Churros, El Rio, La Playa

Firstly, I must tell you of this delicious treat that I believe came from heaven. The picture below is a hot, fresh-out-of-the-whatever-they-cook-it-in churro, dipped in liquid chocolate (the spanish version of hot chocolate). Some friends and I were walking home last night when we came upon a chocolate shop. We ended up ordering 12 churros and 2 mugs of chocolate to split.. I waddled home.



After the churros and a nap, we all went out to a local bar called O'haras and got some drinks then later went to dance at a place called Bolseria. Very fun night. Here is a pic of Grace and I with two of our other friends, Caroline and Suzanne.



And this is a picture of Grace, Laura and I at the "Rio", which is a dried up river bed that they turned into a park. It runs all through the city and is full of soccer fields, huge playgrounds, skate parks, ponds, and all sort of monuments, etc. It is beautiful and always full of people. Yesterday we walked through the Rio on our way to the Museo de Fallas, which is all about the Fallas Festival which is going to be here during our spring break in March. I don't think I can explain it well enough, so I encourage all to look it up on Google. It is supposed to be INSANE!



Today a big group of us took a trip down to the beach, which is like a 20 minute tram ride. It was a little cloudy at first but it cleared up and we had a great time.. first time at the Mediterranean Sea! The beach is huge and the sand is very fine and soft. The water was freezing.. but of course we had a few who decided to take a dip. We also got a 5v5 soccer game going and later some of us went up to get coffee and wine at a little cafe. The sun was setting as we were leaving and it was absolutely gorgeous! (The pictures don't do it justice.)





Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the blogging! Email me (britt.mack@gmail.com) and tell me about your lives!

More pichas

Here are some more pics that I stole from friends :)



I think this picture is from either the roof of our dorms or the Towers de Serrano that we visited earlier. Either way I think it is beautiful.



These are our charming little dorm rooms. However, this is not my room. Grace and I got a room without a balcony.. and our window looks out to a white wall. BUT its okay, we love our room.

This is just another view from the streets of Valencia!

Torres de Serrano

A couple days ago we went on a short 10 minute walk from our dorm to the Torres (Towers) of Serrano and we got to see all of Valencia as the sun was going down. Que bonita!

Tha streets of Valencia!

Here are a couple of pictures.. that are actually not mine.. they are collected from various friend's Facebooks. I have yet to buy a converter to charge my camera to upload my pictures to my computer.







I believe these were either the walk from the bus to our dorms in Valencia on the first day or just excursions around the city.. just wanted to give you an idea of what it the streets are like. Most of the buildings have shops in the bottom and then apartments and offices on the upper floors.

A little late.. :/

Okay, so I am a little late with this whole blog thing, but better late than never, right? A quick update on my life in as few sentences as possible: I am currently studying abroad in Valencia, Spain for the next 3 months. We arrived in Madrid last Wednesday and stayed there for a couple of days. It was a little rough at first.. getting used to the 6 hour time difference, living out of a huge suitcase, trying to communicate with a couple grumpy foreigners, and attempting to get to know the 38 other UGA study abroad-ers that are with me. Nevertheless, Madrid is an awesome place.. beautiful architecture, plazas, monuments and full of parks and trees. It is also very fast-paced, very much like New York City, and not exactly conducive to living in my opinion. We left Saturday morning on a 4 hour bus ride through the country to the Mediterranean seaside city of Valencia. I immediately fell in love with this adorable little city and couldn't wait to call it home. We are living in the middle of the city in a beautiful dorm with 140 other University of Valencia students who are overjoyed that we are here. I am actually sharing a dorm with one of my roommates and best friends from home in Athens, Grace, which has been so great. Don't try to tell us we are going to get sick of each other.. I don't think that it is possible. We are like two peas in a pod and I couldn't have picked anyone better to share this experience with.

So anyways, we started class on Monday following a little orientation. I am taking two literature classes, one composition class, and one culture class. They are all in Spanish and about Spain.. and literally, the teachers will not speak English to us. It was a little hard at first getting adjusted to their accent and how fast they speak, but everyday gets better. But I absolutely love all of my teachers. It is evident that they really want us to do well and are willing to help with anything at all to make our time here more meaningful. It is has been a fun experience trying to communicate with everyone here too and I can definitely feel my Spanish getting better after just one week.

Since I have been here, we have explored the city a little bit, visited a few historic monuments, and seen an exhibition by Joaquin Sorolla, who has painted beautiful scenes from all over Spain. The city is actually the third largest in Spain, so it is not exactly little, and I cannot wait to see more of it. Everyday is an adventure as cheesy as that sounds. But I will keep everyone posted as much as I can. I am not a natural journal-er.. or blogger for that matter so cut me some slack. Also, I would love to hear from everyone and anyone who reads this. Email me at britt.mack@gmail.com :) Hope everyone is doing well!

P.S. I will post pictures as soon as I load them on my computer!