This past weekend we went to Cuenca and Valencia to visit the Cathedrals and the beach.
In Cuenca we first saw las "Casas Colgadas" or the hanging houses. They take their name because these buildings are literally carved into the hillside which creates a beautiful background for a small town.
Afterwards we went to see the Cathedral of Cuenca.
In Valencia we saw the Cathedral, La Lonja, and La Ciudad de Las Ciencias y las Artes. I liked this last place the most because it was a gigantic complex that included an aquarium, a science museum, as well as research facilities. They are still adding on and in the future it will include office space and condos.
By now I have found it a lot easier to communicate in Spanish. One of the biggest obstacles standing in my way of learning Spanish has always been the hesitation to speak because I may not be understood. The experience in Valencia made this clear because I realized that I was willing and desperate to talk to native speakers when I had the chance. After being here for about a month I have gotten over my self-consciousness of speaking a foreign language, and by doing so was able to expand my comfort zone of foreign people, places, and new experiences.
Looking back, there were a couple occasions where my race (black) initiated a preconceived notion of me to Spaniards. There are many black immigrants in Spain and Europe in general from Africa, and so the common assumption is that every black person is African or was not very far removed from the continent. The idea of black Americans does not occur to most Spaniards because their general culture and history do not emphasize people of African decent. Once, in a restaurant I was talking with a waitress and she seemed surprised I did not know anything about my culture because I did not know Swahili or some other African languages. She could not understand that I was so far removed from Africa because of history that I could never consider myself to be African. However, it made me realize that my outward appearance says "Africa" to them. They do not see the melting pot that Americans see America as because they are so used to only seeing Americans of European decent in Europe. To many Europeans, even the current president must seem like a foreigner because he is so closely tied to Africa in name and appearance.
