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...

Barcelona

Well here we are, in our LAST country. Technically we're headed back into France when we hit up Paris, but its not a new country. The train ride to Barcelona was expected (rightfully) to be exceptionally long, so we split it up with a stop in Avignon. What a cool little city! Avignon is home to the largest Gothic Palace in the world - Palais de Papas. We also munched on some delicious crepes, and fooled around with a carousel.

When we finally made it to Barcelona, we discovered our intense gratefulness for our experiences in London. We would never have figured out the Barcelona underground without learning the London one first. Thank you London!! Since we arrived in the evening, we chose to eat and chill out instead of wandering an unfamiliar city in the dark. (See Mom, we're being safe!)

The next morning we embarked on a walking tour of the gothic quarter of Barcelona, saw the ancient Roman walls, and learned quite a bit about Barcelona's history. For example, Spanish is actually not the primary language of Barcelona. It is actually Catalyan - although it is very similar to Spanish. Another interesting fact, is Plazza Reial. This plazza was put in place by the government in an effort to appease the people. Barcelona had previously been a very dark and crowded city, and this opened the area up to the community. The space had been the location of a monastery, until a riot burned it down. The plazza later became a location of prostitution and drug rings, and the government chose to contain it in the plazza instead of chasing it out into unknown quarters of the city. This all changed when the Olympics came to Barcelona. At this point the city had a total makeover. The druggies were chased out of Plazza Reial (and ended up in what is now known as Plazza Trippy). Also, palm trees were imported into the city from Hawaii on a 12 year contract. Technically Barcelona does not even own its own palm trees! Sand was also imported from Egypt to cover the beaches.

After the walking tour (hosted by a fabulous Aussie named Max), we signed up for some fun activities for the next two nights. That night we attended a Spanish cooking class, hoping to learn some traditional dishes and meet some people. However, it turned out that we were the only two that signed up, and we didn't actually do any of the cooking ourselves. Even still, the food was fabulous, and we enjoyed ourselves. We learned how to make Tapas, which is basically an appetizer or a small portion of a meal; Sangria, which is a drink made of fruit, wine, and brandy (quite tasty actually); and Paella, which is a traditional rice and seafood dish - so good! Another interesting fact about Barcelona is the acceptance of nudity. You are totally free to walk around in your birthday suit (as long as you wear shoes), and there are some that take advantage of this. (Oh my innocent eyes...) One of these people is known as Elephant Man. I'll let you fill in the details yourself.

The next day we had planned to spend on the beach again. Unfortunately it was windy and overcast, and we ended up coming back to the hostel to freshen up and head out on the town instead. During this time, we saw alot of festivities along the street. This included traditional dances (in the form of a parade) and a group of men firing guns (more like mini cannons) into the air as they walked down the street. They were so loud you could feel the reverberations in your chest if you got too close. A few times we were even lucky enough to witness a group of guys performing Capoeira on the streets. Capoeira is a traditional dance that formed when fighting was banned in the ancient tribes. So the men got sneaky and hid their fighting in dance. These are physically demanding choreographed routines. If you've seen So You Think You Can Dance, I think they showed it on there once.

Later on we headed out to a Tapas and Flamenco night. We chowed down on some more tapas and sangria, met some people (it wasn't just us this time), and watched a flamenco show. We had expected a show with girls in big poofy dresses, and sometimes that is the case, but this time it was a small band (singers and a guitarist) and a male tap dancer (flamenco I guess). He was very talented and we enjoyed the show all the same.