ohh Tomatina

Today is the day that i SHOULD be at the Tomatina in Buñol. As in the festival of throwing tomatoes. Literally chucking them at other people. It was one of the things I'd been looking forward to most this semester, however it is over 4 hours away and I have class in the morning, and there are no trains back in time. Sigh. Thank you Google-Spain for reminding me of that every time I go to your webpage. My friend, Ernesto, told me I could throw rotten tomatoes at him tomorrow if I really wanted to, so at least I know the option is out there =)

So even though I will not be able to participate in throwing tomatoes I HAVE been doing tons of cool stuff. Last weekend we took a class trip to Avila on saturday, although it was a pretty boring. It was a 3-hour bus ride each way with a driver who was absolutely determined to make us all vomit and about 5 hours spent walking around the old city looking at churches. So far, Spain has been a lot of churches and monasteries - pretty, but they're beginning to look the same. It did have a FANTASTIC view though since its perched on a hill, so that was neat. My camera batteries died upon arriving to Avila, so I'll probably just steal everyone else's off of facebook. We had about 4 hours of free time, although it was entirely during the siesta. So EVERYTHING was closed. We walked around, ate our bocadillos from home (carmen makes some mean spanish-tortilla bocadillos), and chatted in Spanish. bueno!

Afterwards was probably the craziest concert I've ever been to in my entire life. A few of us went to this all night techno concert - called Electrosonic - around midnight and got home around 6am. And we left the concert much earlier than everyone else. There were two nights of teh concert, which took place in an open field with 3 of 4 tents with different DJs playing and strobe lights flashing, so people came from all over. Barcelona, Madrid, Paris - we met a group of people from Australia, too. All in all, we decided the craziness was a bit out of our league after a few hours and peaced out - although it was an absolute blast.

Spent the next day sleeping, but I woke up in time for lunch. Carmen greeted me with calabaza-patata-queso soup (pumpkin, potato, and cheese. gee, thanks). I don't even like touching the pumpkin guts when carving pumpkins at Halloween, much less eat them after being pureed in a blender with potatos and cheese. I ate what I could, but I think she knew I wasnt a huge fan. It was followed by fried veal. yummay. And another thing! I think I conveyed incorrectly my feelings toward murcilla (blood, meat, and rice packed into sausage form) because Carmen thinks I love it. When in reality, it was better than I thought and I kind of liked it. Today was murcilla soup and yesterday was murcilla links for an appatizer course before lunch. The food is not as bad as I make it sound though! Carmen has caught on to how much I love chocolate, having bread with everything is amazing, and spanish tortillas are delicious. I'm just craving some seriuos Jimmy Johns or Pizza Hut. We caved and went to telepizza the other night, and it was the best, worst pizza ever. loved every bite.

classes are great! out professor, Diego, is hilarious and incredibly patient. I've learned a ton without even realizing it. Carmen is good about correcting me and helping better my spanish, too. we sit in the kitchen after dinner and name off the cooking utensils and kitchen appliances. I tihnk she's going to help me find a cooking class to take, too. She must think I'm a moron, though. The other day walking in to class, I meant to say that it looked like it was going to rain. however i said "me parece que va a llorar" which tanslates into "it seems to me that its going to cry. whoops. She looked at me, laughed, and made fun of me for a few seconds before I realized what I said wrong and corrected myself. llover, not llorar. I'll never forget that again.

big news! today, Jose's (my spanish brother) girlfriend came into my roomand started up a conversation. That confused me in itself because she never really talks to me, but asked about the concert and our plans for traveling, and about a book that was on my desk that she had read. well at the end of the conversation, she invited me to go out with her around burgos sometime which is HUGE b/c people in Burgos just don't really do that. They'll even admit that people in the castilla y leon region are much more cold and unfriendly. Too bad I didn't understand her the first time around, so I felt like and idiot when I did get it. I'm still excited, though!

We're headed to Santander to go to the beach this weekend, Friday to Sunday night. Madrid is the weekend of Sept 6-7, then we have a week off before our week long trip down south. I think that 3 other people and I are going to go to cordoba, granada, sevilla, and morocco if there's time. We just booked our flights for Rome on the weekend of October 9-14. I think some girls and I are going to Paris the weekend after, and then Barcelona for Halloween weekend. After that -who knows? There's still tons to see.

When we were walking home tonight, some old guy yelled at us that we should pay taxes. He heard us speaking English because we were making plans, and thought that we were immigrants. Which is funny because we do pay a certain amount of taxes on everything that we buy, yet reap none of the benefits. Maybe next time he should think about things like that before passing judgment - or yelling at strangers.

I'm starting to miss everyone! Kalamazoo seems to be much more lively with everyone returning to school, as do other college campuses. Hope you all are doing well!


Love, Cara

go here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomatina