Vistante

Last Thursday, Joanna flew out to Valencia to visit me for the weekend. I was a little worried as her flight arrived at 11.45 and I had a class 12-2pm which I couldn’t really miss as I’d missed some classes the previous week to fly to London. However, Spain came up trumps – another strike!

Indeed, this time there was a strike arranged by teaching unions (from what I could work out) as lecturers have been told that they will not be paid from June as there’s quite literally no money to pay them. Not even a cent, let alone a euro. It’s kind of a crazy concept if you think about it, how there can be NO money to pay them, yet there was this ridiculous spending for Fallas. Sometimes I’ve thought the recession and such is noticeable in the UK but it kind of puts everything into perspective – it’ll be interesting to see what happens.

 

Strike

 

We spent the weekend as tourists, but the thing I like about Joanna is that she’s very ‘natural’ (I couldn’t think how else to describe her...). She enjoys being in the outdoors, parks, walking, cycling and so having some good weather (compared to the downpours we’d had earlier in the week,) we took full advantage of these opportunites. We ate paella in the sun, climbed to the top of the Torres del Serrano (one of the ‘gates’ to the medieval old town of Valencia) which offered some great views, visited the Botanical Gardens a 5 minute walk from my flat (which I never knew existed,) and went to the beach, to name just a few things.

 

Botanical Gardens

Smiley

Paella - Plaza de la Virgen

Torres Views

 

Sunday morning, we took some Valenbisi bikes and cycled down to Ciudad Artes y Ciencias and then on to the port where we sat with our feet dangling in some ice-cold water surrounded by yachts, one of which even had a helipad complete with helicopter. Crazy. We came across a disused shipping shed which was being used by a group on rollerblades and skates. It was a total mix of novices who could barely stand, to another guy who was performing some amazing stunts and tricks - It was such a cool thing to come across in this back-water of Valencia and we sat for a while and watched. We then cycled to one end of the beach, parked up the bikes and walked along at the seashore before stopping for some lunch, and naturally, we had Tapas. I think Joanna had eyes bigger than her stomach capacity though, as we struggled to get though everything.

 

Casual 'Copter

Jo & I - Artes y Ciencas

Artes y Ciencias

Skater - I'd love to be his friend!

Playa

 

After having only just arrived, it was time for her to leave on Sunday afternoon back to cold, and no doubt rainy, Wales. It however had been great to see her here in Valencia (especially as we’d come here on a trip with school 6 years ago) and I think it was nice for her to have a weekend away from revision-world aka Cardiff.

The rest of the last week has been filled with the realisation that exams are just around the corner, and I don’t really feel I know much at all in order to be able to sit them. As a result, I’ve started to make notes from books, at least I’m trying I guess... my first exam is on 29^th May so there’s still time, fingers crossed.

 

Reality

 

Last night was one of my highlights of the year, Eurovision. I spend months reading things online, watching selection shows (namely Melodifestivalen in Sweden) and hearing what countries have picked as their entry, good and bad. Last year, Alex and I had a huuuuuge Chinese take-away as I bounced off the walls with the Swedish victory (I actually liked, and had backed, the winner!) This year, I was sat in Spain watching with Spanish commentary and slightly missing Graham Norton (but I’ll watch it on iPlayer, there were Ad breaks out here and I don’t know what I missed out on!) María, Spela, Spela’s friend and I prepared a huge feast to watch this year – A Spaniard, A Brit, A Slovenian and a German, which sounds like one of “those” kind of jokes. The winning song is not nice though it wasn’t my favourite, but that’s the ‘joy’ of Eurovision. The next time I watch it, I’ll no doubt be stressed with tons of work and revision in Cardiff just before final exams – crazy!

 

Part of the Feast

 

Looking at the first post of this blog, I ended it with “46 days until the continent.” All of these months later, the opposite is true: “39 days until the island.” Indeed, my final flight back home is booked for 27^th June and then this crazy, confusing, exciting, scary, incredible experience is all over. That’s it, my Year Abroad = Over. I can’t tell yet how I feel about it – Naturally excited to be back home with ‘home comforts’ but Valencia really does feel like home now, much more than France did and there’ll be plenty I will miss from here.

However, what this does mean is that there’re 39 days left and I have to make the most of them, even if it means having to do some revision to pass exams and make my time here worth it, academically, at least!

39 Days Until Home...