……..

so valencia, yes, was the bright side/other distraction from the guilt i have for letting my brain go to mush…

I kind of want to make this quick, sorry, I still have to comment on Sardinia, Italy.. which was so euro tight..

A 4 hour bus ride and a bag of chocolate pretzels later, we arrived in the early afternoon to a nice humid, overcast, and blazin’ Valencian atmosphere. We had a quaint stroll to the hostel, passing a few runned down townhouses and a tatuaje parlor, random castle monuments and playgrounds… We arrived to the hostel “indigo,” and as you enter, there’s a little moto bike plopped in the corner with chinese writing on the back. Chino Hostel!!! Nah. English actually. A bit dorm-like, but worth the 24 euro we paid for two nights. lovely mate!

The day was full of rain patches, discovery, a cafe with tapas and sangria that landed you on the floor, and some great photography snapshots. We came back in the evening, took a little siesta/facebook break, and headed back out for… what do you think… Paella Valenciana! Served in a large flat, heavy, iron skillet, a few of us shared the rice, chicken…and rabbit… dish. I’m sorry, I tried not to believe i actually ate rabbit. Cultural issues…
Chupitos gratis and out on the town, bar hopping, feeling the Valencian vibe, meeting some italians and spaniards–locura… They asked me, ‘what do you know in italian?’ First thing, obviously that pops into my head is Ti Amooooo! They threw back their heads and cried, ‘awwwwww she loves me!!!!’ That started a night of italian/spanish/english hodgepodge. Fun, like I said, locura. I’ve had more random nights in Europe than my entire collection in the district, for sure.

The next day- in this order- Valencia Futbol team siting, 1 hour beach time, getting kicked out of a cafe for only wanting coffee and bread, random wall that could have been drawn from an artist’s marijuana hallucination, siesta, shower, getting lost trying to find a reggae venue, tapas, more tapas, more…, random meeting of spaniards, first trying of agua de valencia (caution: don’t let the orange juice taste fool you), dancing flamenco in the streets, taking pictures with 6 or more men dressed as superheroes, and seeing one of our other hostel roommates hooking up with a bachelor party participant in the middle of the street….

Sunday! Productivity. We exercised the brain by going to the Oceanografico..apparently one of the biggest and greatest aquariums in the world. 20 euros, oh, being American is so hard….. Well it definitely crushed Baltimore’s by far. The waterlife was phenomenal, SHARKS! BELUGAS! PENGUINOS! GIANT STARFISH…DOLPHIN SHOW! MAS?! MAS! As we walked through tunnels under the water, with wildlife surrounding us on all sides, I felt like i was the fish in the tank, and they had the pleasure of observing. It was all astoundingly impressive. Photographs can give a small insight to the Valencia mayhem.

It’s worth dedicating a weekend of randomness to. By all means, que alli lo pases full throttle!

Here’s some of the valencian fun: