where single cells would swing their fists

Day sixteen didn't get off to a very good start: I awoke with about a dozen mosquito bites, my loaf of bread had become a forest of green fungus, and I had a lingering ache in my temples from the migraine the day before.

But it turned out to be a pretty decent day, nonetheless. A new student joined us in class. Simdy, from Paris. She was originally from Guadalupe, but was doing her Master's in Paris in International Business. We hit it off immediately — surprisingly, given that I was initially intimidated by her easy self-confidence and very poised, stylish manner. She and I paired off for the pair-activities in class; I probably improved more yesterday than I have in all the days prior. Simdy took Spanish lessons for four years prior to coming to Valencia, so she has a great deal of textbook knowledge, and was happy to pass that on.

We did an exercise in class where we shared pictures of our family & friends and described them to the class. (Mother, Gemma very emphatically - when you come here, you will see how Spanish people do 'emphatically' - exclaimed that you were incredibly young and incredibly beautiful.)

After class, armed with a bit of extra self-confidence (it's funny how being around confident people can help me find a little of my own confidence. Diffusion, or some like phenomenon), I decided to - finally! - go out to a restaurant. I decided on a restaurant in the Plaza de la Reina. Yes, it would be expensive (I paid 18 euros in all for my meal), but you have to eat at least once in the plaza. The view was gorgeous, with the shadow of the Cathedral's tower falling over my table. With history in sight.




The Menu del dia had a number of choices; I decided on a sangria as my drink, the tabla iberico jamon & queso as my first course. Valencians love pork. I'm not a great fan, but I figured I should at least try it.

I had a brief conversation with the waitress about the food. She knew English, but we didn't have to resort to it once. I was quietly proud of myself.


(The view from my table.)

She also served pan y tomate - bread and tomato. It was literally just crushed tomatoes, nice and light atop the bread.

The cheese was good, but admittedly I didn't much like the pork. The sangria was great; very, very strong. I had to sit at my table for about half an hour extra just so I was sure I'd be able to walk home without swerving into traffic. (An exaggeration. But it was pretty damn strong. Very good. But strong.)



My second course, the main course, was paella valenciana. Valencian Paella, which is typically served with chicken & rabbit rather than seafood. It was good! Not amazing - my parents and I went to a Cuban place at the anti-mall that had much better food - but it was good. It wasn't fresh, I think - you know how rice gets kind of hard/crumbly if you leave it out too long? Parts of my paella were like that.



For dessert, I had a milk ice cream with cinnamon. This was nothing like American ice cream: much lighter, more like sorbet than ice cream. Very light and not filling at all.

All in all, I had a very nice first restaurant experience. I took the black bandit (my Kindle) with me so it wasn't too awkward sitting alone. My waitress was extremely sweet. And the food was great. Looking forward to next Monday & trying something new.

When I got back home, Ravil asked me if I wanted to go on a daytrip with them this weekend. To a tiny nearby town called Cuenca. We have Friday off from school because it's a religious holiday here in Spain (All souls' day). I said sure, why not. There's not much to do in Cuenca, but it'll be nice to explore a new place. I think I've almost exhausted all the sights in Valencia already.

(Not that I'm not looking forward to exploring all the things that tourist usually don't, now that I'm done with the touristy spots -- the gardens, the tiny local cafes, the theater shows, the music shows, the flamenco shows .... etc.)

Day seventeen! I woke up at three in the morning, as I'd been exhausted the night before and took an early night. Unfortunately, the internet was down, so I read a bit, translated a bit of my Asterix comic, and studied a bit.

Before class, I spoke to Simdy, urging her to speak to Gemma about going on to the next level rather than sticking with the beginner's class. I told her I hadn't spoken a word of Spanish before I started this class, two weeks ago, while she obviously had much more knowledge -- and she thought I was lying, re: not knowing any Spanish prior. That made me feel somewhat better about what I'd perceived as meager progress.

I was kicking myself as I suggested it, because she's great to have in class, but Gemma agreed with me. Tomorrow Simdy's going on to the next level. Alas. The empire falls.


(J, to make up for the airplane cloud-pictures I forgot to take for you -- have this. I love that effect. The light visibly cascading through the clouds.)

After class, I headed to the Ciudad Viejo across the Jardin del Turia yet again. I don't need a map anymore! And I've learned to navigate the smaller streets so I avoid all the people who judge me for having my camera out.


(Saw another familiar face (...head?!) on the way there.)


(Another Valencian orange. Just for you, Jessica.)


(The plaza is very narrow, so it's difficult to get good pictures.)




Unfortunately, they closed off the Ceramics Museum to just the bottom floor. When I asked the doorman where I should pay the entrance fee, he told me that it was free, as only the bottom floor was open. It was a shame, because I was enthralled by the interior — the building is just as lovely on the inside as it is on the outside. The pictures don't do it justice. I think it's my favorite bit of architecture I've seen thus far.










They had a coach from the 1800s, and a few random unmarked ceramic pieces. Nothing much. Still, the architecture was gorgeous. I was starry-eyed to the point that the doorman laughed and said "es marveloso, verdad?"








The church right across from the Museum was open, so I decided to take a look around. It was obviously in the midst of some kind of renovation, but this church also had that severity to it, that kind of ... architectural stoicism that I find appealing in quiet religious spaces. I knelt and spent a few quiet moments there, not praying but just soaking in the silence. No one else was there.



Saw this fellow a few times around the Ciudad, too. Two more days! Two more days! I may have to see it in Spanish first until they release the English version, but. Whatever. I'll take what I can get. I've been waiting for this movie for more than a year. (And apparently it ends on a cliffhanger, the resolution of which I won't receive until at least 2016. Marvel and Chris and Tom, I hate all of you. You have ruined my life.)


(Just a random bank in the city. Can you imagine going to work in a building like that!)


(The Teatro Principal, which is in a beautiful building close to the Mercado Central. Might go see Othello.)

On the way home, it started to rain. Hallelujah, I thought! Finally, it begins to cool! I'd spent the previous night tossing and turning, boiling in my own sweat, so it was a welcome relief. On the other hand, once I left the touristy areas and got back to my neighborhood ... let's just say that rainwater + sidewalks that are smeared with dog shit ... well, it wasn't pleasant to navigate. I got home and hopped straight into the shower.

And then stood there with the showerhead pointed at my feet for about ten minutes until finally - finally! - the water warmed. I'm going to challenge the water boiled to a duel. Maybe if I best it, it'll start respecting me. (Because the water in the kitchen is insta-hot! It's just me and the shower! Ugh!)

(Aaaand the internet joined hands with the water boiler and refused to cooperate with me. Took me four hours to upload all the photos. Here's hoping that this goes through!)

Two days in one entry, because I didn't do much today and I made only a short trip yesterday. Still not feeling very well, which is irritating. I did get a fair amount of grad school work done with (just need to finish my letters of recs - I'm lucky in that two of my recommenders asked me to write the letters and send it to them), my personal statements, then I'm done!!

Yesterday, class was its usual. Still haven't learned the past tense in class, which is annoying when I'm trying to communicate and I can only use the present tense ... apparently that's one of the most complicated parts of Spanish, so I have to wait for my slow-as-a-drunk-snail class to get to it. Sigh. I shouldn't be complaining, but I get pretty frustrated when we go over the same concept for the fortieth time just because Yun or Chou haven't done their homework or their reading. Why come to a new country to study if you just want to stay at home and talk Chinese with your gf? If it's nookie you want, you could've managed the same in your home country.

...forgive me, I'm cranky and irritated at my irresponsible classmates. They can spend their time in Valencia however the hell they want to spend it, but when they start wasting my time with their bullshit — that's when I get angry. We don't have a lot of time to learn Spanish, and it's not like these classes are cheap.

We played a game after class with the level 2 students (Valentina joined us!), which was moderately amusing. I met a woman named Robin, who went to Azusa Pacific and grew up in Huntington Beach! Her husband was going to the branch of Berklee in Valencia, so she tagged along to learn Spanish and basically enjoy a prolonged vacation in Spain. It was great, having a fellow American to speak with — she's actually the first I've met thus far.

The game involved one person being put in the "hot seat," while another put up vocab words on the board behind them. We then went around the room, each of us giving a hint as to what the word was (for example, if the word was "blanco/white," a clue might be "negro/black.") Felix & I had a bit of trouble because obviously our vocab is much smaller than the students who have already studied Spanish for some years, but both of us still managed to guess a few words when it was our turn in the hot seat.




After class, I went to the Santa Catalina horchateria in the Plaza de la Reina. Alright. First up: it's a beautiful little shop. The waiter spoke in quiet but clear Spanish, so I actually had the semblance of a conversation with him. The horchata looked nice, the farton was great. That's where the positives end. Despite the horchateria's reputation (it's the oldest on in Valencia), the horchata was terrible. Too sweet. And they definitely added milk, because my stomach ached like a mfer for the rest of the day. To the point that I later had to stop walking and sit down for awhile. For shame, Santa Catalina!

After that, I went to the Centro Cultural la Beneficencia, next to the Catolica Universidad in Valencia (on the very other side of the Ciudad Viejo), which housed the Ethnography and Pre-history museums. Again, I have to reiterate that I'm disappointed by the lack of information in Spanish museums. I took the following pictures, and I read the Spanish captions very slowly so that I knew what I was looking at, but the combined horchata pains + my irritation with having to go searching for information about the exhibits instead of having it readily available -- well, I guess there was a reason that I was the only visitor in the entire museum.


















Lots of old coins! Loki's prehistoric horns! (Actually prehistoric goat horns. Same diff.) Bits of old cave paintings! Bone tools! Pots! Pots! A metric crapton of pots! I swear, about 50% of the history museum was just ... pots ... pots ... pots. Half expected to find a bemused-looking Pepper amongst them. (my jokes are getting worse and worse. It's because I'm related to my father.) An infant burial (...in a pot!). A giant Roman mosaic (it was about 25ft square)! Thorin Oakenshield's sword! Old Valencian textiles (these were gorgeous in person). Farming tools, etc.

(Valencia was a Roman colony, hence all the Roman tie-ins.)

I'm glad I went, all the same. There were some beautiful exhibits, especially in the Pre-history museum.

Today, class. Had an interesting conversation with Felix about the differences between European and American attitudes re: education. He was telling me how most Europeans didn't really care about finishing on time/didn't mind taking it easy and using up an extra year or two whilst partying the time away, since it's not like they were paying much for it. And then he laughed at whatever expression I was making, haha. Can you imagine? I hurried to finish my degree because I was appalled and angry re: the fee hikes, and then Felix tells me that he was the only one in his entire class who finished within a semester of his expected graduation time.

I wanted to go to Yelmo Cines afterwards, but I think my cold has been elevated to the flu, so I stayed home and did some grad school work instead. (I did, however, find a few Valencianas from the Universidad on Tumblr who said they'd love to go with me to see Thor 2! That'll be great.) Tomorrow, I'll head to a few museums (the Ceramics museum, hopefully!) and the Mercado Central, where I will finally take pictures.

I also want to go out and get myself a few cheap dresses. I'm dying in my jeans. Located a few secondhand stores in the city, so I'll head out and see what I can find.

Listening to Les Mis in the background. Black, the night that ends at laaaaaast!! (God, Aaron Tveit - aside from Hathaway - is the best thing about this adaptation. His voice is incredible. One day, I will see him on stage.

When I grow up, I want to be Enjolras.)

The blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of Fraaaaaance!!

My brother made Eagle scout yesterday! He's now well on his way to becoming the next president of the US!!


(Six more days ....)

So, I was having an interesting day. At around 8 o'clock, I walked into the house, my feet aching from all the walking I'd been doing, eager for my upcoming hot-as-the-fires-of-hell shower. Our water boiler was probably around when Jesus walked the earth, so it doesn't work particularly well, but I generally get about 5 minutes of scalding water before I have to escape the shower to avoid being frozen into an iceblock.

Today, I got approximately thirty seconds of hot water. The rest of my shower was taken by gingerly cupping handfuls of ice cold water and dumping them over myself. Gingerly. Needless to say, if I were one of Snow White's dwarves, I would now be an unholy combination of Grumpy and Sleepy, leaning more towards the Grumpy side of things.

Class was more of the same. Sun was late (again), so we had to dash, but we made it to AIP with a couple of minutes to spare. They finally passed out the week's activities: there's nothing very interesting aside from a Valencian tennis match on Sunday, which I will most likely attend. I'm doing well budget-wise for the month (limiting myself to withdrawing money once a month definitely helps with that), so I can afford the 10euro ticket, even taking into account my Thor 2 ticket come the 31st. (Is anyone else watching the Leicester premier right now? How lovely do Kat & Chris & Tom look? Stellan looks like he's well on his way to wasted, and Natalie ... well. I think I could dress her better than she dresses herself. Also, I want that giant Mjolnir in my future backyard.)

...anyway, moving out of the realm of the fictional. Today was my cafe day (I've decided to set aside three days for eating out instead of two: one day for a cafe trip, one day for a horchateria or helateria trip, and one day for a dinner. Considering that the cafe trip today only cost 2euros, and horchata/gelato will be even less, dinner will be about 10-20euros ... I don't think that's too bad.)




I headed to a cafe called Panaria; it was about a fifteen-minute walk from AIP, right next to the general hospital. I'd stumbled upon it after getting lost mid-last week, and I noted the cross streets because I thought it looked like a good place to visit. I ordered my favorite cafe con leche, and a pastry called an ensaimada, which is a Mallorcan specialty. The coffee was great, as it always is, and the ensaimada - as a pleasant surprise - was very light. It looks like a huge hunk of pastry, but it was light and fluffy and I wanted another one before I was done with the first. Thankfully, I managed to control myself.

While I ate, I booted up my Kindle for the first time since I arrived. I'm rereading Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things, because her prose continues to be one of my favorite. What she values in the written word is similar to what I value, so reading her work always makes me a better writer. Does that make sense? My writing skills deteriorate when I read Dostoevsky or Nabakov, for some reason, but Arundhati Roy, Neil Gaiman, Chuck Palahniuk, Kurt Vonnegut ... they raise me up.

Has anyone else read any interesting books lately?


(Sculpture in front of the University. And a pigeon.)


(Thought these might be blackberries? They grow everywhere around here.)


(Guess what I found! I've deduced that the artist in question must live very close to me, since each of the four images that I've found have been within half a kilometer of my apartment. Maybe it's me. Maybe I am Tyler Durden.)

After Panaria, I walked home, at a couple of pieces of bread, then took off again. Passed by the cutest cupcake boutique, which I said I'd photograph for Amanda:



(See? Those purple cupcakes, with violets made of sugar on top? Those have your name on them, Amanda. I wanted to buy one, but I already used up my cafe day, so ... next week it is!)



Made my way past the bullfighting ring again (look at the gorgeous bougainvillea! I will never learn how to spell that word!), until I found the tiny side street leading to the MuVIM, Museu Valencià de la Illustració i de la Modernitat.



That's in Valencian — it's the museum of Modern Illustration, basically. I read online that going to this museum was a singular experience, so I took the plunge. It helped, of course, that it was free.




They had pieces of old Roman pillars out in the courtyard. Valencia used to be a Roman colony, back in the days when my water boiler was still a young shining fellow.



First up: a typography exhibit. The bottles of oil were examples of his work in action. The guy's still alive, and you can commission work from him — it wasn't quite tacky enough to be read as marketing, but ... it kind of was.



And then it got ... weird. Only the typography exhibit had any explanation in English, all the other exhibits only had terse Spanish & Valencian captions below. The next room had an "Islamic Tower," which just looked to be a giant piece of stone. A few more typography posters on the walls.


(Islamic Towers are not very interesting. Possibly because I'm not sure that this is either Islamic or a tower. It's lounging on its side, for Chrissakes.)









After that, I descended into a subterranean bunker. They were playing this strange eerie music, and the lighting was such that you couldn't actually see the boundaries of the glass cases holding the artifacts. I walked very carefully and still nearly smashed into one of the cases. This room was full of artifacts from indigenous Siberian folks, all dated to about 1900. That's about all I managed to gather. Beautiful, but I'd have liked more information.

The next room had this large LCD screen looping large flickering Cyrillic letters, with the eerie music growing louder and louder. I quickly went on to the next exhibit.





...which wasn't much better. More eerie music. Giant dolls. Dead animals. Plus a lot of old movie posters, strange costumes, and a small theater playing an animated movie in Russian about three women being burnt at the stake.

Needless to say? I think this is the strangest museum that I have ever encountered. It didn't help that the guards all refused to speak, just pointing and/or glaring in response to my question (puedo tomar los fotos?). I am glad I went there when it was still light out, that's all I'm saying.


(Passed by a shop selling traditional Valencian textiles on the way back.)


(Also stopped by this place - En Corte Ingles, the English Court - because I was curious re: the crowds flocking to it. It's an eight-story MASSIVE store. Clothes + shoes + makeup/apparel + grocery store + bookstore + cafe + home improvement + kitchen store all in one. It was eight? Nine? floors. Man.)

Two other pieces of good news: Sey (sparkofwit) is going to meet me in Barcelona for a weekend trip! And I received my acceptance to the next phase of my travels, with confirmation that I'll be in Dublin! I am so excited.

Alright, time to go back to stalking news about the Thor 2 premier (they're shadowboxing again, ahhhh. Jessica, are you following this?).


(Ravil told me today that I should be a ghost for Halloween, because my eyes are so big that they look ghostly. ....what does one even say to that?? Thank you? Screw you?)

Good night, Dreamwidth. I'll leave you with something that Johann sent me this morning (because he always knows what I'll like best —)

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Two entries today, since I skipped writing here yesterday. These entries take a lot of time to write & format, and with deberes (homework) ramping up, as well as this pesky cold ... well, it's easy to shelve the whole thing. I was tempted to ignore today, as well, but then I figured I'd better get myself back on the rails, else I'd stop writing these entirely.

Today was my actividad de escuela, school activity: a trip to the L'Oceanografic at the Ciudades de la Artes y Ciensas. (City of Arts and Sciences). I was excited! The City of Arts and Sciences boasts a theater, an opera house, a laserium/3D movie theater, an aquarium (the oceanografic), a science museum, and more. The aquarium is the largest in Europe!

We were to meet at the Aragon metro stop at 10:30AM. I had planned to walk there (it would have been a ~20minute walk, and an early morning walk always leaves me refreshed for the rest of the day), but Sun was also coming on the trip, and she is not a fan of walking. So we left the house at about 10:10, after Sun mulled over which shoes to wear with her dress for awhile. Finally, she asked me for my opinion, and - thankfully! - took my suggestion (zapatos azul - the blue shoes). We were off.

 


Surprisingly, the metro was crowded even Sunday morning. Not a reflection of the population out on the streets, that's for certain. A group of people dressed in traditional valenciano dress boarded the metro on the stop after outs; I didn't want to be a complete boar (like a few German tourists further down the train, who were openly gawking and taking pictures from odd angles), so I was only a partial boar: I took creeper pictures with my phone. You know how that goes, you turn the flash off, position your phone with your thumb over the button, then look casually the other way as your thumb gets busy.

At the Aragon stop, we were to meet el bajo de puente, below the bridge, outside the station, right smack-dab in the Jardin del Turia. Sun and I stared at each other: we were under the bridge, it was 10:27, and we were the only ones there. Finally, at around 10:33, two German students joined us (among them Felix, mi amigo para en clase, my friend from class). The four of us stared at each other for about ten minutes. A few more students joined us. By the time our coordinator decided to call one of the students gathered, it was 10:55AM and we were all getting rather antsy. En la manera típica española, in the typical Spanish way, he lackadaisically told us to walk to the L'Oceanografic, which was a good 1.5miles away. We had a native valenciana with us, who knew the way, but it wasn't necessary: we only had to follow the Jardin until we reached the Ciudades.

On the way there, our guide (I never got her name, shame on me), told us how valencianos were very proud of the Ciudades - the strange architecture, the beautiful exhibits, etc - but they were not happy about the tax increases for the next several decades that were required to pay for the project. Sun's friends had joined us, and they were speaking only Chinese, so I wandered up to Felix's group of los alemanes, Germans, who were speaking in English and German both. I met a kid named Sandra, an 18-year-old German girl who is very proud of her German ancestry. She told me this about seventeen times on the walk over; I am not exaggerating. I tried to speak in Spanish, but all the Germans want to practice their English around me. Slightly annoying. They'd speak in English, I'd speak in Spanish in return. Everyone was left unhappy, haha.



Finally, we made it to L'Oceanografic, where our coordinator Miguel Angelo (if I knew him better, I'd be making so many Michelangelo jokes) was waiting. He passed out our entrance tickets, and we entered the aquarium.

 
(You can kind of see Felix up in the front in the blue shirt & the backpack. Sandra is behind him in the red pants.)

My first reaction: wow, this is tiny. It was broken up into seven sections, which I am going to embarrass myself by attempting to recount. Artic, Antarctic, Dolphins, Temperate, Humid, Tropical, Oceanic. Wow, what do you know, my memory's not as bad as I thought it was. Each area was in a small enclosed area, with the exhibits underground. We went to the dolphin show as a group. I'll be honest and say that I have a lot of problems with dolphin shows in general, mainly because I think dolphins are too intelligent to be cooped up in a tiny pool and taught to do flips and carry dumbass humans around. These are animals that have complex social structures, that communicate with one another, that think and feel. And we make circus performers of them.

 
(Given my issues, you'll understand why I only bothered taking a couple of pictures.)

Sandra stuck to me afterwards, which I didn't mind. She was very pushy and enjoyed talking about herself (who doesn't, you ask? Point. That said, when you ask someone's name and they answer enthusiastically and then cut you off with a comment about how hungry they are when you're trying to offer your own name in return ....), but having semi-English-speaking company was nice for a change.

First up: arctic/antarctic. The lighting in the tanks was very poor, to the point that we had trouble seeing what was in them, so the pictures I took are all pretty awful.


(Beluga whale. Or half of one, anyway.)

 
(A cute walrus who was spinning madly across the tank. No idea why; the other walruses were just hanging around and judging him. Or her, probably, given the lack of tusks.)


(Pinguinos! These little guys came up to investigate a couple of kids who were knocking on the glass. Despite the signs in about four languages telling people not to. While their parents were laughing and encouraging them. People!!!)

 
(Tiburons! AKA Sharks. And rays, a random assortment of fish, etc etc etc.)



(WHAT IS THIS THING. It looked like a reanimated boulder.)

 
 
(Sharks are cooler than bowties. For someone who does not like Doctor Who, I seem to make a lot of Who references ...)

 
 
 
 


(A denizen of hell.)


(I love these little fishies! But they were moving too quickly/the lighting was too awful, so I couldn't get a good picture. Believe me, there were about twelve worse pictures that I deleted.)


(This is called a pinecone fish. I wonder why.)

 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
(Lots and lots and lots of fishies!!)

 
(Sandra on the left. On the right, Sun and her friends - Sun is on the far right. We ran into them at one of the exhibits, and they asked for a picture. Funny: because I have this giant-ass camera, everyone thinks I'm a professional photographer. Any attempts to tell them that I'm not is treated as modesty. Why is my Spanish still so terrible ...)


(I thought this was interesting. That's the amount of salt in 8litres of water in the Dead Sea. Incredible.)

 
 

 
(Sandra on the left again. She has a Yosuke vibe going on. Me on the right. Smiling is for dweebs.)

Sandra wanted to go to the giftshop and pick a few things up, so I accompanied her. Left afterwards, because I was feeling somewhat ill: Sandra asked me to direct her to the nearest metro station, which I did, but she decided it was too far to walk and took a taxi. I gave her my email address and told her we should meet up for a show or dinner or the like - also so I could give her the photos I'd taken for her - but I haven't heard from her yet.

It was a good 3km from my apartment, but it was a pretty day (for once, the heat had quieted somewhat), so I decided to take a stroll back. I took photos of the other buildings at the Ciudad de la Artes and Ciensas as I passed them:

 
 
 
 
 

And that was about it for the day! I went home, did some cooking, did my homework, took another walk later in the day — and that was my Sunday. Ravil also came to speak to me about a Spain-wide Fiesta del Cine (Cinema Party/Fiesta) that was going on; if we registered online, we'd be able to purchase movie tickets for 2,90 euros on Oct 21-13. I'll give you one guess as to what we did on Monday.

I'm getting very behind on emails; I apologize. I'm hoping to catch up on everything this weekend. And to get through a good chunk of my graduate school applications — god, I'm stressed thinking about the sheer amount of work I need to do re: those applications. And my brain's in sick-person zone, to the point that I just typoed "those" as "thor". What has my life become.

This entry is going to be lacking in commentary for the most part, as I would like to go to bed and sleep this cold off before tomorrow. The morning followed the usual formula: metro, dash to AIP, class until 1:15ish.


(Here's my pop culture reference for the day: believe me, it's bigger on the inside.)

Then, instead of walking home, I headed in the other direction, up to the Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia, an art museum housing some of Goya, Velazquez, and Orrozco's works, as well as a number of works from native Valencian painters. (valenciano pintores)

And it was free!

I will warn: if you're an art enthusiast and you're looking for intelligent commentary ... well, here be wolves.

 
("Far too cheeky to be an angel," I thought. "This one must've grown up to be a genderbent Lucifer." The reality of her identity was disappointing.)

 
(Bust by sculptor Mariano Benlliure Gil, native Valenciano. The other sculptures were unremarkable, but I loved the pathos in this one's gaze. He looks like a troubled soul.)

 
(Portrait of Goya by Navarro. Grumpy fellow, isn't he? He shares a certain likeness with Beethoven — maybe their grumpiness stems from their deafness.)

 
(He made her identity as a Valenciana very obvious by shoving oranges everywhere.)

 
(Gave me Alice in Wonderland vibes.)

 
(This is the style that most of the Spanish painting was in, the majority of which I didn't photograph: dark, faded, without the bright contrast that I love in Caravaggio's work. Some where more impressionistic, but the vast majority of them were very dark, heavy, overcast. I'm not sure I like it!)

 
(Anonymous Virgin statue made of alabaster.)

 
(If Titian ran out of all of his bright colors, this is what he'd have ended up painting. I can still hear my art history teacher's voice in my head, going on and on about luscious thighs ...)

 
(Doesn't he look like Scotty!)

 
(If Heathcliff was a Spaniard.)

 
(Another example of that dark, heavy style. I took this picture because I loved the way he'd added gold accents to the clothes/everything that could reflect light, but it didn't show up well in the photo.)

 
(The sheep and their little cotton candy heads!)


(At this point, I got to the Goya exposición.)

 
(Have I mentioned that I miss my dog? Because I do.)

 
(Special fondness for the topography of this dude's face and the nearly monochromatic way that Goya chose to depict it. I also really love that half-smile; I've seen it in a hundred different old valenciano men. They walk around mildly amused about everything.)

 
(Maella is one of the few Valencianos who likes color! Two for you, Glen Coco!

 
(Portana hated this guy so very much that he didn't even edit out the giant zit on his forehead. Whoops. Lesson in life, kids: don't piss off your portrait artist.)

 
(I can hear this kid going THIS IS STUPID, MOM, WHY DO I HAVE TO PRACTICE, I DON'T EVEN LIKE THE FLUTE. Not that I have any personal experience with a similar circumstance. Nope.)

 
(I liked his sketches much more than his finished pieces.)

 
(I have never been much of a Velazquez fan. His people look like wooden dolls. At least he's embracing the color wheel.)

 
(Hercules Poirot. If he was hot & and Spanish. So ... not really anything like Hercules Poirot at all. I'm getting tired, can you tell? I might cut this short.)

 
(Landscape! This was lovely in person — didn't quite translate on film.)

 
(I'm green, dabadeedabadie.)

 
(This was the one piece in the whole gallery that blew me away. It was large: about 4-5 ft tall. It looked like she was about to step through the curtains and throw her arms around you.)

 
(Corbera is actually up near Barcelona. So. Yesterday we had valenciana oranges from India, today they're from Barcelona ...)

 
(Another painter who wasn't afraid of color.)

 
(Camerlench's portraits were great - they each had a distinct expression that I hope was indicative of his subject's personality. This one was my favorite. She is judging you so hard.)

 
(The play of light & shadow on flesh in this is gorgeous. Looks like a photograph.)

 
(This is about 2" x 5", and it still managed to be more detailed that some of the other paints twenty times its size.

nbsp;
(The sky reflected in the water. Gorgeous.)

 
(Ah, damn, we forgot to get a portrait commissioned of Tia Elena when she was alive! Whatever, someone bury her in flowers and maybe that'll hide the smell of rotting flesh enough to get the painter to say. No harm, no foul.)

 
(The horses in these were amazing. The painter obviously liked horses a lot more than he liked people: the features of the humans are all blurred, while he paid special attention to every strand of hair on the horses. A man after my own heart.)

 
(This was striking to me for everything that it isn't. You look at Rococo art, for example, and you're struck by how light & airy arists like Fragonard manage to make the fabric appear. This is just the opposite, which is fitting for the subject matter: even the cloth looks unbearably heavy.)

 
(Another striking sketch.)

 
(Her expression! She must've been one hell of a lady. And yet we don't even know her name.)

 
(I will never understand this particular genre. Let's draw ALL THE ANIMAL CORPSES, yeaaaaah! This room was also filled with about 10 other paintings of dead fowl and other beasts.)

 
(Reminded me of a scene in that 90s Heidi film. The dappled sunlight.)

 
(Look how dynamic this is! I liked a lot of Bastida's work.)

 
(My first thought: Ben Kingsley! My second thought: Humbert Humbert. Er.)

 
(There we go.)

 
(This painting is printed on every bit of tourist propaganda in the city. Not sure why valencianos like it so much! It's nice, but not particularly striking. Wow, I have a huge head.)

 
(The bad: museo, why the hell did you decide to stick this gorgeous painting on a yellow background? The good: just look at it.)

 
(A few cute little courtyards on the inside of the museo. The place was deserted.)

One complaint I have about Spanish museums in general: they have very little information available. Most of what I've learned has been a result of a lost of post-trip googling. And it's not just that the info isn't available in English — it's not there en Español, either.

I was supposed to go out to dinner, but I walked the 45 minutes down to the beach, then felt so ill that I turned around and walked back. I'll have a nice big lunch tomorrow at the Plaza de la Reina in Ciudad Viejo to make up for today. Hasta mañana!

Today was a very long day. A busy day and a fulfilling day, yes, but there is no part of me that is not dead and/or dying. Tomorrow I am going to be the queen of the zombies.

My day started as it usually does: with a slice of pan spread with dulce de leche and a cup of instant coffee. Even the cheap instant coffee is excellent. Tomorrow I'm planning on going out and getting a proper Spanish latte, and I'm already looking forward to that.


(There's a group of crazies that have united under the name of "color psychologists" who believe that warm colors stimulate the appetite. —yes, yes, I know McDonald's paints their walls red and yellow to stimulate their patrons' appetites, and if McDonald's does it, there must be some truth to it!?!?? But I've yet to see anything more specific than "yellow makes you happy, so you'll eat more!" in anyone's explanations of the phenomenon. Moving on. To be honest, I only took this picture because I've developed a strange syndrome involving the presence of hearts in my eyes whenever I look my camera's way. The quality of the photos I can churn out with this thing is amazing.)

Sun & I went to school together. We spoke about ... hair. Our conversations are getting longer and longer by the day, since I'm learning new words as I go! I think we'd be good friends if we ever manage to have a conversation that's less than 75% hand gestures and badly-conjugated Spanish verbs. But Ravil & Valentina mentioned that they're only staying in the apartment for two more weeks — one more week, if you count this one as done with — and Sun mentioned that her timeline is similar. Not too happy about that! It's only been four days, but I like the three of them immensely. They've made such an effort to make me feel included, and they're also continually willing to help me with my Spanish. The amount of times I've asked them que significo ___ or como se dice "esta" in espanol is bordering on ridiculous, and yet they patiently answer me - with explanations, even! - every single time. They're also interesting people to be around; Ravil and Valentina have been married for five years, and they've settled into a kind of easy camaraderie that they exude as a unit. As in: they're happy to draw you into that circle. I wouldn't call them warm, but they're both easy to sit in silence with, which isn't something I'd say about most people. Sun is nervous and flitty (if I had to cast her as an animal, she'd be a hummingbird), but she's cast herself as a surrogate older sister for me, which I am also enjoying. Alas.

Sun and I parted ways when I went to la clase (one of those irritating nouns that's feminine despite having a masculine suffix!). Gemma was much the same, gesticulating wildly and eagerly answering my thousands of questions. I told her about my horchata experience yesterday, she laughed and said caro! caro! (expensive) when I told her how much I'd spent. She promised to let me know the names of a few local cafes where I can buy horchata and fartons for cheaper. I spoke to Felix about Duolingo (I should get paid for all the marketing I'm doing for them!), who started it right away and is now as hooked as I am. For those of you who haven't heard of it: it's a smartphone app (you can also access it online, for those of you who have dinosaur phones. Cough) funded by crowdsourcing. If I had to give you the basic premise in the shortest amount of time I'd say it's the poor man's Rosetta Stone. And this poor man wouldn't have to suffer a decrease in quality for his language learning tools, because, well. I've used Duolingo for awhile now, and I've donned my eyepatch and singing parrot in pursuit of Rosetta stone, and I'd say they're about equal, quality-wise. They have Spanish, English, Italian, German, and French available, with Mandarin/Japanese/etc in the works. Go check it out! Twenty minutes a day for a couple of months and you'll have basic fluency! (If you're not an auditory learner — I'm not — what helps is to write down the sentences/words as you learn them. What I do is go through the lessons without a pen and paper, and then repeat them the next day with my notes.)

I'm starting to sound like an infomercial instead of a blog.

After Gemma left, our conversation practice teacher walked in — Sylvia wasn't here today, so we had a replacement teacher (who might become permanent!) named Rafa. He was so much better. He was careful, attentive, spoke slowly, and defined all the words that prompted blank looks from us. We also played a word game (think of a word in tu lengua, your language, and then use Spanish to describe it. Everyone will guess what the word is.) that actually helped with my comprehension. I hope he stays. I liked him.

After class, Chou and Lee asked if I wanted to join them to head over to Biblio Libro (a local bookstore associated with a nearby language institute, different from outs) together in order to buy our textbook. Felix had already purchased his the previous day. Those boys! It was maybe a 35 minute walk from AIP (our institute), but about halfway through they ducked into a Tabaco - tobacco - shop. I was kind of irritated by this point, because it was 37C out, I wanted to get back home so I could set out for my adventure of the day, and here they were, buying about ten packs of cigarettes each. And then Chou exited the shop with his ten packs of cigarettes and a nice cold can of Fanta for me, and I felt guilty for getting irritated in the first place. That's the thing I'm slowly realizing as I grow older — I have a tendency to believe the worst of people, because generally that's the truth of it. But that also means that I put people into divisions and subdivisions before I understand who's behind the barrier of language or insecurity or whatever it may be.


(veintiuno con ocho euros, 21,08 euros.)

We picked up our books, and then we parted ways; I wanted to walk back and they wanted to take the bus. (And, I'll admit, the cigarette smoke was getting to me. There are times when I miss cigarettes. Today was not one of those times.) I hurried back home.

I also flubbed the words and ended up saying hasta fuego instead of hasta luego when I left the house -- basically, I told him that I'd set him on fire later. I'm glad he didn't catch that.

I decided to head to the Palacio del Marques do Dos Aguas, which houses the famous Ceramics Museum of Valencia. I could swing around to the Plaza de la Reina (plaza of the queen), and check out the church + pretty architecture while I was there.

 
(One interesting thing about Valencia: it has a inordinately large number of albino pigeons. I don't understand why this is! One in five pigeons is an albino! I've never seen anything like it. Read Wringer and we'll see if you don't develop a special place in your heart for pigeons, too.)

I ran into another garden on my way to the plaza, Jardín de Ayora. This one was hardly a five minute walk from my apartment! And the park is gated and barred to dogs, which is actually a plus. One awful thing about Valencia: the dogs shit everywhere, and no one bothers to pick any of it up. Imagine what happens in 37C weather.

 
 
 


The garden was lovely and peaceful with lots of nooks and crannies to curl up with a coffee and a book. And a stray cat who followed me around for a short bit. The best part about the jardin, however, was the smiling man below. I didn't catch his name (I was so nervous!) but he jovially asked me in Spanish why I was taking so many pictures, which led to a short conversation. He was originally from Romania, but he moved to Valencia three years ago. (por trabajo? I asked. For work? Masomeno, he replied, rather evasively. More or less.) He also told me with great pride (once he learned that I was from the US), that his son was studying in Cambridge. Inglaterra es estidos unidos del madre, was his reasoning. England is the USA's mother, so you and my son have something in common. I told him to go to California when he eventually made his trip to the US: because we've got it best, don't we? Valencians would love California. I asked him if I could take his picture, and he said no! no! I don't want to even up on television! And I had to reassure him emphatically that the photos were solo por mi, only for me. He said that he'd better not see his picture on a Dannon yogurt in the future.



I said my goodbyes, grinning stupidly, and left. So much good will in one man.


(It's funny: all the Indian places in Valencia use the exact same font. There's only one place I've seen that doesn't, but their name removes all brownie points for that small bit of creativity. They've called themselves Gandhi's restaurant.)


(Look! I found the Spanish Hulk!)


(An ad for a music show at the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias - specifically at the Palau for performing arts - that I want to go see! Maybe when you're here we can go together, Sey.)

I made my way to the Ciutat Vello — that's Valencian for Old City — and then somehow managed to miss the Palace entirely. It's a huge building, I have no idea how I did. I wandered down a few streets to backtrack, and ended up at the Plaza de la Reina.

 
(They had a tiny little cordoned-off garden full of Valencian orange trees! ...that said, the oranges didn't look so great.)

It was about six o'clock by then (the walk took much longer than I thought it would, especially with my detour with el homebre de el jardin, the man in the garden, so I decided to finish up with the plaza and then head home. It was a hot day and I was already tired: plus, more likely than not, the Ceramics museum was probably already closed.

 
 
 
 
 
 

The Valencian cathedral at the plaza. It's an interesting experience to be standing in the plaza, the dichotomy between old and new so apparent. On the left you have this towering church, consecrated in the 1200s, supposedly housing the Holy Grail. On the right, you have modern restaurants and apartment buildings. Down below, you have a colorful mass of tourists. They had sectioned off most of the church (it had closed half an hour before I got there, damn it), so I couldn't get many pictures — I'll have to come back another day to see the so-called Holy Grail. The Monty Python life for me.


(Council building)

Afterwards, I snaked through some of the tiny narrow streets behind the Cathedral. You walk from the chaos of tourism into one of these streets, and immediately a hush settles over you. The locals live in those narrow streets, so here you'll find cheaper hole-in-the-wall cafes, and — lo! — I found my first used bookstore! Purchased a book of Zaragoza poetry. The poems were written by a religious man (a man of the church? I believe?) named M. de Santillana in the 1400s. Hopefully I'll be able to read them by the end of my trip. I asked the bookseller for his libro favorito de espanola poesia, which is probably bad grammar because he stared at me blankly for a second, and he laughed nervously and said "I don't read." Sigh.


 

Wandered through the streets for a while longer. Stumbled upon a gorgeous array of street art: from a cutesy Valencian Orange to attempts at social commentary to the ever-so-popular anarchy symbol; these winding alleys had them all.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



It also made me reflect on how these narrow streets were empty of admirers while the cathedral and the museums only a short walk away were packed to overflowing with people. As a society, as a global society, we have this preoccupation with bygones. (In keeping with the CARPE DIEM theme, the tape cassette in the picture above reads today is the future.) It's an extension of that tendency we have of romanticizing the past, isn't it? The Golden Age Fallacy, is what Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris called it. Marion Cotillard was hotter in the 1920s than she is now. The biceps that Michelangelo depicted in his frescoes are much more artistic than the spray-painted biceps that a hooligan depicts upon the back alleys of Valencia. What does it say about us, that we like the past so much more than the present?

And I'd like to end all of that pretentiousness by saying: yeah, yeah, I'd still sell every street artist down the street for Bernini.


(I thought this was adorable. Someone had constructed a tiny house around a drainhole. This was about half a meter tall.)

 
 

It was getting late, and I realized that I'd managed to walk very far from where I started. I could have done the smart thing and taken the metro home, but sometimes I am stupid and stubborn. I started back, and then, suddenly, crenelated walls! Something about crenelation speaks to me. Doesn't every kid dream of marching up the ramparts of their own crenelated tower? This is not actually a castle, though, it's called Torres del Serranos. Built in the 1300s, it's one of twelve gates to the Ciutat Vella. It used to be part of an entire wall around the city, but the wall hasn't survived.


(I found where Charles has relocated his school for the gifted. I couldn't even look into the lobby, clearly there was something interesting in there. Namely, the Xmen.)

I'll leave it at that. If you don't hear from me after this, you know why.

Alright. Day two.

Yesterday night, I ended up spending some time with my housemates — Sun, Ravil, Valentina. Turns out that Ravil and Valentina are married. I don't speak Spanish very well (read: let's just say that I speak Spanish like a drunken scarecrow), and none of them speak English very well, so our conversations consist of a lot of broken Russian, Spanish, and English. With Google Translate open on our phones at all time. I even broke out into Japanese a couple of times, as I was so frustrated at my inability to express myself. (Strange. Despite the fact that Japanese has absolutely nothing in common with Spanish, I'm going through this godawful English -> Japanese -> Spanish translation process whenever I try to speak Spanish. I've got to be the one person on the planet who improves her Japanese when she tries to learn Spanish. Brain, you are my worst enemy.)

Anyway, Sun had cooked; I was feeling a bit ill so I didn't eat much (unfortunately they took my 'not wanting much' as a sign that I'm a vegetarian, which I didn't realize until this morning when Ravil asked me whether I could drink leche - milk - and eat huevos - eggs.) We've planned to switch off cooking between us, which means I get Russian food tonight! ...it also means that I need to cook Indian food tomorrow, which I'm already planning on begging off. There is no chance in hell that I'm finding the spices that I need here. I found this recipe that I'm going to try instead.

We talked about American TV shows (Ravil & Valentina are big Game of Thrones fans - I hate to be the one to say it, but typical Russians!!. In my defense, Ravil spent the night making bad jokes about being in the KGB, because apparently all Americans believe that Russians are spies? Where did they get their knowledge of Americans from, the 1960s??? That said, Hollywood is still pretty great - and by great I mean the opposite of great - at typecasting everyone with an accent, so. Sun is a BBC Sherlock fan. They ended the night with a round of tea, but I begged off because I wanted to sleep.

Well. I didn't. It's the oddest feeling, one that I am unfortunately rather intimately acquainted with: being dead tired and yet still being completely and utterly unable to sleep. I must've done something especially awful to the Sandman at some point. Maybe I kicked him in the teeth when he was attempting to do his thing. Can you blame me? Big sparkly dude sneaks into your room, sprinkles "magic dust" over you ... sounds like an episode of Breaking Bad.

Sleep forsaken, I spent a portion of the night texting people (hi, J), and reading godawful fanfiction. Mainly because my kindle was locked up in my suitcase and, well, being too tired to sleep means that I was also too tired to traipse across the room to fetch it.

Et voila. After an excruciating eight hours, the sun finally came up. And I mean that: the sun doesn't rise until around 745AM here. The street lamps are still burning until well into the morning. I could see the sunrise from my window; tomorrow I'll get off my ass and take a picture of it.

Wrenched myself out of bed, washed up, threw on some clothes; then Sun & I went to the metro station (five minutes away) to get to AIP, which is the language institute where I will be spending much of my time for the next four weeks. Immediate reaction: oh my god everyone is speaking in tongues. Dudes from the Tower of Babel, this is all your goddamn fault. For once, I wish God had done some pre-emptive smiting instead of making us all unable to communicate. That's a lie, I don't wish that. I love different languages. I'm just a bit grumpy and overwhelmed, ignore me.

Everyone was very nice! I smiled and overused sí and muy bueno and vale (literally "okay," Valencians say this every other word)! I didn't understand 99% of what was going on! Then, thankfully, they broke us up according to skill level: I ended up in a group of four, with one Austrian student from Vienna, recently finished his master's in food technology in Munich, was taking Spanish in order to increase his business opportunities, and two Chinese students who spoke not a word of Spanish, English, or anything else (I tried Japanese on them, too - no go. Strange. Most of the Chinese people I've met back home know at least a shred of Japanese; maybe I've been speaking to all the wrong people.) I didn't even catch their names. Felix knows English, which is wonderful for me. No one else does. We had one teacher (god, I'm forgetting her name - Christina, I believe?) from 8:30-~11:45; we did some comprehension & grammar with her. Our second teacher (Sylvia - they assign each class two teachers so we're exposed to normal and slight differences in pronunciation/accentuation) stayed with us until about 1:30 for conversation practice. None of the teachers know English, so they gesture a lot and use other words in Spanish when we don't know what they're saying — which doesn't always help. I learned a great deal! Not as much as I'd have liked, but it's only the first day, I need to stop being hypercritical of my progress.

Every day after class, there's a few hours of study time, and also usually a group outing planned for the evening. Of course you need to pay, so I figured I'd go to 1-2 of the group outings a week. I skipped this week's, which was a trip to taste the very Valencian drink horchata. Note to self: try some. The rest of the events for the week didn't sound particularly interesting, expect for Friday! The aquarium! I adore aquariums, I adore aquariums, I adore aquariums. It's the latent childhood dream of wanting to become a marine biologist come to a different sort of fruition. And AIP subsidizes the cost of the ticket to 15 euros (I need to figure out what the alt code is for the euro symbol) from 28, so that's a must-go.

Said hasta manaña to AIP, wandered around a bit, got lost (Valencia is one of those cities where you have to work to find the street signs. This does not make me happy.). For some reason, the metro line that should've taken me all the way back to my apartment stopped early, so I walked the remaining 25 or so minutes. I think I might make it a point to walk home from AIP when I don't have much else planned for the night; it's a nice walk, and I like absorbing the city life.

Came home, repacked everything into my purse, and then headed out to the grocery store. This ... is where things got interesting. I picked up my groceries: fruit, vegetables, the ingredients for the dish I'm making tomorrow, and to satisfy my own curiosity: fresh dulce de leche, and a tiny tin of flan de huevo. There was a lot of meat & fish in the store! And by a lot, I mean the meat section was about 5-6 times the size of Ralph's. One little nook was covered in hanging pig legs. Pig legs. Next time, I'll take a picture: you have to pay to use a shopping cart (they're literally chained up at the front of the store), so my hands were full toting around my basket. I head to the check-out, somewhat nervous about my Spanish Achilles's heel, and, sure enough, the lady at the till starts talking a mile-a-minute and gesturing at the vegetables. Question marks were pouring out of my head. No comprendo, I said. Por favor, puede hablar más lento, disculpe, disculpe, but she just kept on gesticulating and speaking in more Spanish. Luckily, the man behind me spoke English - after a few minutes of question-marking on my side and hers, he told me that I needed to weigh the vegetables at the machine and print out a sticker that indicated the weight. Oh! So I leave my basket at the till, dash to the vegetable section (get lost, because you think the layout of H mart is bad, this is about twenty times worse), dash back, and finish the sale. I pay, I receive my change, and then my giant pile of groceries, including a 6L bottle of water, is left in a pile at the end of the till as she goes to ring the next person up. I realize, after a second, that they don't provide bags. There's no way I can make the ten minute walk back to my apartment holding all the groceries separately. What now?


(The local chain supermarket.)

So I indicate a bag with my hands, and the lady at the till says viente centavos! Oh. Remember, Dorothy? Not in Kansas anymore. So I fork over forty cents for a couple of bags, and make my sluggish way home -- feeling rather embarrassed & downtrodden by the whole encounter. I needed to get a few things from the adjoining drugstore, but I figured I'd take a walk first to clear my head. I settled on a route: a 3-km walk that would take me past Cines Babel, the one theater in Valencia that plays films in their original language. (A necessity for me, given that Thor 2 is coming out on Nov 8th.) It's a fairly long walk. I pass a few interesting bakeries on the way.

This classy piece of graffiti is repeated many times through the city:



One of the guys nearby cracked up when he saw me taking a picture of it. The cinema turned out to be this tiny hole-in-the-wall place. I've done a lot of wandering in the two days I've been here, and this is the first cinema (el cine) I've seen. I suppose Spaniards aren't much into watching films. At least not here in Valencia.

I took a number of pictures on the way back:










(Ad for a Les Mis Spanish play that starts in November. Tempted to go!)

 
(The metro stop five minutes from my apartment)




(My apartment)


(Carrer de la Peanya, the street my apartment is on)


(These giant recycling bins are found every so often WHAM BAM right in the street. Can you imagine LA drivers dealing with these?)


(I forgot to take a picture of all the delicious-looking displays, but of course this awful-looking one is a stone's throw from my house. The croissant is the size of my head!)






(Jacaranda trees!)




I headed back to Mercadona to pick up what I needed from the drugstore and then scuttled back to my apartment. I'm sitting here now looking up nearby restaurants on Yelp, and getting a bit frustrated: it doesn't look like Spaniards like Yelp much! I'll just have to ask my teachers tomorrow. I've decided, in the interest of saving money, I'll cook most of the time, but once a week I'll eat at a nice restaurant, and once I'll indulge in a cafe/bakery run, just because. Still have to scope out the bookstores around here, but that doesn't seem to be much of a thing, either. Huh, Valencia!

Now, onward to studying, responding to emails, and maybe a few tags. Need to get on top of my grad school essays, too. Feeling more than a bit overwhelmed.

Tomorrow, I've a meal to cook and afterwards I might visit one of the places-to-see!! in Valencia. This has been an entry full of whining and more whining, but let me reiterate: Spain is amazing, I'm glad I'm here; I'm just slowly finding my land-legs.

(Also, can one of you do me a favor and set up a Flickr account for me? They require cellphone activation and, well. No can do. Gracias.)