Chuck Norris in Valencia?

Woah, I cannot believe that we succesfully planned our own trip to Valencia. And, we are now safely back in Alicante! Kind of a miracle! On Friday, I arrived at the train station around 6:45. It is only about a 15 minute walk from my apartment. I waited for Tracy and Erin to come from their perspective corners of Alicante. It was funny because a lot of people were just coming back from going out on Thursday night. In fact, as I was walking to the station, a boy came up to me and asked in a Southern accent (in English), "Where is Pardo Gimeneo?" That is my street, and I was walking on it. I said, "This is Pardo Gimeneo." He said, "Oh thank God, I have been looking for it for an hour!" I chuckled to myself as he drunkingly stumbled past. Also, in the train station, a bunch of kids about college age had come in from neighboring towns, like Murcia, to go out. So, they were in their going out clothes hoping on the train back home after a fun night in Alicante.

Anyways, we boarded the train at 7:30. I was so impressed. It was very comfortable and roomy. I quickly fell asleep and only woke up for about the last 10 minutes of the 2 hour ride. We got to Valencia and immediately, I was in awe. Their train station was beautiful! We walked about 20 minutes to our hostel and I just couldn't stop looking around, pointing things out and saying how beautiful everything is. La Plaza Ayuntemiento which is like their town square area is different than anything I have ever seen. It is so open, full of people. We got settled into our hostel which was also very nice. It was very modern and colorful. Plus, it was clean which I appreciated. We relaxed for a little bit and then went to the modern art museum there, the IVAM. It was VERY interesting and different.

Afterwards, we hoped on a bus to go to the Lladro Museum. Brandy highly recommended that we go there and I was so excited that she did because we all LOVED it. I had booked a free guided tour online so we were able to see the entire process of making these porcelain figurines. It was very interesting and very intricate. I was in awe. We then got to view the showroom of all of the pieces. There was one piece that cost $120,000! And, they have already sold 46 of them! I do not know who would spend that much money on a piece of porcelain but it was beautiful. I really wanted to buy something but even a little figurine costs atleast 70 Euro. Pretty crazy! My mom has some Lladro from when they lived in Germany so when we Skyped I made her show me all of her pieces! After the museum, we headed back to the hostel. We didn't want to spend money on dinner so we went to La Mercadona, which is like a grocery store and bought dinner and boxes of wine, or as we have learned, they are called "bricks" of wine. Here they only cost 0.55 Euro so it was even better!

We thought we would be the only ones at the hostel using the kitchen but apparently it is the thing to do! Everyone was making themselves dinner. We laughed to ourselves because there were girls from England and boys from Italy and Germany. We were sitting there eating our microwavable pizzas and drinking our Sprite and wine little drinks while they made these intricate pasta and vegetable meals!

We weren't sure what we were going to do that night because we had no idea where any bars were. I saw a sign for a pub crawl through the hostel. So, we decided to do that! It was only 10 Euro for 4 bars and a drink at each bar. There was probably a group of 25 that ended up going and it was really fun! We started out at an Irish pub and each bar got a little more crazy, ending at a discoteca! At one bar, they made us all take a shot. It was called the "Chuck Norris roundhouse kick to the face." They wouldn't tell us what was in it. Once we took it, we learned it had all sorts of hard alcohol and tabasco sauce! My mouth was on fire for a solid 5 minutes! On the pub crawl, we met some boys from the east coast that we teaching English in Madrid, some girls from England, some Australian boys and some English boys as well. The manager of the company that puts on the pub crawl was Johnny from England. He did not like Americans. So, Tracy and I made it our mission to convince him that Americans were good people. I don't think we convinced him at all. But, don't worry, we decided we didn't like him EITHER, haha.

Like I said, we ended up at the discoteca but after awhile there, we headed back to the hostel. The next morning we woke up and went to the meeting location for the free walking tour also put on by our hostel. However, it was canceled that day. We were totally bummed but we ended up going to La Ciudad de Las Artes y Las Ciencias. It was designed by Santiago Calatrava, who is from Valencia. He is the same architect that is designing the transportation hub around the site of the World Train Center. Again, we took the bus. I was so proud of us that we didn't get lost! La Ciudad de Las Artes y Las Ciencias was AMAZING. The buildings are very futuristic looking, I felt like I was in Australia or something! Google it and look at pictures because it was not like anything that I have ever seen. Here, they have a huge aquarium. We spent over 4 hours just walking around! My favorite part was the Beluga whales and the tiburones (sharks)! We also saw a dolphin show, which was really fun! I have seen dolphin shows before, but never one that was this good. One of the trainers would balance each of his feet on the mouth of a dolphin, then the dolphins would flip him in the air. He would fly up and do a couple flips before diving in the water! It was very cool!

Afterwards, we were all tired and ready to go back to the hostel. However, there were still some things that I wanted to do that I knew were closed on Sundays. So, being the nerd that I am, I went by myself to La Catedral or the "Seu." It is the biggest church in Valencia and it was beautiful! It is also rumored to hold the Holy Grail! It was constructed in the 13th century and was very old but very cool. I walked around for a little bit and then climbed El Miguelete. This is the belltower of the church and the only way to get to the top is to climb the very skinny spiral staircase, about 300 steps. I am not even that afraid of heights and I was shaking by the time I got to the top. The worst part of climbing the stairs was knowing how long it was going to take to get down and because it was so skinny, if someone was walking past, going the opposite direction, I had to grab onto the middle part, the part without a railing. But, I made it to the top and it was totally worth it! I could see the whole city. I made this guy take a picture of me, but my camera had died, so they are on my friend's camera. Once I get them, I will put them up! After about 20 minutes just hanging out at the top, I headed back down and back to the hostel.

That night, we went to dinner. However, we were all tired so we went back to the hostel after dinner and some walking around for a good night's sleep. The next day, we got to actually go on the walking tour! It was great because we learned so much about the city. I have learned that without a guide, it is hard to really learn anything about the city, unless I am carrying around my Spain travel book! After the walking tour, it was time to check out. After checking out, we grabbed some lunch near La Plaza Ayuntamiento, the main plaza and my absolute favorite part of the city. It was sunny out and just a beautiful day so we enjoyed our lunch outside (see the following post for more details). Then, we caught our train back home. We were all tired and were sleeping. The train makes a few stops along the way to Alicante. As the train was about to close the doors to one of the stops, Erin says, "Why does this stop say Alicante Terminal?" We immediately started freaking out, we almost missed our stop! That would have been horrible because we would have had to take the train all the way to Cartagena and then buy a ticket and turn around. So, we quickly grabbed our bags and jumped off, while the rest of the passengers laughed at our panicked state. I walked back to Aurora's. The house was empty though so I just hung out until she got home. Then I showed her all of my pictures and now I am going to bed. I am SO tired from traveling and I was only gone for a weekend. It just really takes it out of me I guess!

I will put up pictures soon! Love and miss you all! Adios!

Love, Me.