I have an interesting story. Finally. Not that I haven’t had interesting experiences here but not ones worth telling. This one on the other hand will be worth it. I hope.
Well, Lizz (roommate) and I got bored of doing nothing on our 1 day off a week. So we rented a car, found a friend (Renata) and headed off for Valencia Friday afternoon. Upon arriving to Valencia we realized how crappy both google map directions and street signs are in Spain. We took a wrong turn, tried to get back to that wrong turn but took another wrong turn. We thought we were on the other side of town but after asking a meter-maid (don’t know what they are called in Spain) it ends up that second wrong turn was actually the correct turn we should have made the first time. Eventually found a great parking spot, great for its location and also, there wasn’t a bum guiding us in and then asking for money because of it. This is apparently a profession. One bum was ‘guiding’ people into regular diagonal parking spaces, telling them to stop as their tires hit the curb, and requesting money. And people paid! Ridiculous. Anyway, we checked into our hostel dropped off our stuff and set out the explore old town Valencia. It was super pretty, really old 19th century buildings connected by a confusing maze of tiny one way streets through apartments, bars, stores, restaurants, etc. We ate some tapas (had amazing croquettes de pollo) and washed it down with sangria, then moved on and took a taxi to La Ciudad de Las Artes (city of the arts). All built within the last few years, every building is super modern with crazy architecture. Each building sits on top of or next to a reflection pool, so it’s twice as amazing. If my camera had been working you wouldn’t have to tell you to go here to see pictures. After Lizz took a million and a half pictures we headed back to old town for some more food and more booze. We were wandering through the maze when a guy stopped us and told us he could get us two for one drinks at the bar he was standing outside of. We went in of course. It was a strange bar, with a bit of an African vibe to it. Small and very smokey. We got our cheap beer and found another back room that no one was in, and decided to hang out there. After a few more drinks this old guy comes in and sits down at the bar at this back room. If you know Bill from Kill Bill, then you know this guy, only the Valencia version. He was minding his own business and sketching in an old book of his. Once he finished that he started drawing on this metal thing on the bar. We decided he was worth talking to. I’d say it was more other influences that made us talk to him but we did anyway. He spoke only a handful of English words but with my meager vocab and hand gestures we got to conversatin. He had apparently abandoned and/or finished his bar grafitti and moved on to drawing a pair of lizards embracing on Lizz’s chest. You read that right. For the rest of the night, Lizz had two lizards, one with a very long wandering tail, on her chest. Red Flag number 1. More beers where bought, more bad Spanish and bad English was exchanged and we were beginning to become great friends with this guy. His name was something like Eugene. We still don’t really know. He told us his name in Spanish, Catalan, English, and French. Anyway Eugene kept saying he had lots of pictures upstairs. Turned out his house was directly above this bar. Well being the smart travelers we were, we followed this creepy old guy to his apartment. His apartment was amazing. He had so much random stuff. Huge oil canvas paintings, safari hats, African walking sticks, a personal bar, and a big screen tv. For some reason, he insisted on showing us a recording of the Rolling Stones. I think he liked the fact that I was a yankee (pronounced jankee). Well he turned on the TV and oops, it was still on the Porn channel. Red flag number 24. But we watched the rolling stones anyway. I couldn’t help but rock out/laugh at the ridiculous situation we had gotten ourselves into. We mentioned we should probably be leaving; after all it was 4:30 in the morning. Then he said something to the effect of it would be easier if we slept in his house for the night. Red flag number 25, and everybody knows if you reach 25 red flags you need to get out of there. And we did, I explained as best I could that we had to go back to an unnamed hostel right away. He didn’t press the subject anymore and let us out the door without anymore flags. He did however request that we let his dog out to pee. Well we made it back to the hostel and slept off an amazing night. Next morning we got some food, visited an art museum (saw some really cool installation art), went to the royal gardens, had paella in its home city, had gelato…I’m in love, and went back to the car. Almost got lost again trying to leave but after a long tired drive back we made it. I spoke more Spanish in 24 hours than I have since I’ve been here. It makes me wonder how good I would be at speaking Spanish if I really was surrounded by it 24/7. Oh well.
I have 4 more days in Spain then I’m off to Ireland! It has gone so fast! I really want to go home, but I think I’ll miss it here too.
No comments:
Post a Comment