My Time in Valencia

So readers, it comes time now to close out my little Spanish adventure, but fret not. We are far from finished and though we are done with this chapter, we move on to another. I will be traveling for another month and a half (give or take a few days), so the stories will continue, Internet connection permitting.

First I think it fair to recount my time in Valencia, the city I've called home for the past month. I lived with one other American girl, from the same program. We shared a bedroom, and across the hall in another spare bedroom was a Swiss girl named Tessa. Her mom is English, so she spoke it fluently, much to the dismay of Teresa, who would give us a swift slap on the wrist and insist that we speak in Spanish, a request we mostly obliged to. Then there was her son, a little younger than myself, but we never saw him. He was either in his bedroom smoking pot (not trying to hide it in the slightest) or out with his girlfriend. I hear she has a really nice house. After a couple weeks, two more girls moved in. They were both Irish, and I think they were doing a spanish course for three weeks. And then there was our host mom Teresa. So that was our full house.

The first two weeks were filled with pre-planned and pre-paid activities, or "excursions" as they called them to make it all sound more exciting.

Day 1 was a trip to the Ayuntamiento, a vocabulary word you might remember from my last blog meaning town hall. From there we walked around and saw much of the city. Our guide for the month, Pilar, I think was trying to give us all a setting to create a sort of mental map.

For the first week, everything felt extremely fast paced; our days were jam-packed and the days felt extremely long. On the 28th, we had our first day of classes. We met for an hour and a half of marketing, then each of us took a placement exam for the Spanish class. It seemed pretty clear to each student which class he or she was going to be put in, but we took the test all the same. I think for some reason the professors were expecting us all to be at a slightly lower level than we were, and once the class got started, I mostly regarded it as 2 hours of practice to keep my skills sharp. Our professor was a young(ish) man named David, and David was cool. He wore a leather bracelet and never anything fancier than torn jeans to class. Not quite as vibrant as my previous Spanish professors, but cool. He formatted his classes so that for the first half, we had a quick lecture that turned out to be more often than not, a discussion, and then after a short break, we would have a grammar lesson. The grammar lessons were an alright review, I guess, but how many times can you review certain concepts? The lectures were always worth a listen because he went over things like how to make paella and Agua de Valencia (a drink that is more liquor and not so much "agua"). He also taught us about interesting (key word) Valencian history and culture, like Las Fallas, where artists from all over make statues and bring them to Valencia every year in March to burn them in the plaza de Ayuntamiento. Seems a shame, yes, but it's part of their culture. Most can't give you a good reason why they do it, but to be honest, I dressed up as a carrot and a cellphone and various other hilarious inanimate objects and begged for candy every 31st of October and that seems quite a strange thing to do.

But I digress. After class the first day, we hopped on a bus to go to La Ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias, or the City of Arts and Sciences. It's not really a whole other city, but a street of really cool futuristic buildings, all of which are sitting in a pool of water. First we went to the Oceanographic, which I hear tell is the best aquarium in Europe. I've not been to the other aquariums in Europe, but it would be hard to beat this one. They had a dolphin show toward the end of the afternoon and it was SO cool. I couldn't begin to describe all the cool things they did, but videos will be up on facebook.

They have other cool museums there too, and one in particular had an IMAX theater, where we got to watch that one documentary about saving wild animals. I don't know the name, but it was narrated by Morgan Freeman, does that help?

We also had a couple cooking lessons, where we got to watch the cook make paella, tortilla, gazpacho, and sangria with play-by-play instructions. I've still yet to make any of these things on my own, but I can't imagine I'd be much good at it. As much as I can't imagine I'd ever want to make gazpacho, as gazpacho tastes like someone ate a garlic stuffed tomato and puked it back up and put it in the fridge for later, and that's at the best of times.

We also got to visit el bioparc, which you can probably translate for yourselves. It was a really really cool zoo where they had sooo many animals. If you know me well enough to be familiar with my love for animals, you won't be surprised to hear I was really excited. Giddy as a schoolgirl, you might say. It seems they've rescued so many poor animals from previous owners or zoos that either treated them poorly or didn't have the facilities to treat them well. Some were "damaged goods," like a rhino that was stuck in a cage too small that took to walking in continuous circles in an attempt to be able to move around enough, and continued to do so even when he was rescued and moved to an enclosure with a whole field full of space. Anyway, it's enough to make anyone sad, but also kind of hopeful in a way.

In our third week, we had a visit to the Plaza de Toros. Fortunately this was not to see an actual bull fight. We were guided through the tiny museum first, where we watched a short movie-edited for time but not content-of a bull fight. I didn't look, but from what I did see it's really, really cruel. I would think bull fighting a really cool and interesting part of history, but these fights still happen, and quite often. One part of Spanish culture I'll never be able to get my head around.

Lastly, we had a flamenco lesson. This was nothing short of awkward and hilarious, and even though morale was low and no one seemed thrilled about it, it turned out to be okay, because it was goofy and we could laugh at ourselves.

And that was the last of our "excursions" as they called them. We did have a handful of nights out, and to be honest there's not much to be said there. Sure we had tons of fun stealing about 50 free passes to Mya and doing botellón beforehand (the Spanish version of "pre-gaming" or drinking before you go to a club because it's much cheaper, but the Spanish do it in the streets, and guess what! It's perfectly legal!), but it was your standard fun night out where nothing extraordinary happened, and I'll point out that much of the time, that's a good thing. No, I won't bore you with the details but know this: Valencia has an awesome night life.

So, what did I think of Valencia? Well, the weather was amazing. It rained for a total of an hour or so the entire month I was there. I didn't like that everything felt so spread out. Perhaps I'm just spoiled with the ease of being able to hop in my car and drive myself wherever I want to go, but I just despised having to take three trains to school everyday, and three trains back. I loved my time there but I don't think I'll go back unless it's necessary. And don't misunderstand, when I say that, it's not to say that I didn't genuinely have an incredible experience that I'll remember for always. But there are other parts of Spain I enjoyed more. All in all, Spain is my home away from home, and I'm sad to leave it.

El mundo es un libro y ellos que no viajan leen solo una pagina.