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Published: August 7th 2007
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4/2/07 Barcelona-->Valencia
After checking out, Sudie and I took our bags to the train station where we stored them in a locker. From there we headed to the market for the last time where we met up with the others. We stocked up on the cheap fruit, said goodbye (Sudie and I are going to meet up with Jenny again after Morocco), and then walked around for a bit before heading back to the train station. It took us a while to figure out how to get to our train since no one knew good enough English to help us (and we didn’t know enough Spanish to understand). Eventually though we got it. I spent the majority of the ride watching a movie that was entirely in Spanish. Granted I had no real idea what is going on but I got enough to know that it was pretty darn funny. The view from the train was so pretty. We arrived in Valencia at around 5:30pm and then deciding that it was a good idea to buy our tickets to Granada for tomorrow we waited for about an hour and a half in line. When we finally got to the ticket
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The Arts and Sciences Complex window the man didn’t speak any English and had to call over another girl. We were informed that the overnight train was completely full, and in fact any train at any time was full for at least the next week. Our only option was to take a 2:30pm train the next day that went from Valencia to Madrid to Granada and on top of that it cost 101.60euros. Since we had to get to Granada we bought the tickets, even though they were disgustingly expensive. We made our way to the hostel to check in and then got directions to the bus station. It was already fairly late and we didn’t know when the bus station closed so we basically ran the entire way there. When we got to the ticket window we were told that there was a bus leaving at 11:00pm the next day and only cost 37.83euros. Without hesitation we bought the tickets and then basically ran back to the train station to try and make it before they closed at 9:30 (along the way I ate my dinner which quite literally consisted of half a baguette). When we got there the number machine had stopped giving
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Alinghi's boat out numbers so we waited next to the window of the girl who spoke English and then sort of went right up to it after she was done with her customer. We explained how we got a bus ticket and how we needed to return the train tickets and how they were no longer giving out numbers. She was so nice and she told us to go and wait next to the window of the man, who had helped us in the first place, and after explaining everything to him, we squeezed in after his customer left and he completely refunded our train tickets. I’m sure that the other people who actually had numbers were not happy with us, but we were just so glad to have it resolved that neither of us really cared. The rest of the night (at least before we went to bed) we just sort of wandered around.
4/3/07 Valencia
Since this was our only day in Valencia we woke up early, ate our free breakfast, and then headed back to the area where we were walking the night before to take some pictures. We ended up at another indoor market where I
bought some oranges (these were the best tasting oranges that I have ever had in my life). Next we made our way to the garden area that runs directly between the two sides of the city. It was absolutely beautiful. There were fountains and tons of trees. Plus, it was so hot that it was nice to be down there with whatever shade we could get. We walked for about 45 minutes; taking a couple of detours to play on the playground of ropes, and find a geocache (these things really just couldn't be resisted). At the end of the park was the Ciudad de las artes y las ciencias, which had actually been our goal in the first place. The different buildings are really cool, but they almost seemed a little out place. We ended up just walking around the complex for a while because the tickets to get into the different buildings were way beyond what we wanted to spend. From there we kept going and eventually made it to the America’s Cup port. It was really quite amazing. Especially when you think of how it was all built just for this one event. The America’s Cup has
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From within the park been going on since 1851 and this is the first time it has taken place in Europe. We walked around the entire port passing the various team building. The one that I really wanted to go to (and eventually did) was the Swiss teams building. The Swiss, team Alinghi, is the defending team and frankly I am a little biased, I kind of hope they win again. From there, we went to the beach and walked in the sand. The water was freezing, but the beach was nice all the same. Eventually we made our way back towards the hostel, once again walking through the park and taking another detour to play on Gulliver (which was a giant play area shaped like Gulliver from Gulliver’s Travels). When we got back to the hostel, we watched a little TV and I ate my cheese and baguette dinner before we set off for the bus station. Valencia is a pretty city, however I didn't feel like there was too much to do there. We basically only had one day I think we pretty much covered most of it.
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urs
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Love some of the arcitecture of the new buildings, great fotos.