back..
Dear all
It's been a while, I know, and I was actually not going to post anything anymore, did not feel like it, but here I am again ;) I know of at least one person who reads and even likes this blog, so this is for you!! :)
a lot of things have been going on here, I might not have time to write about them all, but just so you get an impression: short after my last post, my boyfriend came visiting me again, which of course was another great highlight of my time here so far: it was his birthday, so I had prepared stuff for him, we went to eat in a nice restaurant right next to the beach to have the most typical paella we could find - and we enjoyed the wonderful weather we had: we could actually go for a walk on the beach barefoot!! It was so warm and so beautiful, still late-summer-like temperatures, a light wind, simply just perfect. He also met some more of the people I spend time with here in Valencia, which to me seems very important; that way he knows who I refer to when I tell him what I'm doing here, and he was also convinced that I haven't changed much, seeing that these people, according to him (and I agree completely), are people I would also have wanted to meet at home - and not just party buddies like most "erasmus friendships" here seem to be.
I've been thinking about the whole idea of Erasmus a lot, lately. I don't really know how to explain this, but I always had the image of it being a priviledge, something not everybody can do, and something that is a valuable experience for your life, your studies, your professional life -and that will look good on your CV :). However, I've met so many exchange students and have heard of so many more that I am beginning to believe that almost everyone goes abroad at some point, and that to the majority of the people, it doesn't matter where they go, as long as there are good parties... and indeed, most of the Erasmus people here hardly ever go to class, they will definitely not show up for the exams and all they do is sleep the whole day in order to start into new nocturnal adventures every evening. And I'm not just using the word "adventures" to refer to parties, I really mean all the implications of this word... Sometimes I seriously wonder if I am so strange or exceptional just because I am trying to take my studies seriously, because my goal for this year is improving my Spanish, getting to know the Spanish culture and also continue my studies like before! And I also begin to feel that saying "I was an exchange student in Spain for a year" will not get me reactions like "oh, so you're a highly qualified person", but instead something like "oh, so you were one of millions of idiots who just enjoyed the beach, the heat, the cheap alcohol and the parties during a year"...
But well, I don't want to go into this too much, it can be quite frustrating at times... :)
A more positive story is that I had another visitor until yesterday: we had another Puente (literally "bridge" = weekend, combined with some religious holiday, giving us 4 days off school) and a friend of mine came to visit me from Madrid. She is French and was my flatmate in Salamanca, and she's been living in Madrid for two years now. It was great to see her again (I had only seen her once again since Salamanca) and it gave me an excuse for not doing any work for 4 days and instead show her Valencia, go to all the nice spots with her and just having a great time. Moreover, both my flatmates were gone for the long weekend, so I would've been alone at home all the time, but now it was perfect because we could do what we wanted, we had the kitchen to ourselves to cook -just great!! :)
Well, and today I had to go back to classes, felt strange almost -but now I see that I have to get some studying done, seeing that I am going HOME already in two weeks and I don't want to spend my Christmas holidays studying for the exams in January...
So I'll talk to you all later... :)
It's been a while, I know, and I was actually not going to post anything anymore, did not feel like it, but here I am again ;) I know of at least one person who reads and even likes this blog, so this is for you!! :)
a lot of things have been going on here, I might not have time to write about them all, but just so you get an impression: short after my last post, my boyfriend came visiting me again, which of course was another great highlight of my time here so far: it was his birthday, so I had prepared stuff for him, we went to eat in a nice restaurant right next to the beach to have the most typical paella we could find - and we enjoyed the wonderful weather we had: we could actually go for a walk on the beach barefoot!! It was so warm and so beautiful, still late-summer-like temperatures, a light wind, simply just perfect. He also met some more of the people I spend time with here in Valencia, which to me seems very important; that way he knows who I refer to when I tell him what I'm doing here, and he was also convinced that I haven't changed much, seeing that these people, according to him (and I agree completely), are people I would also have wanted to meet at home - and not just party buddies like most "erasmus friendships" here seem to be.
I've been thinking about the whole idea of Erasmus a lot, lately. I don't really know how to explain this, but I always had the image of it being a priviledge, something not everybody can do, and something that is a valuable experience for your life, your studies, your professional life -and that will look good on your CV :). However, I've met so many exchange students and have heard of so many more that I am beginning to believe that almost everyone goes abroad at some point, and that to the majority of the people, it doesn't matter where they go, as long as there are good parties... and indeed, most of the Erasmus people here hardly ever go to class, they will definitely not show up for the exams and all they do is sleep the whole day in order to start into new nocturnal adventures every evening. And I'm not just using the word "adventures" to refer to parties, I really mean all the implications of this word... Sometimes I seriously wonder if I am so strange or exceptional just because I am trying to take my studies seriously, because my goal for this year is improving my Spanish, getting to know the Spanish culture and also continue my studies like before! And I also begin to feel that saying "I was an exchange student in Spain for a year" will not get me reactions like "oh, so you're a highly qualified person", but instead something like "oh, so you were one of millions of idiots who just enjoyed the beach, the heat, the cheap alcohol and the parties during a year"...
But well, I don't want to go into this too much, it can be quite frustrating at times... :)
A more positive story is that I had another visitor until yesterday: we had another Puente (literally "bridge" = weekend, combined with some religious holiday, giving us 4 days off school) and a friend of mine came to visit me from Madrid. She is French and was my flatmate in Salamanca, and she's been living in Madrid for two years now. It was great to see her again (I had only seen her once again since Salamanca) and it gave me an excuse for not doing any work for 4 days and instead show her Valencia, go to all the nice spots with her and just having a great time. Moreover, both my flatmates were gone for the long weekend, so I would've been alone at home all the time, but now it was perfect because we could do what we wanted, we had the kitchen to ourselves to cook -just great!! :)
Well, and today I had to go back to classes, felt strange almost -but now I see that I have to get some studying done, seeing that I am going HOME already in two weeks and I don't want to spend my Christmas holidays studying for the exams in January...
So I'll talk to you all later... :)
posted by Sabin at 2:37 PM
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