Vivà Valencia!!

22.10.2005

Amazing how constrasting the vibrations of the two cities can be, like those of Madrid and Valencia. As soon as the bus pulled into the Valencia bus station, "I feeeel goood....I know that I should" Hmmms, maybe I should call this Adelina's Travel Musical!.

Everything just went smoothly..my shoulders thanked me as I found my hostel in no time, rooming with 2 others, Gillian, an American who coincidentally spent 6 months working in NZ previously and called it her 2nd home, and Ian, the Irish guy (yes girls, with killer accent). After he introduced himself, I think he was explaining that he was cycling through Spain, but with that amazing singsong melodic accent, he might as well have been reciting all the different parts of a bicycle to me and still I would be equally enchanted. Once again, the vibrations felt right about this hostel and its inhabitants and little did I know then that Valencia was about to become my favourite place in Spain!

23.10.2005

Irishboy Ian was sleeping in on his last day in Spain (Kev, I see now that sleeping is a revered institution in Ireland, I apologise for my giving you heaps earlier on this). So Gillian and I decided to go sighseeing together. To make up the Travelling Trio was Andrea (Italian for Andrew). He was also staying at the hostel and was in Valencia for a filming assignment (working for an Italian television company). You know how we girls often get hassled for taking forever to get ready to go out? Well, it's about time the tables are turned! Gill and I had to wait forever for Andrea! We should have known as soon as told he us he was going for a "quick shower", carrying 2 make-up bags (which I later discovered contained his shower stuff in one bag and his "body enhancement" items in the other). After a quick breakfast, we were off!!

Valencia is the 3rd largest city in Spain with a population of 3 million people. Located also at the southern coast of Spain, it is situated between Seville and Barcelona and just like its other southern cousins, it was blessed with the amazingly beautiful sunny hot weather, 33 degrees today, pheew! Melllltttting!

As today was Sunday where entries to all museums are free, we decided to take a stroll down the "dried up" riverbed and along the way, visit Valencia's Modern Arts Museum (only going because the other two wanted to go). Previously, there used to be a river that run across Valencia. In the 1950's the Valencian City Council decided to revert the part of the river in the city elsewhere in order to expand the city's perimeter. God knows why couldn't they just build a bridge across the river to enlarge the city! Annnnyway, as a result of this, the old river was dried up and it was turned into a gigantic park containing fountains, monuments, playgrounds, soccer fields amongst some of the things. The size of this riverbed isn't small either. The Length probably would have been a good 8 to 10km and the width would probably be 2 soccer fields side by side at an estimate. It was really a pleasant walk since it was so hot. As there were quite a lot to see along the way plus getting to know my two new friends, I didn't realise that we had walked the entire dried up river bed, all 3 hours of walking!

Gillian is best described as a free spirit. She graduated and then decided that the only responsibilities she was prepared to handle at that point in her life was to decide what place to travel to next. She was the closest to a laidback Kiwi as I have come across so far on my trip. We got along as well as two opposites can be. I was the kick in the butt she needed once a while to get going and she's the one that would slap me a few times to calm me down when I'm running around like a headless chook.

Andrea made both Gillian and I laughed out loud and snorting in an unladylike manner when he first started talking about himself. His first line was "Not sure if you guys noticed but I am not like how you would imagine an Italian man would be." It was so funny because what he said couldn't have been further from the truth. With his naturally curly thick hair smoothed by lots of greasy gel and tied at the back into a small ponytail, his tight black body hugging t-shirt and the lazy casual charm which he had in abundance and no shame or qualms in throwing around..who was he really kidding??!! His English was really limited but we did learnt that he was here training with some film crew on movie making. Another reason why he was SOOOoooOOO an Italian was that this man puts the "tense" in Intense!! He made me look like a pot smoking, chilled out Jamaican!He also possessed amazing musical talent..not just in singing, but more so in creating drum beats with various parts of his body. Seriously, he was a walking drumkit, able to mimick various bass and keyboard sounds with his mouth. All the way walking from the city to the dried up river bed, we caught everyone's attention, singing, humming or speaking in a wild mix of English, Spanish and broken Italian (mine). I think we would have been less obvious singing "Doe a deer" wearing mismatched curtain cut-outs!

The fountain at the centre of the riverbed.

Cute signs located all over the riverbed.

One that guides the bridge at the riverbed..reminds you of Gotham City?

We eventually reached our point of destination. As part of an international Science exhibition held not long ago in Valencia, the city built several state of the art modern buildings and a bridge and honestly, it was like walking onto the movie set of Star Wars. See for yourself!

The bridge over the riverbed.

The mothership has landed!

In a galaxy far far away...

Then we headed back into city and I took photos of some of the nice buildings in the city..

This is the "mercado", which is the city's wet market. Very impressive, you can find everything in there, from fresh vegetables, meat, fishes and fruits to coffee, croissants and stationery!

This is the Bullfight arena. Really impressive. It was closed that day so we couldn't go in but would have been great to see a bullfight, although not sure how they would respond to my red top, the bulls that is, not the Spanish men..

That reminds me..forgot to mention that when I was in Cadiz, you know how it was so hot? So I was walking around in shorts as you do in a summer like temperature..anyway, I caused 2 accidents! I was crossing this road and this guy on a scooter on the road I was crossing was turning onto the street I was walking on and he kept looking over at me and talking to me, wolfwhistling when he slammed right into the back of a small truck. Remarkably, his body suffered less injury than his ego I think. But what was worst, there was another guy on a scooter behind the first guy who did the same thing and so he slammed into the back of the first guy..so yeah...if you're a hot blooded Spanish male and you drive, you are likely to get killed on the road. I must say, Spain is definitely good for one's ego..being a novel asian in Spain or not, it is kinda flattering to walk by a group of really loud men jesting with one another and suddenly they all became quiet and just stared and stared until their eyes almost falling out of the sockets...so funny!

In the evening, the 3 musketeers, Gill, Andrea and I all went to have a typical Valencian Spanish meal, called Paella (pronounced Pahia). It's like Rissotto cooked with different range of spices and you can choose various toppings too, i.e with chicken or with salamis, with seafood and so on, very yummy! Another quiet night, Gillian reading her book and Andrea and I played chess. Starting to become like a Harry Potter movie..hmmms.

(To be continued...)