today i miss home

maria and carlo went to valencia today for work, and the girls were at a friends so i spent the whole day by myself. no cellphone,no  internet...i only brought 50 euros and my passport to the city. spent the day wondering around and ended up at the beach. i'm a little homesick, missing my friends, family and beezy of course.

PACO TACO es muy MAL-O

Mum you would be so proud. I was once a little girl who ate only chicken tenders, and now I am a seasoned eater.

I have tried many new new things in the few days I´ve been here, and looking forward to trying many more. We typically have some combination of eggs (juevos) and jamon (ham) for desayuno (breakfast), and usually bocadillos for lunch, which is bascically a sandwhich but on french bread. Maria goes to the supermarket everyday and buys just enough fresh meat or pescado (fish) for dinner. She always buys fresh french bread and veggies, so good! Today for lunch we had soup. In it was some sort of fish, oysters and potatos, Sounds gross but it was delicious. It makes me laugh because in Spain, it is typical that you eat some sort of sweet with every meal. I remember my dad getting frustrated with me trying to get me to eat all of my dinner. Here Maria is getting frustrated with the girls trying to get them to eat their ice cream. Connor would be in heaven.

This evening we went to Eivissa to go shopping and to check out the city. Maria asked me what I eat in Texas, and of course i told her BBQ and Mexican food. Yesterday we had BBQ, I should say spains version of BBQ, so Maria wanted to have to Mexican food. A new place by her work just opened up called Taco Paco and she wanted to try it, so off we went.

I try to be polite and just suck down whatever´s given to me, but good god this was the worst thing I´ve ever eaten. The girls got hamburgers and they were fine. I got chicken quesadillas thinking I was playing it safe, but inside was half melted shredded cheese, cold chicken and some weird version of hot sauce. Maria got a burrito and I would try and explain it to you but I honestly can´t tell you what the hell they put in it. We laughed it off though, got some good desert and went back to the house. On the way home  Elena out of no where goes, taco paco es muy malo. This might be funnier if you picture a 5 year old half asleep little girl with the softest, cutest voice saying it, or maybe I´m just a cheap laugh when it comes to little kids. Anyways, I´m excited for tomorrow because we´re going to a secluded beach where the family says there are no tourists.

One of the parents from the school said that on Wednesday, an exchange student from London that is my age is coming to stay at her house for the summer. The girls have a performance at school that day, so I´m supposed to meet her there. I´m sure she´ll be cool, and I´ll just be thankful to have someone to talk fluently with. It´s so weird, only being here a few days and already my brain is starting to think differently. Everyone speaks spanish all the time, of course, so I´m always thinking in simpliest terms so that I can translate easily. I have to think about everything I´m going to say for a couple minutes before I acutally say it, so that kind of sucks. But it´s been motivation to become more fluent. I´ve been studying at night and now I carry around a little book and pen because Maria tells me words all the time.

My body´s still on a weird schedule. It´s 1:30am here and everyones asleep, meanwhile I´m ready to rumble. I guess I´ll read a little, maybe watch some spanish television. Until next time, all my love and more! Chao-chao.

 this is the stairway from the main part of the house to my room. it´s in the open air, all natural light, amazing to wake up to in the morning.

 this is the view from the roof.

 this is also the roof, they use it as a laundromat, but maria said it´s supposed to be a guest bedroom.

 this is the stairway from the street to the front of the house. muy bonita eh?

 the front porch from the bottom of the stairway

 the rest of the front porch

 when i went to the birthday party with the niñas, this was the pool. the view was amazing. you can see the ocean from their backyard and a couple small formenteras (islands). This is the second party I went to with the girls. The parties are so awesome because the girls go to a school called Morna International College, where they learn at least 3 different languages: spanish (cataclan) english and german. All of these 5 year olds from different countries are hanging out playing together. There are little blonde boys from England speaking fluent spanish to the natives. It´s so funny because even the natives, like the girls i´m staying with, speak english with an accent like they´re from england.

lavender is the typical plant native to eivissa (ibiza). This is the aroma i couldn´t find the word for. Just imagine an entire island smelling of fresh lavender. I´m telling you, it´s amazing here.

Buenas tardes, o buenas dias en America.

Today has been wonderful. I woke up around 9 and went for a run. The sun is out today, but it´s perfect because the wind is cold for some reason..maybe it´s the ocean breeze. I live on a mountain so I ran all the way down, and about died on the way up. The girls have school for the next week and Maria works everyday until 2, so I showered and lounged on the roof couches and read for a little bit.

Maria left me a note and some bus money to come meet her at work, so I did. The bus stop is at the bottom of the hill which is about a mile, but of course it´s all downhill so it wasn´t bad at all. The bus takes you into from Valverde (my neighborhood) into Santa Eulalia which is the city. I was a little lost at first, but after wondering around I saw a shop I recognized from yesterday and found Maria´s work place MoviStar, which is the internet/phone company everyone uses on the island.

I´m not sure what we are doing today, hopefully going to the beach. Also, I can´t figure out the internet at the house so I´ve been using Maria´s at work. Honestly it´s not that big of a deal. I don´t really have any urge to use my cellphone or internet like I do back home.

Anyways, Maria is closing at work as isas the rest of the city. Everything closes at 2pm until 4 just so everyone can relax for a couple hours. Tough life huh!

Chao-chao!

I made it!

Buenos Dias! I´m finally here, rested and sane again after thinking I would be stuck in the Madrid airport forever.

Flying here alone was an experience to say the least, but I got through it and only had to sit in a corner behind my suitcase and cry once.

The flight from ATL to Paris was fine. I stayed up the entire flight and watched movies. But when I got to Paris, I had 45 minutes to board my next plane to Madrid. Within 5 minutes of stepping off the plane, I made it to a huge line where I was basically the last person in it. Then some alarms started going off and every security guard came out and shut all the exits. Needless to say I started to panic. After sitting in line for 30 minutes I´d given up all hope. Then they reopened all the gate counters and started letting people through. Some really nice people from Athens let me go before them and I literally got my boarding pass, stamp on my passport and sprinted to my gate. It was as spastic as you can imagine. I couldn´t read any of the signs, the architecture of the airport itself was insane. Long story short, I missed my flight. Luckily, there was an hour layover until the next flight to Madrid, which I made. So now I can say I had a crouissant and a latte in France.

In Madrid I had a similar experience and had to make a couple calls home, but 6 hours later I made it to Ibiza to three happy little girls and their Mom. Carla(11), Elena(5) and Maria(5) -twins, and their Mom, Maria, have been the best. I´ll post pictures soon, but let me just preface them by saying it is beyond beautiful here. The aroma of the ocean and the town itself is indescribable. The house I´m living in is so picturesque, you might as well look in a magazine about Spain because it would be less than or equal to the house I´m staying in. Wow, could I be more modest?

Anyways, whenever my last bag with all my chargers and cameras get here, I´ll update. Until them, Maria is coming to to pick me up and we are going to buy presents for a birthday party that la niñas are going to this evening.

chao-chao!