Yesterday we took a 45 min train ride to a town called Xativa. The town was cool and and had a really nice cathedral. We went into the cathedral and I made sure to tell everybody to cut their flashes off on their cameras but after a couple bad shots I changed settings on my camera and forgot to cut off the flash. I felt pretty bad having my flash go off during their service after I had reminded everybody else to cut thiers off. The castle, dating back to the 10th century, was amazing and provided us with plenty of photo opportunties. We stayed there for a couple hours before trekking back down the hill/mountain to the city. This was by far the best 7 Euro (5.70 for train, 1.20 for castle) I have spent since I have been here. I only put a couple pics on but hit up webshots for all 45 of my Xativa pics.

Today was a bittersweet day. Bitter becuase David left us because it was time for him to return to France. David was really cool and by far spoke the most spanish out of everybody in the flat. I guess it is time for all of us to step up our game when it comes to spanish since he is gone. David will be back next month for Las Fallas and may be coming to Tech in the fall. The sweet of the bittersweet is that I moved into his room. It fel so good to finally unpack my suitcases and set my room up, which is like none other. As you can see, I have cork-board walls, a nasty brownish-gray carpet, a ceiling made of disco ball material and a lovely floral comforter. All I have to say is that this room is very unique! In the pic above are all of us from the flat. From left to right: Sam, me, Travis, Vincent, Ward and David.

I just bought a Scarface calendar for 2 euro, holla at ya boy

Happy Valentine's Day!
Tengo Mucho Amor Para Todas!

Yesterday was a pretty good day (minus running out of food and everything being closed for the weekend). I watched a good basketball game on tv, then we actually went and played a couple games, and finally watched another game on tv. David, Sam, Ward, and me (Team Jaime- named after our landlord) went down to the outdoor courts to play. We played an interesting bunch of guys. They had this huge guy, probably around 6'7'', who was wearing a Jordan jersey that would probably be too small for me to wear. They had another guy playing in his church clothes, including the shoes, and another guy that seemed quite normal. The guy I guarded had on a LA Lakers Shaq jersey but the name on the back was Culpepper??? It was crazy. We won the first game and after a pityful effort lost the second game. They walked every time they got the ball but we never called it and I definitely had more blocks than the 6'7'' guy. The goals here are lower than in the States. We all were hanging on the rim before we actually played but nobody capitalized on chances to throw one down during the games. Ward and I got asked to play on an intramural team, so now we have a game on wednesday and something else to do. Adios

Quote of the day: "I am better at drinking Heineken than playing basketball."
-David

After 19 hours of traveling by plane, train, and taxi (the most dangerous) I finally made it to my final destination: Valencia, Spain. It has been several days and I am kind of getting used to the sleeping and eating schedule here. In our apartment there are 2 guys from France (David and Vincent), 1 from Australia (Sam), and 3 Americans (Travis, Ward, Me). Conversations in our apartment consists of french, spanish, english, broken english, broken spanish, spanglish, and the crazy words Sam uses. It's pretty crazy but it's fun and I can only see it getting better as time goes on.