Letter 1

Ok - many awesome times have gone down since that single post long ago. But I'm going to try to post more often now, so I'll start with a few of the letters that I've sent out, there have been 3 so far. They don't come close to telling everything, but it's a start and hopefully I'll keep it up from here. So without further ado, here's the letter sent my first week here in Spain:

Hola amigos!

I’ll be trying to write some emails every week or two with some interesting anecdotes/info and some updates from this semester in Valencia. Hopefully I won’t ramble on and on and bore you all and include pictures without taking over your inboxes. Perhaps a blog will be more appropriate so that anyone would be able to check whenever was convenient; I suppose I’ll have to decide that soon enough. But for now I wanted to keep in touch: I apologize if this first email is long, so much has happened in the first few days and I’m still really excited to be here.

I’ve been in Spain for about 5 days now and I’m still kind of getting situated. Internet access is hard to find, just a few internet cafes and hot spots for wireless, but hopefully when I get to my permanent address it will be easier. After saying leaving New York last Thursday I flew through the night to Heathrow in London. It’s still a disaster there, they have to cart everyone around the different terminals by bus, and every international flight has to be checked in through the rigorous security checkpoint again. Thankfully I didn’t miss the flight to Madrid, even though another student and I sprinted to our gate over 20 minutes late. When I arrived in Madrid, it turned out that British Airlines lost both of my bags, and so far they have only returned one of them and none of my calls. I still have no clothes except what I was wearing on the flight and several shirts and boxers I’ve purchased here. I stayed for 2 days in Madrid with the family of an exchange student we had stay with us a few years ago (Jose), getting my first taste of Spanish food and night life. Food here seems to center around meat and seafood with bread or rice. I went out for tapas the first night, a dinner composed of many appetizer sized plates that you keep ordering. I got my first taste of Spanish jamon Iberico (ham), solomillo con foie (sirloin with liver), stuffed salmon and even a type of steak tartar. I actually enjoyed all of it – this was probably because Jose wouldn’t tell me what anything was until after I ate it.

The second day I met up with my Spanish teacher from the spring and she took me around downtown Madrid. I really enjoyed the feel: very old/classic architecture with tons of people – including some street performers such as a matador and a man encrusted with mud so he looked like a statue. I saw the royal palace, a huge market and the Plaza del Sol which is kind of the central point of downtown. I had to go soon afterwards because I was waiting on my bags (only one of which arrived). The next day I took a bus straight to the beach in Gandia, on the Mediterranean coast just south of the island of Ibiza.

The program in Gandia is a 2 week long intensive Spanish course for the exchange students going to la Universidad Politecnica de Valencia in the fall. There are probably about 150 kids here, and about ¾ of them are from Germany including all 3 of my roommates for the 2 weeks. Apparently “double” and “single” rooms don’t mean the same thing as I had assumed: double means a double bed, not two in the same room. So I’ve been sleeping in the same full size bed as my large German roommate for the past few days, and will continue to for the next week and a half. Turns out he’s a really nice guy, we’ve had no problems and he speaks enough English that we can communicate. Most of the students here speak English pretty well; many of the Europeans know a lot of 2 or 3 languages. There are 7 Americans that I know of here, and 2 others from Madison. I see them enough, but have definitely been trying to spend time with the Europeans to practice Spanish a bit. I can get by speaking to locals in Spanish, but I’m still self conscious the entire time.

It still feels like I’m on vacation, because we only have 4 hours of class each day and spend the rest of the time on the fantastic Gandia beach. The Mediterranean Sea is amazingly warm; there’s been no cloudy days and beautiful weather in general. You can walk out into the surf about 60 yards and still stand in the clear blue water. I signed up for a windsurfing class, so I’ve been doing that for 3 hours each afternoon as well. The first day was incredible; before actually surfing we took kayaks way out into the sea and saw huge schools of large dark jellyfish as big as dinner plates, and some other random sea life. I saw no sharks but apparently some babies were spotted at one point - I’m a huge weenie when it comes to dangerous ocean life but other than that there’s been nothing to worry about. Windsurfing has been difficult but I’ve gotten good enough so that I can sail out a bit and come back without help. I’ve been really tired from the late nights – it’s kind of ridiculous how late the Spaniards stay out, most of them don’t show up to clubs or bars until around 4:30. There have been some hilarious times; more stories to come soon but this email is definitely starting to ramble and I need to get off the computer.

I don’t have many pictures at this point because I’ve only had my camera back for a short time, but I’ll send some of the beach, windsurfing and other good randomness soon. I’d love to hear from all of you, please keep me updated on your lives and about America in general – how are Wisconsin football and the fall semester going? I usually get a chance to check email once or twice a day so I’ll be able to write back soon.

Saludos,

Will