Naranjas Valencianas

Plaza de la Reina

Just got back from a long weekend in one of the loveliest Spanish cities I’ve seen: Valencia. We were lucky to have even arrived seeing as how an hour after we landed, airport workers began their strike and the entire Madrid airport shut down. Thankfully we made it.

Mediterranean with Kate and Sarah

I was unimpressed by the beach and more than impressed by the food, the people, and the vibe of the city. We arrived via the world’s slowest moving subway, representative of a fairly laid-back city. Though it’s the 3rd largest in Spain, you’d never guess by the homey feel and the friendly people. We ate our way up and down the streets, walking far enough in between to merit more food stops. Day one: dinner, gelato, see the main plaza. Day two: starbucks, park, shopping, asian food, cathedral, tower, picking oranges, paella, agua de valencia. Day three: starbucks, arts and science museums, aquarium, oranges, cooking. Day four: beach, pier, kebabs, clementines, old walls, American food, sangria.

The home of paella. Which came with "shots" of chicken stock...less delicious

The oranges in Valencia truly are bomb. No exaggeration. Sarah even stole one from a tree.

As you can see, much of day revolved around what foods we needed to try and what ones we needed to have because we missed them and can’t get them in León. Starbucks felt strangely like home- especially with the Christmas decorations and the names on the cups and the employees with red aprons. The hostel treated us well; we had a family style dinner that we cooked with an interesting new friend of ours, who we will call Ryan, though I’m not entirely convinced that’s his real name.

Mini model of the playground

Real size playground of Gulliver...see the slides in his hair?

Accidently ran across the coolest.playground.ever. In the shape of Gulliver from Gulliver’s travels. Definitely not kid safe or U.S. approved, but Spain embraces the slippery stairs and no-railing, elevated walkways. But it was safe enough for me! And I tested out Gulliver’s jacket lapel slide and nearly took out a small child.

The science and art buildings

We spent an entire day down by the arts and science museums. The buildings were the coolest part, the inside of the aquarium was actually underwhelming. Save your 25 euro and hold onto some of your idealistic ideas of lovely foreign Spanish families and skip going inside. There were lots of fish and lots of children banging on the tanks, lots of parents smoking and drinking beer and ignoring their children, and then there was me. Yelling at Spanish children who were wrestling on the floor in the middle of the museum. I hope their parents heard me.

 Jungle Book trees at the park

Christmas decorations plus palm trees minus snow 

Also, it’s become a super bad habit to talk about people who are around me because I assume they can’t understand English. But there goes that good plan as our little “Japanese” friend who “didn’t speak English” turned out to be a Japanese-American who speaks better English than I do. As for the Spanish people at the aquarium: yes, I was talking about you and your misbehaved children and your lazy attitudes towards parenting and the way you blow smoke in my face and walk into me or stand unnecessarily close to me in line. I feel quite blessed with my little Spanish friends, family, and students after seeing how bad it could be. Some of them are beyond lovely, and as with any culture and any country, you take the good with the bad.