Still living the dream...

Well, life goes on.  I have a few new updates for ya'll.

Last Tuesday a few friends and I took a day trip to Alcoy, a town about an hour and a half inland from Alicante.  We went for their huge festival, called Moros y Cristianos (Moors and Christians) that celebrates the battles between the two cultures centuries ago.  The festival happens at different times of the year in many different towns in the Valenician region, but Alcoy's is the largest and most famous.  The festival is three days, but we were only there for the middle day, last Tuesday.  The main event is essentially a giant parade.  Hundreds of people of all ages are dressed up either as Christians or Moors and walk through the downtown area.  The costumes are very intense and the crowed loves it.  The whole parade lasts from 4 - 10 pm, so we only stayed for part of it since we had to catch a 8:45 bus back to Alicante.

The best part of Alcoy was the people.  They were all so friendly, slightly drunk, and very excited about the Moors and Christians.  At one point we were walking down the street with lines of "Christians" on either side and they started chanting "USA, USA."  It was great.

During the parade I was standing inbetween a little old lade and an little photographer man, who both were from Alcoy.  They were asking me all about the United States and who I voted for or planned to vote for.  Everyone here tries to speak politics with us, and for me, I have no idea what I'm talking about, and really don't want to discuss it with them.  Then they started telling me everything I could ever want to know about Alcoy and the festival.  It was a fun day and I got some good pictures!  The horses in the parade were awesome.  (Really made me miss Blue...)

Anyway, other than that things have been pretty standard.  The weather keeps getting warmer and warmer so we have been spending a lot of time on the beach.  The last few days it has even been warm enough to swim and there were lots of boats out so we had some waves, which was fun.

A few days ago a bunch of American students and I were all down on the beach, hanging out.  Out of no where some guy comes over and says, "Hey, you guys speak English?"  We were like... Yes.  He started talking to us and turns out that he was on the Washington Generals basketball team that travels with the Harlem Globetrotters.  Pretty soon all his teammate/friends show up and were asking as all about our semester and travels.  They were really friendly and had been in Spain a week, so were thankful to have found other english-speakers.  They ended up inviting us to their game that night, each player got so many free tickets, so there were plenty for us to use.  Twelve of us went and had a great time.  I had heard of the Harlem Globetrotters before, but I thought they were a normal basketball team.  It was really fun to watch, and fun to also see all the Spanish people cheering and loving it.  After the game the team wanted us to show them the town, so obviously we took them to all our favorite bars.  They had a great time, and I think were a little sad that they were only here one night.  They have a four month tour of europe going on now, so they are scheduled every night to the max.  I put a few pictures up of the game, but I should have more soon.

That's about it for now.  Hope everyone is well at home!  I really miss you guys!  . . . and I keep having dreams about barbeque, so I must miss KC some too!

Senda del Poeta - Walk for Miguel Hernandez

This past weekend, everyone in my program and I had the pleasure of walking 70 km (roughly 44 miles) in honor of a famous Spanish poet, Miguel Hernandez.  Hernandez was born in Orihuela and died in Alicante, and the walk follows the same route.  Early Friday morning we took a bus up to Orihuela, a small town south of Alicante.  About 2,000 people began the walk the first day, including what seemed like millions of grade school age kids.  We began walking at about 11 AM and walked all day, arriving at Albatera, the sleeping point, at about 6 PM.  It really wasn't bad since we stopped about every 45 minutes for water or fruit breaks, and an hour-long break for lunch.  My only issue with the entire thing was the crowd- I definitely prefer to have my personal space and Spanish people do not understand that concept. 

In Albatera there is a theater dedicated to Hernandez where we were allowed to sleep.  However, it was attached to a beautiful little park with waterfalls and palm trees everywhere, and my friends and I thought it would be a great idea to sleep outside.  At about 3 AM we were all still awake and freezing, so we moved into the theater.  (Imagine hundreds of strangers all sleeping in a giant theater-- snoring, coughing, laughing... it was a long night.)

The next morning all the Spaniards were up by 7, so we had no choice but to get up too.  We started walking again at about 10, same routine as the first day.  Walking through small towns, orchards, suburbs, farms and countryside, stopping here and there for breaks.  The second day was the longest, due to the 28 kms and the lack of sleep from the night before.

We spent the next night at the University of Elche, the same city of the Palmera grove.  Many of the walkers dropped out after the first day, so there were considerably less people.  (About 300ish?)  We slept in the main part of the University, spread out everywhere, so there was much more space.  Libby and I were asleep by 10, not waking up the next morning until 8, despite the tile floors.  We were exhausted.

The next morning we ate breakfast and were back on the trail by 10.  The last day had the most beautiful scenery by far.  Alicante is the most mountainous region of Spain, and walking through the mountains was beautiful.  There were less villages and the ground became more and more dry and desert-like.  The finishing point of the walk is Alicante's cemetery, just outside of town.  We walked straight up to Hernandez's tomb and got a good look at it.  There were tons of local poets, all wanting to recite their poems at his grave.  The spanish peopler really got into it; we were all ready to catch the local bus back into the city.

The weather was great, pretty sunny, warm in the afternoons and more chilly in the morning and evening.  We got to meet a few local spanish people, so that was interesting.  This walk has been going on for years, on the anniversary of Hernandez's death, and for many people it is an annual tradition.  Hopefully it will get us in shape for the Camino de Santiago in four weeks!  

Ciao Ciao!!

The past week I have been in Rome visiting my friend Whitney, who I know all the way back from the old STA days.  Whitney went to Sion but we met through Melissa.  Despite the St. Teresa's/Sion "rivalry," we all hung out together and became a big happy family.  Such a sweet little history.

Anyway, Whitney has been in Rome since January.  She is quite brave: she actually took French in school, but went to Rome by herself without knowing any Italian.  By now is practically fluent-- well, almost.  She lives in an apartment near the Vatican with 5 other girls, none of whom knew each other before moving in.  I got to stay with them, which was amazing, because staying in a hostel by-myself would have been a little sketch.  They were from all over the US, and it was fun to just meet some new people.

So I arrived on Monday afternoon and Whitney and I dove right into the sightseeing mode.  We went to a bunch of the piazzas, which are big open squares usually with a fountain or monument in the middle and cafes, stores or churches lining the sides.  I have never seen so many churches- literally one on every street.  That night we went to dinner with Whitney's friend Michelle's entire family who was in town visiting for spring break.  Michelle has 5 younger brothers and they all look so much alike.  Her family was quite entertaining and the pizzeria was incredible.  The food in Rome was amazing- thin, crispy pizza with almost anything you can think of on it and tons of different types of pasta, bruschetta, focaccia, salads... it was amazing really.  

The next day we went to the market and picked up some blood oranges.  I had never heard of them before, but they are delic.  They are like regular oranges, except they are red on the inside and have a slightly different flavor.  From the market, we went walking around, strolling through the winding cobblestone streets until we came across a landmark.  Rome was unbelievably big, and you couldn't walk more than a block or two without coming across some amazing building or piazza or famous monument.  We saw the Pantheon, Spanish Embassy, stopped and ate some blood oranges on the Spanish Steps, had a little picnic in Villa Borghese... it was quite a day.  

The weather was UNBELIEVABLE the entire time I was there- sunny, 70's and beautiful.  They said it had rained five days in a row the week before and that this was the best weather so far of the year, so I was pretty lucky.  (The last morning was a little chilly and overcast while I was on the way to the airport, but no prob.)

That night we went out to dinner at another small restaurant in Trastevere, which is an old part of Rome on the opposite side of the Tiber River from the rest of the old central part.  It has a bunch of winding cobblestone streets, little cafes and restaurants everywhere, sort of the bohemian quarter of Rome-- so cute.  Dinner was amazing again.  From there we went to a few pubs and bars.  We were with people from Whitney's program and all her friends from school, all Americans, and it was great.

The next day was still more sightseeing.  We went to a long relaxing lunch at a small cafe, ate on the sidewalk out front.  In the afternoon, Whitney had to study for her midterm the next day, so her friend Kelly and I went walking around.  We went into St. Peter's Basilica, which was pretty overwhelming.  It's huge.  From there we walked down the Tiber River, past the island and saw a few temples and churches.  Then we walked up to this little orange tree park that had a great view down to the river and overlooking the city.  You had to walk up a long winding road to get to the park, then we kept just walking along the street.  There were a bunch of little churches hidden up there, including the one that the pope had said Holy Thursday mass in.  Anyway, we were walking along this little road and all of a sudden you come up to a huge green door, like 15 feet high.  When you look through the keyhole of the door, there are green shrubs inside the gated garden and the opening on the other end perfectly frames the dome of St. Peter's in the distance.  It was really neat, and something I had never heard of before.  That night we hung out in Whitney's apartment and watched some 30 Rock on the internet.  Classic.

The next day Whitney had to be up at 6 in the morning to register for her classes next semester (midnight at home...the time difference is so annoying.)  So we got an early start on the day and got some coffee from the cafe downstairs.  The guy that works there is friends with Whitney since she has been going there since January and offered to take us on a tour of Rome the next day.  Then straight to the Vittorio Emanuele, which is a relatively new monument that the locals don't like too much.  They feel it was selfishly built and doesn't fit in with the rest of Rome's architecture.  We walked up in it and through the museum, mostly just to see the view from the top, which was amazing.  It overlooks the entire Roman Forum, the Colosseum and many other ruins in that area.  We got drinks in the cafe and the top and had a few more oranges.  From there we walked down and saw the Colossuem close up, all the ruins, all that.  It is hard to look at them and actually realize what you are seeing, it seems so surreal.  It was really amazing.  We went to lunch in Trastevere again, got some sandwiches and sat in a piazza.  We also got some gelato.  (Actually, we had gelato everyday I was there, always from a different place.  It was so good, and since the weather was warm it was very refreshing and delic.)  

Whitney had her midterm that afternoon, so I let her study and went to the Vatican Museum solo, which was probably better since in museums you are mostly just reading the info and walking around looking at things quietly anyway.  There was no line, I walked straight in.  I decided to get an audio guided tour so I would know what in the world I was looking at, which ended up being really interesting.  You have a little walkie-talking looking thing and just type in the number and hold it up to your ear and it tells you all about everything.  The museum was incredible, everything in it was beautiful.  It takes at least 3 hours to walk through the whole thing, then the final room is the Sistine Chapel.  It was just like pictures, but ten times cooler in person.  It was beautiful, also somewhat surreal to be standing in.  

Whitney and I met back up after her test and hiked over to the Trevi Fountain.  We tried to find some short cuts and ended up just getting a little lost, but in a city like Rome, getting lost is still fun because every street is so beautiful, it was like being on a movie set or in a postcard.  Eventually we found the Trevi Fountain and threw in our coins, which is supposed to make it more likely that you will return to Rome in the future.  There were people everywhere, big tourist spot.  They say they pull over 3,000 euros out of the fountain every day, then donate it to charity.  

On the last night in Rome, we ate dinner at one of Whitney's friend's apartments, who made enchiladas.  They were delicious and it was nice to eat something different.  You don't find a lot of mexican food over here and we were all really excited about chips and salsa.  After dinner we met up with Whitney's baker friend and they took us to the Colosseum at night, all lit up, which is beautiful.  We also went to a park that overlooked the whole city, and you could see all the monuments lit up, popping up out of the rest of the city in the distance.  It was so beautiful and unreal to see.  

The next day I was on my way back to Alicante.  I am really proud of myself for traveling and flying alone.  I was very nervous, I don't know why, but there were no problems and it was actually kind of nice to just sit in the airport and read my book.  Well, if you read all of that, I'm impressed.  I kind of rambled, but that was Roma.  So fab.