Really people?

No one I have emailed, I mean NO ONE has responded! I'm just a poor little foreign exchange girl and neither of my universities are helping me at all :( These credits here are all weird and I don't know why one class that is held for 3 hours a week is worth 10 credits while another one that meets for 4 hours is a 6 credit class. What in the world?!!! Eh well. Maybe they will be more informative at our meeting tomorrow for erasmus students.  

Enough of that! I went exploring today :) the long awaited roommate showed up today around noon and wanted to sleep, so I decided to get out of the dorm and EXPLORE!!!  Don't worry Mom, nothing too deep, I made sure to take routes that were extremely easy to find my way back home to.  I headed up past the taronger's campus to catch the tram, which is free to ride, as long as you stay above ground I believe haha, so I walked up there and took the tram to walk around the Benimaclet neighborhood.  I had to be able to tell my friend Arlyn that I had wandered around his part of Valencia. :) I got some cool pictures!  So I did that for a while and then took the tram farther down to Pont de Fusta, down by the old Turia riverbed.  For those of you who don't know what I am refering to, the Turia was once a river, but because of major flooding, it was rerouted, let me know if I need to be corrected.  So they made the old Turia riverbed into this huuuuge 9 km green way that goes through the city.  How neat is that?! It was sooo pretty! There's 4 or 5 paths where you can see people running, riding bikes, walking their dogs, or just hanging out.  There's plenty of benches to hang out on and there's some cool ruins to look at too! At least in the part of the greenway that I wandered on today! I saw a cat on the few ruins I passed and she reminded me of my cat... except this cat, though rather hesitant, would let me pet her willingly. 

I decided my destination was the Blasco Ibañez campus of the university since that's where I will be spending all of my time at. :) They have these really cool bridges that go over the Turia, some are really old and others are pretty modern looking. It's really neat.  There are many places to walk up the stairs and out of the greenway.  So i decided to wander through the Jardines del Real, a really pretty garden. There is an excavation of an old palace you can see, and there are lots of trimmed and shaped hedges, flowers, statues, fountains, and orange trees.  It was really pretty.  I then made my way to the campus.  I didn't stay there long, and then walked down the Blasco Ibañez street.  I stopped and got some water at the grocery store, and then headed back to the dorm.  

My feet were killing me! I hope it's not my shoes that are doing it to me. ha.  And now here I am! I think I will do some packing and maybe stay at a hostel tomorrow night, come to find out they are charging me extra for staying here.  I hate this dorm. Seriously.  Well I'll just have to cut out one of my vacations I was hoping to take with the money I have to spend staying in the dorm! So a hostel at 11 euros a night is much better than a stupid dorm which is almost like a hostel now with a roommate in it is 50 euros a night. Gross. They already have so much of my money, can't that be enough?! Well whaddaya do. I definitely learned a life long lesson throughout this whole dorm experience.  Don't be hasty. haha That's also something I have learned from Treebeard too I guess.  I should've taken his advice! Now I know. haha. Well. That's about all I got now! I'm posting some pictures on facebook tonight for sure! :) Chao!!

Sssalt Shaker!

I have had such mixed feelings today!!! Man I feel very ACD I cannot concentrate on one thing today! I am worrying about my classes, how the credits will transfer over, and the workload each class demands, I'm worried about switching apartments because of money issues, I'm loving every minute of being here and have so many different things on my agenda that I want to see and do here...I don't know what emotion I want to feel like at any moment because they are all combined to create a whole big ball of emotion. hahaha It's so crazy.

I miss salt.  They don't believe in salt here I swear.  It is never put on your food before you eat it, and it's not on the table for you to put on yourself! French fries don't taste quite right without it. haha.

Also for those of you who'll only eat Ranch on their salads....nope. Not that I can find anyways! Everyone eats their salad all fancy with olive oil and vinegar.

They don't eat cake and cookies for dessert!!!! I have such a sweet tooth and they usually only offer something like fruit for dessert!!

You have to pay for plastic grocery bags if you want them, you have to pay .50 euros to use a shopping cart at the supermarket too!

They have no refrigerated milk in gallons, they have shelf milk in cartons.

They NEVER eat their dinner at 5 or 6 p.m., rather they wait and go out to dinner around 8 pm if you are early and around 10 pm regularly.

It's those little differences many people can't stand, but you know, it's all part of that awesome experience of being totally immersed into another culture.  I long to speak English to people, if someone on the street is speaking English, I want to talk to them.  But at the same time I long to speak Spanish so well, and even though it takes that much effort to talk in Spanish, it will be worth it and ingrained in my mind for long after my short 6 months here. I only have these 6 months to live in a large European city and get in as much adventure and experiences as possible before I go back to my usual life in Pocatello.  Living on the Mediterranean Sea seems to be many people's dreams, and here I am 2 kilometers from the beach! It may come at a price, cause culture shock sucks, but it's totally worth it! If i were back home right now I would probably be at work hauling boxes around.  That's what I did all last semester in order to prepare for this.  When I think of that, I think, now, isn't it better to put some extra effort into speaking Spanish and living it up instead of doing the usual old grind?! Yes. Yes it is. I worked so hard to get to this situation in my life and so have my parents! Confidence is key.  and so far that has been the hardest thing for me to remember.  I keep doubting myself on my Spanish skills, even though I know I have the ability to say what I want to say.  It's catching myself freezing up when someone is asking me a question, and realizing, 'hey, it's okay, answer at your own pace, you are doing great.  At least you understood what they were asking you!' People aren't going to get mad at me for making a mistake. I have many foreign friends and do I get angry at them for saying 'braked' instead of 'broke'? No way! It's all part of the learning experience. And everyone wants to know about me! If you are a foreigner, they want to know all about you and what it's like in your country.  They aren't going to worry about if you have perfect grammar or not, they are just curious about the different lifestyle you have.  Keeping my head up and am ready for another amazing day tomorrow!!! :)

So much to write about!

Wow! I feel like I have an entire book to write to describe all the things I've done in the past day and a half! So Josh and I went down near the center of Valencia to check out a flat I was debating on moving into yesterday.  It was in a cute little alley way and I fell in love with is automatically without even seeing the inside! There's a really pretty plaza right next to it called Plaza de la Virgen, which has a big cathedral and fountain in it! Super pretty.  So Josh and I ate lunch there, which wasn't the best idea.  Anywhere really touristy is bound to be expensive...eh well. we tried the traditional paella which we were told is so much better if made homemade, and some kind of seafood macaroni dish.  I don't eat seafood I was so proud of myself trying it! haha We also had steak, potatoes, and dessert served with it...well haha what we thought would be dessert.  We had the choice between manzana (apple), platano (banana), or some other word I couldn't understand,which I picked, and Josh picked platano thinking whatever he got would be some kind of thing that was banana flavored and the waiter told me my order was super delicious. well it turned out Josh got, a really cold banana, and I got some plain yogurt that  I had to put sugar in myself haha.  So then, we tried to find our way to a metro stop and found a Starbucks! So we used their wifi to check our Facebook and such and were on our way again.  So many pretty fountains and buildings! Man this city really is spectacular. I could just sit and read a book at any of the little gardens in the middle of the streets anyday and be totally content :)  Let's see, so then I went home and that I believe is about all I did yesterday!
It's sad really how easily I forget where I've been in the past 24 hours, but I have been doing so much stuff and walking ot and from my dorms so much that I forget what I've done! When I was walking to my dorm I sat at a bench in a little park in the middle of a roundabout and some guy started talking to me from Spain.  It was nice just talking to someone trying to use my Spanish as well as I could since he knew no English.  But he was kind of a weird guy haha so I made sure to keep my distance! I skyped Mom and Dad last night and went to bed early so I could wake up in time for church at 10 a.m.!
Josh and I walked to church and it was in this pretty little one story building between all these huge apartment buildings.  There were probably about 40 people in the ward and I'm pretty sure we were the only ones who could speak English.  Many of the members were from South America and not from Spain.  They were all very excited to have a new member in their ward.  The bishop came and asked if I was the girl who wrote him an e-mail to let him know I was coming to church.  He seems like a really good man.  Many of the other members in the ward were also very friendly and came up to introduce themselves.  The bishop wanted me to bear my testimony in sacrament meeting, but I was so scared I don't know enough church vocabulary to say anything! I didn't end up doing it, but one of these days I'll definitely say yes after a little more practice! There is also no piano player in my ward, so that and helping the relief society women learn some of the hymns is my calling I guess you could call it! There is a sister missionary from Utah who can play the top hand with one finger, and that's about it. haha Singing hymns in Spanish is so crazy! It is quite the experience doing all of this usual stuff in a different language! I practiced the piano in a separate room where a whole bunch of little kids were playing the piano.  One of them was actually pretty good for the age I guessed he was and using only one of his hands! One boy asked if I was from America and he was all excited, and another little probably 3 or 4 year old boy kept trying to kiss me!!! Hahaha crazy kid! Not sure what those parents are teaching him! hahaha
We went to a little bakery after and I got a chocolate raspberry little cake pastry thing and then we headed to my dorm to change clothes.  We then decided to hit up the beach! So we went through the Tarongers campus of University of Valencia to get to a metro to take us to the beach.  This metro is a lot closer to my dorms than the one we had been taking these past few days here since we arrived!  Also if you get on and off of a metro that is above ground, you really don't have to buy a ticket in order to get on or off! sweet little thing to remember! haha.  The beach was lovely! There were lots of palm trees and well. sand. haha of course.  So we took off our shoes and walked along the beach.  There was a ton of worn down red pottery everywhere and shells and garbage and maple leaves, which I found strange seeing as there were only palm trees around! But I picked up some of the broken pottery for Mom cause I know she loves that kind of stuff :) We sat and let our feet dry finally a while down the beach at a little bridge with some steps on it and enjoyed the first sunny day we've had! Though it was windy.  I guess you would expect that near the beach anyways.  The waves weren't insanely huge, but they weren't as small as I pictured them.  It was a pretty blue color though. Then Josh and I rode the metro for fun for a while and went back to my dorm for a quick nap before we met up with my possible future Spanish roommates!
We woke up and took the metro to the Plaza de la Virgen again where we were suppose to meet Ana and Natalia at the fountain.  We met up with them and went to a little cafe to talk and relax.  They seem like really fun girls! And I feel like I could really learn a lot from them! They are from Valencia so I'm sure they know all the local secrets :)  The cafe we went to was absolutely beautifully decorated too! I'm sure it's not the last time I'll be there so I'll make sure to take some pictures of it sometime.  After we left them, we headed back to my dorm to find a vending machine with more Kinder chocolate !!! We then met some girls at this vending machine from Japan and Ireland who were exchange students as well.  They had been in Valencia last semester as well and gave us some heads up on things to know about the university. Very helpful.  We went and had tapas with them (appetizers that are really cheap). Some were pieces of bread with hummus on them or tomatoes and greens, and another kind of chicken dumpling thing.  Pretty tasty.  Then we went to our apartments and I talked to some of the fam on Skype which was a nice ending to a great day! :) Well it's about 2 a.m. here and I have a meeting at 11 tomorrow! So! Until next time :) Sorry this was such a LONG post! It's hard for me to keep things short and sweet haha.  Buenas noches!

I miss my kitty.

So I woke up this morning realizing I had a dream about my cat last night! Obviously I miss that little brat.  I also had a dream with Mom in it and she was making me peanut butter cookies before I left. haha Guess I want peanut butter cookies, though those aren't usually my favorite type! haha Hope all is going well at home and that Ben isn't tormenting the poor kitty. Or the parents at that ;)

I feel like all my blog posts kinda break up the days into mornings and such, and then the next entry I post is about what I did that night. So this is an update on what I did last night.  Josh and I were starving. I ate an orange and a granola bar earlier, but that's not enough to keep me full ALL day.  So we went to dinner around 1130, we should start going a little earlier I think.  But there are actually a lot of neat little shops and restaurants near my house! We ate at an Indian restaurant last night, needless to say I was super pumped. I absolutely love Indian food and whatever kind of international food I can get! We each had an entree with a drink for around 5 euros. Not too bad. I had kabobs and Josh got the tandoori chicken.  Both were served with fries, ranch dressing, salad, pita bread, and a soda.  I thought it wasn't a bad deal.  And delicious!  This was only about a block or so away from my house.  There's a lot of places I want to check out today! There are a few bakeries near my dorm, I guess not house like I keep referring to, and I wanted to get up early to eat some tasty bread or something! But my sleeping in skills are far too awesome to let me do that.  I woke up at 845 ready for the day, but ended up sleeping until 11...Monday it is! haha
After dinner, we walked around a little and I found a vending machine that sold Kinder bueno chocolate.  If you have never eaten Kinder chocolate before.  Find some. Even though I know it's hard to find in the U.S.  I found some in an Arabic store down in Salt Lake before, who knows where else you can find it!  It was delicious. And just what I needed.  I have such a sweet tooth and I hadn't eaten anything sweet yet!
Well...everything people told me about Valencia has been backwards.  Valencia is suppose to be sunny all the time, never windy, never rainy, and they eat out really late.  Well they don't eat out as late as I imagined haha hence why we couldn't find food the other night at midnight, my mistake, but it's been overcast every day I've been here, it was really windy last night, and it also RAINED.  Let's hope for some better weather shall we? :) Not that any of that has put a damper on my spirits though! Until next post! Emily over and out.

P.S. This was what I thought was an awesome orange soda...nope. I had waited for it to get chilled in the fridge before I drank it, and it turns out it's some type of orange juice...with a bitter taste to it. Lesson learned.

Jet Lag. and...hot dogs??

I GOT MY LUGGAGE!!!!!!
Oh what a relief.  I now have my clothes and a towel and everything that I really needed! so nice.  I really did feel like for the first few days of my experience in Spain I was camping in my dorm. haha So now Mom and Dad don't have to worry about that :)

So last night Josh and I set off for some dinner.  It is a known fact that Spaniards eat out extremely late, so we headed out around 1130 to go find some grub.  Yum.  Well....We walked around for what seemed like forever. because, well it was for forever.  We finally found a little place that sold perros calientes, hot dogs! Well we were starving so we decided to try this food that we were actually familiar with. To our surprise, I don't think I've ever eaten a better hot dog in my life and hot dogs are an American invention!! Man, it was loaded with crunched up potato chips, cheese, onions, and the usual condiments; ketchup, mustard, and mayo.  I wish I could remember where that place was! But we had gone up and down too many streets for me to remember where that one was located! haha
My inner clock is still ticking off schedule, I ended up staying up wayy too late and all I have really done today is sleep sleep sleep. I woke up around 430 or 5 today and could not believe I wasted most of my day away! Oh well, I have to give my body a break for a little while! I've done so much with so little sleep I was really surprised I was functioning! So I'll make sure to do something tonight, if I ever can get a hold of Josh! Tomorrow is also a brand new day :) I am hoping to go see the beach and also eat at a bakery for breakfast tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for me that I can wake up early enough and not as late as I did today!! Thanks for reading! Not too much going on today!
I did just get off the phone with Mom and I told her it's never windy here, but I guess I was wrong. haha Everything that Valencia is suppose to be is backwards right now.  The whole time I've been here it's been overcast and they don't eat out AS late as I suspected, and now today it's windy.  Weird.
Until next time!
Hasta :)

Eric Clapton?!

Today was successful. Yay.

Details on the train station downtown :)

Ah pretty buildings!

Josh and I had a meeting with the international relations office today at the university.  We set off in a direction that I thought was dead on, but it ended up being the exact opposite of where we were suppose to be. Haha my bad. So we caught a taxi and got to where we were going in time.  The taxi driver was extremely nice and was telling us about how nice the people in Valencia are and what kinds of food we needed to eat.  It was a short meeting that we had, and we found out that we start school on Wednesday.

After our meeting, we decided it was time to eat our first Spanish meal, so we walked into a little restaurant with their lunch specials starting at around 4 euros. Not bad. We asked our waiter what he suggested we eat and we ended up eating un bocodillo de tortilla...a sandwich with one of their famous dishes, eggs and potatoes baked sort of like German pancakes, put between 2 pieces of bread. Not bad, not bad at all.  They also gave us some sort of fishy sauce to put on it kind of like mayonnaise. Interesting. And also a plate of green olives, which Josh absolutely found repulsive.

We then had a quest to find a blanket for me. No more freezing nights! Good thing I figured out how to use the heater last night! I thought there wasn't one!  I had only heard of about 2 places that sold blankets, so we hopped on the metro and headed to the city center, Xátiva.  X over here is pronouned ch- instead of z-.  I had heard of Zara's which was suppose to have a store full of houseware and such and El Corte Ingles, which I had heard was super expensive.  We didn't know which way we were suppose to go to find those stores though, so we ended up sitting and listening to a guy in front of a store playing the guitar and singing.  It ended up that he sang an Eric Clapton son and La Bamba. Haha, I also found some shirts that were 5 Euros, so I bought 2 since I have no clothes yet!  We finally found Zara Home, and I bought some sheets and a blanket. None were cheap though, sorry Mom and Dad! But I tried to find the cheapest one that seemed warm. I also needed some essentials since my luggage is still MIA, so we went to the supermercado en El Corte Ingles and got some Shampoo and such for me, it wasn't too expensive! yay. I have heard that Mercadona is extremely cheap though, so I'll probably check that out when I decide to buy food haha. I did buy some oranges today and I'm extremely excited to see how they taste in comparison to the ones we get at places like Ridley's back home!

After our shopping craziness, we took the metro back to Josh's apartment and hung out there for a while.  We talked with his roommate about the differences between Spain and the United States and the norms over here.  Then I headed to my dorm to take it easy for a while until it's time to go to dinner! Which isn't for another 2 or 3 hours. Crazy.  So here I am at my computer, writing this blog. My room is still amazingly clean Mom! hahaha That will probably change if I ever get my luggage back! I'll write some more soon!

Oh also, they love Coca-Cola! But I think the way they bring it out to you is so nice haha.  They always give you the can, but also a cup with ice and a lemon slice, always a lemon slice. Precious.

HOLA

Oh man oh man, here I am finally sitting in my dorm room after the longest 26 hours ever! Full of adventure that's for sure. On my flight to Chicago from Salt Lake I sat by this nice pilot who was like 6'5". ridiculously tall! Anyways, then I had a 5 hour layover in Chicago waiting for my connecting flight to Madrid. Joy. hahaha I slept on this connected set of chairs with no one else around. Woke up one time after putting my feet up, and some random Mexican dude was sitting next to me, I felt back I didn't notice he was there before I got all comfortable. They finally decided on a departure gate and Josh showed up a little later. Yay! We met a cool kid from Tennessee going to study in France so we chatted it up with him for a bit.

The flight to Madrid was awesome. There were hardly any passengers so we had rows and rows to ourselves if we wanted.  There was a lot of air traffic when we hit Madrid right at sunrise, which made the view suuuuper gorgeous from our plane. Anyways. we get in there and find out we have to get to the other side of the airport. Our flight to Valencia was boarding at 8:15 a.m. and we had arrived in Madrid at 8:20 a.m.!! It said under the sign to K was 26 minutes to get there! We had to take a bus and everything! So we got off the bus and had to go through security again...oi vay. With the amount of electronics and such in my bags, that was no cake walk. So me and Josh go bustling to our departure gate, K94...we get there and it is boarding another flight, so we looked at the board again and they had switched it to J49! Oh. Man.  That was on the opposite side of the airport from us yet again! So we started booking it that way when they come over the intercom and say that the gate has been changed to K82...really. We just got over to the J's!! So we went over there and found out it was not the right flight because we had missed ours... So we went to the information desk and this awesome lady helped us out and got us on the next flight to Valencia which was boarding at that time. SAVED!.

It only took about a half hour of a flight to get to Valencia from Madrid. So we got into this tiny little airport and went  to the baggage claim. Well, guess what. You guessed it. My luggage didn't show up. I was not a happy camper. So we went to the help desk and I filled out some form and hopefully, FINGERS CROSSED EVERYONE, hopefully it will get here tomorrow. I'm so gross from traveling. We met up with Josh's landlord at the cafe inside the airport and got him squared away and then headed to his place and onto my place.  Hahaha. I know I know enough Spanish to at least get by, but it all left me when I had to talk to the lady at the front desk just barely. Eh well. Embarrassing moment number one! probably a jillion more left :) It's all part of the process! I am on the top floor and my roommate hasn't arrived yet, she should be arriving tomorrow I believe. Man, it's nerve wracking talking in a foreign language sometimes! I went to buy a Coke at the little cafe and realized after handing the guy the money that I probably looked like I was talking to the beast or something haha I don't know. I want to shower, buuuut I'll have to air dry off if I do that! Guess I could see if the water is hot! They have these sweet shutters that make your room totally pitch black...definitely using those in about 01.2 seconds! Well. That's about all I got so far!

Hasta luego!
Hasta pronto!