I Finally Went to the Beach...in a Swimsuit!

The beginning of the last week of April was uneventful. I went to most of my classes in the high school, but I can never get through a full week without at least one of them being canceled, and last week was no different. In my after school classes, my students asked me questions rather than the other way around, and then we played Outburst, where they had to guess the top 10 most popular answers for any given category, like food or means of transportation. I was actually looking forward to going to the elementary school that week because I planned my own lesson.

When I work with the third and fourth grade teacher, he usually asks me to prepare something but he generally gives me the topic. Like for March, we talked about Easter, which was his idea. However, he always says I can use my own ideas. For April, he suggested talking about April Fool's Day, and I have to admit that I didn't like that idea. At that point, April Fool's Day had been four weeks earlier, and what could I even tell them about April Fool's Day? That a common prank is to put your friend's bra in the freezer? So I ignored him, for once, and made my own lesson about Rumplestiltskin.

Back in November, my first lesson with them was about fairy tales. They read the same fairy tales as we do in the US, but they have different names (For example, Cinderella in Spanish is Cenicienta). So we played a game where they had to guess the name of common fairy tales in English. I prepared 15 different fairy tales for the game, and they knew all of them except one: Rumplestiltskin. I don't know why that was the only one that hasn't made it to Spain (especially since Germany is much closer to Spain than it is to the US), but I promised them that we would read it together before I left. So I found a script version of it online and brought it in. They took the different parts and I was the narrator. It was actually more fun than I expected. And then the following day, I asked them to color in a picture of a fairy tale character and write their own story about it (in Spanish, because writing a story in English was a little above their level). It was really successful, and fun for me because I love fairy tales. I could teach about them every week.

When the weekend rolled around, I had another trip planned. Morgan, Kendra and I were going to Valencia for the weekend. Morgan and I were really lucky because Valencia is a really popular destination among people in our area, so they actually run buses there. Kendra wasn't quite as lucky, but she was able to find a ride to Valencia from Toledo through Blablacar, so it all worked out.

Morgan and I had a bus to catch at 6:15 on Friday morning. We made it to the station with time to spare, and sat down to wait. There was no one around the station except for one guy standing near a van. Well, as it turned out, the van was a shuttle to the real bus, which was waiting in another town. Apparently the bus to Valencia isn't popular enough to warrant driving a whole bus to Quintanar, so they shuttled us to a neighboring town in the van. It was, in fact, just as weird and unexpected as it sounds. For Morgan and me, traveling is never boring.

We made it to the bus without incident and started the long trip to the coast. Valencia is actually a bit less than three hours from Quintanar, but of course a bus is slower than a car and it made stops, so the trip took four and a half hours. We made it to our hostel around 11:15, met the proprietor (who was one of the jolliest people I've ever met and laughed heartily at everything), dropped our stuff, and ventured back out. We were staying outside of the center of the historic district, but that meant we were closer to the beach and to the art and science complex for which Valencia is famous.

We wanted to visit the central market, where we were hoping we could get something to eat while we waited for Kendra to arrive. On our way to the market, we took an accidental detour because we thought it was a different building on the map, but we got to see more of downtown Valencia than we planned, including discovering the library.

Plaza de los Toros (bull ring)

Train station

Library of Valencia

Santos Juanes church

The market was more of a grocery type market than the prepared foods we were hoping for, but we found things to snack on (My favorite thing to eat in Spanish markets is fresh fruit cups, and Valencia's market didn't disappoint). We also tried horchata, the local drink of choice. Horchata is a milky drink made with ground up almonds or tigernuts and sugar. Every horchata is different, and the one we tried had lemon and cinnamon in it, a popular combination in Valencia. We each had a farton with our horchata, which is a type of pastry that you dunk in your horchata. Truthfully, neither of us loved horchata. I expected it to be a thicker consistency, similar to a milkshake, but it was thin and grainy from the almonds and it left a film in my mouth after I swallowed it. I drank all of it but it wasn't something I'll probably drink again, and Morgan felt the same. We wandered around the market for a little longer before continuing on to the silk exchange.

Central Market

Central Market side entrance

Market interior

Dehydrated fruit and nuts

The llotja de la seda, or the silk exchange, is a beautiful Gothic-style building that once was a silk and fabric trading point. It's empty inside now but it's really beautiful, and totally worth a visit. I particularly enjoyed going down the stairs to the chamber below the building; I felt like I was in the catacombs with Montresor and Fortunado in Edgar Allen Poe's Cask of Amontillado.

Silk exchange

Orange Garden

Pavillion of the Consulate

Contract Hall

Stairs down to the scary cellar

Concerned that Montresor would show up and chain me to the wall

Upstairs

View from the balcony

Stained glass window inside another cool window

We then wandered in the direction of the cathedral because we thought Kendra would probably be arriving soon. We found ourselves accidentally in one of the main squares in Valencia, Plaza de la Virgen, named for a pretty pink basilica in the square.

Plaza de la Virgen

Other side of the plaza and the Moorish almudin

Posing with the cathedral

While we waited for Kendra, we wandered a little more and came across Torres de la Serrano, a really cool tower that we could climb for cool views of the city. But it was free on Sundays and we didn't want to do it without Kendra, so we decided to wait.

Torres de Serrano

We met Kendra in Plaza de la Virgen and immediately wanted to find somewhere to eat lunch, because it was late by then, even for Spain. Kendra had heard about a place with good Indian food, so we headed in that direction. It was farther than we expected, so we were really hungry by the time we got there--only to discover it had closed for siesta 10 minutes before that. But we found another restaurant nearby and enjoyed our food. We all agreed we would go to the Indian place for dinner instead.

After lunch, we headed back toward the center to do more exploring, so we went to the Plaza de la Ayuntamiento, which is the city hall square. 

Ayuntamiento, or city hall

This is their post office. Can you imagine?

Plaza de la Ayuntamiento

We then ventured over to the fine arts museum of Valencia. We just wanted to see the building, which had a pretty blue dome, but it turned out that the museum was free, so we explored inside. They had a nice collection of mostly Spanish art, including many pieces painted by Valencian artists, which was cool. After the museum, we wanted to see the Palau de la Musica, the city's concert hall, but we were waylaid by the discovery of a pretty park on our way there. Furthermore, there was a book fair going on in the park, and we found English books! Morgan was smart enough to walk away but I couldn't help but buy one. I'm still here for a month, after all.

Morgan and me in the park

I don't know what this is, but I thought it was pretty

The park had an aviary!

Book fair

We continued on towards the concert hall, but we were waylaid again by a festival taking place in the river bed below us. The Turia river is supposed to flow through the city, but it used to flood all the time, so they diverted it around the city years ago. So now there's a river bed that runs through the city that they turned into gardens, parks, football fields, and such. So when we saw the festival, which was a celebration of Andalucia and flamenco, we had to check it out.

Bridge over the river bed

Andalucia Fair

We continued on after that and finally made it to the concert hall. By that time, it was dark, but it was actually lovely to see it all lit up, particularly because there's a reflecting pool in the river bed below.

Reflecting pool from the Palau de la Musica

Palau de la Musica

We crossed the river bed back to the other side and finally had dinner at the Indian restaurant, which was delicious. We were back in the neighborhood of our hostel at this point, so we were eager to get back and lie down (According to my trusty FitBit, we walked 12.8 miles over the course of the day).

We slept in in the morning before heading back into the historic district to meet my friend Melanie for lunch. Melanie and I know each other from all of my years at camp, and she was studying abroad in Valencia. She was actually leaving to go home the following day, so it was really serendipitous that it worked out. On our way to meet Melanie, we passed by the Mercado de Colon, a market that had food and handicrafts, and we decided we wanted to go back. We met Melanie in Plaza de la Virgen and, since it was still a little early for lunch, turned to go back to the market.

Other side of the cathedral in Plaza de la Reina

Mercado de Colon

Interior of the market

We had lunch with Melanie at an American restaurant (I couldn't help but ask to eat there when I saw it, because anyone who reads my blog knows my struggles with Spanish food) before we parted ways so she could finish packing to go home the next day. But it was so nice to catch up with an old friend from home!

Morgan, Kendra and I continued on to la Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, the art and science complex for which Valencia is most famous. The complex, which is huge and stretches for ages, houses an opera house, a science museum, and an aquarium.

El Palau de las arts Reina Sofia (opera house)

Morgan and I with the hemispheric

When we were done exploring the complex, we caught a bus to the beach. It had been really warm in the early afternoon, but then it got chilly while we were at the art and science complex, so we were disappointed that we wouldn't be able to enjoy the beach. But then the sun came back out, and we ended up having a lovely time. I got to actually wear a swimsuit for the first time since I've been in Spain; despite this being my fifth visit to a beach since September, it was never actually beachgoing weather until this weekend.

Golden sand and the Mediterranean. I could've stayed forever.

Beach selfie!

Swimsuits in April!

Promenade along the beach

Sandcastle art

We went back to our hostel for a quick rest before dinner. I'm sure you've heard of Spanish paella, a popular rice and seafood or chicken dish. Well, paella is from Valencia, and they're very proud of it. The most popular way to eat paella is with shellfish, but traditional Valencian paella is made with chicken and rabbit. Since we were in Valencia, we couldn't leave without eating paella, so that was our goal for dinner. We asked the hostel staff for a recommendation, and they said there was a good place nearby, so we went out to find it.

It was harder to find the restaurant than we anticipated, and we walked around for about 10 minutes before we found it. But that helped us realize that the area we were staying in was also beautiful. Basically anywhere you go in Valencia is gorgeous, so it's pretty hard to go wrong.

Pretty street near our hostel

We got to the restaurant and ordered our paella, which was just chicken, no rabbit. We got some starters before the paella came, which were delicious. We had a Moroccan chicken curry pastry and salad. But we were in for a surprise when the paella came. The paella had pieces of white and dark meat in it, so when I spooned it onto my plate, I had several pieces of dark meat. I prefer white meat, but I don't mind dark meat. So as we started eating, I was about to cut into one of the pieces of dark meat when Morgan pointed out one of her pieces of meat distinctly resembled a heart. I started looking at my "dark meat" pieces and realized they were actually the chicken's organs. I know that eating stuff like that is just mind over matter, but the matter was too much for my mind to accept. Kendra and I both skipped the organs and focused on the white meat and rice, but Morgan was brave and actually tried a few things. When she pointed out that most of them just tasted like blood, I knew I'd made the right choice by abstaining. That was an interesting and unexpected turn of events, to be sure, but when in Rome, right?

We went back to our hostel after dinner to sleep. In the morning, we had breakfast and checked out of the hostel around 10 and carried our bags to the train station, where we rented a locker to store them while we explored the city just a little bit more. Our first stop was the cathedral. If you look in the photos above, you can see a tower sticking up above the rest of the building. We decided to climb the tower because we'd heard it afforded beautiful views of the city. The 207 steps, although it took some serious huffing and puffing, were definitely worth it.

View from the Micalet bell tower

Other side

Made it to the top!

We then stopped at an ice cream place. Morgan and I got ice cream and Kendra tried horchata, since she wasn't with us when we tried it. Unfortunately, Kendra hated it. She took two sips and gave it to Morgan. But she agreed that she didn't regret trying it either. After some quick souvenir shopping (I collect post cards and Morgan collects magnets), we went back to the Torres de Serrano towers, since it was Sunday and they were free. We were disappointed when we got there because they were inexplicably closed, which was definitely a bummer. We could've done them another day if we'd known. Oh well. As we walked through the city back to the train station, a bunch of streets were closed and there were police everywhere, so I think there was some sort of festival or event going on. That would explain the closure but I would've appreciated a heads up.

Morgan and I were taking a train from Valencia to Alcázar de San Juan, the station closest to Quintanar, and taking a bus from there, which was only 25 minutes. Kendra was taking a train from a different station to Madrid and then going to Toledo from there, so we parted ways at the station.

Morgan and I lounged for the three hour train trip, which was more comfortable and shorter than the 4.5 hour bus ride on the way there. We got off in Alcázar and took a leisurely stroll to the bus station. We remembered the park near the bus station from the last time we were in Alcázar, so we lay in the grass for the better part of an hour while we waited for the bus. I didn't realize how much I took grass for granted until I moved to Quintanar.

We were back in Quintanar around 6pm. I went home, unpacked, ate dinner, and generally had a quiet night because I have a full week of school. I don't have any trips planned this weekend, but you never know; I might do something interesting enough to warrant a post for next week!