Spain 5

The coolest thing yet happened to me on Wednesday. I was walking to the second Wednesday intercambio at Portland, listening to my ipod, when "All Around the World" came on, by Oasis. That wasn't the cool thing though. The cool thing was when the cathedral's bell tower started tolling not only in time to the music, but in perfect harmony with it. It felt like a commercial, I'm not kidding. Anyway I was pretty thrilled, and it kind of made my night.
The intercambio went really well; I met this guy who's a professor and lives in a suburb not too far away with a castle. He invited me and some friends to visit the castle sometime and get paella, so hopefully we'll do that sometime.
Classes this week were pretty good. I learned a little about El Cid, the kind of Joan of Arc of Spain, minus the Saint part, as well as when to use Ser and Estar, the preterit perfect tense, and the different autonomous provinces of Spain. I typically have fairly straightforward and simple homework in all of my classes, but thanks to it being in Spanish it's rather more time-consuming than one would guess. Reading has become a much slower task as I am forced to look up every other word in the dictionary and then reread each sentence several times to make sure I understood it properly. It's rough not knowing more than four verb tenses as well...
Thursday was fairly uneventful except for finally finding the bouldering in the park. It's not huge, but there were a couple of fairly intense looking climbers there and I vowed to return sometime on my own with my climbing shoes and hopefully get a good workout in, as well as meet some Spanish climbers. I have yet to make good friends with any Valencia natives, minus a few people I've met at the intercambios and my host family.
Anyway this blog was intended to cover some major adventures of this weekend, but thanks to catching a cold the adventures have been pretty tame. I started feeling sick Thursday night, which was OK since I don't have class Friday and could sleep in. Unfortunately the extra sleep did not dispel the onset of my cold and I woke up with a runny nose and feeling extra sore. Luckily a shower and breakfast at least made me vaguely presentable, and at 11:45am I walked to the CAC where I had lunch in the park with Ken, then met the rest of the ISA group.
Our first stop, the IMAX theater. I'm telling you, this one certainly rivals that at the Smithsonian, and even a drippy nose didn't hinder the awesomeness of the show. We watched a movie on climbing in the Alps, which was intensely amazing. I couldn't tell at the end if I was terrified or thrilled of the thought of one day climbing such an intense mountain as the Eiger. Probably terirified. At least Max and Isaac weren't there to get any ideas. No, don't look it up, it was all ice climbing. The Alps are nowhere near Mallorca, and way more expensive, ok?
After the IMAX, we went to the aquarium, which is still part of the CAC (aptly named the City of Arts and Sciences, since the massive complex has many buildings, one of which is still under construction). The aquarium was pretty neat, although not as big as the one in Baltimore. It's close though, spread out nicely, well organized, and does have some pretty amazing exhibits. I especially liked the whales, the seals, the birds, and the tunnels underneath some of the tanks. We walked in tunnels surrounded on all sides by schools and schools of brightly colored fish and sharks. The ones above looked like they were flying through the air the water was so clear and the glass so clean. The dolphin show was no extra cost and really good as well, although being outdoors I was a little chilly. The day had started hot and, even sick, I was warm in leggings, dress, and jacket. Unfortunately the weather turned darker and windier and colder, such that by 5pm I was definitely ready to depart the aquarium and find a cafe.
That we did (Ken, Dotty, Madeline, and I), and I treated my poor sick self to hot coffee and a slice of double chocolate cake. Hey, I've walked like three miles a day at least since I arrived here, so I think I deserved it.
I found a pharmacy in the shopping center and payed an atrocious twenty three euros for a decongestant and contacts solution. Both are necessities though so I tried not to cry too much on the inside. There's at least four or five nights out, or three paella dinners, or the price of my plane ticket to Mallorca...
I took the bus home although I was only a few blocks away since it was cold and I was sick. It felt so nice to be inside I changed into the warmest clothes I have and curled up on the couch to read for at least an hour. One hot dinner later I was rested enough to talk with Alba and Italo's daughter-in-law, who was over as her husband and two other guys practiced music with Italo.
My host dad and his son, along with two others, play in a band, almost entirely Latino/Mexican music, and they have a gig tonight, so Friday practice was necessary. I loved listening, both since they're really good and because I like latino music, something I hadn't really known. Alba's daughter-in-law (whose name I can't remember) promised to teach me some salsa sometime, and perhaps flamenco! I'm pretty excited about that. She's really nice and not much older than me, somewhere in her mid-twenties. I only wish I didn't have to go out at 3am to find a club where I can dance... FYI, the bars here tend to close around 3am, which is when the discotecas open, and you can finally find a place to dance, if they're not all too crowded and you happen to have any money.
Anyway at 9:15 I ran across the street to the locutorio to e-mail my first ever newspaper article to the UMBC Retriever's Foreign Desk. I wrote it late Thursday night and I'm pretty sure it's fairly dull, but hopefully by the time I write my next one I will have had some real adventures. I only stayed about half an hour editing and then e-mailing the article, in the meantime catching up with the two friends who happened to be awake with nothing to do at 9:30am on a Friday morning. Thank you Sarah and Victor, you make me feel loved!
The short five minute walk home was punctuated by lightning and thunder, though no rain. The sky was a fairly unsettling shade of pink for nighttime, probably the reflection of lights from the city on low clouds. It was actually more comforting than anything to feel oncoming rain. This city is too dry and I think rain would dampen the smell of car exhaust and wash the fairly clean streets cleaner, as well as provide some well earned respite to the water-starved trees that line the roads.
I fell asleep with minimal difficulty just past 11, but slept poorly thanks to infinite Spanish conjugations running through my mind and of course my ever dripping nose. Tana came in sometime past 5 and I woke up briefly. Oh the life of the healthy.... I slept in until 12, an event unprecedented in at least this past year, as far as I can recall. A hot shower and a hot chocolate later I felt almost ready to join the land of the living. I struggled through two assignments before giving in to my inability to concentrate on Spanish and resigned myself to an afternoon in bed, staying warm. I was slightly guiltily excited about the rain, since it meant the weekend's excursion outside the city was probably postponed, and I would be able to go see Roman ruins with my friends another time.
Tomorrow, Sunday, if I feel better, I might go check out one of the city's myriad museums. Apparently most of them are free on Sundays, and I'm all about free activities!
Sorry there won't be any pictures for a while. I will try and get those of my friends here posted on Facebook. Until next time, happy traveling!