peculiar city [valencia, spain]

The bus brought us around the old city and then to the new science and technology district. The old city has some really beautiful architecture that goes together very nicely, but then as you drive out of it there are poorly built apartment high-rises and whole blocks that are empty and overgrown with weeds. They have tried to imitate American culture there (fact, not opinion) and have big shopping malls stuck down in the middle of more strange empty fields, some with shanty towns in them. Then there's the river, which is now dry because Mediterranean Spain has completely exploited all of its natural local water supplies, and it's been turned into a park with modern sculpture. The beach is meant to imitate Southern California - miles of sand and palm trees and intentionally "SoCal" architecture - but then one block away there's rows and rows of what looks like housing projects that are absolutely falling apart. The science and technology area consists of a handful of monumentally large space-age buildings, not at all in context to the surrouding utilitarian apartment highrises... Don't get me wrong, there's some beautiful things to see, but the city is just so strange. It has no continuity, no binding factor. I really wasn't too impressed.

After walking around the area (pretty if taken as separate pieces), we headed as quickly as possible to the beach to catch some sun. The weather was in the low 70's and we were rather hopeful. Unfortunately it was hotter in the city center than on the windy beach, where the extremely fine and soft-to-walk-on sand was blasted into our faces at quite a speed. We gave up after a couple hours and took the 45-minute bus ride back into the center of the city.

I stopped by the hotel room and then decided to see some things on my own. I walked by a few buildings that I saw on postcards, though I couldn't tell you now what they were. They were nice. The only one that particularly sticks out in my mind was the bull ring. It was big and nice. Not much more than that. I got a churro, which tasted much like one would expect deep-fried dough to taste. I did really like their popular Valencian summer drink Orxata, or Horchata, which is made from soaking tigernuts in water with sugar. It's really sweet and very refreshing. I highly recommend it.

I returned to the hotel for a nap and some hotel dinner. We got ready and sat upstairs on my roommates' top-floor porch discussing politics and drinking wine. It got a little heated at times. We covered the war in Iraq, the Clinton scandal, Native American mascots, Obama and Hilary Clinton, and much more. The wine kept everyone in relatively good spirits. After that we headed out for some bars, where the Agua de Valencia (orange juice, cava [champagne], and vodka) truly did me in. On that note, I'll skip ahead to Saturday afternoon...