Gandia

After Madrid I spent 2 weeks in Gandia, a small beach town south of Valencia.  Needless to say, this town was basically deserted as it was mid winter when we were there.  During these two weeks I took an "Intensive Spanish Language Course."  We went to class 4 hours a day for two weeks and had a test at the end.  It was a great way for me to get back into my spanish.  It also gave me the chance to meet all of the other foreign exchange students that would be studying with me in Valencia.  We had a lot of activities planned for us by the Erasums office at the university.  "Erasmus" is the word europeans give to foreign exchange students.  Basically it is a social club that we all join to meet each other and have cool activities planned for us.

Some of the things that we did in Gandia was to have a cooking lesson where we learned how to cook paella.  Over the course of the two weeks I ate a lot of paella.  But the food that I ate the most was "Un bocadillo de jamon y queso".  This is a ham and cheese sandwich on a baguette.  In Spain there are two different types of ham, "jamon serrano" and "jamon york".  "Jamon york" is our normal jam but "jamon serrano" is raw ham with a mix of meat and fat.  I suggest you type it into google to see pictures.  Those were some of the best ham and cheese sandwiches I've ever had.  I can also not forget the freshly squeezed OJ made with fresh Valencian oranges.

We also toured an old palace, probably one of the smaller ones I will see on this trip.  It used to be the palace and residence of some monarchs that was deserted for a hundred years and now is a Jesuit retreat.  The interesting thing about this palace was that the most important thing about this palace were the tiles.  From what I understood from our tour guide was that these tiles are of a special medieval Valencian art technique.  They were pretty cool but not anything too special.  There are a couple of pictures of the palace and tiles.

There are also some pictures of the beach and harbor of Gandia.  And I couldn't leave out the bar where we went almost every night "El Verdadero".

Madrid

Like I mentioned earlier I spent the first 5 days in Madrid with Ian, my friend from South Africa.  We were able to find a really nice hostel for really cheap.  The pictures show our cluttered room but the place was really clean.  It was located about a 10 min walk from Plaza del Sol, the center of Madrid.  All the shops and mimes were around the Plaza del Sol area and it was a very popular place during the weekend.  There are also some pictures of the palace and churches.  Overall a very cool city with a lot of stuff going on.  I highly suggest everyone to make a trip to Madrid sometime.