Una Nota Cortita (A Short Note)

Hola!

Just checking in rapidamente (quickly). I am in the JMU office here- it´s very cute! Noticed that of course the old post ended up coming back, so the last 2 are very similar...whoops! Another whoops...I think I lost my driver´s license here...

On a different note, we´re about to get our cell phones! It´s about a euro a minute (around $1.15 or $1.20!) for me to make calls to the states, but it´s much cheaper if anyone calls me. Calls to each other are still relatively expensive, so we´ll probably be mostly texting and keeping even that to a minimum. It has been really weird not having a phone with me for the past few days! I have no concept of time without it, jaja (haha).

So I just need to let you all know that I am feeling so much better about this trip now! Last night was really awesome. We had dinner at a nice restaurant- they just kept bringing us dishes! We had una ensalada (a salad) with tuna, olives, and onions in it, then calamari, chicken, french fries, little fried sticks with chicken and cheese inside called croquetas, and finally ice cream and flan for dessert! We got out of there as soon as we were done to head out to a bar one girl knew about. They set up a ladies night for us where there was a free open bar for girls as long as we got there by 10:45. We barely finished dinner by then, how weird is that? Anyways, we ran to the bar and were of course the only ones there because Spanish people go out super late. One bar that was suggested to us doesn´t get hopping until 4 am! It was fine being the only ones there for a while, we danced a little and I had some pretty crappy sangria. I wanted to talk and get to know people better but it was way too loud. The bar is apparently used to catering to JMU students who come every fall, spring and summer...they even had a sign up on the video screen that said ¨Welcome JMU Dukes and Dukettes!¨ That was cute...but I won´t go there too often because it wasn´t very Spanish bar! A la medianoche (at midnight), we sang to Chelsea, a girl in our group, because today is her 20th birthday!

When we left the first bar, it was about 12:30...still extremely early here. So the second bar was just more of the same, our group alone. Most of the girls were wasted by this point, but me and a few others had only had a drink or 2 and were kind of over the whole deal of being just our group. So, Chelsea and Britanny and I decided to go to the Plaza Mayor and get ice cream. We sat there talking- mostly in Spanish, which I loved- until 3! They are much more similar to me and I had a really good time. It made me feel so much better about this trip! A little drinking and dancing is fun...but the 3 of us agree that we want to do a little of EVERYTHING! They walked me home, too, which was really nice of them. Again, my madre wasn´t home when I got in! Jaja I don´t know what she does all night!

This morning everyone who was out all night was dragging majorly! We walked around a little more and saw a few more important buildings. I´ll go home for lunch soon, and then hopefully meet up with a few of the girls to go see one of the parks or go shopping or something.

Les amo!
Besitos,
Caitrin