La Vida Valenciana: Mis Primeros Días en Valencia

It's hard to believe that almost a week has gone by since I left for Spain! Each day seems to go by faster than the last, and I'm becoming more and more busy every day. Last Friday was filled with orientation sessions. In the morning our orientation was in English (thank goodness!) because the professors wanted to make sure we understood all of the details about living in Valencia. We were given several maps of the city, a bus pass, and a folder full of information about Valencia. In the afternoon we had the academic orientation where we received our class schedules and were introduced to all of the professors and advisors. At the end of the day we had to sign a contract stating that we would only speak Spanish while in the school building. I'll need to start thinking in Spanish while I'm in school too, otherwise I know I'll slip up and say something in English accidently. Or maybe just put tape across my mouth....hmm haha.

After orientation I returned home for lunch with Adela, mi madre. She makes the most delicious food! We mostly have huge ensaladas (salads) for lunch with melon for dessert. She made gazpacho, a cold tomato-based soup, for dinner last night, and I love it! It was perfect because it's been soooo hot here lately. That afternoon I met up with some of the other students at a cerveceria (bar) for sangría, a fruity wine drink that's very common in Spain. I also purchased a cell phone, but am only going to use it to communicate with the other students in my program. Unfortunately, it's wayyy to expensive to use it for international calls.

Saturday was out first excursión! We went to Peñiscola, a small city about an hour and a half north of Valencia right on the Mediterranean. It was beautiful! We went to the beach for a couple hours right when we got there and then explored the city's castillo (castle). Adela packed me un bocadillo (sandwich) and some chocolate cookies (which promptly melted in the sun, boo) for lunch at the beach. Bocadillos are a staple food in Spain, and are basically a bagette with something, anything, inside. Usually some kind of meat and cheese, but they can also have potatoes in them. Here are some pictures from Peñiscola:

The streets of Peñiscola near the beach are full of tourist shops, ice cream stands, and cafes. Up towards the older part of the city, near el castillo, the streets are very narrow, curvy, and made of either bricks or small stones. At the end of the day I was exhausted from all the walking and from being in the sun. For once, though, I didn't get sun burned!

Sunday was a free day and I decided to spend it at the open air market in the morning and at the beach in the afternoon. I got lost trying to figure out the bus system, and never ended up making it to the market (oops haha) but explored La Plaza de la Reina and La Plaza de la Virgin instead because that's where my wrong bus took me. These two plazas are the most well know in Valencia and are separated by a huge basque-style cathedral. Absolutely breathtaking. I sat at a cafe in La Plaza de la Virgin drinking a Fanta Limón for the rest of the morning just people watching. A couple of the other students, Shauna and Bianca, met me in the plaza and we hopped on the (correct) bus to the beach. I definitely see myself spending a lot of days at the beach. The Meditteranean is GORGEOUS and soooo warm! It's like bath water and because there's so much salt it's impossible to sink. Almost every shop and office in Valencia is closed on Sundays and if the weather is nice, everyone goes to the beach. As I discovered on Sunday, the beach culture in Spain is so much different than that of the US....I've never seen so many boobs in my whole life, haha! Probably half of the women don't wear tops, all of the kids under 10 years old are naked, and the majority of the men wear Speedos. Yikes! So I'm going to apologize in advance for any future beach photos which may accidently contain naked people haha :p

Monday morning I had to take a profiency exam at school :s The professors just wanted to know which students may need more help than others (aka me!) and which are basically fluent (hopefully me at the end of the semester!). The vocabulary tripped my up pretty bad and of course they used a verb tense that I've always had trouble with. Right after the exam a few of us went to El Corte Inglés and the mall. El Corte is like a Macy's and was a perfect pick-me-up after the exam. At my orientation at the end of spring semester at MSU, we were told not to bring shorts because no one in Spain wears them. Wrong! All the girls in Spain my age wear them. So I bought a pair at the mall and immediately changed into them because it was almost 90 degrees out! They'll be perfect when I'm running late and just need something quick to throw on. After exploring the mall area I hopped on a bus to the historic center of Valencia near La Plaza de la Reina and met some of the professors and students for a walking tour. It was amazing! Here are some pictures from the tour: