El castillo
La playa
Monday, June 3, 2013
Fotos de Peñíscola
Sunburn for days
This weekend was seriously one of the best I've ever had, even if I'm sunburned on my back so badly that I can barely sit down and/or carry my backpack around.
Friday night a bunch of us went out for tapas, and they were as good as everyone had made them out to be. If you don't know how tapas works, it's pretty simple: there's a huge buffet-style lineup of slices of bread that have various stuff on top of them. You grab a plate and pick the ones you want. Every individual piece has one of three toothpicks in it, and each toothpick is priced differently -- I think the prices were 1.35, 1.70, and 2.00 depending on which toothpick you got. So anyways, you just pick the ones you want and hang out for as long as you want to, and at the end you just take your toothpicks up to the front and pay for what you ate. They also have sangria, so of course we were all over that. It's 10 euros for a liter, AND it's delicious, so you really can't go wrong.
After tapas on Friday, I went home and showered before meeting up with Rachel so we could go over to Will's side of town to check out the bars and clubs over there. We met up and walked up towards the train station and called Will to make sure we were going the right way (in retrospect we shouldn't have done that at all since that just ended up screwing us over), and he gave us some directions that we completely misinterpreted. So, instead of crossing in front of the train tracks and going, I don't know, four or so blocks down to meet Will and Ben and Sergi, we walked ALL THE WAY BACK DOWN our side of the train tracks, through a parking lot, the sidewalk ended, crossed a bridge that said "PELIGROSO" "ILEGAL" "NO SE USA", thought we were going to die, pretty sure we saw some drug deals, got stared at by sketchy teenagers in alleyways, and eventually found our way to the guys after a solid hour, hour and a half of wandering around Valencia. This appears to be a common theme in my life.
It all turned out fine in the end though, and we headed up to Barrio Carmen to see what kind of stuff was going on. Found a couple of fun clubs, and ended up at one that played mostly old school American music (Greased Lightening, among others that I can't remember, but seriously it was all American stuff). Those places are a time sucker though -- by the time we left there it was probably around 4 or so? We left and were going to check out somewhere else, and a promoter-type guy came up and told us about his club or whatever, so we decided we would go check it out. Now, normally these places are at the most a block or so away, but this one was a good ten, fifteen minute walk... First bad omen. We eventually got there and went downstairs and it was mad sketchy, and Sergi took one look around and said "Peligroso" (dangerous), and since he's actually from Valencia we decided that we could sit this one out and we all flew back up the stairs and out. We hung out by the bullfighting arena/train station for a little longer, and at around 5 parted ways and headed home. I'm really glad Rach and I live so close together, since it makes going home late at night way less terrifying (not that it's terrifying, but walking anywhere at 5 am is always a little frightening).
Saturday morning we left for Peñíscola at 11am. It was absolutely GORGEOUS, I'll put some pictures up later today. We spent a few hours at the beach, and then went up to the castle overlooking the city. After taking far too many pictures and spending far too much time laughing at absolutely stupid things, we went to a little café and got some sangria, paella, and agua de Valencia. I didn't actually eat any of the paella, because I had eaten my bocadillo pretty recently, but the sangria and agua were quite delicious.
After getting home from Peñíscola and surveying my lovely sunburn, Rach and I headed over to meet Kate and Erica at a place near school called El Castillo (I think...) where you can get a chupito or cerveza for 1 euro, which is crazy cheap. The bartenders kind of suck, but they don't make tips here, so there isn't that extra incentive to provide excellent service. Working in the foodservice industry, I can't decided which system I like better. In the States, you really have to make an effort to be nice to everyone, and you have the chance to make a lot more money than you would ever make here as a bartender. But you also might get a shitty table, or multiple shitty tables, or it could be a really slow Wednesday night and you only get two tables, and on those days you basically make nothing. At least here you're guaranteed some amount of money (technically we are too in the States, but let's be real that all goes to taxes).
After El Castillo the five of us (Phillip showed up eventually) grabbed a couple taxis and went down to check out the club scene down at the beach. We went to a place called High Cube for a little bit, and then wanted to go to Las Animas. Apparently if you go in before 2:30 it's free, but of course we were unable to take advantage of that little perk. We waited in line and ended up talking to these crazy British people the entire time. It was definitely amusing; we got in line right behind them and after about a minute one of them turned around and said something to the effect of "YOU'RE SPEAKING ENGLISH ARE YOU FROM AMERICA OH THIS IS GREAT". Apparently they had all been here 6 months to a year, so they also all spoke Spanish decently. We didn't end up going to Las Animas, and decided to head back to High Cube, but on the way we ran into a few people from Scotland. Well, one of them was from either Edinborough or Glasgow -- he was appalled that we didn't know the difference between the two but I never actually found out where he was from -- but the other one was from Reno, Nevada and spoke with a strange accent that was half laxbro and half Scottish bagpipe player. At some point we found Will, wandering alone out of High Cube, so we scooped him up and all sort of just walked into the club. Totally cool with not having to pay though. We ended up going home at 5 or so, once again.
Sunday was interesting, mostly because all of my electronic devices died and so our plans to go to the beach at noon completely failed due to the fact that I didn't wake up until around 2. Rach was apparently convinced that I was dead, but I actually was not. After eating lunch I hopped on the bus and headed to the beach to meet up with Rach, Kate, and Erica. We tanned and napped and chatted for a few hours, and at 6 got on a bus to the city center to go back and have tapas (seriously guys, tapas). Apparently there was this huge religious festival thing going on with candles and large fake people and turtles and wolf-dragons, so walking back through the crowds was an experience. Oh, and we got some ice cream at some point too. So yeah.
We meandered back through the city to get back home, and I think I got home around 9:15 or 9:30. I was planning on staying up and doing my homework, but I'm pretty sure I passed out at around 10... oops. However, that meant that I was able to wake up at 7:30 and head to school way early so I could finish it before class. Which brings me to where I am right now, sitting in the cafeteria, wishing I had more coffee, and trying to kill the next half hour of time that I have before I have to go to art. I'll probably end up studying for my supermegahorrible medical Spanish midterm that I have tomorrow. Or I might head down towards the Mercadona (one of the grocery store chains here) to get something to eat for lunch, because my madre was mysteriously not awake that I could tell when I left for class this morning. Vamos a ver.
Hasta luego!
Friday night a bunch of us went out for tapas, and they were as good as everyone had made them out to be. If you don't know how tapas works, it's pretty simple: there's a huge buffet-style lineup of slices of bread that have various stuff on top of them. You grab a plate and pick the ones you want. Every individual piece has one of three toothpicks in it, and each toothpick is priced differently -- I think the prices were 1.35, 1.70, and 2.00 depending on which toothpick you got. So anyways, you just pick the ones you want and hang out for as long as you want to, and at the end you just take your toothpicks up to the front and pay for what you ate. They also have sangria, so of course we were all over that. It's 10 euros for a liter, AND it's delicious, so you really can't go wrong.
After tapas on Friday, I went home and showered before meeting up with Rachel so we could go over to Will's side of town to check out the bars and clubs over there. We met up and walked up towards the train station and called Will to make sure we were going the right way (in retrospect we shouldn't have done that at all since that just ended up screwing us over), and he gave us some directions that we completely misinterpreted. So, instead of crossing in front of the train tracks and going, I don't know, four or so blocks down to meet Will and Ben and Sergi, we walked ALL THE WAY BACK DOWN our side of the train tracks, through a parking lot, the sidewalk ended, crossed a bridge that said "PELIGROSO" "ILEGAL" "NO SE USA", thought we were going to die, pretty sure we saw some drug deals, got stared at by sketchy teenagers in alleyways, and eventually found our way to the guys after a solid hour, hour and a half of wandering around Valencia. This appears to be a common theme in my life.
It all turned out fine in the end though, and we headed up to Barrio Carmen to see what kind of stuff was going on. Found a couple of fun clubs, and ended up at one that played mostly old school American music (Greased Lightening, among others that I can't remember, but seriously it was all American stuff). Those places are a time sucker though -- by the time we left there it was probably around 4 or so? We left and were going to check out somewhere else, and a promoter-type guy came up and told us about his club or whatever, so we decided we would go check it out. Now, normally these places are at the most a block or so away, but this one was a good ten, fifteen minute walk... First bad omen. We eventually got there and went downstairs and it was mad sketchy, and Sergi took one look around and said "Peligroso" (dangerous), and since he's actually from Valencia we decided that we could sit this one out and we all flew back up the stairs and out. We hung out by the bullfighting arena/train station for a little longer, and at around 5 parted ways and headed home. I'm really glad Rach and I live so close together, since it makes going home late at night way less terrifying (not that it's terrifying, but walking anywhere at 5 am is always a little frightening).
Saturday morning we left for Peñíscola at 11am. It was absolutely GORGEOUS, I'll put some pictures up later today. We spent a few hours at the beach, and then went up to the castle overlooking the city. After taking far too many pictures and spending far too much time laughing at absolutely stupid things, we went to a little café and got some sangria, paella, and agua de Valencia. I didn't actually eat any of the paella, because I had eaten my bocadillo pretty recently, but the sangria and agua were quite delicious.
After getting home from Peñíscola and surveying my lovely sunburn, Rach and I headed over to meet Kate and Erica at a place near school called El Castillo (I think...) where you can get a chupito or cerveza for 1 euro, which is crazy cheap. The bartenders kind of suck, but they don't make tips here, so there isn't that extra incentive to provide excellent service. Working in the foodservice industry, I can't decided which system I like better. In the States, you really have to make an effort to be nice to everyone, and you have the chance to make a lot more money than you would ever make here as a bartender. But you also might get a shitty table, or multiple shitty tables, or it could be a really slow Wednesday night and you only get two tables, and on those days you basically make nothing. At least here you're guaranteed some amount of money (technically we are too in the States, but let's be real that all goes to taxes).
After El Castillo the five of us (Phillip showed up eventually) grabbed a couple taxis and went down to check out the club scene down at the beach. We went to a place called High Cube for a little bit, and then wanted to go to Las Animas. Apparently if you go in before 2:30 it's free, but of course we were unable to take advantage of that little perk. We waited in line and ended up talking to these crazy British people the entire time. It was definitely amusing; we got in line right behind them and after about a minute one of them turned around and said something to the effect of "YOU'RE SPEAKING ENGLISH ARE YOU FROM AMERICA OH THIS IS GREAT". Apparently they had all been here 6 months to a year, so they also all spoke Spanish decently. We didn't end up going to Las Animas, and decided to head back to High Cube, but on the way we ran into a few people from Scotland. Well, one of them was from either Edinborough or Glasgow -- he was appalled that we didn't know the difference between the two but I never actually found out where he was from -- but the other one was from Reno, Nevada and spoke with a strange accent that was half laxbro and half Scottish bagpipe player. At some point we found Will, wandering alone out of High Cube, so we scooped him up and all sort of just walked into the club. Totally cool with not having to pay though. We ended up going home at 5 or so, once again.
Sunday was interesting, mostly because all of my electronic devices died and so our plans to go to the beach at noon completely failed due to the fact that I didn't wake up until around 2. Rach was apparently convinced that I was dead, but I actually was not. After eating lunch I hopped on the bus and headed to the beach to meet up with Rach, Kate, and Erica. We tanned and napped and chatted for a few hours, and at 6 got on a bus to the city center to go back and have tapas (seriously guys, tapas). Apparently there was this huge religious festival thing going on with candles and large fake people and turtles and wolf-dragons, so walking back through the crowds was an experience. Oh, and we got some ice cream at some point too. So yeah.
We meandered back through the city to get back home, and I think I got home around 9:15 or 9:30. I was planning on staying up and doing my homework, but I'm pretty sure I passed out at around 10... oops. However, that meant that I was able to wake up at 7:30 and head to school way early so I could finish it before class. Which brings me to where I am right now, sitting in the cafeteria, wishing I had more coffee, and trying to kill the next half hour of time that I have before I have to go to art. I'll probably end up studying for my supermegahorrible medical Spanish midterm that I have tomorrow. Or I might head down towards the Mercadona (one of the grocery store chains here) to get something to eat for lunch, because my madre was mysteriously not awake that I could tell when I left for class this morning. Vamos a ver.
Hasta luego!
Friday, May 31, 2013
Yes Grandma, I'm still alive
Well, things have definitely gotten more interesting since Tuesday!
Classes are going well -- midterms start next week, but I feel like we've barely had class... I'm not worried about art (seriously, we just have to be able to describe how the colors in the paintings make us feel and stuff like that), and Medical Spanish isn't going to be as awful as I originally had thought, since most of the medical terms are things I've already learned thanks to Kinesiology.
I want to take a second to appreciate how amazing the weather is here. Even when it's chilly or windy or less than 80 degrees (which it isn't often), it's still gorgeous. The sun is pretty much always shining. The people here are always happy. It's a great place to be going to university, and I'm sure it's an amazing place to live for an extended period of time.
So, I suppose a quick rundown of the past two days is in order.
Wednesday: definitely a day for homework. I spent a good chunk of the afternoon studying for Medical Spanish and trying to cut chunks out of my enormous list of vocabulary. We've also found an awesome little cafe really close to the school, so between my morning and afternoon class a few of us always head over there and have a café and tell awful jokes and eat our bocadillos before heading back to la universidad para finish all of our studying (except TJ, because he NEVER HAS HOMEWORK). We also discovered this wonderful store called "Quality Beers" -- it's exactly what it sounds like. They have beers from all over Europe, including some locally brewed stuff, and they also have an America section (woo) with a ton of IPAs from California, and also Sam Adams Boston Lager, of course. The Quality Beers people were super nice and told us we spoke Spanish well, so that was awesome too. A bunch of us were supposed to meet up for tapas, but Will and I somehow got turned around a little bit while walking there and everyone had already finished by the time we met up with them. I think we're trying to go again to a different tapas place tonight, so I might actually get a chance to try something.
Thursday: SUPERGUAY. Went to class, went to the café, went to my other class, and received a text from TJ as I was leaving class that simply said "Come 2 beach". Of course, I "went 2 beach", but it took a solid hour and a half to run home, say hi to my madre, drop my stuff off, go catch the bus to the beach, and then find everyone. But, when I got there, everyone had just started playing beach volleyball so that was awesome. We're all pretty awful, but it was more awful in a hilarious way. After we finished that, we hung out in the water for a little bit (THE WATER IS AWESOME, it's a bit saltier than the Atlantic so you can float really well, and it's really shallow for a decent distance out, so you can go out pretty far without drowning. We all headed home to eat dinner, and Rach, Katerina, Jane and I ended up meeting up at Beer to hang out and see our favorite bartender, Fani. She ended up talking to us for a while about her life and her son and her family, and she is seriously such an interesting person. She was saying how her son is about to start preschool this year, and she's singing him up for English classes in the afternoons so that he can have the opportunity to learn English at a young age (she speaks Spanish and Italian, but only a tiny bit of English), and I found that so awesome. I guess in the States we really take knowing English for granted, but don't really think about the fact that it's so widespread as far as business goes. Lots of Spanish people are really excited when they find out you speak English -- they all want to practice their speaking. Of course, that doesn't help when we're here to practice our Spanish, but whatever. I think it helps break down language barriers when both parties in a conversation know two of the same languages instead of one person knowing one language and the other person knowing two -- it's easier to look for words that both people know because you have access to two people's entire vocabularies in two different languages. If that makes sense.
So yep, that's been my week so far. I have my second class of the day in... sixteen minutes. I was going to study, but that sort of didn't happen. Oh well. I'm excited for it to be the weekend -- we're going to Peñíscola tomorrow so that's an entire day at the beach yay! And probably studying on Sunday, since I have exams at the beginning of the week.
Hasta luego!
Classes are going well -- midterms start next week, but I feel like we've barely had class... I'm not worried about art (seriously, we just have to be able to describe how the colors in the paintings make us feel and stuff like that), and Medical Spanish isn't going to be as awful as I originally had thought, since most of the medical terms are things I've already learned thanks to Kinesiology.
I want to take a second to appreciate how amazing the weather is here. Even when it's chilly or windy or less than 80 degrees (which it isn't often), it's still gorgeous. The sun is pretty much always shining. The people here are always happy. It's a great place to be going to university, and I'm sure it's an amazing place to live for an extended period of time.
So, I suppose a quick rundown of the past two days is in order.
Wednesday: definitely a day for homework. I spent a good chunk of the afternoon studying for Medical Spanish and trying to cut chunks out of my enormous list of vocabulary. We've also found an awesome little cafe really close to the school, so between my morning and afternoon class a few of us always head over there and have a café and tell awful jokes and eat our bocadillos before heading back to la universidad para finish all of our studying (except TJ, because he NEVER HAS HOMEWORK). We also discovered this wonderful store called "Quality Beers" -- it's exactly what it sounds like. They have beers from all over Europe, including some locally brewed stuff, and they also have an America section (woo) with a ton of IPAs from California, and also Sam Adams Boston Lager, of course. The Quality Beers people were super nice and told us we spoke Spanish well, so that was awesome too. A bunch of us were supposed to meet up for tapas, but Will and I somehow got turned around a little bit while walking there and everyone had already finished by the time we met up with them. I think we're trying to go again to a different tapas place tonight, so I might actually get a chance to try something.
Thursday: SUPERGUAY. Went to class, went to the café, went to my other class, and received a text from TJ as I was leaving class that simply said "Come 2 beach". Of course, I "went 2 beach", but it took a solid hour and a half to run home, say hi to my madre, drop my stuff off, go catch the bus to the beach, and then find everyone. But, when I got there, everyone had just started playing beach volleyball so that was awesome. We're all pretty awful, but it was more awful in a hilarious way. After we finished that, we hung out in the water for a little bit (THE WATER IS AWESOME, it's a bit saltier than the Atlantic so you can float really well, and it's really shallow for a decent distance out, so you can go out pretty far without drowning. We all headed home to eat dinner, and Rach, Katerina, Jane and I ended up meeting up at Beer to hang out and see our favorite bartender, Fani. She ended up talking to us for a while about her life and her son and her family, and she is seriously such an interesting person. She was saying how her son is about to start preschool this year, and she's singing him up for English classes in the afternoons so that he can have the opportunity to learn English at a young age (she speaks Spanish and Italian, but only a tiny bit of English), and I found that so awesome. I guess in the States we really take knowing English for granted, but don't really think about the fact that it's so widespread as far as business goes. Lots of Spanish people are really excited when they find out you speak English -- they all want to practice their speaking. Of course, that doesn't help when we're here to practice our Spanish, but whatever. I think it helps break down language barriers when both parties in a conversation know two of the same languages instead of one person knowing one language and the other person knowing two -- it's easier to look for words that both people know because you have access to two people's entire vocabularies in two different languages. If that makes sense.
So yep, that's been my week so far. I have my second class of the day in... sixteen minutes. I was going to study, but that sort of didn't happen. Oh well. I'm excited for it to be the weekend -- we're going to Peñíscola tomorrow so that's an entire day at the beach yay! And probably studying on Sunday, since I have exams at the beginning of the week.
Hasta luego!
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
No me gustan los martes
I've always said that Tuesdays are worse than Mondays, and no one ever agrees with me. Here's my reasoning: you're prepared for Monday to suck. You're coming off the high of two full days without having to go to school or work or whatever, you probably did really cool and/or fun stuff over the course of those two days, and on Sunday night you begrudgingly get into bed knowing full well that tomorrow you have to stumble into the shower and try to become a real person again. Maybe you almost get run over by a car (not like I'm speaking from experience at all because that TOTALLY didn't happen yesterday), or go the wrong way on the metro, or walk around in the rain and get a weird blister on your foot, but you don't care because you blame it on it being Monday.
Tuesdays, however, Tuesdays are sneaky. You're so happy when Monday is over and done with, and you're excited to be one day closer to the next weekend, but really you're still closer to the last weekend than the next one. Tuesday is like Monday, except instead of coming down from your awesome weekend high, you're slowly struggling up from your awful Monday, and you're still three whole days away from the weekend. So yeah, Tuesdays, not my favorite.
Not to say that today sucked, but it was the first really normal day that I've had here -- I woke up, I went to class, I ate lunch, I did some homework, I went to class, I went home, I ate dinner, and I did some more homework. I think it was good though, because I finally got some time to unwind while actually being awake (I've been doing all of my unwinding while asleep up until now), and once I finished my muscle-labeling worksheets for Medical Spanish, it almost felt like a normal Tuesday night stuck at home with nothing to do except waste time on the computer. I know I should be exploring the city or putting my time to good use by learning the eight hundred thousand vocab words I'm going to need to know for my Medical Spanish midterm next week, but I have six more days (I think) until that exam, so I'm just gonna leave it for now.
Tomorrow I promise I'll do something more interesting. I'm just blaming today's overall lackluster on it being a Tuesday.
Hasta luego!
Monday, May 27, 2013
Vale vale vale vale vale
Yesterday was Sunday (I think... I can't keep track of the days. Yes. Sunday) and Valencia c.f. played Granada c.f. -- those are soccer/fútbol teams in case you were wondering. A bunch of us, probably ten, maybe fifteen, bought tickets to the game and all ended up sitting together ten or so rows back, right on the corner of the field. Now, if you've ever been to a D.C. United game and you're thinking oh cool wow soccer how fun NOT, let me just say that on a Sunday night at 8:00, the stadium was almost completely full. It was amazing. Rachel and I bought Valencia tee shirts (actually pajama shirts, shhhh) and huge flags and wore them like capes, and as cliché as it sounds, it was really awesome to really feel like a part of this huge city. There was an adorable little boy behind me sitting with his dad and he kept asking questions like "cuando eras joven, eras futbolista?" y "papí, vamos a ganar, SI? SI? SI?" and his dad was super patient and answered every question, even if it was the fourth time he had heard it. It was precious.
Anyway, we won (WOOOOOOO VAMOS), and after the game a few of us went in search of something fun to do/somewhere fun to go, and happened upon the Festival of the Nations (I think that's what it translates to, I don't know if that's actually what it was even called) which was basically just a huge bazaar-type thing with food tents and buying-stuff tents from tons of different countries. I finally got my hands on some "Mexican food," something I've been craving since I got here. Okay, so maybe it was a ham and cheese quesadilla but it came from a tent that said Mexico and sold tequila so that's probably as close as I'm going to get in Spain so vale.
Oh look at that, a perfect segue into my favorite thing about Spain so far: the word "vale". Pronounced [ba-le], it's this beautiful interjection that you can pretty much use to mean any combination of "OK, yes, fine, sounds good, see you there, yes I admit you're right and I'm wrong" and anything else you can think of. I'm pretty sure it either starts or ends every single sentence that everyone says here.
Another really interesting thing I've noticed in the past week is how informal everyone is with their speech. Honestly I probably only notice this because I'm fresh out of Hispanic Sociolinguistics this past semester, but it's seriously fascinating. When people in the States start to learn a foreign language, the first thing everyone wants to know is "how do I say bitch?" "how do I say fuck" etc etc. But seriously, cursing is not a big deal here. People call their children, dogs, husbands, friends, really whoever, things like "coño" y "puta" y "cabrón" and no one bats an eye! The first time I heard it I was honestly a little shocked, because it's not really acceptable to call people those things in public in the States... But my art professor today was explaining the history of the War of Spanish Succession and every so often he would say, in English, "Espain es deeferent," and I think that sums it up perfectly. Everything here feels more hectic than at home, but more relaxed at the same time. I know that makes literally no sense, but you have to see it to understand.
Anyway, after the game and the festival last night, I went home and crashed. My sleeping patterns have been really weird the past couple days -- I wake up at around 4:30 or 5 every night and can't fall back asleep until 7 or so, and then wake back up at 9 or 9:30 to go to class. I don't know if it's jetlag or leftover sleep weirdness from finals or lo que sea, but hopefully it straightens itself out because I really really love sleep and I'd prefer a full night's worth of it if possible.
Oh, and I had my first experience with the Valencia Metro today! It's honestly exactly like the D.C. metro, only cheaper. It's a flat rate no matter where you go (seriously D.C., take some lessons from Valencia because paying 6 bucks to get to a Nats game from Vienna metro really sucks), and you can change trains as many times as you want. We may have almost gotten lost once or twice, but we eventually ended up at our destination, the mall! I told myself I wasn't going to buy anything, but there was this really awesome long knit blue, white and orange sweater, and this other orange dress, and they were both on sale, and how could I resist UVA colored clothing in Spain on sale? It was fate.
I feel like I'm finally settling into a schedule here, which is really nice. I'm definitely the type of person who likes to have her days planned out before they happen, so I'm glad that I have class at the same time every day, and can rely on having coffee ready in the morning before I go to school, and showering at the same time, y todo eso.
I guess to wrap things up, I'll say that even though I leave in 25 days (actually sad already), I'm still so excited for everything I have to look forward to. This weekend we have an excursion to Peñíscola, a beachy-place-thing about an hour away -- I'll actually wake up for this excursion, unlike Xátiva -- and then next weekend is Madrid (WOOO) and the weekend after we're taking a train up to Barcelona for this SUPERMEGAREQUETEGUAY music festival called Sónar. Seriously though, it's going to be insanely cool. The lineup for Friday night includes Skrillex, Two Door Cinema Club, Major Lazer, Diplo, Baauer... there are 30 or so acts scheduled between 10pm and 7am, and tickets are only like 66 euros. Like I said, insane. After that, I have a week left and then finals and then back to the States, I suppose. The UVA en Valencia people might have to drag me kicking and screaming onto the plane, though. I can tell you already that I'm going to hate leaving.
(Also, if my English sounds a little strange, can someone let me know? I've noticed in my speech that I sort of speak with the cadence of Spanish, but using English words, and every day it gets more difficult to communicate easily in English. I know that's the whole point of being here, but I'm still interested.)
Hasta luego!
Anyway, we won (WOOOOOOO VAMOS), and after the game a few of us went in search of something fun to do/somewhere fun to go, and happened upon the Festival of the Nations (I think that's what it translates to, I don't know if that's actually what it was even called) which was basically just a huge bazaar-type thing with food tents and buying-stuff tents from tons of different countries. I finally got my hands on some "Mexican food," something I've been craving since I got here. Okay, so maybe it was a ham and cheese quesadilla but it came from a tent that said Mexico and sold tequila so that's probably as close as I'm going to get in Spain so vale.
Oh look at that, a perfect segue into my favorite thing about Spain so far: the word "vale". Pronounced [ba-le], it's this beautiful interjection that you can pretty much use to mean any combination of "OK, yes, fine, sounds good, see you there, yes I admit you're right and I'm wrong" and anything else you can think of. I'm pretty sure it either starts or ends every single sentence that everyone says here.
Another really interesting thing I've noticed in the past week is how informal everyone is with their speech. Honestly I probably only notice this because I'm fresh out of Hispanic Sociolinguistics this past semester, but it's seriously fascinating. When people in the States start to learn a foreign language, the first thing everyone wants to know is "how do I say bitch?" "how do I say fuck" etc etc. But seriously, cursing is not a big deal here. People call their children, dogs, husbands, friends, really whoever, things like "coño" y "puta" y "cabrón" and no one bats an eye! The first time I heard it I was honestly a little shocked, because it's not really acceptable to call people those things in public in the States... But my art professor today was explaining the history of the War of Spanish Succession and every so often he would say, in English, "Espain es deeferent," and I think that sums it up perfectly. Everything here feels more hectic than at home, but more relaxed at the same time. I know that makes literally no sense, but you have to see it to understand.
Anyway, after the game and the festival last night, I went home and crashed. My sleeping patterns have been really weird the past couple days -- I wake up at around 4:30 or 5 every night and can't fall back asleep until 7 or so, and then wake back up at 9 or 9:30 to go to class. I don't know if it's jetlag or leftover sleep weirdness from finals or lo que sea, but hopefully it straightens itself out because I really really love sleep and I'd prefer a full night's worth of it if possible.
Oh, and I had my first experience with the Valencia Metro today! It's honestly exactly like the D.C. metro, only cheaper. It's a flat rate no matter where you go (seriously D.C., take some lessons from Valencia because paying 6 bucks to get to a Nats game from Vienna metro really sucks), and you can change trains as many times as you want. We may have almost gotten lost once or twice, but we eventually ended up at our destination, the mall! I told myself I wasn't going to buy anything, but there was this really awesome long knit blue, white and orange sweater, and this other orange dress, and they were both on sale, and how could I resist UVA colored clothing in Spain on sale? It was fate.
I feel like I'm finally settling into a schedule here, which is really nice. I'm definitely the type of person who likes to have her days planned out before they happen, so I'm glad that I have class at the same time every day, and can rely on having coffee ready in the morning before I go to school, and showering at the same time, y todo eso.
I guess to wrap things up, I'll say that even though I leave in 25 days (actually sad already), I'm still so excited for everything I have to look forward to. This weekend we have an excursion to Peñíscola, a beachy-place-thing about an hour away -- I'll actually wake up for this excursion, unlike Xátiva -- and then next weekend is Madrid (WOOO) and the weekend after we're taking a train up to Barcelona for this SUPERMEGAREQUETEGUAY music festival called Sónar. Seriously though, it's going to be insanely cool. The lineup for Friday night includes Skrillex, Two Door Cinema Club, Major Lazer, Diplo, Baauer... there are 30 or so acts scheduled between 10pm and 7am, and tickets are only like 66 euros. Like I said, insane. After that, I have a week left and then finals and then back to the States, I suppose. The UVA en Valencia people might have to drag me kicking and screaming onto the plane, though. I can tell you already that I'm going to hate leaving.
(Also, if my English sounds a little strange, can someone let me know? I've noticed in my speech that I sort of speak with the cadence of Spanish, but using English words, and every day it gets more difficult to communicate easily in English. I know that's the whole point of being here, but I'm still interested.)
Hasta luego!
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Here are some pictures of what I've seen and done so far
Beach
L'Umbracle
The Asia store (like a dollar store or Five Below). Whenever you need something, this is where you get it.
Estación del Norte
Palau de la Música Catalana (I pass this every day on the way to school, it's right along the riverbed)
Ladrones y playas y clubes, oh my!
The people at orientation weren't kidding when they said night life in Valencia never stops. A bunch of us went out last night, first to a bar a couple blocks away from where we live, and then to this INSANE WONDERFUL AMAZING MAGICAL place called L'Umbracle. Rachel and I somehow managed to take an entire hour to go approximately four blocks to the bar we had been to the night before. I honestly don't know how it happened, but by the time we got there everyone was stoked to go to whatever club they had found out about (it ended up being L'Umbracle), so we hung out for a little and then headed over. It was a 15 euro cover charge, which at first seemed really awful and not worth it at all because no one was really dancing in the area that we were in, there weren't that many people there, and it was already almost 3 o'clock so we assumed that it just wasn't happening. I was also a little frustrated that it was 15 euros and not really that cool, but I figured we had learned our lesson and just wouldn't come back
However, in a very fortuitous turn of events, Rachel and I went in search of a bathroom. We asked the bartender where it was, and she said downstairs, so we walked down the stairs, turned a corner, and discovered what I like to call the dubstep dungeon -- underneath the original place near where you walk in, there was this huge room with platforms and a giant DJ set up and a bar and TONS of people dancing. We called the people we were with and told them to meet us at the top of the stairs. They were kind of confused, which was understandable because it really didn't look like there was anything down there. There weren't any signs or anything to indicate that right below your feet there was something much, much better.
So we danced. And we danced. And we danced some more. It was awesome. So much house music, a little bit of dubstep, a lot of American songs. It was like Trinity's cool older European cousin on steroids. I think most of the guys ended up heading home around 4:30 or 5, but Rach Kate and I left at 6:30 in the morning and the sun had already risen and it was a very surreal experience. We grabbed a cab home and passed out. Rach and I were scheduled to go to this mountain castle place thing (Xátiva) today, but decided to sleep and go to the beach instead.
The beaches here are awesome. In the states, there isn't much of the sandy part, so everyone is crammed together and it's impossible to find a space and everyone is annoying. There's so much sand here, and the sand itself is so much lighter and finer than what we have back home. It's gorgeous. The water was FREEZING, but our feet were pretty sore after all of the dancing last night, so it felt pretty good. We hung out and tanned and buried ourselves in the sand. Some dude grabbed my beach bag and took my iPhone out of it (not my dinky Spanish flip phone), and Rachel ran after him and said something along the lines of "Tienes mi telefono? Ya lo sé, dámelo." and he just looked kind of sheepish and handed it back, so that was fun. Phillip met up with us right after that and we looked around this cool little store thing, hung out by the sand for a while, and then took the bus home.
I don't really know where my host family is right now... I took a shower and I guess I missed dinner since I was at the beach, but I have some croissants so that's dinner for me! I think Rach and I are going to go explore around our neighborhood tonight, apparently there are some cool smaller bars and places like that pretty close to us.
Hasta luego!
However, in a very fortuitous turn of events, Rachel and I went in search of a bathroom. We asked the bartender where it was, and she said downstairs, so we walked down the stairs, turned a corner, and discovered what I like to call the dubstep dungeon -- underneath the original place near where you walk in, there was this huge room with platforms and a giant DJ set up and a bar and TONS of people dancing. We called the people we were with and told them to meet us at the top of the stairs. They were kind of confused, which was understandable because it really didn't look like there was anything down there. There weren't any signs or anything to indicate that right below your feet there was something much, much better.
So we danced. And we danced. And we danced some more. It was awesome. So much house music, a little bit of dubstep, a lot of American songs. It was like Trinity's cool older European cousin on steroids. I think most of the guys ended up heading home around 4:30 or 5, but Rach Kate and I left at 6:30 in the morning and the sun had already risen and it was a very surreal experience. We grabbed a cab home and passed out. Rach and I were scheduled to go to this mountain castle place thing (Xátiva) today, but decided to sleep and go to the beach instead.
The beaches here are awesome. In the states, there isn't much of the sandy part, so everyone is crammed together and it's impossible to find a space and everyone is annoying. There's so much sand here, and the sand itself is so much lighter and finer than what we have back home. It's gorgeous. The water was FREEZING, but our feet were pretty sore after all of the dancing last night, so it felt pretty good. We hung out and tanned and buried ourselves in the sand. Some dude grabbed my beach bag and took my iPhone out of it (not my dinky Spanish flip phone), and Rachel ran after him and said something along the lines of "Tienes mi telefono? Ya lo sé, dámelo." and he just looked kind of sheepish and handed it back, so that was fun. Phillip met up with us right after that and we looked around this cool little store thing, hung out by the sand for a while, and then took the bus home.
I don't really know where my host family is right now... I took a shower and I guess I missed dinner since I was at the beach, but I have some croissants so that's dinner for me! I think Rach and I are going to go explore around our neighborhood tonight, apparently there are some cool smaller bars and places like that pretty close to us.
Hasta luego!
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