Adios España! It's been fun.

I am sitting here at our kitchen table, with my bags packed and crossing my fingers they are underweight at check-in. It's currently 5:32 am, and we leave in about an hour to catch a taxi to ensure we are at the airport for our suggested 3 hour check in. Probably going to have a lot of time to kill, but I hope that means maybe one more chocolate croissant before we leave the country!

I spent most of my last day here walking around and snapping photos. Later, I met up with my other roommates at the beach so we could eat and watch the sunset.

It was pretty, and I can't believe it's over so fast! I've learned a lot and can't wait to share my stories and more photos with you all when I return in person. Think of me during my safe travels, and I'll have one final post update with a little trip summary after I am home and only semi-jet lagged. 

Echaré muchos de España (I'll miss Spain a lot). It's not really adios Spain, it's hasta luego. ;)

Los Dias Ultimos.... :(

Last day of school was yesterday and we were all sad to realize that with the end of school also comes the end to this summer program and our time in Spain.

We had our farewell dinner at the same restaurant we learned to cook at, and it was fantastic.

I don't have time to type much because we are about to head out for some last minute pictures of the city and catch the final sunset on the beach before we go out in a smaller group for our own farewell to Valencia dinner.

Advanced Spanish with Virginia Gonzalez:

My last chocolate croissant, bocadillo, and zummo for the trip. Que triste!

The saddest face I could muster haha. May have to look into a fresh orange juicer when I get back to the states..... more soon!

Vino blanco y vino tinto. :)

Today we went to CC vineyard about an hour and a half outside of Valencia to sample some local wines. They harvest 11 different types of grapes, and the spanish variety are the least cultivated (the french kind of had a head start) but it was a really fun experience and we had a great guide!

I learned a few interesting things, first off, the vineyard was gorgeous because there were bright red rose bushes on the end of each row of vines, and this is partly out of tradition and partly scientific. The roses are the most sensitive to a type of fungus that can kill the grapes, so the gardeners would plant rosebushes on the end to prevent the vines from getting the fungus.

This is an example of a spanish grape vine, they are significantly larger than the french varieties, but as time passes, they should lessen in size. (he estimated in about 20 or 30 years these grapes will be genetically engineered to be more successful)

We saw where the wine and cavas (spanish champagne) were bottled and packaged, as well as stored, and then we were able to enjoy a tasting. We tried a sparkling white wine first, and then a regular white wine (sauvignon blanc), then a red wine low in tannons, and one high in tannons.

I ended up purchasing a few bottles, but hopefully I can share one with my host family before we go home so I am not carrying 3 wine bottles of weight in my luggage!

Overall, I learned quite a few interesting things, and would return in a heartbeat for a more in-depth tour.
Our San Fernando guide (who has been to many of the vineyards in this region) stated they are all pretty similar when it comes to the flavors of the wines (since they are all the same climate and same breeds of grapes) but that this one was particularly bonita (pretty).

Hasta luego!

A long weekend in Spain!

So this is our last full weekend in Valencia so we had to take full advantage of it! On thursday night, we stayed in to watch a spanish movie (Celda 211) but we went out on Friday and Saturday night.

Friday day was spent at the beach all day, and unfortunately I got a little more sun on my legs than intended, but not too bad. We were relaxing, enjoying the picnic lunch we packed ourselves and reading and whatnot, when we saw a big cloud in the distance.

About 45 minutes later, we ended up sprinting to the metro stop to not get caught in the afternoon storm. We returned home and then after dinner Friday night we attended a short free concert of a spanish band who did covers of older american songs, and then we ended up at a spanish karaoke bar.

It was hilarious. Spanish karaoke is almost as terrible as american karaoke, except I have no idea what anyone is singing. We met some locals there, and I was able to practice my conversational spanish for an hour or two, and receive some free salsa lessons.

Then, Saturday night a small group of us decided we wanted to go out to eat somewhere nice, and since the italian restaurant we had initially planned to go to was full, we went to the place where we had cooking lessons on thursday.

The food was heavenly! This was the traditional Tortilla we had made in class on Thursday, and then I ordered an Iberian Fillet with foie gras and pesto sauce.

Later, we met up with a bar crawl group from a hostel downtown (called the Purple Nest) and went to Fox and Congo bar until the discoteca opened near the city of arts and sciences (L'Umbracle). Huge club, and we were able to get in for free which was really nice. There were two wedding parties there, so it was funny to see women in their wedding dress dancing it out among the crowd.

All in all, a great weekend! We have lots of things to wrap up with school this last week, and we also have one more day of cooking classes and a trip to a vineyard.

Cooking Class Uno: Tortillas y Sangria

So today we went to cooking class, I thought we were each going to get to cook something, but turns out we just were there to watch. It was still cool though because we got to taste everything without doing any work!

The photos are a bit blurry, because it was really dim lighting in the kitchen, but you should be able to get the gist.

The first dish we made was Tortilla. They are the Spanish Omelets here that have potatoes, onions, and eggs and a little salt. Que delicioso! Next we made Sangria with 6 fruits and wine and gin. However, since Sangria takes at least two hours to chill in the refrigerator, the chef had his own recipe of Sangria prepared for us to try. It was mucho mas fuerte! (It has 6 different liquors including Patron and rum, among others--wow!)

We go back on Tuesday for Paella!

El Bioparc: Las Jirafas stole the show!

Only a brief moment of rain today on our 2 hour tour throughout the Bioparc. I thought it was a complete zoo but they are just African animals. It was really neat though, I don't think I've ever been close to a giraffe in my whole life! And it was interesting to learn about animals in spanish via our Valencian tour guide. Take a look!

Thank goodness, no umbrella needed today.

And now for an in-depth visual summary of my animal encounters:  :)

So that was the Bioparc! Tomorrow we have cooking classes, hopefully I'll be able to get some good recipes. Adios for now. 

Lluvia in the Biopark. Check in tomorrow.

Well as you might be able to see, we went to the Biopark today, but it started to pour cats and dogs on the way so we ended up rescheduling for tomorrow. However, I did manage to snap this picture for Chelsea, as a promise of the things to come tomorrow!








Here are my roomies enjoying the brief interlude between downpours. Its pretty difficult to take a photo while holding an umbrella.....














But fingers crossed, things go better tomorrow! Off to do some homework....

A long and uneventful weekend.

Not too many photos, because this weekend we all ended up staying here. Lindsay, one of my roommates was in bed with some cold the whole weekend, and my other roommate has an ear infection so I was left to my own devices.

Two nights I went out to bars with some other people from our program, but it gets way too loud and expensive. Every where we went there were so many Italians. The loudest of the loud. And usually after being at the bars for a few hours, people want to go to discotecas (they open around 2am or 3) but their cover is usually a minimum of 10 or 15 Euros (that's $14 or $21 USD) and their drinks start at 8 Euros (no thank you). I'd rather go shopping.

So I did. I managed to go to the Best Buy of Spain, known as Fnac, and get a cord for my external hard drive, and buy a movie that is only available here in Spain I've been wanting since my Spanish Cinema class called Celda 211.  Intermittently, I watched a few movies on my laptop as well (in english). And worked on my upcoming papers.

Today, we had a test in Spanish, but I feel like I didn't do so hot. Grammar is not my strong point and neither are spanish names of instruments. Good thing it's pass-fail.

Marketing also had a paper due, and the assignments continue all of this week so unfortunately I think our free days will be spent with me doing lots and and lots of schoolwork. Boo.

But in the meantime, here are two photos from a few of my weekend walks. I figured out how to get from our apartment to downtown without the metro, and mastered most of the tourist areas (it only took me 3 hrs!--ugh)

This first one is what all of the little tiendas look like in front of the church tower we climbed when we were here the first week. It has a gelato place next door that we'll hopefully document our visit to one day with flavors like "patata y cebolla" (potato and onion) and "doughnut."

This one is in the "Plaza de Virgen," a huge open area with this fountain and a variety of apartment buildings, old cathedrals, and shops.

That's all for now, tomorrow's agenda is the Biopark (the zoo), but it is supposed to rain so I'm not sure how that will turn out. We were told we could pet the lemurs though, which is kind of exciting if it's true.  Much love from Spain! <3

Mas Flamenco!

Today was day 2 of Flamenco lessons! We had a great time and I'm sad we don't have any more, they were definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

Luckily, our tour guide here in Valencia offered to take pictures for everyone, so yay! I have visual evidence that I attempted to learn to Flamenco....now all I need is the awesome skirt and big rose in my hair.

Tomorrow afternoon after school is "tiempo libre" (free time), so we don't have a scheduled event. If the weather is nice here, we are planning on going to the beach again, so probably no more photos for a bit.

Also, if I can talk my roommates into it, I really want to use this weekend to visit Sevilla, where I can put my new flamenco lessons to work! We shall see, I'll be sure to update again soon.

Buenos Tardes!