So, Valencia: the first day, Friday, we left at 7:30 a.m. and stopped at around 10:30 for a ginormous breakfast at some castle-esque hotel on the top of a mountain (funny I should say that, since the end of our breakfast conversation featured much quoting from "Anchorman"). Our breakfast included Spanish tortilla, migas (bread-crumb-and-meat combo thing, very strange but kind of tasty), longaniza (little sausages), plus the usual bread, orange juice, and coffee. TOO MUCH FOOD. I ate a lot, still exhausted from running around the night before.
From there, we drove the rest of the way to Valencia, and arrived at our [four-star!] hotel at around 2:30. We had free time until 5 p.m., when we were going to go out to look at a couple of the main monuments in the city. I, in all my fury and frustration at not being able to watch the US vs. Slovania game, was all in a huff for a while, and ended up leaving m
y room at around 5:15, with my stomach hurting a bit, angry about not catching the game, and kind of sad thinking about the fact that my brother was graduating from high school that day, and I wouldn't get to see him. I walked by myself towards the second spot on the tour that everyone had gone on, which was the Plaza de la Reina. As I walked, I calmed down because I got to take my time, by myself (i.e. not having to make idle conversation with anyone), and could stop to take pictures whenever I wanted. Then, of course, just our luck, it started raining, and it was like a deluge for about 10 minutes, during which time I took shelter at the door to The Body Shop near the Corte Ingles. I stopped feeling so angry when I realized that there was nothing I could do about the silly rain, and that I should enjoy my time in Valencia because we would only be there till Sunday anyway.I met up with the group at the Cathedral, and went up the [207!!] steps to the top of the bell tower, which is called the Miguelete. The plaza around the
cathedral was really nice, and the view from the top of the Miguelete was awesome. It was a really beautiful day, despite the rain (the downpour was seriously the work of one lone giant grey cloud. As you can see, the rest of the sky was a perfect, almost cloudless blue, and the sun was out the whole time). When I caught up with the group at the top of the tower, I found out I actually hadn't missed anything, because they'd skipped the first building on the agenda and had just gone straight to the cathedral. I latched on to one of the groups (there were different groups, each with a tour guide) and continued on our way through the city.
From the cathedral, we went to this other building called the Lonja, which was some sort of castle kind of thing. In the main room, there were these beautiful rib vaults, and twisting spiral columns which I liked very much. Here, the tour guide told us about the Valencia crest, which we saw everywhere: it has the Valencia coat of arms, with a crown on top, and a bat on top of the crown. I forget what the bat is supposed to stand for, but oh well. It's a pretty cool crest.Things that I do know about Valencia: it's the third biggest city in Spain, after Madrid and Barcelona, with 812,000 inhabitants. It was incredibly important back in the day because of its access to the Mediterranean, making it a key place for trade (I believe it also has two significant rivers nearby or running through it). Valencia is also known for being the place where the eleventh-century hero Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar ("El Cid") died in battle, defending the city during the wars against the Arabs. Finally, Valencia has its own dialect, Valenciano, which is some crazy mix of Spanish, French, and Italian. I never heard it spoken, but it was definitely heavily used in all the signs around the city. Very strange--at times it even almost looked like Latin. Apparently, it isn't widely spoken, but it's definitely prevalent in writing.
Anyway. After the Lonja, we got
free time, so I wandered around the city with Sophie, Kentrel, Kevin, Dashell, and James. We didn't really have any specific place we wanted to see, so we basically turned wherever we felt like it. We actually saw a LOT of the city in the course of about an hour. I was exhausted (my feet hurt quite a bit) by the time we sat down. But it's good that we walked around, because we didn't really get to do that during the rest of the weekend, and we ran into some cool places. We saw this unbelievable tree in the Columbus plaza (seems like there's a lot of those throughout Spain), and we spent a few minutes in the Mercado Colon, which is like a big market (mostly selling breadstuffs and coffee inside), where there were some children running around. Dashell played soccer with them for a little bit.From there, we went to find a place to sit and watch the game and have dinner. I bought myself a salad, because I was feeling kind of sick...my stomach was still hurting, and I really didn't feel like anything remotely greasy or even meaty (which is a true sign that I am unwell). We watched the soccer game between England and Algeria, and it may have been the most boring game I've ever seen. 0-0 at the end. No one did ANYTHING. I was falling asleep while watching. After the game, we walked back to the hotel (once it had stopped raining so hard), and I went to bed as soon as I wrote the previous blog entry.
Then I spent an awful night barely sleeping, because the stomachache turned into Disaster of the Century, so I spent the night partially in bed and partially in the bathroom, and 100% uncomfortable. But at least when I woke up in the morning, I felt better, and got to talk to the family on Skype after Andy's graduation. Still, my stomach continued to be grumbly throughout the early part of the day, which was unfortunate.
Okay, must run...to be continued!
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