A New Beginning

I arrived here on the 20^th of September. I caught a flight from Budapest to Madrid and then a bus from Madrid to Murcia. I arrived sometime around 5:30am. As I still hadn’t found a place to stay in Murcia, I didn’t really know what to do. I sat for a while at the bus station. A Romanian guy came up to me, and started talking. He started off with asking for my name, then by the end of the conversation he was asking for my number. After a while, I got tired of this first Murcian experience, and went to the station’s café, which had opened just after 6. My new “friend” followed me. He sat down at my table. There was a TV in the café and I pretended to be engrossed in what was playing, even though the same program was playing over and over again. He finally got the message and left. 

La Catedral

By the time I had finished my coffee, it was still only 6:30. I was told that the station’s information centre opened at 7. I waited, exhausted after the long travel from Budapest. I finished my book (“Eva Luna” by Isabel Allende, which I highly recommend!) over the last sandwich I had made for my trip. Once the information centre opened, I was able to put my suitcases into a locker. With a much lesser load, I rode off into the horizon (or sunrise at least) in search of my future university-for –the-semester. I had a reunion booked for midday. So I still had a fair few hours to kill… 

The ancient murals (the small one against water and the tall one against attackers)

I bought myself a map and got my bearings. Murcia looked pretty big. To my surprise, it turned out to be quite the opposite! On my map I located the river, Río Segura (Secure river), and decided to see some water (very rare in this region of Spain). There I found some native birds and a very pretty view. I walked alongside the river up until the oldest bridge in the city, named Ponte Viejo (Old Bridge – how original). I later found out that a long-long time ago this bridge was made of wood, and caught fire. Because the bridge was so important in the lives of the people of Murcia (it was the sole contact between Old Murcia and the then New Murcia), it traumatized them. To this day people cross themselves every time they cross this bridge, even though it is of course no longer made of wood, nor then a fire risk. Half a bus’ passengers can be seen doing it, too.

Río Segura

I found Murcia’s main street, la Gran Via, and walked along it. Somewhere to the right would be my university. The turn-off was closer than it seemed on the map, and I walked through some little streets until I came to the entrance of La Universidad de Murcia, Campus de La Merced. The university has three campuses, my one being La Merced, another Campus de Espinardo, and a third found in San Javier, a city on the coast. What campus you are assigned to depends on what faculty you are a student in. I was thankful to be studying languages, as my campus is smack-bam in the middle of the city :)

My university's courtyard