Almost getting arrested in Valencia

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Valencia began with a great bus ride that was far too early in the morning. Not that it was any earlier than any of the other bus pick ups, but after 5 very full on party days in Barcelona, I really didn't need an 8am bus. Luckily at the first "pee and flee" stop I met Kelly, a fellow teacher from Melbourne who was also staying in Valencia and we also discovered we were touring the Greek Islands together for all of our 16 days! After so many months of single travel (except Spain and the Italian Adventure with Anna) it is so nice to travel with someone you already know, so I was pretty excited to have made a friend already.

Having broken two pairs of shoes in Barcelona and knowing these things tend to happen in three's I was hardly surprised when my shower shoes decided to also join my freshly dug shoe graveyard. But with death comes rejuvination or in basic terms, more shoe shopping. Now most of you who know me, and know my shoe collection is now in the three digit zone so you would expect me to dance with joy at the thought of going to buy new shoes. But I wasn't ready to give my old ones up, they had been so faithfully comfortable for so long and I had invested in re-souling before I left! AND at least some of you will sympathise with me when I say it is so hard to find something specific if you go looking for it. Especially if you are me and looking for something akin to Goldilock's "just right", not too expensive, not too cheap. So after 2-3 hours of shopping (which I actually prefer not to do in Europe as I feel it is a valuable waste of exploring time), I searched probably 50 stores and ended up back in the store I went to 2nd. Crazy! But I did have new shoes.

I came back to the hostel to try and find Kelly and Mel but they were in different rooms and had disappeared so I ended up going back out to town for dinner. Can't say I was overly excited at the food, it wasn't even average (European standards were set very high), but it didngive me a chance to finish a blog or two and write my shopping lists (breakfast and more sd cards as I am a photoholic). So I went back to the hostel for a night alone in a six bed dorm with my music, books and some well earned chill out and recovery time.

The following morning I found Mel and Kelly having breakie and joined them and their new friend Chris from Seychelles. We decided to hire bikes for the day and headnout along what used to be the river to check out the sites. Valencia river flooded a while back and the town decided to divert the river underground and build parks and gardens along the old riverbed to make it more useful. It is ideal for a bike ride around the beautiful gardens, amazing architectual buildings surrounded by pristine lakes which look sooo unbearably inviting, they really should be public swimming pools. The local Spanish men kept yelling "Ola Guapa" at us and we weren't sure what it meant so we smiled and continued biking, determined to access google translate as soon as we got back.

It was so nice to have some great girl time with Kel and Mel, just to share news and gossip. Kel is also an arts teacher back in Melbourne so we had plenty of similar experiences. The local Spanish people work on the footpaths to keep them free from leaves, but not with a big blower like you would see back home, by hand! With a broom! Very dedicated. As we left the park for a stir fry lunch in the hostel we could hear crazy horn noises and people yelling and screaming in the distance. No one else seemed disturbed so we left the mystery to be investigated later.

In the afternoon we cycled much further out to the beach. It was genuine sand (not imported from Egypt like Barcelona), white, hot and delightful. We settled down on our towels to watch the locals and see what the Spanish got up to. There were some interesting characters to be seen...

Fabio - so named for his long curly dark locks, white underpants (not boardies...we could tell) which were also see through and had a very big......dragon.......printed in the side (jeez what were YOU thinking?! Haha He was proudly strolling the beach wiggling his crotch in the direction of anyone giving him some attention. I could hardly tell Kel what she had missed for laughing so hard.

Drew Carey - honestly this guy was his dopple ganger, but slightly more corpulent.

Beautiful Spanish women, mostly topless, some with stunning bodies and four children....Arg!

But the highlight?! Spain.
We named a guy Spain...why? Because he stood right infront of us with his very toned body and his red and yellow boardies with "Spain" written across the butt. He was definately sure of his own gorgeousness and we figured it didn't hurt to look (I may have taken a sneaky photo exclusively for the purposes of this blog. I couldn't have you missing out now!)

We had a delightful time, chilled out, went swimming, saw gorgeous people, nearly got be-headed by Spain's mis-fired soccer skills, ate yummy fruit and generally had a damm good time. We packed our things and were about to leave when Spain and his two cronies said "Ola, una momento"...oh o, here's trouble. But Kel was happy to find out more so we wandered over to where they were sitting to introduce ourselves. Mel and I had a bet going that they were either 18 or maybe 20, so we were going to ask. Spain introduced himself as "Boraj" (pronounced Bor-arge) and then proudly displayed how it is spelt on his inner arm. Yes, that's right, just in case he forgot his own name, he had it tattooed on his arm so he could check. Haha

He introduced us to his two friends, Enrique (also had his name tattooed on his torso) and Anwen, who we kept forgetting his name....must be because it wasn't tattooed on him somewhere! He tried desperately to convince Kel to come to a disco with him. We were hoping this was the Spanish version of a club, or they really were some 17 year olds heading to the blue light disco. He then showed us on a map where we were supposed to meet him, but then pointed out his own house which was almost in the same spot...was this party in his pants?! Mel and I were trying to go by now and Kel decided she wanted things on her terms so she invited them to meet us at the local international markets that were being held in the gardens in the old river. We were heading there for dinner...

They said maybe and we left to go, only to be pulled back by "Spain" who then wanted Kelly's number. He did all this coercing from his lazy lying down spot on his towel and we tried not to look at what was apparently falling out of his boardies. Thankfully they also had mesh, otherwise we were sure he was trying to display his goods in our direction. He was fast becoming much less attractive.

We were still super hot so Kel and I decided to ride back to the hostel in our bikini's. Given that most women were topless on the beach, we figured this wasn't a big deal but we did get a lot more attention on the ride back! So much so that a women in the park stopped us to tell us that we must stop and put clothes on before entering the city otherwise we woyld be arrested! Aressted! Haha So we put clothes on. Neither of us wanted to be arrested even though we had passed a number of police cars on the cycle trip home.

After a quick change it was off to the festival for dinner at the Venezulan food stand (OMG incredible meats, cheese, and yummy unknown things), cocktails from the Brazilian stall and a delicious (but super sugary) crepe for dessert. I foundmamcute turquoise ring for 2 euro and then we met Chris and his friend for a chat before attempting to go home. Boraj and his cronies had been a no show. We were out of the tent and heading home when lo and behold Anwen and Enrique turn up (none of us recognised them becaue Enrique had his tattoo covered, and we kept forgetting Anwen as he didn't have a tattoo). But they followed us out to the park where we were then reminded of who they were. No sign of Spain so Kel was disappointed he had sent his lacky's instead and we asked them how old they were. After a long pause (lying? Or English barrier we weren't sure) they said they were 23, 24, and 25. Seriously they looked 17. We were all tired and not interested so we said good night and went back to the hostel for bed. A very early night out as it was only 1am.

Out last day we searched town for bacon and eggs to no avail and instead checked out the shops before checking out of the hostel and returning our bikes. I managed to navigate in Spanish (with the help of Kel's guide book) and send another 4 kg of stuff home before buying a cute skirt and delicious gourmet cupcake for my busride to Madrid in the afternoon. I got back to the hostel to have lunch (which had been stolen by another backpacker! Arg) and instead ate my cupcake with a cup of tea. We then began our llloooonnnggg bustrip to Madrid where I began blogging about barcelona for the next 6 hours.... A seriously bumpy road did not help this process!

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