G.E.L hits Valencia


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Europe » Spain » Valencian Community » Valencia
February 11th 2007
Published: March 5th 2007
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Feeling the January blues after a fun old Christmas and New Year, the Baso boys were chomping at the bit when Shaun twirled his mighty mullet in the direction of a long weekend away in February to warmer, more cultural climes.

Team G.E.L, (don’t ask!), was soon formed and cheap flights, and a cheap, but thanks to a first-hand recommendation from the legendary Sarah Lloyd, but brilliant hostel were all booked. All that was left was to find our passports and set the alarms - the 3a.m. start was not going to be pleasant!!

Heavy snowfall on the day before we were supposed to leave looked a little ominous, but by the time we had to leave the weather was completely clear, and very much on the nippy side! Nug seemed to have got a little ahead of himself on the climate front - surely it wasn’t quite necessary to be wearing shorts at 5a.m on a February morning when the temperature was close to freezing, even though we were going to Spain!! After making it through the onerous check in and security restrictions at the airport without too much fuss, we decided that just outside the Stansted branch of WH Smith would be a far better location to have a relaxing sit down than at the gate where our flight was supposed to depart. Nothing like the words “final call”, and a 10 minute jog to the plane, to shake the cobwebs loose!!

Our get-what-you-pay-for-and-we-didn’t-pay-very-much approach to the flights meant that we were stuck on the plane at Valencia airport for about 75 minutes waiting for them to rustle up a coach to the terminal. Bit of a shame as all the while the baking midday heat, (oh yes even in February it was roasty toasty), was passing us by. All the same it wasn’t all that bad when we took our ride to the hostel under a glorious blue sky.

After a lengthy check-in at the hostel, we were out to find food. Tracking down a recommended tapas bar, the restaurant menu didn’t seem to make all that much sense. I did my best to use the Spanish I had learnt in South America - but in the end it seemed easier to play a bit of menu roulette, as well as asking the waitress to bring us out a few dishes of her choosing. I stuck with the easily decipherable chicken salad - which was pretty much just a green salad once Andy had tucked into a few forkfuls - whereas Shaun’s attempts to be cultural seemed to backfire with his choice of “Cheese Men” as a dish - ooops!

Post-tapas we headed out to explore the city, winding our way round the historic quarter taking in the main squares and points of interest, and sometimes even having a slight idea of where we were going! As the afternoon wound down it was back to the hostel to sort ourselves out for the night ahead. First challenge was finding a restaurant that was actually open and within our price range. After a bit of fruitless wandering we eventually happened upon a small, family run restaurant that seemed to fit the bill…..and as you’d come to expect in Spain it was an Italian!! The owner seemed to take a liking to us, regarding us as cultural oddities rather blithering British idiots, especially our very own “Shaundidlee!!”, whose name he loved repeating.

Basing our faith in some sort of flick-book guide to Valencia’s bars and clubs that Shaun had found knocking about the hostel,
Dinner...another ItalianDinner...another ItalianDinner...another Italian

We went went to Valenica and all we could find to eat was italian food!! (Not strictly true as we did tuck in heartily to some fine Paella!)
we headed to a few bars and then ended up in an indie club that was good fun. As some of us waned due to the early start, Shaun, Adam and Nug powered on to find a club recommended in said guide. Apparently some difficulties were had in tracking it down, probably not helped by the fact that at 6 a.m. Shaun could be found running across the streets bellowing “Hablo Ingles”, (I speak English), at a local roadsweeper!!

Nursing hangovers and exhaustion, Gent and I, a.k.a “the Vultures”, were out early to explore the northern part of Valencia’s historic quarter. Our journey took in many a landmark including a brief visit to the Museum of Fine Arts, where we managed to spend more time going through the rigmarole of checking in Dan’s bottle of water than actually looking around the museum!!

Having arranged to meet the rest of the guys back at the hostel, we returned and found them nowhere to be seen. We left a note at reception and set off to the main square to take in some Paella in the glorious afternoon Sun. 90 minutes or so later we had just finished our tasty
Out on the TownOut on the TownOut on the Town

Drinking Agua de Valencia - it tasted like orange juice - but its effects seemed a fair bit more potent!!
lunch when the rest of Team G.E.L. came stumbling across to our table starving and exhausted having become hopelessly lost and spent the best part of the last 2 hours wandering around the city. Sounds like a clear case of “following Shaun’s directions” to me - without the Gherkin as a landmark that boy is stranded!!

We took a trip down to the beach in the afternoon, enjoying the wander along the beachfront as well as the liquid refreshment in the beachfront bars, before heading back to gear up for the night out. We had already tracked down a tasty-looking restaurant - Italian of course - before we headed on a bar crawl, taking in some trendy bars, outdoor cafes, an awesome Cuban salsa bar and grooving away to “Jack Rabbit Slimm’s Twist Contest” from Pulp Fiction a little bit too vigorously and being asked to move on!!

We ended up in a club that was playing Colombian music, and the previous drinks along the way seemed to have brought my Spanish on to new levels. For some reason I decided that starting up a conversation with the bouncer in order to get some free drinks included in the cover charge would be a good idea. To my amazement, rather than securing a beating, I managed to negotiate a litre bottle of vodka, ice bucket and plentiful mixers for our party - the only thing missing was some peanuts!!

As 5a.m. came round, Team G.E.L. went their separate ways, Gent and I staying in the club enjoying the Columbian music until an unnecessarily late closing time of 7.30, and the rest searching for pastures new. Shaun’s departure to attempt to destroy Anglo-French relations with the unfortunate soul who happened to be the eight person in our dorm left the rest of the boys to battle on without his trusty handbook. However, Moss was on hand with his fluent Spanglish to pick up a tip on the hottest club in town - the Banana Club. The boys even managed to find Pepe, a local taxi driver who seemed to know exactly where this club was. Unfortunately, after a half hour adventure into the countryside, it turned out that the hottest club in town wasn’t exactly in town - more like in Barcelona - and the guys cut their losses and got Pepe to drive them back to the hostel. Despite not having enough dinero to pay, they also managed to escape without a beating!! Top work!!

The next day exhaustion was really kicking in and any attempts at civility towards the rest of the guests in our room, especially from yours truly, disappeared in a stream of banter and stories that attempted to piece the previous night back together!

We managed to find a café for some lunch, and then headed off to wander through the parkland which had been created when the main river that used to run through Valencia was artificially diverted to the west. After an hour or so’s wandering, we found that we’re not nearly as young as we were back in our university pomp - and three nights with minimal sleep and two days on the lash, (oh yeah, and all that culture vulturing), meant that the 7 of us thought that a solid granite wall in the middle of the parkland was the ideal location for us to do our best impressions of tramps and settle down for an afternoon snooze!! Luckily Gent seemed to be the most on the ball, and managed to capture some top photos of us - great lighting according to Nug - the new David Bailey may have been discovered!!

We wound down our time in Valencia, and made our way safely to the airport for our flight home. We had a fantastic time in our three short days in Valencia - cramming in plenty of exploring, eating and the obligatory drinking!! Hopefully, this will be the first of many adventures abroad for the Baso boys - next stop is Berlin at the end of April. Roll on….














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We're getting too old for this...We're getting too old for this...
We're getting too old for this...

After over 48 hours of almost no sleep, that concrete ledge somehow seemed the perfect spot for a nap (rather than the grassy parkland just beyond!).
We're getting too old for this 2...We're getting too old for this 2...
We're getting too old for this 2...

But at least its an arty photo!


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