Friday 5/28/10 Madrid

Libby eating gallo, which we though would be chicken, but is fish

Last day with the shady streets of Madrid

A parting photo of our classmates

Very cool coffee shop

The statue of Don Quijote and Sancho Panza in Plaza España

Today was our last day of class here in Madrid. Tomorrow we are off to Valencia for one more week. Several of our classmates were also leaving after today and one of the girls from China brought us treats. Our class had students from France, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, China, and England. In our culture class we also met people from Slovakia, Korea, Indonesia, Japan, and Germany. There were very few other Americans, which often meant that to communicate with our classmates during the breaks, we had to speak Spanish! We admired the electronic dictionaries that all the Chinese students had. They were not much bigger than in iPod and translated all permutations of English-Spanish-Chinese.

Before class we went back to the Plaza España one more time to take a photo of the statue of Don Quijote and Sancho Panchez. We learned about Cervantes and this book in our culture class so wanted to revisit this monument. We also bought some gifts to bring home.

Saturday 5/29/10 Valencia

Fantastic architecture of the City of Arts and Sciences with the bridge in the foreground

View from under the umbracle

The Agora, for tennis matches and other events

An interactive "foosball" game outside the Science Museum

Looking down the pool toward the Hemisferic and the Opera house

The side of the Science Museum

The bridge, the highest point in Valencia, with the Agora behind

The top part of the Umbracle with gardens and statues inside

Front view of the Umbracle

The Reina Sofia Arts Center for theater and opera

We had our last breakfast with María Victoria. She was an excellent hostess and we were sad to leave her. We took the metro to the train station and found our train to Valencia. Most of the scenery between Madrid and Valencia was farms with olives, fruit trees, or grapes. In between were fields full of red poppies. The ground looked like limestone, very white soil, and not many trees. After a few small mishaps, we made it to the new house via metro. We arrived very hot and thirsty and our new hostesses fed us. They were watching the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants in Spanish, which was interesting.

We then walked over to the City of Arts and Sciences complex, a big Valencian landmark. It is a huge complex of interesting buildings connected by parkland, right near the center of the city. The buildings were designed by Valencian architect Santiago Calatrava and include a science center which looks like a whale carcass with vertebrae, an Imax theater that looks like a giant eye and can even close, a theater that looks to me like a fly, an aquarium, a fabulous bridge, a garden under an umbrella walkway, and a tennis complex. It is mostly in white and surrounded by aqua pools, which fits in with the fact that is it so close to the Mediterranean.

Saturday 5/29/10 Valencia

Public sculpture

The street side of the Umbracle

A fruit stand by our house

A street in Valencia near our house

Sunday 5/30/10 Valencia

Biking through the park

View down the bike path

Octopus being served at the international food fair

Camille climbing in the cool spider-web park

Libby in the park

An interesting building that we passed

A view from the top of the spider-web playground

A bridge in the park

Today we rented bikes and biked around the city. Originally we planned to bike to L’Albufera, 6 miles south of the city, where there are empty beaches and rice-growing marshes (to supply the paella, the favorite local dish). We tried to find the bike path that would take us but we couldn’t find it because of construction of the Formula 1 (car racing) course, which is being built for Jun 25, 2010. It isn’t in a stadium but is on the existing streets with fences, barriers, and bleachers being built and installed around it. After trying for two hours we gave up and biked around the city and down the green belt going through the city. Along the way we stopped at a café and got sodas. We weren’t hungry because we had a big breakfast (even by American standards). We each had two pieces of toast, a chocolate croissant-type pastry. There was also ham and cheese and jam for the toast, fresh-squeezed orange juice, coffee, a plate of fruit, and chocolate.

The park cuts through the center of the entire city and must be 10 miles long. It used to be the riverbed, but because of flooding, they rerouted the rived and turned the entire thing into a park. It is slightly submerged and the traffic crosses over it on bridges, one of which was an ancient bridge, and one a Calatrava masterpiece, which looks like a comb. The park is beautiful, with gardens, soccer fields, playgrounds, fountains, picnic areas, paths, other sports fields, sculptures, etc. We spent over 5 hours biking through it and only saw about 2/3 of it. There were interesting things going on too. There was a fair with international food and shopping, a pickup game of some kind of Indian wrestling match, dogs fetching oranges out of the pools, and lots of families enjoying their day off, having picnics in large groups. We also enjoyed the variety of parks for the children: one was a rock-climbing wall, one was a giant spider net of ropes to climb on, and the best was a giant Gulliver, which was for climbing on (by children Lilliputians). It had slides, ropes, tunnels, etc and was huge.

When we returned we had another huge meal waiting for us. First came fish soup and tuna salad and bread. We thought that was all, but then she brought the main course, which was veal and vegetables, followed by fruit.

Sunday 5/30/10 Valencia

One of the bridges over the park

Secluded arbor in the park

One of the many sports fields in the park

Funny bathroom signs - girl, boy, and handicapped

Camille rappelling up Gulliver's arm

The international yacht harbor

Libby in Gulliver's hand at the cool Gulliver park

The Gulliver Park

The Gulliver Park

Monday 5/31/10 Valencia

The marble sidewalks of downtown Valencia (which are very slippery when wet)

Landmark tower of Santa Catalina

narrow streets in medieval city

Communications building

The bullring in the background

Mercado Colon

Giant ficus tree in park

Valencia Cathedral

Doorway to Valencia cathedral

The central market facade

Today is very hot; in fact they had record temperatures for this time of year. Our house has no air conditioning and is on the seventh floor. Even with the windows open for a little breeze, it was uncomfortable sleeping. We started our new class. This time there are only 4 other students besides us: one from Canada, one from Germany, and two from Holland. We like our new teachers.

Because of the temperatures, we decided to figure out the bus system to get into town after class. We made it to the old city center, which is where all the interesting older buildings, plazas, and much of the shopping is. We looked at the Mercado Colon and then went on to a special chocolate shop that Camille had researched. Instead of buying bonbons, we went to the little café in the back, which overlooked a secluded garden and shared a sandwich and their specialty chocolate dessert. Then we went on a little city tour: the Ayuntamiento (city hall), the Correos (post office), the big plazas, the cathedral, and a cool excavated Roman ruin that you can look down on through a little reflecting pool (the ruins are underneath it). The museum was closed. We finally tried horchata, their cold drink made from ground up tigernuts and cinnamon. It was really refreshing on this hot day.