A Week Muy Tranquilo

We started our third round of classes, which is rather hard to believe! This month, I am taking another Cine class with my same teacher as before. I love getting to have her again. We also are delving deeper and deeper into the Subjunctive tense in my grammar class. I am happy to report to all you Spanish grammar nerds out there that I am FINALLY grasping it! I think that out of all the Spanish teachers I have had, my teachers here have done the best job of teaching it! I have been really impressed with the way they teach Spanish here.

March and April will be a strange months because we get quite a bit of time off from school, starting with this coming weekend! Next Monday and Tuesday are holidays in the autonomous region of Valencia (where Alicante is located) because of the annual Las Fallas festival that happens every year here. This means that this coming weekend is a four day weekend for us -BUT- Johanna and I plan on using our two free class days to extend it to a six day weekend so that we can travel! This Thursday, we will board a plane and jet off to Brussels, Belgium to visit a dear friend of my family who lives there! Jo and I are excited to take some time off from school to explore a new and interesting city!
But our weekend will not end there! On Monday we will return to Alicante just in time to turn around and catch a Tuesday bus to Valencia (the capital city of the region) to go see the famous Las Fallas festival! It will be a whirlwind weekend, but totally worth it.
We will return to school on the 20th, then have 9 more days of class before our spring break starts! Its hard to believe that everything is downhill from here on out!

This past week we did a lot of simple but fun things!

On Monday, our OBU group (along with Brynn and Johanna's new Korean flatmate) gathered in Asaf's apartment to make no-bake cookies and watch a movie. It was a small but delicious taste of America!

Tuesday after school, we had a very late surprise party for Brynn's birthday with our Japanese friends! About a month ago, on the day of her birthday, our friends Midori and Miku, who sit in front of me in class, whipped around and whispered/shouted "BESS! Today is Brynn's birthday, right?! (Yep, they call me Bess. They have a hard time saying "Bethany!") We must throw her a surprise party! But not this week. This week is bad because we are going to Barcelona. Surprise party next week??"  
So every week we tried but it never worked out to have the party until this past week! I think the more weeks that passed, the funnier the whole situation became! So on Tuesday, we all gathered at the Valor chocolate shop with signs and balloons and gave Brynn a pretty big surprise! We sure do love our Japanese pals.

Thursday afternoon, Hayley and I went with Ellen to go get her hair cut! Ellen got a stylish new 'do and we learned some useful hair salon vocabulary!

On Friday, the weather was GORGEOUS. Right after class, we headed to the beach for some sunshine and friends. Our international group of about ten people plopped down on the sand and enjoyed an afternoon of learning new words in other languages, soaking up the sun, testing out the frigid sea water, and learning how to make "sandballs" from the Japanese girls! I think we may have also figured out the art of the peace sign picture pose from all of our asian friends.

Friday was also International Women's Day here.. and all around the world! I got a kick out of this, because every one made such a big deal about it here! It seems like in America, days like these are only mentioned in print on calendars, but throughout my whole Friday, I was wished a happy Women's Day by everyone! Good thing we got a heads up about it the day before, because Karissa and Emily were able to buy flowers for Pepita!

On Saturday, a small group of us took an hour tram ride to a nearby city called Benidorm. I would say that Benidorm is about the european equivalent to Branson. Many Europeans from Spain, the UK, Germany, and Russia go to retire there. You can shop to your hearts content in cheesy souvenir shops, take an aerobics class on the beach, or strut your stuff right into your favorite discoteca. Pepita has told us countless times of how beautiful and preciosa Benidorm is and has also mentioned the many nights she has gone dancing there with her girlfriends. After going there myself, I feel as though I have a have a different opinion than she, but I can definitely see why she loves it! After a short walk down and back to the beach, we hopped on a bus headed to a small town called Callosa d'en Sarria.

The picturesque  little town was built on a hill and was a fun little place to visit. We hopped off the bus, found a restaurant that was serving American style hamburgers and stuffed our faces with the meaty goodness. The whole time we were eating, we kept hearing a marching band somewhere close by. We asked the lady who owned the restaurant if there was some festival going on and she told us "Oh, they are always finding something to celebrate in this city." I thought that sentence summed up the whole country of Spain pretty well. She told us that she thought that it was some women's club who was celebrating themselves that day, and sure enough, the parade turned down the street that the restaurant was on, and we saw a rag tag group of brass musicians lead by ten women wearing matching sweatsuits.

 Just outside of this town are Las Fuentes del Algar- big beautiful waterfalls in the mountains. We got directions to the falls from the lady at the restaurant and started walking! And walking. And walking. Finally we realized that the falls were not quite as close as we had thought! But the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. I felt like we were hitch hiking! We walked in the middle of the road, following the hills up and down, taking in all of the orange and lemon trees growing through the valley and looking up at the big green mountains. I had not realized how much I needed to get away from the city until that moment! It was beautiful. Finally, we reached the falls. 

We climbed up the tall stairs and looked out over the valley. 
The waterfalls were clear and blue, and the rocks were big and white. It was so beautiful. When we got as high as we could go, we all chose a rock to sit down on and stick our feet in the water. We all sat around in silence for I don't know how long, just staring into the blue water and enjoying being away from sirens, mopeds, traffic, and people! It was wonderful. 
We explored a little more and then caught a bus back to Benidorm. 
We all agreed that the day at the falls was exactly what we needed.

Sunday, we went to church and enjoyed the children putting on a small presentation for the congregation about the Bible, because as it turned out, Sunday was National Bible day in Spain! I love our church here. On Sunday afternoon, I got to just sit out on our balcony and enjoy the amazing weather. I can't believe how warm it has gotten here. Also hard to believe that when we arrived here, it was frigid January! Look how far we have come!

Tonight, Jo and I went out and got ice cream with our French and Scottish friends. Our friend from France,  Julie, will be leaving to go back home in just three weeks and we want to make the most of the time that we have left with her! It is sad that in almost a month and a half, I will be leaving all of these great friends that I have made here in Spain. I am really thankful to have had this opportunity to build relationships with people from all over the world.

That's it for this week! Be on the look out next week for a huge blog post about Brussels and Las Fallas! Thanks for reading!

And now... the many picture poses of Asians.. starring..... Miku!

The Japanese gals said that kids in Japan make "sand balls". They were pros. We couldn't figure out how to make one without it falling apart!

We took a sister picture with Emily, Karissa, Wendy, and me! The Pepita Girls!

Beautiful scenery on the way to the falls.

The water was SO blue!

Benidorm in a nutshell-- Aerobics on the beach. Hilarious.