I'm home and I feel lost and confused.  Aurora gave me her bracelet that she wears all the time and I was getting in the elevator to leave and then when I got down she told me I love you from the balcony. 

:(  I'll perk up after a couple of days. Today I get to see my family!

My mom and Leigh ( my sister) get here TOMORROW MORNING.  I AM SOOOOOO EXCITED.  I am going to take an overnight bus to get to the Madrid airport but i don't know if I will be able to sleep from the excitement.  During our trip we are going to Madrid, Toledo, Cordoba, Seville, and Granada, then back to Alicante.  We will be here during Hogueras, the huge festival in Alicante that ends the 25th.  Yayyy! More later. Gotta go buy a cheap suitcase and spend my last day on the beach :(

More Greece pics...

GREECE (NOT Grease, like my Uncle Joe says)

Last night I got home from my trip to Greece!  It was incredible.  I went to places I never thought I would get to go in my life and saw some views and sunsets like I never thought I would.  We started in Athens and went to the Parthenon and saw a ton of ruins, went shopping for a little and bought our tickets for our ferries to get to the Cyclades, the Greek Islands! We bought tickets to go to Naxos and SANTORINI, my dream place!  So the next day at 5 pm we took off for Naxos- a 5 hour trip.  It was so pretty!  We got to our hotel and it was soooo nice.  We paid barely anything for such a nice hotel, and with big breakfast included with Greek yogurt and everything!  The guy that picked us up and who ran the hotel had a little lab puppy named Miguel and I just could not stop playing with it, i wanted to take it home and would have taken it with me to the islands on the ferry if i could have.  There were a ton of dogs on the ferries.  Anyway it had a cute little pool and everything.  I'll put up a pic of me by the pool.  

We only had about half a day in Naxos because of the ferry schedule, so then we left for another 3 hour ferry ride to Santorini at 12:55.  When we got to Santorini we got to our hotel and it was also extremely cheap and very nice.  We loved it.  We stayed near a black volcanic sand beach called Perissa Beach.  The first day in the afternoon we went to the beach then we went out for a tiny bit that night. Then the next day we rented 4-wheelers and literally went ALL over the island to all the different cities, and it was soo fun.  The 4 wheelers took us all the way to Oía, where the emblematic sunsets of the Grecian Islands are.  we arrived about 8:30 and waited on a ledge on the bleached white cliff town for the sunset.  LITERALLY one of the best moments of my life.  It was such a dream of mine to see it, and I did it.  Amazing!

Things I figured out about Greece:

Lots of volcanoes

cheap tourism (but its expensive to get there)

its not as hard as i though to get to the islands

Greek yogurt is really good with honey

there were burros with taxi signs on their heads...oh and burros are donkeys..

everyone almost speaks english

i love greece :)

I just got back from Mallorca, where I visited my teacher/friend Monica and her family!  It was just me and the three of them (her two kids, Cristina and Noah) and we spent a couple of days at their house in Palma.  They live in Columbia, MO but have a second house there in Mallorca because MOnica is from there and all her family and relatives still live there.  Although the kids had a ton of energy, it was a fun relaxing trip.  I brought Cristina (whos 5) a paper dolls book with stories in it and it kept her occupied for a long time!  She loved watching me take out and put in my contacts and of course I told her the story of how I ate my moms contacts when I was little.  She calls them my "circles." Noah is 17 months old and he doesnt really talk but he has this gaze that makes you want to say "what have I done!?" Ill show you a picture.  It was so fun being with the kids.  The first night when I got there we went to the beach and stayed for a couple of hours.  Noah went naked and Cristina and I in our bikinis tried to catch all the little fish by the shore.  Gorgeous!  Then the second day we went all over Palma seeing the city the coast and the cathedral.  We ate and then came home and siesta'd then Tini and I went to the pool, but it was freezing! We played around a little bit then we came home to eat and sleep!

Then this morning we woke up and ate breakfast and went to a little town called Valdemossa which is really cute and pretty, up in the mountains, giving me a complete other perspective of the island.  Sorry if this post is short but I am leaving in 2 hours for GREECE so I have to be quick!  My visit to Mallorca was awesome!  I cant wait to see Monica and the kids backa at Mizzou.  I will be babysitting for the baby boy this coming fall-YAY!!

I'm leaving in a couple of hours for Mallorca to see my professor/friend from Mizzou MONICA and her family (she is from there) and I'll be there two days then I come back and go to GREECE for 5 days and then after that....5 days til MY MOM AND LEIGH COME! YAY! THey get on the plane in 2 weeks.  Unbelievable.  I will be home in 25 days.  Absolutely nuts.

I'll be back next week to tell you all my tales!

Love you all!