El ser comprendido

What a Saturday. I woke up reasonable early to catch the bus from the soccer stadium since yesterday was our program's free day trip to Peñíscola, which is another coastal city about 2 hours north of Valencia. Everyone was clearly exhausted from the night before, so everyone slept on the bus. Upon arrival at Peñíscola, we all headed for the beach for a couple hours (others were delayed getting there for reasons that do not need to be repeated haha). It was pretty hot yesterday, but perfect beach weather. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, although I did get burnt again, this time on the back of my knees. I fail.

After getting cleaned up and changed from the beach, our group headed up to the castle of Peñíscola. The castle was built by the Knight's Templar in the early fourteenth centruy, and is literally located atop a seaside cliff. It was pretty cool to walk around and see all of the spectacular views from the top of the castle. After an hour or so of perusing, we were free to walk around the town and look at the shops and what not. Lots of interesting stuff, nothing practical of course (giant swords, assorted trinkets, and vulgar Spanish tshirts). Stopped at a little cafe for some refreshments before heading back to the bus for another 2 hour nap on the way home. Successful day, but definitely pretty draining.

I got home around 8:30, showered (I had sand everywhere), and ate dinner with Mery. Pasta with homemade meat sauce; I was starving so it didn't take me long to finish. Afterward we talked for a little while about random stuff. She often talks to me about this book called El Club Bilderberg that she read once. Apparently there is this group of some of the most powerful and wealthy individuals in the world that get together to decide the fate of certain countries with the ultimate goal of reducing the human population by more than half to maintain our sustainability as a species. Interesting stuff, although I don't know how much to believe. She really likes talking about conspiracies thought, it's kind of funny. After dinner I skyped with my parents for a while. I really enjoyed that since all this text communication gets really impersonal after a while. Plus I got to see Bean haha.



And now ladies and gentleman, the nightlife. We decided to go back to the All Nation's Festival since it is a good meeting spot. It was packed when we arrived. Me and Kara split a bottle of this weird Apple Cider drink from a country that I had never heard of. You had to put the bottle inside this machine, press a pump, and let a shot of the drink fall 2 feet into your class, and then you take it immediately. Pretty interesting to say the least. After finishing our bottle, I couldn't resist the smell of all the food around so I went and bought some tacos (I know, not very original) from the Mexico tent. Clearly a good decision. From the festival we took a taxi to the Port to meet some friends at this discoteca called High Cube that was having a big party for some anniversary. The place was literally I giant, glowing green covered deck built out onto the water. There was a DJ and live saxophonist; there is this one song they play here all the time the people go nuts for, but I haven't figured out what it is yet. Aside from that it was mostly Lady Gaga, Blackeyed Peas, and Pitbull haha. The girls were getting hit on by these two guys from Valencia, but they kept buying people drinks so benefits all around. Toward the end of the night we had all found a spot to sit down on the side of this club. I was sitting next to this cute girl in a red dress, so after like 15 minutes I figured "what the hell" and started chatting (it's a lot more difficult striking up a conversation here with a strange girl, let alone in a second language). Turns out she was not Spanish, but rather she was from Paris and is studying here. Her Spanish was practically perfect though, so we chatted about all kinds of stuff until the place closed. Definitely one of the coolest experiences this trip: having a really good conversation with someone in a language that neither of us spoke as a first language. It was, and for that matter most of the interactions I've had here, kind of surreal, and the whole time I kept thinking to myself "This is so cool." And I think that's why this trip has been so amazing for me-- both in terms of learning academically and socially-- because it has been the best way to experience the fundamental aspects of life itself: understanding others and being understood.

So that is the philosophy that resulted from last night. The pictures are Sam, me, and Josh on the castle, the cathedral tower, and a shot of the beach from above. The other picture is the view from High Cube toward the beach.

P.S. New Jack Johnson album came out today. Thank god for iTunes and music on the internet, 'cause I don't think I could find the album over here.

Hasta.