Valencia at the start

---

30 August 2011 1850 (Valencia, 0453 NZ)
Ugh it is so hot! Not a complaint, merely a statement! we are spending our days in 30-ish degrees heat, I swear its that temp like all day!!
So anyway, SPACE, holy crap, Ibiza clubs are HUGE! Only saw one ‘terrace’ thing too and that was big enough to get lost in! We headed to the club in 2 taxis travelling at high speeds, anyone would have thought the guy wanted to get us out of his cab asap!! Hot, sweaty, standard club scene in that respect - €15 for water apparently!!! All danced up a storm but were all home again before the sun came up!! Would love to tell you more… I have some photographic evidence & between us all we can put snippets of the evening together!!! Haha
Monday = off to Valencia – we hung out by the pool with Patz & Jon till we headed to the airport around 1430. Flight was quick, only around 20mins, which was good cos I was def not in the mood for travelling, even by then!
Hursty, Ngaia & Lou walked us through our first tube experience… hmm I wish I had put some effort in to learning some Spanish already! Ibiza was easy, there were soo many british people we only needed English, prob a good way to ease in to things though!
Lou has booked us a wee apartment (ww.getmeanapartment.com – for anyone needing one, very good site & option for groups!), it sleeps 6 comfortably with single beds in two of the rooms – HOORAY cos it is way too hot at night to be to close to anyone else! No air-con, just fans – I never thought I’d be so happy to sleep with a fan! Hehe fair to say though it just pushes the hot air around the rooms!
We are staying right on the outskirts of the old Valencia town – we have two towers & big gates just down the road, remnants of the old wall that protected the original city! All of us were fairly hungry by the time we were sorted at the apartment so it was off to dinner, well to walk around & around until we could finally decide where to eat! We ended up at a place with a cockroach on the wall… beer & food was good though! My memory is failing me terribly & I have no idea what the place was called now – im gonna have to start eating salmon & reading books in the hopes that I can still carry out my job when I get back! Either that or im gonna have to go on holiday permanently… perhaps ill risk it!! Anyway, had tuna & red peppers tapas style followed by duck for tea – interesting duck, quite salty but served covered in the skin so it all fell off the bone – no apple sauce though, its just not the same!!! Spanish style is to eat very late, hence all the walking we did, think we headed out around 6:30ish & had pretty much no options on this side of town to eat at – its to hot to sleep late too so instead of eating all our meals later we are just slipping an extra meal in to the day! Much better option I think!!
We have a fruit stall which is open early just across the road so it was fruit salad for breakfast then trac & I went for a wander as everyone started to get up & came across a supermarket – food is sooo cheap! We ended up with more breakfast, a round baguette style roll with pancetta & cheese which you baked in the oven & chocolate croissants – just from the supermarket but delicious!! So we had a great start to the day & a fair bit of walking to get through!!
The plan was to get to an information booth & find out what could do to be more prepared for tomorrow (La Tomatina/Tomato Festival in Bunol) – turns out we can’t buy train tickets till tomorrow so dammit our organisational skills are not going to save us time in the morning – it is looking like a 6am start to be lined up for trains by 7 across the other side of the old town! Festival kicks off around 11ish & actual tomato throwing only lasts an hr, we all have brand new white attire for less than €10 each too, enough layers to be clothed enough to get on the bus back to Valencia at the end of it all hopefully!!! It will definitely be an experience!
We jumped on the tourist bus, a double decker bus that goes all over the city with a commentary as well! There are some amazing public buildings around the place – the new ones are crazy & very engineered, the old ones are detailed & beautiful!! We went to the beach where Ngaia & I swam (its no oreti that’s for sure, no waves, water is warm, was hard to believe we were in the ocean!!) & checked out the markets along the beach briefly, called past the Americas Cup Village which is now a ghost town pretty much – it is so weird!!! It was too hot to be in the direct sunlight for too long so we had a few drinks along the way to escape – jumped back on the bus & made it back to the old town in time to have a drink with Hursty before he heads back to reality – work in London!!
There are some very interesting smells around this place, especially the old town where the streets are all so narrow & footpaths one person wide, the tourists seem to think that the sumps are rubbish bins as well which probably doesn’t help!
All in all Spain so far as come through for us – tonight we are hoping to head out to a more traditional Spanish restaurant & drink sangria (haven’t been able to deal with the idea of red wine in this heat but sangria hits the spot!!) – should be a fairly low key evening for us in preparation for tomorrow, apparently there are some good after parties too so it really could be a big one!!
Kendyl – the cheese is so cheap, you would be in heaven! What is a wee bit odd though is the lack of condiments in their sandwiches/baguettes! You seriously just get bread & salami/calamari – takes a wee bit of getting use to but we have generally just been asking for a sachet of mayo to avoid the pain of eating a ‘no spread sandwich’!
No internet while we are at the apartment so I have written this blog to avoid me forgetting the events of the past couple of days OR as a lead up to a head injury tomorrow, so ill have to post a few at a time!

---

Comments

[joy smith]

great blog
Hi you would be amazed if you knew how long it took meto write this, we are really enjoying your comments ,pics. Its good to be home we had a lovely time.lots of love mum @