Day 31 - Second Level of Spanish!

Today I was supposed to start A2 (second level) of Spanish classes.  I've been so wiped out from the trip to Valencia I couldn't get out of bed.  So, I skipped today.  However, having done this class on my very first day at school, I thought it would be worth it to check in on my classmates from A1 and see how they fared on their first day.  All of them said they were lost.  So, in some ways, I should have probably stuck with the A2 classes as I was as lost as they are now.

In any case, I promised to post some more information on our trip to Valencia.  Again, it is a beautiful city in my mind.  It is much slower than Madrid and has a much more casual feel to it.  I never got to see the Mediterranean but I will see it in Barcelona in April.  Valencia seems a bit more "livable" than Madrid.  However, throughout Spain there is massive unemployment (22+%) and there is no real industry here other than tourism.   Still,Valencia appeared to me to be a "port city" and had many of the cranes I've seen along New Jersey's coast to accept boxcars of freight.  However, Valencia was probably more important in the Roman and Moorish eras than today.  But, they have seemed to turned that around.  It's a vibrant and interesting city unto itself.

One of it's coolest features is that it still has the old city gates from...I don't know when.  The walls of the old city have since been demolished but the main gate still stands.  You can't really get the gravity of the height of this ancient city entrance until you scale it yourself.  You clearly are 10 stories above the ground.  What's more is you can see how they built in the defenses - even inside the gate.  You can even see an opening in the center of the "wall" that they created just behind the gate where, if an enemy force got passed the main gate, they could throw boulders, pots of boiling oil or whatever else they could find to deter the invaders.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of that spot but here's a few that show what the fortress was really like.

Philip at the very top of the wall fortress (of course, with a Valencia flag flying).

A view down from the top, as the soldiers would have seen from an invading army.

The original gates to the city - still intact.  This was the first line of defense.

Archery openings at the very top of the wall defenses.

However, as the day progressed, we found it much less interesting.  Not because of the architecture or history but because of the hoards of people that were assembling in a political protest on March 11th.  That being the day of the Al Queda bombings on the Madrid trains on March 11th.  I never even thought that I'd be on a train on the anniversary of that event.