here's to the night....

Okay this is a total teaser blog but I'm just letting you know I will get to blogging again!  This last week or so (yes I know its been more than a week) has just been crazy busy as usual.  We had a weekend in Sevilla, more school, last weekend with the group, farewell dinners, Mom and Lindsay are here, and all of our friends are leaving tomorrow, in addition to the fact that we'll be meeting all the new kids tomorrow as well.  Oh and there was the San Juan festival!!  For now I'm just going to post some pictures and I'll write more about it soon I promise...except I'm not sure when because here's my schedule for the next two weeks:

• Final tomorrow, start new classes, boat ride with new kids, say goodbye to everyone, spend time with Mom and Lindsay (and thats tomorrow)
• Wednesday:  class/the last day mom and Lindsay are here (they leave thursday morning)
• Thursday: getting Lindsay and mom back to the train, school, getting some last minute shopping done because....
• Friday:  Trip to London with Amber!!!
• Friday-monday: being in London...planned so far
• London eye
• wax museum
• Harry potter walking tour
• and welll...thats all we have planned so far.  So add finishing our itinerary to Thursday's to do list.
• Get back Monday: class everyday till Friday
• okay then just a normal week of class (except I will be in advanced classes now which might be a little scary!!)
• Next Friday:  Heading to Barcelona for a concert.
• Get home on Saturday and finally maybe relax a little.  HA!  I'm sure I'll come up with something to keep me crazy busy. 

But anyways, I think I mentioned pictures!!

dinner with the guys again.  one of the best dinners!

fountain in sevilla

cathedral in sevilla

view of sevilla 

lauren and amber!! pretty girls!

love these two.

playing hand games.

amber and ryann

me and tony!  man i'm going to miss these people!

playing with the doves.

i have a bird.  on my head....

very pretty place that i can't recall the name of right now.

i hoard water in my room.  those are all 1.5 liter bottles...well except for the 5 liter bottle.

oh i forgot to mention i climbed a mountain!!

view of malaga and the sea

all the rich houses we had to walk past.

just chillin at the top of a mountain!

me and tony were the only ones to go to the top!! (well out of our little group)

we found some wild-ish horses on the way down....

the kids in my class at the farewell dinner.

san juan festival on the beach!

me and amber at san juan.  she has the best facial expressions....

Ok, I will write more soon!!

Random adventures of the last week or so.

We went to El Pimpi’s the night before we left for Granada with our friends Tony and Paul (I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this but me and Amber pretty much do everything together…like they could not have matched us better if they tried, I think if I was with any of the other girls here I would have flown home crying already…anyyyways, continuing).  El Pimpi’s is a pretty famous local restraunt here (you should see if it’s in your book mom!) for their wine.  They have several different kinds but are most famous for their sweet red wine.  I have tried two different kinds, one is Vino de Malaga and I don’t remember the name of the other.  Both are….ughhhh gross.  Well the other one I don’t remember was a little better, but they are both really sweet and really strong.  And they serve them in a shot glass…  But anyways, it’s a fun experience because it is a really popular place, even if the wine is a little much.  They have all these wine barrels and pictures signed by famous people, including Antonio Banderas, who was born in Malaga.  We had a good night, Tony and Paul are both awesome and are other people we are really going to miss when they leave in two weeks!

umm this is just a random photo rocking our 1 euro sunhats at the beach.

at el pimpi's  (Amber, tony, paul, me!)

el pimpi's menu

gross wine.

The other night we went and met with one of the guys, Jorge, that we met at the intercambio.  We just went for tapas with them after dinner.  (one could always be eating here, so much for losing weight)  It was an enjoyable evening and we got a good chance to practice our Spanish with locals and get to know Malaga a little better.  Jorge’s English is really good though so it’s embarrassing to speak our Spanish to him sometimes!  However, he taught us a lot of phrases and told us a lot of cool places that we should go to.

Yesterday, Amber, Lauren, Ryann, and two other girls (and me), went to the Picasso museum!  Very neat…I’m really not a fan of Picasso’s artwork, most of it is real ugly, but it’s still really cool to see.  They also had a lot of Picasso quotes around the museum and they were really neat.  If we would have been able to take pictures, I would have been taking pictures of the quotes!  And under the museum is an archeological site that is sweet because it’s from 6^th century B.C. and it just is a bunch of old buildings underground.  Hard to explain but really cool to see!  After going to the museum Lauren, Ryann, Amber and I went to a Mexican restaurant we heard of because we were craving Mexican food!  It was pretty good but not the same as Mexican food back home!

 However, after our meal our waiter (pretty sure he was the owner, he's from Columbia and told us we were crazy for coming to Malaga to learn Spanish because even when he came here he had trouble understanding even though he's a native spanish speaker (and Dad, so you know, this conversation took place in spanish!! :D))  Whoa...got side tracked there.  However, he came over and asked if we wanted a picture and we were like sure.  And then he was like, do you want sombreros?  and we said yes....and all of a sudden he comes back with sombreros, ponchos and guns.  We couldn't stop laughing! However I think we managed to get a couple serious pictures (at least me and Amber did)

Serious!! 

this was supposed to be a serious one.  fail.

serious again!! hahaha

Well I think thats the summary of interesting things that have happened this week!!  Ummm COMMENT if you have any questions.  or just comment for fun.  (I know people are having trouble commenting its just a bummer)

Granada: Land of the Gypsies

We are always so busy here its hard to find time to write!  By the time I get home I'm ready to go to bed.  This last weekend we went to Granada which is an awesome city.  I wish we would have had one more day there!  First we went to the Alhambra, which is very similar to the Alcazaba that I talked about in my last post...I think the Alhambra was based of the Alcazaba or the other way around.  Either way, the Alhambra was awesome!! Absolutely beautiful with a ton of gardens and fountains and neat buildings.  We had a really good tour guide and it was nice because we had earphones to listen to him with, so we didn't have to be right by his side to hear him. It really made the difference because you could hear the history and see at it the same time, where on some of our tours its really one or the other.

another one of those places where it feels pointless to take pictures because it doesn't do it justice!

View of Granada

close up of some of the decoration inside the buildings

200 year old orchid tree if my spanish is right.

these little things are at the entrance to a lot of the buildings and they put fragrances in them so the wind would waft the fragrances though out the house/dwelling area

another view of granada

another pointless picture.  ceiling of one of the buildings.  crazy beautiful.

That night, we went to a "surprise."  It was a really, really long walk, all up steep cobble stone streets, on a hot day.  First, at the top of the very, very long sweat journey, we were able to see a pretty sweet view of the Alhambra at night.  I don't have the pictures right now because my camera died, but I will try to remember to post some of Amber's with my next post.  It was hard to get good pictures of it, so you're not missing much.  Then...it was on to the surprise...
Flamenco Dancing!!

It was a lot of fun and cool to watch.  I had trouble getting into it at first though because it was a bunch of people in this really long narrow (hot) room with only one small exit door and my claustrophobia was kicking in hardcore.  I almost thought that I was going to have to leave at first, but after getting a much needed glass of water and the show starting, I was able to enjoy myself.  Once again, I don't have pictures quite yet, but Amber took a lot of videos and we don't have any plans tomorrow so there should be time for me to et them from her.
After the flamenco dancing our little group of friends went back to the hotel.  It was fun to just have a night in hanging out and talking!  We ended up staying up realllly late though and were really tired the next day.  Oh well, it was a good time!!  (Oh by the way, it was GREAT to stay in a hotel again, I took a really long bath/shower and had hot water the whooole time.  ahh yes...I can't wait to take another long shower this weekend in Sevilla either!)

The next day we toured the cathedral.  I know this is horrible but I honestly can't tell you too many details about it.  We go on so many tours and its really hard to remember everything, especially when you can't take pictures (and when my history is so bad to begin with).  ooo wait I do remember!!  It's where the two Catholic kings are buried and Ferdinand and Isabel (monarchs of somesort in Spain? ...I need a history class, because they are really really important in Spanish history, all I know is Isabel is the one that sent Christopher Columbus to Amberica) and you actually get to go down and see their tombs and their giant elaborate grave markers.  It was definitely interesting.
After the cathedral we just had free time for a few hours before getting back to our bus.  We wondered around and did some touristy shopping.  In Granada there is like a million gypsies who wonder around and shove rosemary in your face and try to let them tell you your future for some random amount of money.  They are very persistent and annoying, I mean they'll literally shove it in your face!  One guy got grabbed and somehow had to pay 1.20 euro or something like that to be told he had a strong heart.  It was a really hot day so after walking for awhile we finally found a cool place to sit and just relaxed.  We got back to the bus around 3:30 and headed back to Malaga.  It was a fun weekend and Granada is muy bonita!

I have a half written blog of a few of this weeks adventures that I promise I will try to finish along with pictures/videos from Amber's camera tomorrow!!  

Love and miss everyone very much!

Getting into a routine.

Sorry I haven't been writing more but after I get home at night I'm usually pretty exhausted/or there's nothing new to tell.  We had school everyday this week from 9-2, so it makes for a long day.  After school we come home, have lunch and either siesta, go to the beach, or go el centro for something.  Then, we usually eat at 8, maybe go for a run or go get a cerveza or a sangria!
I think it was on Sunday that I went to "el mar de tapas"  which was an event going on in the bull ring here in Malaga.  Mar de tapas translates to...well...sea of tapas.  I don't think that tapas has a literal translation...let me google translate it and see...ehhh kinda..."finger food"  But it was cool, you could buy "tickets" for 1.20 euro and each one was good for one tapa or a drink.  There was lots and lots of restaurants there so you just wandered around till you found something you liked.  I had just eaten dinner when we went so I just had a cerveza and enjoyed hanging out and seeing all the food.  I wish I would have gone earlier because it was the last night so a lot of people were out of food!

Also this week we went to the Alcazaba.  It was the fort/dwelling place in Malaga a real long time ago.  I can't tell you a whole lot of history about it because I have a poor memory.  Plus a lot of places like this in Spain are really random because there's a lot of Muslim influence, Christian influence and Jewish influence, and its hard to keep it all straight.  But it was really cool and beautiful with lots of fountains and a neat water system that weaves through the whole place (again, I forget what it was called).  It also goes really high up so it provides an awesome view of Malaga!  It figures that I forgot to bring my camera...but here are some pics f from Ambers...(hey her pics load a lot faster than mine....

view of the sea

view of el centro de malaga.

the thing in the middle is the little water paths.

pretty garden!!

with my pals here!!  (me, amber, paul, natalie, ryann, and lauren)

part the the view of alcazaba.  ignore the scary glare from the girl on the right...

Ooo, another good story :)  Yesterday me, Amber, Ryann and Lauren went to the beach after school.  Afterwards we decided to get some tapas because it was still a few hours till dinner and we were hungry!  We decided on the standard croquetas (which is normally like breaded ham-i-ness comparable to a ham corndog but not really), which ended up being non-standard croquetas, but they were still really good.  Actually...they kinda tasted like a fried runza.  Also got patatas con brevas which is french fries with some sort of sauce on it...and finally caracones.  We choose the caracones by randomly picking something from the menu that we didn't know and getting it.   This is what we got.....

SNAILS!!

Somehow, none of us knew that the word for snails was caracones.  You can bet none of us will forget it now....  We decided to be brave and eat them.  And we didn't want to look like we didn't know what we ordered, so I can now say I've consumed snails.  All in all, they really aren't too horrible if you don't look at them or chew them for very long.  The sauce they were in actually tasted pretty good.  However, it's hard not to look at your food when you have to peel it out of its shell, so I only ate two.  By the way, my face is awesome in this picture and you can't really see my snail guts because I covered it in sauce.  Great times...It just figures we'd order freaking snails by accident, it could have been soooo many things...we even joked that we were going to end up with something disgusting when we picked it.

Thats all I have for now!!   We're going to Granada tomorrow for the weekend so I probably write more on Sunday night!