You're Not Hard Core Unless You Live Hard Core

It's Monday evening as I'm writing this and I can definitely say I am feeling pretty hard core after this weekend.

Over view of Saturday night

6-8:30ish Drinks in the apartment

9:00 Start to find a restaurant. Started with a way to large group of like 20 people. No
decisions could be made. No place had room for us all.

9:30 Finally, six of us break off and decide on a restaurant.

10:40 Leave restaurant.

11:00 ish Meet up with other students at a bar, La Claca, for a drink.

2:00ish Cab it over to the discoteca (dance club named Las Tres) where a girl (Catalina) that
works for the FSU center DJ's from 1:00 a.m. to 7 a.m.

DANCE DANCE DANCE

5:00 a.m. Leave the club. And I left with one of the first groups of students to leave.

6:00 a.m. Finally in bed. Who am I?


THE SPANISH DINING EXPERIENCE
One main difference in dining in Spain---you don't tip. However, you don't get free water and definitely not free refills. They pretty much do the basics: Take your order, bring your food, bring the bill. And you usually have to ask for the bill. According to Catalina, typical Spanish meals take hours. You talk, you eat, you talk...talk some more... order coffee...and talk. So the waiters let you sit and sit until you ask for your bill. If you are only going to eat for like 45 minutes, why bother? Just grab something at home.
The main dish here is paella, a rice dish that either has chicken and rabbit or seafood mixed in it. It's pretty good. Also, there are some places that will give you a free tapa with the purchase of one drink between 6 and 9. If we had been more organized, that would have been included in the Hard Core Saturday night schedule.

Not onion rings...Squid. Chewy.


SPANISH DANCING
Spanish dancing was made for me. Spanish dancing is the opposite of American dancing. There's no booty dancing or grinding on other people. You don't even touch the other people you're dancing with, which is great if some creepster is eye-ing you from across the room...cause if he comes to dance with you it's ok--he won't be rubbing up against you. Spanish dancing is totally dork-a-fied. Basically, embrace your inner white girl/boy and you're good to go. I had a blast. I danced with some dudes during the night...only cause I wanted to practice speaking to them in Spanish. Then I'd leave them when they seemed a little to clingy or interested. So. Much. Fun.
In the states, besides in places like Miami or NY, if you stay up til 6:00 a.m...it may be a sign you need to pull your life together. But here, it's normal. You're totally fine. Wake up at 2:00 the next day and you're just in time for lunch. Now, they don't do that every day of the week. So if you're staying up til 7 a.m. every night, you do need to get a grip. Some students didn't go to sleep til 10:30---but those special boys are not the norm I think.

Bring it Valencia



SUNDAY
When I finally got up at 2:00 (which in reality, it's ok if the all nighter doesn't happen again..It felt like a train had run over me and I did not even drink much... at least I did it once), I walked around, ran into some other students, ate lunch, then went exploring. It's going to take a lot of wandering around to really learn where I am/going.

Plaza De La Virgin




Orange and Lemon in Virgin Plaza



Kim, a fellow FSU student, was walking around and apparently 2 Spanish guys
started yelling at her "Alicia Keys! Alicia Keys!"-- hilarious.


After walking around with the group for a little bit, I saw the Cathedral doors open (I don't really know what it's name is yet..but it's next to the Plaza de la Virgin). So I walked in. No one else wanted to go. Obviously, it was beeeeautimous. The best part was going to the top of the bell tower. I climbed 202 steps (which I was only able to count while going down) and felt like I had just conquered the world. Had the absolute most amazing view of the city and mountains in the distance.



Don't be fooled by the smile, I was breathing really hard.


View from the bell tower... took this right before my battery ran out.


Summary of hard core Emily so far: all nighter, stair master, and finally.... Futbol rally-er.

When I started walking back from the Cathedral, I ran into a medium sized group of soccer fans. Valencia was playing one of it's big rivals in the area, Levante. Some of the Valencia super fans were congregating in an open area near our study center. They called themselves Hooligans (and also Yomus). They were all dressed in black. Some had masks on their faces (because the other team "stinks"..ha!), some were carrying flags, some were wearing flags as capes, and some were lighting flares and waving them in the air. They were all chanting things and singing songs for the Valencia team. It was pretty exciting and for a hot minute it made me want to go to the game. But it cost 30 euros and so we're gonna wait for maybe a bigger game against Madrid or Barcelona.
A group of us (like 10) stood around and watched this spectacle. Then the mob started marching towards the stadium and we followed for a bit. But then some guys (the mob was MOSTLY guys) started being creepy and saying crude things about some girls in our group so we retreated. That was enough futbol fun for us. We went to a bar instead to watch the game. Valencia won.



Yes, we totally jumped in front to take a photo


So that was the end of hard core Emily. I called it a night last night (Sunday night) at about 12:30, when others were still up. Ok. The end. I'll talk more about the beautiful weather we've been having once y'all's snow storm passes :)