Ok, yesterday day wasn't too exciting. Just went to class during the day then at night we did a trip to the beach town/port area. We took the Metro over to it and Catalina (a lady who works here and is really nice and leads all the social stuff) gave us a tour of all the old buildings and churches and the port. It was all pretty interesting. We also went to the Semana Santa museum which is where they keep all the big Holy Week floats that they pull along the beach along with live performances during Holy Week. They also had some of the costumes that the people wanting to be forgiven wear. These freaked us out as Americans because even though they were colored and had pictures of Jesus and Mary on them, they are the models the kkk stole their costumes from so it was creepy. Then we ate and had a drink at the oldest pub in Valencia. I tried their specialty that they make there called Vermouth (sp?) and we also got to see their wine cellars.

This morning in my first class we went to two amazing gardens nearby. The first was huge and we only had time to look at a fraction of it. My favorite part was the stone path with steps leading all around multiple areas and up some small hills. From the top of some of them, you could see an area of the park where they are doing an archeological dig on some old Moorish palaces which I thought was cool. The other garden we went to used to be owned by a family and was donated to the city. It was much smaller but just as amazing. It had a dirt path that led up and around a little hill and over a few small bridges with little water falls. I really want to go back to both gardens and read one day and take even more pictures.

In my other class today we went to the bull fighting museum and got to see some of the behind the scenes stuff of the arena. We got to see where the bulls wait before they go out and some of the castrated bulls that stay in the pens to keep the other bulls calmer until they have to go out. The we got to go walk down into the arena itself and take some pictures.

Nothing really exciting tonight... I went out to dinner with some of the girls and bought some more candy. There are so many candy stores around here and it's all SOOOO good! And cheap! In this area all the food is really cheap. Everything in the stores is expensive though so I'm glad I don't need to buy a lot of nonfood things while I'm here.

EXCITING NEWS: I just found out that I get to go SCUBA diving tomorrow morning! That should be a lot of fun! I bought a disposable waterproof camera to take out there with me but it only holds 27 pictures so hopefully I can get a few good ones.

Here are the bowling terms I said I'd put up:
bolera = bowling alley
pista = lane
bolo = pin
bola = ball
partida = game
curva = hook
flechas = arrows
la doble real = big four

I will try and get the pics up tonight... The camera cord is somewhere in my computer bag which I have to lift up my bed to get to...