Día 10- Castillo!

Woke up early to go the Castillo Romano de Sagunto. It is a castle in a city called Sagunto. The people in the castle fought General Hannabil in 219 B.C. four months waiting for the Romans to come and help them. But, they got defeated after four months because the Romans never came. The caste itself was beautiful. The walk up was a little rough since we had to walk up a mountain to get there, but it was worth it. Mistake number one of my day? Do not wear sandals when you are going to visit a very old castle and that is on top of a mountain. I do not know what I was expecting to see and why I wore a dress and sandals, but it was definitely the wrong way to go. But, all that matters is that I made it without falling on my face or hurting myself. So that is a victory in itself. To get to the castle we took a train, which was the first time I had been on a train that was not considered a metro. Someone came around and checked for your tickets and everything, which is something I have personally never experienced. It was interesting.

Día 9- Vamos a la playa!

Today I woke up early to go to the Mercado Central because it is only open in the mornings. The Mercado Central is Europe biggest fruit market that just happens to be a ten-minute walk from the dorms. This place is incredible. They have so many different fresh fruit, freshly made marmalade and honey. There was one part of the market that I did not like as much the fresh meat and seafood section. This place makes you want to become a vegetarian from the fresh squid to seeing a skinned rabbit with its eyeballs still intact really makes you think twice about your dietary preferences. They even had fresh eels. So fresh in fact that they were still swimming around in a little bit of water waiting for their fate. I seriously considering becoming a vegetarian after this, but I am not sure if I could do it. Maybe the engraved picture in my head of a skinless duck with its beak still intact will soon erase itself from my memory. After the market five of us went to the beach. It was the first time I had ever seen the Mediterranean Sea! We took a bus that took about thirty minutes to a beach that was very busy that seemed to be like a little boardwalk. I had a tortilla bocadillo for lunch at the beach which was very good. A tortilla bocadillo is like an egg and potatoes sandwich which seems a bit weird, but it also very typical so I figured I would try it. The beach was wonderful. There was the perfect amount of heat and breeze. It was relaxing. Two things that I did not enjoy about the Mediterranean Sea. The first the water was freezing. The second, the sand here loves to stick to your body. It is much different than the sand in the U.S. I took a shower and I could not get all of the sand off my face. I feel very grainy, but I guess it could be another way of exfoliating! On the way home I noticed a culture difference that I did not care for. Young people over here do not respect their elders on the buses. There is a section on the bus that was reserved for the elderly and young guy sat there even though someone had told him that those seats were reserved. What nerve. Apparently this is something that is very common in Spain according to my culture professor. The bus was full and there were at least five old people with canes and all young Spaniards sitting in the seats. Only one young woman got up for one of the older women to sit down and the woman was so gracious and surprised that someone was so nice to give up their seat. To me this act should be considered common courtesy.

Día 7 and 8- Laundry day…

I went shopping around the city and was finally able to find some shoes! We will see how good they are. I also was able to find an over the shoulder bag for my books. We went for horchatas y fartons in the evening and they were just okay. Horchatas is a tiger nut drink that tastes vaguely like a hazel nut vanilla. And you use a farton which is like a breadstick pastry to dip it in the horchata. I was not a big fan of this drink, but over the weekend our homework is to go to an horchataria a town over that is supposed to have the world’s best horchata. I am willing to give it another chance. I had a fight with the washing machine over here. It figures washing machines hate me. I could not get the stupid thing to fill with water. It was just spinning for a while so I opened the door to start it over and of course it ate my money. So I gave it more money. It does not matter what country I am in the washing machines will always hate me. Nothing can ever be easy. I do not understand the machines. They eat my money. How do I start the dumb thing? I am so over it. But I guess next time I know. I am pretty sure that I am going to be single handedly responsible for a for the dryer blowing up because I put more money in it than was allowed. We will see what happens. We went out for tapas. They were really good. There was only one thing I could not bring myself to try, escargot. I just could not do it. It looked too weird and the idea freaked me out too much. After tapas we went for more churros con chocolate, which was perfect since it was raining outside. A group of us really wanted to go somewhere for our three-day weekend, but we could not find something cheap enough and within times we could go. But, around one o’clock in the morning one of us found a trip to Pisa, Italy. So we booked it. We definitely have nowhere to stay yet so we will see what happens. The picture shown is la plaza de la virgen at night. I pass by it everyday.

Pictures from the top of El Miguelete

Día 6- Churros con chocolate

Today was the first day where when I woke up and I felt absolutely terrible, so I did not do much. I went to class and then I went to a grocery store that was on the way back from school. I spent a ridiculous 21 Euros on shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and Chap Stick. Everything here appears to be at least twice as much as it would be in the U.S. We went back for lunch. Then I did nothing for a while since I was really tired. After a while, a few of the girls and I decided that we wanted to go shopping and try churros with chocolate (it was the best homework assignment I have ever gotten). I bought a really pretty dress from natura, but I was unable to find shoes. I really need a good pair of comfortable shoes that will be able to go with dresses. I walk around so much here that everything from about mid-thigh down hurts in some way. I know that I will get used to walking around soon, so it is not that big of a deal. The churros were amazing and a very loose comparison would be to chocolate covered funnel cake. A few people had not gone to get churros from ‘Valor’ (a chocolatería that has been there since 1881!) but they were closed so they got gelato instead. The city is beautiful at night. I love the atmosphere and the temperature is comfortable. You would only need a light jacket.

Día 5- Donde está la casa de los libros?

Today I woke up at 8:30am to go to class at 10:45 and to eat breakfast. I really enjoyed my classes to day. In my culture class we discussed the Euro and the reason why people here do not really say gracias or por favor. My professor explained to us that saying gracias and por favor for everything is a way of distancing yourself from people and that is why people do not say it too much. She said that Spaniards think that Americans are too ‘educados’ or proper since we say thank you for everything. In my Spanish business class we just introduced ourselves, which was good because I still have not met a lot of the people here. After class a small group of us had to make our way to the bank because it closed at 2:15pm and we get out of class at 1:30. When we got there they had to buzz us in which is something I had never experienced before. There was a surcharge of 9 Euros to exchange money but I just did it anyway because I was beginning to run out. After the bank I went with my friend Steven to ‘la casa de los libros’, which is huge bookstore because he needed a book. Needless to say, we could not find it and we had to ask around. Because we could not find it we ran into ‘la plaza de los toros’ (where the bullfighting takes place) and the train station which was huge. Those are the pictures that I have attached. Today I also walked up to the top of El Miguelete which is a part of a church. It was hard to climb the 200 extremely steep steps to the top, but it was worth it. After dinner we went to a bar where there was music and flamenco dancing. It was a lot of fun. I had agua fresca for the first time, which someone described to me as being the Valencian mimosa. It was really good. We definitely got weird stares from people and I even think that there were some people that were mimicking us. While watching the show someone stood in front of me so I tried to stand somewhere else so I could see and I got the deadliest stare that anyone has given me in my life. Some people can be rude. Coming back to the dorms was a very interesting experience. Let’s just say that I was very happy to be walking with a group. I was surprised to see how many people were out on a Tuesday night. It is definitely a different lifestyle over here.

Día 4- Discovering the City

I woke up early to go to classes. We had breakfast where I had the best orange juice I have ever tasted in my life. It was about a half hour walk to get to class and we waited for about a half an hour before the professors showed up because they did not think that we were going to have classes today. The professors at this school are fantastic and I am looking forward to going to class. You can really tell that they enjoy what they do for a living and genuinely care. I am taking a Spanish Culture class, which looks very interesting, and a Spanish Business class, which looks like it is going to be a little more work. At lunch while trying to put my tray back I dropped it on the floor and broke a plate. People stood up and clapped and all I could think about is that I would do something like that. After lunch at the dorms we were supposed to go to the bank, but me and Janda lost track of time and were unable to meet up with the group. So we wandered the streets. We walked all around the city only speaking Spanish. We found El Corto Inglés, which is a ridiculous version of Macy’s with a supermarket in the basement. Everything is really overpriced. The store is literally ten floors. I did not like the store at all and I do not really have the desire to go back. Today was exciting for the two of us because we managed to walk around without getting directions or even looking at a map. It was the first time we were not with the group and it was the first time where people talked to us in Spanish and smiled. It was nice. We had a scavenger hunt around the city where we had to take pictures with different landmarks and my group won! It was exhausting and my feet hurt really badly. We will get a free dinner at a restaurant near us! The pictures I have attached are the view from my balcony!