After that, Raul drove me to El Puig, which is like 5 minutes or so away. I had agreed to meet another au pair there at this big monastery. It ended up working out perfectly and it felt so good to have someone to connect with on the au pair life. We talked about our families and lives and had so much in common, it was wonderful. Plus I think I was missing English a bit ha.
The beautiful monastery where we met
So Caitlin and I walked around her town a little and it's super cute. We stopped into her house to meet her family and then decided to metro in to Valencia. Since I spent all last fall there, I know the city well, so it was fun for me to get to be tour guide a little. We walked through all the major plazas and I knew that today was the day I was finally getting llao llao again. Llao llao is this frozen yogurt place that we used to go to all the time last year. They put all this fruit and muesli on it and it's SO good.
This is the fountain we jumped in on our last night in Valencia. I told Caitlin that her last night as an au pair, she's jumping in too haha.
We sat at the table outside Llao llao talking for a long time and then we walked a little more and looped back to the train station to catch the metro back to
El Puig. The aunt of the boy she babysits, Isa, is about 33 and wanted to take Caitlin out that night to "show her how they party in Valencia." So they invited me along and I'm so glad I got to go with them.
Isa picked us up from Caitlin's house at about 9:45 and took us to meet her friends at this restaurant. I compare her friends' lives to the women of Sex in the City. There's one I literally refer to as Carrie. They are so beautiful, fun, lively, and have great style. If I have half as much fun as them when I'm in my thirties, then I'll consider myself lucky haha.
We sat at this restaurant for a while where they had this deal that was 12 euros for a tapa, a sandwich, and unlimited sangria. The food took a really long time, but that's the kind of thing that doesn't really matter in Spain because we all sat around talking (and drinking) forever. We were the last at the restaurant and at like 1 am, we moved inside for a gin and tonic.
Finally at 2:30, we went to the discoteca, L'umbracle. It's this really awesome outdoor disco at the City of Arts and Science. We went and danced and acted silly. I had so much fun with Caitlin and all the Spanish women--and their one male friend, Barbi. Haha I asked him if he knew the song I'm a Barbie Girl. It's fine, we were buddies by the end.
A picture I found online (it was definitely not empty when we were there)
Us at L'umbracle
We didn't leave until about 6:30 am and Isa dropped me off at home. If you can recall, Saturday morning was the day I decided to set my alarm for 5:30 to watch the sunset from my room. I ended up sleeping until 8:30 that day, but still not returning to my bed until 7 am, almost 24 hours later, was exhausting.
Nonetheless, I emerged bleary eyed around 10 because my family was supposed to go sailing and I didn't want to miss out. As much as I want to go sailing, praise Jesus that it rained in the morning because Alicia told me they canceled the trip and I could return to bed...where I proceeded to sleep until 2 pm. I haven't done something like that in so long!
I was still in a good mood from Saturday night all of Sunday. I just haven't gone out and actually had a really good time in so long! It felt great just to go out, meet people, dance, and have fun and not feel like I regretted it the next day.
Sidenote: as I'm writing this, the Brazilian maid, Tania, just asked me how old I was. When I told her 20, she told me she thought I was 16 because of my "innocent face." WHAT THE HECK?
Anyway, at 2 I walked over to Loli and Pepe's house because Sunday is when they have their huge family lunches. They made this big thing that was like paella, but it was made with little pasta noodles instead of rice. My stomach was feeling a little questionable from the night before, but I mostly enjoyed everything I had...one thing they gave me had an anchovy and I wasn't prepared for that.
Pretending I had anything to do with cooking this sucker
After lunch, I came back to shower and get ready to go to Valencia again. I rode the bus in at 7 to meet up with one of my friends from Valencia, Seve. If you read one of my really old blog entries from September, you'll find the one from our first FSU exchange conversation where we met up with Spanish people to practice talking with them. My teacher set me up with these 2 people because I told her I didn't want to speak English. I found out later that night that they just met up for a drink, NOT exchange conversation, but my teacher just asked if they'd talk to me. Haha embarrassing. But we ended up staying friends and meeting up a number of times and they took me to a disco on my second to last night there in December.
So it was really nice seeing Seve again. He told me he was hungover from a wedding the night before and we commiserated on the effects of our "noches de fiesta." Haha. Seve doesn't speak any English, so it was a Spanish filled evening. At about 10 he walked me to the train station. There was a huge manifestation that they closed down the streets of the main plaza for. Everyone here speaks out against the corruption in the government so much. But it's a cool thing to see.
I rode the metro to El Puig, since the buses to Pobla de Farnals had already stopped and Rual picked me up. I stayed up skyping with my parents since it was Father's Day and then I got to sleep again.
I stayed in bed till 9! Finally I feel caught up on my sleep! Back to the work week for me!
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