Falla-mania

Thursday

It was a leisurely morning - no class til 11:45. I woke up and made myself coffee and had a magdalena with it. Then I got myself ready and finished watching the Office. After that, I hit the road.

Today we just had Literatura. We're reading Lazarillo de Tormes, and it's really guay (cool). When we finished class, Melanie and I caught the bus back home. It turns out, Andrew was on the same bus we caught, so all three of us went together.

For lunch, it was me, Matilde, Papá, Miguel and Cesar. We ate fabada, which is like a bean soup with chorizo and butifarron - two types of meat. For dessert we had cut up strawberries in an orange and strawberry juice. Very tasty.

After lunch, I made tea and hung out with Matilde for a little bit, then came upstairs, worked on some travel plans, watched PS. I Love You, and skyped my mom and Jacob, for a second.

At 9:30, we had dinner: Broccoli, bread, hamburger patties, and for dessert, roasted pumpkin. It tasted alot like sweet potatoes, and was REALLY good.

Lindsey didn't eat dinner because she was headed out with some girls, so when she came down in a hurry, Papá offered to take her downtown to where she was meeting them. Because we'd all been wanting to go downtown tonight to see them starting to put Fallas up, Matilde and I hurried to collect our things and hop in the car with Papá. Turns out - both of us left with our house slippers on, which made for some good laughs when we realized it later in the car.

Once we'd dropped Lindsey off, we drove around the whole downtown area. 

The downtown is actually a really concentrated area border by two pairs of towers: Torres de Quart and Torres de Serrano. It's what used to be the ancient Roman city, and it's super cool. We rode around, looking at all the great Fallas lights 

and the Fallas that they've starting erecting for the 15th, at 12:00 am, when Fallas officially starts. It's so exciting and amazing!

We got home around 11:00, and then I left to meet up with Jessica and Macy. We did pretty much the same thing, except on foot, and we went a little bit outside of the city centre as well. We also walked more into Carmen (the neighborhood that never sleeps) 

and found a great band playing, where they were serving a HUGE dish of paella. And I do mean huge - the pan is about the size of my room here, and it serves about 1.000 people. Crazy, huh? And the band played a mix of American and Spanish music - even a medley from Grease. It was awesome! There was a group of cute old men on one of the apartment balconies across the way from the band, just dancing their little hearts out!

I eventually came home around 2:00, and now I'm just chilling! I might rent a movie from iTunes before hitting the sack.

If you get a chance, check out the TWENTY pictures I added to my UK post. Enjoy!

Also, I have no more school until the 24th! Woohoo!!!!!

Flipa la gamba,

Leigh

PS. To learn more about Fallas, go here:

http://www.valenciavalencia.com/culture-guide/fallas/overview.htm

http://www.valenciavalencia.com/culture-guide/fallas/about-fallas.htm