May 2010
23 posts
Oceanogràfic
Today was the day I had been looking forward to since we watched the video about Valencia in April. The Oceanogràfic in the City of Arts and Sciences is the largest aquarium in Europe and is very close to being the largest in the world. Another fun fact: The City of Arts and Sciences uses more water than the entire city of Valencia. The Oceanogràfic has different exhibits for each ocean habitat...
Mallorca
Friday morning we got on a plane to Mallorca, a small island off the coast off Spain. We flew out of a really tiny airport and got to walk on the runway to board. The plane ride was about 30 minutes long, not even time enough for me to write out all of the verbs I had to memorize for my first test! We stayed in Palma, the largest city on the island and our hotel was right on the beach. The first...
Exploring
Danielle and I discovered a new little breakfast café right around the corner from our dorm where we had fresh squeezed orange juice and chocolate napoleons (my favorite little breakfast/snack pastry). We have fresh juice, or zumo, every morning for breakfast in the cafeteria. Valencia is famous for their oranges, there are orange trees all around campus and the city is responsible for about 70%...
Laundry
It’s difficult to pack for an entire month and it becomes necessary at some point, when all your clothes soil, to do laundry. Laundry is different here in the dorms of Valencia, Spain. Fortunately I had a few Tide detergent packs in my suitcase so that was at least taken care of. This adventure started Wednesday afternoon before class when we had to go by laundry tokens from the front desk for 1...
Dance
One of the things Spain is known for is their dance. In Sra. Maria’s class we always do something interesting, our homework has ranged from trying the local drink horchata to finding out what the local drinking song is. Last Monday we learned about all of the different types of dances from around Spain, and in this area it’s called the Sardana. This is a group dance in which everyone...
Xátiva
Last weekend we took about an hour train ride to the city of Xátiva (the “X” is pronounced as a “ch” sound). The city was located in Eastern Spain not too far from our home in Valencia. There we visited a museum of ancient artifacts left by the Arabic, Roman and Christian settlers and then hiked to the Castell de Xátiva to tour the remaining ruins. It was an exhausting...
Ciudad de las artes y las ciencias →
Here’s a video of the City of Arts and Sciences if you want to see more. I tried to find a good video in English but all the best videos were in Spanish!
First days in Valencia
When we arrived to the University of Valencia, my roommate Danielle and I had a rude awakening to dorm life in Spain. Our door barely opened because there was a bookshelf in front of it, there were no dryers in the laundry room and worst of all, coed community bathrooms! After a lot of furniture moving, taping magazine pages to our walls for decoration and a trip to the market to buy shower shoes,...
Barcelona
We flew into Barcelona the first day and got to experience the city life. We stayed in the hotel Petit Palace Hotel BCN while we toured the city for 3 days. The whole time we were in Barcelona our schedule was packed. We went on a bus tour of the city 2 days and got to know our group.
Much of Barcelona was influenced by the Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí. He was a member of the “art...
España
My flight left from the Atlanta airport May 9 and a day later, our group of about 20 college students were walking around the streets of Barcelona, Spain energized for what was to come. I made the decision to study abroad in Spain a few months ago hoping to learn the Spanish culture and language, and discover something about myself along the way. I wanted to have an outlet to share all that I...
