¡Feliz día de San Valentín!/¡Feliz aniversario!

Happy Valentines' Day! Happy 1 month anniversary! Yup, the one month mark of my Spanish days happens to fall on the biggest Hallmark holiday of the year, woot woot! Woke up at 10:30, got ready, there was no bread so I couldn't make toast (that's OK, all the more reason to get a jamon serrano somewhere or something like that), and was out the door around 11:15. On the way I stopped by a few little cafes, but nobody here has food to go, really. It's weird. So, you all wonder why I love VIPS so much. Well, it's the wraps to go...they always hit the spot, and are quite convenient. So I picked up a pavo (turkey) wrap, which is my second favorite to the cangrejo. It's quite healthy, actually, just a slice of deli turkey, tomato, lettuce, red pepper, and a crushed hard boiled egg. I ate it on the way to my historia del cine class. I then stopped at OpenCor and got a strawberries n cream ChupaChup. Class went well, I guess. Well, I'm not sure. Although my prof. speaks slowly and clearly, it's still hard to follow. You see, it was an intro class today to get us ready for watching movies, so she presented all of this vocab. Now, that's pretty hard in a second language. I think that if I reeeally knew Spanish, the lecture would have been pretty simple...she was talking about names for camera angles and the crew that works on a movie. I'll get there one of these days. Luckily these are words that I can easily look up in a textbook er something. After class I walked straight home, when I realized that it was Valentines' Day. Haha, I had forgotten. Since I am my Valentine this year, I needed to do something romantic for myself. I began to ponder. Lunch was at 2:30 as usual, and it was deeeeelish! Lentil puree soup (very good, but not as good as the regular lentil soup she makes), and a bacalao (cod) empanada...which was the BEST empanada that she has made thus far! It had extra sugar in the crust, and she didn't burn the top this time. Mmmmm. Oranges/tangerines for dessert. Then Stacey decided to take a nap. I was going to stick around until I had to meet Courtney at the center to book our Portugal hostel at 5, but since she went to sleep I decided to just head out and bum around the center. On my way I figured out my Valentines' gift to myself: a box of chocolates. I made my second trip to VIPS and bought a Nestle truffle sampler. I then walked across the bridge and sat at bench overlooking the river, taking in some sun, and eating chocolates. I think that I may have looked like a pathetic, depressed single girl on Valentines' Day eating a box of chocolates, but really, I was extremely content. Just, me, my chocolates, the Guadilquivir river, the sun, and the sounds of Sevilla. I also found the Forrest Gumpness of the situation quite funny...me on a bench and a box of chocolates. The only big difference is that my sampler came with info about each chocolate...so I did know what I was going to get. I ate a half of a box and felt like a heifer. I had never eaten that much chocolate in one sitting and kind of felt a little sick, not gonna lie. I went up to the center, then, messed around online, booked a hostel in Portugal for next weekend w/ Courtney, then left for my second and last class of the day. I had art history again. It was, of course, confusing cuz my prof talks a mile a minute and mumbles. We looked at a bunch of slides of ancient Egypt. We're learning about ancient art, so we're basically looking at a buttload of pyramids. I also saw a slide of a mummified person. It's really hard to catch onto a lot of what he talks about because the Spanish pronunciation of Egyptian words just sounds like gibberish. It took me forever to realize that he was talking about pharoahs when he kept referring to what sounded like "feron". Oh me. So I talked to him after class and asked what kind of outside reading he'd suggest since I was an exchange student and I needed some sort of written supplement. He told my to go to the copisteria (like Ann Arbor's Accu Copy) and pick up a programa (syllabus) and he could find a good book off of the bibliography. Good deal. Then I went to Starbucks, finished my postcards, drank some tea, and read Like Water for Chocolate until Stacey, Katie, and Melissa showed up at 8. We chatted for awhile, and ultimately decided that we needed to go out and have a Valentines' Day drink...and where else, but Cadillac! On the way Stacey and I bought a pinkish white rose for Maruja for Vday. We got there and the place was packed...there was a Real Madrid vs. Zaragoza game which I guess was a really big deal since I had never heard such loud screaming before. It scared me at times! We all got a glass of vino tinto, made a brindis (toast) to a manless (Katie&Stacey) and single (Melissa&me) Valentines' Day. We watched some soccer and I decided that David Beckham would be my Valentine this year. Ooooh I like it. Then we all realized that we were kind of drunkish. Off of one glass of wine...who knew? We all decided that we needed to do something cute that night for Vday...so we decided to get really dressed up and get fancy cocktails at the Bar Alfonso. The Bar Alfonso is one of the swankiest bars in Sevilla since it is located inside the Hotel Alfonso, basically the equivalent of NY's Plaza. It's the swankiest hotel here, it's huge and beautiful, and it's where all of the celebrities and athletes stay when they come here. We all made calls to set it all up. Then we had dinner, which, although a bit disappointing, was quite good: chicken noodles soup, grilled ham n cheese sandwiches, and fresh squeezed OJ for dessert. We gave Maruja the rose and she literally lit up. It was so nice. She put it in water right away, all excited, and kissed us on both cheeks. I had never seen her so excited! We felt very good. She does so much for us, it's the least that we can do...we love her! After dinner we got dressed to the nines and walked to la Plaza de Cuba to meet up with Katie, Melissa, and Alyssa. Then we strolled to the Alfonso where we met up with Jessica, Courtney, Sam, and later Herbie with his 2 British cousins (who look like they came straight out of a Harry Potter book). The bar was nice, as was the hotel. I used the bathroom which had huge stalls with its own badde (spelling?) in each one. There was artwork everywhere. The drink menu was huuuuge and came in a leather bound booklet. I ordered a drink called Planter's Punch while others ordered Vodkatinis, Cosmos, Bloody Marys, and something called a Blue Lagoon. We got fancy nuts with our drinks. The bartenders were so nice and friendly, and our drinks were great! There was a table of middle aged Dutch men who came over and asked if we were from the U.S. speed skating team. That's a strange question. He said that they were all on a break from the Olympics, they were part of and affiliated with the Dutch speed skating team, and thought that we were the US'. Crazy. Welcome to the Alfonso. We left the Alfonso as it was closing around 1, and we all (besides Katie&Alyssa) decided to stay out for another hour or so. So we walked over to Flaherty's, a nearby Irish pub. We ordered red wine and Guinness. The pub was full of people from all over Europe: a lot of loud chanting Dutch people, Norway, and the U.K. We sat at a table and had a long, awesome conversation with a bunch of English chaps, a Norwegian and his awesomely awesome sister. It was really nice and cordial, we were just a bunch of adults having a drink and learning about each other's culture. It was really, really nice. There was this drunk, middle aged British woman staggering around the bar who looked too drunk to function. As we left, we saw her puking up a storm right in front of the pub...and her husband was one of the men that we were talking to. Can you believe that? She's stumbling around drunk as hell and he does not even turn his head or show any concern. As she was puking he was just kind of standing there. And she did not look too well. We sat across the street on the steps of the Cathedral talking, and Herbie's cousins said that that's what many British marriages are like. That's quite sad. This woman definitely has a problem and this bloke doesn't give her the time of day. What kind of Valentines' Day is that? Well, we just kind of pitied it all and started walking home around 2:30, and I was in bed by 4. All in all it was a fantastic VDay, actually one of the best Valentines' Days that I've ever had. Honestly. And what a great anniversary! Hehe. Happy post-Valentines' Day, all!