March 11

I woke up "early" on Friday to finish my micro exam before all of the festivities for the day began. After my exam I watched my classmates make paella, but, paella takes forever to cook, so I bailed after an hour and a half of standing in the sun. It was very much like a tailgate, Spanish style, though. That was pretty awesome. It was before noon and every already had their large glasses of beers, mojitos, and sangria in their hands. The smell was wafting through the air and everyone was having a good time. If only there was a football game that everyone could have watched afterwards.

Lia got me to leave the apartment again, to go to lunch with her. The paella competition had finished so Marilyn, Emily, Alanna, and Jacqueline joined us. On our way back from lunch we explored a little and decided to get ourselves some stuffed churros. With Fallas going on, all of these stands have popped up everywhere and are serving these 'once a year' treats, including stuffed (with chocolate, cream, or orange) churros, which can also be rolled in chocolate, and buñuelos, which are basically fried balls of dough. We are going to take advantage of these stands. I don't like churros and chocolate, they are very overrated, but I love it when they are stuffed with chocolate. Yum! We also stumbled upon a structure being put together in front of the Central Market.

Once I got back to the apartments, Javier informed me that I had a package at the front desk. They were cupcakes from mis padres. I was surprised for my "middle of the semester" treat, and my friends were probably more excited than me. Lia and I then did our day 2 of insanity, because I was going to make her work for the cupcakes. While I'm discussing all of the sugar I ate throughout the day, I also had a piece (or 2) of carrot cake in honor of it being Dad's birthday! And before the night was over, we bought our traditional Fallas shirts, with the FSU logo and the logo of our Fallas House. The photo is us modeling for the FSU Valencia Facebook page. Friday was a marvelous day.