My first full day in Valencia. It already feels like I've been here forever.
This morning I woke up at 7:30 (!!!!!!!!! que temprano) and showered and ate some breakfast and had some coffee. We caught the bus over to school (it was decently quick but there's a big taxi strike going on right now so sometimes the buses get stuck behind their weird barricades or something so I think I'm going to walk since it's only like twenty minutes) and I was super early for our orientation session things.
We had two sessions, one for administrative stuff and one for academic. We got a map (supermegahelpful) in our folder of information, which definitely came in handy later in the day... Anyway, after the sessions, we split off into smaller groups that were supposedly "our neighbors" even though the only neighbors I know that I have for sure are Rach, TJ, and Adam; we had to sign THE PLEDGE there that says "something something I will not speak anything other than Spanish while in the school place area thing under penalty of death something something". Basically the rule is, if you're caught speaking English you write your name in a book. If it happens three times (I think), then you get sent home. I'm not really concerned for myself but everyone else... vamos a ver.
Despues de los sessions, we walked back towards where I live (Avenida de Peris y Valero) to find the phone store. Mi madre already had some phones from some of the girls that she has had stay with her in the past, so I only needed to buy a SIM card. Rach bought a phone last night, but TJ and Will needed to buy them. Adam too, but he needed to go home to see if his luggage had arrive yet (pobre de él).
HOWEVER, we forgot one very important thing: la siesta. Stores are literally closed between 2 and 5 in the afternoon. We got to Yoigo (the phone place) at 3, so it was obviously not open. Entonces we decided to all go home, eat, siesta, and meet back up at 5 ish when it reopened.
Backtracking a little bit (a lot) to our pre-departure meeting, one of the directors warned us that Spanish time ≠ American time. Today I realized that this is absolutely true. I went to meet with Adam to walk down to get Rach and TJ and head to the phone place, but neither of us had phones yet so we were relying on our sparse knowledge of the surrounding area. False. We both ended up at different bridges over the river (it's actually a dried up riverbed with garden and stuff but everyone calls it el río entonces yo también) and actually found each other by like 5:05. Only like twenty minutes late, not bad.
We went down to Yoigo, no sign of TJ or Rachel. Ok, we wait. 5:15ish, TJ shows up. Oh yeah, and Will lives kind of far away from the rest of us, so I told him we would meet him up by la Plaza del Toros a little bit north of where the phone store was. We wait for Rach. Still no Rach. 5:30. We go into the phone store and get started with the móviles. See Rach. I get my phone, she and I go next door to a little café/bar and make friends with the bartender (HE THOUGHT I WAS SPANISH WHAT UP). The guys get their phones and join us, and we hang out for a little bit before realizing we should probably go find Will. The guys head to Adam's to do... actually I don't know what they did, Rach and I stick around to finish our drinks, and we head towards the train station/Plaza del Toros area to finally meet up with everyone. By this point it is 6:30
OH YEAH and the original plan was to go to the beach. That was the whole idea. SO, we, using the handy dandy map so lovingly bestowed upon us by the UVA en Valencia people, headed up that way to find our people and head to la playa. I think we ended up at the train station at 7:15(ish). No sign of TJ, Adam, or Will. Ok, well we all (except Will) have phones now, so let's use them! Nothing. We wait. See some dogs. And some old people.
7:30, we get in touch with Will and Adam, they're "close"! Rach wanted to change her nose jewelry so we headed back to a tattoo/piercing place that we had passed on the way back. Got that taken care of, and while we were there, Adam got a call from Will! We told him where we were and finagled with the map a bit, and then headed to an intersection to wait. And lo and behold, we found him. Requetechevere.
Now, here is the really cool part of the story. Will ended up going by himself to Yoigo to get a phone so he could try to get in touch with us. While he was there, he asked the phone guy if he had seen a group of people, and described us. The phone guy told him yeah for sure they were in here earlier, and Will asked him if he could have one of our numbers AND HE SAID YES! Mil gracias, Yoigo guy, you helped us find our friend! (I didn't even think about the fact that Will supposedly didn't have a phone when we heard from him.) Supermegaguay.
So once we were all together (by this point it was already 8:30) it was obvious that our "5 o'clock get a phone and head to the beach" plan had completely failed. But it was totally okay. We had all walked around the area a little, got to know where we were, met some cool people, and eventually found each other in the end. We sat at a different little bar place right by my apartment for half an hour or so before all going home for dinner at 9:15, a totally normal time for dinner.
And now I'm hanging out in my room, typing this up. It's 10:30, and we have tentative plans to go out tonight at 11. At the rate today went, we'll probably end up meeting at 12:30 or so. But it's cool, no worries, supermegaguay.
Hasta luego!
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