Friday, January 14, 2011

Valencia is for lovers... food lovers

Song(dedicated to Rebecca. Should have asked your last name so I could have found you on Facebook. Thanks Sep for song and idea):

Valencia:
I am still travelling alone through Spain with no Spanish skills. This becomes even more of a problem as I have to navigate and try to find my way to random people's places. I was going to see Yasmin. Remember how I wanted to do couchsurfing... well Yasmin is a couch surfing pro. Check her out http://www.couchsurfing.org/people/yasamin/
She is what I strive to be. Having random people sleep on my couch... but really shes an amazing couch surfing host. If anyone is going to Valencia, she has a place for you. No matter how dirty and rude you are. I am sure Yasmin will love me after I've offered her couch up on this shitty blog. Let the homeless people (Soroosh) ask her for a couch. After being lost for an hour cause Spain is horrible at numbering (basically puts evens on one side of street and odds on other but they arent in order). I get to her place and get greeted by her rat... Snickers

Fine its a dog, but as the locals that see the dog say, its a ugly cute dog with a great personality. Remember how I said Madrid had the best deal ever, no Valencia is so much cheaper. Yasmin took me a to a place. Beer + tapa for 1.50. I was shocked
I ate so much for 6 euros and at the end we had a beer left. We tried to offer it to people and no one would take it. I guess everyone was too full. The best place ever. Nima, we have to go to Valencia. The cheapness continues. Also when you come from Paris and you go anywhere (just like New York) every city seems super cheap to you. I like it. Next time I will be only in the cheap cities (although I want to go to London). Head back pass out.

Exploring Valencia:
Next day Yasmin takes me out to explore Valencia. I will explain how Valencia was developed later, but all you have to know is that like Madrid and Barcelona it used to be enclosed by a wall and that area is the old part of the city.
Also like most cities, it used to touch a body of water. Now this river used to flood a lot so they decided to turn it into a park. So there runs a huge park in the middle of the city.

This is from the top of the tower. The bridge used to be a bridge over a river and now you can see they put a soccer field there and a park. It was so pretty. Yasmin said they were thinking of making it a highway... I think they should still make it a high way. Hate fun.
Inside the actual city like all other old cities was a mess of streets but the weather was so beautiful
Xmas tree. Will get to it later


over all a beautiful city.

THE LARGEST INDOOR FOOD MARKET IN EUROPE(its kind of a big deal):

Since my competition(Roshan) puts pictures of food I will do the same so no one can say her blog is better



This is a cake for 3 kings day. Its like double x mas. In it is a plastic stick(?) and a plastic king.
Who ever get the king is king for a day and who ever gets the stick has to buy next years cake.
Its a really funny thing. What if the King plays this with his family and he doesn't get the King piece?
And the best part. Every thing was relatively cheap and everything was fresh. On the bad side. People in Europe are "lazy". As Yasmin would say, there is no such thing as Wal mart where its open 24x7 so a lot of places would close early. This lead to heart break as my favorite place was closed for the rest of my stay. No dolmehs for me.

Paella de Valencia:
If anyone knows me, I don't like sea food. Therefore I've never been fond of Paella, but what made Valencia so great is that their Paella didn't have any sea food but rather chicken breast which I love

Again, best part. For only 8 euros.

Also Valencia is known for its Oranges and the whole city had Orange trees everywhere (don't eat them fobs, they will make you sick).

Cool pictures break:

What is this statue doing?
Now back to me, back to story:
Later on that night, Yasmin make us tachin. She's really the best
Pass out again.

Song (stolen from Yasmin. Really beautiful but have no idea what it says):

BEACH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:
The next day we go to the beach and I have to say that Valencia has an amazing beach. Even though it was 70 degrees outside it was still too cold to go into the water.
As were walking by we see the coolest thing ever. Its a statue that makes a boat out of water which leads me to take the best picture I have taken this whole trip
TELL ME HOW GREAT OF A PICTURE THIS IS!!!!!!!!!!
Then I take the bike and go around the park at night. This is where I realized that Valencia is really the best place to Vacation with with a lover. It has a beautiful park, a beach, and amazing buildings. Its just a really romantic place to be.


Best play ground ever:



Its Gulliver. It was really cool. Every part was a slide. Really this is the best thing if you are a kid and I can't think of a cool play ground like this in the states. So sad. We should steal it?

Everyone in Europe Speaks 12 languages...:
I get back to Yasmin's place where one of her roommates. Now this lead me to the most confusing dinner I have ever had.
 Let me introduce the actors in this play
The most important actor in this play. The food.
It was German meatballs.
From left to right.
David's dad - Hailing from Aachen Germany. I know What are the odds. Speaks English, German and understand Dutch.
David - Speaks English, German, and Spanish. Industrial Engineering student. Comes from Aachen. Took Spanish in school for a year and lived in Valencia for 5 months and is fluent now. Still blows my mind.
Yasmin - Speaks Farsi, English, and Spanish. Hails from Atlanta
Jean Pau - Speaks Spanish, Catalin and possibly Valencian. Understand English to an extent. LOVES BARCELONA
Me -  Speak English, Farsi, and can BS saying I know German.

The Stage:
Dinner as the apartment.

The play:
We are sitting around and trying to talk to each other. At certain times David Yasmin and Jean Pau are speaking in spanish. This is done cause David doent want his dad to know. So Yasmin will tell me what is going on in Farsi. Another time Yasmin and Jean Pau are speaking in Spanish. David is explaining it in German to his dad and I am trying to understand the German. Some times David, Davids dad, Yasmin and I are speaking English and then Yasmin explain to Jean Pau what is going on. Needless to say, I have never had such a confusing dinner. It was really cool to see so many languages come together and work... but really, it was super duper confusing.

I leave:
The next day I walk around take pictures of graffiti (will post on Facebook) but before I go I get some Aqua de Valencia which is basically orange juice and champagne and drink the whole thing.

The x mas tree at beginning of post was being taken down. This was very symbolic
as x mas was ending officially and so was my journey. It was really powerful
seeing the end of something
What is the next post and what is going on with me?
I left Valencia and went to Paris and now I am back in the states. Sorry my blog has been a lot of pictures. The next and last post will be better. Holler and love you all

EDIT:
So I like carrousel's and i saw the coolest one ever.
IT HAD REAL HORSES!!!!!!!!!!!

6 comments:

  1. read. wish i was there. maybe i'll still go? but who will be my lover now that you are back in the states :(

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  2. i think you can find a lover no problem.

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  3. WELCOME BACK! Roll credits...cue Neil Diamond
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3S7mlRYL-8

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  4. You really didn't need to mention my name I knew who you were talking about when you said rude and dirty ^_^

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  5. ARASH!!!!!!!
    I was crying by the end of this post...crying because I was laughing so hard. Your explanation of David's dinner was just...perfect. Flawless!

    And I love that picture. That's probably the best picture of your trip.

    Also one thing you forgot to add to Valencia's awesome-ness:

    We have the holy grail!!!!

    I'M GOING TO VISIT YOU IN DC!

    Un beso,
    Yasi

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  6. read. i prefer the version of besame mucho by andrea bocelli. that pic belongs in a museum tho :)

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