Valencia at last!

Finally. Finally finally, I have arrived at Valencia.

A breakdown of my travels so far:

January 31st

7pm BWI: Say goodbye to loved ones. Meet Michael at the airport. Endure a whopping ten minutes of security.

9pm BWI: Board our flight to Valencia! Scratch that. Board our flight to London. We embark on leg 1 of our journey. There is free wine and beer, it can't be so bad.

February 1st

Somewhere in the central Atlantic time-space continuum: A seat uncomfortable enough to keep me from the 7 hours of sleep I should have had.

9am LONDON: At last we land. We are exhausted, but London is great! There are signs forbidding "sharps" and trams that drive on the left of the road. Our stay in London goes like this: Get off the airplane. Get on a tram. Get off at a terminal. Walk to a different terminal. Get on a tram. Get off at a gate. Walk to a waiting area. Walk to another gate. Get on a tram. Arrive at our plane.

3pm BARCELONA: ESPANA at last!! We repeat our procedure in London... This seems to be common. Our plane parks in a seemingly random spot in the center of a runway; we board a tram which repeats the process. We recheck a few bags. We leave for Valencia.

6pm VALENCIA!!: It is gorgeous and sunny! I practice my Spanish: Donde esta el taxi??? 20 Euros later, we arrive at the Purple Nest Hostel. A few hours are spent wandering the city. After incredible difficulties navigating (we speak 2% Espanol, 98% Ingles), we return with a working phone, some paella, and unfortunately no cervezas. Turns out Valencia doesn't sell alcohol from stores after 10pm. It's ok; we find canned Heineken from the friendly hostel vending machine. After a few with some new traveling friends, it's a night.

February 2nd:

10am: Awaken, eat nutella on bread, and gather our bearings. The goal: depart Purple Nest at 11am, arrive at UPV around 11:45, sit down in orientation at noon. The reality: depart Purple Nest at 11am, get distracted by a concrete wall crashing from the top of a 20-story building, arrive UPV around noon, walk to the wrong building, finally sit down at orientation about 35 minutes fashionably late.

1pm: We receive more information in the preceding 25 minutes than in our entire fall semester preparing for this. We meet up with fellow Terrapins, Joey and Hannah and grab some salad. We then visit TWO more international offices to gather paperwork in preparation for the challenge to come: Registration.

3pm: We find Andrew! He seems proficient in the language. We do quite a bit of exploring the area. The campus is beautiful and there are orange trees everywhere. Valencia feels awesome. Andrew is kind enough to help us along in finding a piso (apartment/flat). After a few calls and texts, we realize that it is not so easy. Stuttering out "Habla Ingles?" is challenging and mostly invites responses of "Poco, poco" or straight up "No". Our search returns no feasible options. We return to the nest.

6pm: Shit, it's already 6? We missed all of siesta! So in Valencia and probably all of Spain, the locals like to engage in the sport of siesta, extreme napping, which occurs inevitably daily from around 2pm to 4pm or 5pm. This explains their daily routine of two mid-day meals, dinner around 10pm, and waiting until 1am to hit the club. We have been doing it all wrong this entire time. We're still American.

8pm: We successfully make it to the supermarcado! A few interesting things about Spanish grocery stores: they do not refrigerate eggs or milk. They do not sell soup. They do not refrigerate large smoked legs of ham and meats. And it is possible to purchase a 6-pack of longneck bottles for 1,25 euro. That is about $0.25 a bottle. And it's better than Natty. I conjure up a forged statement of Health Insurance coverage, as they can’t seem to understand that we are covered indefinitely as students, and we hang in the commonroom.

February 3rd

1:39am: I await the premier of LOST. Sadly, I don't think I'll be seeing it tonight. Unless there are any volunteers to Skype me the 3 hour special. ...Anybody?