Kevin Lutes

It’s the fifth day with our homestay families, who at least in my case have been saints in putting up with my horrible Spanish. Today we also had our second class, where we talked about the different ways people perceive and process cultural differences; a very relevant topic considering many of us have never left the United States. Many of us fall in the same area of the continuum, so we will no doubt be able to help each other get past our shortcomings to get the best understanding of this new culture we can in the short time we’re here.
After lunch at our homestays, we took a bike tour of the park in the old river bed of Valencia.

Everyone ready to explore the river bed

Not all being avid cyclists, a lot of people in our group were understandably hesitant to ride a bike in the city. Personally, having not ridden a bicycle since I was eleven, I assumed my face was destined to be together with the ground. After trying to ride the bike for the first time, I concluded that the term “just like riding a bicycle” isn’t always accurate. I tried riding it a good six times before we even got to the starting point of the ride. All six failed. Fortunately, Mario, one of the ISA staff, was able to pretty much reteach me how to ride a bike in the next fifteen minutes. The park is huge, with our bike ride being around 12 miles. I personally wasn’t able to enjoy the scenery for the first few miles because every minute I almost had a wipeout. But somehow we managed to make it through with only a couple of mishaps. At one point in our tour, two people took a wrong path and separated from the group. We waited for about 15 minutes, understandably worried, but got in touch with them and met them at the end of the tour. It was at that point that a second problem arose. While waiting for the two, I had set down my backpack, and then taken off without it. Being the smart man that I am, I had put my wallet, keys, and even phone in it. Pretty much every resource I had, but my passport. After a mild to severe panic attack, Mario found my backpack, contents intact. It was a huge relief, and it’s a pretty good wake up call to be vigilant in this big city, because losing something here can be so much more dangerous than in the U.S. It also let me know I now owe Mario quite a bit. After the jubilation from me recovering my backpack, about half of us went to a corner in the city center to get fries and helado. After the two crises and re-figuring out how a bike works, it was a good end to the day.