¡El viaje a Valencia! (The trip to Valencia!)

Happy New Year everyone! I can't believe that it's 2013 already. It just goes to show you that time flies. I'm sorry that I haven't posted anything for awhile. I've been pretty busy with getting back into the swing of things, and this post took awhile to write also.

My big trip to Valencia began on January 2, 2013 at 3:30 pm. I boarded the bus a little before  and settled down in my assigned seat, both nervous and excited. It felt like such a long time until the bus started moving. I had brought my iPod, so during the ride I listened to it. Overall the trip to Valencia took about four hours. I tried sleeping, and I think I fell asleep once, but only for a short time. 

As we drew into the station, I grew even more excited. I was finally in Valencia! I picked up my backpack, which was the only piece of luggage I had brought. I had packed light because I didn't want to carry a heavy bag around. I took a taxi to the hotel. At the front desk I told them that I was the third girl. My two friends whom I was staying with had arrived about an hour earlier 
from Barcelona. I got the key to our room, and when I opened the door, there they were, Theodora and Natalie, resting from their long bus ride. We greeted each other very happily. I was very glad to see them because I hadn't seen anyone from school for over a week. Even though we were tired, we wanted to explore the center of Valencia a bit. We asked the woman at the front desk for a map of the city, and not only did she give us it but she also gave us recommendations of where we should go and what we should visit. She was very helpful. With those in mind, we set off for the center. It was within walking distance, about twenty minutes. Once we arrived in the center, we decided to go to the right. There were tons of stores and shops and restaurants and banks. Everything was brightly lit. There was a big plaza that was still decorated for Christmas. Blue lights hung from the trees and there were wires above from which hung lights in the shapes of moons and stars. In the middle there was a big electrical tree. It was entirely made up of lights. 

Me, Natalie, and Theodora in front of the
Christmas tree

We were hungry, so we looked for a good place to eat. We found a little restaurant called 
SushiMore. Theodora told us that she didn't really like sushi, so Natalie and I decided to try to 
make her like it more. We ordered different kinds, and the woman who served us was very nice. She could tell that we were Americans, and she knew English! We spoke with her for 
several minutes in English. I liked that a lot. 

We left SushiMore and continued walking to our right. There weren't that many people out. We 
reached another big plaza and circled it. At one point we saw this massive church that looked 
very interesting and decided to enter it. The interior was so beautiful and breathtaking! Partly 
because it was so big, and also because of the decorations and architecture. There was a lot of gold, and because I take Art History, I recognized many of the constructive techniques used. 
Not only was I in awe of the columns and the arches, but I could identify many of them, which 
made the experience even more special. Connected to the church was a tower which the 
woman at the front desk had told us that we should climb. We really wanted to do that because 
we knew that the view would be spectacular. 

At the front of the church there was an altar with a corridor surrounding it. We passed through the corridor and discovered that in a little space there lay a religious relic. It was the arm and hand of a martyr! It was quite cool to be seeing it in person. I never imagined that I would be looking at a human body part that old. 

The corridor.

The religious relic.

The name of the martyr.

After we left the church we turned right onto a sort of alley. A man was selling self-made drawings on the left. When we passed by him I took a quick look at his drawings and they looked really good. At last we found ourselves in another, smaller plaza. All the buildings seemed quite old. This part of Valencia definitely felt older, too. The main difference was that 
there were no stores selling clothes or electronics. There was really nothing that was related to 
modern times. The street lamps cast a yellow glow on everything, making them seem even 
older. On our return to the hotel, Theodora wanted to buy one of the man's drawings, so we 
stopped and looked at them. He had used black ink and copied some of the nearby buildings 
and vegetation. I really liked them. Theodora chose a small drawing of a building. 

The next day, Thursday, we slept very late. I got up at 1 pm, and Natalie and Theodora got up at 
2 pm. We were all very tired. Theodora needed to buy a new camera and cellphone, so we went to the department store, El Corte Inglés. I found the model of the camera that I had bought for Spain and showed it to Theodora. She liked it and bought it. Afterwards we looked at phone 
models, but she decided to wait until the next day. We were all starving by then and ate a late 
lunch, around 5 pm. We also didn't order a lot of food because dinner was pretty soon and we 
wanted to be hungry for it. We returned to the plaza where we had been the night before, the 
one that looked older. There were a lot more people that night. For dinner we didn't want to go 
to a restaurant. Instead we went to the market and bought some fruit and bread. It wasn't fancy, 
but we were content, and it filled our stomachs. 

That night Theodora and I searched for the City of Arts and Sciences online. This City is part of 
Valencia, and it contains buildings dedicated to the arts and sciences. There's a science 
museum, an aquarium, a movie theater, an opera house, and other buildings. We wanted to visit it the next day. We settled on visiting the aquarium and the movie theater. 

Map of the City of the Arts and Sciences
(From left to right: the opera house (Palau...), the movie theater (Hemisfèric), the Umbracle,
the Museum of Science (Museo...), the concert hall (Ágora), and the aquarium (Oceanogràfic))
The language isn't Spanish; it's Catalonian, from the autonomous community Cataluña. 

We got up around 9 am the next morning (Friday), ate a quick breakfast, and prepared ourselves for the trip. I was very excited because I had seen photos of the buildings before and 
they looked amazing. Fortunately the weather was perfect that day. There were blue skies and it was warm. We arrived at the City around 12 pm, and first walked through the Umbracle, which is a long building that's like a greenhouse; it has a huge garden. Next we went to buy tickets. We decided that we wanted to see an IMAX movie (it's where you're seated in a dome-like structure with a huge screen in front of you to make it feel like you're actually in the movie) and go to the aquarium. 

The Umbracle.

Natalie and Theodora.

First we admired the buildings. Looking at photos beforehand did not prepare me for the actual 
things. I felt so small and insignificant next to them! They were truly spectacular. The two men 
who designed them were Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela. They began building the City in 1996 and finished the last structure in 2005. Theodora, Natalie, and I took a lot of photos 
because we wanted to remember all of it. 

The opera house.

The Museum of Science.

Underneath the Museum. Gives you a sense of just
how big it was.

The opera house and movie theater.

The concert hall for different events.

Next we walked to the aquarium, which is not one building but composed of many smaller 
buildings, each one for a different habitat/ecosystem. We looked in all of them. There were two 
"underwater" tunnels which were amazing. It was my first time in one. The effect is very cool. 
You're supposed to feel as if you're actually underwater. And there was also a small "air  bubble" in one of the tanks. To reach it we had to crawl through a tiny tunnel. Little fish swam 
around us and waves were simulated. The first time that happened it scared us because we 
didn't expect it. It was awesome. 

Underwater tunnel!

The underwater "bubble."

Some of the animals we saw were sharks, sting rays, fish, starfish, sea urchins, sea horses, 

jellyfish, beluga whales, penguins, wetland birds, sea lions, walruses, and dolphins. We actually 
got to see the sea lions and walruses being fed, which was quite funny. We first saw them sun 
bathing on their rocks, and all of a sudden they started to make weird noises and move behind 
another rock. I guess they were saying "food!" because people appeared with buckets full of 
fish and started to feed the hungry animals. We watched one woman feed three sea lions and 
one fat walrus. She would throw the fish to them and they would catch it easily in their mouths.  The fat walrus could've easily eaten fifty. 

The sea lions and walrus sunbathing.

Meal time!

The woman feeding them.

At four thirty we went to see a dolphin show! I was very excited because I had never seen one 

before and dolphins are one of my favorite animals. As we sat down the announcer was asking 
for volunteers and many of the little kids screamed and waved their hands to get his attention. 
He chose five of them. The dolphins were swimming in the different pools, waiting for the show 
to start. When the crowd grew quiet, I knew it was about to begin. Triumphant music began to 
play, and the five dolphin trainers came out onto the stage, dressed in wet suits. They had 
different hand signals to tell the dolphins what to do. One trick was that the dolphins lifted 
themselves out of the water so that only their tails were in it and they crossed the pool 
backwards. Another was that the dolphins demonstrated how fast they could swim, which was 
fast. They did a lot of jumping, like jumping together over a rope or touching a baton held out by 
one of the trainers. One of the coolest things they did was with the trainers. Each trainer 
controlled two dolphins. If he/she were in the water, to get back to the edge of the pool, the 
dolphins would push their feet. It looked as if the trainer were a mermaid or flying on the water. It 
looked so much fun. It was a bit sad when the show ended. I wanted to see more. 

Flying dolphins!

Two dolphins are pushing the trainer in the water.

They can jump so high! Never knew that was possible.

Swimming backwards.

The IMAX movie started at 7 pm, so Natalie, Theodora, and I waited outside for about half an 

hour. The movie was called the Mystery of the Nile. To watch it, everyone got special 
headphones on which you could change the language. I think that was quite smart. I put mine in 
English. During the movie I grew dizzy several times and my head began to hurt, so I had to 
close my eyes. The parts where the camera was moving really fast made me dizzy. The movie 
itself was very interesting. It was about a group of people who were the first to travel from the 
source of the Nile River to the Mediterranean Sea. It took them a long time and there were many dangers, but in the end they were all very happy and excited that they were able to do it. The satisfaction must have been tremendous. 

We went back to the hotel afterwards, happily tired and hungry. We didn't feel like going out  again so we ordered room service from Telepizza, which is like Domino's Pizza. I got pasta 
though, not pizza. 

Saturday was our last full day in Valencia. We wanted to do two things: climb the church tower 
and eat paella, the famous Valencian food, so that's what we did. But first we took a different 
route to the church so that we could see more of Valencia. We saw a medieval market and it 
interested us. We arrived at the church about five, which gave us two hours because the tower 
closed at seven. We paid for the tickets and started to climb. Now none of us were in shape, 
and the staircase was a tiny spiral with pretty big steps. Together they produced a long and 
tiring climb. We kept going up and up and up and it didn't seem to end. When we finally 
reached the top we were breathing heavily and I just wanted to sit down. But when the view 
caught my eye, I forgot all about my exhaustion. It was breathtaking! I bet you could've seen all 
of Valencia from atop of that tower. I saw the Mediterranean Sea and the City of the Arts and 
Sciences. We stayed up there for the full two hours, taking a ton of pictures and watching the 
sunset. The sunset was beautiful. The sky turned pink and purple and orange and the sun sank 
lower and lower until it was finally hidden by a distant hill. We descended the spiral staircase, 
and once we were outside, I felt relieved. The staircase scared me a bit. 

The City of Arts and Sciences!

The Mediterranean Sea!

Sunset.

Me holding the sun.

We looked for a restaurant and found one that offered paella, just what we wanted. We sat 
outside and the waiter came to take our orders. Theodora ordered the seafood paella and I 
ordered the Valencian one so that we could try each other's. Natalie didn't want paella so she 
ordered something else. The seafood paella had mussels and a giant shrimp and the Valencian paella had giant green beans and pieces of chicken. Both were of course delicious. 

That Saturday was the day before Three Kings Day, and in many cities in Spain it is celebrated 
with a parade during the evening. While we were eating the parade started. We could hear the 
music and people cheering. When we finished, we walked over to watch it. Both sides of the 
street were jam packed, and we linked arms to stay together. We wound our way through the 
crowd, trying to find a spot where we could see the parade. We stopped where there were a 
little less people. At the end of the parade the three "kings" passed, each one on his own throne and waving to the people. 

1st King.

2nd King.

3rd King.

Theodora, Natalie, and I headed next towards a neighborhood that the woman at the front desk had told us was for young people. As we were walking down a small street, Theodora spotted a 

vintage store and we entered it. It was very exciting to find a store that sells clothes from the 
90's, and it was even more exciting that it was in Spain! We did not expect to find one at all. 
Theodora and I tried on a bunch of clothes. It was so much fun. And the store was playing music 
from the 90's also! We heard "Hot Stuff," some Michael Jackson, "We Are Family." Classics. I 
don't know how long we stayed there, but probably an hour. We kept finding more and more 
clothes we wanted to try on. 

Theodora.

Looney Tunes!

The Hard Rock Café!

Crazy clothes! Look at those pants!

Trying on jackets.

Trying on long coats.

After we left the store we wandered around a bit. It had become quite cold and we sat down to 

rest. We soon decided to return to the hotel. That night the first movie of the Chronicles of Narnia was playing and we watched that. On the televisions in Spain you can switch between English and Spanish, but for some reason the channel the movie was on wouldn't change to English, so we used subtitles to help us understand it. Since it was our last night in Valencia we stayed up pretty late, even though we would be tired the next day. 

On Sunday we got up around 10 am and packed our bags. I felt sad. I wanted the trip to last 
longer. Valencia was wonderful. I wanted to get to know the city more. We left the hotel around 
one and took a taxi to the bus station. We boarded the bus a little before 2:30 and headed back to Zaragoza. 

I hope I can return to Valencia one day. It's the third biggest city in Spain, behind Madrid and 
Barcelona. It has so much to offer: food, attractions, architecture, etc. It really is a great city, and 
if any of you get the chance, you should visit it, too. 

If you want to know more about the City of Arts and Sciences, here's the link to the website: http://www.cac.es/ Enjoy!

Here are more photos from the aquarium:

A nativity scene in a fish tank? Even the fish are religious!

Sting ray!

I think it's a shark...

Sting ray swimming above us in the underwater tunnel.

Jellyfish!

Starfish!

Exhibit of a Japanese Spider Crab. Scary!

Help! It's going to bite me! (If you've seen Finding Nemo,
it's the fish that chases Dory and Marlin.)

Mr. and Mrs. Pelican.

Shark! DUN-dun-DUN-dun-DUN-dun-DUN-dun.

Weird looking fish that seems to swim on its side.

Beluga whale!

Penguin!

Starfish and sea urchin!

Octopus! Unfortunately it wouldn't come out from
underneath the boat.

A bird that lives in the wetlands. (Plus the following ones.)