Tapas and Sangria

Valencia.

Always an adventure. Forget all these fancy quotes we've been picking up along the way, I'm pretty sure you could sum up our trip with those three words. Valencia began with us missing the train by 6 minutes. 6 whole minutes. Eventually we found another train from a different train station, but its not easy when you don't speak the language. Adventure No. 2 of Valencia is really just our awe of our ability to carry these massive backpacks for more than 2 feet at a time. Sometimes our hostels are a good 15-20 minutes walk away, and we lug those things the whole way. Go us.

Some cities consist alot of sightseeing and big fancy monument type adventures, but it is nice to find a place that gives you (and your feet) a chance to chill out and relax. Instead of trying to see as much as we could on the first night, we chose to wander the city and get into as many shinanigans as possible. Although since it was a Sunday night, that was really all we could do anyways. Everything is closed on Sundays, including grocery stores and corner stores. So we wandered and found a park with a playground and orange trees. Unfortunately these oranges are not sweet enough to be eaten, they are just ornamental, but we felt the need to pick and steal one anyways. This would have been a whole lot easier if we had been even an inch taller. Rebellious idea No. 1 having been thwarted, we found a playground with seesaws instead. Ahh seesaws, for about 10 minutes we were 6 years old again.

All that hard work left us hungry for ice cream, but as I mentioned, everything is closed on Sunday nights. But you'd think we could find an ice cream store somewhere. Eventually we found a grocery store of some sort, and purchased a fabulous tub of Kit Kat ice cream. And proceeded to eat it all before we made it back to the hostel. We finished off the night with an informative 'game' of trivia pursuit and an episode of House.

We've discovered that we actually enjoy learning. I know, try and tell that to a high school student and they will look at you like you have 4 eyes, but honestly history is cool when you are right there in the thick of it. We went on a walking tour of Valencia and saw the cathedral where the Holy Grail is kept, a Roman bathhouse (kept under a pane of glass below ground for asthetic effect), the skinniest house ever built, and some other remains of ancient Valencia. An interesting fact about Europe in general, but particularly Spain, is the lack of distinguishment between sidewalks and streets. The general rule of thumb is: if a car fits there, a car WILL drive there. Watch out!

One thing that we really, really, really wanted to do when we came to Valencia, was find a waterfall pool and swim in it. We found one, but it was an hour and a half's drive away. Now since we really, really, really wanted to go swim in it we figured we'd rent a car. Sooner or later the whole point of this day trip was to rent a car and try our hand at driving and navigating around the Spanish coast. This adventure was stopped in its tracks when we realized that you had to be 21 AND possess a license to rent a car. See I have my license along, but I'm only 19. And Colette is 21 but doesn't have her license along. So we hung our heads in shame and nursed our wounds on the beach instead.

Valencia used to have a river flowing right through the middle of it, until they got sick of flood damage every spring. The solution to this problem was to simply block off the river and redirect it around the outside of the city. Left in its place was an abandoned riverbed that has now become a park. You can walk from one end of the city and end up at the Arts and Sciences building. This was a much better plan that the governments idea of making it into a freeway. To finish off our last night in Valencia we walked through this park with another girl that we met from our hostel and took a taxi home from the arts and sciences building.

Madrid.

As I mentioned previously, our backpacks have become VERY heavy along the way, so when we have terrible directions to our hostel they get even worse, and we get cranky. (and hot and sweaty, but we'll not mention that). When we finally found our hostel we met this awesome guy - Pablo. He actually works for the hostel and was simply the one to inform us of the good stuff to do in Madrid. We take for granted how useful maps and ideas really are. So we wandered and found the heart of Madrid which contains the most important symbol of the city - a tree with a bear. Honestly, we don't know why it is so important, but we saw it. We also saw the Fuente de la Cibeles and the Plaza de la Independencia. We found another big beautiful park (with another fabulous playground), and the Monumento a Alfonso XII that was inside it. This monument has a large pond inside, with some crazy chip eating goldfish inside. Wouldn't want to swim in there, the goldfish would eat you. (Not kidding.) This park also contained a gorgeous crystal palace, and the only statue of Lucifer in all of Spain. We finished off the night with a yummy tapas tour (and more Sangria).

In our second day we saw the oldest temple in Madrid, which is actually an egyptian temple - a gift to the King of Spain. Nearby we found the parliament buildings/Palace, and we happened upon the Spanish version of changing of the guard. A little piddly after the London one, but the musicians had flutes. Oh wait, that isn't helping their case... Colette attempted to take a picture of one of the guards hats - cuz they looked like they were made of plastic, and they were square. But the guard saw and didn't like that so much, he made her delete it. Haha.

Since the train ride to Paris would be 14 hours long, we chose to book an overnight train leaving at 7pm. This means one less night in Madrid, but still the whole day. Now who would have thought to check the train ticket to see that the train might leave from a different station than the one we arrived at. Not us apparently. Half an hour before our train was scheduled to leave, and they leave on the minute, we discovered the station we were supposed to be at was actually on the other side of the city. Luckily we didn't miss this one by 6 minutes (only by 3 minutes). Just kidding. Our fabulous taxi driver got us there with 3 minutes to spare. Phew. Occasionally we have adventures we don't really want to have.

Now we are in Paris, and I head for home tomorrow. I think I could travel for forever, but I am excited to see my family again. (Awe...) I'll add pictures and post on Paris once I'm home safe and sound. Until next time...