hmatt's blog

At Vivianna’s birthday party there was a fellow named Jack and his wife Pam who had just retired and moved to Spain, they were from England!

He invited me and others to visit for a BBQ, but Jacqueline and I were the only two that wanted to go.

What a great experience that was too. Pam told us about her experiences as a nurse and then a nurse consultant. She talked about the problems facing England’s health care system right now. One of those, since they have Universal health care, is that they get people visiting on student visas from parts of Africa. They have AIDS and cannot be deported because their home country doesn’t have the proper support to stay healthy. So they stay and the UK has to foot the bill.. and apparently it happens all the time!

There were so many things that we talked about… Ryan Air and how terrible they were about luggage. Jacqueline has been to Italy several times so she knew what Pam was going through.

Pam also told us of her neighbor and the type of life she had led.. going through a camp in WWII and becoming a writer and such. About Pam’s terrible cooking and her friend who sounded like quite the character.

Jack and Pam showed us their animals- two cats, two dogs, and four parrots. They loved them all. The parrots even did the talking thing.. so cool.

It was really nice to talk with them and get to know them. I love how God works things.. you meet the most interesting people.

Valencia. The Oceanogràfic, Science Museum, Hemisfèric, “Among Dinosaurs” Exhibition and Centro Commercial.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2627971&id=10709142&l=592fffcce6

What a wild adventure. We rode a bus for like an hour to Valencia. Jacqueline, Nick and I were the only ones who wanted to go.

Once there we did a whirlwind experience of the Oceanogràfic, which by far, was the best part of the experience. I wish we could have stayed there longer. The museum has this RIDICULOUS rule that once you leave you can’t get back in. Well, we could have if we had our hand stamped or something, but at the time it didn’t seem important. We were more excited about the science museum part.

The shark exhibit was SPECTACULAR! It was just like in the movies where you walk through a giant glass tunnel and can see all the sealife swimming above you.

There was the biggest, ugliest, and goofiest looking fish I ever saw. It is called a Sunfish ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_sunfish ) and it looked so completely alien.

It had a fin on top and on bottom and a little itty bitty fin on its side. It was SO big, and frightful looking.. maybe not frightening, dopey.

Then they had sharks, and being underneath one you can see how angry they look all the time! It was so neat to be there. You really did feel like you were under the sea.

Afterward we visited the Walruses, Beluga whales, and Penguin exhibits. The penguin place had dirty glass walls, so it was difficult to see what was happening inside.

There were some other exhibits, but we wanted to make sure we got the chance to see everything so we skipped them.. *sniff* oh well, we had high hopes for the rest of the places.

We walked over to the Science Museum part and were dissapointed. Mostly this was due to the lack of upkeep. It seemed like half of the exhibits were broken, and few of them had signs on them telling you so, so you had to figure it out for yourself that a piece was missing, the buttons were jammed.

I was all excited about seeing the Star Trek exhibit opening that day. Unfortunately, the guy giving the opening speech took FOREVER so we had to skip it in order to get something to eat.

We went to a restaurant in the mall across the street. It was called the American Bar or something like that, but I ended up ordering the Greek hamburger. It had a very interesting sauce.

We went to the HEMISFÈRIC, which is this seashell shaped building that had an IMAX in it. Then we wore these futuristic contraptions and watched ARABIA. I fell asleep midway through so I don’t remember it all.. It was a very tiring day.

Then we saw the final thing, the “Among Dinosaurs” Exhibition that was advertised everywhere!

It had the cheesiest looking dinos I’d ever seen. I’m pretty sure I have had action figures with more detail than these guys. Nick and I had a lot of fun with that stuff though.

After the experience we still had some time. We visited the mall across the street and went into Carrefour, which is.. by FAR.. the WORST store. It was basically like Wal-mart in that they had everything from desks to yogurt. They had the most ridiculous signage and I tried buying a few things, and none of them rang up at the advertised price.. it was very frustrating. I walked away angry at the store.

Then we took the bus back to the bus depot and still had some more time, so we walked around. There was some sort of an art gallery opening, so I walked in and had a free glass of wine. Good times.

Oh, and on the bus there were these LOUD American girls.. think of the worst stereotype of Americans visiting another country, then add valley girl attitude.. that was these girls.

The entire trip as a whole was amazing though, and I loved even the terrible things because they make for a good story. = )

• I had forgotten how much fun it is to teach people improv! #

Beach bohemian night.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2627955&id=10709142&l=c8bd3409c7

The big event this day was to go down to the beach and have our Bohemian night. Mostly this was because the last one we had abruptly ended when a neighbor complained that we were singing loudly at 2am on a Wednesday night.

We brought our blankets out and hung out on the beach. Talking mostly.

Some friends Havilah’s friends were there. Oh, one thing I should mention is that there are a lot of Norwegians in Altea. So here were a few Norwegian girls right in front of me, and we began to talk about random things.

At one point, the most adorable girl started telling me a story in Norwegian.. it was SO INCREDIBLE! She did all the expressions and everything. It was the story of Red Riding Hood, and she made the scary face when the ‘wolf’ was going to eat the girl.. oh, it was so incredible. I wish I had thought to record it. She was so beautiful while telling the story, she was being so sincere and animated — I LOVE stuff like that. Oh! How I miss her!

Of course, that was the only time I saw her. I had to leave early to meet up with Elí. I thought we were meeting in another area. I said my goodbyes and went off. I didn’t see him right away, but I spotted some other friends who had sang to us last week.

Anna and Amber, Maria and all of the girl band members of ELLA were there. They were saying goodbye to Amber that night. She was going away for a year for some type of volunteer work like the Peace Corp.

There are so many amazing people out there.

I eventually found Elí and Charlie and we walked back to the sea. Most everyone else ran out into the pitch black sea, but I stayed behind and met a few of Xara’s english students. One of them was studying to be a computer engineer, but I realized I couldn’t really contribute too much to the conversation because I know very few technical terms in Spanish.

What a fun night.

There is a geocache on this little island about .3 miles from the shore. Most people take a boat there, but then you have to rent a boat.. so I wanted to swim to it.

I had thought that this was the island Sean had mentioned he did at night, but that was the even smaller closer one.

Anyway, Lauryn was up to the challenge with me.. so we rode our bikes to an area nearby, and I put my iPhone in my little waterproof bag.. I threaded my dollar store sandals through the string and we began.

It SUCKED! I mean, I’m glad I did it, but man.. it took seemingly forever. The worst parts were when you looked down through your goggles and could see seaweed below you.. and that’s it! That stuff feels so gross and I kept having visions of getting trapped in there or having some HUGE fish appear out of nowhere and nibble at my foot.

To make it worse, we were about half way and I look down to see one of my sandals is missing! A few minutes later the other one vanished too!

The Mediterranean ate my sandals.

Of course the island was nothing but razor sharp rocks and plants. The type of plants that have those little spikes all over them. Perfect.

We found the cache, but it had a big crack in the plastic lid, so hopefully it gets fixed some time.

When we got back to the beach Lauryn spotted one of my sandals waiting for me. The other one was no where to be seen, but at least I had some sort of protection when I was riding my bike back.

It was quite an adventure.

Trip to Alicante.. Viviana’s Birthday celebration.

Part 1
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2618917&id=10709142&l=3fe3002c8a
Part 2
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2618919&id=10709142&l=eea1d65579

One of Arianna’s friends was having a birthday party. She had heard about the Art parties that edge has had in the past.. like Colleen’s La Sala party. These are parties where different people share something art related.. kind of like a talent show or something.

The skill I was going to show was swing dancing with Xara. Others sang, and Sean did his one man improv show that he’s been working on.

There were a lot of complaints about the heat in the room. There were no windows, but it gave everyone a chance to take a break on the street. Also getting fresh air.

After the party ended we played Ninja in the street, and some freeze tag too.

–

July 17

In the morning Vivana invited us to their place. We were provided with a selection of various morning foods.. Pastries, cereal, coffee, and Spain’s FAVORITE drink Cola-Coa.. which is like this chocolate milk mix (like Ovaltine). Chocolate milk for breakfast? Sure!

I tried not to pig out too much on the food, but it was all so tasty!

When we got back, at some point Nick and I went to the beach.

I went swimming and Nick left his bag there on the beach… and some guy stole it.

A bunch of people saw the guy running, but there was no way we could have found him.. We know he had a tattoo of a marijuana leaf though… poor Nick lost his ipod, iPhone and 50 euros.. and his backpack.. and our keys to our apartment. Which, much later, I had to get copies made to replace.

That night we had our art show. There were lots of new faces, but I only talked to a handful of people..

Like Elena and Laura.. two incredibly wonderful people who- get this- restore art for a living!! That is like one of those jobs people have in movies! SO COOL!

I could have chatted with them for hours, unfortunately that was the only time I saw them.

I had a meeting with Arianna this day.

We rode a couple bikes to these little places along the beach.

How they work is that they are built only for the summer when tourists visit. They serve drinks and tapas and such.

There were two of them so we visited them both. It was nice being able to chat with her. She is a very inspiring person. She asked me about my life and goals and such, so I told her.

Spain was an amazing experience, and there were many reasons for that. One, for me, was the ability to clarify what it is that I want to do with my life. A lot of people don’t know.. but I do- and being able to articulate it aloud again and again has made it more attainable and more realistic. It re-inspires me every time I think about it.

Oh, and I totally forgot sunscreen, as did she.. we both got a little red that day.

Today we had workshops. The two to choose from were ‘improv’ or ‘salsa dancing’. Since I can do improv whenever, I chose dancing.

I learned some steps at one time, but I don’t dig the music.. so I rarely did the steps and then forgot them.

Omar taught everyone a few basic moves like underarm turns and such. It was difficult for me to get into the pushing down motion of the dance. It’s like you are drilling into the floor.

It was fun.. I was the only guy though.

Volleyball.

Usually they go after church, but due to the world cup, they played on Monday. Only Lauryn and I went, but we still had a lot of fun. When I was younger I remember taking a volleyball workshop for one day.

I totally forgot everything, but fortunately Lauryn gave me a few pointers. The most important being: “Don’t interlock your fingers otherwise you’ll break them when you hit the ball”.

July 11
They’ve split our group into a few teams where we visit local churches. My group would have to leave early to not miss the World Cup, so I decided to join the group that goes to Benidorm.

What a wise decision.

A german lady translated the sermon for us, so I actually got something out of it.

Afterwards a group of the youth there invited us to watch the world cup in a nearby park.

We took a trip to the mall, Centro Commercial- but it was siesta time so everything was closed. We stopped at a brand new store called Iceland where everything is imported from the UK, usually frozen (thus the name).

Spain was in the world cup. I was in Spain. WAY awesome! There was this giant screen in this park, and there were THOUSANDS of people there. Too bad I didn’t know that we were going to stay there for the World Cup because I wasn’t prepared at all. While everyone had a red shirt on I was wearing my green striped shirt.. I was like a backwards Where’s Waldo.

Afterwards there was some confusion on how to get home. No one spoke English except Elí (who spoke a little) but we were able to get a ride from George.

I sat in the front on the way home. George didn’t speak any english, but I didn’t want it to be one of those silent rides so I tried talking to him. It worked for the most part, but then we’d get into these areas where I didn’t know the words, so I’d have to steer the conversation elsewhere.

Good times though. = )

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