another feature of the fallas is fireworks.  oh my god.  not only are there firework displays during the day and night, a lot of people have them and set them off all day.  you can’t walk down a street without hearing loud bangs as even little kids set light them and throw them onto the street.  the worst is at night.  i don’t think anyone sleeps during fallas because the streets were still packed at 5am!  this means that drunk people throw them  at crowds so you have be ready to run.   i think i had about twenty heart attacks that night. ay dios mio.

a plus was that we managed to really walk around town.  when we do go back (now we absolutely need to go at the height of the season) i won’t need a map and we’ll know where the good spots are for food and drinks.  ooh and if we can’t catch a cab home one night?  i’ll have no problems walking the 2 km distance from pacha!

all i could do was to find the pension owner who claimed to have seen nothing.  he also insisted the box where we had to leave our keys before leaving was safe.  well apparently not.  either he was involved, or another person staying there got a hold of the keys because he was not keeping a close eye on the box.  either way, we had to blame someone. the argument was going no where and i think he was going to have a heart attack, so all we could make was a police report.  aaargh.

although lisboa is the capital and largest city in portugal, it had a really small-town feeling similar to sevilla.  for example, there were a lot of people in the street but it was missing the busy and hectic air that surrounds barcelona.  a lot of wandering around was done through the side streets and we even eventually found a sushi restaurant to eat at!  (yes, we really did go all the way to lisboa to eat sushi haha)  we also went to an irish pub one night mostly because we couldn’t find anything else open in the area and the live music was calling us in. 

the santa justa elevator is worth going up because it gives you a 360 degree view of the town.  i can’t really describe it but to say it is made of lots of metal and it is quite ugly, actually.  but the view from the top is pretty great and its location in town gives you a different perspective than from the castle.  i liked that.         

there are two students in this class (held in one of the offices), alfonso and eva.  i start mondays off by asking about the weekend  because it gets everyone talking.  imagine my surprise when alfonso was like, “oh, it was crazy, the police came to my party!”   i figured it was for a noise complaint because the walls here are so thin.   well, it was, but that is not why it was bad.  alfonso said it was because everyone there had eaten tortillas (spanish omelette) with magic mushrooms in it.   according to him, the party was up on the top floor of a building with no elevators, so by the time the cops reached the top they were able to hide everything.   i don’t think the cops would suspect anything at a party with local adults, and they couldn’t come in anyway.  but he said everyone was uncontrollably laughing and drinking whiskey (his favorite)…and kept the party going after the interruption.   he even insisted that eva try it one day.  at the end of the story, he was like, “no i change my mind, it was a good weekend!” 

we didn’t really do anything (sight-seeing wise) but that left us time to catch up and chill, which was alright by me.   it was enough to just get away from the city.  i mean, i like it here but i really do miss trees and fresh air!  actually, annie did host a”tropical sangria” party one night which was awesome…and included random conversations between all of the foreign teachers there.  annie’s friend even graduated from interlake high in bellevue!  small world…    

the “three kings day” on january 5th is also special because catalonia celebrates it with a massive parade.  neighborhoods also hold their own parade, but the main one starts at  port vell and goes through the city centre.  this event is really crazy because a billion kids and their parents come out to see the kings who greet the crowd and pass out candy.  if they haven’t done so, the kids can give their wish list to the kings or their helpers, and then on the morning of the 6th wake up to presents.  this day is like our christmas and the naughty ones here get a lump of coal as well!  

it was so cold in milano that one of my first questions to sara was if it usually snows this time of year.  she was like,”no, it hasn’t snowed in a while…”  so it was a nice surprise when it started snowing the following day!

did you know you can buy animal tickets for the trains?  i had seen passengers with their dogs but assumed they just brought them on board…but actual animal tickets?  awesome.  i found this out when i decided to bring bell along for my day trip to lake como.  because it was snowing (ok i admit not even that much…but snow is still exciting), i had this brilliant idea of going and taking scenic photos of the snow-capped mountains.  was i ever wrong!  i didn’t think of the fact that it would be really cold and windy, and there wasn’t enough for it to stick around the water.  boo.  so the photos are not of “snow-capped mountains at lake como,” but “bell’s trip to lake como.”

buying my ticket to the city was kind of funny since i wanted to find out which was cheaper-the bus or train.  i was trying to ask the lady at the counter with a mix of spanish and italian when she just looks at me and says, “the bus is cheaper and leaving now.”  i was like, “oh, grazie.”  at least i tried.

i think i mentioned this before, but i really like the milano centrale station.  it is really magnificent.  so it made me really happy to see it again as it also meant i was just minutes away from my relatives!