Long weekend, little to do.

Back to some level of calm here in Alicante. This past Thursday was a holiday, and since I actually don't have classes here on Fridays, I just finished up a four day weekend, starting with Halloween on Wednesday night. Halloween was a good day because we had a "field trip" in the afternoon to Alicante's mosque/muslim ceneter for my class on Terrorism. We met the immam, got a tour, talked to some of the members, ate a delicious lunch prepared by the immam's wife, and got to miss two hours of lecture to do it. =) Regardless, I am finding the class really interesting and am always open to learn new things like this, so I enjoyed it a lot. It made me want to be able to speak some Arabic, but I have a feeling that is one thing I may not get around to doing in my life...

Halloween here in Spain is really not like the US - it is just an imported holiday for them and a lot of people don't celebrate it. Children don't go to door-to-door and I really think it is the American study abroad students here in Alicante that make anything of it. I bought some wings and a wand and went as a fairy. Fun, but not like Halloween at Georgetown. I definitely got some amusing looks walking around with wings on my back.

What I did with my Thursday and Friday is kind of sad. I slept until 11am both days, barely came out of my room until 2pm when we eat lunch (doing some reading or homework in that time), sat in my room some more until going to use the internet around 5 and then just going out a bit at night. I think I also watched more than 8 episodes of Grey's Anatomy that I have on DVD since Wednesday. I did fulfill two desires: I went out for dinner for one night for Mexican food and another for Chinese. I can't say the "Mexican food" was anywhere near as good as you can get in the US, but it sufficed to spice up my dietary menu a little bit.

On Saturday I decided I really had to get out of Alicante so I got on a train/tram with three of my friends here and we went to Benidorm, a small very touristy beach city up the coast about an hour and a half. There really was nothing to do but sit on the beach (not in bathing suits, although there were lots of people wearing them), walk around a bit, and play cards. It at least meant that I got myself up and out of bed and out of pajamas before 11am and getting some different scenery, so I appreciated the change. Two of the three friends I went with went back to Benidorm today to see a bull fight, but I really wasn't up for seeing some helpless bull being killed and people cheering it on.

Today I got some more homework done, began studying because I have two midterms on Wednesday, went to a group project meeting, and am now here in the internet cafe downloading the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy Season 4 so I can hopefully watch it tonight, although I am currently encountering some technical difficulties. That about sums up my weekend full of laziness. My parents are arriving on Wednesday so I am just waiting to see them and go to Madrid for the weekend together to check out how the madrileños roll. I can't wait!

Hasta luego!