Weekend Numero Uno

The eclectic style of the flat (as mentioned in my previous blog entry) only heightened my interest to meet the people who owned it and when that time finally came I can tell you that I was not disappointed. A very friendly, older gentleman gave us a full tour of the apartment and an in-depth demonstration of how to use all (yes ALL) of the flats appliances – with not a single word of English, might I add. He then proceeded to invite us all on a tour of Valencia. However, wanting to be sure that we had fully understood all of his instructions, appliance advice and invitations, called his son from Boston, USA to reiterate everything in our native language.

We accepted his invitation and our weekend officially commenced on Friday evening. He and his wife picked us all up and took us on a private tour of the city viewing some of the nicest and most famous sights that Valencia has to offer. We then went to a small and authentic juice café where we had the bowl sized cups of amazingly fresh and delicious fruit juices. We all sat and did what we could with our broken English/Spanish – See below.

Saturday was jam-packed and was genuinely one of the most fun days I’ve had here. We met up with the rest of the group, which in itself, was lovely to catch up and hear stories about everyone’s teaching experiences. We had a Spanish cooking lesson in the morning where we cooked a three-course traditional Spanish meal of Gazpacho, Paella, both a traditional chicken and an all veggie version too, (which suprisingly, was my favourite!) and a typical Valencia style cake.

After paella making we took a stroll through the beautiful park which stretches the entire width of Valencia. We walked to the science and arts museum, of which I can show pictures and describe as best as I can, but realistically you need to go and see for yourself just HOW beautiful it is because neither of the above will quite do it justice.

We had coffee and sangria and rode water bikes. (I’d never heard of them either, but see below to understand just how happy they made me.)

After this, we all went for tapas and more sangria in Plaza de La Reina where we could see the city’s stunningly beautiful Cathedral. The rest of the weekend was spend cycling around the park and the city and having lunch (more paella) on the beach front. This was where I ate my first (and probably last) Snail. My next beach trip will not include snails, but hopefully some swimming in the sea.