Various events have transpired since I last left a comment. For one, we ventured to Xativa, a town in the autonomous community of Valencia last Sunday for our last study trip. It was a short train ride away from Valencia, and the town offers a view of how the majority of people in Spain live. That is, as opposed to Madrid and Barcelona, in Xativa there are less inhabitants, all of whom are dispersed throughout the countryside. It was interesting because on the day that we arrived, there was a half-marathon taking place. Needless to say, my notes for the day were more or less sub-par as I prefered to watch what was happening around me. Fortunately, all of the information was a review for the most part. The highlight was visiting two castles on a hill. Although we walked down the hill, in order to escape the wrath of the Rutgers student body we ascended in these little carts connected by cables. It was actually quite amusing because at one point we had to stop on an incline to wait for the runners to pass by, and when the driver attempted to start again, there was too much weight to propel upward so we all had to exit until he made it to level ground. My intention is not to be ignorant as I probably would have been annoyed too, but I wish you could have seen the faces of the people behind us in line haha. In any case, the views from above were priceless. I even saw a pomegranate tree which was special. Furthermore, we only went to one museum this trip, where there was a painting of Felipe V, a French king who subsequently became a spanish king after the war of succession. If you go to the museum, however you will notice that his portrait is upside down. During the 18th century, he set Xativa ablaze and apparently their way of avenging the jerk was to hang his picture upside down haha. Sounds appropriate to me. This week also marked the beginning of classes. We do not actually have to matriculate until March, but we are told to attend numerous classes and keep dropping them until you find the "perfect" ones. With that being said, I attended several Spanish literature and culture classes and even a hydrology class for my minor. Concerning the latter, well that is a story unto itself, but to make a long story short, I will not be signing up for that one. We would, however, have the opportunity to visit this cool aquarium in Valencia later in the month, which makes it very tempting to keep it until March. I did find some fascinating classes, and as a result of some strategic planning, managed to schedule them in a way that leaves Thursday-Sunday free. Hard life, eh? One class of particular interest to me is that of the culture of brasil. The class is taught in castellano but some of our early readings are in portuguese, and it has been neat noting subtle differences between the two latin-based languages. It was kind of funny, or rather embarassing, but one of the first questions the profesor asked was what we picture when we think of Brasil. In my head, I thought of the superficialities like carnaval, the samba. Well he proceeded to say, most people think about samba, futbol, and carnaval, in which case I felt more or less like a fool. With that being said, I look forward to learning about the unequal distributions of wealth and opportunites that make Brasil unique in this world. As many of you may or may not know, four major cities are competing for the ownership of the 2016 summer olympics venue-chicago, madrid, tokyo, and Rio. As awesome as it would be to have it back in the states, especially with Obama as president?, perhaps Rio would be a good location. After all, perhaps this is what brasil needs in order to start bridging the inequalities that continue to plague the country day in and day out. Just a thought, and something to keep an eye on in the months to follow.
In other news, for those of you in Annandale, i have received word that the mighty civic has made a return to the roads after a brief hiatus so be on the lookout. In the weeks to come, I hope to take some pictures of my host city, Valencia, in order to share the sites with you. Hope everyone is well and I wish everyone a pleasant weekend:)