Spain 6

It feels like a while since I've written, but not much is really new...
Sunday I felt less sick and got out of the house, but karma as it is, it poured rain, and Ken and I hovered between damp and properly wet for most of the day. We also failed to realize that museums tend to close early (read, 2pm) on Sundays... Hence why we walked around the old town for about... oh a couple of hours, looking for and finding museum after museum, only to be disappointed by their locked doors and dark interiors. We finally crossed the Rio to the Museo de Bellas Artes, which was, thank goodness, open. While hundreds of paintings of bleeding and suffering Jesus and people getting their heads chopped off isn't exactly my idea of fascinating subject material, the artwork was fantastic. The museum was three times it's size inside as outside, must be an old building thing how they do that. The entrance was pretty awesome, the high dome ceiling was painted deep blue and dotted in gold, so it looked like the night sky. There was a green secluded courtyard with many old stones from the Roman times, which was pretty neat. Most of the artwork was from Valencian artists, and much of it consisted of seeming alter pieces, accented with gold foil.
After killing about three hours in the museum, which was totally worth the walk in the rain and the rather gruesome depictions of several beheadings, Ken and I found a cafe/bar where we had hot chocolate to warm up and watched Barcelona beat some other soccer team on TV. I returned home slightly damp and content with a day well spent.
This week has been slightly more dull, consisting mostly of class, some shopping (no buying), lots of walking, eating, drinking more hot chocolate than is healthy, and occasionally making it online. *sigh* the elusiveness of the internet...
My classes are actually really helpful and interesting, and I am learning a lot. Since I pretty much am starting from scratch it's easy to see how fast I'm improving (or how slow, depending on my point of view that day), which is cool.
Today, however, was perhaps my best day in Valencia yet. After class, I came home for lunch, then did some homework, which would have been easier if I'd realized the professor had actually provided all the answers to the fill in the blanks... Afterwards, since it was a nice day out, I decided to don my sneakers, for the first time in Spain, and go for a run, and return to the bouldering in the park. The run was good, but my legs are not going to be very forgiving tomorrow... The best part though was not the running but the bouldering. It was hard. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. It's the best feeling ever. I met a cool guy at the bouldering who helped me out figuring out where the problems started, and was in general very helpful and nice. He later set up a slackline between two trees about two feet above the ground, to work on balance, and invited me to try. Although fairly obvious from the name, a slackline is like a tightrope, but not tight... His was a piece of webbing about an inch wide. He made it look easy. It wasn't.
We played around, alternating turns and me taking as much advice as was given, and by the end I could make it halfway across, about five steps, before losing my balance. Two other guys joined us, one of which I learned owns a restaurant in the Carmen district in the old town, and the other of which is a chemist. Well, was a chemist, but the economy here being what it is, he's now returned to school, and from time to time escorting Erasmus students to nearby mountains to climb. He also invited me along sometime when the weather gets nicer, and I readily accepted. Sleeping under the stars after a day of climbing sounds dreamlike right now. I can't get The Gunks out of my head though, we'll see how the climbing is here.
While I couldn't understand the guys all the time, when they spoke to me they slowed it down a little and I figured out just about everything. My first Spanish friends! Well, the first guy with the slackline is actually Colombian, but whatever, it's all about practicing Spanish, right? Despite European guys' bad reputation, the guys I met were all polite gentlemen and really nice to take the time to explain things to me. I'll have to find them again at the bouldering bridge in the park, since I didn't have my phone on me and couldn't remember the number (I should really try to memorize that...). By the time I left, there were another six or seven guys around the bouldering place, practicing. Apparently there are also several climbing gyms nearby, and only about 3 euros for an afternoon, which is definitely an improvement on Earthtreks pricing.
I ran back to my place when it started tog et dark, around 6:45 pm or so, and was proud to discover that I'd probably run two miles today, bouldered for about an hour, and worked on the slackrope for at least another hour or two more. And don't think that isn't a workout. Isaac and Max you would probably love it, and be very good at it. I learned a lot of Spanish climbing words, although a couple are the same, like toprope. None of the guys I met do trad, but they do lead outdoors from time to time. Though the first guy, whose name I sadly forgot (it started with a G I think...), was an excellent long-time climber, the other two were pretty new to it, so I didn't feel ridiculously outclassed. I would have been really sad about not meeting any girl climbers, except that I was so excited about having hung out with some Spaniards all afternoon and climbed, finally!! I can't wait to go back next week, and figure out the crux of that problem...
I was planning on going out to the intercambio tonight, since it's every Wednesday at Portland, but my legs protested, and even now my hands and forearms are protesting against typing.
One more day of classes and then off to Barcelona for some adventures with Anna! Hells yea!