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| Spanish Dryer |
8/20 The week
in review: On Monday night Bárbara
invited me out to dinner with her old school friend Sandra in the Benimaclet
neighborhood of Valencia. We had some beers and some girl talk, and I made use
of my Spanish fan- it’s still SO HOT all the time! Then on Tuesday 8/21 I really did nothing except go to
class, read on the beach, and do my laundry. In Spain, because utility bills
are so high, nobody ever uses a dryer. It’s something us spoiled Americans have
to adapt to when we come live in Europe- but I will say at this point, I think
I have mastered the art of pinning my clothes to the drying rack on our balcony.
If nothing else, I will now truly appreciate the fact that at home, I can
always use a dryer and that doing laundry isn’t weather-dependent! On 8/22 I had class again, and then that
evening went to dinner with Bárbara and her Valencian friends Patri
and Paula at this “all you can eat” Chinese buffet place. It was delicious! The next two days 8/23 & 8/24 I had my final two conversation classes at the Don
Quijote building. I treated Bárbara to tapas one night near our apartment as a "treat myself for going to
class and not skipping to go the beach" present. Then on Friday night Bárbara,
Patri and I met up with Whitney to have dinner at this super cute place called
“Miss Sushi”. I don’t like sushi, but the decorations are so adorable inside
the restaurant that it made up for it- and they served chicken fried rice. So,
we had a good night again of drinking sangria and having girl talk- in Spanish
mind you!
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| At Miss Sushi for Dinner! |
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| The New Couch! |
On 8/25 Bárbara
and I had a lazy Saturday of lounging around, until the new couch for our piso
arrived. In Spain, almost all apartments
come fully furnished, and if you want new furniture you have to request it of
the landlord. So, Bárbara had requested a new couch to replace our janky old
one about a month ago, and finally it had arrived! The worker crew set it up,
but then we were left with the old couch and not sure how to get rid of it.
Luckily, her Dad come over and with a hammer slowly broke it down into little
pieces which we then took out to the dumpster via the elevator bit-by-bit. On
the way down I sustained a battle wound- a large scratch on my shin. I’m just
getting beat up these days! On the plus side, with the new couch our little
piso looks cuter than ever. We cleaned up and did a little photo shoot of it,
being the girls that we are. Now to top off the weekend, on Sunday (8/26) Bárbara and I met up with a girl
named Lorena, and we had plans for her to drive us to the family beach house of
another friend named Díana. I got to sit up front in the car for the hour drive
to the small beachside town of Cullera. Lorena doesn’t speak much English, but
she is trying to learn, so we took turns alternating languages. Luckily for me,
the majority of our chats were in Spanish. I am typically excited about every
opportunity to get to speak and practice lately, although sometimes I really do
get a bit self-conscious. Unfortunately, that’s part of the process though. If
you can’t laugh at yourself and your mistakes, then don’t even bother- because
mistakes WILL happen!
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| View of the Ocean from Diana's Pool |
Anyways, once we got all situated and introduced to each
other, we grabbed our bocadillos and headed down to the beach. I had
technically been to Cullera before when I was studying abroad, but I didn’t get
to see much of it, so I was excited to have a second chance. It’s a quaint little
Spanish pueblo on the mountains next to the beach, and it is definitely
very scenic. There is even a cave there where an infamous Spanish pirate used
to port to hide his treasures in! Yes, it’s a nerd fact, but in my opinion it’s
awesome and I was excited about it. So, we all laid out our blankets and ate
our food, and before we knew it a huge rainstorm had blown in! This was very
unfortunate because it rarely rains in the Valencia area, so it was just
bad luck that it would rain on our beach day. Not knowing what else to do we
ran back to Díana’s parent’s condo, and hung out in there to finish up
our food. Since the condo facility also has a pool, we spent some time down
there, lying on lounge chairs under a balcony while it was raining. At one point I braved a dip in the pool but it was pretty chilly. Despite that, I was happy
to get to practice my Spanish with Lorena and Díana- they are both really nice,
sweet girls who made me feel comfortable, and for that I was grateful! I also
found a bunch of snails and took some stalker photos of them of course. That evening, the rain finally stopped and so we went into town for some dessert. We
walked the scenic little beach walk of Cullera, and got to see the old castle
on the hill from a distance. We got ice-cream at a little place by the water,
and before I knew it we had to part ways and head back to Valencia. The one
positive thing about the rain though was that we decided we’d have to come back
and do it all again on a nicer day!
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| Me, Diana and Lorena! |
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