the unnatural flippers were hard to adjust to. Second, I couldn’t figure out how to adjust my floatability. Everyone else was kneeling on the bottom of the ocean and I kept on floating up, just shrugging my shoulders when the instructor signaled me to come down, haha. After I finally was able to stay kneeled on the bottom, I couldn’t keep myself balanced! I would teeter to the left and to the right and by the end of the day my knees were in pain from being so tensed up the entire time. We did exercises such as signal to our companions for emergency air if we ran out, and fill up our mask with water and then empty it underwater. When it came time to take the mask off completely and put it on, I panicked a little. There’s just something about having my nose surrounded by water. I wanted to hold my breath even though I had an air source in my mouth but rule #1 of scuba diving is NEVER hold your breath (or your lungs can explode and whatnot) but anyway I started hyperventilating during that whole ordeal and when I finally had my mask back on, my eyes were still stinging and all I wanted to do was float up to the surface, but I stayed there and soon we were back on land. There we talked about what we could do to improve it the next time. We changed air tanks and went under again.

This time was much better except I was preoccupied with my ears! Before I had some trouble but this time as we went deeper I couldn’t pop my ears to relieve the pressure. One ear popped but the other hurt like mad! The rule is to go up a little, pop them, and then go back down, and I should’ve done that more, but I was so conscious that they were waiting for me to come down that I kinda just ignored the pain—it wasn’t that deep anyway—5 meters. Anyway, for next time I know that it is definitely NOT okay to ignore the pain. The exercises this time included pivoting using your breath, which this time being used to the floating thing, I got kinda quickly. I inflated the jacket a little bit (so I didn’t sink all the way) and breathed in to go up a little and out to sink a little. We also “found” our neutral floatability were we could just chill out between the surface and the floor without having to make any physical exertion. Sometimes when I actually got my ears to cooperate I could look around and realize that I was underwater. I remember seeing a fish and thinking “Oh look a fish!!...Oh, duh, Laura, you’re underwater, there are lots of fish here….” Haha. But hopefully next week when we finalize the course I can actually forget about my physical ailments and equipment and enjoy the clear water. It really was beautiful down there! So many colors :-) Afterwards when we had all the equipment packed up we drove back to the storage place, sat on the terrace and ate lunch. Apparently when you scuba dive Nitrogen enters the blood and the result is fatigue, so In addition to the lack of sleep I was also tired due to unnatural levels of nitrogen…alrighty then! I got back to my place around 6pm—wow, all day! At dinner last night my left ear was still blocked up and hurt a little (that's where the hypochondriac comment came from) but this morning it's all good.

Today = school. Next week exams start so this week we are wrapping things up and my teacher bought our class coffee & snacks as a closing gift since the next day is review. My day was made when I got off the bus this morning and saw my dear friend Joseda heading to the library. Really, just by seeing him those 5 minutes as we walked together made me happy. Any day with a Spaniard involved is complete. Tomorrow I have plans to go to my friend Abram’s apartment (in the picture) and have lunch with him and Wednesday we have chorus practice and afterwards everyone is going out for dinner. Next week in addition to the scuba diving, I have a bunch of exams, a bunch of chorus concerts, and the closing ceremony of the CIEE program and all the Americans start to leave—which really doesn’t bother me except that it reminds me that I too am leaving. On Saturday I told everyone to come to my goodbye weekend—the 22nd & 23rd. Joseda said he would be studying from now on but he would come to say goodbye, and others also said that they wouldn’t be here next weekend but they would come those dates. Omg, that word: “goodbye”--I hate it right now.

Anyway, consider yourselves updated. I have a busy 4 weeks ahead of me. Madre mia, it’s May 5th. In exactly one month I will be in my own bed, in my own home, in my own country…but where will my heart be?

A little bit of Italy

Okay, okay, I know it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything and a lot has happened. Oh man since April 16th! Let’s see: after Germany, I hung around Alicante for a couple of days. Unfortunately, the Spring Break weather was rainy the whole time and when I slept in (because there’s nothing to do!) my madre got annoyed. There might have been one good beach day…but then: Italy!!

At 7am on Tuesday morning two other girls and I started our travels. Our plane from Valencia to Rome was delayed about an hour, and when finally got on the plane, someone told us that there was a technical problem and we might have to change planes. 10 minutes later, someone else told us over intercom that it was just a pressure pipe and they are changing it, so everything is ok, but people were still flipping out and leaving. Again they got on the intercom and told us that since more than 5 people left the plane, now the airline is involved so the flight will be delayed longer. Goodness gracious, people, if they say it’s ok, it’s ok, you’re not gonna die! But we didn’t care about the delay that much, it just cut some of our tourism time. We got to Rome by 3 or 4ish (without dying), but then had to stand in line to reserve our train tickets to go to Venice. Rome being a large, famous city, and 4pm being a busy time of day, it took a good 2 and a half hours to get to the train station and wait in line, etc.

Apparently lastminutebooking.com is rather useful. One of the girls found a deal on it: 20 Euros total for a private hotel room (not a hostel) in the heart of Rome, in a room that’s usually 250!! Problem is, when they booked it, they didn’t realize that I would be tagging along, so they were hoping to sneak me into the tiny room with a double bed. The hotel is so small, though, 6 rooms, that there was little chance of succeeding, so we were just honest with the clerk guy and told him I needed somewhere to stay or else it was sleeping in the train station for me. The guy at the desk, an older Indian dude, clearly had a huge moral dilemma on his hands since according to the rules only 2 people to a room. 20 minutes after he let us chill in the room while he made a decision, he told us that he didn’t want me crammed in the double bed, so I could have an extra room for free as long as I was out of there by 6am!!

The dinner that night was quite a rip off. While we were looking for someplace cheap, a waiter outside a restaurant told us we could get a pizza for 9 euros, so we went inside. As soon as we entered, we realized it was a mistake to agree. The restaurant was gorgeous and expensive looking. They gave us bread without us asking for it—3 euros. I ordered a glass of wine. ¼ of the glass filled—7 euros. On top of that the actual food. Oh my.

The next morning we went to the Roman Coliseum and took a tour of that and the Palatine Hill. Honestly I thought the Coliseum was ok, but the tour of the Palatine Hill was more entertaining and had a lot more fun cultural facts included (such as the Romans saving their urine, boiling it so it acts as a bleach, and washing their clothes in it using laurel leaves to make the linen smell better). We then went in search of food but after the night before, our wallets were hurting, so we went to the market for some bread and salami to tide us over and ate it on some stairs of a church. For dinner that night we went on a little excursion. In the hostel (we switched) there was a sign that declared 10 euros for a meal and meeting other travelers. I still don’t know how it only cost 10 euros for 2 plates of pasta, fries, chicken, and a glass or two of wine. Rather efficient I ‘d say. There I met a Republican that is fed up with the States so is moving to Italy, a Californian traveling around Europe, and some Spanish girls traveling for the weekend. All very interesting, I must say.

Thursday we went to see the Pantheon & Trevi fountain and got on a 5 hour train to Venice. Let’s just mention that Venice is not rolling-suitcase-friendly and leave it at that, shall we? Our hostel was very clean and in a part of town that’s not touristy, but not dull either. It was in a nice open piazza where a lot of students hung out. The first night we just walked around taking in the city. A map is absolutely necessary in Venice because the streets (or walkways rather) are so tiny and disorganized, so the tourist stores get a crapload of business because they don’t give out free maps. 2 Euros for a good one. It’s actually quite ingenious. Either get completely lost or give me money. But either way the city was very beautiful at night.

We had kebaps , (omg kebaps are the best food in the entire world—not kidding), for dinner because they are cheap and wonderful and everywhere. The place we went in, though, was quite strange. There was a guy sitting in the only chair there was (the restaurant was like a hole in the wall) and he started talking to us in horribly broken English about how he was so fluent in English and he lived here and there, and he was attacked in NYC by hoodlums. He didn’t make sense at all and kept skipping from one topic to another. We got out of there in a hurry (after the cashier kissed one of the girl’s hands when giver her change back) and decided that that guy was drugged up and had the munchies. Weird.

The next day we went to Piazza San Marco and in the afternoon toured the Doge Palace (the doge is some sort of political figure) which was nice but of course nothing compared to the Madrid Palace. There was a prison attached but it was a lot less interesting to tour than it sounds. We were all quite tired of looking at the frescos and couldn’t handle any more museums so we took a water bus down the grand canal then wandered around the city more—just walked around pretty much purposely trying to get lost, and then had a ball trying to find our way back. We ate at a little Italian restaurant and on the way back a group of young Italians (16-17 years old) were walking by us and one of them clapped his hands at us and said “My dream is to fly over the rainbow….the cat...is on…the table.” And we pretty much died laughing for a good 5 minutes. Haha.

The next morning we planned to use our museum pass to see one of the 8 or so museums in the Piazza before we left, but one of us forgot the ticket in the hostel so upon arriving and realizing that, we just went and chilled out in the park until it was time to leave. The piazza de San Marco is world famous and for this, it was super super expensive to sit down at a café and prohibited to sit down in the square. After we found out we couldn’t visit the museum, I volunteered to buy a cup of coffee even though I knew there was a sitting fee involved. We went to one, but the first thing the menu said was “E 7.50 sitting fee for EACH PERSON whether they buy anything or not” on top of the 3 euro coffee or whatever, so we RAN out of there. Goodness gracious, que cara!

We hopped on a train to Verona, a little city that was supposedly the inspiration to Shakespear’s Rome & Juliet, so all the tourists gathered around Juliet’s balcony and
took pictures. We only had the afternoon in the city and there wasn’t much to see anyway, so I snapped a pic of the balcony, and after failing at finding Romeo’s house (very poorly marked and horrible map), I returned to the little bed & breakfast where we were staying. It was so cool! There was a loft for 2 beds and the bottom part had another bed & bathroom, and a table FULL of cookies, toast, croissants, coffee, tea, espresso…all for 3 people and a great price. Very nice.

Ugh, but the next morning we got up at 6am or something horrible like that and walked 40 minutes to the train station. I bought my ticket to Milan (where the airport was) for...I don’t remember, but very cheap and we all got on the train. When the ticket dude passed by to check them, he paused when he came to mine and another girl’s and said “You did not validate these—50 euro fine” and proceeded to explain that the little machines outside the train were to ‘validate’ the tickets. Unfortunately the FOUR TIMES we went to the ticket desk nobody bothered to tell the newbie Americans that we would go broke for not swiping a freaking ticket. I begged him saying that I didn’t even have that much on me and asked him to let it slip and if the next guy (on our connecting train) said something we would pay him instead. The guy replied that he would get in trouble if anybody found out, so we grudgingly combined all our money and came up with just enough between the 5 of us (we had 2 others join us) to cover it. And what do you know, on the next train NOBODY came by to check our tickets. Ugh, it makes me mad just thinking about it.

Well, that was our Italy trip and before that little instance I had been doing really good money-wise with all those 3 euro kebaps and 2 euro sandwhiches. In general I found the country rather charming and thanks to my Spanish background could understand quite a lot of the written Italian and a tiny bit the spoken. By the last day we realized that speaking in Spanish to an Italian works a lot better than struggling through the English communication.

Ok I’m gonna stop here and right a different entry about the last couple weeks so y’all don’t get bored to tears.