La Cucaracha, La Cucaracha…

On Thursday Afternoon I had drinks in the port area with a girl from Great Britain also living in Jávea as an Auxiliar de Conversacion in the Spanish equivalent of a high school here. I was so excited and relieved to find out that there was another person around my age living here. As strange as it seems, I have not seen very many people in Jávea who look to be about my age. The majority of the population in Jávea consists of women and gentlemen in their latter years and there are also a decent number of smaller children. My roommates as well as some of the teachers in the colegio are somewhat young (in their late 20’s and early 30’s) but I wouldn’t really include them in the Jávea population, especially since, at the end of their days on Friday, they head back to the town or city that they are from. Anyway, it was nice to chat with her, we had a nice conversation about the educational system in Spain, our lives back home, and what we expect to get from our journey. I hope that we have many more outings to come.



Another Sunny Day in Alicante

On Friday Morning (at 7:00am to be exact) I took a bus and headed to Alicante to apply for my NIE and Tarjeta de Identidad, for the second time around. This time I was sure that I had everything that I needed, including my Certificado de Empadronamiento. Besides the hour that I had to wait to see a representative, everything went great.  I am so happy that I finally got that out of the way. Now, I can relax and wait for it to be ready. While in Alicante I finally went to the Pharmacy to buy vitamins and Ibuprofen, which I so badly needed.

On Friday night, I, along with my American friends living in Alicante, headed out for tapas. We went to this small bar where the owner was very nice, talking to us about our adventures in Spain. We each had 3 tinto de veranos which went along with the 3 servings of tapas that we had. I have to admit, the tapas were pretty good. I got croquetas, of course for my first and for my second and third I had chorizo, which is Spanish sausage, served on top of bread. It was delicious. Later that night we went out for Mexican Food with one of the American’s co-workers. The food was good and for the first time since coming to Spain, I actually had a margarita (my favorite drink). They’re not very popular here but I should have known that I would find one at a Mexican restaurant. Anyway, the best part of the dinner was the huge group of people sitting at the table right next to us. One of the guys was celebrating his birthday and the whole scene was very entertaining. Every gift that he received from his friends was a gag gift, the first one was a sock, the second was something for women, the third was a pair of underwear, and the gifts kept coming. To add to the entertainment, a Mariachi band came and played a couple of songs for our tables. One of the guys from the other table kept getting up and dancing down the row, which added to our amusement. The Mariachi band then asked if we had any requests for which one of us replied that we wanted to hear the famous Mexican song, “La Cucaracha.” We all laughed and sang along while the coworker taught us the words to the song (the dirty version):

La cucaracha, la cucaracha,
ya no puede caminar
porque no tiene, porque le falta
marihuana pa' fumar.



Bailey's Shots

 Dinner was great, and as if the margarita wasn’t enough the waiter gave us a free round of tequila shots, which seems to happen quite often here.  Afterwards we met up with some other people and went to a couple of bars. At the beginning of the night we kept telling each other that we were going to “party like a Spaniard” (Spaniards are known for their very late partying habits) and that night we did. Well, we partied until about 3 a.m. instead of 6 or 7 a.m. but we will have to work our way up. When we left the bars, we went to the beach. I honestly do not remember what provoked us to go to the beach but we were there, walking along the shore and carving words in the sand. One of the most memorable experiences of that night was me trying to spell out the word borracha in the sand with an “A” instead of an “O”. No one could figure out what I was trying to spell because I was spelling it wrong.

 

View from Castle

 On Saturday Morning, one of the Fulbrighters from Valencia came to visit Alicante. We decided to go to the Castillo de Santa Bárbara, a famous castle that overlooks most of the city. It was beautiful. While at the castle we were followed by a group of little kids, in elementary school I’m sure. Once they heard us speaking English they preceded to bother us shouting the only English phrases that they know: “My name’s Sergio,” “My name’s Alvaro.” After seeing the castle we were famished, so we went to an Italian Restaurant for lunch and had gelato afterwards. I absolutely love going to the gelato shops here, the gelato tastes so good and fresh and it looks so pretty inside of the glass case. Later that evening I boarded the bus back to Jávea. I wanted to get back on Saturday so that I could have Sunday to rest and prepare for the week. I was so surprised to find out that there were only two people taking the bus back to Jávea, myself and one other girl. It just goes to show how empty my little town is. I couldn’t wait for the 2.5 hour bus ride to be over, I was already feeling ill from all of the drinking that I did the night before, and the bumpy bus ride definitely didn’t help anything.