ValenciYEAH!

One, well two, of my goals that I set for myself by coming on this extended trip was to travel alone and couch surf.  I have traveled alone, as in taken planes or busses by myself, but each time I’ve traveled before now I met up with someone or went with someone else, and I had yet to really be in a city completely on my own devices.  Although this trip wasn’t quite traveling…I didn’t hop from place to place and spend days by myself, I still feel like it came close to what I wanted to do, and I’ll have to save travelling on my own for another time.  Anyway, deciding a destination wasn’t too hard, somewhere in Spain I hadn’t seen yet, close, maybe a beach…..VALENCIA!  Valencia isn’t too far away, only a 4 hour bus ride, it’s a decent sized city, with a beach, and some known food items that I wanted to try.  So Valencia it was.  I booked my bus ticket but then had to figure out some lodging.  Well why not couch surf, another thing I have wanted to do since I’ve been here.  I made a couch surfing profile one of the first weeks here, in anticipation to use it either to meet people in Madrid or for traveling, and it finally came in handy!  I sent out a general request, and got some answers, but decided to stay with Cosimo and his roommates Maria and Desireé. 

On the bus to Valencia, I realized I was more excited at the prospect of being alone in a new place and couch surfing and meeting new people than actually seeing Valencia.  Well I got to Valencia and once I stepped outside, I could feel the breezy beachy atmosphere; in the cooler temperature and salty taste in the air.  First task was to find the tourist office, not too hard right?  I asked people on the street how to get to the main plaza, cake.  And once there, I couldn’t find the dang office anywhere! I walked around the plaza like 5 times, up and down the side streets, asked people, went to the train station, which just sent me back to the plaza, and finally I noticed it.  I would call it a tourist kiosk rather than office…and there was no sign.  Shame on you ayuntamiento de Valencia.  It was also in the same type of little structure as the flower shops that surrounded it, so I had probably walked past it about 4 times without finding it. 

Tourism Kiosk

I only used the map that afternoon, but at that point, obtaining it became more of a personal challenge/vendetta than actually having a map to use... 

happy to FINALLY have my map.

 Well by this time, I was starving! So I walked towards the old historical quarter in search of some Valencian paella.  Found a cute little café and asked the lady outside if it was good, and sat down at a table outside.  I think this is also the first time I have eaten at a restaurant by myself, which Stan has always suggested I do at some point in my life.  Not a bad experience.  I got ensalada Valenciana and paella Valenciana.  The salad was good and fresh, and then came the paella.  Not the first time I have had paella, but Valencian paella is supposed to be something out of this world.  It was good…but not really anything out of the ordinary.  It had chicken, beans, and snails in it too, and came with a big slice of lemon, my favorite! 

ensalada valenciana

paella valenciana

Since I was being adventurous, I decided to eat one of the snails.  Well the first one I picked up, I couldn’t get out of the shell.  But the second one came out rather easy.  But then I looked at it, and it was indeed a snail.  I have taken a few too many biology courses (namely zoology) and knew the parts on the snails body that I had a hard time convincing myself to eat it, so I decided to ruminate and let little snaily man sit on the side of my place.  Well after an internal conversation back and forth, debating about whether or not to eat the snail and wishing Stan was there to just dare me to do it, I took a forkful of rice, put mr. snail on it, and munch, munch, munch.  A little chewy, but it blended in with the rice, and definitely wasn’t as bad as that one time I ate an anchovy. 

mr. snail

 Next, I explored some of the historical quarter, walked around the old streets, and then went to meet Cosimo.

Historical building

Plaza del Ayuntamiento

I wasn’t sure how he would find me in the big plaza, but I saw him walking over, thought it might be him, and he came straight toward me.  We went to his 8^th floor apartment (with a very nice balcony) right off the main plaza and he showed me around, and I got to drop my stuff off.  Then we went to tour the city.

Valencia has this cool park that does the east to west stretch of the city, and is called a rio, but there is no water.  Anyway, we crossed one of the many bridges into the park and walked toward ciudad de las artes y las ciencias, where there are some crazy architectural strucutres, all built by this one dude with a crazy modern style (one looks like a space ship and another is supposed to be an eye) and they are all white and tiled, with torpedo trees and weird pools around them.  They all have some museums inside, and one is the aquarium, which is one of the biggest in Europe. 

Giant Gulliver play structure (from Gulliver's Travels) in the middle of the park

The architecture in Valencia was pretty cool in general, with modern buildings next to old building and all these different styles.  

space ship building

Eye building

 Next we went out and met one of Cosimo’s friends, who is a true Valenciano for a beer and then had Horchata, which is different than Mexican horchata and apparently Valencia is where this drink originated and it is made out of some fruit/nut thing called a tiger nut.  Very yummy.   

Horchata

Cosimo and I made dinner and ate with one of his roommates Maria.  We had  a salad with fresh mozzarella and Cosimo made spaghetti Bolognese with real Italian sauce.  He actually said he isn’t much of a chef, but the pasta was super good! 

At night…or early morning depending on how you look at it, we went to a bar/club where one of Cosimo’s favorite mash up artists, Zombie Kids, was djing.  We went with Cosimo’s roommate Dessy and some of her friends.  It was super fun, filled with Spanish people dancing and the club was giving out free shots people were mashing, the dj was throwing alcohol from the stage; a very enriching and cultural experience.  We didn’t actually get into the club until 4 (we had been driving around to pick up Dessy’s friends phone and then ran into some of her friends, and then before actually going into the club, we had to botellón a little bit.)  Anyway, by 6:30 I was pooped.  When we got out, for some reason I was surprised that the sun was coming up…but it was 7 am.

The crew. Dessy bottom right and Cosimo top right.  The other two are Dessy's friends

We slept until 2, had some spaghetti leftovers for lunch, and headed to the beach!  Tanning was a treat, and just laying out in breezy salty air was so refreshing, but swimming in the Mediterranean was when I really felt like I was on vacation. 

Da Mediterranean  

Anyway, went back to Cosimo’s apartment (with a quick kabob in between), packed up and headed out to the bus station again, btu this time, via metro.  Had a little trouble getting a new metro ticket (I was short 15 cents for the 1.45 euro fare, and the only other money I had was a 20 euro bill, and the machine would only take 5s and 10s, but finally some nice woman gave me the 15 cents and I was on my way.  The bus was the express bus (the only one leaving Valencia at night but not tooo late so I could still get back to Madrid when the metro was running), so although it was more expensive, I had a really cushy seat, wifi, and we didn’t make the typical pit stop on the way, but there was a bathroom on the bus. 

All in all, a great relaxing party weekend!  Cosimo and I also only spoke in Spanish, so my Spanish improved immensely, I got to see a new place (now I can say I have been to the East, South, West, and soon to go to the North of Spain), meet some really fun and cool new people (thanks Cosimo, Maria, and Dessy), ate some great food (as always) and have a another great memory to add to the archives.