Not the same old pong and dance

Hola a todos! Last night was a pretty late one, so I wasn’t able to blog until today.  Yesterday we visited el Mercado Central (the central market).  The central market is composed of two floors.  The first consists of the fish market and the produce market.  The second floor is all meats and cheeses.  While I hadn’t been a seafood fan until recently, even I knew the fish and seafood at the central market were fresher than most of the stuff I’d had back home in the states.  Literally, many of the seafood were still live on ice when we walked past.   Many of the fish we encountered had been prepared and fileted, but there were times when a fish head or two scared us slightly as we walked by.  The produce market was filled to the brim with fresh fruits and vegetables. I even got to try a paraguaya, kind of like a cross between a peach and an apple.  The meat and cheese market, of course, was my favorite.  Those of you who know my secret addiction to various cheeses should have guessed it.  While on the second floor I got to try chorizo, a spicy pork sausage.  While I’ve had ground chorizo, this was the first time I’d had it in a salami-like form.  One of the workers at the meat market showed us the way around a cow, presenting us with cow tongue, cow stomach, and cow heart.  As much as the inner adventurer in me wanted to sample, the realist in me prevented such an event from occurring. 

 .  After the market, I returned home for lunch.  I was introduced to José, Mari Carmen’s older brother.  He comes to lunch every Tuesday, and he’s was super nice, like pretty much everyone else I’ve met in Spain J As always, I was stuffed after lunch, but the girls and I decided we needed a shopping day, as EVERYTHING was on sale in Alicante this week.  After four hours of shopping, I bought a new clubbing dress and shoes for under 20 euros!  I’m not a big shopper, so obviously I was exhausted by 7:30.  But staying awake for dinner was well worth it.  I talked with my host parents for a while as they cooked dinner to practice my Spanish, and I’ve never felt more confident with it! It’s going to take time, but hopefully fluency is right around the corner! After dinner, a group of us decided to go out to a club called Havana to watch a beer pong tournament.  Little did my friend Ashley and I know, that our other friend Anna had signed us up to play.  And as many of you know, I’m a little lacking in the coordination department.  After a couple free sangrias (competitors get open bar) we were ready to play! While we didn’t win, we were one cup away from making it to the next round.  I was definitely proud of us, and who knows, maybe next Tuesday we’ll be beer pong champs!  Today was pretty relaxing so far.  The girls and I had lunch on the beach after class and just relaxed.  Tonight we have our first “intercambio” which is like a conversation period with students from the University.  I’m hoping to learn a lot and get to know some new people.  Probably going to be an early night, as tomorrow is the Fourth of July! Until then keep calm and beer pong!

My beer pong partner!