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!