A lovely week at home in Alicante!

Monday June 18-Chillin!

Home from Granada it was time to hit the books. The Professors gave us the day to work on our observations, journals, book reviews and presentations. Man did I need it too. I did a ton of homework but also spent time at the beach, even though it was raining. Alyssa and I walked down to the water and we no more than got half way there that it started raining. People were making a mass exodus of the beach but what the heck…don't you come to the beach to get wet anyway.

  The rain didn't last long and we enjoyed having a little more space than you usually get! It did get a little cold though so we called it a day and headed back for the house. It was game night and we were all headed toward Café NO for some European football. The shop owners had reserved us a table with a cute little sign that said Los Estados Unidos. We had such a blast with everyone. Espana won with a goal 2 minutes before the game ended. Olay!

Tuesday June 19-Field trip to Altea!

La Groupa!

Con professoras!

We took a lovely field trip with the class, professors and their families. It was amazing.  It was what I would consider another authentic Spanish town, but then again aren't they all authenic? We took the tram and relaxed and visited. It became obvious we were all tired because people kept talking about getting some coffee! When we finally arrived we did some walking around the city. Lots and lots of stairs. After our 30 minute walk/workout we arrived at the top of the hill. There were some amazing lookout places and a lovely church. 

Baby Lo es muy bonita!

Hola Shane!

George, Dr. Medill's awesome hubby!  (Hor-hey)

Dr. Luna in the middle with her man Red and his son David.  They flew in for the week.

My homegirls Kye and Ashton!

Love this girl!  And this view...honey come this way we can live here!

La Medill Familia-George, Kat and Anne

 We even hit up a few shops. We helped Lauren and Dr. Luna pick out some dresses. It was fun. We stopped to take some pictures of the group. I just love our group. I can't say it enough. Every person is so unique in their own way and I love them all for their strengths. J We headed back down the hill to find a place to get some comida. We found a place right on the beach. There was a street performer who was playing some Beatles and Dylan. It was delicious food. I got la menu del dia which was mussels, goat cheese and some kind of meat with zucchini!

 The desert was awesome a limoncello sorbet…mmmmm! We took the tram home and made it just in time to get a couple minutes of sun before it was gone for the day. I headed back to the apartment and again worked on some homework.

Wednesday June 20-Fireworks and Hougeras!

So the festival is in full swing here. Celebrating summer solstice! Each little barrio is creating their own sculpture to be judged and then on Sunday they light them on fire and the bomberos (fire fighters) put them out and create a water works festival cooling off the people celebrating. They burn them as symbolism for letting go of the old and moving into the new.  I am looking forward to that. It has been so neat to see each little area change day by day. This is the biggest festival of the year here and they take it seriously. I would love to get a picture of each piece but there are more than 50 of them scattered throughout the city. After class I headed down to the beach with Lauren and we got two hours of sun. It was so nice to do some reading. I ended up working on homework for 6 hours. 2 papers and a case study presentation later I finished in time to go with Alicia for fireworks.

This is one of the sculptures that will be burned, well that is unless it wins.  The winning sculpture is preserved.

The streets were crowded and afterward we decided to grab a birthday glass of wine and a birthday brownie. It was almost midnight after all and she wanted to sing to me for my birthday. She loves to sing and I think she sang it to me 3 or 4 times. It was cute.

The waiter even joined in and gave us a birthday shot which tasted like cough syrup. We jumped on the tram for home. The minute I walked in the door Alyssa greeted me with Happy Birthday! I opened the lovely birthday card and gift my parents sent me with. It was so nice to read their words and feel their love. I got homesick a little for the first time. I am so blessed to have such amazing family and friends at home. Love you all!

Thursday June 21- 34 years old today…wow does time fly!

I was greeted with happy birthday from Alyssa and Sam when I woke up. It was a beautiful walk to school and I got to enjoy 5 cats and a cute little family of wiener dogs, one of which kept coming back to say hello to me. None of the dogs here are on leashes. It's crazy! Usually they mind well. Class was great and I thought our presentation went well. All of a sudden there was a knock at the classroom door and when I opened it I was met with Anne, Cat and Nicole who were singing happy birthday in Spanish and spitting bubbles at me with a bubble gun. The whole class chimed in and I must have been beet red! It was really sweet. They brought some amazing cup cakes which reminded me of my momma's cherry chocolate cake I love for my birthday.

 

  I feel so spoiled. After class Ashton, Shane and I went for lunch their treat and we worked on our presentation for next week. I came home and it was so hot I just laid down in front of the fan and took an hour siesta. A group of us went to Cat's art gallery and she gave us a tour. It was a truly inspiring and moving exhibition of Isaac Montoya. The first part was called Reconstruction. He took familiar places and did some crazy photo shop work to strip it down and convey a message. "Human beings are notable for its dispose to reconstruct what has been destroyed and so, that reconstruction rises after the global earthquake as a metaphor of a googlelized world that scatters roughly the references of our collective memory. A different world is built from the remains full of new meanings but with the same old familiar tensions. Tragedy with parody, pain with irony and progress with speculation." I just thought the whole thing spoke volumes to my soul. Can you guess what this is a picture of?

Then down below in the basement there was another exhibition. This process took him 2 years to complete. It comes in layers. Here is the first image.

Tu Grito es Mi Musica

Then you put on a pair of blue glasses and here is what is revealed.

And then a red pair…

I was really moved by this. For me it conveyed the idea that we are distracted by so many things that we miss the real picture of what is really going on, on a deeper level. He used images from several recent crises around the world. He also created a movie. It was mind blowing! "The world sees how all its values are being mixed up. No single thing will remain in its place anymore, and all the small with become part of all the big as if chaos could fulfill and equitable delivery with its level power." Cat asked us if we were to create a layered image what would we want to convey. It was an interesting thing to ponder.

We all went down to Soho park and had a birthday beer. I drank my first "Shanty" which is beer mixed with lemonade. It was very good. We chatted it up and talked about so many things.

 I love deep conversation. The festival was in full swing and they were doing a flower parade. Everyone was dressed up it was really cute. I wish I would have taken more photos.

 We said goodnight to the professors and met up with the rest of the group for a little dinner. Afterward we went to the Cuban bar by the apartment for a birthday mojito and to hang out. For a while it was just our group and then some English girls came in and we talked about the English culture and how they want to go to the US. Funny how everyone seems to want to live somewhere else. Half the group headed to the barrio for a night of dancing. Alyssa and I headed back to the room and then I decided I wanted to put my feet in the sand one more time on my birthday. What a great birthday it was!!