Mi habitación, casa, escuela...

Hola a todos! I thought it would be neat to show you guys a little of everyday life, i.e. where I live, streets I walk down, the school. So here are some pictures!

This is my room (habitación), my bed is nearest the window. Small space, but it works!

This is the kitchen (cocina). Sometimes we eat here and sometimes in the dining room. Like I said earlier, Lola makes awesome food!

This is the dining room/living room area, with Lola sitting on the couch.

This is my spanish madre, Lola, who is so sweet, nice, accommodating, etc. She's with our perrito (dog), Linda, who is the most spoiled dog in the world, but also very smart.

Dining room.

My apartment building, we live on the 6th floor. Most of the city is filled with building like this.

This is a street I walk on to go to school. Evidently the trees don't lose their leaves here, and in fact this past week supposedly was the first week where it got cold (if cold means just under 50 degrees).

And finally this is the center of the program, just a little under a 10 minute walk from my apartment.

Hope you enjoyed the "tour." Hasta luego!

Sagunto

Hi everyone! This Saturday we took an organized trip to a small town called Sagunto, just a few minutes north of Valencia. It was pretty interesting, there were lots of Roman ruins, of which I've seen many, and these were pretty well preserved. A castle spanned the entire top of the hill above the town, and from the top there were great views of the sea and the mountains with snow in the distance. Here are some pictures!

This was an ancient theater, but they've modernized it so the people can actually come and see classical plays.





After we got back, someone had a great idea to go buy some big bars of chocolate and eat the whole thing. Good idea! I got a picture of eating it on the bench.

I slept a little late on Sunday, then headed out to a modern art museum, then some of us just walked around the city to check out a side we hadn't seen before. It's such a big city and there is so much to explore! That's about it, I hope to post again soon!
P.S. I'm not sure what is wrong with the pictures on my blog right now, hopefully that will be fixed soon.

1st Week in Valencia

Hey everyone! My first week in Valencia was a great start. Other than losing one of my bags on the flight over (I got it later), everything has gone really well. After getting to the airport, I took a taxi with a girl I had met on the plane from Madrid to Valencia, Melissa, so we saved some money by going together. I got to my apartment and my madre (mother) Lola was getting to the door just as I arrived. We exchanged besitos (little kisses on the cheek) and then she showed me up. The apartment is nice, I'll have to get pictures up later. I met my roommate and began unpacking and then just rested, as I was exhausted from the flight. The next day we had orientation stuff and I met up with a couple of people that I knew, then met new people and the next day some of us walked around the city, mainly to find cell phones, but also to check things out. Here are some pictures!


This is my rommate in front of one of the bridges over the river. It's not really a river, but they call it that becuase it used to be one before they changed its course. Now it's a nice park.

Here is a nice park near my apartment with some cool art and weird leaning trees.



Looks a bit like Italy, eh?


Here are a couple of pictures of the beautiful old city after a night out.



This is a picture of us while a metro was going by, just an example of traveling around the city. (It's a pretty big city).



A friend and my roommate on the beach. We visited and it wasn't quite hot, but I'm willing to bet that it's warmer here than it is where you are.



We also started class last Thursday, but Monday was a holiday and I don't have class on Friday so the weekend was long for me. I mainly spent it going out and checking out the city. I did something to my back and strained it (i'm not sure what happened) and that hurt for a while, but now it's better. I couldn't go out of the house at all on Sunday though, I was spralled out on the couch while my madre took care of me. Speaking of Lola, she cooks really well. We've had tortilla española (not torta, Lisa), paella with chicken, which was amazing, and other good stuff.
Last night we went to a Flamenco concert, which was good although it was only a guy dancing, and I think it's much more impressive when a girl dances. I don't have pictures of that yet, but will soon.
Anyway I think that's a lot for one post, thanks for being patient while I settled in! Hopefully my posts will be more frequent in the future. Love and miss everyone! Hasta luego!

sorry!

sorry for not posting yet! i´ve had a hard time finding an internet place where i can use my own computer to post pictures. however, i can use the internet at my school, but it´s closed today because of some holiday, so i promise by either tomorrow night(which will be the afternoon for you) or wednesday i will have some pictures and updates on what i´ve been doing. thanks for your patience!

Safely Here

Hola a todos. Hey everyone. I'm safely here in Valencia and everything is going really well so far. One of my bags was lost on the plane, but I got it this morning, so everything is good with that. Not much has been going on except for orientation, which has kept me pretty busy so I've had little time to get on the internet and update. I also have no pictures so far, so none with this post but hopefully this weekend I can get some good pictures of my apartment and the city up here. Classes start tomorrow and I have a pretty full schedule, so I have to prepare for that! This weekend I will most likely stay in the city so I can roam around and get more familiar with the city. It's very big! Luckily I live very close to the University, some people have to take the bus from pretty far away. That's all for now. Check back after this weekend for a (hopefully) more detailed update.