work hard, play hard

So last week we had another "puente"... Tuesday was the Day of the Spanish Constitution which celebrates the Constitution of 1978, and Thursday was the Day of Immaculate Conception. In my program, we were given the entire week off, which I took advantage of to purchase some cheap Ryanair flights to Italy. (In case you don't know, Ryanair is the most well-known of the numerous low-cost European airlines. They have extremely cheap tickets, but are also infamous for being extremely picky about the luggage limitations.)

Now for the work part... this next week and a half will be extremely tough... I have 4 exams (for Energy Auditing, Energy Markets and Regulations, the electricity party of Introduction to Energy Technology, and Wind Energy) as well as one project to turn in.

The 21st will be the last day of class (also the day of 2 of the 4 exams), and then I have more play... on the 22nd my mom and I are flying off to Marrakech, Morocco! We'll be there for about 15 days, and then after coming back to Valencia in January, I'll be hitting the books again to finish class projects and prepare for more exams.

Anyhow, since I don't take photos of the work part, here's some of my travel photos.

After flying into Bergamo, Italy, we spent 2 day in Lecco couchsurfing with Omid and Ben who are Iranian students studying a Master in mechanical engineering. There's an international branch of the Polytechnic University of Milan in Lecco, and the classes are given in English there. However, it's still been tough for Omid and Ben because they haven't made any Italian friends at all.



Climbing San Martino (Omid is a mountain-climbing beast and told us it would be about 2 hours to reach the church and then the peak of San Martino where the cross is located... the entire trip took us nearly 6 hours!)






Omid and Ben were extremely nice, and even though I know more about Persian culture than the average, I was really glad to hear about their hometowns, their experiences in university, and hear about the ridiculous ideas that people have of their country (for example, that Iran is all desert, that Iran is in Africa, that all of Iran is a huge war-zone, etc). We also cooked together and met their friends (they have a really tight community of students from Iran).



Then we spent 2 days in Milan, couchsurfing with Massimiliano, who was still working on fixing up his flat. He has an extraordinary sense for design, and even though it looks new almost everything in his flat is reused or second-hand in some way. He's also passionate about cooking... in three nights, he taught us so many Italian recipes like risotto, Baci di Dama (hazelnut cookies with chocolate), Italian mayonnaise, roasted pumpkin, and different ways to cook fennel. There was also a ginormous artisan fair in Milan with sections for each province of Italy (selling sausages, cheese, focaccia, chocolate, pickled peppers, turron, olive oil, etc. and cooked foods of each province) as well as an international section with vendors around the world. I don't think I've tried so many great cheeses in one day! Needless to say, I had a very food-filled experience in Milan.

Here's dinner at Massimiliano's.





And here's the artisan fair. The various sections of Italy had extremely high quality products, while the quality of the international section varied from country to country. For example, the India section was quite large and had many vendors selling jewelry, scarves, etc. The two stalls representing the U.S. sold beef jerky, vintage license plates, and cowboy hats.









Next on the itinerary were Genoa and Cinque Terre. Unfortunately, about 2 months ago Cinque Terre was hit by flooding and many of the trails are still closed. Three of towns (Riomaggiore, Manarola, and Corniglia) are ok, while Vernazza and Monterosso are still quite damaged and undergoing relief efforts. Anyhow, I'm sure that they'll make a speedy recovery in time for the summer tourists.







We finished the week in Bergamo, a small town an hour away from Milan with a beautiful old town. Our host was Andrea, a Bergamo local who is extremely well-traveled and has a passion for languages (he speaks about 4 languages fluently, has a fairly high knowledge of Arabic, and is currently learning Mandarin). He had 2 bookcases full of language books, and his English was so textbook-British English that it was hard for me to think of him as Italian rather than British!

Dessert shop opening, philosophical talk, and artisan glass exhibit- all with Rotary!

In the past 24 hours, I've gone to 3 Rotary events! Each one was quite unique, and Brianna (another Ambassadorial Scholar in Valencia) and I were invited by a different club each time, but each of the events allowed us to see a different side of Rotary.

Thursday night we attended the opening of a dessert shop called Torreblanca, which also happened to coincide with Valencia's Fashion Night Out. The streets of Colón were filled with extremely well-dressed and, well, fashionable individuals. The shop was absolutely filled! I guess who wouldn't want to grab some free champagne and delicious pastries?



After that died down, the three members of Rotary Feria Mediterraneo took Brianna and I to a restaurant by the port, owned by a friend of the president Sergio. As an appetizer we had "foie" which is like the French foie gras but the kind we had was extremely smooth and buttery. For dinner I had fish grilled in olive oil..simple and fresh.


Today, we attended a talk that was part of the University of Valencia's "Week of Solidarity for Cooperation." The presentation was called "Further from a society of high consumption: the thought alphabet and cosmosociety." The talk was given by a professor of economics, although the topic was extremely philosophical. We were invited by Pascual, a member of Rotary Cid, who helped organize the event. Here's a photo:



After the talk, Brianna and I went straight to an exhibition held by Rotary Rey Don Jaime for Fet de Vidre. This is an artisan workshop that employs disabled people, and the Rotary Club held this event to promote their work and help them sell some of their glass products.





After the exhibition, Rotary Rey Don Jaime invited the guests (Brianna and me, the representatives of Fet de Vidre, and a representative from the Ayuntamiento) to lunch, and we were treated to more great food. Here's the dessert: