After spending my first weekend in Valencia, I hopped on a train from Valencia Nord to Gandia. The Universitat Politècnica de València has a campus in Gandia Beach, where I and around 80 other Erasmus students attended the intensive Spanish course.
# Regional Trains
Gandia is a coastal town which is in the south of the Valencian Community. In 2022 the Spanish Government introduced the Abono Recurrent for the Cercanias, the regional trains. The ticket costs ten Euros and is valid for four months for an unlimited number of rides in the area in which it is bought. It can be bought using the RENFE Cercanias App or at a ticket counter.
# Apartments
Almost all students booked the UPV-recommended rooms from Europa Inmobiliaria. I rented a double bedroom for 150 Euro (for 8 nights), which I shared with a student from Norway. The activities did cost 62 Euro extra. My Apartment had two more single bedrooms, which were occupied by another German student and an older gentleman from the Netherlands. The apartments are vacation homes and need renovation. They have no heating and are poorly insulated. They also come with a very thin blanked, which lead to almost everybody freezing at night. Ours also had no WiFi. They were close to everything, and so I could walk everywhere.
# Routine and activities
Our days were fully planned out. I did not expect that. My days started around 8:00, after a hot shower, to warm up from the cold night, and a small breakfast, I walked to the UPV campus for my first Spanish lesson of the day at 9:00. I attended the Level B1 course. The first lesson lasted till 11:30. Most of the time I went to a bakery, where I bought a Bocadillo, a big sandwich, and a Café Solo. The second lesson of the day started at 12:10 and lasted till 14:30. The lessons were a mixed combination of grammar, speaking and writing. After class, I usually went home for a siesta. Every day had an afternoon program scheduled: Beach Volleyball, Salsa dancing lesson, a hiking tour and a cooking lesson.
I would like to extend on the cooking class with Alberto el Crack. In class, I already learned that a typical Paella Valenciana is a Paella with rabbit and chicken. I was very excited to try this delicacy, but to my disappointment, Alberto did not bring any rabbit. Alberto later told me that tourists often won’t eat his paella with rabbit. He cooked in one big pan in front of everyone and sang his favorite songs while dancing a little at the same time. I found out later that Alberto is over 80 years old! Impressive.
There was a party every single night! Also, on two evenings, all students had dinner together. The parties were at the local bars and clubs in Gandia Beach and ones in Gandia City. I drank as much alcohol in those one and a half weeks as I had in the previous six months combined. I enjoyed the karaoke night the most. Partying every night made the class the next morning no easier, as I often slept only a couple of hours. There must be something like a Ballmer Peak for speaking a foreign language.
On some occasion, one girl said that the entire event “feels like a school trip”. I think this describes the intensive language course perfectly. It was like a school trip one does in 7th or 8th grade.
# People
The events were perfect to meet other Erasmus students and make some friends. From the telephone country codes in the group chat, I figured out that around 30% were from Germany, 25% from Norway, 18% from Sweden, and the rest from many other European countries, a few Americans and one Chinese girl.
My Norwegian roommate and I observed the group dynamics and found it very interesting how a group of young students get to know each other and all the awkward situations that come with that.
Meeting many other Erasmus students also helped me find an apartment. Before moving to Valencia, I booked an Airbnb for the time after the course, which would not have been necessary. I could have easily slept one or two nights on someone’s couch, before moving into my apartment. My Dutch roommate even offered me his guest room. I will write another short post about finding an apartment soon™.
# Spanish Lessons
In Munich, I attended an A2 and a B1.1 course in the last two semesters. Not feeling confident at B1, and the result of my placement test being A2, I enrolled in a B1 course for the intensive Spanish course in Gandia.
The following material from class I was able to understand in isolation:
- Briefly repeated the Presente, Pretérito Perfecto and Futuro
- Pretérito Indefinido: Used as for regular actions in the past and actions that do not have an effect on the present.
- Pluscuamperfecto: Used to describe actions that had already occurred before another past action or point in time.
- Imperfecto: Works similar to the English imperfect.
In the exam, however, I failed to use the correct time and got almost no points in the exercises about the tenses. I also struggled with the subjuntivo.
I also learned on how to express opinions, sentiments, obligations and ratings. From the new vocabulary, I picked up a little bit.
My teacher (Clara Ureña Tormo) was an exceptional and motivated teacher. She used different teaching methods, of which most were interactive and fun. I especially enjoyed interviewing people in the streets of Gandia and going to the supermarket to create a three-course Spanish menu.
# Food
My roommates and I cooked two typical Spanish dishes for dinner:
Tortilla de Patatas con Chorizos: We all made our first ever Tortilla de Patatas, an omelette with potatoes. To our surprise, it does not contain any cheese. We made it a bit too thick and also did not have the proper utilities to flip it. It still tasted good. I went to the supermarket to buy 1kg of Chorizos. The butcher looked confused at me when I ordered more than half of his Chorizos. I said that it is for 4 people, and we also want to have an after-party snack. He then explained to me that one usually gets a little bit of everything and not just 1kg of one kind of sausages, which in hindsight we should have done.
Gambas con Pimentos: The second typical dish we cooked was Gambas con Pimentos (shrimp with small green peppers) with leftover Tortilla and bread. Both the shrimps and pimentos were fried with a lot of oil and garlic. The Pimentos are seasoned with sea salt. Very delicious and served with white wine.
Besides the already mentioned Paella, I ate a lot of mediocre to bad pizza, which was served at the organized dinners. Me and some other students also ate at an Indian restaurant one evening, which was alright. I did not like the UPV cafeteria in Gandia.
# Coming back
Over all, I recommend taking part in the intensive Spanish course in Gandia. Especially to meet other students before the start of the semester. After one and a half weeks, I still felt happy to come back to Valencia. Gandia Beach feels empty in the off-season and before the start of the semester.