Las clases y el río

Hi again! So yesterday classes started (woo! although not really :P)  I am taking Modern Spanish Art and Spanish Culture and Civilization.  First was Spanish art, which starts at 10:45, but before that started I had to get to the school by myself.  Luckily I knew where the bus stop was and the bus pulled up a minute later.  I did however get off a few stops early, but I just walked the rest of the way.  I made sure to leave really early so that I had time in case something like that happened!

My professor for my art class is Enrique Pelaez.  He's also a professor at the University of Valencia and loves art!  In this class we are studying art from the 19th and 20th centuries, starting with the Classic and Romantic periods (Goya) and ending who knows where (it'll depend on how fast we move).  I'm hoping we'll go to an art museum as a class field trip (and if we do I'll let you know!).  Yesterday was just an introduction to the class where we talked about the surreal, dreams, the class, our professor, us, and just about everything in between.  I'll keep you posted on how the class continues once we get going in it.

Spanish Culture and Civilization is at 12:50 and this professor is actually the academic director at the Centro de Estudios.  His name is Eliseo Valle and he's really funny.  Before introducing the class he went around and asked everyone's name and random stuff about us, and he probably teased almost every person there.  He made fun of me because I'm studying engineering and Spanish (cause they go together so well).  In this class we're going to be discussing different aspects of Spanish culture, like the importance of the bulls, Catholicism, the night life here, Barcelona vs. Madrid, and of course, soccer!  I'm excited to learn about the culture here while I'm also experiencing it as well.

El Río

After classes I went home for lunch and then adventured out the the Río.  The Río isn't actually a river.  It was at one point, but is dried up now.  Instead, there are trees, gardens, and paths where water used to flow.  Maggie and I hopped on the bus to the get there (I'm gonna be a pro at this by the end of my trip!) and met up with Jordan (a friend from Chi Alpha!) and Ryan (he goes to F&M).  It was here that I started to learn what Valencia time is really like.  At orientation we were warned that when someone says they'll meet you at 5, it could be 5:30 or 6 before they actually come.  And that's exactly what happened to us.  I told Jordan I'd meet her there at 5, but I didn't leave my house until 4:55.  Then Maggie didn't come out of her's until 5:10 or so.  When we finally got to the river, it was 5:30, and there was Jordan sitting and waiting for us, but Ryan still wasn't around! (oops!)  I think we finally found Ryan around 6 and then got on our way.

La Festival de las Naciones

Walking through the river we saw a lot of dogs, runners, and just people in general.  We also ran into the Festival de las Naciones.  There were stands set up from countries around the world.  There wasn't much going on while we were there, but we're going back tonight for a concert and to hang out more!  Woohoo!  We also saw a pretty looking building from the river, so we decided to go see what it was.  Turns out it was Valencia's Fine Arts Museum.  We got there at 6:30 and the museum closed at 7, so we didn't have much time to explore but did look around some.  There were mostly religious works of art in the parts that we saw, but they were gorgeous!  There was also a sign saying there were Goya works upstairs, but we had to leave before we found them.  I know we're planning on going back some day to look around more, so I'm excited for that to happen.

The Museum of Fine Arts

After the art museum we decided to return to our casas.  Maggie and I decided we wanted to walk, which would have been all fine and dandy except for the fact that we forgot about the train tracks.  The roads go under and over the tracks, however there's no sidewalk on those roads.  We ended up walking and walking and walking until we finally found stairs to cross them!  Luckily the map on my phone still works without WiFi and we discovered that we weren't too far out of the way, but I think next time we'll take a taxi back and forth!

The view from the bridge over the tracks

I got home around 8:30 or so, and we ate dinner at 9:30.  We had soup and then a banana and ice cream for dessert.  Then I did a bit of reading that I had for class and went to bed.

So I'm going to go take a siesta, but I'll let you know how the concert is tonight!  Wish me luck getting to the river!