Relaxing Through Valencia!

So, the second stop on my Spanish adventure was Valencia. Think Southern California--palm trees, expensive materials, pretty colors and now mix it with European squares, architecture and culture. There you have it, folks, VALENCIA!

So, after a quick morning saying goodbye to my friends, I rushed off to the train for Valencia. So, when I think of trains, even long distance ones, I think of TRAINS, but the trains here were not trains. Sure, they looked like trains from the outside, but when you step in you were in a PLANE! I SWEAR! Look at the photo yourself:

After my three hours nap upon my train-plane hybrid, I arrived in beautiful, sunny, hot Valencia. Arriving at 2pm is a great idea in another country, but in Spain that is siesta time, and the city was DEAD! I took the 15 minute walk to my hostel, past some beautiful buildings and areas, nice and slow to see the area and then arrived at a terrific hostel. It was so welcoming, everything there is free and they have a roof deck. Also, that same night they were providing a Paella lesson, complete with the eating of said Paella and Sangria for 8 euros. My food network side kicked in and I signed up and went for a walk before the class would start. The first place I saw was te main square, which has rose marble floor and beautiful palm trees surrounding it.
It was breath taking. Then, I walked around the area and found one of my favorite pieces of street art in all of Europe. It made my day to see this piece of artwork hanging right next to a beautiful cathedral! Then, I walked to Plaza de la Virgin which has a beautiful fountain and a great feel. I sat there, reading my book and looked all around because there was so uch to see there. The fountain is beautiful!
And, upon closer look, I found a RAINBOW Pigeon on it. How or Why it is rainbow is a mystery to me, but it was and I have photographic evidence to prove it!
Then, I went back to my hostel for the Paella experience of a lifetime. A very cute chef from the area demonstrated how to make Paella in front of a group of about twenty young people. Here he is throwing some veggies into his gigantic paella pot! He first had oil in the pot and fried up rabbit, duck, chicken, artichokes, green beans and butter beans. Then, he added water and let a broth develop. Then, he added in the ride and spices and stirred it for 5 minutes. After the five minutes it looked like this. Then, for ten minutes he let it cook, completely untouched. When it was all done it looked like this. YUM! Then, we feasted, chatted, drank sangria and had a terrific time. Then, instead of going out on a pub crawl, I stayed in and hung out with some people I met in the hostel before going to bed at a slightly reasonable hour.
Then, the next day I rented a bike and went to the local market to prepare a picnic lunch. The market is really beautiful and it has EVERYTHING you could ever want. This is what it looks like, but this is in the middle looking in one direction so it is twice as long as this seems and has about 4 or 5 rows, plus a separate area for fish. So, basically its HUGE for such a small city. And each stall specializes in something, fruit, veggies, meat (either all kinds but more commonly JUST chicken or JUST beef or JUST pork or something else) and some have some funny specialties. For example, this place ONLY sells eggs: And this one only serves Ham (Jamon)!
Then, I took my bike to a park and rode it to the beach. The park is a dried up, redirected (by Man) riverbed. It is really cool, and is lower than the street so still has bridges going over it. Here is an example, and this is the oldest bridge still standing over the "river"! The beach was great, and had mountains in the background. I rested, swam in the warm water and had a terrific day on the beach. On the way home I took my bike through the City of Arts and Sciences. It is an area filled with museums but all the buildings are built in terrific modern architecture.
Then, I grabbed some Asian food for dinner because I was missing all food other than Spanish food, and hung out with some friends I made in the hostel until bed time!
The next day I went on a walking tour and saw some terrific sites and buildings in Valencia. This first building is a museum of Roman Ruins in the city and below that pool of water you can see the Roman baths. They always think of cool way to show off ruins in Europe! Then, we also saw this old palace that is now a ceramics museum. I didn't go inside, but judging from the outside, I am sure it is BEAUTIFUL!
Then, I went back to the hostel and met up with some friends. We decided to go for a walk and grab some Horchata, a drink made from sweetened tiger nuts. The nuts are sweet, and lots of sugar is added and it is drank ice cold. It is really yummy and is a lot like an almond milk but creamier and sweeter. I had lots more of them throughout my travels, because it is so refreshing, especially when its 90 degrees out every day!
The next day, I went to the Medeval tower gate and climbed to the top. It was built in 1342 and still standing and FREE! What could be better? It is really cool looking, too!
Climbing to the top wasn't too hard but really allowed you to see the city. It isn't too high, but nothing in the city really is, so its easy to see the city, and all the pretty red roofs against the blue sky! Then, I asked a very nice looking girl to take my picture form the top, and here I am! Then, after talking to her, I found out she was also from Massachusetts and we ended up talking for a while. It was nice to talk to someone who also knew Boston and was from "home". The I
went to this tapas restaurant call 100 Montadillos, 100 sandwiches, and It has a menu with over a hundred sandwich choices all 1 euro to 1,50! They are all small, so I ordered 4 and some french fries, and they were delicious! That night I hung out with my friends before taking an early train to Barcelona the next day! All in all, I had a terrific time in Valencia but I was soooo looking forward to Barcelona and I was so excited to get there and see everything I could!

Dancing Through Madrid!!!

Hello All! I had an absolutely amazing time in Spain and am going to try to post a very good description of my trip and all the wonderful things I saw! It was great to travel alone because I was able to make all my own decisions and also meet so many people from all around the world. It was an unforgettable, amazing experience!
First Stop, Madrid. I got to my hostel around 9pm, which is dinner time in Madrid. I put down my bags and found out that later that night there would be a pub crawl, so I went out in search of food before the festivities. But first I saw this and it made me feel much better in my new, exciting but a little scary, trip alone. Then, after walking around, I decided to go to a place that was selling montadillos (mini sandwiches) for 2 euro. The one on the right had ham (bacon, as they call it) melted brie and a spicy tomato sauce. The one on the left had fried cheese and caramelized onions. Needless to say, it was a warm welcome into Spanish food. They were delicious and cheap! Then, I went on the pub crawl and made some great friends, many of which I continued to hang out with for my entire time in Madrid.
Then, the next day was my walking tour, Where I learned all about the city and saw many interesting buildings and things. The tour guide was great and we started at this statue, the symbol of Madrid.
It is a bear eating berries form a tree, berries which if eaten ripe, are alcoholic. It is on every trashcan, major sign and even carved into the sidewalk occasionally. We saw so many beautiful things and heard some terrific stories. One of my favorite places was the palace, which was breathtaking. Here I am in the palace gardens in front of the fountain! And here is the palace, which is so big it is hard to get a picture of the entire building.
Then, we walked all around the city and over to a street called Grand Via. Grand Via was rebuilt sometime recently to mimic US Art Deco styles and, to me, is much more beautiful and lavish than anything I have seen in America. Here is the building at the beginning of the street. It was also a great area for restaurants, shopping and just hanging out.
And after all that walking, food was needed. The tour guide showed us a place with paella that he raved about, and it was pretty tasty. I got paella mixto, which had seafood and chicken. We also all shared pitchers of sangria and feasted on tapas--chicken wings, marinated veggie salad, potato salad and bread with tomato and oil. It was delicious. Here it is, before I dived in and ate it all up! Yum!

Then, the next day I went to The Renia Sofia Museum. Here I saw some terrific paintings by Dali, Miro and Picasso. They also have la guernica, which is much larger than you ever thought possible and amazing. (CAUTION: Nerd Moment Alert!!) I also went to a temporary exhibit at that museum all about the Ready Made Movement and how Duchamp and his Readymades including the Bottle rack, which I SAW!!! CRAZY!! Here it is. Then, it was all more contemporary artists who used readymade as a concept to create more detailed and complicated readymade projects. Much of the art here was made form household items and it was all terrific. There was even an entire hall way filled with tires staked and piled in various places. I loved it. Then, I went to the train station to buy my train tickets for the entire trip. The old section of the train station no longer has trains and they put a tropical garden in its place. There are all sorts of plants and more turtles than you have ever seen! I had to wait for almost an hour to get up to the teller, but it was okay because I was in a tropical oasis. It was so cool. Then, after consulting my "Lets Go Europe" book, I found a place to eat lunch. For an appetizer, entree, dessert, 1/4 liter of wine and a roll you pay only ten euros, and the food was amazing. Here is my artistic(I wish!) picture of the restaurant, complete with my wine glass and cool menu. The restaurant is called Bazaar and is decorated with cool bottles of water, tins of tea and bags of rice, much like a market. For an appetizer I had gazpacho, because I was in Spain and it was almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside! It was delicious! I don't usually love gazpacho but this one was creamy and smooth. I loved it. Since I do not speak Spanish, the entree was a slight gamble. I saw the word Atun (tuna) and decided to give it a try. It was stewed pieces of tune in a rich broth and also amazing. It had a slight kick to it and also a very tangy lemon element. Then, after all that food, I was stuffed and opted for the plain yogurt and sugar, a popular dessert here in Holland as well, for a light and yummy dessert. It was an unforgettable lunch and, needless to say, i returned there during my trip.
The next day a friend i made, Jennifer, and I went on an adventure to a free museum recommended to us by one of the people who worked at the hostel. It was called The Caxia Forum, which many major Spanish cities have. It is a great building, which has an entire "green" wall, covered in plants. The first floor, that you walk into, is actually all outside and you must enter a aluminum stair case in order to enter the building. There we saw a photo contest about world change and suffering, which was cool and an exhibit with photos and film excerpts on Fellini, the Italian director. It was an amazing exhibit and we spent nearly 2 hours in that one room! Then, we went to the major park in Madrid, which was beautiful. Here I am, standing on top of a staircase in front of a terrace. It was beautiful! Then, we wondered around and found some beautiful things, including a building called the glass palace. It is so cool and is the location for some of the readymade art from the Renia Sofia. You cannot see the art in this picture, but you can see where the glass palace got its name. After another long day of walking, we decided to get our Spanish lunch (starts around 1:30 or 2pm) at the same place I went the day before. We both had an appetizer of a salad with tostas--and the tostas had a salad of roasted eggplant, peppers, garlic and onions. YUM! Here is a picture of Jennifer with her roasted turkey leg with veggies. For the main course I had a delicious beef stew with mashed potatoes. Then for desert we had Flan, and here I am so excited to start eating mine! It was a terrific meal and we both enjoined it (and each others company) a ton! But, after wards, we needed a nap. Then, we went to the Prado Museum, which is the national Spanish art collection, and we saw possibly 100 pictures of Jesus in so many different positions, ages and colors. But, its free for the last 2 hours of the day, so we were fine with just browsing through and then going home for the tapas tour! We had snagria and tapas form the first bar and the second bar we had a traditional Spanish Apple Cider, which had to be pushed through a speacial aerator for each person. Here I am doing it! Then, one friend I made in
Madrid, Milad, and I decided to have a fun night on the town. We went to a bar and had a few jager bombs while dancing and meeting lots of Spanish people. They are all so friendly! Here we are, enjoying our night! Then, it was bedtime and an early train ride the next day to Valencia. There is so much to say, I will have to do a post on Valencia another time! As you can see, my trip was off to a fantastic start!