now or never...

So today I did something I never do.  Impulse purchasing.  I booked a trip to go to LONDON with the same two friends I'm traveling with over fall break :)  I'm really excited! The flights themselves weren't very expensive, then they surprise you with the 11 euro charge for using any type of credit/debit card to purchase them.  We're leaving November 26th and coming back on the 29th, so right after Thanksgiving. (We are having a Thanksgiving dinner as one of our group activities at school.)  I felt like I would definitely regret missing out on this opportunity if I didn't go for it.  

La huelga update- I haven't seen any protestors so far (I did only walk about 4 blocks total today...) but on the news they showed some pretty serious things going on in Barcelona and Madrid.  It didn't look very fun so I'm glad that I am here instead.  

gulliver: giant playground man

My most recent Valencian adventure was climbing the arm of Gulliver, a giant man who (according to the story of Gulliver) was tied to the ground- and you will need to read Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift to find out the rest.  In Valencia, Gulliver is a playground that is visited by many children throughout the day, and is crawling with them on Sunday afternoons.  

From the ground, I previously thought this place was some kind of water park, because it was always closed when I walked by and looked to have a large number of slides.  These slides are actually Gulliver's clothing, and are definitely bigger and steeper than any slides I've encountered in the U.S.  Gulliver would have "liability" written all over him in the U.S.  


Tomorrow is the "huelga general" in Spain, which means "general strike."  Throughout the country people are protesting against the price increases in electricity, which are set to rise in October.  No one really knows what will happen tomorrow, since this is a pretty rare thing to happen.  There are scheduled marches for the protestors on specified routes, so we've been advised to stay away from those routes.  There are fliers on the ground everywhere and stickers on lightposts in the shape of a footprint telling people to go to the strike.  There will be "servicios minimos" all day tomorrow, which basically means that only a very small amount of public transportation will be available and a lot of stores and restaurants will be closed.  25% of buses and trains will be running, so I plan on not taking a bus anywhere tomorrow (not much of a problem since I only take the bus to the track).  


Unfortunately, it turns out that I won't be going to the fútbol game against Manchester United tomorrow night.  They were all sold out of the cheaper tickets and I wasn't about to buy one for 70 euro from the guy on the street selling them.  It's okay though since there are games pretty much every Sunday, my friends and I will definitely find one to go to soon.  I'm planning on going to watch a local Flamenco show instead.  It's a group activity so we get a discount and drinks provided with the entrance fee.  


One last thought for tonight- after my workout at the track today I met two 800 runners! They are part of the track club here and also compete for a Valencian team.  They are 18 and 24 years old and the older one runs a 2:08 800.  They invited me to workout with them anytime I'm at the track, which I will definitely do.  It's hard running by myself all the time and it will be really fun to learn some new things that I've seen them doing previously (like different strength training and body circuits).  More Spanish friends!  :)

weekend adventures

Because I haven't blogged in awhile I'm struggling to decide what to talk about or where to begin.  I had a pretty busy weekend considering I was one of the few people who stayed in Valencia rather than travel elsewhere.  We had no classes on Friday, so I definitely wasn't in "school mode" for my 9 a.m economy class today.    

I received a request for a picture of my school, it isn't too exciting.  Just one building, 5 classrooms, a small auditorium, student "lounge" or cafeteria, a computer room (I can't use these computers without wanting to start hitting them because they are so old and slow & the keyboard is all confusing with the spanish keys) that is always about 90 degrees, and a "library" which is basically a room full of desks, and all of the offices for the professors.

On Friday I went to el museo de la almoina, which I already blogged about.  The rest of the day was spent pretty much at the track.  On Saturday I racked up the walking miles for a grand total of approximately 7-8, there is no place that is too far for me to walk! In the morning I went to el mercado central, which is the 8000 sq. foot indoor market that I mentioned wanting to visit.  The closest comparison that I can think of to relate to what this place looked like would be the Expo Center at State Fair- except instead of live Shazam and Swiffer infomercials it was all fresh produce, seafood, pastries, nuts, olive oil, pretty much whatever is produced in Spain.  

While we were walking around, I asked my friend Chris "where is all of the seafood?" and he said "you'll know when you're by the seafood."  Very true- the smell is so strong they keep all of the fish in a separate part of the building, plus the vendor's tables are different since it all has to be kept cold.  I have no idea how many different types of fish I saw there, but if it previously lived in the ocean it was probably in that room.  Stingrays, squid, octopus, shrimp, lobsters, crab, fish at least 2 or 3 feet long, and they were all staring back at me. 

After lunch, since I hadn't walked enough already that day, I went to el centro comercial Aqua (a mall) with two friends. It is a pretty good looking mall.  Two sides aren't enclosed so there is a constant breeze and very bright sunlight streaming in.  This is good because people insist on smoking everywhere, so at least that isn't an issue as much here. I had previously been there with my intercambio friend so I knew approximately where it was located.  I'm getting pretty good at using my map, it has many highlighted routes on it, along with other random writing from my other excursions.  Running has definitely helped me become more comfortable with this city.  If I can see the río or know which direction it is located, I'm golden.  

La puente de los flores (bridge of the flowers)
My new favorite bridge- you can't even tell there are
cars on the other side of those flowers.

strawberry+chocolate+caramelized cookies..best way to start the day

I wasn't kidding when I said I was going to go back to llao llao today and try new toppings on my frozen yogurt.  That did happen and it was just as amazing as I anticipated :) 

View from outside- the museum is under this water

I did do something more cultural this morning as well.  I went with some members of my group to el museo de la almoina, which is an underground museum that displays some of the original streets of Valencia throughout several different empires including the Roman Empire, los visigodos, and the Islamic Empire.  In addition to the original stone roads, there are also artifacts like pottery, ancient baths, and tombs with some original human remains still there.  On one of the main roads there was a large stone that literally served as a "speed bump" when the roads were used.  I guess even the Visigoths liked to "drive" too fast...


We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but that's what Google Images is for, right?

View from below looking up through the glass

One of the artifacts that we found entertaining was the ancient "piggy bank" that was discovered while they were excavating the city.  It looked like a round rock with a slit for putting money in it, but what made it so rare to find was the fact that in order to get the money out of it, you had to break the entire thing.  (Good motivation to not spend money perhaps?) So clearly the odds of finding one of these intact are pretty slim.  

llao llao

Today I went to what will soon become my most visited location in Valencia- llao llao frozen yogurt.  For someone who likes yogurt as much as I do, it's hard to put into words how excited I was when I saw all the different toppings.  Mango, strawberries, kiwi, pineapple, melon, granola, caramelized cookies, dulce de leche sauce, white chocolate and chocolate sauce, mixed berry...I am already planning the flavors I want to try next :)

To make things even better, it is reasonably priced as well as delicious! For a medium size, which is a huge amount of frozen yogurt +3 toppings, it's only 2.50.  They also make a kind of "breakfast" item, which has frozen yogurt on the top and bottom and in the middle are layers of fruit and granola.  Definitely on my list.  

I didn't mention this before but I did find "Duffin Dagels," which is basically a Dunkin' Donuts with crazier donuts.  They had donuts with marshmallows on top, oreos, chips ahoy, M&M's, and the list goes on.  It's a good thing I'm running every day, just from this blog post it looks like the only thing I do here is eat. 

a new perspective

In a lot of my classes, I'm realizing that I will probably learn more about U.S. history here than I did during school in the U.S.  In my economy class, my professor basically asked us if they taught us anything in the U.S about history, when no one knew what he was talking about.  I think it will be more interesting going back and looking at world events from a Spanish perspective, because a lot of the events that the U.S. was involved in also had an effect on countries that weren't even involved.  Sometimes we don't realize this when we are learning about U.S. history, that all histories coincide and produce global consequences.  


Today when I was walking to school there was a strike of some sort happening about 2 blocks from my house.  I'm not sure what it was about, the signs they were holding said something about workers, but I did know that the word for "strike" is "huelga." (Gracias a mi clase de conversación.)


Maybe I just have a brain for economics, but it's strange because my economy class is the highest level class I am taking and the vocabulary is difficult because it pretty much has its own language, but I seem to understand that class the most- a lot more than my Latin American Civilization class at least.  Everything we talk about is very logical and a lot easier to read about than ancient recollections of conversations between Cortés and Montezuma, who somehow managed to converse even though neither one had any concept of the language of the other. Still a mystery to me...

Torres del Serrano- original gates to the city

I have no classes on Friday (tomorrow) this week, so I get an extra long weekend to explore Valencia some more.  I'm not sure exactly what I will be doing, but I'd like to go to Torres de Serrano, which is one set of the original gates to the city, when there was a wall surrounding the whole historic district.  I've seen the gates but I think you can go inside somehow and see other things.  I might also check out one of the modern art museums here.  Next week I'm planning on going to one of Valencia's home fútbol games versus Manchester United, which should be a very exciting experience.  Last night they tied against a team from Madrid, not Real Madrid, but I can't remember the name.  It's funny watching it on TV at my house because it's actually happening right across the street.  If the stadium didn't have walls I could watch from my window.  

distractions

It seems that Spain is on a mission to prevent me from doing homework and insisting that I take more naps.  I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that it is so difficult to find a somewhat quiet place to do homework or read.  The starbucks I attempted today was full of kids, so I decided to try to read in los jardines, which worked a little better.  It turned into an expedition trying to find a bench to sit on, and Sunday is definitely the day that everyone and their family walks or bikes in los jardines de turía.  I ended up back in my room to actually get things done.  

There's always some kind of festival happening here- today it happened to be Día de la bicicleta.  As I was walking downtown this morning there were hundreds if not thousands of people all riding their bikes down one of the main streets near my apartment.  I'm not sure where they all ended up, but it seemed like everyone who owned a bike was there.  

Right now it sounds like there is a festival happening outside my window...

spanish amigo

I think my intercambio experiment might be one of the best things I do while I'm here.  I met my new spanish friend last night, he is brave enough to have a car here so that was my first experience riding in a car in Valencia.  He has a cockatiel named Elvis, which I found amusing, and also a turtle.  I asked him if the bird could talk, but it doesn't.  He also likes a lot of American indie music, even though he doesn't understand most of the words.  We went to a cafe I had never seen before and had some kind of strawberry juice- I think he and the manager of the cafe thought it was pretty funny that I had no idea what anything was or what I could order there.  We talked mostly in Spanish, I had some trouble understanding things that he said in English sometimes but I'm sure that will improve.  It will definitely be fun to explore Valencia with a local- he gave me a list of good movie theaters, discos, and restaurants to try.  


On another exciting note, myself and two friends finalized plans for our fall break, which is from October 8-17.  We will be traveling the 11-17 to Barcelona, Pisa, Rome and Athens.  We were able to find some good deals for flights and inexpensive hostels in each location.  One of the hostels in Italy has a complimentary spaghetti dinner, and another is located directly above a Gelateria- exciting! We will have 2 days in each city (we're only passing through Barcelona to get to Italy), and it will probably be extremely chaotic but since Rome and Greece (pretty much any city in Greece) are the two places I've always wanted to go to, I'm very excited.  I can't wait to see Vatican City and the Swiss Guard (Angels & Demons is the only book I brought with me here and it takes place throughout Rome).  
This option of city-hopping turned out to be a lot cheaper than the cruise we thought about booking.  It will probably be the only big traveling I do while I am here, hopefully there will be a few weekend trips around Spain as well.  


It's hard to believe I've been here for over two weeks now.  The homework is starting to pile on heavier, but I have some interesting assignments, too.  The topic I chose for my conversation class presentation is "fútbol as a political ideology and the social impact on the population."  For my spanish civilization presentation I chose Salvador Dalí; conveniently I went to his house/museum in high school so I have plenty of pictures to work with there.  


My running has been going pretty well.  I ran a workout at the track which is about 3 miles from my house.  It's kind of a hassle to get there and back because the bus takes about 25-30 minutes, so I need at least 3 hours of time to go there and come back.  All of the sports here are private, so since everyone in Valencia runs at the exact same time, there were about 150 kids on the track when I went there.  They ranged from about 5 years old to high school age, all wearing the same club track uniform.  They were all doing different types of warm up activities and stretching.  It seems like if you don't play fútbol here, you're running track.  

sweet and sour are not to be mixed

At my house (U.S.) conserving dishes is a big deal.  I never use more than one fork or plate during any meal, since inevitably I will be washing them later.  It's been over two weeks since I've had to wash dishes, but I'm still used to using the same plate and fork throughout my meal.  


Today when I tried putting fruit onto the plate that I used for my lunch, my host mom and sister went crazy and started speaking extremely fast about how the flavors can't be mixed, salt and sugar is no good at all, and so on.  They immediately brought me a completely new plate and fork for the fruit, which I was all prepared to eat with my first fork.  They also tend to use dishes when it really isn't necessary.  Whenever I have a banana, they give it to me on a plate.  Then my host mom started going on about another girl she hosted who loved the "bizarre" combination of peanut butter and bananas (salty and sweet)...I added that not only do I survive on peanut butter and bananas at home, I also eat it on las manzanas (apples).  


Sidenote- whatever I had for lunch was amazing.  Somehow she made cauliflower edible by combining it with potatos, tomatoes, hard boiled egg pieces, and a white cream sauce with even more cheese melted on top.  

miscellaneous thoughts

My host mom made paella for the first time for lunch yesterday, and it was pretty similar to when I had it in Spain in high school.  It had chicken and vegetables along with the traditional yellow colored rice.  


I'm making progress reading Harry Potter in Spanish, which is exciting because I'm getting better at understanding the flow of the language while I read and not having to think about what all the words mean.  It's also a lot more fun to read than my Latin American civilization course pack...


I also decided to participate in the intercambio program through UVA Hispanic studies and the University of Valencia.  Basically, I was assigned a spanish student friend based on interests that I wrote down.  From what I understand we have to meet twice a week and split up the time equally talking in spanish and english.  I'm supposed to help them with their english and they help me with my spanish.  So far I know that his name is Joaquín, he is studying biology, and likes music, surfing, and animals.  When he contacted me about a meeting time I thought it was someone calling a wrong number, and it was basically the most ridiculous spanglish conversation I've had on the phone.  I couldn't understand what day he was trying to say that he was available, or what building we were going to meet at.  But it's all good now and hopefully I will learn some cool spanish phrases.  

blog was being difficult...

I'm not sure why I couldn't get this text to post normally..but I gave up and just created a whole new post. 


Here's a picture of the dessert I got at the tapas bar:

Tonight a couple friends and I went to La Fiesta de Cervesa, which has been going on in the park all week and ended tonight. It reminded me of a combination of Polishfest and Germanfest.  There were huge glass, liter beer mugs that looked too heavy to lift, and they sang the "eins, zwei, drei" drinking song. They also had a huge grill that looked like it just had entire cows on it (at least all of their ribs).


Next food mission: find the Valencian version of Dunkin' Donuts that apparently serve donuts with cookies on top....

la vida valenciana

I have a feeling that weekends here are going to seem very long.  When I woke up on Saturday it felt like Sunday, probably because after being done with classes at 1 pm on Friday I had that entire day free as well.  


I realized that people here go to the beach all the time.  Numerous times I have taken the elevator downstairs with people all excited to spend the day at the beach.  It seems like it will be beach-weather here for a very long time, but as far as I'm concerned my beach-going ended in August.  I'm still on schedule with the Wisconsin seasons, and I feel like it should be fall and I'm done dealing with sunscreen and sand.  I do like that it is pretty much the perfect temperature after about 8 pm here, but during the day it is like July in Wisconsin.  

The Valencian beach was very pretty, and only about a 25 minute bus ride from where I live.  There are lots of little marketplace tents that have an overwhelming amount of jewelry, clothes, beach accessories, watches, and shoes.  Vendors walk around and try to get us to buy massages, sunglasses, or anything that they happen to be carrying.  I probably won't be going there again unless I really can't find anything better to do in the city, which is unlikely.  I tend to just get sunburned at the beach, although the SPF 50 that I got from my host mother seems to be doing its job.  


Friday night our group had a night out to celebrate the start of the program, we went to a place in el barrio carmen (which is where a lot of clubs and nightlife are) called Corona 15.  I walked there with a friend and we had an interesting experience trying to follow my map through the twisty, narrow streets of downtown Valencia.  A lot of the streets are really short and end with one direction for you to turn, and the longer streets change names every block.  So one long street could have like 4 or 5 names, which makes it extremely confusing looking at a map and trying to find the hidden street signs which are on the actual buildings and not the streets.  They are also usually written in Valencian, which is slightly different than the Spanish on my map.  We saw the scariest looking cat perched on a brick wall on one tiny street, it stared us down and followed us with its eyes as we walked by.  

The Club was an interesting place- it had a couple pillars that were designed as trees, and the branches were the ceiling with lights strung between them that changed colors.  They played mostly American music (Spanish favorites such as Lady GaGa and the Black Eyed Peas), but also a few Spanish songs thrown in the mix.  


Back to Saturday, after the beach a couple friends and myself walked back downtown in search of a tapas bar- not a very difficult task in Valencia.  We stumbled upon a beautiful structure called El Mercado de Colón, which is basically a collection of tapas bars inside a structure with a roof but open sides.  We didn't eat there but we did find somewhere else close by that was pretty inexpensive.  I had some type of ice cream that I picked randomly off the menu, but turned out to be delicious.  It had cinnamon and nutmeg on the top and tasted kind of like vanilla, except better.

el corazón de valencia

I found a runner's paradise today.  I felt like I had been transplanted onto another planet- one with an unwritten rule that you must be either running, biking, or playing fútbol to be there.  

It's located along the old river that used to run through Valencia, in los jardines (gardens) de turía.  The best part of it, if you can top beautiful fountains, gardens, trees, and bridges, were the 5 or 6 fútbol fields crowded with people of every age playing soccer.  That part was called El Camp de Fútbol.  They were all dirt fields, except for one that was grass.  The paths were dirt as well, so it was a complete 180 from the busy, concrete sidewalks I had previously been sticking to.  


Now I know why I never see any runners on the streets- because anyone doing any type of sport is in los jardines de turía.  I even found some kind of dog park where the dogs were pretty much just running wherever they felt like it.  
Valencia might just turn me into a real distance runner.  I always want to keep going to see what else I can find. 

week 1 completed

Outside the museums on another perfectly sunny day.

There hasn't been too many new things to report here.  I have 2 more classes today and then I will probably work on some homework and go for a run.  Once again, it is extremely warm and sunny.  I was amused last night while watching the weather report and seeing how the rest of Europe was cloudy, some rain, and then they got to Spain and there was nothing but little suns all over the country.  It has been 85 and sunny the entire week that I have been here, but supposedly on Sunday we might get some clouds.  I shouldn't complain about this, especially since I tend to be cold all of the time, but when you are living in an apartment that has no air conditioning and only uses fans at night, 85 degrees gets old.  

Yesterday I ventured back to the central part of the city with all of the shops and cafes.  I've been making a mental list of things that I want to try soon- Horchata, which is some kind of white drink that is unique to Valencia.  It is made with some kind of root plant (chufas) and other things.  I see people drinking it a lot in el centro.  Also paella, of course.  There are so many different varieties here and all of them look delicious.  I tried some kind of café, but I don't think I will ever enjoy the taste of coffee.  

first day of classes

Convenient magnetic bike locks

Bridge over el río

I finally figured out what the word I have been hearing constantly in Spain means.  The word was "vale," and it means "OK."  This is good news because I had been saying "OK" in English this whole time, so now I will sound a little more spanish. 


I've learned lots of new words already just from my first day of classes.  Also, I had a spanish professor pronounce my last name perfectly.  I can't remember the last time (or any time) that happened in the U.S.  I hesitated because I didn't realize that I didn't need to correct her.  


I can tell that my spanish is improving just from what I am able to understand and say back to people.  It comes more naturally already, even though I still struggle to remember simple words like "grass" or "desk."  Speaking of grass, I feel like the grass here is different than in the U.S because after sitting in it for awhile after running, my legs got extremely itchy.  My first class today had 10 people, and I thought that was small until my second class which had 5.  Class number three was more normal, 18.  I can't imagine what people from Michigan State are thinking.  They are probably used to classes with 100 or more people.  


My classes seem like they will be very practical in the sense that we are going to learn things like expressions, words, and phrases that are common to native speaking.  In the U.S., we didn't learn a lot of things that are practical for everyday conversation.  In my conversation class, we are going to learn more about how people talk here and in what contexts certain words are appropriate or not.  

I enjoyed this advertisement

Change of subject now, but I want to make note of how much I love Spanish grocery stores.  Maybe I'm not used to seeing things priced in Euros yet, but even with the conversion everything there is so inexpensive.  I also like looking at the different brands and varieties of food.  They have a lot of different fruit drinks that are combined with milk, and today I bought some kind of spanish Yo-J.  Any type of croissant filled with chocolate is necessary as well.  They have something called Cola-Cao, and I had it a lot when I was here in high school.  You can make chocolate milk or hot chocolate with it, and I think there is caffeine in it as well.  It says something about giving you energy on the label at least.  


There is a machine in my school's building cafeteria, which is more like a lounge, and you can get pretty much any type of hot drink from it ranging from café to hot chocolate to just milk.  There are 3 options for flavoring: no dulce (sweet), dulce or muy dulce.  I'm curious as to what muy dulce tastes like, but it's likely that I will be a frequent visitor to that machine.  


Other random things I have noticed or that we talked about in class:
-Cars do not pull over for ambulances- they will move if they are blocking an intersection, but as far as driving they will just keep going right behind them.  I haven't seen any going extremely fast though. 
-People always wear shoes in the house.  This is strange for me because I don't like wearing shoes inside at all. 
-They almost never have people over at their houses.  People prefer to meet elsewhere and basically only eat and sleep in their houses. 
-There's no clothes dryer here, only a washer.  So all of my laundry was hung up on a rack that is on the porch area outside the apartment. 
-University students often use the word "pasta" instead of "dinero."
-Store hours are basically whenever the manager feels like showing up.  If it says 10 a.m, don't be surprised if it's 10:30 and still not open. 
-In downtown Valencia, they recently installed an interesting type of bike rack.  I'm pretty sure it is magnetic, and the bikes just attach to the bike rack.  It looks pretty slick in my opinion, and a lot easier. 

That's probably enough for now.  I have 2 hours until dinner, some homework might get done. 
Also, I uploaded new pictures I took yesterday during my tour of Old Town Valencia to my web albums. 

amazing run

I just wanted to add to this that my run this morning was amazing.  I accidently found the City of Arts and Sciences, which is the enormous Oceanographic, planetarium, and science museum in Valencia.  I had no idea it was so close to where I am living (about  1.5 miles).  It was designed by Santiago Calatrava so needless to say it looks very futuristic and perfect at 9 in the morning.  


Apparently, it is also the hot spot for runners.  There is a garden on one side of it with fountains and paths and it's set below street level so that's why I didn't see them until today when I crossed a bridge that looked down on them.  
Every time I run I wish I had my camera with me.  Hopefully I discover more things next time as well.

first few days in Valencia

First of all, I would like to let everyone know that I added a slideshow feature to my blog (it's at the bottom of the page), so you can click on the picture and it will direct you to my Picasa web album for Spain.


These first couple days have been exhausting but very fun as well.  I've realized that I understand approximately 1/3 of everything that is said to me, but hopefully this will improve after my classes get going.  The first full day here we had a couple hours worth of meetings about academics things and the program in general.  I am enrolled in the 5 classes I originally requested, those being Latin American Civilization, Spanish Civilization, Intro to Spanish Art, Conversation, and the Spanish Economy.  All of the professors introduced themselves and they all seem very nice and helpful. 


I'm still trying to get myself oriented with the city, it's a lot bigger than I am used to living in, but seems like a nice place to live.  I went for a run for the first time this morning through some of the gardens that are everywhere here. I saw some huge trees that looked like they belonged in a rainforest, lots of fountains, and lots of people walking their dogs.  I met my first Spanish dog on Friday night when my host mom's nephew brought his dog over.  She is a golden retriever, but I can't remember her name.  


I've noticed lots of different things the last few days here.  The stoplights go from red to flashing yellow to green, then straight back to red. Needless to say the cars don't often stop when the light is red. I've eaten probably 3 of 4 loaves of bread since getting here, I have a big chunk of fresh bread with lunch and dinner.  Most of the food I get at home is fried, which is hard to get used to but usually I am so hungry by the time we eat I really don't care what it is.  I found Mercadona today, which is a supermarket with pretty much anything you could want.  Everything also seems to be under 2 euro, which makes it easy to buy a lot.  I was very excited to be able to buy Fanta límon once again, which is a flavor that isn't available in the U.S.  It's delicious and basically tastes like fizzy lemonade.  They also have some of my favorite cookies with chocolate in the middle, and chocolates called Buenos, which live up to their name in every way.   I'm probably going to be a frequent visitor to that grocery store, they have a very wide selection of chocolate cereal as well. 


Today our group travelled 2 hours North to a small city called Peñíscola, which is pretty much a Spanish version of the Greek island Santorini.  It is almost an island, there's a small strip connecting it to the mainland.  There is a castle at the top of one area that was built in the 1200's and was used by the Knights Templar as well as a variety of Catholic Popes.  I will have pictures of this on Picasa as soon as I can get them to load at a decent rate.  


I start classes on Tuesday, and tomorrow (Sunday) I plan to go to an outdoor market at Plaza Redonda and try to explore the downtown area.  It seems like I am already downtown but the actual downtown has a lot of the restaurants, monuments, discos, and museums.