At both the program center in Madrid and Alcalá, every Tuesday means one thing: tarta (CAKE) at the weekly meeting. Why? Well, in all honesty, no lo se. Most times it’s a birthday, but sometimes it seems like the program gets the tarta first, then decides what we’re celebrating. Guys, we should probably just celebrate the fact that we are all muy GOLOSOS. However, this week we have something awesome to tarta over: the winners of our Valencia Photo Contest!

If you haven’t checked out all the pictures, you can view them here. Out of all the fabulous pictures taken we had two winners, and two stories.

First Place Winner/Story #1: Matt Cohen

Having Matt Cohen in your study abroad group is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing in that he has a ridiculously good eye, happens to stumble upon the coolest things in Spain, and has no shame in taking sick pictures of strangers so anyone who is Facebook friends with him has access to an incredible library documenting our adventures in Spain. A curse in that he’s so good, he’s killing us in all these contests! Most pictures the kid takes get an average 10 likes on Facebook–whether he’s in one of our photo contests or just posting pics of his buds on the beach. He won our first contest from our trip to Segovia, won first place now, and even split second place in this same contest. Did I mention he’s a professional photographer? Yeah.

Matt Cohen Continues to Dominate by Splitting 2nd Place

Splitting Second Place with Matt/Story #2: Lynne Koester

Matt Cohen may be the group photographer, but Lynne Koester is the group comedian. Now, before going to Valencia, we’d all been through these corny-but-helpful culture workshops in which we were told how to avoid getting pick-pocketed. After a couple of weeks in Spain, our girl Lynne OWNED the tactics we were taught, as my bud Chris Harkins detailed on a blog post detailing a pick-pocket attempt he and Lynne experienced, “… it was so obvious she was trying to rob us.  Lynne made this karate chop motion with her left hand and hit this girl’s arm away from us and bellowed, “NO.”  I think the girl was taken aback and said some awkward curse in English.  Lynne raised up both her arms, yelling, yeah, “Yeah, you bet I am, bring it on.”” Like a boss. Yet somehow, those darned pick-pockets in Valencia got her, and this photo was taken at the scene of the crime, after the action. Though being robbed is most certainly the worst, our beloved “Lynnedy” took the experience in stride, “… 1,2,3 attempts to rob me and the 1 successful robbery.  That’s still a pretty good average.  AND two of the four stories involve attractive police officers.”

Enhorabuena amigos!