I feel home

Hello blog readers,

More and more I get the feeling that Madrid is my home now. My Spanish get better and better and we met some Spanish friends from Carlos III. Also I already used the Spanish Marktplaats which is called Segundomano.es.

Monday and Tuesday we had classes. More and more I see the advantages of this school system. Since we have to do homework and really discuss this exercises, and we also have review tests I guess that I will have a real Christmas holiday instead of Christmas-preparing-weeks-for-the-exams which I normally have in Tilburg. Also it is really easy to prepare these review test since they are about just three weeks of lectures so the exams will be more relax when you know that 40 % of your grade is about an 8.


Wednesday I took a look at segundomano.es for patines de linea which we better known as inline skates. There I found some really good ones for just 15 euros. I send the woman an email in Spanish and we met at a metro station which was in district of Madrid. Really I had the idea that I was in de middle of nowhere. I talked a bit with the woman and I bought the patines de linea. She was really stunned about my level of Spanish after just 4 weeks of classes. I think she didn’t knew how much these patines were worth because 15 is nothing for these ones.

Thursday we had a review test of operations management. This was really my ‘cup of tea’. I just learned the exercises and the test online and skipped the sheets and the book. Guess what, that was exactly what he was asking for of course with different numbers. After this class we had organisational economics. There they told me that I had an 8 for my review test of last week. Then I was thinking that it would be so nice if we had no classes for Human recourse and guess what. The teacher post a message on the door that he was out of office and we didn’t had classes. I decided to try my new patines de linea and went to the Rio park. It was 30 degrees a tight blue sky and I was thinking, yeah I feel home! After my 2 hours af skating I went to the fountains and also Jasper came to take a break and enjoy the weather.

Friday Jasper and I went to Valencia, at 5.30am we woke up took the metro to Mendez Álvaro and at 7 am we went to Valencia. This bus was like business class, I have never seen this chairs before in a bus. At 11.15 we arrived. First we were looking for a hostel. We already looked for in at home so we found one really soon. Two nights for 2 persons just 80 euro in the middle of the historic centre in front of the Mercado.
Then we went to the ‘centre’, we thought it was the centre but is seemed to be just the historic one. After a few hours we had seen all the cathedrals, parks, churches and the Mercado. That night we want to go out for dinner but there were only 3 restaurant and we were stunned. This city must be as big as Amsterdam and just 3 restaurants were open? We found a nice one and for just 14,60 we both had dinner ( tapas) and a drink.

The day after we found out that there is also a modern centre where they have more shops and restaurants and also more people. Then we did believe that the city was as big as Amsterdam. I bought a new pull and then we went to the city of art and sciences. This was very beautiful! It was a bit keen that we saw water what was like a big swimming pool but what serve only for decorating and wasn’t meant to go in while it was 28 degrees. That night we ate in a very nice street were we ate a nice pizza, a real Italian one .

Sunday we left the Hostal Bisbal at 11.30 and we wanted to have a Spanish breakfast. The problem was that they only eat a bolleria ( croissant ) and drinks a cup of coffee. For me this is totally not enough so we went to the pan and company were we got a bocadilla con pollo ( bread roll with chicken , salad and mayo) , a little bag of French fries and fanta lemon. A bit strange for a breakfast but it was actually really nice. After we went to the beach were we tanned the whole day and swam in the sea. After a Döner Kepab menu we went back at 20.30.

It was a great weekend and Valencia is a nice city for a weekend. We were not the only Dutch people who thought this because there were a lot of 60+ people enjoying the late summer of Valencia. Now back in real life and back to school.