First week in Valencia

It´s hard to imagine that Í´ve already been here a week! Time certainly flies when you´re busy. Anyways I´ll give a summary of what my first week´s been like here.

My flight from LAX to Valencia on Tuesday was pretty uneventful. After arriving in Valencia, I was directed to a separate area to wait for my luggage because my country of origin was outside the EU (turns out that I was the only person). The Valencia airport is very small, so I waited in an empty part of baggage claim until it came. As it turns out, there were no customs officers at the airport so I was just free to go after that. Anyways, I found Isidoro Ales (the District 2203 Assistant Governor) holding up a Rotary sign with my name. He was very kind and drove me to my friend Adriana´s place; I stayed with her for 3 days while I was apartment hunting in Valencia.

The next 3 days were spent going to the police station to the Foreigners Office to get my NIE (an ID for foreigners living in Spain), looking for an apartment, and going to UPV. Everything was pretty exhausting... the Foreigners Office was on the other side of town, while the secretary for UPV was only open 2 hours a day and 40+ students waiting in line when it opened, etc etc. In the end everything worked out well and I successfully submitted my application for a NIE, and I found a place to live. I´m living in a shared flat (piso compartido) that has 3 bedrooms. In one room is a married couple, Paul and Julia, who are both graduate students at UPV. They´re the ones who showed me the apartment and because they were extremely friendly and easy to get along with, I had no doubts that they would be good flatmates. Also, in a weird twist of fate, Paul is actually from Santa Clarita (and was the first American I met in Valencia)! In the other room is Leo, who just started his first year at UPV.

Here's some photos of the flat:



My weekend was spent getting settled into my apartment, buying some things for my room, and seeing the city. I visited the historic city center (there was a lot of great street art!) as well as the Jardín Turia (a green space in the middle of the city) and the Ciudad de Ciencias y Bellas Artes (known for the super modern and sea-inspired architecture, designed by Calatrava).