Changing Countries

Today is my last day in Valencia. A little sad but I have enjoyed all of my time here. Especially going to the beach so often! Tonight, I will be taking a bus with our group back to Madrid and from there I will catch a bus to Lisbon, Portugal tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, this means that I will be in transit for about 18 hours but it will all be worth it. I don't think I am quite ready to return home yet but I am ready to have a change of scenery. In my free time at the beach, I have been reading up on Portugal and Lisbon specifically and I think this trip will be a lot of fun! Since I already have the language mindset this summer I am going to try to learn as much Portuguese as I can in a week but I don't expect it to be easy, even though Portuguese and Spanish seem to be similar on paper. The fact that I haven't ever heard Portuguese spoken in my life is probably not going to make it any easier but hopefully my phrasebook and the family I will be staying with will help me out. Also, I am now flying out of Lisbon instead of Madrid because I figured its worth paying to change flights to be able to stay in Lisbon an extra day and get a good night's rest before being flying back to North Carolina.

Cuenca

On my last excursion in Spain, I went to a medieval town in central Spain called Cuenca. Ariana, who was in Spain for a week after her study abroad trip in Greece for a month, was here so we wanted to take a trip to somewhere a little off the beaten path to check out a more typical Spain. If you would like you can check out her blog about her trip at http://arianaingreece.blogspot.com/. We found out the hard way that there were repairs in progress on our train ride to Cuenca and that we would have to take a bus for part of the trip, which turned out not to be too much trouble even though we were both somewhat confused for a little while. Once we arrived in Cuenca I remembered how hot it gets in the Castilla-La Mancha area of Spain. Think of the weather in Raleigh in summer compared to the weather in Boone in summer. Yeah, the difference between there and Valencia is like that. Our hotel turned out to be pretty nice except for the problem we had with our air conditioning the first night. It turned out the hose was blowing the hot air into the room and not out the window as well as blowing no cooler air out. Now imagine Florida during the summer...

The tourist spots in Cuenca were great. They have several Casas Colgadas (hanging houses) that literally hang over a river gorge. They are very picturesque and are self standing even though they aren't touching Earth at all points. The architecture of the cathedral in Cuenca was very interesting too. It has two open holes near the top of it that allow light to come through when you are looking at it from the front which is very different from the other designs that I have seen so far in Spain. Another cool sight there was the Tower of Mangana, a clock tower that has a wonderful view from in front of it over the city and countryside. Castilla-La Mancha has many plateaus, hills, and mountains so the views there were breathtaking. You can check out my pictures from Cuenca in my photo album: http://picasaweb.google.com/joshfisherncsu. Once I get Ariana's pictures from her I will upload those to my album also.

In order to take advantage of the scenery, we decided to take a hike up a mountain that is located across the river from the "old town." We were so glad that we did too. The views from the top of the hike were awesome. Being able to read the info at various points during the hike made it even better because we understood some of the history of the area. Ariana didn't quite share my enthusiasm but I thought the best part of the hike was the map they had near the top that showed the distance and direction from our exact location to various parts of Spain and other large cities in the world (there is a picture in my photo album).

The food so far in Spain has been fairly good but I thought the food was better than normal in Cuenca. Ariana tried her first tortilla española (potato omelet) and I ate some empanadillas that were pretty good on our first night. The next morning we tried hot chocolate and churros (a Spanish tradition) for breakfast which was great but probably not meant for a hot day when we were about to start a hike! The other meals we ate were great too but those were the most notable.

Luck of the Spanish

Lyle, you brought this to my attention and I think it is becoming an epidemic now. Since I have been here in Valencia, Spanish athletes have been doing extremely well in international competitions. It all started the night I arrived in Valencia when Spain dominated Germany in the Euro Cup 2008 Final. Next, came Wimbledon where Roger Federer had won the last four years in a row but this year Rafael Nadal, a Spaniard, beat him in a match that took five sets. It could be the fact that Nadal has now won the last five tournaments that he has competed in and just happens to be hot right now but hey it sounds good right? To top it off, Carlos Sastre, another Spaniard, won the Tour de France yesterday. Once again, Spaniards have now won the Tour the last three years but hey I'm here so i'm paying more attention to Spanish athletics. Nonetheless, I know the locals will be sad to know that I am leaving the week before the Olympics will start in Beijing. Hey, the Americans need to win something, right? Why not do it on the biggest stage.

Group Weekend Excursion to Calpe

The same week that I went to Pamplona, our program took a weekend trip to several different coastal towns in the Valencian province. The first was La Albufera, which is a natural park that harbors a ton of birds and plants. We took a boat ride through the lake there and I was able to get some great pictures and some not so great ones because I took them while bobbing up and down on a moving boat. Next we made our way down to Cullera, a beach town with the "Golden Mountain." Not sure why it is called that but the views from it were breathtaking. I wish we could have stayed longer there but with only a couple days to see four places there wasn't much time for each individual spot. After Cullera, we took the bus down to Calpe, a beach town where we stayed on Saturday night. There didn't seem to be a whole lot in the town but it had two big things going for it: Mediterranean water as clear as the Caribbean and a mini-Gibraltar type rock. I was actually hoping to make it down to Gibraltar during my trip but I won't be able to so seeing this was very rewarding, even though we didn't have the time to hike it. I think my dinner in Calpe was the best part of the trip because I got a plate of tortellini, plate of chicken alfredo, piece of tiramisu and a glass of wine for only 9 €. On Sunday, we left Calpe for Gandia where we thought we were going to try out watersports (wind surfing, kayaking and snorkeling) but there was a rip current that day and we weren't allowed in the water, oh well. Instead we sat on the beach, played paddleball (would be the national sport it seems if soccer didn't exist) and beach volleyball. They weren't as exciting as watersports would have been but I still had a lot of fun trying out beach volleyball. Even though I hardly ever play volleyball I can run, dive and have fun with the best and anyone who has ever competed with or against me knows that I will play anything hard. Pictures from excursion: http://picasaweb.google.com/joshfisherncsu/AlbuferaCulleraCalpeAndGandia.

Pamplona and Running of the Bulls

I have been slack lately writing on here so I want to try and make up for it before I leave Valencia next Thursday. The entire trip I had hoped to make it up to Pamplona for the Festival of San Fermin and to watch a running of the bulls. Our first attempt at planning a trip didn't work but persistence paid off. Five friends and I were able to take an overnight bus to Pamplona, stay for the day and then take another overnight bus back to Valencia in order to avoid paying for a hostel or hotel. The trip was somewhat rushed because we would all be going to Pamplona on a Thursday (July 10) on a weekend excursion with our program and would be leaving at 9 AM on Saturday morning (July 12), only three hours after we return to Valencia. All of our plans worked out great and we got to pick out a decent seat for the running around 6 AM on Friday morning. Only one person in our group ran and we were somewhat worried for him because none of us had ever witnessed the running in person, much less participated, so we didn't quite know what to expect. The running itself was a very short event and the one we saw was somewhat uneventful because the bulls stuck together in a pack but good because only a few people got hurt. The part of the running that we were able to see was even shorter but the atmosphere and everything about the festival was awesome. The rest of the day we walked around town or sat around in areas with shaed that we could find. It was kind of funny because a lot of random events happened while we were in Pamplona, including meeting people from Austria, Slovenia, Valencia, Iowa and other drunk Spaniards who wanted to practice speaking their english with us (a.k.a. sing one line, When a Man Loves a Woman...). Also, a parade of big heads that we couldn't find previously actually headed towards where we were sitting on the edge of town along with the girls who were with us were filmed in an Antartican guarana drink. Among other neat stuff there were a ton of parades through the streets of various bands playing what we thought was the San Fermin theme song. From my pictures you can see how tired we were because we all passed out on a hill in the afternoon because we weren't able to sleep at all on the bus we took. Overall, this was a short but fun trip that was definitely worth being exhausted a couple days for. Pictures from Pamplona: http://picasaweb.google.com/joshfisherncsu/Pamplona. Videos from Pamplona: http://youtube.com/joshfisherncsu.

Pictures uploaded

It took me a while to find a solution to my problem of uploading pictures and videos here in Valencia but I have finally found it. I have uploaded everything so far, including some from Madrid, El Escorial, Valle de Los Caidos, Toledo, Euro Cup 2008 Final, Valencia, and a suprise! I just returned this weekend from Pamplona where I witnessed the Running of the Bulls on Friday. I will write an entry on Pamplona and my other weekend excursion later this week. You can view my photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/joshfisherncsu and my videos at http://youtube.com/joshfisherncsu.

Homestay

As some of you already know, I am staying with a Spanish family in their home during my time here in Valencia, so I wanted to share a little about them. When I arrived there were four people living in the house, the father Jesus, the mother Julieta, the daughter Ainoa, and the grandmother (I don´t know her name because she is always called Grandma), but our second day here Ainoa and Grandma left for northern Spain for the rest of the summer to spend time with other members of the family. The family is originally from Asturias but moved to Valencia about 9 years ago. Before I got here I was informed that Jesus was a chef and I was very excited because I LOVE to eat, but unfortunately Jesus has only cooked for us once (Spanish tortilla that was delicious). I am under the impression that Jesus is sick but I can´t really understand exactly what is wrong with him. He is only in his mid 50´s but he uses a walker to get around and I saw him with tubes that looked likes IVs in his stomach. Jesus doesn´t work right now and sits in the bed most of the day watching day so unfortunately I don´t get to interact with him very much.

However, I do interact with Julieta all the time and she is a very nice woman who does all of the cooking, cleaning, etc. Sometimes she speaks very fast and is difficult to understand but I have already been able to understand her a lot better as my first week here has gone on. Even though she slurs a lot of sentences and phrases together, I normally am able to get the gist of what is going but not always the details (like the night she asked me and my roommate to join her for drinks at a restaurant below our building and we both almost left to go somewhere else). So far we have eaten traditional Spanish meals (pastries for breakfast, baguettes for lunch, Spanish tortillas) and then there have been some very American meals (hamburger steak and french fries, spaghetti, pasta salad, pork chops). So far I have tried everything that has been put in front of me and I liked most of it except for some type of fruit that was horrible and a Calamari sandwich I had in Madrid.

The family lives in a typical Spanish ¨apartment¨ which is more or less a flat. The apartment, on the third floor of a high rise building, has three bedrooms, a connected kitchen and den, two bathrooms, a dining room that was turned into the parent´s bedroom, and a terrace that looks out over the plaza behind the building. As you can probably tell a living room isn´t really included. It is very uncommon to invite friends and family over to your home in Spain because everything is done out in the open, at restaurants, pubs, plazas, etc. So there isn´t really much of a common room for the entire family and normally all that is done in the home is eating, sleeping, and bathing. Its definitely different but its not a problem for me because I can do about everything I need on the beach! That doesn´t include using the Internet but I do that normally around the time that I have class anyway. The apartment does not have air conditioning but that isn´t too much of an issue because there is almost always a breeze that helps to cool things off.

I know I will have more to share about my family as my stay here continues but this is a good start.

Spanish Culture

It didn´t take very long to notice some oddities in the Spanish culture. Facial piercings are quite common for people of both sexes, including nose rings, eyebrow rings, lip rings, etc. For guys its very popular to have mullet and to wear capris. I don´t know about you but I wouldn´t be caught dead having either, much less both! I even saw one guy about my age with Hello Kitty! capris on. The fun part about it though is that they are creative with their mullets. There are the typical mullets, dreadlocks down the back, a single dreadlock on the side, a single rat tail off-center, blond mullet tips, just to name a few. Overall, it really feels like Spaniards are stuck in the 80´s US culture with the mullets, tattoos, piercings, hoards of cigarette smokers, among others. I don´t know if this means they just found out about all of that stuff late and its huge now or if they will all be coming back into style. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

EuroCup 2008

As most of you probably know by now, Spain won the 2008 EuroCup. Both the semifinals and the finals took place since I have been here in Spain and both games were shown on big screen TVs in the cities that I was in. I watched the semifinals last Thursday in the Colon (Christopher Columbus) Plaza with about 100,000 other spaniards. It was incredibly crowded so I left at halftime but it was an awesome experience and I even learned a few fight songs. Europeans are incredibly enthusiastic about their soccer and it felt like everyone in the city was in the plaza watching the game. Even though it was crowded I am taller than most Spaniards here so seeing the screen was no problem. Face paint is a huge deal for soccer games so everyone had their flag painted on there face and the mural on the side of a huge building of the new Incredible Hulk movie was included. Even the Hulk had his flag face paint!

On Sunday, I arrived in Valencia and watched the game right beside the soccer stadium here with about 20,000 other people. Even though there were less people here in Valencia to watch the game it was still ridiculous. Everyone was equipped with fireworks, cannons, air horns, flags, jerseys, and all of the beer and cigarettes anyone could ever want. The celebration of the victory lasted into the morning with the spanish honking their horns constantly. At one point in the plaza near the stadium here in Valencia, people climbed upon on a statue of a horseback rider to lead the celebration.

In Valencia

I am now in Valencia so I will have constant Internet access. I can´t get it with the family I am staying with but I can at the office for our program near the University. Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/joshfisherncsu/Valencia. Videos: http://youtube.com/joshfisherncsu