The Round Square?

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It was a long day yesterday, so we spend most of today resting and catching up on domestics. It was an even longer day than we let on about in yesterday’s post; the trauma of what happened in the evening was too raw last night to have to relive it in writing. Thanks to our beloved hire company taking the best part of three hours to get us organised and on our way when we picked up our car in the morning, we didn’t get back until after dark. The entrance to the car park then proved very elusive - lots of one way streets and heavy traffic, and poor directions from an unreliable GPS, and if we missed a turn we had to go in long complex loops to get back to where we started, something we did at least four times. Now that I’ve written this I think I’ve traumatised myself all over again. I think I might need another lie down.

We head out for a late afternoon stroll. We’ve noticed that street art seems to be a real feature of life here in central Valencia. I’ve never been quite sure where street art crosses over into graffiti, probably when it’s not all that good, or is in places where it’s not supposed to be, I guess. Anyway, whichever way you look at it there’s a lot of graffiti here too. Some of the art is however really striking, and big too, covering entire walls of multi storey apartment blocks in some cases. I assume the larger pieces at least are there legally. I wouldn’t have thought it would be possible to just sneak in with several tall ladders and cover an entire five storey wall with good quality art in a single night before someone stopped you, but maybe these guys work a bit more quickly than I’m giving them credit for?

We settle in for a meal next to the Plaça Redona, which I suspect means Round Square. I guess a boxing ring’s square so maybe the opposite is also possible. I know I suck at Spanish, but I’d thought that Round Square would be Plaza Redonda, so unless the sign writer was having an off day, we begin to wonder whether Valencian is a separate language, a bit along the lines of Catalan. We consult the Google machine and sure enough it is. So that’s why no one here can understand my Spanish. …. who am I trying to kid.

Our head waiter is a young gent named Raul. He’s in perpetual motion and he runs a tight ship, barking orders constantly at the other waiters. Number one priority is making sure that there are never any empty tables, and whatever second priority is it’s clearly a long way back in the pecking order. If this means a waiter has to stop taking your order mid sentence to lure in a potential customer peering at the menu near the entrance, well so be it. And that’s OK, provided of course he remembers to come back and finish taking the order, which doesn’t always seem to happen. Raul introduces himself to the Italian family at the next table, but it seems he’s having a bit of trouble getting them to pronounce his name. No problem there however, he starts to pretend he’s playing soccer, as apparently one of Real Madrid’s players is also called Raul. No glassware or crockery goes flying during the process, but this is more by luck than good management.

Our old mates the African street vendors were completely absent in San Sebastián. We’re not sure why; cost of living too high perhaps. They’re more than making up for it here. We’ve seen one guy a few times over the past few days, only because he’s a bit hard to miss. He wears a captain’s hat that says “Capitan” in large letters on the front (what else), and he’s always wearing a pair of sunglasses that have rims with bright blue lights inside them, which makes him look a bit like an African version of Elton John. Another African guy saunters up to our table trying to sell us sun glasses (which feels slightly strange given that the sun went down a couple of hours ago. Still, I suppose there’s a fair chance it will probably reappear again tomorrow) while we’re munching away on some excellent paella. He’s carrying what looks like several entire shopfulls of shades of every description under one arm. I wonder where all this stuff comes from, well I suppose it probably comes from Africa. If the sheer volume of sunglasses on offer here from these guys is anything to go by there can’t be too many pairs of shades left in the entire continent just to the south of here.

It’s the United Nations out here tonight. Apart from the Africans, we’ve got four Dutch ladies on the table next to us, the Italian family behind us, some Indians behind them, and a British couple behind us on the other side. We nearly score the jackpot, a Scottish guy in full costume, kilt and all, wanders up to the menu and has a quick look, but then moves on. No haggis perhaps?

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