define your destination: I will only marry a dolphin trainer

Filling in some holes and some more pictures...

Valencia (May 19-20)

Since the very first email I received from Melania back in September, I knew this girl and I were going to be friends. She's got such a contagious bubbly personality and she has insight deep into your heart that is truly invaluable when she speaks to you. Over the past year, I have spent a decent chunk of time being wowed and inspired by this girl. Not only is she brilliant and beautiful, but she's funny and has such a huge heart. Melania studied American literature and philosophy, studied at Dartmouth one summer, got her masters in philosophy in Budapest and has been working this year on her masters to teach English in Spain. With Italian as her first language, she speaks English, Hungarian and Spanish all nearly flawlessly. This year in addition to her job working at the high school, she teaches afternoon classes, takes Spanish classes in the evening AND has been working tirelessly on her masters. Her ambition, bottomless work ethic and ability to pull multiple night all-nighters marathons amazes me. She without trying has been a teacher to me as well as her students showing me that if you put your mind to something, you can accomplish it and of equal importance, you have to dive in headfirst making plenty of sacrifices for something if you want it bad enough. Surely next year when I am buried in the stacks, overwhelmed at all I have to study and feeling like I'm drowning, I will think of Melania and pull my chin up. If she could do it with such grace, I can too.
Most of the time I've spent with melania since our trip to Portugal has been between tasks at school because she has absolutely no free time. Therefore, a serious celebration was in order when she had finally turned in her thesis. We decided a weekend trip to a beach town where neither of us had ever been was the perfect place to go!
Saturday morning, we hopped on a train and slept until we arrived. The priority was: find the hotel and get our toes to the sand. After a lovely walking tour of the city, we found ourselves checked in, map in hand, rough idea of an itinerary in our minds and our butts on a bus to the beach. we laid there discussing our lives detail by detail and chatting away. The wind was not in our favor but we didn't let that ruin our moods at all.

Around 5, we realized we hadn't eaten yet so we had a great feast of paella, which originated in Valencia. That night, we met up with a group of UGA students due to a connection of a best friend of mine from elementary school. In fact, Matt Dodd is to thank for the fact I was in Valencia at all. He spent a semester there last spring and has been insistent that I visit ever since. Feeling that I could trust such a good friend to make a travel recommendation, but also knowing he was slightly biased since he lived there, the trip had been delayed or impossible until this weekend. Matt had given us the number of a local, so we met up with him and a huge group of UGA students. It was these kids first night in Valenica on a summer program and they were "fresh off the boat," let me tell you. Rocking fraternity Tshirts, with a glowing "lets get wasted" drive in their eye and just learning everyone's name. I couldn't help but laughing at how far I have come since I was in a similar group of UA students in Italy, or in a group of Americans in Sevilla versus now living in Madrid full time. Melania and I sat at the table with the TAs and graduate assistants, speaking Spanish and received all kinds of looks and confused questions about what we were doing there. It was like we were sitting at the VIP table without the appropriate passes. It was a great time though! Such nice people and such fun conversation between teachers and fellow lovers of Spain.
Sunday, we were determined to maximize our time in Valencia and get the last train or bus back. Unfortunately, we didn't plan too well and ended up going to the bus station, to the train station and then back to the bus station and being forced to buy a 1 am ticket to Madrid that would arrive at a biting 5:30 am. Sunday we walked all over Europe's largest aquarium and with a great stoke of luck, scored front row seats in the middle of the stadium for the daily dolphin show. Melania and were more excited than most of the children there. Seriously. We were so excited. Imagine that excitement growing when we were just feet away from extremely attractive men in wet suites. Melania definitively declared that she will only marry a dolphin trainer because their job is so much fun, they are in great shape, they would be happy all the time and could take you to work which would automatically make any bad day, awesome. Clearly, I couldn't argue. A dolphin trainer could be great husband material, we agreed. I was surprised she didn't ask one in particular for his phone number before we left...
This was Melania's first aquarium so it was fun to see her really soak it all in. The aquarium made me crave scuba diving more than anything and got me wondering when the next opportunity to go diving will be.

Valencia is one of the most underrated cities I've ever visited. Its a beautiful and charming resort town with all the personality of Spain and the laid back attitudes dominating the atmosphere. I did not want to leave. Melania was so excited about the city, she almost started applying for jobs without even bothering to collect her things in Madrid. Seriously.
After spending four hours at the aquarium, it was time to continue our tans! This time, we spent 4 euros for a chair to avoid the wind. GREAT decision. Right as we were getting ready to leave, I got pooped on by a seagull. That was it for me, I packed up and about 2 minutes later, a storm started to move in, convincing Melania we should leave too. We grabbed our stuff at the hotel, had a nice, long dinner and waited out the rain. Unfortunately, it was our plan to walk around the city a lot before getting on the bus but the rain hindered that dramatically, leading us to get to the bus station around midnight with nothing to do. I fell asleep on the floor using my suitcase as a pillow. Melania was so ashamed, she wouldn't even look at me because she said I looked just like a homeless person! Hahaha, we got to Madrid after a brutal packed four hour bus ride and I was thankful for 3 hours in my bed before heading to work.

Monday, work was fine and that afternoon I went to get Hannah from the airport!
Life is crazy and not allowing much time for me to breathe! Naturally, when this happens, I usually get sick. So when Hannah was here, I got a nasty bout of tonsillitis AGAIN. This is the fourth time since December I have been sick with this, so I really do think I'll have to have my tonsils out in the four week period between landing in the US and before starting law school in the fall. I am actually pretty concerned about this because I really don't have enough time to do the surgery, nor can I afford to get sick so frequently in school. This is something you guys can be praying about! Luckily, I am fine now, but I was really sick for about a week. Hannah went on excursions by herself and I skipped two days of work. Not fun. I felt so bad I was sick for her visit, but I was super happy she was here! Hannah and I met at UA and she is still there in law school, so her insight on what I have gotten myself into with law school was incredibly helpful and awesome. I was being pulled into reality that my time in Madrid is ending and reminded of how excited I am for the next phase. Hannah loves traveling as much as I did and we really had a great time together, getting to do many things in Madrid I hadn't done yet and also just sleeping in late and enjoying some time relaxing. Here are a few pictures from her trip!