FESTIVAL DE SAN JUAN

What a night!

Our professors told us last week about this festival called San Juan. They told us its a huge tradition in Spain to celebreate the beginning of summer (last monday) and everyone goes to the beach to party. The traditions are to party from sunset until sunrise, make 3 wishes, and then jump over 9 waves in the sea. Vinesha and I took a cab to the beach, but ended up walking for blocks because so many of the roads close to the beaches were shut down due to the festival. Once we got to the beach we were SO shocked! Literally, EVERYONE was there on the beach. The news paper on tuesday said that 130,000 people were on the beach in Valencia! There was a huge stage set up with DJ´s, dancers, and a singer. The croud infront of the stage was pack with people dancing to the techno music and socializing. ISU people all put our stuff together and started a bonfire. We all made our wished and jumped our waves so our wished would come true. A friend and I decided to go swimming--despite that I was fully clothes. I forgot that my camera was im my pocket, so it came swimming with us too. It is ruined and I lost my pitcures of Valencia so far, the bull fight, flmango dance performance, and pictures from that night so far. I am going to take other peoples pictures and put them up here so you all can have a visual. Anyway, we went swimming down by byt rock wall/peri thing. All of a sudden I realize that I cannot touch, the waves and bigger and going over my head, and I looked at the shore and we had been pulled really far out! I started swimming with my perfect breast-stroke from from FoxJets, but I wasnt getting any closer to the rocks. Eventually we made it to the rocks and I saw 2 other people get into the same situation as us. I heard her yelling for help and we went down to the rocks to pull them in. It was a few of some of the most terrifying seconds of my life. The waves that night were some of the bigest ones I´d ever swam in and it was so fun! I stayed on the beach until the sun came up around 6am. I got back to the apartment and went to sleep. I skipped my first class and as punishment, the ISU directors made everyone who missed class due to San Juan write a paper about our San Juan experience. I thought it was a great assignment and I hope they enjoy reading about all of our nights!

Spain in playing Russia in the semifinal soccer game tonight. Some of our friends know of this bar that plays the game on a huge projecton screen so we are getting there an hour and 45 miutnes early in hopes of getting a seat in the bar!

Beatiz--our host mother here-- fed Vinesha and I rice, beans, and SQUID and PRAWNS last ngiht for dinner. I tried them, but the smell gets to me so badly that I just can´t eat them, even though the taste is not that bad. I had a hard time gettting past the tenticle things poking out too. I hope toight its just rice and chicken because I am hungry!

p.s. sorry for my typos. This spainsh computer doesn´t do spell check for engligh and I am too lazy to proof read and fix them. LOVE LOVE! ALSO-- you can DOUBLE CLICK on the pictures I post to make them BIGGER!