Valencia!!!!!

Valencia is the city I like to refer to as “The City in Which We Reverted to Seven Year Olds.” But we will get to that in a moment.

When we first arrived, we were exhausted. We had been significantly delayed at Rome Ciampino Airport (after almost going to Baden Baden, our gate changed then we had to wait for another 45 minutes. Standing up. With a 20 pound backpack. In a huge crowd) and we really wanted to just get to our hostel and relax. Thankfully, Liz asked for directions in Spanish and we were on our way to the Purple Nest Hostel. We easily found it and were pleasantly surprised at how awesome it was. It had a funky fresh, cool design. Plus the best showers I have ever seen. It was like showering in rain. So cool We got in pretty late so we didn’t really do anything the first night but admire the hostel and the view from our balcony.

The next day, however, we had a blast. Casey had spied an ad for the Valencia Aquarium on a map we had. Now, you’re probably thinking, ‘You didn’t go all the way to Spain to see an Aquarium!’ buuuuuuuuuut Valencia is well known for its City of Arts and Sciences, which is a strip of lie 5 buildings that are all unique and have cool stuff. One of them is the aquarium. I haven’t been in years, so I thought, why not? It wasn’t out of my price range and it would be loads of fun. We asked for directions and were told to walk through a lovely park for a while. The day was warm and sunny, so we were super stoked.

We happened upon some low trees and spent some time climbing them, then we came across a rope playground. We all looked at each other and immediately decided that of course we should play on it! We continued on to find some orange trees (with oranges that were not good to eat, according to some guy who saw us) then continued on, where we happened across another playground. This one was in the shape of Gulliver from Gulliver’s Travels, which was so cool because things like his belt and hat became slides and sandboxes. So much fun. The half hour walk to the Aquarium took us about 2 hours because of these distractions, but it was totally worth it. Andrea decided not to go to the Aquarium, so she hobbled to the beach on her bad foot while we went inside and enjoyed the wonders. Best aquarium I’ve seen. Ever.

I imitate strange drawings on walls. 

tree climbing pros

cool fountain

rope playground!

Gulliver Playground!

so cute!!

Jellyfish!!!

 "Go stand next to that pelican, it is almost as big as you!"

Afterwards, we decided that we were on Spring Break so we should head to the beach. None of us had our swimsuits with us, so we just rolled up our jeans and dipped our toes in. It would have been too cold to swim in anyway, but we had a blast running around in the surf. We met some dutch boys who made some interesting sounds at the mention of ‘Spring Break..."

Churros- our on the way to the beach snack

This is the result of Liz being dumb

So awesome!!!

Later, after much fun, we headed off to a grocery store to get a cheap dinner. I made authentic Spanish pasta.

 We then thought a board game would be fun so we played Trivial Pursuit. However, this version happened to be the British version, making it quite challenging. 

Casey was tired of pictures

We made it through then went for a walk in a nearby park for a bit to enjoy the still warm weather. Then we packed up our stuff so we could get a move on bright and early to the train station to catch a train to our next destination, Barcelona!

The train station!