Letter 2

Here's letter number two, written about a month into the visit after I had kind of settled down in Valencia:

Hola todos -

It was great to hear from those of you who wrote back, thanks a bunch - I hope to keep hearing some news from home! So I think this email may be even longer than the first, but there are plenty of strange, interesting and above all hilarious things that have happened to me in the last 2 weeks. I also tried to start a blog – who knows how much I’ll use it, but hopefully I’ll keep up with it and won’t write essays every few weeks. I have some pictures online now and there are enough that it would be too hard to send them all through email. Here’s the websites for those that are interested:

http://community.webshots.com/user/hodag09

http://lokkevalencia.blogspot.com/

The blog is still pretty sparse – so far I only have one of the first letters home and part of this one, but I’ll add to it soon.

My last week in Gandia was awesome (after I finally received my last bag from British Airways); I’ll admit that I studied less for that course than I have for any other in my life. Everybody else was in the same boat, because as long as we passed, we got credit and grades didn’t transfer. Thus most of the nights left us with good memories and a lack of sleep. I was actually a little relieved to get settled down and moved into my apartment in Valencia. The only problem was that I hadn’t found one yet.

I began looking for my place in Valencia during the second week in Gandia. I had figured that it would be no problem, but didn’t realize that the University gives almost no help to students looking to find apartments, aside from a printout of the daily listings online. They have student dorms available, but the price is roughly 3 times that of an average apartment in the city! I’m surprised anyone stays in them, but apparently they get enough students to keep them running. The apartment market in Valencia is more intense than anything I’ve witnessed before. There are roughly 2500 exchange students at the Politecnica, and they’re all looking to stay with Spaniards in cheap housing. I must have looked at 20 different places within a week. This was a huge pain, especially because I had to arrange all the appointments on the phone – I immediately discovered that it’s really hard to understand Spaniards when they talk on the phone. I felt ridiculous every time I talked to someone, basically yelling in my 3^rd grade level Spanish, “OK GOOD, THEN I GO TO YOUR BUILDING AT 2 TODAY AND CALL YOU WHEN I AM CLOSE BY, THIS WORKS?”

I saw every type of apartment I could think of – from a 70’s style grandma’s apartment, to a sprawling penthouse with plasma TV (far too expensive), to a couple rooms barely large enough for a single bed and small dresser. In almost every case, the residents had a list of around 20 people they got to choose from, so I put my name down and never got called back. Finally, the morning I had to check out of my apartment in Gandia I put an ad out online saying that I was a student from the US who needed a place to stay – and it worked. That night I received a call from a Colombian guy and 2 german girls who were looking for someone fluent in English. It’s weird to be valued for my language, but it definitely got me a place to live for the semester.

So I’m living with Jorge, a Colombian engineering student who has been here for a few years, and two German exchange students Barbara and Sandrina. My room is big enough, and it’s close to the university and everything close by so I’m pretty satisfied. Although the two Germans are a little strange: they got excessively angry with me for leaving the toilet seat up a few times. Maybe that’s taboo in Germany, but it didn’t seem like a big enough deal to sit down and have a talk about the rules of the bathroom. Or perhaps it was their broken English/Spanish that made them seem angry, they don’t speak either very well… Whatever the case may be, I’m sure we’ll get along once we communicate better. I’m still working on forgetting English, but my Spanish is starting to come along much better. When I’m face to face with people I can have semi-normal conversations. It’s really good to practice with Jorge around the apartment. I feel like I’ll be speaking poor English and poor Spanish by the time I get back.

I only have 4 classes here, 3 engineering requirements and one Spanish language course (all in Spanish). The enrollment process is possibly the only thing more frustrating than finding an apartment. So far I’ve had about 5 visits to the international office to turn in different things: I hand in some papers then wait a few days to receive them back, then sign some more things and turn them in again and wait. I'm still not technically enrolled in any of my classes, and it's been 2 weeks. Everybody here is in the same boat, their system of incorporating international students is the tiniest bit disorganized... I miss the point and click method of enrolling at Wisconsin. The subjects are a little difficult, but the hardest part is understanding the teachers when they speak and explain topics quickly. I’m stuck flipping through my dictionary a lot of the time, feeling silly compared to everyone around me.

Anyways, I should cut this letter off: I have a tryout to get onto the swimming team here in about an hour. But in the next one I’ll finally share a bunch of awesome stories (and much less frustration/confusion) to tell about the fun I’ve had the past two weeks: playing soccer (both on a team at school and after bartime downtown), a fellow Hodag’s visit this past weekend, and going out with the Spaniards… Check out the pictures, leave comments if you’d like and please write!

‘ta luego,

Will

P.S. – This weekend I’ll be watching the Badger game (ESPN Gameplan = live games online, fantastic!) and grilling out in honor of PJ Hill’s Pregame Bash: I’ll miss that a lot, enjoy