B \ˈbē\ a Traveler.: La cuarta y quinta semana !

Hola de la isla del sol, cómo va?
It has been two weeks since the last post, I hadn't taken many pictures the week before so I wanted to wait. But a lot has happened! Two weekends ago we surprised Ellen with a birthday party, it was perfect because she had noooo idea since it was an entire week before her real birthday. I made her come shopping with me and then we went to this wine store that sells wine out of the barrell by filling up the bottles in front of you. It was fantastic, this little hole in the wall with an "art gallery" in the back, and it was jam packed with people. Then we went back to our piso and...SURPRISE! It was great having everyone over, we'll probably do that more in the future. Afterwards we went out dancing 'till 6am again. The club we went to was pretty big and played a lot of good American music (which is also extremely popular here). Teaching at the schools has been going very well, this past week was full of Halloween activities! For the primary school, I made sugar cookies, white frosting, and orange frosting and brought them to class for the kids to decorate with rainbow and chocolate sprinkles (fideos), blood (strawberry syrup), skinny tubes of chocolate icing. They absolutely loved it, half the time though they were just eating the syrup or sprinkles, jajaja.

Of course I couldn't find any Halloween sprinkles, the baking aisles here have nothing compared to the stores in the states. I could only find 3 different types of sprinkles. They got the idea though :). It's really interesting see an American holiday like Halloween celebrated in a different country. The costumes here are actually focused on being scary and not neccessarily anything.
This past Saturday I went to an amazing vineyard with some friends. It only took half an hour on the train to get there (at 1,30euro roundtrip ticket) and was so easy to find. The tasting was free and all the wine was delicious. We swore to come back at least a couple times, I think I want to take my parents there when they come for Christmas! Anyways, Ellen and I are going to try to visit more vineyards around the island, the only trouble is getting there, as the Mallorcan public transportation can only take you to specific places.

towards the vineyard!

interesting glass art

hallway, all those are empty wine bottles!

i think this is a fancy tasting room

Peter, Michael, and Ellen :)

room full of wine barells

Sunday was Ellen's actual birthday, so we made Veggie, Salmon, and Tilapia sushi!! That was my first time making it, and I will definitely be doing that again. It's so much fun! I also made a three layered- raw ice cream cake, which was also amazing. The first layer was "brownie" (raw almonds, raw cacao, dates), second layer was strawberry "ice cream" (frozen banana, frozen strawberries, almond milk), and the top layer was chocolate "ice cream" (raw cacao, soaked raw cashews, dates, sea salt).

Yesterday was Halloween and I worked in Santanyí. We had parties in two of the classes (with food and games) and then in the other ones I simply talked about what was typical of Halloween in the states. Later in the evening I put on my costume with my roomies and we hung out before giong to an Italian's costume parties then to a dance club. I was basically the girl from Flashdance, Ellen was a mummy, Laura was an "art teacher from Hell," and Patty and Melody were both ghosts of Las Vegas hangovers. We were a pretty fun group to see walking along the street :).

l to r, melody, laura, patty, y ellen

Today was a holiday, Día de los Muertos, aka All Saints Day. It's a common holiday here in Europe, it actually has the same root as Halloween, but it kept its religious meaning after all these years and thus did not go down the certain secular path it did in America. Anyways, I went running with Ellen along the Med Sea and then worked on law school stuff. Lsat is just a month away! Can't wait until it is done. Here are more glimpses de la vida mallorquina