Turn left at the zebra crossing...

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¡Hola from Tenerife! Today I worked my first day with the Atlantic Whale Foundation, I can´t believe I´m going to get to do this for 3 weeks! They send us along with the different whale watching boats for the day. We work in groups of 2 or 3 and record the what the animals are doing and take pictures of them. The rest of the time we basically just ride along, we can get out to swim with the group if we want, or just enjoy the sun. Rough life! At the end we go around and get people to sign our antiwhaling petition. I love that part because I get to talk to people from lots of different countries. There´s not a lot of Americans over here, but I did meet a group today from Georgia! We work on the boats 3 days a week and stay back at the house 2 to help with cleaning and work on research projects.
Tenerife itself is awesome, very pretty! Getting here was an adventure to say the least. I flew out of Girona, which is about an hour and a half bus ride from Barcelona. Not too bad, except for that my plane left at 6 am, so I had to get the bus at 3. So needless to say, I didn´t sleep that night. I completely expected the bus station to be empty at 3 in the morning, I was so wrong! 3 full buses left for Girona, guess that shows how popular RyanAir is here! Flight was about 3 and a half hours, then 3 bus rides to get to the town of Arona where we are based. Once I got to my last stop, I had directions to the house that included the instruction: "turn left at the zebra crossing". So I was walking up a hill looking for zebras when I realized it was referring to the black and white striped crosswalk! Found the house, hung out with a couple of the other volunteers for the day, then finally got some sleep!
The last night in Barcelona was a lot of fun. I ended up meeting a group of 6 Canadian med students (sooo random, we must have some sort of a radar). Them, me, and the med student from England went out for tapas, got some 3 euro bottles of wine, and then went to the top of a hill overlooking the city. It was really pretty, there were fireworks going off because of Real Madrid´s win (even though we were in the wrong city). I definitely want to go back and spend some more time in Barcelona!
I think thats all for now, I´m in Tenerife for 3 weeks, so I will keep this updated with different whale sightings and activities. A couple people in the group so far dive or are getting certified, so I think we may go this weekend. Yay!
Music: Something Corporate: "I woke up in a car" (the timing of hearing this song was so perfect, even if the vehicle was wrong), Calexico "All Systems Red", the ENTIRE Britany Spears collection (because that´s what they played on the boat all day today...ahhhh!)

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Comments

[Mom]

!Hola from home
Jen, I can feel how much fun you are having everytime I read one of your blogs! What an amazing experience you are having, I wish I was with you. Keep meeting fun people and enjoy every moment. I am so proud of you.