Erasmus: Thoughts on Arriving in a New Country

Hello there! Here is my first update about my Erasmus semester abroad in Valencia!

I've now been in Valencia for a little over two week and my first week here has actually been a real emotional roller-coaster. I arrived in Valencia on Wednesday 06/09/17 and I had booked two nights in a hostel, because I thought I'd easily find an apartment in two days. Well, it looked quite promising in the beginning and I was able to visit a very nice room in a shared apartment. Unfortunately, I didn't get it. This started a kinda downward spiral for me. I visited some more apartment but either got declined or I didn't get an answer at all. I wrote a lot of people in Facebook groups who were looking for flatmates but then as soon as I wrote them they weren't anymore... I got sooo frustrated!!! I had to book two more additional nights in the hostel because I wasn't able to find anything, and apparently hostels can get quite expensive over the weekend....

But then one evening, I was feeling really bad because I just visited another apartment but instantly knew this was not going to work out, I received a message on Facebook. A girl wrote me and asked if I was still searching for a room. She was living with her boyfriend and their two dogs in an apartment in Benimaclet (a lot of students live there and it's very nice) and they wanted to rent  a room in their apartment to an Erasmus student for a few months. It seemed to perfect to be real! We got along really well while writing and two days later, on Sunday (they had to work on Saturday), I went over to their place to visit it and an hour later I kinda moved in. And now I'm living with two super nice people and two cuuute doggos! It was like fate wanted me to get turned down by all these other people haha! I still have to get used to living in a shared apartment though, I think. It's much more fun than living alone, though! 

Uni started on Monday 11/09/17 and it is reaaally confusing! Mostly, because I don't know much Spanish (Hola, qué tal?) and when they explained how to enroll and how to apply to courses I didn't understand anything. I think I've kinda figured it out now, but it's still confusing. I'm glad my courses are in English! Although sometimes the professors start talking Spanish in between and everyone starts laughing.... (jeez, just make your jokes in English, I want to have a laugh, too!!). The teachers are really good though, they are definitely experts in the subjects their teaching and they are really passionate about their fields. There's little better than people who are very passionate about what they do!!

Finding friends is another thing I'm still trying to master. I've found some people who are very nice so far, but since I'm really bad at socialising the whole "becoming friends"-process is pretty slow. I just really hate small-talk and I don't really know how to be "superficial friends", I prefer having a somewhat deeper bond with people and to trust them, which is quite hard to achieve in just four-five months time I guess... I hope you understand what I mean haha.

I can't wait to explore more of the city and the whole country! It's really beautiful here, the weather is still soo good (25-30°C every day) and there is a lot to see. Now that I have a room and a more or less daily routine I can finally start really living here! Yay!

xx Conney