Buckle In...

...Cause this is gonna be a long one.

It's been well over two weeks since I've updated. Which normally isn't all that bad, but considering the mountain of things I've done over the past couple of weeks, this could be a difficult task. But in the interest of keeping things as brief and non-boring as possible, I'll try and keep from being too over-expressive.

First of all, as I'm pretty sure I mentioned before, Kayla and I left Madrid on Wednesday the 12th to go meet up with our friends Gloria and Jorge in Jávea, which is a little beach town about an hour south of Valencia. While we expected to get plenty of beach time and to get a little more tan, I couldn't have even begun to imagine just how amazing the next couple of weeks would be. (Unfortunately, since it's been so long since I've updated, most of the stuff is running together in my mind, so it probably won't be in perfect chronological order. But I'll try.)

So anyway, we get to Jávea and meet up with our friends who we've been waiting to see for months now and it was awesome. It's so good to see some familiar faces. Also it was awesome because Jávea is an incredibly beautiful Mediterranean town. The sea was beautifully blue, the weather was fantastic, and the people were friendly. Anyway, in true Spanish style, the first night they took us out and we stayed out until around 7 in the morning. Which I suppose was a good way to start our vacation time.

Over the next week, Kayla stayed with Gloria and I stayed with Jorge, so we each had slightly different experiences, so I'm sure our stories would differ a bit. But all I know is that my week in Jávea was AMAZING. Rather than giving a day by day account, I'll give a quick list of the things I did:

• Went motorbiking around the city on Jorge's motorbike. Which was surprisingly awesome.
• Went cliff-diving several times, with the most memorable (and terrifying) being a cliff that was over 4 stories tall. Needless to say, it took us about 30 minutes of psyching ourselves into actually jumping off and not just climbing back down. haha In fact, thinking about it now is making my palms sweat. And if you don't think 4 stories is very tall, just walk to the roof of a 4 story building and look off the side. See how brave you are.
• Fought bulls at a Spanish capea. A capea is a small, private bullfight where everyone gets to take part. Rather than one full-grown bull, there are many smaller, younger bulls, so there is much less danger of getting hurt. And basically, it's a bunch of young guys eager to jump in the ring and show off how manly they are. So naturally, I had to jump in there and prove that Americans are just as good as Spanish. Not sure how good I did, but I do know that I did a pretty good job of not getting hit by any bulls. Mission accomplished.
• Went snorkeling with Jorge's family and watched a guy dive down and pick sea urchins right from the sea, and then proceeded to watch him cut those sea urchins open on our yacht, and then proceeded to eat raw sea urchin. Which was quite possibly the fishiest tasting thing I've ever had in my mouth. Still good, just different.
• Stayed out until 7 am more than once. I'm not sure how the Spanish do it, but I know that this guy's body will not be able to put up with that too often. I enjoy sleep WAY too much.

There were a few other experiences here and there, but those were the main ones that make for the best stories. And if I was to account for the entire week in Jávea, I'm sure no one would ever read it.

So then I rode to Valencia with Gloria and Jorge where I met up with my friend Dini, who I was going to stay with during my time there. Glo and Jorge both live in VLC, but they needed a bit of a break after hosting us for so long. (And just as a side note, it's so odd being the one everyone is having to take care of. I'm so used to being the host and the driver.)

Anyway, Valencia was amazing because two more of our good friends, William from France and Jacek from Germany, flew in to meet us and have a big OU reunion. And it ended up being so incredibly fun. Again, I'm not going to go too much into detail about what all went on, because it consisted of a lot of going out, a lot of sightseeing, and a lot of beach time. But I promise it was fun. All these guys are some of my best friends and we've been planning this reunion for what seems like forever, so for it all to finally take place was great. And of course, it was over all too soon. But, no worries, we already have plans to meet in Madrid sometime this month, Paris in October, and Berlin in November for the 30th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Not too bad, right?

And I feel like I should mention that I've adopted a new Spanish family as my own (no worries, Mom and Dad, it's only a family while I'm in Spain. You're not being replaced). Dini's family was absolutely incredible. I've never been in more of a welcoming, accommodating environment in my entire life (aside from my own home, of course). They were so fun and I really felt like I became a part of the family over my week with them. I know that anytime I get homesick or need a good home-cooked meal, it's only a short train ride away.

But now vacation time is over and I'm back in boring, old Madrid in my apartment. JK JK. There really are no "life as usual" feelings for me now as even the mundane is exciting. I finally have gotten around to doing some decorating for my room. Kayla and I went to the famous Rastro, Madrid's huge open-air market on Sunday mornings, and both of us got some things to make our rooms feel a bit more homey. I'll get some pictures up soon.

Speaking of pictures, throughout my entire vacation time, I took about 5 pictures. I know, TOTAL failure. But plenty of other people took pictures, so I'll steal some of theirs soon and post them and take full credit for them.

Anyway, I LOVE my room now. I bought a HUGE tapestry thing for my wall, a poster, a lamp, and some other odds and ends. It no longer feels like I'm living in a dorm room! Hooray!

And I feel like I should end this now. It's getting to the point where even I'm bored from it. I promise I'll get more pictures soon and that I'll update a little more regularly so that it won't be a novel to read for each post.

Until next time....