Greetings friends and family. I am currently on an 8 hour bus ride so I figured what a perfect time to work on my blog via my iPod touch. The last I left you I was in Barcelona. The magic fountain show at Montjuic was a true work of art. The fountains and colors are precisely tuned to the rhythm of classical music. 
The last time I was there I felt like it was set to more current/popular songs, and I must say I enjoyed the classical soundtrack better. The next morning we awoke bright and early for breakfast with the hopes of going to the beach. Of course, this would be the one and only morning in Barcelona where it looked like it was going to downpour any minute. We figured we would just rest our eyes for a few minutes and then come up with a new game plan. Minutes turned into hours and the next thing we knew it was 2 in the afternoon. It was still cloudy, but we weren´t going to let that stop us. We quickly got ready and hopped on the metro and once we walked up the stairs from our stop, we were greeted with sunshine and blue skies. We all but ran to the beach, picked a good spot, and then jumped into the ocean. It was so exciting to be swimming in water that wasn´t the numbing Atlantic off the coast of Rhode Island. We splashed around for a few hours and the clouds started to roll back in so we decided to call it a day. We went back home and got ready for our last night in the city. We went out for some sangria and a late dinner and enjoyed our last night in Barca.
The next morning we took a four hour bus ride to Valencia,
which is south of Barcelona and along the coast. We hadn´t heard too much of Valencia before arriving except that it was the hometown of paella and the producer of some tasty oranges. We checked into our hostel and began our usual routine of wandering around. We arrived on a Saturday so there wasn´t too much action, but the city was already so much different from both Madrid and Barcelona. It had a much more relaxed atmosphere and was more quaint; not your stereotypical city. Most of the city reminded me of St. Augustine, Florida. It´s architecture and buildings clearly date far back and had that classical charm that I love. But I digress..
So the first day our wanderings led us to the main park of the city. The city redirected the river and turned the 11km riverway into a beautiful park filled with fountains, futbol fields, dog parks, skate parks, and of course thousands of trees to lay under in the relief of the hot summer sun.
You might be wondering why the city would spend a huge chunk of euros to turn a river into a park. Well my friends, back in the 50´s or 60´s (that date may or may not be correct, but you get the gist..) the river flooded and caused extensive damange to the city and also claimed a lot of lives. In order to prevent that type of destruction again, the river was moved and a park was born! At the end of the park are the city´s four museums. Surrounding these museums are crystal clear pools. We wanted nothing more than to jump right in, but we decided it may not have been worth getting arrested so we headed back to our hostel. That night we cooked dinner in the kitchen, nothing fancy of course, and went to the city center for a few drinks.
The next day was beach day! And it was a Sunday.. Now for the TSSers out there, Sunday in Valencia is like the Seychelles on a Sunday. Enough said. The streets were deserted and everything was closed. We took the bus to the beach and figured out why the city was so empty - everyone was at the beach. The beach was packed and there was an international beach rugby tournament going on. We found a spot and spent the day swimming in the warm waters of the Mediterranean. When we had fried enough, we headed back to the city starving and in search of food. All of the supermercados and restaurants were closed and we had just started to accept the fact that we were doomed...until we found an open Pans & Company. For those of you who don´t know, Pans isn´t anything fancy, it´s just a chain owned sandwich shoppe. A ridiculously delicious, cheap sandwich shoppe. Ecstatic from finding food and exhuasted from the sun, we called it an early night and got some much needed beauty sleep. The next day we decided to keep it low key and relax. We did our usual couple hours of wandering and then hung out at the hostel and did some laundry. We had to save our energy for the night because we were going to go out for the best paella in Valencia.
I´d say I´ve had my fair share of paella, but nothing could compare to this. We had Paella Valenciana, which consisted of rice, different types of beans and vegetables, and chicken and rabbit. It was so good we were scraping the pan trying to get every last morsel. We looked around and everyone else was doing it too so we felt no shame. It was a very pricey meal, but well worth every cent for the best paella in town.
Our final day in Valencia began with wandering around one of the districts we hadn´t explored yet. We were pretty productive and covered a lot of ground and even managed to go to the post office and buy some stamps for the first round of postcards. We then went to el cortes ingles and bought some food for a picnic and headed back to our favorite park to lounge around. We had a lot of time to kill since our bus wasn´t leaving til 11pm that night. We then meandered down to the museums where we decided to go Oceanográfico, which was an aquarium.
Some of the wildlife we saw were sharks, penguins, an array of fish, arctic animals, and seahorses! The highlight of the day I must say was the dolphin show. Who wouldn´t love dolphins that could dance to Ludacris? It was cheesy, but it was a lot of fun. We considered just staying in Valencia and becoming dolphon trainers until we realized the dolphins probably know more spanish than we do. Our hopes of swimming with flipper all day were crushed, but we quickly moved on. We left the aquarium, ate a quick meal at Pans, and headed to the bus station where we caught our bus to Granada, which leads me to where I am now, on the middle of a Spanish highway listening to Coldplay. When I finally post this, I´ll already be in the sweltering heat of Granada (100 degrees forecasted for this week), which from what I´ve heard from fellow backpackers, the heat is well worth the grandeur of the city. After all, it will be good practice for the next 2 months when we are exploring the hot African deserts.
There´s also a link now in the right upperhand corner to some of my pictures from the trip, right near the link to Brooke´s blog which is just fabulous!
And now we are in Granada and it is absolutely beautiful. The history here is so rich and there´s a lot to see. On that note, we´re off to explore some more! Until the next post...
Peace&Love
The last time I was there I felt like it was set to more current/popular songs, and I must say I enjoyed the classical soundtrack better. The next morning we awoke bright and early for breakfast with the hopes of going to the beach. Of course, this would be the one and only morning in Barcelona where it looked like it was going to downpour any minute. We figured we would just rest our eyes for a few minutes and then come up with a new game plan. Minutes turned into hours and the next thing we knew it was 2 in the afternoon. It was still cloudy, but we weren´t going to let that stop us. We quickly got ready and hopped on the metro and once we walked up the stairs from our stop, we were greeted with sunshine and blue skies. We all but ran to the beach, picked a good spot, and then jumped into the ocean. It was so exciting to be swimming in water that wasn´t the numbing Atlantic off the coast of Rhode Island. We splashed around for a few hours and the clouds started to roll back in so we decided to call it a day. We went back home and got ready for our last night in the city. We went out for some sangria and a late dinner and enjoyed our last night in Barca.The next morning we took a four hour bus ride to Valencia,
which is south of Barcelona and along the coast. We hadn´t heard too much of Valencia before arriving except that it was the hometown of paella and the producer of some tasty oranges. We checked into our hostel and began our usual routine of wandering around. We arrived on a Saturday so there wasn´t too much action, but the city was already so much different from both Madrid and Barcelona. It had a much more relaxed atmosphere and was more quaint; not your stereotypical city. Most of the city reminded me of St. Augustine, Florida. It´s architecture and buildings clearly date far back and had that classical charm that I love. But I digress..So the first day our wanderings led us to the main park of the city. The city redirected the river and turned the 11km riverway into a beautiful park filled with fountains, futbol fields, dog parks, skate parks, and of course thousands of trees to lay under in the relief of the hot summer sun.
You might be wondering why the city would spend a huge chunk of euros to turn a river into a park. Well my friends, back in the 50´s or 60´s (that date may or may not be correct, but you get the gist..) the river flooded and caused extensive damange to the city and also claimed a lot of lives. In order to prevent that type of destruction again, the river was moved and a park was born! At the end of the park are the city´s four museums. Surrounding these museums are crystal clear pools. We wanted nothing more than to jump right in, but we decided it may not have been worth getting arrested so we headed back to our hostel. That night we cooked dinner in the kitchen, nothing fancy of course, and went to the city center for a few drinks.The next day was beach day! And it was a Sunday.. Now for the TSSers out there, Sunday in Valencia is like the Seychelles on a Sunday. Enough said. The streets were deserted and everything was closed. We took the bus to the beach and figured out why the city was so empty - everyone was at the beach. The beach was packed and there was an international beach rugby tournament going on. We found a spot and spent the day swimming in the warm waters of the Mediterranean. When we had fried enough, we headed back to the city starving and in search of food. All of the supermercados and restaurants were closed and we had just started to accept the fact that we were doomed...until we found an open Pans & Company. For those of you who don´t know, Pans isn´t anything fancy, it´s just a chain owned sandwich shoppe. A ridiculously delicious, cheap sandwich shoppe. Ecstatic from finding food and exhuasted from the sun, we called it an early night and got some much needed beauty sleep. The next day we decided to keep it low key and relax. We did our usual couple hours of wandering and then hung out at the hostel and did some laundry. We had to save our energy for the night because we were going to go out for the best paella in Valencia.
I´d say I´ve had my fair share of paella, but nothing could compare to this. We had Paella Valenciana, which consisted of rice, different types of beans and vegetables, and chicken and rabbit. It was so good we were scraping the pan trying to get every last morsel. We looked around and everyone else was doing it too so we felt no shame. It was a very pricey meal, but well worth every cent for the best paella in town.Our final day in Valencia began with wandering around one of the districts we hadn´t explored yet. We were pretty productive and covered a lot of ground and even managed to go to the post office and buy some stamps for the first round of postcards. We then went to el cortes ingles and bought some food for a picnic and headed back to our favorite park to lounge around. We had a lot of time to kill since our bus wasn´t leaving til 11pm that night. We then meandered down to the museums where we decided to go Oceanográfico, which was an aquarium.
Some of the wildlife we saw were sharks, penguins, an array of fish, arctic animals, and seahorses! The highlight of the day I must say was the dolphin show. Who wouldn´t love dolphins that could dance to Ludacris? It was cheesy, but it was a lot of fun. We considered just staying in Valencia and becoming dolphon trainers until we realized the dolphins probably know more spanish than we do. Our hopes of swimming with flipper all day were crushed, but we quickly moved on. We left the aquarium, ate a quick meal at Pans, and headed to the bus station where we caught our bus to Granada, which leads me to where I am now, on the middle of a Spanish highway listening to Coldplay. When I finally post this, I´ll already be in the sweltering heat of Granada (100 degrees forecasted for this week), which from what I´ve heard from fellow backpackers, the heat is well worth the grandeur of the city. After all, it will be good practice for the next 2 months when we are exploring the hot African deserts.There´s also a link now in the right upperhand corner to some of my pictures from the trip, right near the link to Brooke´s blog which is just fabulous!
And now we are in Granada and it is absolutely beautiful. The history here is so rich and there´s a lot to see. On that note, we´re off to explore some more! Until the next post...
Peace&Love
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