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Published: January 24th 2009
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We left Barcelona early in the morning and I listened to Michael Buble songs on Dan's i-pod throughout the quick ride to Valencia. When we got to Valencia, I was immediately enamoured: clean, white and tall buildings, a beautiful fountain in the middle of a big, beautiful square, and frankly, I was just happy to be out of Barcelona. I constantly feel like I'm going to be pickpocketed at any minute there.
We had to walk a fair piece in the boiling heat to our amazing hostel, Home Backpackers. Along the way, I chatted with Chris Floreani (Flo), Chris Franga (Frank to me) and Gareth (from London). They had been in my room in Barcelona, although I never officially met them there.
We had to wait forever to check in, so everyone chatted with each other. I met two girls from New Zealand, Janna and Claire. I wound up in their dorm and was immediately best friends with them. I was so happy to have girlfriends again!
After we got settled we went for lunch on an outdoor terrazza (great sandwiches with asparagus and beer). The three guys joined us after lunch and we all went for another
drink. We then walked back to the hostel, picking up 60 euro cent bottles of wine along the way (they weren't all that bad, considering). This hostel has about seven floors (and no elevator), and there is a fantastic rooftop patio on top, so we all had a few drinks up there, then headed to a park around the corner and hung out with a big Busabout group that had already gathered there. We watched a guy do magic tricks and met a bunch of other people.
I found myself slightly drawn to Flo, and I wound up sitting next to him and we flirted a little bit (Paul Ferrari is always in my mind, of course). We all went to bed around 3am that night.
The next day, all we wanted was to hit the beach, so we picked up some fresh fruit from the market and found a bus. The beach and the water were not the best I've seen in Europe thus far (not sure if anything can compare to San Sebastian now!) but it was refreshing nonetheless. We stayed there for a few hours, shopped a bit in the kiosks, then headed back to
the hostel.
We picked up the Flo/Frank/Gareth crew and went out for dinner. We had excellent calamari and paella (I got stuck with a seafood paella, and I had to get someone else to crack the prawns for me as I was too grossed out to do it myself). Afterwards, we walked to the El Carmen district where we had the best night yet of bar-hopping. Valencia nightlife is fantastic!!
Flo and I started holding hands toward the end of the night, which was a little awkward with everyone else hanging around. We sort of ducked into a corner to kiss, and he spilled his guts about how he'd wanted to kiss me from the first time he'd seen me in Barcelona. That was quite nice to hear. He said I'm the only girl he's felt a connection with on holiday thus far and he kept bemoaning the fact that we'll never see each other again. It was cute, but a little dramatic and I didn't entirely share his enthusiasm. Anyway, he was fun to hang out with and it's too bad that we only really hit it off that night, as he and the other boys were
leaving the next morning.
Saturday morning, we said our goodbyes and then the Kiwi girls, Dan and I had to check out of Home Backpackers because it was fully-booked. We considered going to Ibiza for the night, but decided we weren't up for an all-nighter, so we found a very posh hotel where we only needed to pay 25 euros each and we got really nice rooms.
Claire and Dan were not feeling well so they went for a siesta, and Janna and I walked to find the big Gulliver that we'd seen on postcards. We grabbed ice cream cones along the way and followed our map to Parc Gulliver ... and it was well worth the walk!! It is an enormous statue of Gulliver (from Gulliver's Travels, of course), and he has slides and walkways all over him and we spent ages playing and sliding and fooling around on him. It was fantastic!
On the way home, we stopped into an incredible department store called El Corte Ingles; much better than H&M and I'll sorely miss it when I leave Spain!
That night, we had a few drinks in our lovely hotel room, and then,
in true Spanish fashion, went for dinner at midnight (in not so true Spanish fashion, we had Burger King). We were all quite tired, but we walked to El Carmen anyway and had a few drinks at a bar called Geckho. However, none of us were really in the mood to party, and we were all keen to sleep in our air-conditioned rooms, so we called it an early night (early in Spain being 3am).
I could've slept the entire day away but the girls came to get me at noon to hit the beach. So we walked back to Home Backpackers to check in again. I bought a muffin for 2.80 euros ("I don't know if it was worth $5, but it was pretty fuckin' good") and we headed to the beach. We contemplated tanning topless, and since Dan wasn't there, we decided to go for it. It was super intimidating being surrounded by bronzed, perfect Spanish women and we made all kinds of jokes about people needing to wear visors and sunglasses to shield themselves from our white boobs. A fantastic afternoon!
When we returned to the hostel, we found a brand new hottie: Barry. He's
25, Aussie, and I thought at first that he was the hottest guy I'd ever seen. I hoped he might be my new boyfriend but as soon as Janna arrived, I realized he'd probably be hers. We were hungry around 8:00 so we naively headed out to find somewhere to eat (clearly, in Spain, dinner does not work that way). Upon finding no restaurants that were open, the girls bought a bunch of stuff from the market and whipped up a nice tuna salad when we got back (I didn't help cook, obviously, but I helped pour the wine). We had dinner on the rooftop patio and had a nice night chatting. We went to the park for a little while and then hit a few bars in El Carmen (picked up a Slovenian guy along the way).
As we walked along the cute and very quiet little streets, we suddenly came upon a clearing where I was treated to one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen. We walked into a huge, empty square (Plaza de la Virgen), the ground so clean and shiny and huge that it looked like a skating rink. On the left side was a magnificent statue of a man lying down with angels all around him. The women looked so surreal, but real at the same time. In front of us was a huge, old cathedral that glowed white in the 3am moonlight (I found out the next day that it's the cathedral that houses the supposed holy grail). I was absolutely awestruck and wished I could've stayed there all night, smoking and praying and marvelling. I would love to get married there someday at 3am with just my fiance and a priest. Absolutely fantastic.
Claire, Slovenian and I found ourselves in a club and I had one beer with them and then took off. I was already in bed about a half hour later when drunk Barry and drunker Janna came stumbling into the room, and Claire arrived a little while after that.
All in all, Valencia was one of the best stops of the trip.
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