February 21

I was so happy that I stayed in, I woke up without an alarm at 11:00 and threw in a load of laundry. Joe was still asleep for a lot of the morning but I still managed to clean up my room and shower with only the light coming from our bathroom. I went and ate at 1:30 and a lot of us talked about what our plans were for the day.

A few of us went to Escalones de la Lonja for a café and to knock out a little homework. It was sunny, but rain was still coming down. By the time we left the café a few hours later, there was no trace of rain and the roads were dry. I did my resume for Business class and did most of my paper for Composition class. I was happy that I used the afternoon to get work done.

We decided it was a great evening to walk around. We started walking and came across a huge parade for Fallas. Fallas is a huge weeklong celebration that they celebrate here. They had a huge procession of people of all ages dressed as anything from toothbrushes to Wizard of Oz characters. They just recently hung colorful streetlights over all of the major streets and it looked really cool to see everyone marching under it.

Diego, Greg, Caroline, Ashely, Mary Claire, Stockton, Alex, David White and I all decided to go to the beach for dinner, to try and relive the best beach dinner we ever had at la Ola. By the time we all got ready, we thought that the beach was too far of a trek and it was too many people for us to bring in so we decided to find some tapas close by.

We ended up stopping at a restaurant and had some great food. We had two group plates, one of cheese and one of thinly sliced meat. Then most of us ordered a tapa and shared with everyone. We had some melted goat cheese, some vegetable (I couldn’t translate or tell what it was) with bleu cheese, and some tomatoes cooked in bacon oil topped with bits of ham on top (my favorite). We paid for our tapas and laughed because we still had time for dinner at the dining hall.

We all went and got at least something to eat a little more substantial than the appetizer portions we ate at the restaurant. I had the usual fries and orange soda. After dinner, I finished up all of my homework and went and got a late night (11:00) café at el Negrito. It put me right in the mood to get in bed and go to sleep. I fell right asleep.

I have some really good pictures from Requena so I decided to put a couple more up today.