Monday, November 10, 2008

Paella and Tapas

Valencia welcomed us with amazing weather! It was such a good transition from the cold, rainy weather we had experienced in Ireland. The sunlight and warm breeze told us all to remove our jackets and scarves and settle in for a great five days.

Upon arriving in Valencia, we checked into our hostel, made Rich take some interesting photos, and then set out to wander the city. Valencia was gorgeous, but we soon realized that most of Spain was under construction! Everywhere you looked, cranes and scaffolding met your gaze.
We found a great tapas restaurant on a quiet road, so we sat down outside and shared our food. Previously, Lauren and Rich were really excited about eating at a "tapas" restaurant. I quietly listened as I tried to come up with a good excuse to not join in. But my curiousity was peaked because Lauren was excited. Shortly after, Rich and Lauren realized I thought they had said "topless"....Needless to say, I ended up going, and I enjoyed it. Tapas is a confusing conception. Its basically a whole bunch of different toppings on bread. Some included salmon, liver, chicken, tomato, cheese, and even HORSE! Yup, I ate it......

After a great lunch, we walked around the city. We checked out various churches and then found a castle. Several staircases later, we looked out over all of Valencia. The colors and designs remind me greatly of Italy. We also found a cute garden with orange trees, and decided to take the time for some great group photos....

We found another good restaurant for dinner, and I tried my first ever sangria. This I actually liked because it had a large amount of sugar and carbonation. Katy was intent on finding a place with Flamenco dancing, but they all alluded her, so she returned to the hostel quite sad.

The next day, we wandered the city yet again. By this time, we found that Melissa and Lauren were the best at map-reading, so they were always in the lead. Meanwhile, Katy, Rich, Nick, and I would lag behind and goof off by tripping each other or narrate the race between Melissa and Lauren. Definitely reminded me of my family, with Casey and Mom always "knowing where to go" and walking as fast as humanly possible! But I must give them credit, they always got us where we needed to go, and on time. As we wandered, we found a large outdoor market and bought some great paella (pronounced paw-ay-yah). Its seasoned rice with veggies and meat in it, quite tasty......After some more wandering and hauling our luggage, we hurried to the bus station to catch a ride to Barcelona. However, we were mis-informed about boarding, so we would have missed our bus (which cost a good 30 euro) if had not been for our extremely kind bus driver who looked like Fabio......he was huge!!! and had long blonde hair and extremely manly features....HA-larious.....

1 comment:

Larissa said...

posting on my blog is basically for you! I will update more!