Las Fallas, first test and spring break

This past weekend, the group of international students studying in Murcia took a day trip to Valencia to celebrate Las Fallas. We left from Murcia that Friday at 8am and made it back Saturday morning at 6:30. Nonetheless, it was an incredibly long day but well worth it. It was unbelievable the number of people and the amount of noise going on in the city. Writing about it doesn't do the event justice and pictures hardly do it justice either. Because it happened last weekend and there are no words to describe the event, the post after this will be made up of all pictures.

For the past two weeks, two other American girls and I have been studying for our first test/quiz in political history in Latin America. The test was this Monday and we studied from 1:30pm to the last minute before taking our test at 7:30. The test was seven short answer questions and then there was one question the three of us answered differently. I thought it was multiple choice, one girl thought it was answering each letter option and the other girl used those three questions in consideration when answering the main question. Overall, the first test here was fairly similar to what I would take in the states, except that it had to be written in Spanish. The teacher (Ismael Crespo Martinez) has written a few books and I guess is fairly known outside the university. It's nice having teachers who are passionate about what they teach.

Spring break starts on Friday and goes until April 11. On Thursday, I'll be traveling to Marseille with a friend from Murcia. We'll be taking a train from Murcia to Montpellier and then to Marseille. Spend the night in Marseille, visit Marseille the next day and travel to Nice, Monaco, Lyon, spend two hours in Paris and then I'm meeting three other girl friends in Munich. In Munich, we'll be spending two days and then taking a train to Bamberg and couchsurfing with an old lady who lives on a farm with horses. After Bamberg, we'll visit Dresden and then finally spend four days in Berlin. In Berlin, we're going to be staying in a hostel and visiting most of the tourist attractions and finally make our way to a concentration camp if all goes well.

Since I'll be spending a good chunk of time on a train, our political history teacher assigned us the book "La Fiesta del Chivo/The Feast of the Goat" and the week after spring break, we will have to hand in a review of the book.

Overall, it's hard to believe we've already been in Murcia for two months and have only taken one test. As most people know, the US is in the news a lot these days and when I went to my landlord's apartment to pay my rent, she put CNN on to watch the health care news. Since we never watch TV here, it was nice to see what is going on back in the states.