Oct 27 2006

Lack of sleep, part 2

I woke up Friday to a friend’s (Jen) phone in the Valenciain hostel. She I a place called Puerto de Sagunto (Sagunto Port) about 45 min NE along the mediterianian. She and I were going to hang out over the weekend with her friends, see the sights, and party like the Spaniards do. We made arrangements to meet outside my hostel. Two hours later we found each other, (after some accurate but bad directions to a different hostel with the same name as mine ). We had lunch with the two Canadians I met, rita and heather, and toured Valencia.

Valencia by day is quite an amazing place, old medieval churches, tiny shops, art everywhere, and relatively cheap food. After a while of wandering we found out we (the two canucks and I) could get a cheap hostel next to a beach in Puerto. We all thought the beach would be a good thing right about that time. After wandering for a bit, we booked it to a bus, and drove to Puerto.

Spanish side note:

Puerto is a small beach town, with very mediterainain styleing, very…. Cubic.

Spanish architecture seems to be very cubic, lots of squares and such, it’s little wonder that cubism came from a Spanish artist, Picasso.

After checking out Jens place and hitting up the hostel that overlooks a small square (lat=39.6597764675, lon=-0.217416381762) we went swimming. The temperature was about 27 C and the water was reasonably warm.

Spanish side note:

Food times in Spain are quite a bit different here. The usually eat a light snack for breakfast, than have their main meal of the day at 2:00-4:00, most stores close! Then there is a smaller meal at 9:00.

Oct 28

We woke up to quite a commotion outside the square, and found out there’s a huge market every Saturday. I met Jen outside and wandered while the girls pillaged the place shoe wise. They have absolutely everything there food, books, art, and clotheing! Great stuff, and super cheap too ( a button up shirt costs 3 euros). There was some amazing cubist art, but I’d have no way of getting it home!

Jen and I left the chaos of the market and met one of her English speaking Spanish friends and we drove down the road to Sagunto, and checked out a giant Roman Fortress. (lat=39.70047865, lon=-0.29078562693) The place was on a huge hill and was about 1km long! There were three circles of walls and all kinds of roman architecture. It was quite an amazing place!

We then had a huge lunch and a few cold ones and hit up an underground river called the Grutas de San Jose in Vall d'Uixo. (http://www.riosubterraneo.com/index_ok_uk.htm ) It was about 4 km long, and a few meters deep. The river was light by lights everywhere and we took a canoe down it. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of this enchanting place; they didn’t let me take any.

After yet another meal I met some more of Jens Spanish friends and ate a meal at Nachos (yes his names Nacho) apartment. After drinking the local drink sangria (red wine and apples mixed in) playing eyetoy on the Ps2, and some more drinks, we hit up the bar, at 11:00. The Spanish usually start drinking at home, then go to the bar from 12:00 -7:00am or so. Ironically at the bar they played a lot of English rock, oldies, and Franz Ferdinand. I danced a bit, we hit up another bar, and finally (4:00am) retired for bed.