Studying / Night of San Juan

Hello everyone!

As always I've been super busy since my last post!

Tuesday I had my last "intercambio." I supposed I should probably explain what exactly that is now that I have a little bit of time to write. An intercambio is basically a session where I talk to a person in Spanish for an hour, and then we switch and talk in English for an hour--thus helping both of us learn the language and improve fluidity with speaking. My partner that I was assigned was a 30-something year old woman named Merche who is learning English so she can travel with her boyfriend. She is very nice and laughs a lot once she gets past her timidness. She told me that I had helped her a lot with her exam from the previous week so that was nice to hear. I felt bad that I couldn't continue to help her in the weeks to come as I will be too busy with my internship and research project, but I gave her my contact info in case she has any questions or needs any help in the future. I also proposed the idea that we could talk via Skype to help her continue improving her speaking. Overall I think the intercambio was a good experience, but it definitely took up a lot of time. I think it probably helped her more than me too because I can speak Spanish with everyone here, whereas she would have a difficult time finding native English speakers.

Wednesday morning we got up early to visit our hotels and meet our bosses. It is the first time that anyone is working in my hotel, so it is not as relaxed as the other one. My boss wants to make sure that we do everything by the books, and I don't blame him--its much more common for spontaneous inspections in Spain. Originally I was told that I would be working as a receptionist at the front desk but that changed when they opted to allow another student to work in the same hotel. They moved me to what I think will be a better position--entertainment. I will be working with a really nice lady named Julia putting on events and helping with their facilitation. Only time will tell what I will have to do, but I think its mostly stuff outside like games and activities (pool, ping pong, beach, archery). I'm really excited, I don't think I could have gotten a better job. I start on Saturday (tomorrow) and I have to be there at 10am. I will be living in the hotel and sharing a room with the guy that is in charge of entertainment for the hotel. I have yet to meet him.

Wednesday I spent the entire day after class in the public library working on my paper. I only got half of it done but I finished it on Thursday after another long day at the library. I got a sweet library card as a souvenir too! I don't have to turn in my paper until Monday now because they changed the date from today so I have a little bit of extra time to look it over and make sure its as good as it can be before I turn it in. I think its pretty good though and hopefully my professor will think the same. Also on Thursday I had to give a 20-30 minute powerpoint presentation about my paper. I worked on the presentation Wednesday night after going to La Noche de San Juan (I'll talk about this in the next paragraph) until pretty late in the morning. I also got up early on Thursday morning to practice it to make sure I met the time limit. Unfortunately I didn't meet it. I wasn't too worried though because our two professors told us different time limits. One of them had been telling us 20-30 minutes since the beginning, and the other one told us we only had to do a maximum of 10minutes. I talked to my classmates about this and we weren't sure how long to make them but we figured we'd just shoot for 20 minutes and hope for the best. After watching my three of my classmates give their presentations (all of them were well within the time limit) I was pretty nervous about my short presentation. I warned them during our break in the hallway that mine was going to be short and not to laugh. We went back in and I braced myself for the worst, but I ended up doing really well! I surprised myself how much of my research I remembered as I threw out a ton of statistics. I was also surprised how I much I talked about without using the power-point slides (the slides were written in Spanish so it was hard to use them as a reference while speaking). Also Aaron, my classmate and an amazingly nice guy helped out by asking a question as did Susan. I ended my presentation about 21 minutes after starting. Perfecto. My professor told me I did a good job.

Wednesday night we had an excursion as a group to the Night of San Juan. Our guardian angels took us there by some weird route that took forever. I lead the pack as we headed home a more efficient way at the end of the night. Vivo en Espana. I'm not sure who San Juan was, but he couldn't have been much of a saint. The night is known for its fire and demons. The festival kicked off with some weird drum banging music and groping on stage. I took a video but I think its too long to post on here (~4minutes) but I'll try to put it (and a few others I've taken here) on YouTube sometime. The drumming/groping concert definitely wasn't a place for youngings. After the concert, a bunch of people dressed up as diablos y demones ran through the crowd spraying everyone with sparks. It was actually decently painful to catch these sparks too! Unfortunately I now have holes in the shirt I was wearing and one even melted the face of my watch! After one burned my back I yelled and caught one in my mouth; later in the night one went in my ear as well. This type of celebration definitely could never happen in the US! Now I understand why there were people wearing full-face helmets and safety goggles. I was really careful to not catch any in my eyes, but it was hard as they snuck up behind you. The demons played were true to their characters as they also sexually assaulted the females in my group. That was about enough partying for them so I helped them out of the crowd and off to the side where the older people from the crowd had gathered. Aside from that though we all had a great time. Unfortunately I didn't get too many pics as the videos I took ate up my batter pretty quick, but I posted a few of them that turned out below.

Thursday as I said I had my presentation. After that we had a going-away dinner for Nick; the only person who is not staying for session 2. We went to a restaurant that has been open since 1700 for some postres and helado. Everyone in our group as well as our professors and guardian angels came so it was nice to chat with everyone in a more relaxed setting and see the other people in my group that I don't have class with. Nick is a great guy and he will be missed. He's going back to Texas to work for about a month with Spanish speakers who are trying to become citizens before he heads back to Columbia in New York to start training for wrestling. I warned him of a possible visit sometime next year and he said I would be welcomed and to come when he's out of season. After ice cream I was really tired from staying up late / getting up early so I went home and took a ciesta. I slept for about 2 hours and then got up to study for my final exam.

Friday (today) I had my final exam. I think it went well but who knows. The oral portion of it went really well though as my teacher told me I spoke really well and with great fluidity. That was reassuring. I enjoyed her class even though it was 5 days a week in the summer. She was very nice and I think she did a good job. After the test, Aaron, Andrew, and I grabbed some lunch in the cafeteria at school and then parted ways. I went home to pack my suitcase. I got everything to fit without a problem, and my madre told me that I could leave my dirty clothes for her to wash. She also told me that she would wash them while I live in the hotel if I need her to. Although tempting as her offer was, I felt too guilty to accept it. She told me to call her if I need anything though and to think of her as my own mother in Spain. How sweet of her :). Tonight Spain plays Chile in the Mundial so I am going to watch it with friends. After the game, my host family is taking me out to eat (this is the first time we've eaten outside of the house in the 3 weeks I've been here--a big change from home).

CONGRATS! You survived all of that text! ^^^^ Here are some pictures now as a reward for your hard work reading!

At night I get visitors to my house. This little dragon was in my bathroom. They're great to have around because they eat mosquitoes!

Here is possibly my favorite drink that I've been introduced to here. Its a mixture of fruit juice and milk! I know--it sounds gross but its actually really good!

Here is the start of the Night of San Juan. This is the drumming/groping concert I was talking about.

A meeting of the minds.

One of the Hellish vehicles they constructed. They had a bunch of weird carts strapped with fireworks that sprayed the crowd and completely destroyed my back.

More drumming and more humping.

One of the demon dancers.

Here are some of the demons with there firework sparkler things.

Crowds gather after the fireworks are lit and everyone jumps and dances underneath the hot sparks.

Although its not a very flattering picture of me, I snapped this underneath one of the fireworks.

On the way home from my test today I bought these flowers for my madre since its my last day here. She was very excited to be greeted by them when she got home from work!

As I said, I packed up my stuff today. Tomorrow morning I move into the hotel for my internship. Wish me luck!

Hotel / Beach / Art / Music / Beach

Hola Everyone. It has been a pretty busy weekend for me. On Friday, we took an sort of field trip to an ecological hotel. They are very conscious of their environmental impact. All the buildings were made out of materials that were environmentally friendly and all of the water they use is natural rain water that they store in a large basin--they also use that water for irrigation. Our guides were super-friendly and easy to understand even though they only spoke Spanish. After we toured the grounds, they treated us to a light breakfast and gave us a book about Palma and some information on their resort.

Above is the entrance to the Pollentia Club Resort (http://www.clubpollentia.com/ if you want more pictures or information).

We took charter buses on both Friday and Sunday. It was really nice since there were only about 10 of us. We had a ton of room to nap and relax.

The resort had just about every activity. I was really surprised to see archery!

Here is a map of the resort.

After our field-trip to the resort, we spent about 5 hours on the beach. This beach was amazing. It was really shallow and therefore the water was really warm. We played catch with a rugby ball for a long time.

This lady was going around selling melons at the beach. "Melonas melonas melonas!"

On Saturday my brother (Pato) had a showing of his artistic ability and musical talent of his friends. The show consisted of his friends playing music while he painted. It was an interesting concept and I had a good time sitting back and listening to the good music and watching him paint. Above are: Pato, Chandler (he won the raffle for the painting), Myself, and Ian (Pato's friend).

Above is Pato's finished work.

Here Pato is painting while Angel and Joan sing and play guitar. The bassist was farther to the left and didn't make the picture.

I snapped this photo as we walked to the venue.

Here is a shot of the beach we went to on Sunday when the sun peaked through!

This kid climbed inside an olive tree. The olive trees here are so cool!

Here's a shot of the guys at the Tower of Verger (Chandler, Me, Nick, Conrad).

One of the views from the Tower

We stopped here because we got rained out of our original destination. We decided to just sight-see from the bus to stay dry. The rain stopped though so we exited the bus a couple of times to take in the amazing views.

This rock with a hole in it was at one of our destinations that got rained out.

Here is when the sun first poked through the clouds. This is an old broken boat that was on the rocks by the port.

Here is a shot of my yacht with my jet ski on the back.

...and here is my Rolls Royce

This picture was supposed to come before all the yacht pictures but oh well. It is the entrance to the port we walked through. Club de Vela.

Nick and I tried out a cool looking thin at the park there!

Here was a good photo op @ the port.

Map of the port

After busing around, we finally made it to a beach. It was really cold at first with all the cloud cover, but within half an hour or so the sun came out and it was a perfect day!

Here a girl was trying to surf. Once the sun finally came out, the waves started getting a lot bigger too! We went in, despite the water being freezing cold, and had an amazing time body surfing. If you timed it right, you could ride on top of the waves and they would propel you really fast! I had a ton of fun!

Made us some good food.

Not much has passed since my last post.. School is really picking up so I've been pretty busy. I had to give a presentation yesterday on a strategy to improve the quality of life of a developing area of the island and today I had a test. It was definitely harder than the test I had last week, but I think it went well. Only time will tell though. Tomorrow we are going to Pollensa and Playa de Muro. We are going to visit a ecological hotel (www.clubpollentia.com). On Sunday we are going to go to Valldemossa. The week to come is going to be even busier than this one as I have another test on Monday, Tuesday I have a meeting with the program directors about my internship and I am meeting with my intercambio in the morning, Wednesday I have to have my rough draft for my 20-30min presentation, Thursday I have to give my presentation and turn in my 6 page paper, and Friday I have my final exam.

On Tuesday of this past week though I got to have some fun when we took a cooking class from a famous chef, Cati Aguilo. It was a lot of fun and she was extremely nice. Her elegant apartment was very spacious for a single senora in Spain. She had a few dishes prepared for us when we got there, but we made 2 more plus desserts.

Here is a poster of Cati that she had in her house. She looks pretty strict here but she is actually very nice and has a great sense of humor!

Here is a picture of the potatoes that Conrad and I cut. I'm quite the chef now.

Cati showed us some of her hand-made/blown glasses that she was proud of.

This has become a common sight for me over here, but I figured I should take a picture for you guys. Milk is left on the counter in Spain.

The finished product.

The other dish we made, I forgot the name of it though and I don't want to go look through my papers to find the recipe; sorry. But it was very good, and we even added to her recipe by putting cheese on it. It looks pretty pizza-esque, but I promise it tasted nothing like pizza.

For desert we made cool cookie things (obviously I forgot the name of these too). We got to make whatever shapes we wanted. My creations were obviously the best as I had a lot of practice with Play-dough and Silly Putty as a child. Above is a car that I made. It was delicious.

Here is the group of chefs with Cati! (Aaron, Conrad, Jena, Me, Cati, Nick, Chandler, Andrew).

Today I had a little bit of time to kill between my class and my intercambio so I walked the streets and bought a few shirts. Here is one of the stores that I felt the need to buy something in. I know, I bought something with my name on it, lame. But at least now it will match my hat that my dad made me with my name on it!

That's all for now, I'll be sure to take a lot of pictures tomorrow and Sunday, but I'm not sure when I'll have time to write on here again. Whoever is reading this blog (if anyone) should start commenting on my posts so I feel like my time is being well-spent! Hope all is well in the US!

English People, German People, More Beaches

Holaaaaaaaaaaa

On Friday we went as a group to Magaluf. It is a part of the island where all the English tourists stay. Everything there was in English. It reminded me of a USA -Cancun relationship. While we were there, we had to interview 2 tourists and 2 people who work there for our class. For my tourists, I talked to a group of guys from Northern Ireland, a kid from SE England. Their answers were mostly just drunken BS, but it completed the assignment and I had a good time chatting with them. Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures at Magaluf because I was busy trying to interview people, but I'm sure we'll go back there sometime.

Above is an Island off the coast of Magaluf.

Here is the Crusty Crab's biggest competitor. I liked the name and the stereotypical "British Fish & Chips" so I had to snap a photo.

Saturday was the first day that we had to ourselves. After finally sleeping in, I decided I would take the opportunity to check out another beach. We are required to visit this one on our own at some point in time for our research project so I figured I would get it out of the way as early as I could. This area of Mallorca is called "Playa de Palma" and it is the tourist destination for Germans. Everything here is written in German. There was a lot of crazy partying here. They sold sangria there by the bucket.

Above is another guy on his bachelor party. He had a box of a bunch of worthless stuff that he had to sell. I looked through his stuff to try to help him out but I didn't see anything I wanted. He ended up just giving me the German flag that he's holding here. Sweet.

Here is a shot down one side of the beach. This beach goes on forever and the whole thing is covered with Germans.

This is a picture inside "Mega Park." It is a huuuuge German bar filled with a lot of Germans acting Germanish.

They had stadium megatrons inside for watching the World Cup!

These huge drink containers were on about every table. The one on the right was 37 Euros and the one on the left was 22 Euros. I talked with the owner of these two for a little bit.

This German waitress begged me for a picture. I obliged after she paid me 5 euros.

Today (Sunday) I took a personal day at the beach. I got to sleep in again which was nice. We went to a disco last night. Not the bell-bottom-pants-disco, the club-disco. It was pretty fun but I would have preferred to go to a different one. After eating paella with the family for lunch, I walked down to the beach. This beach is dirty because its so close to the port so I didn't swim. I just lounged and got bronzified. Tonight I'm going to stay in and watch the Prince of Persia DVD that I bought from the street vendor.

I'll leave you with this picture I took today of big, old man in a small, old speedo. I'm not sure if taking your bird to the beach is normal here or not, but it looked a little strange to me.