Christmassy

You know those days before Christmas, when you feel Christmassy even though you cannot really describe what Christmassy is? I had one of those days today. That is probably due to the Christmas decoration I put up in my apartment yesterday and the day before. It´s quite minimalistic: just a string of lights and two Christmas rose plants, but given the austere living room we have, it stands out. I proudly showed my decorative efforts to the boys, who nodded in an attempt of comprehension of Christmassiness (but who really couldn´t care less whether there was any decoration or not).

I suppose the decorative mood I was in yesterday was just in suppression of the loneliness one experiences after seeing her boyfriend walk away through the security gates of the airport for the third time this year... Kobe came to visit me this weekend and we had a great, lazy and relaxing time. We had cups of coffee/tea/hot chocolate in charming places, talked, (tried to) studied... Apart from that, on Saturday, we visited the Museo Fallero, where they expose the puppets that aren´t burned each March during Las Fallas. (Have I already explained what that is, Las Fallas?). They´re real works of art, I can´t believe they just burn them each year!

On Saturday evening we had a Belgian Beer Night at my apartment with the boys, Caterina and Guillermo. Kobe had brought several Belgian beers for my flatmates and friends to taste. It was a great evening.

On Sunday morning, Kobe and I went to Guillermo´s band´s Christmas concert. The concert was nice, were it not for the hour-long speech the director of the band had prepared...

But now Kobe has left again for Belgium and I´m alone again... until tomorrow when my Mom arrives!

100 days in Valencia!

I was just in the library not studying, or well, trying to, when I started counting how many days I was here since I first arrived in Valencia. Well, today is my 100th day in Valencia! Woohoow! That calls for a celebration! Eh... (I will think about how to celebrate on my way to the airport.)

Anticipated loneliness

Is it possible to be lonely in advance? I think so, because this week my flatmates were informed of when the spanish army was granting them a one-week vacation, and all three of them will be gone when I come back in early January from a short visit to Belgium for new year. Which means I will be all alone for my birthday...

Well, this week wast just another regular school week... In fact, when I come to think of it, it is funny that I should consider anything ´regular´ here because everything should be special because I´m abroad! But fact is that those things in life one cannot get around (like studying, grmbl) are just about the same in every country. A regular week it was, then.

Actually, because of my own stupidity, I had more class than I ought to have had! Let me explain... So I have told you about the whole story with the professor that changed the date of my presentation and all, remember? Well, on Tuesday I have theory class of that same professor. At the end of the class, he asked: "Who has his/her presentation due tomorrow?" Silence. "Allright", he said, "who hasn´t done his/her presentation yet?" Three people raise their hands. "Good. You there, can you do your presentation tomorrow?", he said, pointing to a boy whose name I don´t know. You could see the blood retracting from his face. No way. Neither could the other two people who hadn´t done their presentation yet. (I mean, hello, what about simply giving each one of us a deadline at the beginning of the semester?) "Well then, we won´t have class tomorrow, I suppose", the professor concluded.

Enter my big mouth in the story (and a bit of my conscience too, I am proud to say). The thing was that last week, when Simone and I did our presentation, a girl had chatted with me before the start and she had told me that she was up next in line for the presentations. That girl was not present during this theory class, so I said: "But I believe there´s a girl whose turn it is to do the presentation tomorrow." "Oh!", the professor said, "Excellent! Then we will have class tomorrow."

So anyway, because of my big stupid mouth we all went to class on Wednessday, only to hear that the girl had called in sick. The professor felt so sorry for us that we had all come to class for nothing, that he had prepared some extra exercises as a consolation... Yes, yes, go on, kill the foreigner... (But really, how would that girl have felt if she had been there to do her presentation and not even the professor had shown up?)

Another person that has called in sick today is my Sevillanas teacher, so I won´t have dance class today. A pity, I was really looking forward to it and now I´m not sure whether I will be able to learn all 4 Sevillanas dances before I leave...

Another person who is calling in sick is my boyfriend... but sick or not, he is coming to visit this weekend and I am going to pick him up at the airport in 3 hours! You know, I was quite ok with ´missing´ everything in Belgium: my boyfriend, my family, my friends, Leuven, home... I guess I was just too busy living new experiences these last months to stop to think about it a lot. But now that the holidays are coming and that my return it getting closer (well ok, two more months, but if there´s one thing I´ve experienced here, that is that time flíes) I suddenly start missing everything more and I am starting to long to be home again. I am really looking forward to go home in two weeks and sleep in my own bed, eat Mom-cooked-dinners, chase my brother from MY car (for the parents: "the car I use") and MY room (ok, those will be new experiences...) Every time I see a plane crossing the sky I think about how I´ll be in one of those going home again in two weeks!

Free cinema

How is it that you find out the best things at the -almost- end? Yesterday an italian friend of mine told me that they show free movies with SUBTITLES (a very rare thing in Spain) in a student home not far from my apartment, on a big screen! So last night I went there with here to see Adaptation. (Weird movie, by the way, but not bad.) I could´ve had free cinema every Monday night of my stay here! But heck... I´v done other fun things instead. (Fun páying things though, that always hurts an economist...)

It´s still incredibly cold here, especially at night and in the morning. Of course, it´s kind of normal that it´s cold, all in all, it´s December. The abnormal twist here in Valencia is that there is no such thing as heating. Ok, we have a small electric heater in the bathroom... but I´m afraid to switch it on because it might cause a fire if any vapour gets in. (Right?)

Never thought I´d be spending my nights in Valencia with two sweaters, two pairs of socks and gloves on - inside!

Boyish

Have you ever paid attention to the number of ´small talk´ conversations that are about the weather? It seems like such an enormous cliché to talk about the weather, so you might deduce it is massively un-cool to do so, and yet, we chit-chat about the weather all the time. Some days, it´s the main ingredient of the conversations I have with my flatmates. I took a look at how many blogposts of mine start with some comment about the weather. (Too many. They make me feel like a granny.) And yet... it is such a useful topic to start a conversation with if you have nothing else to say! So you hear weather conversations all around you when you are in a public place. I suppose weathertalking has become a part of human nature... or perhaps, even better, an illustration of something Jewel Kilcher said: "Human nature is in fact human habit." Anyway, enough philosophical thoughts. Let´s talk about the weather.

There has been quite some weather issues to talk about here in Valencia this past weekend. Last weekend, it was so unusually warm for the time of year that you could even go to the beach and swim! This weekend, and by extension this Monday, it´s so unusually cold that people are wearing heavy furry wintercoats, bonnets and gloves included. And though I´m from the north, I have to say: it ís damn cold. You just really get used to good weather. Anyhow, 7 degrees Celsius is cóld for this time of year in Valencia, I´ve been told, and all around me are fierce debates on whether this is an effect of global warming or not. Anyhow, enough about the weather. Let´s talk about this weekend.

It wasn´t much of an exciting weekend, except for it being 5 days long. That´s of course a positive feature. But as I was getting really really réally behind on my work, I decided not to travel anywhere (bummer) to catch up on some studying. My flatmates Alberto and Saúl went back home to their pueblos for the weekend. José on the other hand stayed here and received a (girl?)friend of his to visit. Very nice girl, whose name I have forgotten (damn my horrible mental name storage server). One thing though: she FILLED the bathroom with pots, tubes, flasks and a GIGANTIC hairdryer. Oh-my-god. I couldn´t resist to examine all those beautifiers from close by because I had no idea that there were SO MANY products one can use for the embellishment of the body all at once. Hair straightener cream? Cuticle softener? What...? And the gigantic hairdryer was particularly intimidating. The funny thought occured to me that to some extent, the size of the hairdryer might represent to girls what the size of something else does for boys. I have a very small hairdryer... :-( Anyway, I think I finally uncovered the secret of how spanish girls look so beautiful, coiffed, fragranced, nails done, and so forth: massive investment in beauty products. And apparently USING them too. These last 5 days, the bathroom has made me feel quite boyish and ugly-ducklingy... It was so bad, that this Monday i decided to don a dress to combat the boyishness. It kind of worked. Kind of. Now just the hair, the nails, the make-up, and the shoes. A long way to go...

The shortest week ever (and the beginning of the longest weekend...)

Aaah, the week has barely begun and it has already ended... It should always be this way! On Monday, which was still half weekend because Hilde and Laurein were still here in the morning, I had just one afternoon class (I had a beer at lunch, a very very bad idea...) and I went to a cybercafé for an hour or two to check e-mails and write the long, previous blogpost. When I came home and started unpacking my groceries, I saw a cocroach (no idea how you spell that) running around in the kitchen. I ran out screaming (ok, not literally screaming, cause that would´ve scared the neighbours, but inside I was horrified) and spent two hours in café Soret studying and waiting form y flatmates to come home and exterminate the cocroach. When I came home at 9:30pm none of the boys had arrived... so I decided to exterminate the cocroaches myself. I cleaned the whole apartment with lots of chloride in the cleaning water (don´t know if that helps, but it can´t be bad either) and I sprayed insecticide near all the possible entrances holes those ugly insects have in the kitchen. I put all the food that was being kept outside the cupboards in the refrigerator and took out the garbage. Don´t know if I exterminated the cocroaches, but I was quite satisfied with my bug-killing-heroism. So satisfied, I decided to rent a movie to rewards myself. Girls alone tend to rent kleenex-cheesy movies... and I´m no exception, because I got a Walk to Remember. Aaaaah... :-D

On Tuesday I had class all day and studied in the library meanwhile. I went to capoeira at 6 and went to my 7:30 class, but there was a note from the professor on the door that she wouldn´t be giving class that day, so my 5-day-weekend started even earlier! After shower and dinner, I went to a little bar in the city centre with Arne and some of his friends, to listen to live spanish music. Great ambiance! And I met some new Brazilians there too! And one of Arne´s friends, an Argentinian, looks just like Gérard Dépardieu in his younger years! Really, he´s a perfect lookalike! I´m really sorry I didn´t take my camera with me to show you guys a picture of him.

Well, today, in spite of my 5-day-weekend, I studied all day... which is kind of my plan for the next 4 days too... After all the fun weekends I´ve been having with friends coming over to visit, it´s time to start studying seriously for my spanish courses... Well, I better get back to doing just that!

The Belgians that lifted the curse

Unseen and unedited: Belgians have been in Valencia, all weekend long, and have NOT brought bad weather! Quite on the contrary, the December sun made it feel as if it were summer again! Those particular Belgians are Hilde and Laurein, two friends of mine from Leuven.

They arrived last Friday on the usual 3o´clock plane, so I went to pick them up after Sevillanas class. After dropping off the luggage at my place, I took them straight to Mercado Colón for a fresh horchata with a farton. By now, the Mercado Colón was fully decorated and ready for Christmas! It´s beautiful to see the city being gradually more and more decorated with a million little lights. After a ´Valencia by night´stroll through the city centre, we had Agua de Valencia at Plaza Negrito and tapas in la Vintara (which are actually the exact same places that I took Kobe and his family to, I´m not thát creative).

On Saturday morning we went to the Mercado Central. As Laurein and Hilde are what we in Belgium would call ´Bourgondiërs´, we spent almost all morning there, tasting cheese, serrano ham (well, some of us), buying fresh bread, and a kind of mushroom called ´Rebollones´. The lady who sold us the mushrooms also told us how to prepare them. With kilos of cheese, ham, and one kilo and a half of mandarins, we continued our walk through the city and visited la Lonja and Plaza Redonda. We had lunch IN the fountain of Plaza Redonda! The fountain was dry, that díd make our lunch a bit more comfortable... :-)

After lunch we had hot chocolate on a terrace near Torres de Serranos, which we climbed afterwards to burn the calories. :-) Then we walked by the Valencias Parliament, and I noticed that the doors were open. This weekend, the Parliament was having an "open door day", so I finally got to visit the inside! It was really beautiful, because Parliament in inside a 15th century palace. On top of that, we got free 2007 calendars! (With looooovely pictures of offices, meeting rooms and well, the Parliament). I just couldn´t resist addressing the Valencian Parliament about the important issue of mandarine maltreatment. I´m quite sure I´ll get elected for the next legislation. :-D

Anyway, afterwards, we visited the Cathedral and climbed the tower for the view over the city. On our way to the bus home, we got grilled chestnuts, yummy!

We prepared the mushrooms we had bought, the rebollones, as the lady in the mercado central had told us, and made risottto rice. My friends Hilde and Laurein are excellent cooks, so our meal was really tasty! After dinner, we went back to a part of the city called Ruzafa, where my german friend Lena lives. She took us to her favourite restaurant where they serve the best chocolate cake in the world. Goooood chocolate cake... mmmm.... Then, we went to a Moroccan teahouse for a glass of very sweet mint tea and - parents stop reading here - to smoke a waterpipe! As I have never smoked anything ever in my life before, it was a little weird in the beginning, but a waterpipe is filled with a really sweet kind of tobacco, and once you get the hang of it, it tastes, well, interesting. But not bad at all - parents start reading again - and while we were sitting there, a belly dancer emerged to give a live show! We had quite a multicultural evening. :-D

On Sunday we slept until 10, which was really necessary for me because I was still exhausted from a week with little sleep. We had breakfast at a Sunday morning pace, and then took the metro to the city centre to visit the ceramics museum, a must where I take everyone who comes to
visit. We took a stroll over Plaza del Colegio del Patriarca and tried to visit the church, but Sunday mass was being held. We also tried to visit the Basilica de la Virgen de los Desamparados, with the same problem. So we just entered Turia gardens and started walking east, to the sea. There are some curvy trees that are really inviting for a siësta... But first, we had a pick nick in the grass! The weather was better than great, it seemed like summer! After lunch we walked to the Gulliver - playtime! And then to Ciudad de las Artes y de las Ciencias, where they are currently displaying the yacht that won the last America´s Cup.

We still walked to the America´s Cup Port to see the miniature boats, but at that point we were all so exhausted we had to take a taxi home instead of walking. We went back to the city centre to have some tapas, before going to a flamenco show! Beautiful music, the guitar is so complicated and yet so harmonious. After the show, we still had a Valencian paella and a digestive tea in Café de las Letras, before going to sleep, exhausted but very satisfied.

Today I had class at 8:30 (paaaain...). Hilde and Laurein came to campus at 10 to have coffee in the cantine and so I could show them my campus. Then we took the metro to the beach and sat there, soaking up the sun, while our feet were soaking up the seawater. The weather was summery! There was even an old guy swimming in the sea!

Then it was time for Hilde and Laurein to go to the airport... always hard to see friends part, but the weekend was great!