My trip to Valencia was my first solo traveling experience—and at this point in the week it was a bit of a relief to have some alone time. I boarded the train and rode across the Spanish countryside into the early twilight. Arriving at my destination, I was greeted with an empty train station (again, no mustachioed man, but there’s still time for that, I suppose) and a light drizzle on my head. At that point Valencia had not impressed me, but then again I wasn’t quite out of the station yet. The tourist information desk had heard of my hostel and gave me some brief directions to the Purple Nest Hostel (which I recommend profusely for anyone planning on going to Valencia). My walk took me down a shopping street with shops which were still open. To my surprise, there were a considerable amount of people on the street, which I attribute to their strict adherence to the siesta policy, and not that many of them seemed to take notice of the bespectacled kid in the blue thrift store Lacoste jacket lurching along the street under is borrowed Kelty backpack.
The walk resulted in speckled spectacles and a wet jacket, but I was in good spirits when I checked into the hostel. I shot a text message to one K-Kat (Kristen) who is studying in Valencia for the fall semester in a program through UVA and she came to meet me at the hostel. This rondevous was perhaps the most exciting I have had while in Europe. Finally I wasn’t borrowing someone’s friends (who, on the whole, have had terrible musical taste—I would know seeing as I am the very definition of excellent musical taste) for the weekend. Our bear hugs (Rion, every time I think about bears you come to mind, just so you’re aware) may have led to a bit of speculation on the part of the hostel staff as to our relationship, but nonetheless, we set out for a night on the (new) town.
“It’s not really Spanish dinner time yet.” This was the first thing Kristen said as we lef the hostel, so we were off to get some coffee and churros (roll the “rr” for authenticity in you inner-monologue) at Valor. There we split an order of chocolate and churros and enjoyed some coffee con leche with ‘em. Needless to say, this place was famous for its melted mugs of chocolate and curros for a
very good (and calorie-packed) reason. I have come to the conclusion that the
Cask of Amontillado (Edgar Allen Poe) should quickly have its ending rewritten to include a churro in the immurement of Fortunato should tastefully include a Valor churro so he can cleverly rub it on the Masonic handiwork imprisoning him and thus, face his accuser. Yeah, they’re that greasy and I’m that crazy.
After the churros Kristen enticed me to take a rainy walk to the place next door which served some excellent paella (after all, Valencia is the home of paella) and ended up pouring us a few shots of some electric-yellow Spanish liquor. They kept coming because our waitress loved us, I believe. It tasted decent enough that we never
actually turned her down, but we did move on to the place near Kristen’s school known as a “Euro Bar.” With this title, I was pretty sure I had been to plenty of these: mullets, designer clothes, terrible denim aberrations, more mullets, man-purses. I was wrong. In this context, it meant that beers and shots were only a euro. All of them. Insane? Perhaps. Thrifty and fun? Certianly.
There we enjoyed some beers as we made nice with some of Kristen’s Spanish friends who spent the evening pretending to be Welsh to other Spanish kids. They pulled this off admirably. Another Spanish kid saw me sitting alone at the table at one point, but didn’t speak English. So we spent the rest of the evening communicating through song lyrics. His knowledge was limited exclusively to about three lines from The Virve’s
Bittersweet Symphony, however. He did, however seem to eek out the phrase “I’m so drungh.” Given his speech, his meaning was quite obvious.
After this, Kristen’s friends showed up and I walked one home to her place and made the rest of the way back to my hostel in my little cloth jacket in a torrential downpour. The first evening was certainly a success. The next day I was to meet with the rest of the people and spend my time with them.
I woke up the next day rather early and sent a message to Jess to see where they were. They didn’t respond, so I got restless and began my tourism at about 8:30 am. The rain was still steady. In a place with 300 days of sunshine a year, we sure picked one hell of a weekend to visit Valencia. I wandered around the town, which was time well spent as I entered every church in the city (approximately 8 in the old portion) and took a few photographs in each. I excluded the main 13 century cathedral because I figured someone else would like to do that with me. I also stumbled into a castle, ordered a croissant and café con leche entirely in Spanish, and visited a modern art museum that morning—all before noon.
Everyone was just waking up at the hostel when I returned and we decided that we could issue a moratorium on tourism for the day as it was raining steadily still. However, we were determined to find a Mexican restaurant somewhere in Valencia (the Spanish language must illicit some sort of complex Pavlovian reaction within Americans) so Karl, Colleen and I set out looking for a restaurant. We found it after slogging through mud in construction zones on the upscale end of Valencia, but it was closed so we ended up bashing Dan Brown’s abortion of a book
The DaVinci Code and his terrible narrative style while eating some chicken at a little restaurant.
The rest of the day was spent lounging in the hostel, preparing for the night at hand. It was to be the night of La Indiana and a wonderous 10 Euro all-you-can-eat/all-you-can-
drink evening. We then met our new friends Katie, Elisa, and Charlie, a student from Ohio teaching in Salzburg, and two lovely and good-humoured British girls studying in Seville, respectively. We all joined forces and made our (roundabout) way to the restaurant around 10 or so and settled in.
The restaurant proved an excellent bargain, and the salami, beer, sausage, sangria, salad, shots, olives and beer formed a wonderful, tasty confluence somewhere between my esophagus and pyloric valve. Full and socially lubricated, we all left the restaurant huddling under the umbrellas until we reached another euro bar. Social lubrication continued without abatement and then it was off to La Indiana. This place had sharks tanks next to the dance floors. It had crazy lighting, balconies and most importantly for the preponderance of our party: insane Spanish men. Communication barriers were dismantled one gyration of the hips at a time—you could almost hear them tumbling down with each “white-man’s clap” or “white man’s snap.” From the stories I heard the next day in the hostel, it sounds as if we set the ambassadorial bar pretty high.
Saturday resulted in late rising for most of us, and karl and I struck out together to conquer the cathedral in the center of town. It was there I set my peepers on the only recognized Holy Grail of the Catholic Church. I didn’t drink out of it (not that it was an option) for fear of meeting an Arc of the Covenant-like end. But it was fascinating nonetheless.
We then met up with the rest of the ladies during a monsoon at the science and museum complex. It was easily the only time I have ever been near such amazing, futuristic architecture. The following picture does it no justice. The grandeur looks as if it should be expected on a movie set. I could not help but think of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was about this time where I got Alanis Morsette stuck in my head—it’s still there.
The Sea World-equivalent turned out to be mostly outdoor and 22 euros for admission. That didn’t fit in the budget, so Elia, Charlie, Shannon, Becci, Katie and I went to the mall across the street briefly until we decided that was a poor choice and shoved off to the modern art museum. I didn’t go in again, but instead wandered with Shannon and Elisa until we ended up inside of Valor (think churros) again. Delicious.
That night we wandered to a eurobar as I attempted to raise Kristen on the phone. Rumor has it, La Indiana seemed to have gotten the best of her (which certainly beats its clientele doing the same) and only stayed out briefly there. After an argument about going to the beach or not, we wandered to another eurobar where we ran into a girl from Karl’s highschool who was studying in Valencia as well. There I ran into the girl I had walked home on Thursday night, so we decided to go out dancing. They had just finished being at a ball for
America’s Cup (one of them had a sort of internship with the foundation of the sailors’ wives) and were very well (read: over) dressed. After a brief stint at a club, Karl and I were abandoned with the two charity function attendees and hit the dance floor. New friends: check.
The next day, Becci, Elisa, Katie and I went to breakfast and then the beach to enjoy the first day without rain. It was a fantastic way to spend the short afternoon we had available before our flight home. Plenty of introspection was involved in that walk.
We then said goodbye to Elisa and Charlie and set off for the airport. Kristen walked us to the shuttle bus. It was fantastic to see that girl.
This was without a doubt one of the best weekends this semester—new friends, old friends…all this and I successfully avoided those that I am only luke-warm about to boot.
Thanks for a great week Spain, and a great weekend Kristen, Elisa, Katie, Charlie and others.
Labels: abroad, miami university, spain, valencia
