A Catch Up Post #1

Other pictures from San Juan are here and here.

28th June, Clara's farewell party. Thanks so much for your help Clara!! I greatly apreciated. The pictures from then are here.

29th June, I went out with Jose and his friends to a restaurant called "Foster's home for Hollywood" (I'm not 100% sure if i remembered the name correctly) and it was so typically unhealthy but so good! It's like Denny's in NZ! But the drinks you order after your first order are free! Wohoo, hurray for American culture!
After that we went to one of the cheapest bars in the central city and drank. I ordered Bourbon and Cola but they gave me Scotch + Cola instead. Arg! I thought the Bourbon whiskey was ... expired! But later Jose's friend Julio found out that it wasn't Bourbon whiskey in my drink so he told the bar-tender the situation and the bartender gave me a free drink without a fuss! Nice guy. Red Vodka + Red Bull (Vodka rojo con toro rojo). It was really good! I liked it because it was actually nice to drink and didn't have much taste of alcohol.

Well by the time we've got out of the bar it was like ... 1:30 a.m. I've talked to a number of Jose's friends till then, they all speak standard English but yes I did try out my undeveloped Spanish. We took a cab to go to this club near the beach (Playa de la Malvarrosa) called Luna Rossa. It was the best club I've ever been to so far! Well what made it better was because the group of people I went with were blinking awesome! There were some groovy Spanish tunes in the house, I must get the names of the songs from one of Spanish ppl...
Anyway, at the end of the day (well not really but) I got home at around 7:00. And I thought it would have been smart to stay up for the excursion with school at 10 so I did.

On the 30th of June, I went south from Valencia with my language school. There, I saw "a house" for once. I haven't spoted a house around where I live. There are all apartments, and they are designed in very similar ways so it's not that exciting to go to other person's home.
Anyway, we went to place called Calpe. It is located in the "nose" of Valencia so I heard. It's the bit of land where it sticks out a bit(south east).
We climbed this rock called Peñon de Ifach. It really was a huge rock next to a beach. It's not a mountain, it's a rock mountain. The path was narrow and there were v.slippery so you need to be aware of where you are stepping on to. I was stupid enough to wear Vans instead of sneekers so I've hurt myself so many times but there were no seriously injury.
Ive never sweated so much in my life. The weather on this day was fine = super hot, So i sweated like one of the teachers who've taught me TOK. By the time I got to the top, my grey shirt was soaked! (yes good to know)

It was a such a nice view from the top, the sea was crystall clear and seeing the sea so clear made me really happy. O, there were a large population of seagulls living in?on? the mountain. It was v.scary walking past them. They are enormous! Seriously. If we walked passed them during breeding season, I reckon we were attakced by them.
After climbing the rock mountain we went to the beach. There Riki (my American/Jap friend) and I ate Valenciano Paella, a typical Valencian food. Riki has an experience as a chef and he commented that it wasn't a good paella but i thought it was pretty dam good, but that's just me.

Rest of the photos from Calpe are here

Some of you may know that on the 30th June, I've moved into a new flat. I have home-stayed for more than six years in New Zealand but I was never "independent". But now I have to cook, clean, iron, kill cockroaches, shop, kill more cockroaches ...etc but the good thing is the bills are fixed price so I have one less thing to worry about.
When I first arrived to the flat (second floor), it was a mess! Not that there were rubbish on the ground but when I swept the floor there were alot of dust and dirt. I bet there hasn't been a person living here for a decade. So I went to one of the Chinese shops (my friends and I call them "the Chinese Shops" because they sell nearly everything and they are so blinking cheap!! and they are nearly always owned by Chinese people. The only down side would be that the products they sell aren't the bestest of quality but that doesn't matter, I'm just thankful that those shops exist!) and bought cleaning products for the flat and just cleaned the place.
I'm learning how to "buy". I always try to buy a bulk whenever I can and calculate the cheapest food to buy...etc

Cockroaches! There are so many of them in Spain! I dont really mind too much about small non-Spanish cockroaches because they are much smaller. However, I really do mind seeing gigantic black cockroaches running in my apartment. No matter how clean your place is, if you live close above the ground there's a greater chance that cockroaches visit your room. I live on the second floor so I've terminated them both.

Ive done more things but it'd too much for you to read so I stop here.

Have a good day!