Jeff Harris Travels

This week, as with most weeks, has pasted quickly, but what a week it has been. On Monday I spent most of the day in classrooms without professors. In Photo II, the professor arrived nearly on time, but disappeared shortly thereafter, and only returned with fifteen minutes left of class. I did manage to explain to him my idea for my project after making eye contact with him while he was in his office. Later on in the day, the professor for Photography and Painting never showed up, but someone thought he mentioned in the previous class that he would later in the class. It’s like the professors don’t share the same concern of time as the students, or at least non-Spanish students do.

In other academic news, I attempted to go to a class called Foundations of Painting for the first time on Tuesday. Once I found out who the professor was I asked him if I was in the right class. His response was that class finished last semester, in January. And to think I had my schedule all figured out! On Wednesday I went to the Bellas Artes’ International Office to ask what was up. Their response was the same as the professor’s, and they told me I could take Color II, which didn’t work with my schedule and it was a higher level course than someone who has never painted should take. Also, I was attempting to take the foundations class because it was only on Tuesdays and fit well with my schedule. Luckily I heard from UMBC’s Study Abroad office the same day I emailed a question about credit transferability (unlike the UMBC Art Department’s exchange director’s lack of response for an email I sent a week ago). It turns out a class worth 9 credits here transfers as 4 to UMBC, contrary to my belief that they would transfer as 3 credits. So I don’t have to worry about Foundations of Painting or Color II or whatever it is and I will be earning 16 UMBC credits for the semester (one more than usual).

Also this week the idea of going to Dublin, Ireland popped into my head while looking at March on a calendar. I made arrangements to be in Dublin from Saturday, March 14 to Wednesday, the 18th, during the St. Patrick’s celebration. I won’t have class that week because of the local celebration of Fallas and I’ll be able to make it back in time for the incredible finale of that on Thursday, March 19. Hopefully the journey to Dublin and back via RyanAir will go smoothly.

This afternoon I walked over to the port area, about a 30 minute walk from my apartment. It was a nice day today, in the 60s and clear all day long. Take a look at the photos I took…

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I have my schedule all figured out now. My first real full day of class was this past Thursday. Mondays will be crazy long, but the upside of that is that on Fridays I won’t have class at all.

Here’s my schedule:

Mondays
Photo II (8-11 CET/2-5 EST)
A/V Media Production II (Moviemaking) (11:30-2:30 CET/5:30-8:30am EST)
Painting & Photography (3-6 CET/9-12pm EST)
Spanish (7:30-9 CET/1:30-3pm EST)

Tuesdays
Multimedia Production (12-2 CET/6-8am EST)

Wednesdays
Multimedia Production (Lab) (10:30-11:30 CET/4:30-5:30am EST)
Spanish (7:30-9 CET/1:30-3pm EST)

Thursdays
Photo II (8-11 CET/2-5 EST)
A/V Media Production II (Moviemaking) (11:30-2:30 CET/5:30-8am EST)
Painting & Photography (3-6 CET/9-12pm EST)

Fridays
No classes

I’m positive that I’ll have enough credits to transfer back to be considered full-time at home, despite the lack of response from the people running the program at UMBC. Nothing new there, I suppose.

It’s been a gray day in Valencia today. Most days seem to fly by; It’s a bit of a surprise that it’s the middle of February already. Today I’m about a forth of my way through my time abroad. (January through February 15, the rest of February and March, April to the middle of May, the rest of May and June).

Today I’ve just been hanging out, doing laundry and making sure my schedule is in order. Tomorrow I’ll find out if I’ve been approved for the classes I’ve asked for. The Spanish higher education system (at least the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia’s system) is an interesting, and, most of the time, frustrating thing.

I had what I like to call a potato cake for lunch today. I’m not sure what the actual name is, but I like to call it that in English. (Update: I checked the name of the potato patty on it’s packaging. It’s called a tortilla de patata) The hotdogs and cheese slices on top are the pièce de résistance. For a snack I slathered some toast with nutella and threw on some peanuts. Eating at its healthiest! I plan on getting out and sampling some seafood very soon. Maybe some seafood paella?

Photos of today’s culinary creations below…

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

I went to a several hour walk today, just taking in the city. I visited the older area of the city and walked along the old riverbed of the Turia River, now an area filled with greenspace (gardens and such). View the photos by clicking the link to continue on, below.

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Today I went for a walk to the Ciudad de las Artes y de las Ciencias (The City of Arts & Sciences). It’s a huge complex of serveral buildings that contain an opera house, planetarium, aquarium, and science museum. One day soon, I hope to make into some of the buildings, especially the aquarium and planetarium. I took a lot of photos, but I’ve included are just a few of them below.

Click below to continue on to the photos…

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There’s a cold going around the apartment, and it’s going from flatmate to flatmate. It started yesterday for me. I guess it was only a matter of time before I got it.

I did however make it to the beach today. It’s way to cold to actually enjoy the beach, but I thought I’d go see what it was like. Of course I took some photos…

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This week I’ve been attempting to get schedule straightened out. I won’t know if I get the classes I want until February 16. I’ve attended three classes so far. On Tuesday I went to Foundations of Animations, which was partially in English. Since it was heavy on drawing, I didn’t really want to spend the semester doing that. Today I went to Conservation and Restoration of Sculpture and Painting and Photography. The conservation and restoration class wasn’t in English as it was advertised. One of the students knew English and helped me and my fellow foreign exchange student – from Finland – to understand what the professor was attempting to tell us. He said that it was a difficult class for Spanish students so it would be pretty hard for us if we didn’t speak much Spanish, but if we wanted to stay we could. I chose not to. I wonder why the course listing on the Internet would show it being in English if it’s not. In the Painting and Photography class, which is in Spanish (you’d think this is Spain or something!), I found out my mentor and her friends are also in the class. I hope I get to stay in the class after the 16th.

I’ve taken photos of my dinners for the past three days (I know, a bit silly, just practicing my food photography skills):

Photos moved to Culinary Creations page. Click the link in the upper right to check out the photos.

Today I moved into my new, more permanent room. I’ve included some photos. Click the link below to view them.

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