Valencia

After I was settled in I realized I was starting to run out of time with my Eurail pass and should take a trip. I decided on Valencia. So I hopped on the train, and for the first time sat in first class. They were sold out of coach and first class was only $10 euro more, so I took it (I really wish my keyboard had the Euro sign).

First class is definitly the way to go. They greeted you with champange and orange juice, offer you a newspaper (which is the custom on planes here too, they come through with a rack with a large selection of papers from which to choose, unfortunately, none in English so I always have to miss this part). The seats are huge, only three to a row. They pass out hot towels before they serve you your meal with a little bottle of wine. This I could get used to.

I arrived at the train station, and if you've ever been to Valencia, they have one of the most beautiful train station and the immediate area is just to die for. Unfortunately, I was not staying in that area and hopped a cab to a really disappointing part of town. The hotel was uber modern and very nice with a large balcony, but the neighborhood was just disappointing. It took a 10 minute walk through large empty asthetically unpleasing streets to finally find a restaurant.

The explaination of the tapas took a while as there was very little English spoke there. It consisted of them pointing to the English menu then the item. They were patient and we had fun with it. When two Brits came in and I was able to then in turn explan the menu to them.

The next day was of course rainy, so I decided to head over to the City of Arts & Science, I figured I could spend the day inside the museums. Ok, the CAS is really cool. It's this huge complex of 4 buildings (one still being built) a garden walk and the largest aquarium in Spain. It is completely modern and looks like something out of Star Wars, really I felt like Obi Wan Kenobi and expected a Syth to drop from the sky at any moment.

So I did the aquarium, cool, but you know if you've been to one aquarium, you've really been to them all. The science museum, which is a little difficult in Spanish (but they did try to get as much English up as they could, so it was not all lost on me) and then the Imax movie (about a trip up the Nile, which now makes me want to go to Africa really badly)

When I left the Imax it was twilight and the deep blue behind these striking white futuristic buildings was just too beautiful to leave. So I wandered around a bit more. When I heard a funny sound. What is that? Oh, it's my cell phone, who could that be? So as I'm standing in what feels like the year 2050 and it's my best friend from childhood Martin Renel whom I hadn't spoken to in 20 years. It was so completely surreal to be talking to this voice from the past while I was standing in the future. (his wife had tracked me down on Facebook a few days before, Martin's not into typing, so I told him about Skype and threw in the cell phone, thinking he'd probably just sign up for Skype, who knew he'd actually call Spain) It was really cool.

Went to dinner later that night. I kept hearing how Valencia has the best food, but once again I had no luck. My area just not huge on cafes and bars, I finally found a really expensive sushi restaurant. I paid too much for dinner, but at least it was really good sushi.