Life is a beach, and I'm just playing in the sand...

You can thank lil' Wayne for the name of this post but I found it very suiting. One week has passed since I got to Valencia, and one week of class is over. Nothing to0 complicated so far. We went on a mountain excursion one of those days, I already managed to forget which one. The hike was pretty sweet, and we swam in a river/stream that was basically runoff from the mountains. It was very cold but worth it. This weekend I pretty much slept in, went to the beach and soaked in the sun all afternoon, and then went out on the town at night. Paella tonight, can't wait. Good times...

Host Family

So I have now spent two nights with my host family, the señora, Marina, is in her late 60´s as far as we can tell and her son is in his mid 40´s and still lives in the house and seems to avoid us as much as possible. There are three of us in the same room, which is rather cramped. There is a bunk bed and one single bed, and I am pretty sure they are meant for 5 year olds because we all hang off of the end of the beds. The food is amazing, the first night we had Valencian paella, which has been the best dish thus far.

The reason I have not been posting here or been able to Skype any of you back home is because the only place I have a connection to the internet is at the university, and right now is the first time I have had a chance to set down at a computer there. There are like three "internet cafes" nearby the apartment but so far none of them actually have had internet so apparently they don´t have penalties for false advertisement here.

I have taken around 3.3 GB of photos so far, I think like around 900 photos or so. When I get a chance I will start to post them and maybe write about where they are from and such, but for now this post is all I can do.

I have class from 10:40 until 2:00 and will be hitting up the beach this afternoon. So until the next post, keep it classy Iowa.

Getting There...

So....I am currently sitting in the Heineken Lounge in the Newark International airport, drinking none other than a Heineken and writing this post.

Yesterday, Moriah and I drove to Chicago and stayed the night as a final farewell/birthday celebration thinga-ma-bob. We decided to check out the Navy Pier, and also took a city by night architecture tour which was fantastic. I got some pretty sweet shots, the one here is probably my favorite.

Today I left O'Hare at 10 am and arrived in New York at La Guardia airport at 1pm eastern time. That was a pretty sketchy airport. Then I tried to take a transport bus to the Newark International airport, but instead the person selling tickets sold me a JFK ticket and I didn't notice because the bus was about to leave and I ran for it. So then I had to take that shuttle to the Newark airport. I ended up getting there around 5 so I spent about 4 hours on a bus this afternoon cruising the beautiful streets of New York. It ended up being a pretty cool mistake because for 15$ more that what it should have cost me I basically got a tour of New York. The bus ended up stopping at popular locations such as Grand Central Location and I got some pretty sweet views of the skyline minus the fogginess.

Housing Assignment

So I just got an email regarding the housing assignment I will have while I am in Valencia. Here is a Google map of the approximate address, I can't see any numbers on any buildings so I'm not sure which one I will be staying in. I'm not sure how well this map thing will work, but Google has mapped all the streets in the area with their cars,vans,robots,minions or whatever they use. Walk around and check it out.

View Larger Map

Here is the route from where I will be staying to the university, not too bad of a walk. Could be closer to the coast though....

View Larger Map

Valencia

So in case you are wondering where this city called Valencia is at, I have provided a map for you. In the center of the map I hope you can see where it says Valencia and has a big dot. Yeah... That's the place.
The highlighted area on the map is considered the coast of Valencia, this is where I will get to play in the sand all afternoon.

One main attraction in Valencia is the "City of Arts and Sciences". The giant building below is part of this "city". It kind of looks like a cross between the science center and Disney World. Apparently we have tickets to go to this place one of the weekends. You can check out the website here

Surfing & F1

So, bored at work I have been checking out random sites about stuff to do in Valencia, the city I am going to study in, and I came across this page. Looks like I'm gonna be doing a little surfing.What up... Also found this page. For those who can't read any Spanish, Formula 1 is holding a race in Valencia along the coastline, tickets are expensive but we'll see. Should be interesting. ..

New Blog

I decided to try to keep a blog about my trip for you all to check out and be jealous of. I'm not sure how much time I will have to keep this up and going but feel free to follow, I apologize in advance for my lack of writing abilities. 4 days and counting!