Student Blogs/Phil in Spain
Hi everyone I thought I would do a blog post to let everyone know what I have been up to for the past two weeks. I arrived in Madrid and then took a plane to Valencia (the city I live in now). Luckily enough our rental agent picked me up at the Valencia airport, which made for an easy transition to the apartment. Just from the car ride from the airport to the apartment, I could tell I was going to love the city because there was so much going on. All the historic buildings, the Rio Turia Park, the city centre and more.
Our apartment was fully furnished, coming with everything minus meagre Internet, but I can now say that is resolved. The apartment is located right by the Torres de Serrano. For those wanting to travel to Valencia, I can honestly say I was very happy to get a car ride from the airport to the apartment, it can be a bit of a confusing city to get your bearings in.The part of the city (known as El Carmen by the “Valencianos”) where our apartment is, was in fact planned out by the Romans to confuse their attackers if they ever breached the city walls, just by the sheer complexity of the street lay outs.
But enough about the apartment. The city is incredible, with restaurants on every corner, all of them offering delicious paella. History lies everywhere in this city, with sites like la plaza de la Virgen, la plaza de la Reina, the city centre. The cathedral of Valencia in plaza de la Reina, has a 207-step tower that offers a beautiful view of the entire city. Also on the steps of the Cathedral is an interesting and ancient ceremony that takes place every Thursday at noon known as the “Tribunal de las Aguas de Valencia.” The ceremony derives from Moorish times and allows the citizens of Valencia to raise concerns about the irrigation systems. This never happens in present times but the tradition is carried on, and is well-attended by tourists. There were hundreds of people there when I went.
My parents came and visited a few days just after I arrived in Valencia, and they’ve also fallen in love with the city. While they were here, we went to Altea, a coastal town in between Valencia and Alicante that’s important to my family because my great aunt Sheila used to live there. On one of the many trips, we found her old house up in the mountainous area. The views in from Altea, both from the beach and Sheila’s old house, were incredible! While visiting, we enjoyed the beach and had some very scrumptious meals as well!
But of course I am here for school in Valencia. UEM – Valencia is a very small school with classroom sizes of about 25 students max and with many international students like myself. The classroom setting is very laid back with a “manana” style that can easily be seen as one of my teacher strolled in 5 minutes late on more than one occasion, something I will have to get used to, damn ;) . My classes so far are operaciones financieras, direcciones de ventas, instrumentos del marketing, and I also signed up for an extra online Spanish class with 2 hours of face-to-face. I have class everyday but so far I am enjoying it, my teachers are all very aware that I am an international student, likely by my perplexed faces when they speak extremely fast Spanish to me, something else I will have to get used to!
However living her has been a bit of a struggle on the paperwork end. It took me more than a few days to get the correct documents for my tarjeta de identidad de extranjero. I needed a letter of enrolment, passport-size pictures, document for where I’m staying, a copy of my visa and passport, and then 15.15 euro bank payment. This all sounds pretty easy now that I have written it down, but the struggle with obtaining all these things was quite painful. I was warned about the speed and confusing manner and luckily I kept my cool through the process, and now I have to wait thirty days until I get the national identity card. I can now open a bank account over here with these documents, hopefully this will be easy. Well there is my update, I hope you all enjoyed reading!