Why is it that people who snore are always the first to fall asleep? My otherwise fabulous four-day vacation to Valencia, Spain was somewhat tainted by a snoring woman who shared a hostel room with us the last night. We had reserved two beds in a six-bed room not expecting it to be completely full because it's the off season for travel. But we realized that it doesn't really matter how many people are in a room if one person happens to be a snorer.
Aside from the less-than-desirable roommate and minimal sleep our final night, the hostel itself was great: nice lounge area, kitchen, and access to the internet. The showers were great too--probably the best I've ever experienced; they were the kind where the showerhead is directly overhead so it feels like rain. Ahhh!
Since watching a travel program featuring Valencia this past summer, I have really wanted to visit the city. I went to Madrid and Barcelona in 2000 so I was eager to see how Valencia compares. So when I came across great deals on flights from London a few weeks ago, a friend and I decided to take the bait and make it happen. I found that the longer I was there, the more I loved the city.
Traveling in a country where another language is spoken is a challenge. Both my friend and I know some Spanish so we were determined to try using it as much as possible and not appear like ignorant tourists during our stay. But knowing how to speak in a foreign language and actually having the courage to use it are two different things. I'm great with Spanish vocabulary and can read it fairly well, but speaking it was especially difficult for me. The first test was when we arrived at the airport--in order to get to the city center we had to purchase bus tickets. We dug back into our memory from past high school/college Spanish classes and managed to communicate effectively enough to get what we needed. This is basically how we functioned for the entire stay--grasping at any words or phrases we might remember from our studies years ago. We discovered we could accomplish a lot even with our limited knowledge. An additional challenge to visiting Valencia (or Barcelona) is that this region of Spain speaks primarily Catalan Spanish which is different from the Spanish I learned--Castilian Spanish. Castilian is spoken in other parts of Spain and in the Americas. Signs and directions were generally written in both forms of Spanish and where only Catalan was given, we were able to interpret them well enough since there are similarities between the two. As the days progressed, we got more comfortable using Spanish which is another reason why leaving was sad.
As is usually the case when traveling, we've come back with great memories and stories. One in particular is not so pleasant, but I can't seem to get it out of my head--my friend almost got her purse stolen! It's a long story, but the short version is that a man sat down near us at an outdoor cafe and we saw him leaning over to grab her bag. Thankfully we caught him in the act--our trip would have been ruined had he actually gotten a hold of it. It was at this point when we wished we had known a few choice Spanish words to scream at this jerk. What's even crazier is that later that night at the hostel we met another traveler who actually did get her wallet stolen that day! Yikes!
More than once, my friend and I stated how it was so unbelievably awesome to be in Spain for a long weekend. It's such a foreign concept to people in the US, but here in Europe, and especially London, it's so easy and cheap to travel all over the continent even if you only have a few days. My entire trip to Spain probably cost a third of what airfare alone would have cost from Chicago. I can't afford NOT to travel while I'm here!

Here are some pictures of my trip:

Let's start with the most important thing--the weather!
It was beautiful and sunny and warm every day.
We actually saw the temperature up to 25 a few times--beats London's weather any day.

Plaza Ayuntamiento--one of the main plazas downtown.
More plazas and beautiful places...

'Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciencias' is a relatively new development which contains several museums. The architecture is modern and is quite a contrast to the rest of the city.
We went to the science museum and L'Oceanografic, the largest aquarium in Europe.

The Mediterranean Sea!
I can't believe I was there just a few days ago!

My feet in the water. Felt great!

Lunch at a nice cafe on the beach.

Crazy tree! Kind of creepy-looking...in a cool way.