Free Friday

Today I don´t have any classes, wooohooow! :-) So I slept until 11am, and then went to university to try to print out some course notes. They have a "very spanish" system of printing out documents: the servicio de reprografia. You have to send your documents to the servicio de reprografia from the library. So far so good. Then you have to go to the counter of the servicio, which is in another building, go to the counter and give the people there a scrap of paper with the names of the documents which you want to print out. Then you wait... you wait... you wait... and after a while someone emerges yelling your name and waving your printed documents in the air. After which you pay and wrestle your way through the rest of the crowds waiting at the counter to be served. Not exactly a process I want to go through every day...

Anyway, I thought today I´d show you some pictures of my room, which is already in an advanced stage of decoration!




I also realized that I don´t put in a lot of people pictures. I really have to start taking more pictures of all the people I meet around here. So here we go: This is Morgane, a flemish girl I met the first Saturday night of my stay here in Valencia. I actually met her through another friend of mine, who was staying in Valencia for a week and whom I met completely by chance, because I had no idea she was here. I went to visit some other people in another hostel and there she was, on the roof terrace of the hostel! Very funny, because we both study in Leuven and almost never see each other there, and then meet again in another country! Morgane was sitting with them at the time, and that´s how I got to know her. The next day, I had set out to do some solo tourism, and she was still looking for an apartment, and we met by chance in the street. We ended up spending the rest of the day together, walking around, eating ice cream and having fun! Meanwhile, she has found an apartment really close to mine, so I see her a lot now! Before I came to Valencia, I had actually decided that I didn´t want to hang out with flemish or dutch people, because then I would just be speaking my native language all the time. But speaking other languages ALL the time is quite tiring, so I was actually really glad to meet her, because being able to speak my native tongue is so relaxing sometimes!

And this here is Cécile, a french girl from Toulouse who was in the same dorm room as me at the youth hostel where I stayed the first days before finding an appartment. We helped each other with the difficult search for a good place to stay. It was so great to have someone around who was in the same situation as me, we really leaned on each other during the first days. Now she´s also found a great apartment very close to where I live, and we´re becoming good friends.

Well, I think I´m going to get out into the open air of Valencia again and enjoy a bit of the afternoon sun! By the way, below each post is a link called "comments", where you can leave comments about my blog!

The future & the past

Another picture post! My blog is really converting itself into a turism promotion site... :-) Anyway, it´s time I tell you about the Ciudad de las Artes y de las Ciencias! It´s a modern architecture project of futuristic buildings which host a science museum, the biggest aquarium in Europe - or at least that´s what they say - a theatre and an IMAX-cinema. The Ciudad is situated in the Turia parks, and as you approach it through the park, it really seems to be a city from the future, or at least, a Star Wars set!
This is me in front of the Umbracle, which is, well, ehm... Like a sort of garden walkway or something... You have to come and see it for yourselves!

This is the Centro de Cultura y de las Artes Reina Sofia, a very long name for a fancy big theatre. It looks a bit like a giant bird´s head, if you look at it from the side...

This is the IMAX-dome, which looks a bit like a human eye. I went to see a movie in it, about the Nile, and I actually got naucious during the boat scenes!

On the right is the Museo de las Ciencias Principe Felipe, which is the biggest building of the lot, too big to take a picture of. The ponds around all the buildings are so inviting to swim in! But unfortunately, you can´t...

And me again, in the city of the future... :-D

Let´s take a look at the past now. There are two towers in Valencia which you can climb to have a great view over the city: the cathedral tower, called Miguelet, which is the Valencian equivalent of ´Micky´. It´s called like that because the church was built in honour of the Archangel Michael. It´s the highest tower in the city, and you have a beautiful view from up there! I first climbed the tower with Kobe, but I´m guessing I will climb it a few more times still with all the people who are coming to visit me, as it is a real must-do for every tourist in Valencia!

So this is the view. Spectacular, isn´t it? In the distance you can see the mountains that surround the city, and on the other side (not on the picture), you can even see the sea! The two identical towers on the picture belong to the Ayuntamiento, the ancient town hall of Valencia.

This is the Plaza de la Reina seen from atop the tower.

The second big tower which you can climb is the Torres de Serranos, and ancient gate into the city, which survived the demolition of the city walls. They are not as high as the Miguelet, but you can climb them for free and the view is really great too. On this picture you see Kobe who is a little bit afraid of heights! :-)
On the right of the picture you see the other tower of the gate. The gate actually looks like a small medieval castle, with ´kantelen´ (no idea how to translate that to English) atop both the towers.
This is part of the Turia parks., which are situated in the old river bed of the river Turia. In the 1950´s the river transborded and inundated the entire city, and so the people of Valencia decided to "redirect" the rivers flow 3km to the south of the city, and to convert the old river bed into a park over 10km long, with playgrounds, sports facilities and terraces.

This is the cathedral with the Miguelet towers as seen from the Torres de Serranos.

led

Today is the fourth day of class and I´m really getting into the rhythm. It´s actually very easy to find the classrooms, because the buildings are organized very logically, so I already don´t worry about getting up early to leave half an hour in advance to search the classroom. I just leave 10 minutes before class starts, because that´s how long it takes me to walk from the apartment to campus.

Today I had a class of Economia Social. It looks interesting, because we will study the economic behaviour of entities like NGOs, who do not behave like companies, whose goal is to maximise profits. I very much appreciate that at this university, there is a place for such studies, contrary to Leuven, where everything that does not fit into classic economic theory is simply not taught or treated as a side remark. We´re even going to have a practical class on how to found an associación, whatever that may be. :-)

I´ve made a habit of introducing myself to all the professors after the first class, so they know there´s an erasmus student in their group for who everything is not obvious, especially not if they refer to previous courses, which I, of course, have not taken.

Today I met a nice German girl, with whom I went for a cup of coffee - well, coffee for her, cola for me because I still hate coffee - after class. That´s also such a great thing about this university: there´s a restaurant-bar with a terrace right on campus! With waiters in suits, no kidding!

I also discoverd that you can get a free university agenda, so I went to pick up mine at the faculty. It´s big, lots of space to write things down, and full of information for students. The only disadvantage: it´s completely in Valencian. Well, at least now I will learn the days of the week in Valencian. Good for my cv!

I still haven´t really gotten hold of this Valencian thing here. Contrary to Barcelona, I haven´t heard many people speak Valencian around me. The groups of students I pass on campus all speak Spanish. Yesterday I heard one girl speaking Valencian at the secretariat, but that was all. When people adress you, it´s always in Spanish, not Valencian. So you would almost forget that this is a bilingual city, were it not that all the signs on campus are in Valencian, that the website is by default in Valencian, and that the agenda, among other things, is completely in Valencian. I don´t get hold of exactly hów important Valencian is to Valencians.

Well, I have to get going, to a ´práctica´ of Análise y Gestion Bancária. But first I have to pass by the professor´s office, to ask him whether he has the powerpoint slides in Spanish, because I can only find them in Valencian...

And, before I go, some more pictures!

This is the top of the façade of the Mercado Central, a big permanent market with all kinds of food for sale: vegetables, fruit, bread and pastries, meat - lots of it - and cheese. The building itself is in Art Nouveau style and on the outside it is decorated with glazed tiles. On the inside are all the little market stalls with yelling salesmen and critical housewives smelling melons and poking apples. I don´t have any pictures of the inside, because my memory stick was full at the time! But I will surely go back there and take lots of pictures to show you!


This is the Mercado Colón. It´s a beautiful building in Art Nouveau style, very playful and colourful. It used to be a permanent, roofed marketbuilding, like the Mercado Central. But this market has been refurbished and given a new destination. Take a look on the inside...
On the inside are a series of glass cubicles which house hip restaurants and cafés! I actually discoverd this market completely by chance while looking for a store that sells cheap blankets (which I eventually found in the Zara Home, in the same street, fyi). This is what´s so much fun about studying in a beautiful city like Valencia: while looking for other things, you discovere nice things such as this market!

More pictures

Below you can see some pictures of the hostel I stayed in the first 5 days. It´s a very good hostel with a great atmosphere, so if any of you young people are thinking of visiting Valencia, I really recommend it as a place to stay. You meet new people there every night while cooking dinner in the spacious kitchen, and then you can go up to the lounge to play pool or watch tv. I only wouldn´t recommend it for adults who are used to a little more luxury, because you have to sleep in dorms, of course, and it is never really quiet before midnight, when the kitchen and lounge close, and well, sometimes it´s never really quiet at all. But for young adventurous people, it has everything you need and more!

The hostel is situated in the city centre, at walking distance to every monument or shop or bar, because the city centre itself is really small, a bit like Leuven. And it is close to a major bus stop where almost all buses pass and close to a metro station. Anyway, highly recommendable!

I would add more photos and text, but I´m getting really hungry so it will be for tomorrow!

As today is the second day of class, I guess I will put in some pictures of the campus. So below you see the university campus, with the classroom building. On the ground floor there are kantines, shops and even ATMs! Pity you cannot see them here because of the trees. I will have to go back and take another picture of that. So anyway, between classes you can sit on a terrace and have a very cheap lunch. Coffee, for example, costs only 55cents! I have no idea why the computer suddenly decided to underline the text above, and I can´t get rid of it. This is why I sometimes hate computers. They say women are unpredictable, well, computers are far, far worse. But anyway.




Below you see the library. It looks like a medieval fortress, with a big wall around it. Inside it is really modern and huge! It has over a million books, as I have learned today in the library infosession. In the middle is a big hall and around it are the different floors full of books. I have to go back and take a picture of the inside so you can see that too.

Actually, these are pretty much all the pictures I have of the university. I promise to take some more to show you everything in more detail.

And now, on to the next class!

Apparently the blogsite refused to put in pictures with the previous post... So here are some images of Valencia! This is the IVAM, the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno. On the right you can see a very beautiful work of art. Sometimes it moves and speaks! ;-) It is called "My Dearest Boyfriend".

These are the tapas I had for lunch in a hip - yet not too expensive - tapas bar in the city centre. They look as good as they taste! Especially the middle one which was roquefort mousse with walnuts... Mmm, I get hungry again just looking at them!

This it the Plaza de Ayuntamiento, the main square of Valencia, where all the buses stop and where the post office, the theatre and the town hall are. I´ve actually forgotten what the beautiful building on the picture is. I´ll look it up and let you know next time!

These are the Torres de Serranos, the big medieval gateway to the city. They are so impressive that you cannot capture them totally in one picture. You can climb these towers - for free! - and up there you have a beautiful view on the city and the Turia parks.

This is the most beautiful square of Valencia, called Plaza de la Virgen. In the center is a big fountain and there´s always, really always, a dove sitting on the head of the undisturbable greek god in the middle. The plaza itself is in marble, giving it the air of a big, open-air palace ballroom. The Basilica de la Virgen de los Desamparados as on the left, the Cathedral on the right. It´s a great square to just sit and relax, and it is beautifully lit at night.

Kobe and I triend to visit the Basilica several times, but there is mass every hour in the weekend - no kidding, every hour - and the church was stuffed with people each time! It was just impossible to go in and admire the famous statue of the Virgin Mary that is carried around each year in a big procession.

Universal misery: the first day of school

After almost three weeks of vacation in sunny Spain - even though I´ve done some serious work in the meantime too, dad - the first day of school is always a bit of a bummer. Especially if you get up at 7am, thinking you have class at 8:30, arrive early, wait for 20 minutes, only to find out that inside the classroom hangs a note from the professor that there will be no class today! Grmbl. I thought I might employ the extra morning time that had just fallen in my lap to go grocery shopping and to get some school supplies, but at this early hour all the shops were still closed. So I truly had nothing better to do than return to my bed until 10am, when all the shops open and when I could also finally get into the cybercafe around the corner to check the timetables of the other courses, to make sure I wouldn´t get up early for nothing again.

At 1pm there was an informative meeting for all the erasmus students, where the vicerector explained how we have to enroll in the separate courses we want to choose. The University of Valencia has really good accommodation for Erasmus students and at first sight it all seems to be very well organized. Until they start trying out new things... This year they have introduced the new concept of ´erasmus buddy´. Each erasmus student is coupled with a spanish student who has studied abroad in the recent past to help him/her out with all sorts of things. A great idea, I think, to have a Spanish student to fall back on in times of despair. But the international office clerks could think of nothing better than to call each erasmus student to the front of the classroom to receive a piece of paper with the name, phone number and e-mail address of his or her buddy. This might not seem such a stupid thing to do, were it not that the classroom was huge and completely filled with over 200 erasmus students! It took hours to give everyone their slip of paper, one by one! After I got mine, I was glad to leave to finally have lunch! As the meeting was at 1pm, and the Spanish never have lunch before 2pm, I was quite hungry when I finally got to my apartment as 2:45pm.

After a quick lunch I hurried back to campus for my first real class: Análisis y Gestion Bancária. The professor was very friendly and disposed to help me as an erasmus student. But what´s slightly problematic is that this course builds on a previous course that I have, of course, not had. So I spent two hours puzzling over what "izquierda" and "derecha" mean in financial Spanish. Actually, I still haven´t figured it out 100%, so if anyone knows, do tell me... The professor offered to send me the course notes of the previous course by e-mail, so I would have something to fall back on. The problem is I still cannot print them out because to be able to use the university printer, you need to have a password, in order to have a password, your university e-mail address must be activated, and that won´t happen until next week. So I´m kind of stuck with this course for at least another week. Well, I guess I have to relax... I´m in Spain! Clearly...

Enough complaining about courses and administration! Let me show you some pictures of last week, when Kobe visited me! We did all the heavy duty tourism in and around the city. Look and drool! :-) And after drooling, come visit! ;-)

¡Ik heb een blog! ¡Allen daarheen!

Ik heb een blog! Ik wat nog meer is: ik heb een leven! En nu ga ik uit! grijns :-) Maar voor wie even kijken wil, ziehier een paar foto´s!