Writer's Blog

It's tough being a blogger. It's hard to constantly satisfy my dedicated readership with periodic insights and opinions about my adventures abroad. I've finally emerged from this creative drought (Christmas in the UK and exam period tumbleweed) and am now ready to deliver what so many of you have been asking me for.

Trying new things: tasty rabbit

I come from England where exams are very important, timetables are drafted months in advance, special exam halls are set up and lined paper (a basic necessity for any first world exam) is kindly provided by whoever is setting the exam. Here, things are slightly different. There is no such thing as telling the student the structure of an exam, the concept of 'past paper' does not exist and the student is notified about the time and the place of the exam less that 48 hours in advance. When it comes to the actual exam there always seems to be a nail for a clock, but no clock, plain paper is handed out sparingly and the student is expected to write essays and aim for the highest mark, 1/1.

Revising was made bearable by two things. First, reading through my notes and discovering words that I had misspelt consistently. In one of my classes, the lecturer always used to speak about 'Los Pactos de...' and I was never able to grasp the '...'. I had written down a mixture of Barmacoa, Barballoca, Bonamaclao, Bomacloa and Balmacloa, but never the correct 'Pactos de Moncloa'. This shows me that I should stop shying away from my dictaphone in an attempt to look 'cool' and secretly record my lectures like the Erasmus student that I actually am. Second, revising in my room gave me ample opportunities to look outside my window and see the hilarious world below. On the street where I live there is a weekly flea market for stolen bicycles, books etc. but there is an unfortunate lack of parking. A group of innovative entrepreneurs have come up with a genius and illegal idea to direct market goers on to pavements, help them park and charge them a couple of euros for this service. The police know about this and often stealthily creep up on these entrepreneurs. For me, the voyeur from above, this provides excellent amusement as I can see the game of cops and robbers in full swing; the entrepreneurs loitering in the streets trying to look as if they are on the phone or waiting for someone, the cops surprising them and the entrepreneurs running away, hiding behind cars and peeping around corners to see if the coast is clear.

It must be normal to stare out of windows here. Everyone in Valencia lives in flats and from time to time whilst eating my breakfast on the 6th floor, I see a Chinese man smoking on the 12th floor in the building opposite staring intently at me. This ability to stare at people is one of the great perks of living in a flat. One might think that those that live in flats are unable to keep pets in the same way as those that live in houses, but recently I've come to the conclusion that this is not the case. It's normal and accepted here to take your dog for a walk and allow him to do his business anywhere in the street and as long as no one is looking (except me who is staring from above) and you can keep walking on as if you were leaving a banana behind in Mario Kart. I've seen rabbits and snakes in flats, something I can understand, but the other day I saw a man taking his pet pig on a lead to do his business on the pavement. The pig was oinking away as happy as he could be and unphased by all the passers by taking a second look at what they had just seen and believed to be a pig taking a crap in the middle of a city. We're looking into buying a hamster.

Cicero Baker

'What about football?' I hear you asking me. Yes, i'm still #1 fan. In fact, the other day I experienced Andy Warhol's 'Feghouli Minutes of Fame' by being in the right place at the right time. I was buying tickets for a game and the next thing I knew Feghouli was standing next to me also buying tickets. Video cameras and the press appeared taking photos of him and I was asked to give an interview about Feghouli's career ( I don't know anything about him and managed to say that I thought he had a really great game last weekend to which the interviewer replied that he had been injured- fortunately they cut this bit out). Nonetheless, although I'm concerned about my accent in this, I'm happy with my hair and also about the fact that I was neither dubbed nor subtitled. Have a look at my interview, I appear at 1:21 and 3:45.

I watched a documentary about the tough economic conditions currently faced by Spain at the moment and over half of the programme was dedicated to Valencia and the criticism over its recent (and seemingly useless) public expenditure. From here I learnt that there is a bus tour of all the wasteful and costly projects of the City. If that's not enough to tempt you to come visit me, the design festival is up and coming. I'll sign off with the slogan for the festival, something I'm sure you won't want to miss.

Valencian Fine Art

From Valencia, With Design

Laters x