AY CARUMBA

I am having trouble trying to find time to write on this blog because we have been so busy! Yesterday we had classes as usual and took another tour of the ancient ruins. They are beautiful, but there's only so much Roman history I can take! It took about 2.5 hours and it ws hot out, and were sooo tired by the end of it. But of course, I took a lot of great pictures :) Here I am in front of Universitat Rovira i Virgili, which is our school. This is not our actual campus, but a beautiful building none the less!

Today, in place of one of our classes, we had a lesson in “Practical Spanish.” In this class, we learn a lot of vocab and phrases that will be beneficial to us on the trip. Today, for example, we learned about shopping and what to say when you’re in a store. Next week, we learn curse words (though I know a few already)! It's a really interesting class!

The weather was great, so a big group of us went to the beach for a few hours and today I swam in the Mediterranean Sea!!! The water was a little chilly, but I was very happy to be there.

Tonight's dinner was muy interesante (very interesting). We walked across town to Elit International's office, which is the company that put together our trip and all of our activities. There were four tables in the room with different ingredients on each. Then, each table prepared an anceint Roman style dish. On our table, we crushed almonds and macademia nuts with a mortal and pestle then added pepper and honey. Then we stuffed the mixture inside of dates. Other groups made a salad with rose petals, a creamy cheese spread, and a hard-boiled quail egg thing (not exactly sure, but it was good)! Then we shared our dishes with all of the other tables. The ladies at Elit international had prepared a chicken dish for us so we had that too. During the meal, we learned about ancient Roman tradtions. For example, they only use one corner of their napkin to dry their hands, one to blow their nose, one to wipe vomit (though I'm not sure why the Romans vomitted during their meals), and I can't remember what the third corner was for! Then at the end of the meal, they would wrap a small portion of what ever is left on their plate in the napkin and give it to their favorite slave! The Romans also decorated their tables (so we did too) and gave a toast (while stomping their feet) with rose flavored wine. We reencated all of this, and it was a lot of fun!