Valencia, a detailed account

ok now that I am actually have some time on my hands I can go into a bit more detail of my Valencia experiences before we head off to Madrid tomorrow morning...

So to back up, Preetal picked me up from the airport on Friday and after a stop to say a quick hello to her friends we went to her house. Her madre lives in a 3rd floor flat above a Asian dollar store. The flat has 4 bedrooms (i think) and two bathrooms. Her madre Blanca was nice enough to make up a guestroom for me. The flat looks spanish with arched doorways and brown tile floor. Blanca looks like a little 1950s housewife with her hair flipped out and makeup all done.

That night we met up with some of Preetal´s friends and actually had a German dinner cooked by some German friends of theirs. So my first meal in Spain was German and it was amazingly good though I am not really sure what it was. We walked home and that first night it was warmer than London and I didn´t even wear a jacket...to bad that didn´t last.

Saturday, we eventually got up and headed to the "Mercado Central" or Central Market. This is like a real food market and is very different from those in London. There are stalls of dried fruit, veggies, and meat. Oh the meat. Lets just say there are dried pig legs hanging from the ceiling, I have seen a skinless head of something nasty as well as just the snout/face/ears of a pig. Walk into the VERY fresh seafood section and they have squid, octopus, fish, eel, shrimp a lot of which is still moving or being killed at that moment. I guess this indoor market is one of the oldest in Europe and these Spaniards mean business.

After that we checked out the "La Lonja de la Seda" which is an old building that used to be a silk market. It is soo pretty and looks like it should be a church. We then did a little shopping in the shops down the street before heading to the posh little internet cafe so Preetal could actually study for her finals.

Sunday and Monday, it rained a lot and Preetal was busy studying so we didn´t do anything to eventful.....except for watching episodes of Friends on her laptop while trying to thaw out after freezing out in the rain. We did manage to fight the rain and visit the "Museo Nacional de Ceramica" or the ceramics museum. We mainly went because the museum is housed in the former Palace of Maruis de Dos Aguas and was so detailed and amazing inside.

So far we have been eating our meals with Blanca. The food she serves is very interesting. Our first lunch was paella with vegetables and what I thought was chicken but what Preetal thought was rabbit. There was also a side salad, and a plate of tomatoes with white asparagus and chunks of tune on top. We have also had Spanish tortillas which are pretty much potatoes quiche made in a frying pan. This was served with a side puree soup and some bread. The whole way of eating here is so different. First they eat at different times. In the morning, Blanca leaves for work at 10am and leaves out toast and jam for breakfast. Then she comes home in the afternoon and serves lunch which is the largest meal of the day around 2 to 2:30pm. After siesta, or a few hours of rest she goes back to work and does not come home until 9pm and we eat dinner around 9:30 0r 10pm. SO that has taken a bit of getting used to. Also they leave more food out here. The paella we ate our first day sat uncovered on the counter for 2 days, the milk is served out of box cartons that are not refrigerated. Different for sure, I know that in London they didn´t refrigerated there eggs but this is on another level all together....anyways.

Yesterday the weather was better and between Preetal´s finals (yes I am a huge distraction to her, my bad) First, we went and climbed the Torres de Serranos which is this huge gothic tower that was the entrance to the city and gave great views, then we went to see the Sorella exhibit of paintings that are of traditional spanish scenes. At dusk, we climbed the 300 stairs of the La Catedral de Valencia & El Miguelete (the Valencia Cathedral) to see the views of the city and the famous Plazas. After our treck, we rewarded ourselves and split traditional chocolate and churros. This I think might be the worst thing for you, ever but don´t hold me to that I am yet to hit Italy. 1 large cup of think hot chocolate and then dipping deep fried dough into it, very good but really rich.

Today is Preetal´s last day of finals and so everyone is going out Valencian style tonight. Tomorrow we have a 8am flight to Madrid for our 1 day there, let the backpacking continue....

ok so after typing this on a spanish only computer i now see that i really do suck at spelling haha

Blair and Preetal´s Backpacking Adventure Part 1

The thinker was visiting from France.

Plaza de la Virgen

So I haven´t updated this in a while and am weeks behind. But I have said goodbye to London and am now in Valencia Spain for the first part of our big Christmas trip.

I flew in on Friday, so it is now my 3rd day in Espana. The first night we went to a few of the plazas and the were sooo pretty. Saturday we went to the indoor food market which was huge and intersting to see the local foods.



I am staying with Preetal at her host mother´s house. Her Madre does not speak english but I have tried to be polite and use the little spanish I have. Preetal has finals this weeks so we have done a combo of sight seeing, shopping and studying in this posh little coffee shop. I´m really thankful Preetal is good at spanish because i would not do so well getting around on my own.

It has only been a few days but I can tell that I will be swearing off bread when I get home and I haven´t even made it to Italy yet haha. I am yet to see a vegateble in Spain, a not so good looking salad is a closest I have come....oh well. The paella and spanish tortiallas are good.

It has rained the last two days so I am hoping it will clear up so we can venture out more. We aren´t flying to Madrid until Thursday so hopefully I will see more of the city before we leave.


I will try to stay updated along the way...

The last 3 weeks...

So my regular blog entries have been non-existent in the last few weeks. Just so much going on. I’ll will give a summary of the highlights.

Two weekends ago we kicked off our back to back trips with a weekend in Prague. We all met outside for our taxi at 4am to take us to the airport…. ugh that was really early (sadly I’m getting used to it will all these early flights haha) We had a little unexpected pit stop on our flight when we had to land in Berlin as the Prague airport had broke out in a fire. So I spent an hour and half on the tarmac in Berlin, does that count as visiting?

When we got to Prague we were pleasantly surprised to find that our “hostel” was a two bedroom flat. I’m talking this was my DREAM apartment. French doors, tall ceilings, a balcony…we were just sad not to be spending more than one night there because it was amazing. So we spent most of Saturday exploring and seeing the sights. The old town (where we stayed, new town looks like depressing 1970s) was beautiful. All the streets were cobblestone, building with their red rooftops. This was the first time we have experienced money that was extremely foreign to us. In the Czech Republic, they use the Czech Crown. To give you an idea, a drink at Starbucks cost about 90kc (just under 4 euro). It got dark around 4pm and we watched the sunset behind St. Charles bridge was amazing. Saturday night we did a Prague Pub crawl, it was very tourist but hey that is what we are. Prague was very touristy in general with tons of souvenir shops that sold exact same crap. The city seemed pretty quite which I think was due to it being a cold November weekend. Sunday we did more sightseeing, and took a boat down the river. Sunday was really cold which made it much harder to enjoy since we walk everywhere. Over all we had a ton of fun and it was a great city to see. The more cities I go to the more I realize that each has their own vibe and charm. It always blows my mind that people live in all of these gorgeous cities and see these things every day.

On Tuesday night, I had a ticket to see the Royal Ballet perform Sleeping Beauty at the Opera House. I went straight to Covent Garden after work and had time before the show, so I picked up a baguette and window shopped through the square and market in the drizzle (it is November in London, rain is not atypical) When I got to the Opera House, all my years as a ballet nerd caught up to me. I was one of the first people in when the house opened and spent the extra time taking pictures of the theatre and reading my program from start to finish. Of course, I loved it, I remember dancing in it at home and they were amazing and all the music was so familiar. Anyways, it was a great way to spend a Tuesday night.

Ok, so last Thursday was Thanksgiving. To everyone State side that is obvious but here I had to keep reminding myself. Actual Thanksgiving was kind a hard day. I had a long day of work that included a commute of over an hour to the client site. I knew that everyone at home was cooking or watching the parade and football. Talking to a few Brits, they don’t really understand the holiday, they thought it sounded a lot like Christmas with the family all together and why didn’t we just wait for that. We had to explain that it is the kick off to Christmas and it gave us another excuse to eat. On Friday, we did our own pseudo Thanksgiving which turned out amazing, we had all the traditional dishes homemade. It was delicious.

We went to Dublin this past weekend, but I am way behind and too tired to get into it tonight, I'll save that for the next one.