¡Ola chicos y chicas! ¿Como estais? ¿muy bien, mas o menos? Ahora, el clima en Valencia es muy bien, no como Londres! Ademas, he aprendido mucho español en una semana!
I will stop the Spanish there, since I know most of you don´t know any Spanish (yet). Due to popular demand, my Spanish journal for my return to Valencia is back! I´ve decided to drop the Spanish books for a while and take a few minutes out of my very busy schedule to let you guys know how I am doing. Okay, I know y'all are probably much busier than me so I´d be glad if you did read it.
Those of you who read my last entry will know that I was back in London for 2 weeks at the back end of February. I must say that I was in for a real shocker because of the weather and I was ill pretty much the whole time I was back. I know few of you saw me around that time and wondered why you had to send me off with a party if I was still in London. Don´t worry, I haven´t been deported (yet), but I did come back to get a long term visa. As it happens, I actually need two visas (one for Spain and one for France) so unfortunately you may be seeing my face again soon. If there is anything that this experience has taught me after spending mucho dinero (including all the flights back and forth) trying to get my visas is that I NEED TO HAVE A RED PASSPORT! Or at least marry someone that has one.....my treatment at the Spanish embassy was shocking to say the least - but that is a whole other story entirely.
So I returned to Valencia on sunday the 6th of March, having finally decided after many changes, that I will be here for 10 weeks. From the 14th of May, I will be in Seville for a month doing a business spanish course (if I can reach a high intermediate level by then) and on the 12th of June, I am going to Nice to learn French for 8 weeks. Those who have known me for a long time will know that this would be the realisation of a life long dream, given that I was born in Paris (ok but Paris is too expensive!). This is all given ofcourse that my second visa comes through soon.
As you may recall, I had muchos problemas with my last host family, so having asked the school for a change, I arrived at my new home that sunday at about 5pm. Enter Pilar Crespo Sales. I was greeted by a very grumpy youngish lady who had been expecting me the day before (the school told her I was arriving on saturday not sunday). Let´s just say she wasn´t very pleased to see me. Luckily for me, she could actually speak English as well as Spanish, so those initial moments were made a bit less difficult by the fact that I could actually understand what she was saying. By dinnertime, my initial concerns had evaporated as I quickly found that Pilar is a very nice and fun-loving woman. She lives alone and at the moment, she has myself and Florence, a 24yr old french student living here for the next three months or so. And, so far it´s been a lot of fun!
Mealtimes are flexible, Pilar is very cool about everything - ofcourse she does have her rules too but I´m making sure that I adhere to them. The other day, when we got home Pilar was playing some nice Bilboan music and the three of us were dancing round the dinner table. I did however learn very quickly that asking a woman her age, is considered rude in whichever country you are in, and whichever language you ask the question in! That said, if you were to ask me, I´d guess she´s in her later thirties/early forties. Why she isn´t married or doesn´t have any kids is anybody´s guess, I don´t think I´ll be asking her anytime soon. Actually, come to think of it, I don´t even know what her day job is. Then again, I think I´ve asked enough intrusive questions for one week, I´ll save that one for later.
Did I mention that the food in Spain is very good? In Valencia especially it is probably any black man´s dream? You can eat chicken and rice everyday if you want to....okay so their food isn´t as hot as say Nigerian or Mexican food, and when I say rice, I actually mean "Paella", which is a dish which is very typical of this region in Spain. It´s really like gold at the end of a rainbow over here - at the school´s restaurante, for 5 euros, I have 2 courses, a canned drink, desert and bread every day for lunch. Most days, I have one plate of chicken and chips and one plate of "Paella Valenciana". You should have seen my excitement when I realised how much I could eat for 5 euros. The food at home isn´t bad either - Pilar "feeds" us very well and whenever I don´t like her food she doesn´t take it personally (unlike Maria Carmen Vidal who would literally make me scrape my plate and ask me questions like "didn´t your mother make you vegetables, potatoes etc when you were young" - in Spanish ofcourse). I haven´t eaten this well since I left my mother´s house! (love you mum! can I come back and live with you when I get back?) Kai, I think I really need to learn how to cook so I can start eating right when I move back to London....
If you ever come to Valencia, you must visit this Mediterranean buffet called Neco - all you can eat for 12 euros or so. When I went there with my ex-housemate Rachel, let´s just say that the art of buffet eating nearly overwhelmed us totally. Definitely better than most Chinese buffets I´ve been to....Anyway enough about the food over here. In fact that´s the last you´ll here from me on that subject. I´ve not done much in the past week and a half except study. When I´m not in class (5 hours a day) I´m in the library (3 hours a day) studying or doing homework so by the time I get home they day is practically over and I usually go to bed straight after dinner. This week is a big festival in Valencia called "Las Fallas" but such is my lack of interest in partying that I still don´t know it´s significance. I´m beginning to leave other students in my class behind and it looks like I will be changing class next week so that I can take a class to move unto the next level. Even on saturday and sunday I mostly stayed in to study.
Whoa, this seems to be quite long now so I should wrap up, well done for getting this far - I know I wouldn´t have! Such is the length of this journal that you shouldn´t really expect another one for at least a month (except by popular demand ofcourse!). I look forward to seeing few of you in Rome (& Barcelona) for Easter! To the rest of you, you´re free to visit whenever you want, cos I hate to say it, but I´m already missing you guys! I guess that´s obvious, otherwise I probably wouldn´t have spent the past hour and a half typing this! I feel like I´ve been gone for an eternity after only a week and a half more in Spain. I wonder how I will feel after 4 months?
Take Care all, God be with you, and I look forward to updating you on my progress at some other time in the future. ¡Adios! ¡Hasta Luego!
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