Valencia and the Beach Festival

Valencia: June, 23-25

If you didn't know, traveling in Spain is expensive. So, before we left we did a lot of research. This weekend we decided to use BlaBlaCar and we had a great experience. It's like hitch hiking and carpooling all organized online and we reaped the benefits of the low prices. Our driver picked us up at our apartment and dropped us off at our Airbnb, which is very unusual, but he wanted to make sure we were okay because of the language barrier. He did not speak ANY English but we got lucky because another person rode with us. He was Italian and spoke Spanish and, enough, English. It was a very long ride to Valencia due to traffic but we didn't mind because we learned all about the festival everyone was going to that night.  We got a 10 minute break to shove food in, because we couldn't eat in the car. 

When we arrived we changed into our beach clothes and joined the festival. We couldn't believe that it was near midnight and families with young children were showing up for the festival too. We had to jump over the warm ocean waves 7 times to bring us good luck.

The next morning we headed to town and we just happened upon another festival. There was so much free entertainment around and in the bull fighting ring.

These people scared the crap out of a little kid and he was doing the terrified scream thing, the parents were not happy, but we laughed hard! Below, we were in the bullfighting ring for a while listening to some live Spanish guitar music.

We walked around and found some beautiful sights. You can't dream these places up that's for sure. I stayed at the fountain for a while because it was so beautiful and because it took a long time to get this photo.  

We snuck into the Cathedral right after a first communion and it was definitely a treat. We sat here for a while taking in the people and the scene. As we walked around, we found a mummified hand of a saint and it was kind of freaky.

When we were doing our research about Valencia two things stuck out: we had to have Horchata and Paella while we were there. So, naturally we took a break from the heat and drank some Horchata from this really really old place. Horchata is a Spanish drink made with Tigernuts, water, and sugar.  I was not the biggest fan of the flavor but Nick liked it.

After exploring the city for a couple of hours we went right back to the beach and made a reservation for this famous place (La Pepica ) If we would have made the reservation days in advance we would have been able to sit outside and watch the sun set, but we were able to see it at our table inside a little.

SO GOOD!!!!!

Sunday we woke up and went to church and did more exploring before we hit the beach again. We decided to walk the park that goes through the center of town and towards our house. The park used to be a river but they rerouted the river around the city instead of through it. Now you have a bunch of beautiful trees and fun things to do. First we stumbled upon Gulliver, the giant that was tied down. He had been made into a park for kids to play on.  It was really cool because it had a lot of natural places to climb up and slide down.

When we finished playing we walked to the City of Arts and Sciences and they had some cool buildings.

We walked to the beach, grabbed a bite to eat, swam, and sunbathed. Did you know that the women in Spain sunbathe topless? Well, we found that fun fact out right before we went and I'm glad we did so we could mentally prepare ourselves. (not pictured for obvious reasons)

We rushed back to our place to shower and pack before we left for our long adventure back home. We had the same driver and that made life a lot easier, but the third passenger was a woman who spoke less English than we spoke Spanish. For some reason he had this little guy in his car and he was very confused about why Nick was taking a picture of him. (Apparently Big Bird is a Valencia CF fan)

Oh and here is a little bit of the amazing storm we drove through on our way home.

Sintra and Lisbon, Portugal

We left for Lisbon (aka Lisboa) at 1:30 am from the Salamanca train station.  Nick and I were split up because the rooms were divided by sex. I was lucky because the helper fella who jumped off the train came straight to me. He read my ticket and walked me to my room and then took my ticket away from me. I settled in and went right to sleep trusting that someone would wake me up so I didn't miss my destination. Nick had a different experience he was left on his own to find his car and bunk. When he asked someone the answer was, "down there." As he was standing in the hallway the train started to leave the station. Lucky for him the ticket fella came by and helped him to his room. We both slept really well.

We were woken up by a knock at the door. Turns out our stop was the last one. We we arrived in Lisbon and jumped off the train and headed to the metro to get to another train station so we could get to Sintra. We made it in plenty of time so we took a short nap.

Train to Sintra:

We did a lot of research about the place before we went but we were still confused when we got there. Everything worked out fine, though. We walked a lot and took a ton of photos. Our first stop was the Castelo dos Mouros. We climbed the wall and had a great time exploring. The views of Sintra and Pena Palace were amazing. We spent a lot of time here.

Next we headed to Pena Palace. The colors of this palace are so much better in person. To keep things interesting let's play a game. Try to find Nick in the photos that we took of the Pena Palace.

Were you successful? Trust me he is in every picture.

Next we headed to to Sintra city and walked/slid down the narrow streets.

We stopped at the oldest pastry shop in Sintra and ate their two most famous pastries. The recipes are not shared with anyone and we could tell why.  So yummy!

After our wonderful adventure we headed back to Lisboa by train. Nick and I both thought the train would end where it picked us up so we both fell asleep. The train stopped and we had no idea where we were. Lucky for us the train was going back to Sintra soon so we decided to stay on and figure things out from there. It took us 2 hours to make it to our wonderful Airbnb sailboat. (We found out later, through experience, that we could have taken a bus that took us straight to our sailboat. Oh well, live and learn)

Nick took a much needed nap and I explored the area nearby by myself. When Nick woke up, we went out for dinner. This is when things got a little uneasy for us because as soon as we exited the subway Nick was approached by a man asking him to buy drugs. At first Nick had no idea what he was talking about, and I was a good 3 steps behind him so the next thing I heard was a frustrated Nick stating loudly, "I'm Mormon and I don't do that crap!" We walked quickly where there were lots of people in a tent and it turned out to be a small market (at 10 pm) We tasted a few things and left to find a place to sit and eat. We went up some interesting back-roads , following people of course, but the higher we went the more uneasy we were feeling. Nick and I decided to walk back down and find food near the subway station and that's how we found this amazing Saw Fish waiting for our taste buds.

I wish that I could tell you that we had no problems after we finished our meal (By that time it was midnight) but that was not the case. On our way back to the subway we were approached again by a different person, this time drugs were in his hands as he was shoving it towards us. We walked quickly and tried to shake the uneasy feeling that this city was giving us. 

Sunday we got up and went to church. We really wanted to visit Tyler Tillman but his building was too far north and the subway wasn't running all the way up there, so we had to settle for these two dudes.

We left our wonderful boat to explore more of Lisboa before we caught the train back home. We went to see the views at the St. Jorge Castle it also had peacocks. 

After the castle we were headed down the hill when we found this cool shop. Nick really wanted to purchase a tile because they are very popular in Lisboa. This old dude had a lot of tiles that he has collected through the years and Nick settled on one of them. We also heard that grilled sardines were a must, so we tried them... BONES, BONES everywhere!

We made it to the bottom of the hill and caught a bus near our train station. We decided to take a one-way cheap gondola ride as we were killing time and it dropped us off at a super cool shopping area that was attached to our train station.

Nick got sick of me taking picture of him and he thought he was giving me that, "I disapprove"

look but in actuality he was giving me the, "I'm super sexy" look. I guess he needs to work on his modeling skills.

Overall it was a great trip. We got back to Salamanca at 1:30 in the morning but we had Monday off to sleep in.

Frankfurt, Germany

We landed in Frankfurt, Germany around noon so we had plenty of time to take the train into town and walk around. We were tired, my leg hurt, but we did it anyways and with a smile. We found and paid for the train (I was disappointed because I felt like we spent a lot of money on a ticket that nobody every checked). 

So when we got downtown, we discovered that they didn't have storage for our things so we jumped back on the train and went to a different station to lock it up. Eventually we made it.

We walked through the shopping district first and then we made our way (by accident of course) to a cool festival. There we shared a delicious sandwich; It had a huge chunk of tender meat in it.

We kept walking because we wanted to find and walk along the river. We ended up walking through a beautiful park that bordered the city and we stumbled upon a couple of old buildings, a WWI memorial, homeless people, and a lot of bikers.

Finally, we made it to the river and took a ton of pictures.

We left the river, crossed a road and stumbled upon the old district. My mouth hung open as we rounded the corner to see this.

The buildings were beautiful so we decided to sit for a while and take it all in. A group of Koreans walked up to take a picture in front of the building and when they noticed Nick's hat they LAUGHED and asked to take a picture with him.

On our way back on the train Nick was able to snap this picture. It looks like Alabama he said and I agree with him. What do you think?

At the airport we took a nap and relaxed until it was time to take off. This was the first time we got on a bus that drove us to our plane and then we loaded from the back. It was a cool experience.

The bus

The plane

Although we didn't have much time there we felt like we were able to see so much. I can't wait to get back to Germany and see more one day because it's beautiful and the food is amazing.