So, Valencia, day 2 (Saturday):
I woke up at like 7:30 a.m. to talk to the family on Skype, since they'd just returned from Andy's graduation a few hours before. I loved getting the chance to talk to them and hear about Andy's graduation, because I was so sad that I had to miss it, and because talking to them made me feel better about my awful night spent half in the bathroom and half in bed not being able to sleep. After talking to them, I showered and went down to the hotel restaurant for a pretty small breakfast (difficult to do, because there was such a great spread of food for us, including Cocoa Krispies, which for some reason seemed really enticing). The whole group left the hotel at 10:15 to go to the "Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias," which is a building complex in Valencia consisting of five rather cool modern buildings designed by Santiago Calatrava.
We visited two of them: first, the Hemisferic, which has a big dome that they use for IMAX projections and things like that. We watched a 45-minute movie about Egyptian pharaohs inside. It mostly reminded me of planetarium shows I've seen. It was interesting (and the listening devices that we had strapped to our heads were hilarious), but I was crazy sleepy, so I definitely fell asleep a couple of times throughout the movie.
I liked the second part of our visit a LOT more (as did, I think, everyone else): we visited the Oceanografic--aquarium! God, I love aquariums. I think I associate aquariums with that great field trip I took with Miss Batista's class in third grade, so going to aquariums always makes me feel like a little kid.
Also, animals are just ridiculously cool. We saw penguins, dolphins, many sharks, seals (I loved them...there was one who was just hanging out with its head back, bobbing up and down in the water. Such intense relaxation, in the sun of the BEAUTIFUL day we had in Valencia on Saturday), beluga whales (<3), pelicans...and a CRAZY-looking fish called the sunfish. I'd never seen it or heard of it before, but I swear, it was one of the weirdest animals I've ever seen (almost as weird as that bird thing Jenny, Nik, Christina and I saw in the L.A. Zoo in January). 
Good times with the animals.
From the aquarium, we headed back in the direction of the hotel, and stopped to have a long lunch all together. They served us this delicious smoked salmon on top of perfect, very fresh lettuce, which was amazing. I also finally tried croquetas, which are cheese-filled fried whatsits with little bits of meat on the inside. Really tasty, even though they unpleasantly remind me of those mashed-up-pork things that they sell at Porto's. We also had paella, since Valencia is known for its paella. I was beyond excited to find out that we were having chicken paella, as opposed to seafood paella (apparently, in Valencia, the two are never mixed). I really don't like seafood (besides sushi, haha) so I was really grateful for the chicken paella, which was delicious, especially whenever I came across a grain of rice that was just slightly burnt, OH so good. I didn't eat that much, given that my stomach had been so sensitive the night before, but I still had enough that I was crazy full on our way back to the hotel, which was causing me to basically fall asleep standing.
I decided to take an hour-long nap before going with a small group on a guided tour of the Museo de Cerámica. I lay down, knocked out, and woke up when Nay called me to ask if I was coming after all. I felt really bad because I thought I'd kept the group waiting, but apparently I was only like 5 minutes late. And hey, at least I got to take my desperately needed nap. The Ceramic Museum is the national museum for ceramics, and it was awesome. The facade is this really beautiful alabaster, with two personifications of Valencia's rivers on either side of the door.
We spent about an hour in it, looking at all the rooms of
this beautiful mansion that used to belong to some dukes. We talked about the history of ceramics in Europe and Spain more specifically. There were some gorgeous plates and stuff like that, but the best part was seeing how all the different rooms were furnished. Some of the wallpaper and elaborate furniture reminded me of Versailles. There was also one room housing a traditional 19th-century tiled kitchen, which was adorable. All the countertops are so low, because people were so much shorter. And all the tile work is great, it gives the kitchen such a pretty, delicate look. It looks like it's meant to be a toy, not a functioning kitchen...like the 19th century version of an Easy Bake oven, except more expensive.
Anyway. As soon as we got back from the museum, I got my stuff together for the beach, and then got on a bus that would take us there, with Nay, James and Dashell. When we got there, we met up with pretty much every other person in the group (they'd all opted out of the museum to go straight to the beach after lunch). They all left pretty soon after we arrived, but a group of about 10 of us stayed behind. I had an amazing time. It was, of
course, the first time I'd ever seen the Mediterranean, so that in and of itself was exciting. I decided to test out the water, and it turned out not to be very cold at all, so after a few minutes of wading, I decided to get in. I was afraid that it would rain the next day and that I would miss my chance to swim in the Mediterranean. So, at 8 p.m., I went in. The sun was certainly still out, and the water was actually really, r
eally nice (especially compared to how cold the Pacific still is, even at this time of year), so it was the perfect decision to go swimming. We spent maybe 20 or 30 minutes in the water, and when we got out, we decided to bury Alex in the sand. So Valentina, Naomi, and I spent quite a while burying him and sculpting him into a merman with a trident (Naomi did the bulk of the work, and she did a pretty amazing job, haha). We kept ourselves entertained with that and, once Alex had finally stood up, taking silly pictures out on the beach. We stayed until like 9:30, when the sun had already been setting for a little while. We would've probably stayed until later if we hadn't had to catch the bus back. It was so much fun, we were all in such good company and in great spirits.
When we got back to the area around the hotel, I bought myself the fruit smoothie I'd been desperately craving since the night before, and then took a much-needed shower (going to the beach always means shaking out sand for like a week). After our respective showers, Alex, Nay and I went down to the corner of the street which our hotel was on, where there were people from the group at a restaurant. None of us were particularly hungry, but we joined the group and ordered a pitcher of Agua de Valencia (orange juice, champagne, and some other ingredient I keep forgetting) for the three of us, and it was delicious. When we'd finished our pitcher and paid, we were going to make plans to do something for a little while longer, but by 1 a.m. I was falling over asleep, so I just decided to go to bed and get plenty of sleep to make up for my rough night on Friday.
On Sunday morning, we had some time to eat breakfast at the hotel before heading out. Since my stomach was feeling better, I was totally ready to eat what I hadn't been able to eat the day before. But, lo and behold, there was considerably less food out, maybe a 1/3 of what we'd had the day before. I kind of think that the hotel staff either ran out of food or did it on purpose, because they had complained the day before that we had lingered too long at the tables and that some people had taken food out of the dining room. So, alas, I had to settle for toast and dried apricots again.
We spent the rest of our time in Valencia at the beach. We got there close to 11 a.m. and were theoretically going to leave at 2 p.m. (and that included time for lunch). When we got there, the majority of the girls slapped on a bit of sunblock, put in their earbuds, and lounged in the sun to tan. And while I joined them for a little bit, I got really sick of it really soon, because I just don't enjoy the stereotypical girl thing of lying there burning in the sun and never actually getting in the water. After about 10 minutes, I decided to go in, and like four other girls joined me. The water was colder than the night before (!) but still LOVELY. The Mediterranean really impressed me, I had so much fun swimming in it. I got out and went back in a couple of times throughout our free time, and every time I went back in, the water was nicer. But, of course, we eventually had to pack up and go find food. Which we did, only to come back at the predetermined hour to find out that we couldn't leave.
Our bus (a big charter bus) had parked in a dirt lot, and its wheels had actually sunk into the ground. So at 2 p.m. they were trying to lug it out somehow. They told us we would have to meet back at 3:30 and leave then. It's too bad, because we could've spent more than, like, 15 minutes on our lunch if we'd known that would happen. We were too hot and tired to go back to the beach, so a bunch of us actually went to the nearby Burger King, because it had bathrooms and it was air-conditioned, and also because we could get cheap ice cream. Naomi, Valentina, and I each got one of the three flavors of "Sandys" (sundaes), we looked like a top-notch Burger King ad, hahaha. So basically, we all just relaxed there until we had to head back. We walked past the bus at like 3:15 and it was still definitely in the ground, but miraculously, 15 minutes later, we were climbing on and heading home. Got back to Madrid too late for me to catch the Brazil game (after showering and eating a bit), but at least we had a great time in Valencia (despite the stomachache business...I think the Mediterranean legitimately soothed my soul and/or stomach :P)
WHEW.
All right. I am officially exhausted. Tomorrow, I will diligently write about yesterday and today, including cooking classes and watching the Spain vs. Honduras game on the jumbotron outside the Real Madrid stadium!
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