Small update for Newsletter

Hola de nuevo!

This is a small update because Routes into Languages would like to put a link to this blog in their newsletter.

My experience of the Adopt-a-Class scheme so far has been very positive. It is good fun reading the comments I have from the pupils in the classes, and trying to ask their questions, which can be very interesting. Aside from the benefit of the blog being directly related to a scheme whose aims I support, there are those benefits which come from the fact that I have to try and keep track of what I am doing out here.

It has not been the easiest undertaking. For many Erasmus students, the primary motives of their year abroad are cultural experiences and language improvement, and this is reflected in the fact that many Erasmus students’ academic grades during this time do not count towards their final degree class. I am in the slightly less common camp of having this year count towards my final degree class; doing my Masters research project and lectures, as well as a Cultural project to be written in Spanish. This means that in many respects, living out here is not that different from living in London, surrounded by opportunities for cultural experiences but ignoring most of them in favour of studying. As a result, when I do get the opportunity to go sightseeing or exploring, I try to ensure I make the most of it and take note of what I enjoy so that I can write about it in these blog entries.

As a quick update since the last entry, I had a visitor this weekend, so we went into the Old City and walked around the beautiful architecture. We went to a famous Horchateria (twice!) and had horchata con fartons, churros con chocolate, and (on the second day) buñuelos de calabaza con chocolate. I have already talked about horchata con fartons, but in case you have not heard of them before, churros and buñuelos are a fried dough. The main thing I can see that differentiates them is their shape, churros are long and thin, and buñuelos are effectively like a doughnut, but their exterior is much crispier, like a batter.

That is all for now as it has only really been a week.

¡Hasta luego!

Happy (belated) New Year!

Hello again!

I firstly have to apologise for the long absence. I have had a very busy two months so I will try to fill you in without too much boring detail.

Christmas

Christmas in Spain is a very different affair from the classic British Christmas that we are used to celebrating on the 25^th December. Out here, they have a big celebratory dinner with all the family on Christmas Eve, and then a lunch on Christmas Day. The traditions are slightly different depending on the household and how religious the families are. Less religious families are likely to follow traditions more similar to ours, sometimes having turkey and doing presents on Christmas Day. More traditionally Catholic families are more likely to just have a family gathering and a special meal on this day. For them, the present giving, and the more important day is El Día de Los Reyes Magos, or the Day of the Wise Men. This is celebrated on the 6^th January, and they all go back to work the following day.

Something that really surprised me, given the Spaniards’ pride in their food culture, is that they do not have a national traditional feast. While they all agree that the meal is special and they make it a feast, there is nothing like our roast turkey with all the trimmings. Despite no universal Christmas meal, they do have some very traditional Christmas sweets. Before I went to Spain I thought that Turrón was just a kind of sweet treat similar to nougat, but I have since found out that the only requirement for a turrón is that it is sweet and its shape – it has to be a block. There are several traditional types, which includes ‘Turrón Duro’ (Hard Turrón), a crunchy nougat filled with nuts;

‘Turrón Blando’ (Soft Turrón), a block made of powdered almonds mixed with sugar that crumbles and melts in the mouth; 

‘Turrón de Yema’ (Egg Yolk Turrón), which is like a cross between a dense cake and marzipan;

‘Turrón Crujiente’ (Crunchy Turrón), which is just a block of chocolate with puffed rice (otherwise known as Rice Krispies).

There are then a whole host of non-traditional blocks with assorted flavours. The other sweets are known as ‘surtidos’, which is an umbrella term for a selection of biscuits and ‘Polvorones’. ‘Polvo’ means powder or dust, so it will come as no surprise that ‘Polvorones’ are an incredible crumbly sweet made from flour, lard and some flavouring like lemon, cinnamon or chocolate. They are like a shortbread, but not crunchy, and they just disintegrate into powder as you bite into them. I think they are a bit of an acquired taste, but I like them!

January was spent revising for exams so I have not seen much more than my desk, and I came back to England for the week before term starts again on the 1^st February so I will start writing about my experiences again soon.

Answers to questions:

Are Spanish people bossy?

“Spanish people” are no bossier than “British people”. In other words, you cannot just generalise about a whole nation.

Is the Spanish music similar to English music?

While I am in the lab, people often have music on Spotify. Sometimes this will be a lot of English or American music, but other times it is Spanish music, which tends to have a different overall feel from the music over here. The rhythms really suit Salsa style dancing quite often, and if it is a man singing, I tend to notice the autotune a lot, but I don’t know if it is supposed to sound like that or not.

What is the best landmark I have seen?

Valencia has some really lovely old buildings in the city centre, and the architecture there is lovely, but I think my favourite landmark is just the whole of the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias. I have posted pictures of this before, but I can put up some professional ones so you can see just how impressive the whole complex is.

Thank you for reading! Next month I will write in Spanish again.

Octubre

¡Hola de nuevo!

A finales de mi tercer mes, tengo menos que contar porque ahora tengo una rutina cotidiana, pero tengo algunas cositas interesantes de las últimas cuatro semanas.

Empecé a dar las clases de inglés para dos gemelos de doce años. Su nivel de inglés es mejor de lo que piensan y nos divertimos con juegos en inglés y la semana pasada hablamos sobre Halloween. Iba a hacer tarta de calabaza para ellos, pero me la dejé en la universidad, así que este fin de semana tengo que hacer otra vez.

A principios de octubre, había un ‘puente’, que es como un fin de semana largo, porque era el Día de la Comunidad Valenciana, el 9 de octubre, y luego, el 12 de octubre es la Fiesta Nacional de España. Por eso, tuve mi primer visitante. Fuimos a varios restaurantes, a la playa y  a una horchatería muy buena. Además había sido el cumple de mi amigo el miércoles de esa semana, así que me pasé todo el jueves haciendo un pastel.

¡El pastel!

 

Trabajo en la universidad todos los días, y poco a poco estoy acostumbrándome a las técnicas, pero no sin problemas. Un viernes, a final del día, necesitaba rellenar una botella grande con agua, pero recordé mal la manera de hacerlo, y por eso, dejé un grifo abierto. Dos minutos después, alguien entró en nuestro laboratorio para preguntar si alguien estuvo rellenando el agua. Fui al grifo y había agua por todas partes - un charco grande en el suelo, pero también salpicaduras en las paredes, y aun en el techo. Me dio tanta vergüenza y Enrique me dijo a todo el mundo le ha pasado alguna vez.

Otra parte del día en la universidad son las clases. Tenemos tutorías que contribuyen a nuestra nota final de la asignatura. Una manera de hacer eso es por “participación en clase”. Esto significa que tenemos que salir a la pizarra para dibujar un esquema del problema, para ilustrar los pasos necesarios para solucionarlo. Tenía miedo de hacerlo pero sabía que era necesario, por eso, había preparado unos esquemas con antelación y un día hicimos estas preguntas. Me ofrecí de voluntaria y salí a la pizarra para hacer el esquema. Estaba temblando, y mi escritura era ilegible, pero lo hice y no creo que tenga que hacerlo otra vez. 

Después de esta semana, mi familia vino a visitarme. Ellos estaban en un apartamento en el centro así que me quedé con ellos el viernes y el sábado. Fuimos a restaurantes y museos pero lo más interesante fue ir al teatro para ver “Bodas de Sangre”. Es una obra de teatro bastante famosa que mi hermana está estudiando para sus A levels. Me preocupaba que mis padres no la entendieran pero los actores fueron impresionantes y por eso, no era tan difícil entender la historia básica. Además, entre casi todas las escenas, había bailes de flamenco, muy buenos y con estilos variados, que nos gustaron mucho.

"Bodas de Sangre"

La vista desde La Puerta de Serranos

 

Pregunta del mes:

¿La moda, la comida y los iconos de la cultura popular son iguales a los de Inglaterra?

La moda es bastante similar, pero la ropa es más barata aquí, y por eso, he comprado muchas cosas, pero se puede leer sobre esto en el otro blog de hace uno o dos meses. Cuando escuchamos la radio en el laboratorio, la mayoría de las canciones son en inglés. Para mí es un problema porque me distrae más que a los demás porque conozco la letra. Ponen canciones españolas algunas veces, pero no sé de qué grupo son, así que puedo decir que hay iconos de la cultura popular inglesa aquí…Adele es muy popular en este momento, pero también tienen sus propios iconos, especialmente de las películas, que se puede ver en la página de inicio de internet.

La comida es otro mundo aquí. Su manera de comer, tanto como lo que comen son muy diferentes. A los españoles les gusta comer menos que a los ingleses pero más frecuentemente. Así que tienen desayuno, que no es mucho más que un café antes de ir al trabajo. Luego, en la universidad, entre las 10:30 y las 11:30, almuerzan, que puede ser un café otra vez, con rosquilletas (un tipo de barra de pan crujiente) o fruta, o un bocadillo. Luego a las 14:00, tienen la comida. En general a los españoles no les gusta tener una comida fría. Por eso, vamos a la sala dónde hay una nevera y un microondas para calentar. Normalmente tienen los restos de un plato del día anterior, o sea pasta con una salsa, o arroz con carne y verduras. Entre las 17:00 y 18:00, suelen comer algo más. Se llama merienda, pero en la universidad, solo hacemos si alguien tiene un cumple y han traído una tarta. Normalmente cenan alrededor de las 22:00, y es un poco más ligera que la comida. En mi piso, tienen una variedad más grande porque a Catt le gusta cocinar cosas tailandesas también. Algo que noto mucho es que los españoles están muy orgullosos de su comida, el tipo de comida que comen es española, o de un estilo italiano (con pasta, pizza o lasaña). Creen que la comida española es la mejor del mundo. Para mí es un poco frustrante, porque me gusta la comida de Espana mucho, pero también me gusta la comida de muchas culturas y creo que convertirla en una competición es un poco triste e inútil. En mi opinión, a alguien le puede gustar un tipo de comida y otro tipo, sin tener que compararlos. La semana pasada, mi profesor me preguntó de la comida inglesa: “¡¿Pero qué tienes que está buena que no viene de las colonias?!”. No podía dar una respuesta satisfactoria porque él ya había decidido que los ingleses no tienen nada que comer que valga la pena. Ahora tengo la misión de convencerlo de que la comida de otros países (no sólo de Inglaterra) puede ser tan buena como la comida española y que la alegría de comer viene de la variación y la experimentación, y que la tradición tiene su lugar, pero que también se puede ser innovador y disfrutar de todo.

Topic of the month (TOTM) - Cultural Stereotypes

Hello again everyone!

I have a lot of things to say this month, so what I am doing is splitting my blog post into several smaller entries. One will be for the Topic of the Month, where I answer the questions I was asked in class, and I will also use this post for answering questions from the comments on my previous post. The other will be more like a diary of what I have been doing in the last month.

I noticed on my previous post that I was getting a lot of people commenting several times. At first I thought this was a computer glitch, but then I saw that sometimes the comments were ever-so-slightly different. I think this might be people trying to comment and the comment not appearing straight away, so they rewrite and try to post it again. If this is the case, can I please ask that you do not do this!

The reason the post does not appear immediately is because I get sent a notification saying someone wants to post a comment. I get to read and approve this comment before it appears. So the comment will appear once I have had the chance to read it and make sure it is acceptable. This also means that I have to read every comment that appears on the blog, so I know I have read all of your questions, which will hopefully mean I answer them! If you have waited a couple of days and still cannot see your post, then it might be worth trying again, but otherwise, just give it a bit of time and check back later to see if it has appeared.

Spanish perceptions of the British and vice versa - Cultural Stereotypes

Do Spanish people wear a lot of red?

The answer to this question would be quite simple: no more than the British do.

However, I have extended the scope of this question somewhat to talk about something that I have noted since my arrival. The people who I see out on a daily basis do tend to dress really well. This is not something I had expected to notice, but in general, women and men walking around the city or on campus have a style which appeals to me.

The only trend I have seen that I do not like so much is a tendency for double denim, as the weather steadily gets colder. However, this is just a personal preference, and some people make it work well. It also means that the denim jacket that I bought before I arrived will now get a lot of use as I won't feel like I stand out when I wear it!

As a result of shops stocking clothes which I find attractive, (something that does not happen very often in England) as well as lower prices than at home, I have been shopping and bought quite a few items of clothing. Some were definitely needed, as I have been getting through all my short-sleeved tops very quickly, and other things were more of an impulse buy.

Now seems an appropriate time to write some Spanish which will have some very familiar words in it I hope! 

Desde mi llegada aquí, he comprado un bolso para llevar mis cuadernos a la universidad cada día; unas camisetas de varios colores, un par de zapatos apropiados para el laboratorio y unos calcetines tobilleros para estos zapatos; un cárdigan verde oscuro; tres faldas estampadas, una muy larga y una corta con un diseño geométrico y la otra de longitud media con rayas blancas y negras; unas polainas negras, y una chaqueta elegante de color gris.

What do Spanish people think of British people?

I think the most common thing I have heard since I started talking to people here is, "You speak Spanish very well!" This is not meant to be a boastful statment. In fact, it has quite the opposite effect on me, and makes me rather self-conscious. This is because they say this after I have only managed to utter about three words. It has been something which frustrates me because then I have to explain that I was privileged enough to start learning Spanish at the start of Year 5 and that I had the benefit of several brilliant native speakers as teachers. I can therefore only suppose that when they say I speak Spanish well or that my Spanish is good, what they really mean is, "Oh my goodness, you're English and you can say some words in another language without sounding ridiculously English!"

This has triggered a lot of discussions about the quality of the English teaching in Spain. It seems that the vast majority of students start learning English when they start school. They are taught by Spanish teachers, and appear to find our spelling very difficult. This leads to them finding pronounciation very difficult. A few times I have been listening to my friends speak English, and they are saying words that make no sense to me.

The first example was my supervisor in the lab, he was talking about the "pree-est" and I had no idea what he meant until he clarified: "cura", and I realised he was saying "priest".

Another friend at dinner was talking about "fru-idges", and it was not until I heard her say "fresa" that I realised she was saying "fruits" and not "fridges".

I explained that they should not worry so much about bad pronunciation as we do it in Britain too. I told them how when I was eleven, and I kept on reading the word "sub-tle" on food packaging without knowing what it meant. It was not until I was reading it out loud to my mother that she told me it is pronounced "suttle" that I made the connection between a word I had only ever heard spoken aloud and the unknown, printed word in front of me.

As well as thinking that generally we do not speak Spanish, it seems that the Spanish think that those of us who are Caucasian British are very pale, and turn very red when we come to Spain because of the sun, which never shines in Britain. Unfortunately I am unable to break this stereotype as I have inherited the chalky skin of my Cornish and Polish ancestors and thus am the palest in the department.

The final few stereotypes that the Spanish have about the British are to do with our personalities: they think we are very apologetic and very polite. I have to say it is something I have noticed since being here, that I say "lo siento" a lot, whereas the more common thing to say is "perdón", and nowhere near as frequently as I say sorry. I am resolving to try to say "perdón" instead, because I think it sounds odd to a Spanish ear when I say "I am sorry for it" all the time!

I also find myself saying "gracias" a lot more than my peers. This is definitely in part due to the fact that I have a lot to be thankful for, with people helping me out or doing me a favour or treating me. However, I think that Spanish is just a language where they do not use euphemism or delicate language very often, so sometimes if I translate directly in my head, things can sound very direct, and sometimes harsh.

A good example of this is when I said, "no quiero decir cosas equivocadas" and my supervisor told me that while what I had said was technically correct, it sounded weird. It was probably the equivalent of saying, "I don't want to say anything erroneous" in English, which while correct would sound odd in an everyday conversation. Instead, they use the word "mal". To say "you've done it wrongly", they would say "lo has hecho mal". To me, this sounds like a horrible thing to say, because I can't help but translate word for word and the result is "you have done it badly". There is a subtle (there that word is again!) difference between the two in English which does not exist in the same way in Spanish. A final example is using the work "querer". We might have been told by our parents when we were learning to speak (and some of us when we were older...) that "I want, doesn't get!" But it appears in Spanish, that is exactly what "quiero" gets, and in a shop, it is common to hear "quiero uno de..." instead of "I would like...please" or "please may I have...". This is another case of direct translation, and I will have to work to adjust this in my head. I think it will be easier as time goes by, and I am more used to being surrounded by the language.

Questions about the weather:

When I posted my last entry, I had many responses asking about the weather. This seems like another good time to write some Spanish.

Después de mi primera entrada al blog, hacía mucho más frío que la semana anterior. Varias veces hubo lluvias y tormentas con truenos y relámpagos. Ahora, mientras estoy escribiendo esto, está lloviendo, y pondré una foto de la vista desde mi laboratorio como prueba de que está lloviendo en España. Sin embargo, la mayor parte del tiempo, las temperaturas están alrededor de los 25-30 grados y sólo en los últimos días han empezado a bajar.

What looks like it might be a pool is usually dry, and if you look carefully, you can see someone with an umbrella by the hedge in the centre.

The British perception of the Spanish:

I think one of the most common stereotypes about Spanish people is that they are all about "fiesta and siesta". In my month here, I have to say that I have found this to be a rather unfair judgement of everyone. In my lab, the average working day is 09:00/09:30 - 18:30/19:00. On the timetable for classes, there is a definite chance of having a class that finishes at 20:00 and in the next month, I will start another course. This is an applied analysis course, and I will have to be in the lab from 08:30 till 12:30. I will speak more about an average working day in a later post, but I can tell you there is no siesta in the middle of the day for most students!

The second aspect is definitely true, however. The Spanish love to party, but they do it in a very different way from us, with a very different time-frame. For more information on this, see my other post.

The end of my first full month

It has been very busy since I last wrote, and a lot has happened in the interim, so I will try to give you a brief overview of an average weekday and then tell you about some of the fun things I have done.

An average day

I start my first lecture at the University at 09:30; Análisis Industrial y Medioambiental, and then I have a half hour break at 10:30 for "almuerzo". I do not usually bring anything to eat during this break, so I just go to the cafeteria with my friends, who might have a small sandwich or a snack which is a bit like a breadstick, but flatter and nicer, with sunflower seeds in the dough. At 11:00 we go to the second lecture which is Ciencias de las Materiales. I am very lucky because I am quite enjoying the courses themselves, and I will have to do an hour of each almost every day until Christmas. I am lucky that both of the lecturers speak relatively clearly, although one of them does talk really quietly so I have to focus very carefully on what he is saying. My friends are quick to make sure I have understood if something really important (like the exam) is mentioned!

After this I go to the lab with Paula, who is, luckily, in both of my classes and with the same research group for her final year project. In the lab I just get on with my work, until about 18:30, stopping for a lunch break from around 14:00 till 15:00.

With Paula

When I leave the lab I go back home to my flat where I cook dinner and chat with my housemates about our days and other topics like education and world problems. Having such a large diversity of nations represented with only five people in the house means there are often a lot of different points of view which makes most conversations more interesting. We do always speak Spanish to each other, unless there is a word we are really struggling to remember or describe, and then we look it up. I have a list on my phone of random vocabulary that I have picked up.

After dinner I might speak to my friends and family via Skype and by then it is quite late and I have to go to bed.

Weekend activities

In the first weekend Meike invited me to go on a walking tour of Valencia. This was free, but everyone gave tips at the end because it was so good! The old city is full of interesting history and the architecture is stunning.

This is a picture inside the Mercado Central, I was trying to show how big it is, but this is not even all of it. It extends really far to the right, with all the fresh fish in a wing at the side.

About as fresh as you can get - these are live eels for sale.

This is our tour guide showing us the roots that are key to a Valencian drink "Horchata", which is like almond or soy milk. It is made by soaking the chufa nuts and then blitzing them with more water, this mixture is strained and sweetened with sugar. It is traditionally served with fartons, which are a sort of long bread stick, a bit like a brioche.

The entrance to a house that was owned by a very wealthy family the two men either side of the door symbolise the two rivers around Valencia. The Virgin Mary above the door was revolutionary...literally. She spun around, so when the members of the family were in the house, she faced inwards to look over and protect them, and when they were out of the house, she faced the street, to ensure their safety whilst going about their business.

When an architect's team was digging to build foundations, they discovered the remains of the Roman city. Being a good and honest architect, he reported it, and now this shallow, glass-bottomed pool means anyone can look straight down onto history. It also reflects the modern buildings around it beautifully.

Plaza de la virgen - The main square where our tour started and finished. The Church behind the tree has a large Star of David over the entrance, because wealthy Jews helped fund the building of the church, and this was what they requested in exchange for the money.

The next Friday was a day off, and I was lucky enough to be invited to go on a trip to the mountains with some people in my lab group. After a two hour drive, we were in a small Spa town called Montanejos, and we went for a walk along the river. It was honestly breathtakingly beautiful and my photos don't do it justice. The river water was an amazing clear turquoise-green, and there were lots of people swimming. We turned up onto a mountainous track and walked until we couldn't go any further. One thing I noticed was how fresh and delicious it all smelled - there was rosemary growing all over the place. I wish I could have picked some like other hikers were doing, but it wasn't the easiest thing to transport, so unfortunately I didn't get any. We went and had lunch by the river before wandering around the town and going for a coffee. Then we got back in the car and had an hour-long drive to a small city called Onda.We went up to the castle, which had some really stunning views, and probably some fantastic history, but we didn't stop in the dingy museum for long.

The walk down to the river

The view across the river. This photo is not good enough to capture the beauty of the landscape.

Fish swimming in the clear river

The "dead end" where the path hit the river and we had to turn back.

The view of the castle from the road.

The view from the castle of the town below

After that weekend I had my first proper week, when I started lectures. On the Friday evening, my supervisor invited me to join him and some others from the lab. At about 22:30, everyone decided it was time to eat. So we went to a restaurant and ordered some tapas...

On the left is "sepia" - cuttlefish, which was delicious and delicate, on the right is "morro" - fried pig snout, it tasted fine, just like very fatty pork crackling, but still had some hairs in it, which put me off having more than one piece!

The next day I went to the Mercado Central on my own, because I love anything to do with good, fresh food. It was also a good opportunity to practise my Spanish with people who did not know that I am English, and I am pleased to say that, in general, it went well.

The view into the river bed garden which passes under the bridge leading into the old city.

After another full week of a normal university timetable, I was invited to a party on the Friday. The way the Spanish do parties is very different from the British. We met at a tram stop at 21:00, and went to buy some provisions for the party. At about 22:00, we went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. The price for three savoury dishes plus a small dessert of ice cream, and a coffee was 6€. I was astounded, but then again, I was also shocked that the sweet and sour sauce they placed on the table had a tiny fly in it...
We finished eating dinner at midnight, and then went to the house, where there was a group of people who were friends of the other housemates in the flat. I had a good time talking to people, although a lot of it was in English, because there were lots of Erasmus students from various countries who are not very proficient in Spanish. One girl from Germany said she thought she would be fine coming to Spain with a good level of English, and she was quite shocked at how few Spaniards speak a high level of English. This all goes to show how much English is taken for granted as a global language, but it just is not the case. It is a good demonstration of why we need to have more language classes in schools, and understand that the world is far more accessible when we speak to the natives in their own language!
I left the party at 03:00, and I went home to bed, because I was exhausted, but for others, it was just the beginning.

Extra

Last week I received an email asking if I would be interested in giving private English tutorials. To cut a long story short, I had an informal interview with the parents of 12 year old twins. The meeting went really well, so next Tuesday I am going to meet the twins and we will see how the session goes. The tutees have been told that I do not speak any Spanish, so I will have to pretend that I cannot understand them if they try to communicate with me in Spanish.


I am finishing my sixth week here in Spain and I think I am settling in quite well, considering how different everything is. The routine of my week is definitely helping in that respect. My next blog post will probably not be as long, because fewer things will be brand new, so it will probably just be all in one.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about my first month in Spain. Here are some other photos:

This is the best ham in Spain, apparently. It comes from the village of my Spanish housemate, and I have to say, it is really delicious.

Paellera - We had a chemistry Erasmus student talk. Students who had gone away last year and returned gave presentations about their research projects, and we all had paella afterwards. The dish must have been at least a metre across.

Vicky, who does the same classes as me, made these "cake pops" they are simply Oreos, crushed and mixed with cream cheese until you have a kind of dough that you can roll into balls. They were so good!

¡Hola desde Valencia!

It’s the end of my first week in Valencia, so now seems like an appropriate time to write my first blog post for all of you.

The story so far…

In June I visited some of you in school, gave you a little presentation about Spain and told you about what I am going to be doing during my year abroad in Valencia. You came up with many questions that I now have to set out to answer, so to give you a reminder, here they are (in no particular order):

1.     How often do Spaniards get takeaway?

2.     What holidays do they celebrate in Spain?

3.     Who is my favourite football player?

4.     What time do Spaniards eat?

5.     What is their traditional dress?

6.     Do they have English restaurants?

7.     How many beaches are there in Spain?

8.     Do Spaniards have deep voices?

9.     Do they have a traditional food?

10.   Do they have a typical activity?

11.   Do they have any special events?

12.   Do they have many crimes?

13.   What do they eat?

14.   What is unique to Spain?

15.   Do they wear a lot of red?

16.   What is the population of Spain?

17.   Are fashion, food and popular culture icons the same as in England?

18.   Are Christmas/Birthdays celebrated the same way in Spain?

19.   What do Spanish people think of British people?

20.   Do Spanish people speak fast?

I will endeavour to answer these questions, and any more that you come up with during my time here. If you have another question, simply write it in the comments, and then I’ll be able to see and, hopefully, respond to it. Feel free to make any other comments as well. It will be really good for me to see if anything I write sparks any interesting conversation! This is meant to be an interactive experience, so I would really value your opinions on my posts or any topic I mention.

My first week:

I arrived on Monday morning after a seriously delayed flight and an apparent power cut in Valencia Airport when I was trying to collect my luggage. My mum came with me, I think she thought it would be a mini holiday, and I’m sorry to say I disappointed her on that front as you will soon see!

We got to the apartment where we would be staying while I looked for accommodation. It’s quite well placed as it’s between the campus where I’ll be studying and the area where I wanted to search.

I tried to add in a zoomed in box of my commute, but I’m not that great at Photoshop and you can’t read it, so I’ll say I’m living in Benimaclet, which is a really popular area with students, and my campus is the Burjassot campus of the Universitat de València*. You can find it on Google Maps.

It would be very dull to report my daily activities, but I have now found a place to live for the next nine months. I am going to be in an apartment really close to a tram stop to get to the campus every day. I am living with a young family and another Erasmus student; a medic from Germany. The parents in the family are students at the moment, with one year of their post-graduate studies to go, so they’re very busy at the moment. Their son is only seven years old and very sweet! Everyone has been lovely so far and today (Sun 30/08/15) is the first day I’ve properly moved in.

Having said that, I have been moving things in and going shopping for more “essentials” since Thursday. One thing to note about this area of Spain is that things are less expensive than in London. There are shops called Chinas, where you can buy almost anything to furnish a house at very reasonable prices, so I spent a lot of time there getting things like drying racks and laundry baskets, because I was only able to take clothes and some toiletries with me.

Tomorrow I am going to sort out my monthly tram pass and go and visit the campus so I can get my bearings and know where to go when I meet my Project Supervisor on Tuesday. 

Last night was the final night my mum was with me, and as it’s her birthday soon, I decided to take her out to dinner as we hadn’t been out all week. We went to a restaurant close to our apartment, and sat under a street lamp, in rather uninspiring surroundings of parked cars. We ordered some sangria, croquetas de bacalao, and paella vegeteriana for two. It would have easily fed four people with some to spare, so I asked the waitress if I could take away the leftovers, which I now have to work my way through before I get to cooking properly for myself!

Croquetas – mashed potato with bacalao (salted cod) which is then shaped into cylinders, covered in breadcrumbs and deep fried.

Paella –  A traditional rice dish of the region, cooked and served in a special paella pan, it was far too much, but so good.

Sangria – a drink, traditionally made with red wine and oranges, it's a bit like cold mulled wine. We soon discovered this one was particularly delicious because each glass had a tablespoon of sugar in the bottom.

Things to come:

This has been a brief introduction to my time Valencia so far, but as you can probably tell, I haven’t had very much opportunity to explore and experience the culture yet. So what I have done is planned a theme for each of the subsequent months which I can use as a scaffold to answer your questions, as well as tell you a bit about my personal experiences of the month.

I will also try to write some of the blog in Spanish for you all to read a bit too!

¡Gracias por leer!

*For those of you who might be a bit confused: “Universitat de València” doesn’t look much like any Spanish you’ve ever seen, and that’s because it isn’t! This is Valenciano, and I hope to cover the variety of languages that there are in Spain in one of my posts this year.