Week 1

Saturday 4th of February in the early morning my family brought me to the airport. Once again one of us was going abroad for a couple of months. However, this time it is in Europe and easier to reach than the places Youp traveled to for his study. We had a cup of coffee and after I went through the security check. At 6:00am there was already a waiting time of 40 minutes, which is, in my opinion, a long time to get through security. Not surprisingly my bag went through the x-ray machine and was marked to check-up by the security. I had honestly no idea what it could be, cause this time I actually took out the liquids and electronic devices. While waiting to get my bag checked the previous guy had his bag checked as well. He got a shoehorn which seemed very suspicious to the security. Eventually my bag was to be checked. Turns out it wasn’t marked specifically so I could just take it and make my way to the gate.

After boarding almost closed I decided to join the other passengers waiting to enter the plane. I was flying with Transavia and had my seat at the emergency exit. Normally that is great, I like the extra room for my legs and it was great until we started our descend to Valencia Airport. There was some water coming from the emergency exit, which probably just is condense. However, seeing water coming into the plane doesn’t make me feel very safe.

After landing I was waiting to collect my bag and make my way to the city. I decided that it was time to find out where I had to go exactly, I had the address but had no idea what metro or bus I had to take there. After finding out that I should take the metro to somewhere close to Aragon the bags started to arrive at the luggage belt. After about five minutes finally my bag came and I made my way to the metro. After waiting a couple of minutes a metro came and I got in a direct line to Aragon. Leaving the metro in a foreign city always comes with a problem: there are multiple exits and the name of the street is where the exit is. Having no clue which exit to take I went up the stairs to find myself close to the Mestalla Stadium, the stadium of Valencia CF.

At this point I found myself in Valencia and got my map to see where to go. I crossed the street to go on with my search. I decided that it was time for a cortado, as it had been a long time since I had one. This got me to Carrer Belgica, a street to remember. After drinking the cortado I followed that way I thought I had to follow. When I was leaving Carrer Belgica I noticed a familiar company, Nationale Nederlanden. I arrived at Blasco Ibañez, a street that I already heard about before I got to Valencia. I crossed the street and got to the first square I saw to get a ‘tortilla de patatas’ also known as tortilla española. Eggs with potatoes and onion and, in my opinion, can be served any time of the day. After my breakfast I moved on, searching for Carrer de l’Escultor Alfons Gabino. In my best Spanish I asked for directions, but no one knew where it was. So again I took my map and found out that I was already there. By now I know that it is better known as plaza Honduras.

Being really busy trying to understand how those weird Spanish addresses work and looking like a lost tourist I hear my name. Not sure from where I turned around. No one was there. Then I looked up, a man was yelling my name from a window in the building that was in front of me. And yes, it was number 14, the number I was looking for. But it was also number 30, so that left me confused at first but luckily the man already saw me.

I entered the building and not sure what floor I had to go to, since there was no sign on what floor what puerta was, I went to the 5th floor. Thinking there would be two apartments on every floor. That wasn’t the case and I went up another floor. Still the wrong floor. Eventually on the 7th floor I found a man and a guy waiting outside the door. The man was named Fernando, the guy was named Josué. Entering the apartment Cruz, the wife of Fernando was busy looking after the lunch in the kitchen while Fernando waited for me at the elevator.

They gave me a tour around the house and showed me my room. I dropped all my stuff and started to unpack. Josué explained everything to me another time, but in English. I found out at that very moment, he was my roommate and was studying here.

At about 2:00pm lunch was served, or as they call it here ‘comida’. The amazing dish of fideuá, was on the table. It is somehow similar to paella, but with pasta and seafood. It was absolutely delicious. After lunch carajillo came on the table, coffee with rum, prepared in a special way. That was delicious too. Than it was time for siesta.

For dinner Josué asked me if I wanted to go to intercambio dinner night with him. He said it would be a great place to meet some locals. We went there and lots of people brought a dish from their home region, so it was a great way to taste different kinds of food from multiple regions and meet locals/others.

Sunday I went to discover where I exactly was and went out to discover the area a bit. For lunch there was paella Valenciana, with chicken and rabbit. Or as they say over here, the real one.

On Monday Fernando walked with me to show me where the school was. I filled out some paperwork and got a tour of the school. After that I was placed in a class and found that there were 3 Dutch, 2 German and some other nationalities in class.

The week went on and I went to my classes in the morning, got home to have lunch and after I went out to discover the city. I realized that the food was way better than the stories I heard from Youp while he was in Australia. During the week I also visited two other intercambio evenings. Intercambio is organized to have people exchange languages with each other, for me it is a great way to practice my Spanish.

On Saturday I went to the movies with my roommate, to the film Split, as that was one of the few spoken in English and subtitled in Spanish and on Sunday I ate paella again and I took some notes to make it myself someday.