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Published: September 9th 2008
My Room
My room in Alicante... my host mom loves Audrey Hepburn!Hola! Well, I’m in Spain, safe and sound. I’ve decided to start a travel blog to keep everyone updated on the big events here… travel, festivals, etc. Of course, I still plan to keep up on emails and whatnot, but I don’t have internet in my house, so personal replies are going to take a bit longer, and this way I don’t have to repeat myself on the major events. You can all just check them out here! For those of you who don’t know, if you subscribe to this blog, you’ll receive an email every time I update, so it works out pretty well.
Alrighty, an update on what’s happened thus far (beware, I’m probably going to ramble; I have lots of stories and nobody to tell them to!):
Flights. First off, I HIGHLY recommend flying British Airways if you can. Navigating through Heathrow isn’t much fun, but the flight was awesome. I had my own TV and I could watch whatever movie or show I wanted (or listen to music) whenever I wanted. I chose Iron Man and was able to pause and rewind/fast forward it whenever. It was seriously awesome.
Unfortunately, like I said, Heathrow
On the Pier
An evening at the beach. was awful. I had an hour layover and had to take two shuttles around the terminals, plus find my gate (which wasn’t listed). I finally asked someone and she told me that they were already boarding and that I had better run. YIKES! Bags flopping, I sprinted through the airport and was one of the last to board the flight, out of breath and sweaty. Good times.
The other two flights were pretty much uneventful, although I was the only non-Spanish person on my flight from Madrid to Alicante, so that was interesting.
Arrival. I took a cab to the hotel and met my roomie for the weekend, Nikki, who also arrived a day early. It was pretty much just the two of us (there was another guy, but he went off by himself, and doesn’t really hang out with anyone, even though I’m pretty sure he’s moving into my building, so yikes!), and we went on a walking tour of the city. It’s so much prettier than I was expecting. Pictures don’t do this place justice… I was expecting a Miami of sorts (not that I’ve ever been there, but from what I imagine), but it’s full
La Explanada
This street runs along the beach and is full of little craft and souvenir stands. of hundreds-of-years old buildings and tiny streets full of restaurants and tiny shops. It’s seriously gorgeous, and I could get lost and be perfectly content.
Los Otros. Everyone else arrived the next day and a big group of us went to the beach (yeah, that’s right… be jealous!). Everyone’s pretty nice, but I’m one of the few that’s over 21, and they all definitely came here to party-hardy, so it’s been interesting. I went out with them once to the clubs, but the smaller bars where we can order sangria and chill are far more fun for me. Anywho, overall, it’s a pretty good group and they’re all nice to talk to. For future reference though, I hang out mostly with Nikki, Jen, Katie, and Adam, who are probably the most mellow of the bunch.
Mullets and Manpris. Walking around the city, it’s impossible to escape the reality of these two horrors, as awful as they may be. It’s insane how many guys have mullets! They’re considered fashionable in this region, but I’m pretty sure they just never got the memo that the 80s are over. It’s almost become a game among us, who can find the best
El Castillo de Santa Barbara
The castle that overlooks the city... we're going to climb it next week! one. It’s hysterical. Then there are the manpris (or man-capris, for those who are unaware of the slang). These aren’t just long baggy shorts either. They’re usually denim, almost always tight, and come mid-calf. I’m constantly amazed at how many guys wear them too. My eyes are burning, but it’s fantastic.
My Señora. Sorry, I know I’m jumping around, but I’m trying to skip the less-exciting details. Anywho, on Sunday we met our host families and moved in. I live with a single woman named Ana (she’s what they call a Señora). She has 4 grown kids and 2 grandkids, and now makes her living hosting international students every semester. She’s really nice and extremely helpful with my language practice. I can understand most of what she says, but if I don’t, she’ll repeat it slower or explain it differently so that I do understand. She also finds me hilarious, and I’m never quite sure why. She says I speak well, though, so that makes me feel pretty good She always cooks a ridiculous amount of food for me, most of which is good but some of which is pretty questionable/awful, so it’s a bit of a toss-up.
The Holy Grail?
The Valencians believe this is the true Holy Grail. Overall though, I really can’t complain, although I know she’s trying to fatten me up even more.
Her apartment is gorgeous and really big (I’m pretty sure she’s loaded), and I have my own half-bathroom. We share the shower, but that’s not really a big deal. She loves Audrey Hepburn, and I have a huge painting of her in my room, which cracks me up. My room is tiny and we don’t have air conditioning, so I’m pretty much sweating to death, but otherwise, I love living here. Oh yeah, did I mention it’s insanely hot and humid here? I sweat through everything, it’s disgusting. Anyway, her house is decorated with a lot of Asian/Buddhist things, and it’s very Fung Shui (sp?), so it’s totally my style, but it cracks me up how un-Spanish it is. Overall, minus the instant coffee and occasional mayonnaise in my salad, she’s a great person to live with. She sings/talks to herself all the time too, and it’s hysterical. She’s also very cultured, so she takes me around to a lot of different things in the city. Oh, and she’s Catholic too, so I’m going to go to mass with her all semester!
Altar of the Cathedral
The altar of the Cathedral in Valencia. Alright, I think that’s about it about her.
Classes. I’m taking intensive language courses until the end of September, when I’ll start my actual classes. I have an hour-long conversation class and a 3 hour grammar class. I’m in one of the upper levels, so I feel pretty good about my abilities with the language overall. My conversation prof is hilarious, and even though she talks really fast, I can get most of what she says. Oh, side note: Alicante is in Valencia, and here they speak with a Valencian accent, which means that they have a slight lisp. I’ve already started picking it up on some things, like “gracias” and “hasta luego”… we’ll see what I sound like in January! Anywho, it’s mostly Americans in that class, but we have a guy from Japan and a girl from China too.
My grammar class is tough material overall, but I like it. I always forget how many rules there are to languages! That class is a pretty good mix of students… 4 Americans, 2 Russians (one is in her 40s), a guy from South Korea named Fabio (who’s hysterical), and the same Chinese girl as my other class.
Jesus Dies on the Cross
Like I explained... even though Jesus is disproportional, this painting is more realistic because he and Mary look like mother and son. She’s really nice, but hardly speaks Spanish and always looks like she’s going to cry. Also, her name’s Chau Chau (first and last name) and one of our professors, as a joke, said “Hola hola, Chau Chau”… I don’t think the poor girl got it. Quick side story (that some of you have already heard): last week we were getting into pairs for an activity and Chau accidentally knocked the shelf under the desk onto the floor. It made this HUGE bang, and the Korean kid, not missing a beat, yells, “CHAU!” in a sarcastic but still booming voice. Poor Chau, I thought she was going to pee her pants, and I (as well as 2 others) could NOT stop laughing… I had tears pouring down my face. It was probably a lot funnier to be there, but the combination of Chau’s nervousness and Fabio’s yell was priceless. Anyway, the professors (yes, plural, we switch on some days) are both good. One speaks really slowly, which makes class drag, and the other is really lively and outgoing, but overall I really like them both.
La Lengua. Like I said, I’m feeling pretty good about speaking around my host mom
Calle de las Paraguas
A random street in Alicante... I love it! and in class, and I’m becoming much more comfortable speaking in public too. As a group, we all still speak English around each other, but we’re throwing in the occasional Spanish more too. And we’ve all been hanging out a lot more with international students from our classes, so Spanish is our only common communication link, and it’s really good practice overall. Like I had to explain to two girls (1 from France and 1 from Germany) how to play a card game completely in Spanish… it was a lot more difficult than it seemed, but they understood, so I guess it worked out pretty well.
Valencia. I’m getting close to the end of this post, I promise! So Saturday we took a day trip to the city of Valencia, which is a two hour drive north of here. We went with a group of Russian students too, who were quite obnoxious and loud (who’d a thunk? The Americans were the quiet ones!), but it was a pretty good time overall. We didn’t get to see too much of the city itself, which was a bummer, but what we did see was pretty sweet. We went to the Cathedral first, which was ridiculously gorgeous and old and enormous. The Valencians believe that they have the true Holy Grail in their possession, and they have it sitting in a case in the church. Obviously, it’s impossible to tell where (or if) it exists, but those Valencians are hard-core about their relic. Apparently, the church leaders, when commissioning artists to paint pictures of the last supper for the church, forced them to paint the Holy Grail in the picture to match the one that they have, so they could use the paintings as “proof.” I thought it was pretty funny. The church also has the “arm” of Saint Vincent sitting in a case… it’s supposedly a miracle that it hasn’t rotted, but I guess that all depends on what you believe in and how you perceive miracles.
We then went to a restaurant where they make homemade, natural horchata. If you haven’t had any of this stuff, you should, because it’s awesome (they make it in Mexican and Spanish restaurants in the U.S.). It’s kind of like a milk, but it’s made out of a nut instead of dairy, and it’s really sweet and creamy. Valencia is home to the nut, and they’re really proud of their horchata. Deliciosa.
After a break for siesta (where everything in the city was closed, so we couldn’t really even walk around and enjoy it too much), we went to an art museum that was full of various religious paintings. It’s said that while the Spanish painters tended to paint their pictures of Jesus as slightly exaggerated and disproportional, their paintings of the crucifixion are more accurate than the Italians, because the Spanish painters always had Jesus and Mary looking like mother and son, rather than the same age, like the Italian painters did. Make sense? I hope so, I thought it was interesting.
Anywho, we then went to a modern art museum, which was really weird and I totally didn’t understand, but we didn’t stay there long, so all was well. After that, we pretty much left… we stopped near the aquarium for some pictures (the buildings for the museums along there are really cool and modern and funky) and then came back to Alicante. Overall, it was a pretty good day, but I really wish I could have seen more of the city itself.
So I hope the pictures work out with this post, and I’m putting a lot on facebook, so check them out there. I’m having issues with the European battery chargers (aka, they hardly charge my batteries), but I’m hoping to fix that soon, because I went through three sets of batteries in one day yesterday, and I took less than 200 pictures. LAME!
I apologize for the length, they’ll be shorter from now on, I promise!
Well, hasta luego!
Laura
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WHOA!!!
So, you wrote a novel, eh? I didn't read it yet... it's too much for me. I printed it and I'm hoping to have it read by the time you get back :) I miss my little sid man... talk to you soon!