Valencia 19 Jul 2010

Ah Valencia, as I sit back in the chair on the foot path watching the world go by I feel blessed, it’s a wonderful city there is something about it that’s hard to describe. I am surrounded by old buildings with magnificent designs and architecture; every time I look up I see something different. It’s strange; main, dual or 4 lane thoroughfares intersected by small rustic single lane streets . All the cars are squeezed into the tiny parking places they seem to use touch parking as the standard means for finding their boundaries between cars (thank goodness for plastic bumper bars) cars will be parked in a parallel street hemmed in on both ends by cars with only 20cm or less of space each end, and it doesn’t seem to worry them, the foot paths are covered with motorbikes, mainly scooters (no road rage here).

I am slowly settling into the pace here, there appears to be a slow start to the morning and unlike Barcelona (which seemed to go all day) at about 2pm the shutters come down the streets are deserted, siesta time, it’s strange the bustling streets all but empty. There is a quiet start to the evening when the cafes open; mainly for drinks, perhaps with Tapas for a snack. Some of the restaurants don’t open their main menu until 9 or 10 pm, about that time the streets become alive with people dinning alfresco style, the dinning and associated drinking goes on late in the night (midnight).

Definitely some Spanish language skills would be an advantage, there is a splattering of people in the local shops who speak English but very few, that said it makes it interesting, and unlike your typical Australian would be they seem to take my very inept attempts at conversing very well and with tolerance (how different we are) . It has made for some interesting conversations, somehow I seemed to have convinced the lovely waitress at the shop where I have my B&B breakfast that I would prefer two cups of coffee instead of one cup and a croissant (is that spelt right), hehe anyway it helps the diet. I will return here, but will learn a little Spanish first.

A swim at Valencia beach, the home of the world Cup (sailing) the water is warm like a bath, about 25deg. It’s worse than Bondi. The beach is probably 200M wide with the crowd concentrated in the 50M closest to the water. You can’t move, skin everywhere, as far as the eyes can see, in all shapes and sizes a sea of humanity. All the girls of all ages are wearing bikinis with a large percentage dispensing with the top, no problems from teenagers to grandmothers, they are relaxed their bodies as we all should be.