El ultimo dia...

I am currently skipping class because today we don´t have Maria Luisa, we have a substitute. I´m here to tell you that eso no es mal, es fatal. My last day of class, the last two hours of the day, and no Maria Luisa. I´d feel a lot worse except she is joining a group of us tonight for dinner, so it´s bascially ok. The substitute is nice, but she´s just doesn´t have the energy and entertainment factor necessary for the last two hours of class on the last day. So here I am writing to you...

I don´t have much to say other than I have enjoyed my time here in Valencia, I have learned much and spoken more Spanish that I ever thought possible. I´m still not as bilingual as I´d like to be, but I guess I´ll just have to be patient. I´ve met many new people from all over Europe (and some from the US), and that´s always a good thing.

But the truth is, I am ready to come home. It seems like I have the same feeling everytime I travel internationally--there is so much of my own country that I´ve never seen, and I think my future travels may be contained within my own cultural borders. Plus, the actual JOURNEY has gotten to be a real annoyance for me. Perhaps it´s old age... There really aren´t enough fashion magazines in the world to make a 24 hour travel period endurable for me anymore.

I´m looking forward to our big Espanole(!) dinner tonight, and tomorrow I will travel around the city one last time, pack my bags, and go to sleep early. Sunday my first flight leaves at 8:30 am and I´m going to arrive at the airport at 6:30 am, and it will be midnight when I finally get HOME.

Yay! Thanks for reading!

leslie

Wow... my photo formatting today is a little out of control...

So today is Thursday. I missed yesterday, and I´m very sorry if you checked and had nothing new to look at. It´s the end of the month, and lots of people are leaving this weekend (myself included), and it seems like we are all clamoring to spend time together before we have to ship off to our designated corners of the globe. This leaves little time for posting photos and blogging.

What you see above are some common sights I see every day on my trips to and from school. It is basically what the Valencia I have come to know looks like.

On Monday it was excruciatingly hot, and then, de repente, the last three days have been cloudy with cool breezes. Today we have a tiny piece of sun trying to emerge through the clouds. Poor Serena has been trying to go to the beach after class since Tuesday. Maybe she´ll make it today...

Tomorrow is my last day of classes, and I will try to post the last of my photos and comentary. Saturday I won´t have internet access, and Sunday I will be in transit....

Anoche sali con mis amigos...

These are some photos of a typical night out for the students of Espanole(!).



This particular night started out with a couple of drinks in the plaza area of a bar. We had, as usual, a huge group, and some of us were hungry, so a smaller group of us went to a nearby tapas restaurant.


We reconvened with the group at a nearby salsa place. Danced a little bit. Then one friend had some free entry tickets to a hoity-toity dance club in the Arts & Sciences district. We jumped in some cabs and checked it out. When we left the club at 4:30 (yeah, AM) it was PACKED. Really amazing. Fun, though.

El Dia de San Juan

As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, I decided to go to the beach for El Dia de San Juan—the fiesta celebrating the shortest night of the year.


It was almost exactly like the other party on the beach. We convened at a certain point at the beach, and we had a large group of students from our school. We all brought our own rations for the night. As none of the students have coolers, we mostly enjoyed warm beer, wine, and tepid sangria that you can buy in boxes here (the same way you find juice and milk in the grocery stores). There were also potato chips, peanuts, and various other munchies, and bocadillos for dinner.


What set this night apart from the other beach party is tw- fold. First, every other group on the beach made a little bonfire. In the photo above you can see folks from our group digging the hole for the bonfire. It looked kind of cool in the dark to see these little fires all over the place, but it smelled….well….like bonfire (whoop!). In fact, I still smell it today as I type this on Sunday afternoon. Too bad we don’t have smellivision…er…or something.


Second, the tradition on San Juan is that at midnight you have to jump 7 waves and simultaneously think of three wishes. Your wishes will come true during the year. So at midnight a bunch of people flocked to the water. Even I went (those are my post jump we feet you see up there), but the waves I jumped were only small ankle deep ones. Please. I don’t do ocean, remember? Fortunately my wishes were small ones like 1) I wish someday soon my clothes won’t smell like bonfire, 2) I wish I could leave the beach now, and 3) I wish I had a COLD beer. I’m still waiting on number 1 and 3, but 2 worked out for me pretty well.


There were millions and millions of people on the beach. It was really incredible. I left around 2:30, and I think I heard Serena come in at 7:30. In the morning. I think the point is to spend the entire shortest night of the year there, but that wasn’t going to work out so well for me.


All in all it was a fun night, and I can die knowing that I’ve adequately celebrated El Dia de St. Juan.

No se que hacer...

Here you see:

Belen and Serena going over our homework
Serena and Robin (from Sweden) buying clothes
Calle de los Serranos (which we take everyday to school)
My favorite little street called…um…”Mira…aqui estamos en tu calle favorita”
And La Plaza de la Virgen


Serena and I speak only Spanish together. Occasionally when we don’t know a word in Spanish we will say the English word. We only speak Italian when we are cooking (“pasta pomodoro”) or when Serena is teaching me bad words in Italian.


I continue to write in Spanish like I’m in second grade (and I’m giving myself a lot of credit here), and I speak like I’m mentally challenged. I know Rome wasn’t built in a day, but for heaven’s sake, they at least had a column up in two weeks…


This weekend is the Fiesta de San Juan. This is the celebration of the arrival of summer, officially. It’s the longest day and shortest night of the year. The summer solstice, as it were. The entire city will be partying, and if I understand correctly, the majority will be at the beach. As I am not a huge fan of the beach in general (have I mentioned there are no bathrooms at the beach?), I am sitting on the fence about attending this party. Naturally Serena says I should go because I’m here in Valencia to partake of all things Valenciano, but somehow the thought of an entire 7+ hours of no bathroom and sand in various unmentionable places is not a thrilling one. I’m so much more of a “that bar close to your house is cool” kind of gal… I’m sure I could find a party in town, but everyone I know here in Valencia (all 4 of them) will be at the beach. The choice seems obvious, no? But my family and close friends can tell you that if Leslie ain’t having a good time….

I’ll report back to you on Monday.

La Clase de Espanol

Every Monday -Friday we have Spanish classes. Class starts at 9:30 with Begona. Currently there are 7 or 8 people in my class, and that seems to change regularly. People new to the school may start class every Monday. People from lower levels move up, and this can happen at any time. We have to people from England, two Italians, one Hungarian, one Frog, and one or two Americans (depending on whether or not Jeff shows up).

Class with Begona lasts until 11:15. We converse, we do exercises in a little workbook that we have, we listen and take notes while Begona teaches us new vocabulary or grammatical concepts.

From 11:15-11:30 we have a break. This is when we usually go have coffee, and although it’s barely enough time to really enjoy the experience, we look forward to it every day.

From 11:30-1:30 we have Maria Luisa as our teacher. She continues whatever Begona started. I suppose we have two teachers to keep things interesting, to expose us to different teaching styles. I like both of them a lot. Begona is very calm and solid, Maria Luisa is very funny and energetic. She like to use the word "super" in all kinds of Spanish contexts: "Es super-chulo, no?" She’s also the one who says, "No es mal, es fatal!"

The school itself is very tidy with lots of windows and natural light. It has a room with 5 internet connected computers that we can use, it has a mini-library where we can borrow books and/or dvds, and it has a terrace that is really pretty.

La Comida en Casa

While Serena and I eat out occasionally, we eat most of our meals in the apartment. We have bread, butter and jam for breakfast, but coffee we have at the café close to the school. It is very unusual to have coffee "para llevar" (to go) because that is just not how the Spaniards roll. They prefer to sit down, have a chat, have coffee, relax, etc. Work can wait.


For the mid-day and evening meals, we cook. Correction: Serena cooks and I clean up. Being a very good Italian girl, Serena likes to make pasta, and I am totally ok with that. We have had many kinds of pasta over the past week and a half: pasta a la carbonara, pasta pomodoro with tuna, pasta al cartoccio, pasta con pesto… we’ve also had frittatas-one with tomatoes and one with mushrooms. We’ve had a big ole mixed up salad, and often we make bocadillos at home with jamon Serrano and manchego cheese.


Our adventures with cooking obviously begin at the supermarket. There is one near the school called Mercadona, but for some reason I always call it Superdona, and there is one near the apartment. I love loveity love-love going to the grocery store in foreign countries. Love it. We have made some very good friends at the supermarket near the apartment. I’m pretty sure the butcher you see in the photo above is in love with Serena. Our first visit there we were like superstars for some reason-the thrill of foreigners I guess. But it’s nice, and it’s a great opportunity to practice Spanish (and for Butcher Bob to practice his Italian).

La Comida Espanola

Let’s talk about food al little bit, shall we? Who doesn’t like food?

The Spaniards have an dining schedule that is quite different from ours. Their breakfast (el desayuno) consists of coffee. Sometimes they eat a bread product with the coffee, like a croissant or some ole chunk of white bread with jam. This they eat at 7:30 or 8:00. Around 10:30 or 11:00 they have another breakfast (el almuerzo). This is usually a bocadillo (a sandwichito) and coffee. The noon meal is called la comida, and this is eaten between 1:30 and 3:00. This is their biggest meal of the day. It is paella or ….well…I’m not really sure. They also might have a beer or a copa de vino with la comida. They have a break from work during this time (unless they are waiters, of course). They return to work around 3:00 ish. The stores are closed from 1:30-4:30, and at the end of the night they close around 10:00. The have a snack (una merenda) around, say 6:00. This is usually a piece of fruit or a bread-like thing, but it could be a tapa like some olives or a piece of jamon Serrano. They have dinner (la cena) at around 10:00, maybe una tortilla Espanola (this is an omlette of sorts with potatoes in it) or something else light.

Serena and I mostly eat at home (which will be the subject of the next blog), but above are some photos of things we have eaten out [you´re going to have to look at the photos bottom to top...an uploading issue...very frustrating...]. There is coffee, always coffee. We have this in the mornings mostly. There’s a café very close to the school where we go every day during our break for un cafécito. As far as tapas go, we like patatas bravas which are basically big fat French fries with some garlic mayonnaise sauce. Everyone likes to toss back a cold one on a hot summer day, and who doesn’t like an olive or two for accompaniment? We had cous cous one afternoon in a tikki tikki little restaurant in El Carmen. And the last beverage you see is called Horchata, and it is a local drink made from some sort of bean. It’s fairly light (even though it looks like milk), sweet, and a little grainy like Kaopectate. It doesn’t contain any alcohol, but you might notice the grainyness less if it had a shooter or two of vodka in it. Ooooohh…..or some Bailey’s. Mmmmmm…

Bueno-me voy, pero manana I’ll tell you about the non-restaurant eating experiences we’ve had here. Vale? That means "ok?" in Spaniard (because in Texas Spanish "ok" means "ok").

Fiesta en la Playa

I have now spent an entire week here in Valencia. Time flies…


This weekend started with a fiesta en la playa organized by our school. We met at the beach around 6:00, and the first item on the fiesta agenda was a volley ball tournament between the various language schools in Valencia. We divided up into teams and commenced with the "volley". I do not need to tell my family and close friends that I did NOT play volleyball.



The beach was pretty, but different from other beaches I’ve seen. The sand was very, very fine, and it was brown (as opposed to white sand like I saw in Florida or black sand like in some beaches in Hawaii). It was more like the color of Texas sand. The water was extremely cold, and I do not have to tell my family and close friends that I only put my toes in the water (I don’t swim with fish). The water was not clear like in Florida-more like the water in Texas. The afternoon was cloudy so I couldn’t really tell what color the water was.



After the volleyball games we sat around on the beach and drank and ate. We had an opportunity to meet other students who are studying at our school, and there is a wide variety-from France, Sweden, Holland, England, and some Americans-and those are just the ones I met.
I left the beach at 2:00 am, and you would not believe the amount of people who were there and still arriving. It appears that the playa is a popular place for Valencianos to hang out at night on weekends.



Saturday and Sunday we hung around and explored the city some. We shopped, had coffee, had beers, etc. We went out on Saturday night in La Zona Carmen and sampled Agua de Valencia. This is the local "sangria" that consists of orange juice, cava (the Spanish version of champagne), cointreau and I believe some sort of alcohol like vodka. As it was at the beach, there were tons of people out and about in the city at night.



I’m looking forward to this week of classes, and hopefully from my cocoon of inarticulance (is that a word? Is that ironic that I don’t know whether "inarticulance" is a word?) at least one wing of a verbal butterfly will emerge…or a leg…antennae…something…

El Piso Espanol

I am staying in a spare room in an apartment of a Spanish girl named Belen. Serena is staying in Belen’s other spare room. The apartment is about a 25 minute walk away from the school, which is good because I am counting the 50 minute round trip walk as my work out, and bad because it’s a 50 minute round trip walk. The apartment is located on the fourth floor, and there is no elevator. This fact was not well received by me when I had to carry my luggage all the way up upon arrival, nor is it my favorite thing at 2:30 in the afternoon when I’m four inches away from a heat stroke due to the 25 minute walk home from school. However, it makes for additional exercise, and since I am doing none of my usual work out, I have decided to count it as several sets of lunges daily. I’m going to have an amazing set of legs and rear end when I come home. Can you have a set of rear ends? I mean, technically you do, right? I digress…

The apartment appears to be a typical Spanish apartment. Since I’ve never, ever seen any other Spanish apartment in my life, I have to confess I made that part up.

We have tile throughout the apartment. Spaniards don’t normally have carpet, and this is a fact because la profesora me ha dicho….um… the teacher told me. There is no air conditioning, but it has been cool enough that so far it hasn’t been necessary. We open windows, and they don’t have screens because…there aren’t bugs…? I can only infer this as fact, but so far I’ve only seen moths and one dead cockroach in the street on the way to school. We three share a bathroom. There is a living room, and a kitchen. The kitchen is approximately equivalent in size to the one in Barbie’s Dream House, but it seems to work out perfectly for us, and as far as I can tell from my European travels, this is the norm in Europe. I’m not making that part up.

As I post this, it is Friday, and as I only seem to have internet access at school, you may have to wait until Monday for any new information (man) (That’s a Big Lebowski reference. See it.). Hopefully I’ll have a weekend full of adventures to report on Monday.