I am an Irish drummer!

....I decided since all my work was turned in and deadlines were met, we would take the week and go to Spain from the 4th-10th, then be back for the week before spring break and finals. Well when we got back I found out that my teachers were deciding to cancel all the classes. So I could have stayed in Spain til the 13th or 14th or even flown from there to Italy. But since I came back I was able to be in a little performance!

I have been learning to play the Irish Drum, the Bodhran. Except this whole semester we have only played on notebooks, and not an actual drum. We had access to drums, but were all so embarrassed in our abilities (or lack thereof) to actually use the drums (at least in my case). Anyways we have been told about a performance at the end of the year that was optional, and not going to be graded. I definitely put that out of my head, I am not a fan of being on stage performing (As I learned my sophomore year at Guilford in the 'wonder of dance' class). Anyways I was in my tutorial and our teach said hey so when is your concert, we informed him at 1800 that day (it was 1630). He was unaware that it was so soon. So he quickly taught us something...and so we went over it for the last half hour of class. Then from 1700-1800 I talked myself in and out of this silly performance, then eventually thought, ah heck I am in Ireland why not?!

so here it is!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfEW9DdKoWQ 

Everyone was so serious when they were performing and it was so hard for me to stop laughing lol. I tried really hard though!


I will post about Italy this week!

miss you all!

Espana.

This blog is going to be terrible. There is no way I can put into words how much I enjoyed my week in Spain.

view from the stairs in Pollensa

I went to visit my buddy Tyler. He and I went to college together at Guilford; he graduated last year and is now playing professional basketball for Plancha de Palma, a team in Palma Mallorca, Spain. It is a little island off the east coast of Spain. He lives on the Northeastern coast of the island in a town called Pollensa.

view from Ty's living room

I was unsure of how the week was going to go because Tyler and I were by no means close, or best friends. We had hung out at the occasional house party, and I kept his stats through my work study job. That was the extent of our friendship though. I was very unsure, especially because I was bringing friends from Ireland with me.

It was not even a problem at all. It was so much fun. The first night was a little slow in conversation but we went to his favorite Kebab spot and enjoyed some fries and wine (I will not mention anything further about my diet over the next three weeks, and will not tolerate any comments regarding it either- fair warning). The next day we spent on the beach drinking sangria and enjoying the sun that we so desperately missed in Ireland. That night Ty bought a bottle of red wine and we made a steak dinner (SO GOOD).

Yours truly learned her lesson though. Red wine is not like Sangria, therefore should not be consumed at the same pace either. (again, no details on the matter)

You can imagine the next day was a little slower, we tried beaching it but it was kind of windy and we returned fairly early.

Maggie and I set off one day with out cameras and took a really beautiful walk around Puerto Pollensa and I am so glad we did.

We all really wanted to rent mopeds, and we were ready to sign the papers and he asked for our licenses and we handed them over, and then he informed us that we needed a spanish license...fail. We were fairly upset, but in hindsight, it was probably for the better since none of us had ever driven anything of the sort! But we were determined at the time so we headed to Alcudia on a bus in search of another moped shop. We were quickly distracted and decided we wanted to just lay out and go to the beach. Little did we know that meant walking for close to 40 minutes to actually find it from the bus stop. It was a little piece of heaven though even though it was right by the harbor.

I am leaving so much of this trip out and it saddens me. I can not even attempt to tell yall how gorgeous it was and how much fun we had. I am disappointed that this is how it is so far. So sorry. I will never ever slack on blogging again. It is so much harder to explain now!

Anyways.

After our day trip to Alcudia we headed home made some pasta (I think) and decided we wanted to go in search of Jet Skis since we could not get mopeds for the next day.
Well with my broken Spanish we found out that the jet ski guy had moved his shop and was no longer in Puerto Pollensa...Awesome.

The little man we were talking to brought us to a boat taxi guy.
Boat taxi man wasnt really ready for us because as we were walking to his boat he was puttin' his wetsuit on and we saw his booty. It was funny. He gave us a taxi ride over to Formentor!

OH MY GOSH

We spent the whole afternoon there, unfortunately Rachel did not come, she had school work to do so she stayed back, not knowing what she was missing out on, but it really was gorgeous.

In Spain they party and have a different social life then the rest of the world I am pretty sure. They do not start until about 2am. That is usually when everyone else is turning in for the evening, but none the less we wanted to try to see if we could do it like those in Spain.

We took the 8:30pm bus to Palma and went out and found an amazing diner (AMERICAN FOOD). Ty chowed down on some hot wings and a burger, I got the (best I have ever had) Quesadilla, Christina tried a philly cheese steak for the first time ever, Rach had a melt I think and Mags, a burger, it really was perfect, and the best american diner food I have had!

We also were able to kill time til about 1 at an Irish pub we found in Palma (Ironic?) Then we went in search of a good craic. We found a night club and spent the night there. We found ourselves back on the bus and walked into Tylers house at 9:05am...Let me tell ya we were exhausted. But after a quick nap Tyler, Rachel and I headed to the beach to nap in the sun!

The best part about being out til the wee hours of the morning was this! It really was s humbling moment. I am not sure if that is the right word for that but it was amazing.

When we got back to Pollensa we spent the last few days seeing the town and hitting the beach. One night everyone wanted pasta so together we concocted the best pasta ever made. It was a mix between penne, baked ziti and amazingness. I am telling you I could have a restaurant of my own, I would not have recipes but just throw together everything that tastes good! (for example the crab stew with cinnamon) I am telling you, it could really take off!

But our pasta had chicken, peppers, garlic and mushrooms. Doesn't sound fancy but it was. Then I was like well heck lets make this baked pasta...We poured it into a casserole dish type thing that was too small so we had noodles everywhere, then tried pouring the sauce, again everywhere. Finally after it was all mixed we added a bag of mozzarella cheese on top and went to cook it. Let me remind you Tyler is a 22 yr old 6'9 pro basketball player living in Spain on his own. Do you think he knows how to cook? No. You think he would know how to work his oven...course not! So after like 5 minutes of playing with it we finally figured it out but it tripped the breakers hahah All the lights in his apt went out. We got them back on, and tried again. Same thing happened so we flipped it again and decided to turn everything off but the oven to see if that would work. No. So here we had pasta with un-melted cheese, but eventually it started working, and we had to make back up garlic bread on the stove, it was really really good though, the entire thing!

The last night we were in Pollensa we wanted to climb up the stairs in his town

they dont look so bad right...

still cant even see the top though

looking back down...only about halfway at this point

ALMOST

Made it!

worth the hike!

I am really sad that this is how my blog ended up but, you get the gist. It was amazing. relaxing. fun. perfect.

Tyler and I are much closer now, which is really cool and he got along great with my friends too, We had a lot of nights filled with a lot of laughter!