Spagna 2

WOW that was only 3 days' worth of description. I guess I'll try to be a little more SUCCINCT. Continuing...

Day 4, April 3, 2010. "Today is the day my feet died." Ah yes, I remember that feeling. Beyond discomfort, beyond pain...just, death. But it was a good day! In the morning we went to the bus station to get our tickets to Valencia. In the "nothing can be easy" category (as my mom would say), we had to wait in a huge line because the machine had messed up the time on Camilla's ticket. And then the machine didn't accept my card. Because nowhere in Europe accepts American Express. Maybe I should've gotten a European Express. HOoo boy. Anyways we got it all sorted out and then had our sandwiches in a little park right next door with an iceberg sculpture and many cool-looking doggies. Then we made our way to...guess what!....a PARK! Another famous one, called Ciutadella. It is the second best park in the world (first: Park Guell). There was the most amazing fountain I had ever seen, complete with golden chariot of splendor, stone mermaids and dragons, draping plant life, brilliantly turquoise water. Walking a bit further we came across a pond jam-packed with families and friends in row boats. It looked AWESOME. So we decided to spend the 6 euros and join in. I got mah row on. Eventually I got the hang of it, but Camilla was way better. Despite the chaos of all the boats it was still a peaceful and extremely pleasant scene. The funny part was when a couple drifting by asked us to take their picture. By the time Camilla took it, we had drifted apart. So we spent the next 10 minutes in the most awkward and ungraceful attempt to get close enough to return the camera. After our half hour was up (I'm sure no one was really timing) we headed for....wait for it....THE ZOO!!!!!!!!!! And we saw a great variety of species. Including human children. It was a day WELL spent. (Except for the rip-off about the albino gorilla...they had all these exciting signs about the elusive albino gorilla but he was NOWHERE TO BE FOUND. Oh well, we forgot about it pretty soon.) It was pretty tiring, though, being on our feet all the time. After we had seen all the awesome animals, we left. And came to...any guesses? A PARK! We sat there in a comatose state until I decided I guess I could force myself to walk to the beach. When we finally got there I forgot about how tired I was because there were....RIDES!!! I convinced Camilla to go on one with me. It was a spinny roller coaster. As in, the cart we were in spun as it went down. It lasted maybe 15 seconds but it was worth it. Especially the exhilaration of being at the top of the hill, surrounded by nothing but the ocean and the clouds in Spain. Then we descended and walked next to the beach until I literally was about to collapse. And then we did collapse. On the beach. With many other people as eager as we were for summer. You can tell that's when the city is really alive. On the beach two men selling beer who we rejected offered us marijuana ("I have vedy good hash"), to see if THAT caught our interest. That was a first. The rest of the day was spent walking. Barcelona is a wonderful city. When I got a waffle with strawberry sauce (and ordered in Spanish...a very satisfying experience all in all) I gained a bit more energy to continue walking its entirety. Camilla had another park in mind. I don't know how I PHYSICALLY was able to reach it, especially given it involved walking up a hill. But when we found out there was a metro stop in the park that we could take back I felt a little less doom-y. Plus, we got to see the magic fountain. That is literally what it's called. And it was indeed magical. Another thing that made me think "Barcelona is everything Las Vegas WISHES it was." It was a fountain show with colors and music, which we first watched on the steps of a beautiful massive museum at the top of the hill and then at the bottom of the stair-flanked waterfalls. We were right next to it and got sprayed with water. It was magnificent. Following the fountain-lined street, we found the metro--which is BEAUTIFULLY orderly and clean and speedy, might I add--and took it back to the hostel. Welp we sure got lost now didn't we. It's ok though cuz we hadn't walked quite enough that day. When we finally made it back we made dinner, then left in search for a bar (we wanted to go to a discoteca to experience Barcelona's legendary night life...but at the end of every day we never had NEARLY enough energy. Alas). It took forever for me to realize that every decent bar allows smoking, so I finally just decided to suck it up (literally) and go into one. I only decided I wouldn't mind after the joyous and shocked realization that they were playing my favorite song in the entire world, Just Like Heaven. And they continued to play The Cure so I stayed. We got delicious mint mojitos and sat in this weird cave dwelling set-up, which was not conducive to my deteriorating state of mind. When we left I felt rather...unusual.

Day 5, April 4, 2010. We checked out of the hostel by 11 and then walked to see more of Gaudi's marks on Barcelona: Casa Batllo, and the very famous Casa Mila, which I had studied in my architecture class last year. It was very cool. However, it was disgusting and rainy out and lugging my suitcase and backpack around was NOT enjoyable. We spent the next hour dragging our feet around looking for a place to eat. Because, oh yeah, it was Easter. The weirdest, most nonreligious Easter of my life. We had sooo much trouble trying to find 1) a place that was open, and 2) a place that served food. I ended up having to speak Spanish (goooo me) to a woman in one restaurant, in order to find out that they didn't serve food. FINALLY we found a Japanese place. It was a buffet...not bad, especially the sushi. It was inhumanely costly, though. The rain stopped by the time we left and we sat in the sun by the triumphal arch until it was time to go to the station (sidenote: I was forced to buy sunscreen there. I didn't read the label and it turned out to be tinted. It requires a GREAT deal of rubbing in, since everyone knows I have absolutely no tint to my skin. I started calling it, politically incorrectly, the Mexican sunscreen.) Anyways then we had a 4 hour bus ride to Valencia. It was SO LOVELY just sitting and resting. I slept a little. Also our driver looked like Fabio. When we got there we were ridiculously confused by the "MAP" so I used my forgotten, abandoned Spanish to ask a taxi driver. We decided to let him drive us. And thus we came to our hostel. It was INFINITELY better than the first one in every way. So much so that it was hilarious. Especially because it cost less. First of all, we had a room with a DOOR (the last hostel just had what were basically scarfs hanging from the doorway) and a KEY. A MAGNETIC key. There was only one other girl in our room and she was nice. And our beds were white and clean and heavenly. Basically the place was like a hotel with character. Funky decor--we had a giant pink pony on our wall. We asked the very nice and very tiny girl at the desk if there was a grocery store open, and she gave us directions. We bought sum fude and stopped in a park to eat a bit. So far Valencia seemed no less enchanting than Barcelona. We made dinner at the hostel, then went out to a place we had passed before that had caught our eye and ear (sight of sombrero lamps and giant smoothies, sound of a blender making smoothies). Unfortunately it was another smoke tank, and the drink and crepe were too bitter with alcohol. Yes, the banana chocolate crepe we got somehow had alcohol in it. But it was nice. I also loved that in Spain hardly anyone tried speaking to me in English (it's PRETTY obvious I am not Spanish), despite my vacant stare and drool that indicate I do not understand Spanish, whereas Italians verrrry often speak to me in English.

Day 6, April 5, 2010. First full day in Valencia. The only thing that the girl at the desk knew was open today (the day after Easter is also a holiday) was the Museum of Science and Arts, so there we went. It was one looooong-ass walk. We stopped in some churches and ate our sandwiches innnnnn...where else but a park! We actually walked through that park a lot. One interesting thing we came across was a giant plastic Gulliver. Or I dunno, the giant from Gulliver's Travels. I never read the book. Upon which kiddies could climb up and slide down. When we finally came to The City of Arts and Sciences we felt like we had stepped into a science fiction movie. I thought it was incredibly cool. It was a collection of buildings that looked like futuristic shells or seapeople warrior helmets. Surrounded by a giant pool of light shallow water and endless wide pathways. It took us a while to find the one that was the AQUARIUM. But, we found it. We went to the AQUARIUM. It was fantastic. We enjoyed ourselves a great deal. Especially...THE DOLPHIN SHOW. For those of you who don't know, dolphins are my favorite animal. They're like the dogs of the sea: cute, very intelligent, social, and able to form meaningful relationships with humans. I've been so lucky in my life to have seen them before. The first time we did was on a whale watch when I was maybe 8 or 9 and I almost cried at the sight of their fins in the distance. The last time I saw a dolphin show was when I was 11 in Chicago with my grandma. So needless to say this may have been the best part of the vacation. How many other girls could say they saw a dolphin show over their break? The walk back to the hostel was brutally long and painful but Valencia was beautiful. We stopped to sit/die in the same park and I watched three little French girls (triplets I think) jump rope with their parents swinging. For dinner that night we decided to go on a quest for the famous Spanish paella. It took us a while to find a place that was within our budget, but we finally found one. It was clearly a tourist trap kind of place with a 10 euro special--appetizer, main course and dessert--to drag 'em in. We didn't really know what we were ordering...Camilla got "emperador" which turned out to be swordfish, and I got "lenguado" which is sole. And French fries? And then chocolate mousse. It was actually pretty good, but I'm willing to go back to Spain to find GREAT paella.