Another Busy Week

(Above: On Sunday morning we went to Aranjuez. Aranjuez was the summer palace of the Kings, if i remember correctly. Anyways it is famous for strawberries so I will definately be going back in spring. mmmmmmmmmmmm :)

(I was surprised to find a statue of Mike Collins in his prime.)

(And yep, I went with this guy. We are, at least on my part, waiting out the cold. No climbing until the sun is shining. I can't wait until winter is over. There was a little bit of snow here again today. burrrrrr)

It's wednesday at 1030pm. I got home a couple of hours ago and just finished dinner. Tons of end of the month paper work, no sleep. Standard.

I am realizing that I dont really have anything exciting to write about. I am exhausted and uninteresting. oh well, I will try to write again soon when my battery is charged.

Here is my nephew, YAY!

My exciting Life.....

Last week ...

I acted out the story of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" about 4 times.

I went bouldering in the cold.

I taught and learned about the Hoover dam as well as damns in general.

We hosted a Sunday morning American Breakfast at my house.

I played about 5 card games.

I learned how to download videos off of youtube.

This is Santi. He is one of my FAVORITE english students.......

Back to Business

When my roommate Isa returned from Torrevieja (on Friday), we finished off Christmas vacation with another christmas party, specifically a 'Christmas Barbeque,' better said a 'Christmas Spanish Barbeque.'

Anyways we had a bbq in the kitchen on a couple of griddles. That lasted 10 minutes until we blew a circuit. We had to downsize to one griddle, but it worked out well. I dont really know how to translate the menu...... lots of sausage and grease and fat?? Oh and cheeseburgers too. There werent any buns for anything, but of course there was lots of fresh bread, lambrusco, singstar, video games, and a card game called moose. It is most likely not spelled moose, but definately pronounced the same as the European Elk. (I think that is british for the word Moose)

Unfortuneately I now am back to real life again. Deep down I want to think that I like my job, but I have a 'hate work complex' that gets in the way. I laugh and time flies, I think I am also adjusting to having an afternoon schedule instead of a morning schedule. Things are coming along. :)

It's been snowy and rainy and cold. Waiting for spring, or summer or autumn, whatever is not winter.

Cabalgata = parade

This year I went to the Reyes parade again. I liked it better this year than last year. The theme was 'something cultural.'

This is a lady hanging on a trapeze from a bunch of helium balloons. She was doing flips and all that jazz. I am not exactly sure what culture it goes with, but it was really pretty and original.

I started out taking pictures of everything.

BELOW are some giraffes, I suppose from Africa?? Anyways, as you can see they are each controlled by two people on stilts. The front person holds strings that are connected to and control the head. THey were really funny and kept crashing into the butt of the person in front of them. I guess they couldnt see very well in the costume.

Yes, we were probably the biggest kids at the parade. And NO Javi did not let me sit on his shoulders.......

BELOW are some big, I mean HUGE, aztecish balloons that they kept crashing into the crowd. It was fun. AHHHHHH, I dont wanna here any feedback comments about the english that i am lacking. I am gonna start to read in English this week I promise.

Those were the parts of the parade in which they were NOT throwing candy. The rest of the parade I was on the ground and in the air catching all the candy that I could. Specifically the gummy candies, the good ones. (Within reason.... I didnt go to the extreme of stealing from the little ones). Then at the end of the parade we jumped the fence and colllected allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the candy that was in the middle of street where the parade was. I never wanna grow up.

Here is all the candy in the tire of one of the police vans that was in the parade.

New Year´s Eve at Javi´s

These are the promised pictures....

The Real New Years.

The Real New Years is a two part story that began in the HOUSE Of SANCHEZ. I say the house of Sanchez, but with the way that the last names are organized, it would more correctly be the house of sanchez, martin-palanco, and maybe two more last names. They have a lot of last names here- Its confusing, Ill explain it another day.

SO once again I am waiting on pictures..... but we had a nice dinner at Javi's with lots and lots and lots and lots of food. (Logical, right?) Present at the dinner was Javi's whole family (also very logical). IF someone would have given me the pictures, I would be able to just post them and you would seee it all.

Anyways Dinner was followed by grapes and champagne, well actually technically CAVA. CAVA is the spanish version of sparkling wine/champagne.

PART II:
We went out until breakfast with Danny and David. It was a lot of fun, a lot of dancing, and a lot of fun. There was about 30 people in the entire bar and so we had our own private section and private party. By the way, David and Danny are both young, wealthy, single, attractive, authentic Spaniards... Just thought I would throw that out there if any American Single Ladies would like to meet one of them- let me know. ;)