España Extraña!

I know its been a few days since I´ve blogged. We have done so many things in such a short time... I feel like I haven´t had a second to relax!

Our group left Barcelona and arrived in Valencia Wednesday night--and wow, what a difference! Barcelona is a busy, lively, beautiful city and Valencia is a smaller, laid-back town. Our group is split in half for living arrangements. I am living in Luis Vives, the dorm that is closest to all the ¨discotecas¨ and bars. The dorm rooms are small and bare with community bathrooms. OH! and when i say community bathrooms, I mean boys and girls using the same showers and toilets. Que extraña! definitely something i am going to have to get used to. Also, when you turn the lights on in the hallway, they only stay on for 30 seconds to conserve energy. Thats great and all, but at night, its extremely creepy. At night, Katie and I usually run as fast as we can to make it to our room at the end of the hallway so we dont have to keep pushing the button.

The dining hall is on the main floor of the building (which is floor 0 in spain, not floor 1) We are getting to be pros at the whole dining hall thing, but the first time was beyond awkward. It definately was like the first day of middle school. We walked into the cafeteria not knowing where to go or what to do, and all the spanish students were staring at us... Our teacher had to show us where to get trays, bowls, and food! The first night they were serving some kind of meat and french fries or some kind of squid-like thing... i went with the meat.

There are quite a few things i have noticed about eating habits of spaniards... First of all, they LOVE carbs. they eat bread with every meal, and they dont always serve meat. But they are all so skinny because spaniards walk everywhere- no joke. So I have gotten my fais share of exercise.

Breakfast usually consists of cereal, bread, and pastries. I thought it was funny that for breakfast they serve luke warm coffe, but boiling milk to mix half and half. That threw me off the first day. For lunch they usually serve chicken and some side item. And for dinner--theres no telling. They eat anytime between 8-10pm. I´ve noticed that its a custom for Spanish people eat their salad after their meal.. i must have looked pretty strange eating it first. Also, they use so much olive oil... they cook everything in it! It kind of hurts my stomach :( So far I am absolutely in LOVE with the orange juice here-- freshly squeezed only! The number one thing they eat is Paella which is rice and seafood usually, but they also serve ¨bocadillos con jamon y queso¨ (ham and cheese sandwiches) everywhere.

Katie and I finally met some spanish students last night in our dorm. We wanted to meet people to show us around, but It is so intimidating... They speak extremely fast and use the vosotros form like its nobody´s buisness. It is sooo hard to understand and we probably look really stupid trying to communicate.. We finally met some boys on our hall. Youseff, Gido, and Ernest (haha those names crack me up btw). They are really nice and they know english so they said they would help us if we needed anything.

We met the only 2 american students last night. One is from new jersey and one is from california. They showed us around and they were glad to finally have some ppl that they could speak english to. They are really cool. Nico is hopefully taking us to the beach this weekend and showing us how to sneak on the metro...

The clothing here is interesting. All the girls here are obsessed with fashion. I have seen a ton of high boots and skinny jeans (and lots of shorts with tights and boots. I like the way the girls dress. The guys-- not my fave. Guys either wear tight jeans or capri-like things ( more so in barcelona). Valencia is more ¨normal¨ Katie and I joke that the guys are either city gay or beach gay. Not to mention they wear very stylsh sunglasses and some guys have gucci man-purses (i think that was more in barcelona too). Everyone knows we are americans because we wear flip flops. NOBODY here wears flipflops around unless they are going to the beach. Girls wear flats, boots, or heels.

Thursday was the first day of classes. One of my teachers is Tony (the professor that we came to Spain with and the other, Maria, is a professor that lives here in valencia. I love maria. she is so cool and really fun. she was sick todya so class was cancelled so thats why i finally got a chance to sit down and write. I was not planning on going out last night due to my extreme lack of sleep, but our homework in maria´s class was to go out and try ¨horchata¨this spanish sugary almond tasting drink and we had to find people to teach us the ¨Valencian drinking song.¨ My friends and I went out for a few beers and had some incoherentlty drunk guys try to sing it to us. they didnt really remember any of the words. We had a great time tho and met lots of drunk spanish people.

If you didnt know, I havent had a computere charger (so no skype) and on top of that my bank of america card wast working because my pin number was too long. go figure. So hopefully that is all worked out, but i locked myself out of my room and katie is still in class, so i cant check until she gets back. Its so hard not being able to call/txt people without it charging you per minute/txt. You have to be creative and you really have to try to know your own way around. I feel like were trapped in the olden days without cell phones... ohh well. Aside from taking a tour of the city today and seeing all the beautiful buildings and shops, thats about all we have done so far. I have some homework to do and I got to go shower and get ready because it´s FRIDAY! whoo hoo! party time :) So I will try to write again when I have a second to do so. Se falta mis amigos y mi familia mucho!