mi corazón se enamora

i'm way behind in blogging... but as the quarter comes to a close things are getting busier and busier. the weekend before last i went to rome with a bunch of girlfriends from madrid and my friend kyle, who's currently in the berlin program. we spent the weekend seeing the famous sites and eating lots of pizza, pasta, and gelato.

after climbing the 535 steps to the cupola at the top of st. peter's basilica, we followed the scent of cedar back into the main cavity where i attend the only church service i've been to in europe - in st. peter's! not a bad place to get some church time. even though it was in italian and so i really didn't know what they were saying. i did catch onto the part about paz (or whatever it is in italian) and managed to pass some peace to my friends, just the same as we do in the states :)

the next day we sent alex off on her own to find the pope while the rest of us explore the pantheon and surrounding neighborhoods. i was so proud of alex for finding her own way with her newly studied map reading skills! she's so capable when she's determined enough to do something!

then came dead week with lots of papers and presentations. not much to say there. but this last weekend gave me a nice break from the chaos as i flew to the canary islands with jessica and amy. we spent a ton of time on the beach near our hostel in las palmas on gran canaria. saturday we went to the south side of the island and rode some camels over the sand dunes - it was pretty amazing! then we caught a bus up the mountain to the pico y caldera de bandama. we first climbed a little ways up the volcan (volcano) surrounded by cacti, lizards, and lava rocks. then we hiked down into the caldera (crater) left by the adjacent volcano. it was a beautiful scoop out of the earth with sharp rocky sides and greenery growing all around - more cacti, grass, and even some trees. there was actually a tiny farm at the bottom of the giant pit. it was really really cool!

finally we returned to las palmas and spent the evening walking along the beach. it was almost completely abandoned. we watched the sun set as we crawled the tide pools looking for creatures. we found the small bottom dwelling fish whose names i can't remember, several different species of sea stars, lots of barnacles and limpets, a crab, and jessica found a nudibranch! the only i've seen in the wild! it was definitely the find of the evening. it was a little hard to convince my friends it was soft and squishy since it just looked like a spiky stick in the darkness, but eventually we all petted it before it crawled back into it's little cave. so awesome!

the next morning we went to the beach and only laid out for a couple minutes before we decided it would be more fun to get in the water - it was so warm anyway! jessica and i went swimming, and following the theme of some older women around us, decided to try the whole "topless beach" idea. then realizing there was no one around, we thought "why not" and finished the job with some brief skinny dipping. a fish swam by, but other than that there were no spectators.

we went to our favorite italian restaurant for lunch (all we ate was mexican, italian, and chinese food all weekend) and finished with some helado (gelato/ice cream depending on your language of preference). we watched the waves crash over the rocks as the sunday afternoon beach filled with families. there was even some kind of paddle ball tournament in the sand.

finally we made our way to the airport to return to madrid for finals week. my ipod ran out of battery about 3 minutes into the flight, but it was ok because i happened to be sitting in the middle of about half of the navalcarnero futbol team! the guys kept me chatting and laughing for the rest of the 2.5 hour flight - talking about soccer, the usa, english/spanish (a couple of them new a few words of english), and looking through my ridiculous pictures. they liked the camels the best. it was fun to have a chance to practice my spanish with such friendly and attractive young guys...

yesterday my flamenco class had our final performance - success! i remembered all the steps! it was so much fun, the skirts are just great. unfortunately only one of our classmates showed up to watch (along with one host mom, a boyfriend, and the 3 staff members) so we decided to redo the show tomorrow night at Bing dinner for the rest of our lazy "friends" (you can tell my opinion of most of the people in the program could be a lot better) it's neat to get a second chance to perform though, especially since we've been working so hard all quarter! tomorrow i have my last final and then i have a 10 page paper due by friday, but i want to get it done tomorrow so i can enjoy my final trip here - to valencia for the crazy las fallas festival! it's a huge fireworks party on the beach celebrating valencia's patron saint, San Jose. so i guess that means i should really get on that paper. can't wait to see you all in the next week or two!

os quiero!

pics here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2178471&id=220245&l=fbae5a484c