the first month in spain

¡Holaaaaaaaa!

Life in Valencia is goooood. I decided to write in English for once since Google Translate tends to fail my non-Icelanders.. 

It's been a month in Spain now and it kinda doesn't feel real yet. It's cold, way colder than we expected (it came to the point of an emergent winter-coat shopping spree the other day). It is still very nice to get a break from the brutal Boston winter! School here is pretty much the same, except for the fact that on Mondays, we can actually make it to school, no snow here. Most teachers are not American though so sometimes there will be a little mis-communication incidents, since some can be hard to understand. I'm not one to talk though with my "I don't know where it's from" accent ;)

 

My travels were unusually smooth, the hotel for my connecting flight in London was very nice and the flight from there to Valencia was shorter than expected. Both flights were so empty that I had the entire row to myself, very very nice!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this short month we've managed to do a looot of things. We of course started by going to the

beach the first day, walked around
for three hours trying to find the school campus, ended up not being such a successful trip but we saw a lot of the neighbourhood which was great.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We've had ridiculous Wednesdays at the club where when we head home at 5 am, people are just getting started.

We've been on a tour of the old part of town where we learned a lot about the city's history. Been to the market downtown where they have all kinds of foods, fruit and candy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Mondays we usually go to a place that sells €1 sandwiches along with a big can of beer. Very, very convenient for broke college students.

After we like to go to La Vitti, where they have a weekly jazz jam. 

 

 

On top of all this we are meeting so many amazing people that I can't believe we haven't met before. A lot of great new friendships that I hope are going to last for a very long time. 

 

 

 

Then there was Madrid...

What an amazing city! We woke up very early Friday morning to take the 8:20 train. It was delayed by 1 & 1/2 hour which was rather unfortunate, but the ride itself was only two hours and we slept most of that time. We went straight to the hostel which was so conveniently located, right down down. Dropped of our bags and went out to explore.

There was a lot to see and I would have to say that I have almost never had such a productive weekend. We saw two art museums, a beautifuuul park, couple of bars, probably 9/10 of the city and an amazing flamenco show, incredible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone was very happy with the trip even though getting in at 2 am last night is taking its toll right now. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I guess the only way to wrap up this looong post is to sum up a few facts we've learned about Spain... 

• Beer is cheaper than water
• Restaurants never give free water btw, so beer for every meal ;)
• Sangria costs a Euro at the supermarkets
• Busses stop running at 10
• People party until 7 am, everytime
• Want to eat between 4-9? Forget it, you just gotta hang on until the Spaniards decide it's time to eat. Which is when I want to soon be a sleep
• Everybody just takes it easy here, no stress, no rush, ever
• Valencians don't speak English, forces us to learn faster

 

Thanks for reading, we are having the time of our lives here!