of the #FSU Valencia Tour and the Torres de Serranos

The last days of Patrick's classes were spent going out with his friends and saying good bye to his Valencia apartment mates.  He said it was emotional for some, and I am sure that it is.  Meeting new friends and then saying goodbye... the way life's memories are built.

We woke bright and early, 9:00 a.m. and slowly headed to the laundromat as the washer here is broken.  The landlord graciously left us 20 euros to do the wash.  It only cost us 5, but then we had to add in the cafe and pastry!  Watching the machine go around was not Charles' thing, so he stepped outside to watch traffic and large trucks maneuvering street designed for donkey carts.  He was asked to help stop traffic which he gladly did.  Charles loves to pitch in and help.  Once the round and round halted, we loaded it up in plastic bags and headed to the apartment to dry our clothes Valencia style.  Carefully leaning out, Charles clipped our clothes to the wires on the outside of our third floor window.  His will dry funny as the cuffs are side up.  He hasn't done this in a while!  I proudly observed our colors hanging out as the neighbors' all were displayed as well.  It is our own little flag in the dirt stake in Valencia.

Then, off to meet Patrick at FSU Valencia!  The sign at the door is very small and not noticeable.  The inside proudly displayed one NOLES logo, but I think for the most part it is quite distinct from the Tallahassee campus displays.  It is much more subdued and less in your face.

The building is completely redone, but as it sits ten yards from the Torres de Serranos,  It has old walls (It is considered one of Valencia's most iconic buildings and is one of the best conserved monuments in the city. The Torres de Serranos were built in the 14th century, 1392, by Pere Balaguer. It was the main entrance of the city and it was originally build with a defensive function. From 1586 until 1887 the towers were used as a prison for nobles. thank you wikipedia) and round rock pools where many eons ago, hides were tanned and cloth was bleached.

drainage system for the Torres

I took the photo of my men on the stairs

Manly men shot arrows through the slots.

Charles and the King of Bats

 It is an interesting dynamic to an otherwise very American style student center.  We met the Director of the #FSU program who was very pleasant and gave us some tips on the program.  We toured the facility, then off to the Torres (tower) and a walk through the area to see the sights and have a menu de dia (quite a big lunch).

Patrick walked us to the center of his local Plaza, the Plaza of the Virgin,  The Basilica and the Cathedral were both beautiful.  I only took photos of the outside as I find it discomforting to photograph the inside.  There are many photos on line I am sure.

We then walked back to his apartment, picked up his things and headed back to our abode.  With promises of a bus ride to the beach, I relented and let them take a siesta.  Two hours later, I walked to the store alone, afraid darkness would impede even that effort.  The men were still asleep when I returned.  Charles woke up in time to take me to get a glass of wine and a loaf of bread for dinner and then we returned.

I cooked the local crops, using the eggplant, parsley, onion, garlic, and tomatoes of the market.  We had prawns ( not plums) from the pescado mercado, and then the mushrooms sauteed with garlic and the Italian vegetable mix.  It was fabuloso!  Loved it all.  Charles and i slipped out for a last glass of vino tinto on the carrer at gond wana.   It is our little local bistro!  Wish we had such markets and neighborhood spaces back in North Florida.  Can't wait to get to France tomorrow. First, Avignon, then Lyon.  Fare well my friends and write to you from France!

The second day of Valencia

The mercado of our little area called Rufaza is the most impressive agricultural thing we have seen.  It was like going to the county fair and seeing every booth selling food.  Olives, onions, fish, pork, vegetables in mounds and separated into today's and the discount yesterday piles.  An amazing arrangement of freshness and almost reverence of food.  People are careful as two euros here and there will quickly add up.  And many of the people here buy daily or every other day to have the best ingredients at the cheapest cost.

Just down the street is an American store, complete with Rice Crispies and Cocoa Puffs.  I did not see Twinkies, but I sure thought about it.  They did not have SPAM, but I am sure that I saw deviled ham cans.  Juxtaposition comes to mind.

Did you know that the Europeans do not refrigerate eggs?  Look in the freezer and you will look for hours.  They are on the shelf next to the other weekly deliveries.  Nor do they stuff the chickens with anti-biotics and totally unexpected, they chop them (your chicken) in front of you.  After walking isle after isle of varying green lettuces, herbs, striped purple eggplants, reddish/green tomatoes bigger than your fist, olives of every sort and color, jamon or hams and sausages, cheeses and pastries, we entered the pesca mercado.  Oh my goodness, the fish and shrimp of the world are here.  The colors of pink and deep oranges and whiter than white fillets.   Huge fish heads set upright on the ice to identify the fillets below.

The salmon and pink trouts of the Alaska waters on the ice as well.  Charles walked the aisles torturing the vendors as he wasn't looking to buy, he was looking to compare to Florida fish. We walked and walked looking at cuddle fish and squid that fill a bucket.  The variety, the complexity, the opportunity to choose is amazing.  I am sorry that I could not take pictures for you.  The vendors do not like their photos taken.  And yet down the street is the market that puts these fine offerings in little plastic packages to make it convenient to shop.  The local Winn-Dixie or Publix if you will.  I regret only my choice of leather footwear for the day.

No wonder Spain is a retirement destination.  For three euros you can make a healthy meal and live two blocks from the Mercado and fifteen blocks from the waters that feed you!

Back at the apartment to put away the purchase of tomato, eggplant, onion, pepper, garlic, parsley, more prawns and wine.  Perfect beginning to a meal than will be made tonight.  Or that was the plan.  We take a quick siesta, or at least I do.  Charles sleeps in the other room as the technica has come to fix the hot water.  A new nozzle installed, I awake my prince and we decide to head to the Palicio Magnifico.  Charles picks it for the name.  Turns out is is the local courthouse.

We are heading that direction and Charles is still talking about paella so we head to look at restaurants and we finally settle on El Palacio de la Bellota very near Charles' chosen palacio.  The waiter turns out to have a mother from Kansas and speaks English with ease.  He is so sweet that we go in.  One glass of wine and a plate of traditional Valencia paella with rabbit and chicken later, we are stuffed.  Had I been with girlfriends, we would have stayed and drank wine and talked about Kansas, but Charles doesn't really want to linger in bars or hang around longer than needed.  There is such a big difference in the European way of eating, visiting and lingering and the American fast food mentality.  And maybe that of couple and girlfriends.  He thinks the $40 is expensive, oh what he doesn't know about eating out!  So spoiled by me cooking and buying the wine.

first bite

I did get him to wear a scarf with colors finally!

After the imbibing and the degustation, we head out in the cold for our long walk home to the Valencia apartment.  The bath is a bath, with a hand held shower, so it takes some adjustment for the spoiled Americanos who have it all.  We learn to conserve and do more with less and appreciate the smallness of our apartment, the completeness of our space and the limitations that come with luxury expectations.

The three flights of stairs are harder after dinner and the count of unmarked doors more challenging.  But back here in the night, thousands of miles from home, we are grateful for the opportunity.  And tomorrow, maybe we will see a different Valencia.  Buenas Noches, bonne nuit and good night.

of the Trip to Valencia Spain

As quickly as the City of Madrid rises with tall towers of buildings and balconies, it disappears into disparate industrial areas laden with cargo containers.  And then, in a small clearing is a beautiful little horse arena with jumps and grassy field.  No horses, not even a discernible barn, but any hunter knows the ring and the painted standards holding the jumps.

The train ride to Valencia is on the fast Renfe and it is barreling through the countryside so fast that the rows of plowed fields look like painted canvas.  The olive groves still bear the grayish green colors and dark wood trunks.  In rows, neatly plowed and scraped, the trees emerge in a somewhat random way in the countryside. 

 There are lots of green acres with a sudden patch of trees, then back to green acres or plowed dirt. Spain has a lot of pine trees and sycamore, though I don’t know if they would call them that.  The pines are tall and lean like those of Colorado.  The sycamores are very large with leaves that are the size of a plate.  The leaves of course are falling on the ground now, colors drained from their palettes.

Once in the hills, the green fades and it looks like the hills of San Bernadino, with sage brush and tumbleweed like bushes.  The lushness is no longer in the color, but the textures that the land shows.  There are many mesas, with tree tops and then wide open spaces.  The valleys peak at us between the hills and ask us to admire their verdant life once more.  It is somewhat like Madison County, Florida in that they are driving John Deere Green tractors in the fields, but nothing like Madison in the way the fields are tilled and then lined with little olive trees and grape vines.  And the few animals we see are mostly sheep, where Madison has cows. 

The soothing vistas and the waving train motion have put Charles to sleep and he is missing the transitions as we head east to the coast. 

The train lull is hard to resist and most don’t.  There are long stretches blocked from view by the tunnels and walls of the rail.  Combine that with the silence that is on this particular train, and you have a siesta in the making.  As a matter of fact, I feel the call now.

Alas, the child in front of me started running his truck across the tray and the man behind me takes a phone call (and had the most obnoxious ring tone).  The couple next to me debates something in Spanish that I can't understand, but it involves her ring, her jacket and the bags in her hands.  Perhaps too short a shopping trip?

We arrive at the station and have no phone to call the new landlord.  We take the walking trip, suitcases in tow under the tunnel and out to the streets. We find the place and ring ring, no answer.  Off to the streets (did I mention suitcases in tow) to find a cafe with wifi.  The lovely cafe of senyoreta-magdalena-valencia not only had wifi, but an English speaking  attendant with a lovely attitude.

She was so helpful.  We finally got a hold of Joan (pronounced John) thank you Google hangouts - I still have no phone..... arghh

Joan was lovely and apologized for being late and told us he needed more time while he cleaned the apartment.  We went off walking and saw the bull ring and the main streets and the plaza.  The central plaza is set for Navidad and even has an ice skating rink.  Back at the pad, Charles needs to lie down for a moment with a very large Goya book.  Two hours later, I go to meet Patrick Higman.  I leave Charles sleeping away.

Patrick meets me in town center, and I cry.  Yep, not even ashamed one little bit.  I was so happy to see him.  It feels so great to see someone and hug them when you haven't in a while.  Had the same feeling for my baby girl when she returned from her treks of Europe.

We walked back to the flat (did I mention four stories high with timed lights that go out if you don't make it in 30 seconds?).  Charles is still asleep.  We rouse him up and stroll through the streets of Valencia.  No restaurant seems to meet the requirements of all three of us.  So like usual, we head to the store and buy food and head back to cook at the flat.  The guys choose chicken.

Happy to see his boy

Patrick looks great

Our little flat

It was a lovely reunion with lots of Patrick stories.  Tomorrow we go see his college life, a tribute before he leaves it.  I am sure that he has lots more to share and has grown more than we will know. Surely, we were not so worldly at his age.  We had just figured out how to drive cars.  Amazing generation that knows the world, tolerance, and maybe acceptance.  So glad to have time with Patrick in his own world.

Rising to the Occasion of the Map and Being lost in Madrid

Saturday night and early Sunday morning could not have been louder.  The clanging of bottles from nearby restaurants into the recycle bins was relentless.  And then, just when you thought sleep was upon you, the garbage trucks rolled in.  The reason they come that late is easily explained, they absolutely could not possibly get in the road for the throngs of Navidad revelers.  My respect to the men and women cleaning the streets of Madrid.  Our late rising is of course due to the late retiring.

We picked out locations for the day and headed out.  Starting with the west side of Madrid and heading to the Palacio Real.

The thing about using a tour book, is that it is published in a place in time.  The reality of boots on the ground is subject to the local construction schedule,  Which is everywhere.  When buildings and streets are this old, something is always in a state of restoration.  Not to be deterred we made it to the the Plaza de la Ameria. It is the space between the most expansive palace that I have ever seen and the largest cathedral in Madrid.  We stopped next to a couple in trekking sandals and socks to take pictures.  Th unfortunate part of this visit is the balcony overlooking the entire City was under construction and you could not look out to the beautiful Campo Park.  We did go north to the Camp Del Moro gardens with the long reflection pond and lovely gardens and statutes.  Charles said that he saw the aerial trams crossing the large park, but we could not figure out how to get there to ride them.  The views must utterly beautiful based on what we could see from the palace.

We then headed back down Calle Mayor because somehow we had missed the Plaza Mayor itself.  We were to miss it again as we don't know which of us made the turn, but we ended up far south and east from our destination.  We had originally thought we would go to the Plaza and then down to the El Rastro flea market of some fame.

But, alas, we headed down a wrong path leading us to quite different neighborhoods than before.  The changes were subtle, then I noticed there were fewer and fewer children, more young adults and a much different vibe. Many closed disco bars and small mercados. It reminded me of parts of Costa Rica.  There was no Feliz Navidad in the air, in fact there was curry in the air and the Indian restaurants were streetside, with cooking going on by the tables.  We realized that we were not in the tourist district and stopped to look at the map.  Unfortunately, our street and tiny plaza was not on the map or in the guidebook.  Quandaries and druthers.

We walked toward the setting sun and Charles decided which way was north and we headed out.  when we reached the Laviapes Plaza, we had a location.  Whew!  Darkness was soon and we had walked miles from our apartment.  Not speaking Spanish is definitely a huge disadvantage.  However, we did get to see a Michael Jackson act.

When we finally figured out where we were and how far it was, there was nothing else to do but duck into a pastry shop and drink hot coffee and eat empanadillas.  They were fabulous. I practiced how to order, went up to the counter and said it correctly (so I thought).  The lovely person behind the counter says, "you mean this one?"  So much for my Spanish.  We ate with glee.  All things taste better after duress, stress and then relief.

Last night, after eating we went downstairs to the little bar.  We bought a bottle of wine and I ordered what I thought were baked plums.  Turns out the  waiter was saying "prawns" and we ate shrimp for desert.  In case you ever need to know, gambas are prawns!  But the wine was excellent, the company great and the sleep of a Sunday night so very welcome.