Part 2 of 2!

Continuing on my extension of the long post.

On Tuesday we packed ourselves into the car and headed to Valencia, which is about 3 hours away on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea!  Getting there was really easy and the scenery is great! Italy is not the only country with fields of sunflowers. :) The glitch: the GPS decided to take us to some industrial warehouse instead of our hotel. So we were kind of lost for a few minutes in Valencia, but we finally figured it out and checked into the hotel.  After we brought our bags up we went to the historic center of Valencia. We walked around a bit, kind of lost and confused since the map had lots of unmarked streets and some streets didn't have signs.  We walked through their mercado, and finally ended up having an ice cream on La Plaza de la Virgen.  There was a really cool fountain to Neptune there. After that, Mom and Dad went to the Cathedral but Carolyn and I were like, uhh no more churches please. We're not on the Catholic tour of Spain here. So we walked around the plaza where the cathedral de San Vicente was located. Apparently we missed a good one since Patty and Dave got to see: the entire forearm of Saint Vincent, the skull of some bishop, and THE HOLY GRAIL. No lies, they have pictures. Carolyn was mad after that, but I was like, oh well I'll come back.  We ate lunch after that off of their main plaza. I was complimented on my Spanish! Yay, I don't sound like a fool!!  We tried to go to the bullfighting ring after that but it was under construction so we couldn't go in.  So we hopped back into the car, went to the hotel, go changed and....went to the BEACH! So I can now officially say I've swam in the Mediterranean Sea. We went out for some authentic Valencian paella that night, and I wish I had brought my camera, because the restaurant was beautiful and the paella was delicious!

On Wednesday we woke up early, packed our bags, checked out of the hotel and drove to Buñol.  The goal of this was to participate in the Tomatina, the annual tomato throwing festival they have there. So we got there relatively early (by 930), and started to follow the people to where the fight was, bought a t-shirt on the way.  So picture this, this is a pretty small town, like less than 9,000 people I think it said.  On the days surrounding the Tomatina there are 30 to 50,000 people.  SO needless to say there were a buttload of people. Add in the fact that 99% of them a DRUNK and have been for a day or 2.  Add in the fact that it was about 95° out and we were with Patty and Dave, and I had an awful stomach ache.... it was not a good combo. We got down to where the festival happens (it was at least a mile and a half, maybe more downhill.....) and all I can think of is... if we go into this crowd we are NEVER getting out. And it wasn't something I wanted to have to deal with at that point.  So we didn't go into the crowd. We were going to watch. So we stood by the bridge, which marks the end point of the fight, and some local dude told us we'd be able to see the fight from our location. So sweet deal right? No. The gun went off right after 11 signaling the start of the fight, and the truck with all the tomatoes supposedly makes its way to the bridge within 15 minutes. So we waited. and waited. and waited. And then it was 1145 and nothing had happened. And by that point we had been standing on that spot for over an hour. And we were getting squished together by all the other people who didn't make it in. Patty and Dave were getting the grumps cuz it was so hot, and I was like omg I need water/food/to lie down, sooooo we left.  Carolyn was reallly disappointed, but honestly, it wasn't what I thought it was going to be like and it just wasn't worth it anymore. So against Carolyns' wishes we started to drive back to Madrid. We stopped along the way to get something to eat since we were starving at that point.  When we finally made it back to Madrid we all relaxed a bit. Since it was still about a million degrees out.  Mom and I went out to get a few things from El Corte Ingles that I needed for the semester. For dinner we went back to the same restaurant we went to on our first night, La Grotta.  It was really nice again and we enjoyed ourselves.

Now I have to update you on Thursday, and today. But I'll start another post since this one is a mini-novel.