Spain 3

So a little note about Spanish, specifically in Spain.
Vs (the letter) are pronounced as Bs. All of them. Cs, when followed by the vowels E or I, are pronounced as TH (theta). So are all Zs. The ends of almost all words are dropped off. Therefore, Valencia is actually pronounced Ba-len-thee-a, with the stress on the second syllable. Foreigners in Valencia are recognized by speaking with a lisp, replacing all S-sounds with TH, rather than just the Cs. Another note of Spanish: Vale (pronounced Bah-le) means ok. It follows every sentence, kind of lie the Canadian "Eh."

To those of you studying humanities, or who have every studied humanities: WHAT'S THE DEAL? There are no problems. There is very little to figure out on your own. It's kind of like... fun? Classes shouldn't be that way. It feels too... relaxed. I'm really glad I have the major I do, because honestly, I couldn't take four years of this. It is a nice break though. Let me sum it up for you:
Culture: Starting with the origin of people in Spain, the Roman empire, the invasion of the Moors, etc... Onwards to the role of Spain in the EU. It's a lesson in history, geography, economics, and culture, taught by an entertaining and sympathetic professor. We have one project, individual or in a group that has a paper and a presentation. It is on ANY aspect of Spanish culture that we find interesting. I'm working with my friend Dotty on Flamenco dancing, it's history, etc... Should be fun. Maybe our presentation could be a demonstration?
Conversation: Verbs. It's all about verbs. Verb-tenses, verb-uses, reflexive verbs, etc... We speak lots in class, and later have a presentation (in Spanish) on WHATEVER WE WANT. Really, anything goes. I might talk about rock climbing, or travel, or whatever. Honestly though, what's with this freedom?
Composition: I love this professor. He's 29, loves to talk, and that is no exaggeration. He's really friendly and chill, and his class is all about everything grammatical in Spanish that ISN'T verbs. So mostly connections, links in sentences, and learning how to write well. Also learning what good writing is. I feel at home here, despite the language barrier.
Literature: Slightly disappointing. I was hoping for all modern fiction and non-fiction, but this starts with the origin of the Spanish language, and we're reading the first epic poems translated from old to modern Spanish. After that there will be much poetry, theater, and the odd book perhaps.
Something new: I have homework. I think I haven't had homework, like real homework, since highschool. This is obviously not counting essays, reading, studying, and lab reports, but those aren't really homework. That might take some getting used to. On the other hand, the thought of sitting on a bench in the park surrounded by palm trees, fountains, joggers, and a cool breeze makes the thought of homework much more appetizing. Also apparently libraries have free internet? Who knew?!

I'm really jealous there's an advanced class available called Cervantes that's all about Don Quixote. I would love to take it, except that my level of Spanish is nowhere NEAR that good. Hopefully soon though.

On to updates on life in general... The first week of classes was, in a word, short. Since Monday was the meeting and walking around town, I only had Tuesday and Wednesday classes, then Thursday was a national holiday (The Day of San Vicente), so there were no classes, and of course for me, no classes Friday either. I've been in Valencia less than a week but already the days kind of blur together. I know one day after class (I think Wednesday) I walked back home with two friends through the park, which was really nice. I remember at some point doing some shopping for necessities (conditioner, toothpaste, etc...). Thursday was perhaps the most boring day in history. Since it was a national holiday, everything was closed, and I mean everything. Not only that, but it was a grey, cloudy, windy, and chilly day out no good for even walking in the park. I think I stayed in until about 3pm, then finally met Ken in the old town to walk, eat, and mostly vent. For some reason it was a bad day for just about everyone so it did consist of a lot of venting. On the other hand, we realized we could climb the tower in the cathedral, so we did. Perhaps not the wisest choice, because after a week of walking, climbing 207 steep stone spiral stairs (try saying that ten times fast) wreaked havoc on my poor aching legs. The view made it all worthwhile though. The sun had just set and the sky was a zillion shades of blue and pink. You could see the entire city spread out before you, surrounded by mountains in the distance and blending perfectly into the sky, the sea. The City of Arts and Sciences, the futuristic museum complex you'll recognize from any pictures of Valencia, was obvious in the distance, and the plaza below was awash with warm lights. The sight was both awe-inspiring and intimidating; the city is much larger than I had imagined, and standing above it all looking down made me feel immeasurably miniscule and unimportant.
Thus followed a discussion at the top of the tower of how cool it would be to be spiderman and jump off the top.
Thursday was starting to look up, but not for long, thanks to my lovely karma, which happens to make sure bad days will remain bad days and good days will sometimes become bad days. After all that walking all I wanted to do at 8pm was just go home, have some hot dinner, maybe read or watch TV, and then go to sleep. Silly me, though, happened to get on the right bus in the wrong direction, which, contrary to my belief, did not simply go in a short circle around the old town but rather rode out a half hour into the suburbs of Valencia. I realized after about ten minutes this was definitely not right, and would have descended to catch a taxi home, except it was dark, the roads were tiny, and there were no taxis in sight. Not to mention I was still beset by an exhaustion unequal to any since climbing that mountain (what was it called again Erica?) while sick. Anyway, I was in luck because the bus did eventually turn around after the last stop and rather than going out of service returned to the city center and eventually down my street. This was a great relief, although I was disappointed I'd missed dinner with my roommate and most of my host family's soap opera. I guess technically it's a TV show because yesterday was the last show, and it ended, which I'm pretty sure soap operas never do.

Friday was definitely an improvement on the previous day. I didn't have class, but got up early (by Valencian standards) at 9:15 am anyway since my roommate had class. I had a leisurely breakfast, read my book for a while, and around 1:30 left for the ISA office to catch up on e-mails, and maybe watch LOST before a scavenger hunt organized by ISA at 4pm. While LOST didn't happen, I did get to send some e-mails I'd written the day before, and say hello to at least one person who was awake at 8am and online (thank you Victor for that).
At 4pm the scavenger hunt began... We were divided into two teams of about ten or so, and had to go around the old town and find out things about Valencia by asking people on the street and counting things in buildings, etc... It was pretty fun, and afterwards the directors all took us to a cafe for horchata, which is a Valencian drink. It's milk-based, cold, and sweet, with spices I couldn't identify flavoring it. It's consumed with light fluffy-sweet bread sticks, more like unsweetened donuts than anything, that you dip in the horchata. I loved the drink, but for some reason was best, once again, by homesickness. It really does come at the most random times and without barely any trigger. Weird.
Afterwards I meandered home (about a twenty minute walk from the old town), went across the street to call home since no one was at my place, and talked to my Mom for close to an hour. Once again, this managed to alleviate rather than worsen my homesickness. Dinner followed back home, and then I relaxed for a while before going back out to the old town to meet some friends for a drink.
Unfortunately, our plans did not work out quite as we'd hoped. After (again) all that walking, all I wanted to do was find a cute out-of-the-way bar, sit down at a quiet table, and have a glass of Sangria while in the company of some pretty cool people. Well Andrew and I walked together and arrived at the meeting place at the designated time. We soon received a call from Ken, who had repeated my error from the day before, and was somewhere in the middle of some suburb with no clue how to get back or really what direction to walk in. He had the unfortunate luck of his bus actually going out of service once it reached its far away destination. Dotty, too, was somehow lost, thanks to her taxi driver not actually dropping her off in the correct location. Go figure. So anyway Andrew and I walked around the cathedral and talked for close to forty minutes before anyone joined us, and then we walked some more waiting for Leigh to join. By the time we were all together it was close to midnight, and I was pretty sick of walking, and getting a little tired. Every place we passed seemed to be closing, despite Valencia's reputation for crazy night life that lasts until 7am. Convinced we were simply in the wrong place we kept walking and eventually found one bar that was open and sat down. Again, karma. They had no sangria (what the hell?) so I had some water instead, which I forgot they bring you in a bottle and charge you a euro fifty for. We meandered a little while later back to the center plaza (or one of them) and sat down on some benches, having been kicked out of the closing bar. It was starting to get pretty cold, so soon after, around 1:30, we all went out separate ways to head home. I got a text message about ten minutes later from Ken, who apparently passed the life of the city, which was, unfortunately, about ten minutes north of where we were. So Valencia does stay up until 7am, but only if you're in the right part of town. Oh well.

Saturday (today) we're planning on going to the beach, and hopefully it won't be too windy. Apparently cyclones are kind of a big deal here; they're pretty much just wind storms bad enough to cancel school and occasionally knock down walls. With any luck it will be nice and not too cold, and worthwhile frisbee weather.

Now more notes on the city of Valencia:
It smells. I guess this is perhaps not a surprise to many of you, who actually know things about cities, and are aware that hundreds of thousands of people living close proximation do tend to generate large quantities of waste, resulting, sometimes, in a particular odor.
Secondly, there is dog poo everywhere. I mean really, do not stray off the sidewalk, because you will, and I say this with complete sincerity, step in dog shit. So beware, I've warned you, and it's now up to you.
Besides that, this city is really pretty sweet. It's got some really pretty parts, and nowhere is it slummy or gross or really dangerous. It's not pretty everywhere, but the parts that aren't pretty are also not hideous, and easy to get used to. Not having internet easily and when I want it kind of a problem, but I'm getting used to it. Besides that, I really wish my ipod's battery life was longer than an hour, and that I didn't have such poor circulation. Also I can't wait until the massive blister on the bottom of my foot becomes a callous, or goes away.
Until next time, enjoy the pics and check out the rest on facebook. I'll try to put up captions this time.

PS: So I went to the beach today and broke my camera when it fell out of my pocket from the top of a tall jungle gym I was climbing. These might be your last pictures for a while...