Un fin de semana en Valencia (A Weekend in Valencia)

This weekend Austin and I used our 37euro round trip tickets to go to Valencia. Valencia is Spain's third largest city and is located on the Mediterranean Sea, south of Barcelona and east of Sevilla.

There is so much I could tell and so many stories that I could go through about the weekend. There isn't time, though, and I imagine most of you are too busy to be able to read through them all properly. So I'll just recount the experience in a nutshell and then let the pictures do a lot of the talking. Valencia is on the water and surrounded by mountains, which makes it quite pretty, although at first Austin and I found the city itself somewhat lacking. There is a lot more sprawl and the historic city center itself needs a decent bit of restoration. That said, it grew on us. We started off feeling 'meh' about everything, but by the end our hearts had been won. The old city center, barrio carmen, is spectacular at night with its winding streets and hole-in-the-wall tapas bars hopping with young people. It felt a little bit like a more run-down version of Greenwich Village, I think.

The main thing that absolutely won our hearts, though, was La ciudad de artes y ciencias. Incredible, incredible, incredible. A series of very modern buildings housing a plethora of things (art museum, hands-on science museum, underground aquariums), la ciudad was built to rival Sevilla and Barcelona's expositions that they had in the past two decades (you can read more about it on wikipedia, I'm sure). The complex of la ciudad was breathtaking and wonderful and freeing all at once. I have never been around modern architecture that has given me the same feeling that nature gives me. This complex, though, did just that. It was a breath of fresh air. It was glorious to walk around in, glorious to take in. Glorious to explore. Just generally glorious. So, in the end, between the natural and man-made beauties of Valencia, it proved to be a wonderful weekend.

Me in the main square, in front of the Catedral (we climbed that tower; see next picture).

At the top of said tower! It was incredibly windy. But I also gel my hair that way sometimes for fun.

One of the main plazas at night. A very pleasant atmosphere. It was also hot -- 80s, we think -- which made the evenings perfect for walking around.

The mercat (Valencian for the Spanish 'mercado') is quite something. This booth is Spain, in a nutshell. Jamon like nobody's business and a ton of Manchego cheese. Yep. Cultural stereotyping at its finest.

Me and Gulliver. This one is for my dad. Austin and I were walking through the park that runs along the entire city to get to La ciudad de artes y ciencias when we came across this play structure. It took us awhile to figure out what it was all these kids were climbing on, but then we got it. It was a phenomenal play structure. What a good idea!

Finally we reach la ciudad de artes y ciencias... here are just some of the buildings behind me. Being, um... free? It was absolute architectural genius.

Austin was convinced that the decorative pools were actually meant for swimming. That is the science museum behind her, which proved to be very cool -- exhibits on comics, futuristic homes, etc. Lots of cool technology with very interactive stuff! Also, note how you can see the suburbia apartments behind it... it was so interesting how this modern area was just slipped between streets and streets of expanding apartment buildings...

In L'Oceanigrafic, the mostly underwater aquarium!! It was fantastic. I loved the architecture of these above-ground buildings. I felt a little bit like I was at the Sydney Opera House. Sort of. Ok, maybe not. (Also, yes, that is an Obama shirt.)

This Beluga Whale was glued against the glass, watching the little kids, the entire time we were there (15min) and probably longer. There was a crowd of little kids seated in front of the glass, talking to it (in Spanish, remember, so it was pretty adorable), laughing, touching the glass. The whale naturally looks like it's smiling, which made the interactions that much cuter. It made me happy. Two different species interacting, getting along. I felt similarly when we saw the walruses playing together... nature itself is just marvelous.

There are flamingos in the background, believe it or not. And I absolutely rock out as one of the pack. (In this complex, among other things we also saw a Dolphin show, which was phenomenal.)

At night/dusk, walking around (and for Angie, who complains when I don't put pictures of myself up).

So the building on the left is in imax theater. We went at 8pm to see a documentary about the oceans narrated by Kate Winslet and Johnny Depp. It was really well-done. It was also just cool to get to go in that building and see how it was built. Behind it is a building that has several different auditoriums that are used for a variety of things (musical concerts, etc). Maybe now you can see why we thought it was so impressive?

And one last random tidbit before I end on my schpiel of Valencia: people have pet ferrets. Like, we would be walking down the street and would see someone with a leash. We assumed it would be a dog. But upon closer look, NO, it's a ferret! Interesting. And gross, to be honest. They are not cute animals and it was a bit unsettling to see them out for a walk on the town. I know it's all cultural upbringing, but still. Not a fan. At least dogs are usually cute...

Despite the infestation of ferrets and other inconveniences (they were setting up for their yearly Carnival, which meant random throngs of people for various parades and people (age 3 and up) setting of snappers (type of firecracker) like there was no tomorrow), Valencia was a great escape for the weekend. I had a good time away from Sevilla and lots of good times with Austin. And now back to a packed week, complete with test in one of my classes (it's going to be HARD), before heading off to Santiago de Compostela next weekend...