¡Hola a todos!

I spent 2 fantastic weeks in the beautiful Valencia, Spain´s third largest city! It was my first time visiting Spain and I have enjoyed every minute of it!

Since my flight from Manchester was delayed for more than an hour, I arrived in Valencia after midnight. However, since I had previously booked a hotel room near the airport for my first night in Valencia, I did not have to worry about my late arrival. I managed to get a taxi and explain the driver where I wanted to go without any problem.

The next day I took metro to the address that was given to me by the language school. Since there was a little misunderstanding about my accommodation and I had no information about my host family before I arrived in Valencia, I got a little worried when I realized that no one is at home at this address and my phone was not working either. However, I managed to find a public phone and get in touch with my host family. I found it a little challenging since the lady on the phone spoke very quickly (in Spanish, of course) and it was quite difficult for me to understand her. Luckily, it only took 10 minutes until I finally met my lovely Spanish “mum”. She explained to me that she has two properties, one flat and a house, so I was able to choose where I wanted to stay. I chose to stay at the house which was located in a nice little neighborhood which, in fact, used to be a small pueblo (village) but now is a part of the city. 

In this house I had my own room and every morning I had breakfast and dinner together with my Spanish “mum” and another student from France who was also staying there and attending the classes at the same language school as me. Since our host did not speak English, the only way of communicating was by speaking Spanish which, at times, was a little difficult but it was definitely worth the effort as I learned a lot from our conversations!

My first day at the language school was very nice, I felt welcomed by the super-friendly staff and the teachers. In my class there were students from Norway, Germany, France, Italy, China, Korea, Ukraine, Holland, Ireland and the UK. I found it fascinating that each student had a different motivation of learning Spanish, some of them had a Spanish/Latin American girlfriend or boyfriend, others planned on studying in Spain or simply had chosen to enjoy their holidays by refreshing their knowledge of Spanish. Every day for the first two hours we were taught by a teacher called Marta and the other two, by Alvaro, both ‘born and bred’ valencianos. I was very happy that I had chosen to attend B1 level classes; all the lessons were taught exclusively in Spanish and I found it very useful for my level. What I liked the most about the classes was that there were plenty of opportunities for us to speak and all the lessons were personalized, for example, when we were talking about the Spanish cuisine, the teacher would also ask us to tell about the food in our own countries or when we were learning about the future tenses in Spanish, we would also have a chance to talk about our own future plans etc.  Since there was a great variety of nationalities within our class, it was such a unique cultural experience! Every lesson I got to know something new not only about Spanish language and culture but I also learned facts about other countries, for example, I found it interesting that some cities in Norway apparently ‘boasts’ 360 days of rain. Almost like in the UK, right?  

After my first class I signed up for a guided tour through the casco antiguo (old town) of Valencia which was organized by the school, however since I was the only student who wanted to go on this tour, the school had postponed it to the next week. As I could not wait to see the centre, I went to ‘explore’ it by myself. Although the old town was about 30min walking distance from the language school, it took me about an hour to get there..mainly because I could not access ‘google maps’ on my phone. I learned a good lesson to always carry a map with me therefore since this day I had a ‘real’ map with me whenever I left home. It was interesting that the street names were in valenciano (which is basically the same as Catalan) but the people spoke to me in castellano therefore now and again I got confused with the directions however, I enjoyed ‘getting lost’ and communicating with the people to find the way!

In the old town I found beautiful squares such as Plaza de la Reina, Plaza de la Virgen, Plaza de Toros and my favourite, Plaza del Ayuntamiento all of them were surrounded by magnificent buildings and fountains!

Since the weather was very hot (+34⁰ C) I decided to have a walk around the town another day in the evening, so I returned home, packed my bag and went to the beach. From my house it only took around 10 min by tram to get to the nearest beach ‘Las Arenas’. The Mediterranean Sea did not let me down, the water was very warm!

After enjoying la playa I went back home where my “mum” showed me how to prepare the authentic Valencian paella! During my visit I tried Valencian paella several times at different places and I can genuinely say that my Spanish “mum” made the best one!

Another typical Valencian dish is Fideua

During my visit in Valencia, I also visited the following places:

El Museo de Ciencias Naturales

Museo de Bellas Artes 

La obra de Francisco Goya

Ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias

L'Oceanogràfic

Museo Taurino