Sunday, April 24, 2011

No he muerto!

yyyy... estoy disfrutando monton aqui en Holanda! Miguel, si estas leyendo esto, por favor des saludos a Paco y Paqui (y Luna)... Salgo el Martes a las 19:00 para ir a Londres. Que estais disfrutandoos!

hi family! just letting you know that i am in fact alive and enjoying my time in the Netherlands! It's a great time; i leave tuesday for London. (and no, i haven't patronized any of the special "coffee shops", thanks for asking).

Monday, April 4, 2011

DOS ACTUALIACIONES! EN EL MISMO DIA!

That's right, I'm posting not one, but two updates in the same day. Note the lack of Spanish on this post; it's because like 2 people read this thing total, and of those who do, none of them are fluent in Spanish (or are lazy and just read it in English anyways). If ya want Spanish, lemme know. I'm thinking I prolly get more accidental visitors who just type random things into the address bar with the domain name "blogspot.com". So to all you bored internet nerds out there, hi. Also, I just wasted a paragraph of your life talking about things that do not pertain at all to Spain. Also, hi to all the cousins. I know the the Sorensons and the Starts (Kara, Alisha, and Julia) read this complete waste of time and brainpower, and maybe Ethan and Natalie, the Witties, and the DeVries'.



Anyways, getting back to all things Spanish, last weekend I went with some friends to the Oceanografico in Valencia. As you probably gathered, it's a oceanographic park, and it's very cool. We saw a very unique dolphin show, but I didn't get any good pictures of it. However, there were several tunnels underground with an aquarium above and on both sides of us, one of which included all sorts of sharks. I was preoccupied the whole time with the fact that if the glass broke in even one spot, the tunnel would instantly flood. As if being up to their necks in water wasn't bad enough, visitors would probably have close encounters with startled and rather unhappy maritime carnivores. Yikes! Also, for Amanda (Joy) Witte's benefit, there were a whole bunch of penguins.

FALLAS!


Si no habéis adivinado, me gustó las fallas más que un poco. Dígame, que puede ser mejor que lanzando cohetes y petardos en las calles, paella GRATIS, y las quemas de esculturas gigantes? En cada pueblo en la Comunitat Valenciana, hay fallas. Las más grandes, por supuesto, están en Valencia, dónde yo fui ese Sábado para verlos. Usualmente son caricaturas o parodias de eventos actuales. Vi temas como el turismo, helado, el infierno, etc. Las fotos os dicen el cuento…

If you didn't gather, I liked fallas more than just a little. What could be better than launching bottle rockets and throwing firecrackers in the streets, FREE paella, and burning gigantic sculptures? In every town in the Valencian Community (Denia included), there are fallas. The biggest, of course, are in Valencia, where I went that Saturday to see. Usually they're charicatures or parodies of current events. I saw fallas with the themes of tourism, ice cream (that should appeal to the Start-gene sweet tooth), hell, etc. The photos speak for themselves...




 
 Me preguntas: “Por qué hay un globo de aire caliente?” la respuesta es que no tengo ninguna idea. Los falleros usualmente tienen fiestas gratis y abierto al público con música, el bailar, comida, y, en este caso, un globo en que se podía ver las vistas de la ciudad. 

You might ask: why in the world is there a random hot air balloon? Really, I have no idea. The falla kings and queens usually throw free parties open to the public, with music, dancing, food, and, in this case, hot air balloon rides.