QUE PASA??? What up!!!
We are having an absolutely unbelievable time! Best summer ever and we've only been here 4 days!

Since we last wrote we had our first practice. We practice at 8 at night until 10 but apparently practice can go anywhere from 8 to 11:30ish.... which it did our first day. We drove to practice and filled up our tank of gas for the first time which was quite the ordeal. Actually this crazy girl on our team named Sandra taught me how to do it because we were following her on her team-colored Moped. Everyone calls her Flaco b/c she is stick skinny (Flaco meaning thin or weakling) which she also has written on the front of her Moped. This girl is just crazy and smokes the entire time she drives her Moped. If she finishes a cigarette she immediately lights up another one. She is such a little punk and doesn't speak any English and just laughs if we say something to her in English. Anyways Becky got to test out her driving skills on the big round abouts and did an amazing job. Parking however is another issue because there doesn't seem to be any reason to obey the parking laws because you don't get ticketed. Sometimes people park in the middle of the intersection or they park in two lanes from the curb... leave their emergency break off and then if cars need to get out that are on the inside lane they just push the car out of the way... get out... and then push it back...? or at least that is what i understand from what they have told us in broken english. bahahaha... crazy Spaniards.

Practice was lots of fun. I think basically Becky and I will just pitch and catch for about an hour and a half, becky does some blocking and then we head in and either hit or do infield-outfield until I get to go pitch at about 60-70% to these chicas with no screen... slightly scary when the decent hitters come up but ...meh... Becky is going to kill someone before this summer is over b/c the field is a choppy grass infield and not very safe. Beto pitched to Becky and she hit a few bombs.... me... not so much but I have hitting coach Beckita working on that with me everyday.

When we finally got home from practice it was about midnight and we had a note under our door from our new CA friends telling us that they were going to a party and wanted us to come and were going to come pick us up if we wanted to come at 9:30. It was written in the cutest broken English ever... they are SOOO CUTE!!!!! But we didn't get to party with them because we were home so late. But since then they have pretty much filled us in on the party scene and we are so excited to get out and check out all the cool places they told us about! Last night they came over after dinner (which we slept through...more on this later) and took our big map of Valencia and numbered off the best clubs and places to eat for us. They also have some random friend named Raul who coaches a baseball team that can apparently get us into clubs for free? We went absolutely nuts when they told us this. We haven't met him yet but you can bet we will make him our best friend.

A big issue for us has been the fact that we don't have internet unless we drive into Valencia and use our coaches office AND that we don't have a converter to plug in things such as an ipod or our computer to know what time it is. We also didn't have a tv until yesturday and there is no clock in our house, we have no watch, no cell phone and definitely no alarm clock. So I have been having half assed sleeps because I am weird and can apparently just tell what time to wake up if I set my mind to it. Well.... around the time... BUT it's ok now because today our friends took us to the town Cheste (which is also the name of our university = BIG C) and we bought a hair dryer, alarm clock, a shower curtain, AND matching watches, bowls and tupperware but different colors... mainly because we're huge dorks.... My color is Pink and Becky is Yellow. Kimberley and Alisha anyone? If you don't know what show I am referring to you are just not cool. So now we know what time it is and I can sleep properly.

Which brings me to another hilarious story... So last night our friends are at our place studying our lonely planet with us and telling us what is actually worth seeing. When all of a sudden someone tries to agressively open our door, then knocks extremely loud. Becky and I kind of give each other a look but assume it's just another one of the CA's and Becky hops up to answer the door. So imagine this happening to you.... and when she opens it the President of the school barges by her and comes right into the living room where we are all sitting, undoes his tie and unbuttons his shirt about 4 buttons and plops himself down on the couch. This guy is about 5 foot 2, 60 years old, and just the most Spanish looking old man ever and speaks at an extremely mumbled rapid rate that is almost impossible to understand. So Becky was still standing at the door about to lose her mind and still slightly shocked but she composes herself and comes and sits back down on the couch beside me. So Pepe (his nickname) starts talking an insanely incomprehensible amount about some theatre production he went to in the morning (Teatro and mañana- the only words i could make out). One of our CA friends, Marco, speaks very good english and is translating the important mumbling for us as he goes on and on. Becky and I are trying not to laugh this entire time because this is just such a ridiculous scene.... when all of a sudden he reaches into his pocket, takes out a pack of cigarettes, interupts himself and says specifically to Marco that he is going to smoke in our house. So Marco translates - He is going to smoke in your house. And we look over at this man that is first of all the equivalent of Michael Stevenson sitting with his shirt unbuttoned in our house and sure enough he has already lit up a cigarette and is smoking in our house. Becky and I just FREAKING LOST IT!!!! Honestly, it was SO Funny. I don't think he really understood why we were laughing so hard. But he went on talking and we eventually controlled ourselves. It was just too funny.

Two more quick Pepe stories because this man just kills us. The first one is that before he left last night our friends told him about how we are just living life never knowing what time it is and going to sleep hoping that we wake up at the right time for breakfast. So Pepe said that on Thursday nights he sleeps in flat 5 and that the following morning he would ring our doorbell for an alarm clock at seven. So this morning sure enough crazy old Pepe rings our doorbell, many more times than needed, but nonetheless it wakes us up, we take about 10 or 15 minutes to get ready and head over to the caf. So we get there and everyone is taking off and the usual food line up is no longer there and some cook starts telling us that we are late for breakfast and we have to come earlier or we will not get breakfast and all of this sort of thing- all in Spanish. So now we are so confused and are just thinking .. what the hell time do these students get up in the morning if breakfast is even earlier on fridays? So we get food with our warning and sit down and eventually Pepe comes over to our table with a student that speaks english and she starts translating for us about something or other and then as she's about to finish this man sort of whispers sheepishly towards her and says something and she turns to us and tells us that he woke us up way later than he was supposed to. Which was just hilarious because thinking we were late for breakfast just made us even more confused about time and about how things work here.

The second Pepe story is that today after breakfast and some shopping in Cheste we went and pitched and hit during the BIG C team's practice and then ran for about 30 minutes in the one thirtyish EXTREMELY boiling sun. Lunch is at 2 so we went straight to the caf for lunch and I was just DRIPPING in sweat. So we get our food and go sit down with our CA friends and Pepe is sitting down at the table with them. He takes one look at me and says something in Spanish to Luiz who immediately tells me that we are not allowed to come to the cafeteria in our sport clothes because it's a rule for the students. So now not only do we feel like huge asses because we didn't know the rule but I am just profusely sweating all over myself. Just absolutely POURING down my face. I turned to Becky and told her that never in my life have I ever wanted to stop sweating so bad. bahahaha. it was ridiculous. Anyways we broke our first rule. Not too bad considering the language barriers and the lack of anyone telling us anything we don't ask about.

Anyways we are having a great time. We have decided to make the town of Cheste our new home. We will do all of our grocery shopping, icecream eating, and town wandering here. Basically we are looking for a place with a waiter or bartender or chef that will love us so much he will give us sweet discounts on our food. I feel like this is the town to do it because it is so small and adorable and we just stick out like a sore thumb.

Anyways we are off to the North of Spain tomorrow to watch our team play because we are not allowed to play until we are in Spain for a week.
Love you and miss you all.
Sorry i´m a psycho and write so much. but lets be serious. becky would tell you nothing if she did it.

Adios Amigos!