Greetings de España

hola, mis amigos out there in internet land. i have to say that my trip to spain did not start out on a pleasant note. neither did my friend kate´s. see, they lost our luggage. we have it now, but we´ve been here since sunday. it sucked. our luggage got stuck in amsterdam, and we went to madrid. it really sucks losing your bags in a foreign country (especially one whose language is not your own). but anyway, our luggage eventually made its way back to us, and i was really glad i packed some clothes in my carry-on.

our first night here, we spent the night in the dorms at the university of alicante, and we took a tour of the campus the next morning. there was drama over phone cards, but it all worked out. the next day, we made our way here to the marine lab, where we´ll be staying for the rest of the trip. the facility here is really nice (except that every time you take a shower, there is a lake in the bathroom floor). the weather is beautiful (i.e., not cold), and the mediterranean is amazing. we did some good snorkeling a couple of days ago before we had to actually start our projects. of course, in addition to the work we´ve been enjoying the spanish culture (our prof is from alicante) and having a little fun.

they eat weird things here, dude. i ate an ovary yestertay. how freakin´crazy is that? you did not read that wrong. one of the profs from the u of alicante bought it for us. it was a smoked and dried tuna ovary (called a hueva). it tasted extremely fishy, and the thought of eating an ovary just generally weirded us all out. i´ve also eaten cuttlefish since i´ve been here, but those were really tasty. our prof is making sure that we are well immersed in real spanish life.

there is a big festival in santa pola this week (santa pola is 5 minutes from the marine lab), and tonight a bunch of us are going to run with the bulls. not like in pamplona, though. this is supposed to be pretty tame. i´ll probably chicken out. it should be fun either way. there was drama this morning when we went to sign up, and some guy kept yelling and touching himself, and then he yelled at an old lady.

i need to run now, but i´ll try to update again soon. for those on facebook, there are a few pictures on there from maine and spain. i´ll put up albums of my own soon, though.

hasta luego!