valencia & madrid

Our stay in Valencia was way too short. We did get to go to the City of Arts & Sciences, but only after they closed. The reflection of the lights in the river bed was amazing, though. The architecture in Valencia is very modern and clean. I just love the urban planning of the city. Notice how the sky was very red that night...

We took a train from Valencia to Madrid, watching the weather go from sunny to squally and sunny once more. The landscape wasn´t too interesting in this flat land (I guess the rain in Spain DOES fall mainly on the plains). Below you can see a photo of some wind turbines that got me very excited.

Gratti in Madrid--I´ve become very excited with Moose lately.

Yesterday was a cloudless day. We went to the Parc Rietro, almost like Madrid´s Central Park, and rented a rowboat to go around a man-made lake.

Then we spent the rest of the sunlight to hang out in the park and watch a drumming circle for hours and hours. I enjoyed it greatly.

...leaving tomorrow....so sad!

nicole walking over a bridge in valencia.

fish at the market in valencia.

I am very, very tired. Mostly it´s because we headed to the airport at 4:30 am this morning, and the party outside our window in Palma finished around 3 am. It was quite charming, actually. One man was playing along and about 10-20 people all night song along with him....not very conducive to sleeping.

We landed in Valencia, which is a really big, wide, spread out city. It has a combination of old historic government buildings, a cathedral, a huge indoor market that we bought some fruit from today(the ulimate frustrating experience for non-native speakers), and lots of low-rises. Everything is sort of white-washed and the streets are mostly quite wide except for downtown where alleyways weave in and out of one another. It´s almost like Spain´s Boston, or Dublin.

We were planning on heading over to the City of Arts & Sciences to see the largest aquarium in Europe, but decided to take a nap instead. We´ve sort of been going non-stop, taking it all in. We needed a break. I think that we will still wander about tonight and check out the architecture of that amazing space (generic picture below).

Again, a very early morning tomorrow with 4 hr train ride to Madrid, where we will spend our last two nights. Wow, I can´t believe it´s almost over. We´ve have had so many outrageous experiences and are running a 100 miles per hour, so this trip seems like it has just flow by (with a little bit of turbulence along the way, of course).

you wanted pictures!

Port de Sóller, another angle in the rain.

View from the top of our hotel Esplendidós, in Port de Sóller, including one of the pools.

Palma de Mallorca--the Cathedral at midnight.

Gaudi´s cathedral--see the towers? we went almost to the very top of one and walked down the spiral staircase. There was a lot of construction going on, too. Image from inside two pictures below.

nicole & I front of the cultural museum of barcelona.

the market in barcelona.

a view downward from other of the towers on gaudi´s cathedral. I have vertigo but I made it down anyway....even if it took an hour!

fish swimming around the water in the port of barcelona. nicole & I were so happy with hundred of other to enjoy the day out by the water on the docks. many locals seemed to go there just to relax on a sunday.

the alps from the plane window

Welcome to sunny Malloca!

....or should I say, welcome to the experience of msising your flight & finally making it to Mallorca only to wake up the next morning to the storm of the century, fully equipt with explosions of thunder, lightining, hail, power outages & street ankle-deep in flood water. Mix in two backpackers with soaking wet shoes & make-shift rain ponchos wandering the street trying to find a suitable indoor space to hide. That was our day.

Although, I must admit now I´m sitting in the warm comfort of a four-star hotel that we decided to splurge on-and definatelly deserve. We´re in the beautiful Porto de Soller, on the north western part of the island of Mallorca-and island 400 or so miles off the coast of Spain. It´s a very cute village sorrouded by dramatic hills with a beautiful beach and bright blue water. Our hotel, Esplendido, is built into the hills with a beautiful view of of entire bay, and one of those ínfinity pools where it looks like it goes on forever. Some pictures can be found here.

Today wasn´t so bad though, wandering with our packs in the rain. We got many stares and took solice in a cute little café that hand squeezes oranges fresh to order (I just read that Sollér originally comes from the Catillian word for orange, and it´s no wonder that they have great juice here). The Cattilian dialext here is very different from Spanish, but we´ve managed to communicate well.

We´ve continued our tendency to wander the streets and alleyways, ocassionally finding little gems along the way--churches, cathedrals, charming cafés & beautiful courtyards.

The plan tomorrow is another swim and a trip to some caves on the other side of the island. We´ll return to Mallorca´s capital, Palma, and catch an early flight back to the mainland, this time to Valencia and visit the City of Arts and Sciences--go look at this site, this place is so cool! It has the largest aquarium in Europe!

I´ll post more as soon as I can! Pictures to some, hopefully!

Alyssa

Barcelona

I´ve arrived in Spain with very little jetlag, and have spent the past two days walking almost the entire city with Nicole and a good pair of sneakers.

The flight was great--never flown business class before, with seats that go entirely horizontal for a good sleep. I got free magazines, watched a movie, read my book, slept a little & ate some incredible vegan food. In fact, I was feeling quite full and satisfied from my meal of couscous, beans & salad and was relaxing when they brought out the entree! I could barely eat anymore. The same goes for Spain--the food is so delicious. Paella, tapas, fresh exotic fruit juice...it´s all so good! I´m actually finding that despite the fact that I,ve walked for hours each day (almost 6 today!) I am so filled from the meals that I can go with just a small breakfast and mediocore dinner. Dinner, by the way, begins around 9 or 10 here, although not many people seemed to be out tonight because it´s Monday.

I have found Spain to be such an accessible country. Everyone one has been so friendly and helpful, especially with our lack of Spanish. Pretty much everyone speaks English but Nicole and I have been trying to flex our Spanish muscles...

Barcelona is filled with expectionally unique architecture, so rich in details that it leaves me speachless. The city from the ground appears quaint and every European--very narrow streets filled with cobblestone and alleyways. From a height the city is a very different story; so vast, craddled within two dramatic hills. We ventured to the top of one of 1 tours on Gaudi´s Cathedral today, which was a great challange on my vertigo. With shaking legs, Nicole and I traversed the 90m tower, exploring the high-depth reliefs and winding staircases (photos to come).

We also visited the top of one hill, and a great beautiful Museu National d´Art de Catalunya, the arena where they want to hold the Olympics in 2012, and some botanical gardens. Depsite their vastness, these buildings have a quaint feeling to them, and are so personal. You can really see the heart and soul of a people through their architecture.

And talk about romantic! fyou wanted to buy a rose a dinner for your lover you could, or talk to a complete stranger about your life experiences, or enjoy a long-haired man play spanish guitar in a lonely alley at 1am. This place has already exceeded my expectations!I don´t want to leave Barcelona, but I must because I have a plane ticket for Mallorca at 8;30 tommorow morning, and it´s already past midnight here.

I will take more time to write tomorrow, and post some photos if possible.

-Alyssa
(ps, sorry about typos, they have different keyboards here and I´m on a time limit...)