By Kent Truckor – Guest blogger studying in Valencia, Spain
Today is the start of my sixth week of classes and living in Spain.
This past weekend I would say is probably the best weekend I have had in Spain so far. It started with Thursday night – I cam home and ate dinner with Pepe and Carmen and was able to make it through the whole dinner speaking Spanish and navigating my way through the conversations. Then Pepe and I talked for 2 hours, it was great. We talked about alls sorts of things from world politics to the economy of Spain. I did a lot of listening because I still have a long ways to go with the language.
Friday, class went well, we said good bye to Gabriella and Russel who returned to their countries this past weekend. Gabriella is from Hungary and Russel is originally from England but now lives in the US. They both enjoyed their time quite a bit here and we all had a good time in class, so it was a little tough to see them go. Either way it was good to get the chance to meet them.
Then when I cam home Friday night, Pepe was preparing a dinner for his girlfriend Victoria. Pepe invited me to join them so I had dinner with them and we ended up talking the rest of the night for about 3 hours. It was great and I really enjoyed speaking with them and their hospitality in inviting me to join them.
Saturday was a day of rest and studying. I have found that my favorite place to study is the old Turia river in the middle of the city. The park provides much shade and quite a few fountains to provide tranquility. That night Esra, Zeynep and I, my friends from Turkey, went to a restaurant by the beach and ate paella and shrimp. The dinner was very good and I enjoyed the ambiance of eating outside by the sea.
Sunday, I made it to mass at the Cathedral and then met Esra and Zeynep at the train station. We made a trip to Xativa, a small pueblo outside of Valencia that possessed a castle. The pueblo was small and very nice. It has a beautiful cathedral that is truly amazing to see and a very nice museum. Next, we climbed up the path to the mountain with the castle overlooking the town. This is the first castle I have been to and it is very old dating back to being the birthplace of a son of Hannibal. It was an amazing place to be and the castle spanned more than a kilometer on top of the ridge of the mountain. I took quite a few pictures and I am grateful that I had the opportunity to go there. If one is ever in Valencia I would recommend heading to Xative for a day or an afternoon, it is merely 45 minutes from Valencia by train.
Needless to say it was a full weekend but one very enjoyable.
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