Waiting for the Sunrise

Javea was so cool. We took an hour long bus ride, hopped on a ferry. The ferry was really rocking in the Mediterranean but it was really pretty. I took a lot of pictures but they all look a like. When we got there, we all went to this store to buy snorkel gear. There were 50 students so we basically bought all the snorkel gear they had. The waves were not great for snorkeling and I didn't even use mine at all but it was still fun to go in the water and swim around. After snorkeling we split up for a little bit and went to eat lunch. I had a Doner, which seems to be very popular in apartment six, it was so unhealthy and I didn't care at all; it was fantastic. When we got home, people showered and then I don't remember what we did. But later that night, I went to an Oktoberfest in Valencia. It was $10 to get in but they gave you   a liter of beer. It was super fun but I think I drank too much, haha whoops. But whatever happens here it doesn't matter because this is an amazing chapter of my life that I never want to regret. During the day Saturday, I'm pretty sure I studied and did a lot of homework. At night, almost everyone from the study center went to a club. We didn't leave until midnight and by that time I was already tired especially because of the night before but I actually had a lot of fun. We went to a club like I said and then at about 6:30 in the morning we went to the beach and waited for the sun to rise at about 8:00. Sunday obviously was a very tiring day. The sunrise was one of the prettiest things I have ever seen. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my phone to take pictures but Alex, one of my roommates, has a lot of pictures so I'll have to see if she can send me some and then I'll put them up on facebook. The beach was freezing and I was in a tank top and skirt so I didn't have much to keep me warm. Part of the Spanish culture in Valencia is the clubbing scene. When we all had left the club at about 6:30, it was still roaring which to me is kind of weird. But this past weekend was definitely my favorite.  I met some more awesome people and got to know people from the study center even more.  Monday didn't start off fantastic. I'm currently out of money because I mistakenly did not bring a debit card with me and so my dad had to send me money. Which I then missed one of the numbers for the account so I had to walk back to get it. Also, apparently the Prime Minister is visiting really close to the study center so there are police everywhere!! There are even police helicopters which I think is pretty cool. Today my culture and Civilization class went to two different gardens, Los Viveros and el jardin de monforte. Los viveros is a huge park that has the remains of the old palace in it. It also has a lot of different types of species of plants because the people of Valencia would trade and get plants from all over the world and plant them around this big park. One of my favorite things in that garden was a big section full of roses. Our professor told us that there are over 100 species of roses in the garden. The second garden, el jardin de monforte was much smaller and was once a family garden to the Monforte family. It also had a really beautiful rose garden. I do have pictures from here so I'll put some on here for you all to see. Next week we are going to the Pyrenees so I'm not sure how I'm going to blog or if I'll even have the ability to text. So that is all for now. I just have to say one thing. Happy Birthday brother! miss you!

The first is from the Rose garden in Los Viveros, the Second is a picture of Javea from a mountain we went on and the third is a picture from el jardin de Monforte

~Stacey