15. Becoming quite adept and navegating and reading maps
14. Climbing the Torres de Serrano
13. Watching the World Cup games
12. Getting asked for directions by confused spanish tourists and then knowledgeably directing them to their destination....in spanish
11. Fallas workshops
10. Bullfights (Madrid and Valencia)
9. Chocolate y Churros in the Plaza Mayor (thank you Doctora Konz)
8. Ibiza and the Dalt Villa
7. Parque Gulliver, el Rio, Valencia
6. Sitting in the Plaza de Ayuntamiento
5. The Flamenco dancing in the caves of Granada
4. El Miguelete/La Catedral (and the Holy Grail) - Valencia
3. Aimlessly walking around the city of Valencia for extended periods of time
2. Seeing the grave of Charles V at El Escorial
1. Campo de Criptana Windmills on the train from Madrid to Valencia
So this would be my master list documenting my time in Valencia. Truthfully, I did a lot of stuff (a lot of things I didn't even realize were significant while doing them) and it's hard to say which were the most interesting! However, allow me to elaborate.
15. Reading maps. For those of you who know me - and a lot of you wouldn't know this because you haven't traveled with me - prior to coming to Valencia i was a horrendous map reader. I could never tell you where i was, what street i was looking for - i didn't even use maps. HOWEVER upon my roommateless arrival to Valencia, i lived and breathed by my map. I have it now and still use it, even in it's frayed stated (currently in 4 pieces from overuse). I learned how to read the metro map. I learned how to figure out what street i am on. I learned how to hail a taxi. I am now an acute and adept traveler. This was not anything that interesting in terms of Valencia, however it is an important life skill and i am quite proud of the accomplishment.
14. the Torres de Serrano is the oldest standing gate to the old city of Valencia. Actually, here's an interesting fact - Valencia was actually founded by the Romans and they layed out the structure of the area by the cathedral and irrigation/water and all that - there is actually a set of the old ruins called the Almoina that is right next to the cathedral, but I saw it a long time ago and cant remember the reason the romans left. Anyways so sorry for that side note but the point of this was that Valencia used to be surrounded by a wall/guarded against invaders. Hence, the Torres de Serrano. It is located at the northern most part of the centro (city center). It was the first thing that I did in Valencia that was touristy - my friend and I walked around for 5 hours the first weekend we were here and climbed it. It's really neat because they have every level opened for public viewing and you get really nice views of parts of Valencia and the cathedral. At the time that i did it (day 2 of my residence in spain) i thought it was ridiculously cool and i just did it again 2 days ago and hey guess what - it was still ridiculously cool. Entrance 1 euro instead of 2 for students.
13. Oh the World Cup. Well what a good time to be in Spain, considering it was the first time in all of the history of the country that they have been to the finals or won a world cup title. So for the games versus Ghana and Germany, we went to this plaza next to a Doner Kabob (which i actaully don't care for that much - but many of my cohorts are fans) which had about 4 tvs playing the game. But there were TONS of people. Wrapped in spanish flags, waving spanish flags, jerseys - a lot for the player Villa because apparently he is from Valencia (but he was recently sold to FC Barcelona for about 40 million euros). So there was a ton of smoke, noise bombs that kill your eardrums, screaming (the 2 favorite cheers - something about Villa and the second (and my personal favorite) yo soy espanol espanol espanol). witnessed a few drug deals go down, or at least the handoff portions. Saw more alcohol consumed in one place then thought was possible, while police just watched. and when they won, it was NUTS. i have some videos of it, i need to upload because words don't really explain these spaniards. and the uva group, after germany, climbed the statue like locals in the celebratory maneuvers. Also for the rest of the night all the cars would honk at each other and speed by with spanish flags hanging out the windows. I actually was not in Valencia for the final - I was in the Ibiza airport with Catherine and there was not 1 tv in that entire airport. however we watched it on a computer screen with about 100 other people outside of check in.
12. Directions - pretty self explanatory from the title. The most common questions were for plaza de ayuntamiento (my fave place ever) and la mestalla (the football stadium).
11. Fallas - pretty much the coolest festival in valencia. There are 2 origins of the Fallas - one is a prehistoric pagan love of fire, the other is a slightly more concrete manifestation of the old carpenters guilds. They would use these mechanisms called parots (think of the hangman shape) made of wood to hold their lights in the winter. by the time march would come around the carpenters would burn the parots as a symbol of the new spring, longer daylight hours, and no need of the superficial light. pretty neat. now the festival coincides with the feast of saint joseph because he is the patron saint of carpenters - march 19. Fallas is basically a yearlong process, almost every neighborhood chips in money to build a falla - enormous caraicatured float - that is presented to valencians for a week and then burned on the feast of saint joseph in a massive city wide bonfire. pretty interesting stuff. i didn't get to see the fallas - which is too bad but i did go see their museum and then we walked around and saw all the workshops and how they actually assemble the floats. it was soo interesting and soooo valencian.
10. Bullfights - All the stereotypes that American have about spanish bullfighting is incorrect. I went to see my first bullfight at the corrida de toros in madrid and i was really nervous that it would be horrendously gory, and agonizing death for the bull, etc. It wasn't at all. It's actually really interesting because the torreros are more of dancers and dare-devils then they are killers. There are 3 official rounds to a bullfight. But before the rounds begin first everyone has to assess the bull - make sure it is physically able to fight and will attack, not just be idle. A toro is never allowed to enter the plaza and live (unless it is an outstanding fighter and is pardoned - which is really rare). So they assess the bull. Here is an interesting fact - bulls are colorblind, so they actually don't respond to the pink and red capes, the just respond to the movement. Anyways the first round is when picadores - men seated on blindfolded horses - come out and stab the bull a few times with lances to get it's energy down. 2nd round is when the men holding banderillas (sticks with metal on the end in bright colors) jab them into the bull. And finally the last round is the torrero alone in the corrida with the bull and interestingly he usually doesn't kill it - he just has to jab his sword into it. A lot of times a crew comes up after the sword is in and jabs the brains out of the bull. Amazingly it's not as graphic as you might think. all you see is some blood (and not even that much) on the bull. However a lot of spaniards are against bullfighting in general - they have banned the corridas in Catalunya - aka Barcelona and there is a petition to ban it all through spain. I hope they don't.
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