New Years Eve: Taking the grapes. First, we have dinner and dessert, and lots of jokes and all, and THEN... twelve seconds before midnight, the first bell rings in SOL, the center of Madrid, which we hear via the television, channel 6. With the first bell, each person eats their first grape, and on the second ring, the second grape. Sounds easy enough, but its not- one grape every second for 12 seconds equals a high chewing/swallowing velocity combined with extreme levels of hand-eye coordination. Super fun though, and an interesting taste of an old Spanish tradition. After the taking of the grapes, the little kids and adults stay to play board games until the early morn while the youth go to clubs and what not. I just went to the "town dance," which was a replica of a Madison High School dance in the gym. Replica, a spanish replica. Instead of the cotton eye joe, we had the bomba, and instead of Rihanna, we had Canto de Loco. And in the morning, after a night of dancing, we had churros with chocolate.

So after bringing in the New Years, we had 3 Kings day, which is a big thing here. A parade with balloons, candies, floats and then churros, again. And then the kings (the three wise men) come, during the night from the 5th to the 6th, and leave presents for the kids.

AND then.. There's Andorra. Okay, well Andorra isn't a Spanish tradition, but thats what followed for me. 5 days in Andorra, a little country between Spain and France in the Pyrene mountains. I went with my school and another American exchange student who's an avid snowboarder from the Rocky Mountains. So basically, she went for the black diamonds and tree skiing for the mornings in the ski resort of Vallnord, while I stuck to the nice green, winding, lower slopes, and then we reunited for the nights to go shopping, swimming, strolling. Andorra is like a mini Paris, I'd say, with lights and shopping and everything, but surrounded on all sides by huge, colossal mountains, the tops dipped in snow.