Valencia, Spain.

This weekend I found myself traipsing across to the eastern coast of Spain again, but this time to Valencia, home to the famous orange of the same name. We had a little trouble getting to our hostel, but before we knew it, we found ourselves on a local city bus headed toward the beach. Before making it out to the sand and surf, we made a pit stop at a restaurant, where I had the best paella in Spain so far. Which only sounds fair, considering Valencia is the birthplace of paella, a saffron-infused rice dish with meats and vegetables. The six of us all got an order of it, and it came out combined together in a huge dish.

Not sure if you can tell by the lemons and the Sprite, but that's a frickin' huge plate of paella

The aftermath

Valencia was probably the most California-like beach I've visited here in Spain

The bull ring next to the bus stop to catch the bus to the beach

The beach was not too remarkable - probably because we were all worn out from our bus ride from Madrid - but it was nice to just relax without an agenda. It wasn't long before we were bussing back to our hostel. After camping out in the dorms for a while (it takes a long time to wait for six girls to all shower), we tried to check out the nightlife, but it was SO DEAD, considering Valencia is the 3rd largest city in Spain! Our thinking was that most Valencians were on summer vacation and had fled the miserable humidity for other Spanish cities.

Contrary to popular belief, we did not select our hostel on the basis that the logo is a chinky-eyed Eskimo to remind us that we were all Asians; it was actually one of hostelworld.com's top 10 hostels in 2005

Even for the 3rd biggest city, Valencia was pretty full of crazy ballers - it was BMW-abound like it was nobody's business

The next morning, we woke up to check out of the hostel and then go visit the aquarium, which we heard was the largest in Europe. When we got there, our jaws just dropped. Even if we didn't go in, the complex where the aquarium was situated in, the City of Arts & Sciences, was worth just going to look at. It was just a modern piece of contemporary craziness. I'm pretty sure pictures cannot even begin to do it any justice.

The City of Arts & Sciences

Stopping for a photo opp while making my way towards the aquarium

This is just so different from the old school cathedrals I've been seeing throughout Spain
A Disney World-esque structure inside the aquarium

Can't believe it was one of these things that killed that Australian nature guy...

In case you couldn't tell, this is Jaws
Can somebody please adopt a beluga whale for me?

The countdown to the flight home is definitely getting shorter and much faster! As of today, I have 16 days left before I touch down on American soil again. Looking forward to being home! Hope everyone had a good 4th of July =)