You can pick your friends; you can pick your nose; but you can't pick your friends' noses!

... But in Spain you probably could! The people here have no recognition of personal space!! That's one thing that I have noticed... and there is no such thing as "PDA" ... meaning, they have never heard that term and been told not to use it. People are all over each other in the streets, stores, concerts, beach... everywhere!
There's my cultural awareness for today -- as for following up on the blog: LET'S CONTINUE!!

02/12 Saturday

Remember, I was in Elda -- the quaint, little town of shoes! -- visiting my friends Francisco and Aida. Well I woke up feeling like I was in heaven because I wasn't in a tiny bed that felt like springs were poking me in the back everywhere! I got up, got dressed and met Aida in the kitchen to have some breakfast. I noticed that her fridge was VERY full of magnets... not sure if I got a picture of it or not but they literally covered every single side of the fridge from top to the floor. I don't know if you could fit even one more on it! She said her family has been collecting them for YEARS. We ate and then left to go exploring the Saturday market (where I found some REALLY cute little pink shoes) and to just walk around a little bit till I had to leave at 1PM. Aida had a lunch date planned with her aunt, so we had to cut the day short, unfortunately. But! we did get to go to the Museo del Calzado (Footwear Museum) which was INSANE! There were four floors of just rooms of shoes and shoes and more shoes dating from 3200 B.C. to now! There were rooms of machines that were used to make shoes and all different kinds of models to show how they were made... each step. There were books of the bookkeeping for the main shoemaker that lived in Elda in the 1800s and all sorts of odds 'n ends in that museum. The Guinness Book of World Record's largest and smallest shoes (picture below) were there along with some of the craziest shoes ever made for art contests and the tiniest shoes I've ever seen... I took LOADS of pictures! I even found out that Aida's grandpa was a huge contribution to the shoe history of Elda and he had a picture hanging of himself in the museum.
I left Aida (sadly) to go back to Alicante for the remainder of the weekend. I got back and ate pasta with chicken, then watched a movie for my cinema class homework, and then caught up on picture editing.

02/13 Sunday

AHH finally... the day of rest! Today was my catch up on my FCA podcast day! I love how Clemson has a podcast for the FCA speakers because it's something I can understand and listen to with my Christian background in the message. I worked on homework and made a few Valentine's day cards, cleaned my room and unpacked from Aida's house. Later in the afternoon Emma McNeil and I went on a walk down to the Explanada... decided to try out the parfaits at McDonalds -- so we split one small one. mmmm :) good treat! Oh, I also cooked some vegetables that I bought at the mercado central recently! What is a good way to cook these types of beans? Because mine came out soggy and a little gross after letting them boil in water. (picture above on the right)



Well there are two more catch-up days... but I have some studying I have to go do! So I'll have to write more later...

Sincerely,
Missing America