Blogs from Spain, Europe - page 1207

The story - in a nutshell - goes that a local baker asked Sant Medir to cure him of an illness, and the saint did. Thus the baker started a tradition of going round handing out sweets to the locals - hence the "candy fiesta" nickname. Basically the parade consists of horsemen/horsewomen throwing out candy. It's like Halloween except kids don't go round to houses all dressed up, they just stand in the streets and catch sweets. Hehe. Man, can I just say that those sweets hurt when they're being thrown at you!! I call them little pieces of 'sugar coated hail' hahaha. Terribly fun, though, I couldn't stop laughing when we got pelted by sweets. It's kinda embarrasing saying this but spending an hour picking up candy from the floor really gave my legs a ... read more

Hola! We flew into Barcelona last evening. It was a bit stressful for us both. Me being sick and Derek being tired. We also realized that we left our phrase book in England at Wilks (probaby got shoved under one of the couches). So that made for some unhappy campers. We got to the Barcelona airport, got to the train, where I proceded to have an anxiety attack. Anyways. We got to the youth hostel we had booked in dropped off our stuff and went to get something to eat. After we dragged our tired buts up the stairs and into bed. Woke up this morning around noon and then got up, payed for tonight´s stay and headed out for some breakfast. It´s Derek´s first time in a country where he cannot speak the language and ... read more

Okay, So I just decided to start a whole new journal entry to finish up my adventures in Valencia...So, where did I leave off? Oh yes...sleeping. So, sleeping is always nice, especially when you have a nice long chunk of time in which to participate in such an activity, unfortunately I did not. After finally getting everyone into our room that was supposed to be there, and going to bed in was around 3:00. Well, the alarm that went off to wake us up at around 8:00 came all too soon. So, we dragged tired, pathetic, sleep-deprived bodies out of bed and went to breakfast, provided by the hotel. It was good! Croissants, cereal, pastries, everything a bunch of college students that didn't get much sleep could want! lol So at about 9:00 we set off ... read more

Last weekend we took a bus to Valencia, a GORGEOUS city that is located right on the coast of the Mediterranean. I realized that, no matter where I live in the future, I have to be near water. I felt so relaxed and alive being so close to the beach. It was amazing. The night that we arrived in Valencia we went on a tour of the city, which is huge and very nice. That night Matt, Carla, and I ventured on an hour and a half walk to see if we could find the beach. We definitely got lost, but found it eventually. It was such a great feeling. Everything about it was wonderful: the smell of the saltwater, the sand between my toes, it was great. The next morning we had an opportunity to ... read more

Hola amigos! Como estas? See my Spanish IS improving!! Like I have said before it is not easy picking up the language seeing as I am teaching English, planning lessons in English and everyone I live with speaks English. Even my roommate from Mexico wants to always speak English so he can improve, but that doesn't mean I am not trying. Last weekend, I spent almost the entire weekend surrounded by the Spanish language. It was difficult but necessary. Friday night I went to a friend of Marcos' (my Mexican roommate) for a little while. Everyone there was from Mexico so Spanish was the language of the night. It was difficult at first because there were about 10 different conversations going on at once, so I had to focus on one and listen carefully. I will ... read more