There is more graffiti on one block in Spain than all the graffiti I have seen before I came here.  Every single building, fence, store, garage, new or old, is covered with the stuff.  Its so normal that a building without it looks alien.  

This post is going to be long so I will try to divide it.  But here my mind is all over the place taking in all the things I experience that sometimes I find myself a bit scatterbrained.  I'm writing this post early and posting it tomorrow when I get to the University.  If I don't write it now, I will forget a detail of the last two days of my life.

The last two days of my life, my first weekend in Alicante, have been absolutely amazing.  Yesterday I went to the Mercado Central and went shopping with my mom Aurora but the best part was after when we had comida in an open air restaurant/bar/market thing.  It is hard to put into words how good I felt just sitting there eating all this Mediterranean food, drinking Heinekens with my Spanish mom, the sun hitting my back, and all different types of people just relaxing and enjoying themselves.  And it was so cheap! I had a bocadillo which is a sandwich on a loaf of french bread with codfish (bacalao) and tomato and we had olives and two fried fish things.  Easily the most gorgeous day since I have been here.  It was warm and...you know how I love the sun. :)

Today, Aurora's friend Pedro picked us up.  Aurora says that he wants to marry her so badly but she doesn't feel the same for him.  But they are best friends.  He is a very interesting person, very fun and very nice.  We got along very well!  He is obviously in love with her, its too cute.  Anyway, so we drove about an hour to the next province over, Murcia, and to the city of Murcia which is about an hour away.  The paisajes, or landscapes, the views, during the trip were incredible!!! The mountains are very dry here and so they don't look like other mountains,  They are all dirt colored with a little bit of green on them.  I will put pictures up.  The landscape fascinated me the entire way there so I was basically just gawking at everything I was seeing.  When we got there, we went to this place where they have hot springs and although we didnt swim in them, it was a gorgeous place... We sat on this warm sunny patio in front of this amazing building and had drinks and aperativos (basically appetizers)

Next we went to a tapas restaurant at about 3:00 pm.  We waited, standing, for about an hour before we could steal a table.  I had no idea what I had gotten myself into.  We literally ate for 2 full hours.  And then we talked and left...it was amazing!  We ate something like a lobster (my first time), squid, clams, mussels, plates of ham and cheeses, asparagus, mushrooms, a fruit plate, sausages, 2 bottles of wine, bruscetta, coffee, chupitos de coffee liquor, bread and pretzels-like bread.  YIKES!  My diet is out the door.  Oh well.  I am enjoying everything I am eating and I really love that about Spain.  WHoever said the food here wasn't anything special clearly was not a food-lover like me.

Más que la comida, the conversation was also  incredible, as is usual with Aurora and especially when she gets with her friends or when she is drinking.  At one point she told me she was feeling a bit drunk, and it was hilarious.  Pedro was also a lot of fun.  I wish you all could have experienced all the things I did today.  If there is anything that bothers me here, its that I can't have you all see all the things I am...all of my loved ones, I want this for you too, because you all deserve it even more than I do.  Pictures don't give justice to anything I am experiencing, so its hard for me to describe it all in a way that you all can understand.  The value of life here, the eating habits, resting, relaxing, and drinking all have totally different ways.  Its otro mundo (another world) like we always are saying.  We sit down for a meal and 2 minutes in we are philosophizing at life and how things are, the world, languages, history, love, and just sharing stories.  It is very different.  We ate for 2 hours today and we got a new plate of food about every 17 minutes.  Incredible! It never stops.  

After we ate, we drove to another city called Torrevieja, and the sun was setting over the mountains.  I wanted to cry it was so pretty!  Damos una vuelta (we went for a walk) around the city and looked at everything. It was also incredible.  Its a completely marine city.  Everything functions because of the sea.  They call it the city of salt and Habaneras, a type of music brought back by the sailors from Havana.  There is an amazing statue on the rocks that the water hits of a girl sitting on a bench looking at the sea, waiting for her sailor to come home.  I'll put pictures up.  It really moved me.  She was longing for something that she didnt have, and it was just a beautiful sight.  

Afterwards we drive home, and Pedro has a ton of American CDs (as everything here is in Spanish and English and there is a big American influence), so we listened to Elvis and some other American bands as well as traditional Flamenco from Spain.  Aurora's favorite artists are Rufus Wainwright and Amy Winehouse.  Today we cleaned the house and we were blaring Amy Winehouse's "Rehab"!  Anyway, I asked Pedro if he had Johnny Cash to see it I could find a song I like.  Turns out he had a 2-disc set of 50 songs by Johnny Cash, and what was number 1 on CD 2 but "It Ain't Me, Babe"??  I said, "Put this in! Turn on Number 1!!" And so I sat in the back watching the sun go down over the mountains listening to a song that Z and I always sing together really loud on all our car rides (clearly where we have the most fun).  It was a little unreal.  I took a video to prove to you all that we were in fact listening to Johnny Cash in Spain...

SO.  Thats all I can remember for now.  I have so much to say but I always forget when I'm writing.  I LOVE YOU ALL, AND MISS YOU SO MUCH!  LIFE IS DIFFERENT HERE, BUT ITS A GOOD DIFFERENCE.  I WISH YOU COULD ALL BE HERE WITH ME BECAUSE YOU DESERVE TO EXPERIENCE ALL THE MOST WONDERFUL PARTS OF LIFE... :)  My trip here would be PERFECT if I could have everyone I love here with me the share it with.