I can't believe it's already March! Time flies when you're having fun.
Today our destination: Valencia, Spain.
We were to be at the bus at approx. 8 a.m. to leave to Valencia. Again, we were rushing because the rumor was that they were going to actually leave at 8 because we had to catch a boat at our first stop. But once again, we didn't leave until 8:30. I don't know if we will ever learn.
We took a bus ride south for two and a half hours to the beautiful Ebro Delta. When we got there we got on a boat and took a cruise around the river. It was a little cold, since it is the winter, and the water was a little murky, but it was still beautiful nonetheless. When the boat cruise was over we all went to a restaurant called Casi Nuri to eat Valencian paella. Valencian paella not in Valencia, weird!
Valencia is known for their paella and is said to be the place in Spain where it originated. As the tour guide said later in the afternoon "everywhere else that has paella, it's fake, Valencia is the only place with the real stuff." Paella (for all you Americans) is a rice type dish typically with fresh seafood. Sometimes it comes with chicken or there is vegetarian paella with vegetables.
When we got our huge plate full of paella all I could stare at was the huge orange shrimp laying on top of the rice. It was staring right back at me too. Typically in Spain they don't "de-shell" their seafood, for what reason I'm not sure, but I was a little grossed out and shrimp is usually the only kind of seafood I will eat! Along with the shrimps were some other types of seafood which I could identify: clams, octopus and squid, and then some things I couldn't identify so well: apparently snail and rabbit. Needless to say, I picked everything out and only ate the rice, which was really good, but I at least tried the clam.
After we were done eating paella, or for some of us, conducting our science dissection, there were two cute little open air street shops with tourist items such as shells, bracelets, hats, etc. that we browsed through.
Then, it was time to get back on the bus and head to Valencia.
Upon arriving in Valencia we had just enough time to put our things down in the hotel before catching a city bus and walking tour. ISA has a branch in Valencia so one of their instructors gave us the tour. She was halarious!
We took the bus around the city looking at the beautiful buildings and then we get off and walked around the center of Valencia. What a beautiful city! Valencia is the 3rd largest city in Spain after Barcelona and Madrid. I don't know how it's the third, because it wasn't very big, but the people of Valencia are very proud of that fact.
We walked around the city with the tour guide explaining what the interesting buildings were, and, of course, me and two friends ended up getting separated from the group because we went in to a candy store that we couldn't resist!
We wandered around for about a half hour before we finally found the group and rejoined the tour again.
During the tour we stopped at a churro stand and I got the best churro I've ever had: a churro covered in chocolate, another typical food of Valencia.
When the tour was over we had free time for the rest of the night. Because it was late, we were really hungry. We ended up going to a little Italian restaurant that appeared to be very fancy, but had cheap prices. A few of my friends and I had gnocci with a four cheese sauce and the others had spaghetti. The gnocci was delicious and the spaghetii looked good too. Stuffed until we couldn't eat any more, we walked around and found things to do for the night.
After that, it was time for some shut eye before tomorrows wake up call at 10 a.m.
Chao!
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