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valencian beach
upon arriving on friday afternoon, elissa, manley, lauren, kelly, whitney, and i skipped out on the cathedral visit and went to the beach. was that un-cultured of us? hm. da igual. cool, unintentional spacing in this picture.“as the site is close to the sea, and valencia is so dry, i decided to make water a major element for the whole site using it as a mirror for the architecture.”
-santiago calatrava (architect of the ciudad de artes y ciencias)
the ciudad de las artes y las ciencias (city of arts and sciences - www.cac.es) is a white monster of modern architechture. it is built where a river used to run (so, in a dry riverbed), and with the provided sidewalk you can walk all the way to downtown valencia. neato, gang...
on friday night we started walking along the riverbed walk with the intention to go to downtown valencia (we hadn´t been there yet as we had gone to the beach that afternoon instead). basically the entire time we were walking we kept hearing this loud, obnoxious music. we kept trying to find the source of it but to no avail - every time we thought we were right next to it we´d look for it and it was still farther away. finally, we found it... a circus-like set-up in the middle of a flat grassy area. it looked fun, or at least
la kelster en la playa
here´s kelly. she´s a rad girl who goes to the u of minnesota. we roomed together in valencia. entertaining, so we walked up to the gaudy gate that we could now see read ¨feria andalusa¨. see the pictures for details of a night spent at a random fair in the middle of valencia...
on saturday we got passes to go to the three main parts of cuidad de las artes y ciencias: l'oceanografic, europe´s largest marine animal center; el museo de las ciencias príncipe felipe, the super-interactive and HUGE science museum; and l'hemisferic, a huge i-max theatre in the shape of a human eye! what an educational mecca, ¿eh? after we were given our tickets, we were free to wander among things as we pleased, which made me happy as i like to do things at my own pace. at 6pm we could go see an i-max film about natural disasters if we wanted. i did, and i wasn´t actually that impressed with the i-max effects of the film, but it was interesting. and free.
another important highlight on this trip: there was a subway (subway the sub place) very close to our hotel! needless to say, at least for those who are aware of my subway addiction, i was peeing my pants with excitement. i
flamencos... i mean flamingos
i just think these animals are so funny! they look so fake. and all i can think of when i look at them is that scene in aladdin. for some reason. controlled myself though and only ate there two times throughout the weekend.
this ended up being a fun weekend. the only annoying part was that i was just getting over a really bad eye infection so i was still wearing my glasses and recovering. i have pictures of the aforementioned but will spare you the grossness and not post them. (i did send them to my parents though, haha). my time here is flying, so the rest of my blogs will be short, and with pictures instead of prose. in fact, i only have a week left. oh- my trip to barcelona went well (only one robbery, and it wasn´t me), but for reasons not worth mentioning my compañeros de viaje took a lot more photos than i did. thus i don´t think i´ll be able to do worthy blog about it before i get back. this is probably the second to last blog you´ll get from me - i have a lot to do before i leave. bueno, heeeeeeeeeere´s valencia!
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anonymous
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what am i, chopped chorizo?
yeah yeah, barcelona, whatever... where are the pictures of YOUR OTHER FRIENDS???