Day 1 in Valencia

I'm not quite sure about time or day right now. I left Louisville at 1pm and arrived in Valencia at 5am, which was 11am here so we were in the middle of the day (with very little sleep on the planes...). Took a while to realize that I was actually in Spain and that it was already Thursday afternoon.

When I flew through Philly, some of the other people coming here were on my same flight to Madrid, so I got to meet some people I will be living with for the next 6 weeks early. Turned out there were about 30 people on my flight but none of us sat together. It still made going thru customs in Madrid a little less stressful since we were all lost together with no one there telling us where to go or what to do.

We made it to Valencia, and the school bussed us to the study center where we will live and go to class. It is completely different than what I expected. It used to be a rich family's mansion when it was built around 200 years ago. It still has the original huge wooden front door and many artifacts from when it was built. The whole back wall used to be a city wall or something and is still stone and intact and goes up thru all the floors. In some rooms, there are parts of the floor that are plexiglass to see the original stone underneath. There are 9 aparments in the building, each having 4 or five rooms, 4 bathrooms, a kitchen and a living room with tv. Every apartment is different and no two rooms are alike because it's a remodeled house. Some apartments have rooms where you unlock the door and walk upstairs to get to the beds. I am in apartment 3 room A. Room C requires you to go upstairs and room B had 1 whole wall made out of stone. I'll put pictures up later, camera is charging now.

The city is amazing! You have to worry about pickpocketing, but there is basically no violent crime so I feel really safe walking around. I walked for probably 30 minutes or so with the girl across the hall and we saw a lot of little stores and ate some tapas in a little restaurant. I still need to find a grocery because the closest thing we found today only sold junk food.

The entire group (about 160 people) all ate at an Italian place tonight. They just kept bringing out plates or rice stuff and pasta and pizza of all different types and would just spread them throughout our tables. This kept us constantly getting new and different foods until everyone was full. It surprised me how well they handled our group (although they did open early for us at 8pm - apparently restaurants over here dont typically open until after 9pm). I stopped and got some gelatto on the way back to the study center, just looked too good not to eat.

So, overall things seem to be going really well. I am extremely exhausted having slept probably less than an hour in the past 2 days, but it is well worth it. I can't wait to see more of the city! Tomorrow we have different orientations all day, but we will be shown where the market, gym and other important places in the city are, so I'm kind of excited to see. Classes don't start til Monday, so I can explore the city all weekend. One of the staff people here told me the nearest bowling alley is real close, only about 20 minutes walking, so I can't wait to go find it and bowl in a foreign country! :)

I'm headed to bed now. It was a long, busy and amazing day. I already unpacked everything and am basically moved in for an exciting 6 weeks! :D I can't wait to see how it all goes!