Today is our last day at school.. we´re pretty excited and also kind of sad. Yesterday during school we watched the movie ¨Volver¨ and then took our picnic to a park outside of the public library. After that we did a little souvenir shopping and then visited a musem about the fallas. Which are a series of fiestas here in Valencia every March. It´s been a good week and we´re excited about Madrid this weekend!
Lauren and Elizabeth

Back from Barcelona

We got back from Barcelona late last night, and are back at school this morning. The weekend trip was awesome-- we saw so many beautiful buildings and stayed in a nice, ultra-modern hotel. The cathedral Sagrada de Familia was absoloutely one of the most beautiful buildings that I´ve ever seen. Designed by the architect Gaudi, it is still under construction. The stain glass windows and spiral staircases were unlike anything we´d ever seen, and the museum alongside the cathedral was also incredible. We encountered many other tourists while shopping in the streets, and were surprised by the huge number of people in the city who spoke languages other than Spanish. Although Barcelona was great, it´s nice to be back home in Valencia with our host families.

Hello from Barcelona!

Barcelona is a lot different from the little sea-town of Valencia. It resembles New York City in a way-lots of hustle and bustle! Today we visited two projects of the great arquitect of Gaudi. His work is amazing! One being La Pedrera, a very intense looking apartment house looking thing! haha! It was amazing to look at! The other piece of arquitecture we visited today was La Segrada Familia, which was even more astounding! It was so beautiful! Although we didn´t get to ride the elevator up to the top to see a great view of the city of Barcelona the building itself was still amazing! Not only is the city of Barcelona fun, but also the awesome hotel we are staying in! This is my first European Hotel and it is really nice (definitly alot bigger than my closet of a bedroom at my house in Valencia, which I have grown to love). We also ate in a buffet-style restaurant tonight! It had food I actually liked-bread and pizza! haha! Just kidding, the food of Spain is growing on me alittle...meaning the cookies and the sweets not the seafood! Anyways it is getting late and I should probably let someone else have a chance at the computer! I hope everything is going well in Chattanooga!
Love,
Anne

Hello from Spain.. today is Elizabeths birthday so after school were going to a playground from "Gulliver´s travels" where there is a huge man with slides coming off of all sides of him. Yesterday we visited the art musuem and then went out for dinner at a tapas restaurant which was really good. The weather has gotten a lot better! Tomorrow morning we leave for a 4 hour bus ride to Barcelona for the weekend. Today should be fun, plus we have a "surprise activity" for elizabeth on the river!

lauren

hello! i am having such a fun time in spain its so pretty here and even though its really hot weather its still great. Today is Elizabeths birthday yayy. to celebrate, last night we went to get tapas a really good restaurant. we ate squid, moncheago cheese, shrimp, bread, croquettas, and asparagus. it was so good me gusta mucho. i think everyone is getting along really well and everyone is pretty much getting used to the Spanish ways. Today we are going to a big famous playground im pretty excited and we are going to barcelona saturday morning yayy. i dont know who is more excited me and caroline, or mama. she really likes us missing meals with her beucase she doesnt have to cook for us haha but she siad she loves our company. im having so much fun but i miss america a lot love meg

another update

Well yesterday´s flamenco classes were interesting to say the least. It is a lot harder than it looks, and we discovered that our coordination isn´t quite up to par. The good news is that we were all able to have a lot of laughs through our lack of flamenco skill, and I believe Sr. Alba enjoyed watching and documenting our experience as well, so I am sure you will all get to witness some of this later. Spain is still beautiful, and all is going well with everyone. Today after class, we are taking a visit to see the bullfighting arena, so we are all incredibly excited about that. We are about half way through our trip now, and we arent ready to come home quite yet. Several of us have a couple of new American girls staying with us for 3 days, but they dont speak Spanish at all so we play translator, which is kind of fun. I´m sure someone will update later. Sending my love, Elle.

A Post from Claire and Caroline <3

Hey! This is a post from Claire and Caroline, since Caroline forgot her password and can´t write for herself. We are about to start school for the day and are looking forward to Flamenco lessons later on. Yesterday we saw a lot of beautiful gardens and had time to play on the playground (Senor Alba posted pictures). Claire had potato and tuna for dinner last night, and Caroline had croquettas de pollo (they are SO GOOD). Two more American girls are coming to stay at Claire and Elle´s house for the next 3 days. The Swedish people in Caroline and Meg´s house are really nice and speak really good English but relatively poor Spanish; Mama is not pleased with them, but she loves Meg and Caroline. We are really looking forward to the Barcelona trip this weekend!