They have the weirdest commercials here. Even though it's in Spanish, I still should be able to guess what the commercial is supposed to be advertising. There's a lot of kids jumping and laughing, and then parents join in too... And it was for a department store, El Corte Ingles.
I learned from Cristina today that on average, 10 people drown at the beach every summer. They have the flags to show you how dangerous the tide is: green means good, yellow means se caution, and red means "it's forbidden". She told me it's on red flag days that people don't listen to the screaming lifeguards and still go in the water anyways. I thought that was nice to hear on my first trip to the beach with the girls.
As requested from a fellow soccer fan, I need to inform everyone about the World Cup in Spain. Unfortunately, if you haven't heard already, the reigning champions (Spain) didn't make it through the first round this year. That definitely killed the mood here, but before we lost twice, there was some patriotism going on. On game day, everyone would hang their Spain flags outside their windows, people would wear their jerseys, and the bars and pubs were filled with screaming, inebriated fans. I got to experience the first game in Benidorm, a nearby city attainable by bus that one guy in my group expressed "it's the Las Vegas of Spain." I don't know if I agreed with that, everyone we saw out was at least 40+. But back to soccer, soccer is definitely the game here. They don't watch football games or basketball, it's soccer they sit around the TV and have fiestas for. It's a shame I don't get to experience it if Spain had won.
I'm sure the big news about Spain in the United States right now is the new king. I have learned a lot in the past week about the king and his family, and more specifically his mistresses. And that's it's totally accepted. Even the queen knows. He also recently had an accident while hunting where he had to get hip surgery, so everyone was a little relieved when he passed the crown down to his son, who I'm sure was very ready to take it.
The last thing I'm going to mention in this blog post is the festival going on this weekend. It's called the Festival de Hugueres. That translates to bonfires. On Friday they set up these huge, gorgeous sculptures around the center of Alicante that artists created, and on the last day, the 24th, they burn them. Cristina told me it's not dangerous, but that it's controlled with firemen and hoses, but I'm sure I won't really be able to explain it until I see it for myself.