Tuesday: Exploring Valencia

Apparently, the folks from the US bring rain to Valencia.  For an area that gets very little rain, it sure is wet here today.  Instead of getting up early to take my usual exploration walk, I slept in until about 7:30am. The hotel we are staying at is nice, but the rooms are very close together and one can hear everything that's going on in the hallways.  I find it unusual that in a country whose culture embraces staying out until the wee hours of the morning, the housekeeping staff of the hotel is in the hall chatting and making noise before 6am. Something isn't right here!  In any case, I enjoyed a nice hotel breakfast including pastries, lots of fruits and cheese and something I had never seen before, cuajada. I picked up what I thought was a plain yogurt to pour over my fruit and what I discovered was a delicious cheese custard (made by Dannon no less) that resembles flan in texture, but tastes like a mild vanilla custard.  I guess it's not available in the states. I am always excited to find a new food!

After breakfast, we met our group. There are teachers from Delaware, New York City, Texas and California with us. We go from 28 to 75 in age.  There are men and women. Our tour hosts are Alba from the Department of Tourism and Alicia from the Comunidad Valenciana.  Both are very kind and helpful. I look forward to spending the week with them.  As per usual on a trip like this, what started out as a day among strangers quickly became a group of friends by the stroke of midnight.

Our tour guide Vito talks about the marina and Valencia's participation in the America's Cup.

We took a bus tour of Valencia followed by a walking tour of the city center. We visited the Cathedral, the Silk Exchange and the train station. It was very informative. The history and culture is so deep here with Roman, Visigoth and Moorish experiences. As someone who has traveled most recently through Latin America, I often forget how far back the cultural influences are in Europe.

We ate a quaint lunch at a Mediterranean restaurant.  The pictures do not do justice to the amazing culinary dishes.  Two days in a row now, I've had squid ink in my meals.  I'm starting to sense a trend here!

After lunch, we went to the Lladro factory and museum. This is the only production facility for this exquisite porcelain. It started as a family business in valencia in 1953 and has remained here ever since. Lladro has a worldwide presence and it considered to be one of the finest brands of porcelain in the world.  It was really interesting to see the process of how the porcelain is created and decorated.  Artists train for 3 years before they are permitted to paint pieces. No photos were permitted inside the factory or the store.

After the Lladro tour, we returned to the hotel for some free time.  I chose a nap!  After about 90 minutes of sleep, I awoke ready for our late night dinner at Entrevins.  This place was amazing!  Not only were the food and wine delicious, but we learned after dinner that there is an underground refuge below the restaurant that was used during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). We got a tour of this area and it was really amazing!  I am posting pictures of the food. I can't do it justice by trying to describe it all.  Mostly fish-based with lots of olive oil, spices and sauces. Portions are small, but the plates just kept coming.  Dessert was slivers of lime with gelato and ginger crumbs.  Weird combinations, but oh so good!

Mandy and our new friend Carlos from the Dalton Academy in Manhattan.

My new friends talked me into one last drink after our 2 hour dinner.  We walked to the Cafe de las Aguas to try Valencia's signature cocktail, the Agua de Valencia.  It's basically a fancy mimosa made more authentic by the incorporation of Valencia oranges!  

At 1am, we walked through the plaza of the cathedral back to our hotel for the night.  What a great day!

Monday: ¡Bienvenidos a España!

It's hard to believe that less than 24 hours ago, we were in Dayton, Ohio!  Now, we are in Valencia, Spain. For those who might be unfamiliar with Valencia, it is a port city on the Mediterranean Sea about 3 hours south of Barcelona and about 1.5 hours east of Madrid by high speed rail.  It has a temperate climate with the lowest temperatures annually around 50 degrees Fahrenheit.  We are here during the coolest time of year, but it is still pleasant.

Because our flight pattern had changed, our pre-arranged ride to the hotel from the airport was unable to wait for us. We grabbed our own taxi and took the short 20 Euro trip to the Ingles Boutique hotel in the city center.  After about ten minutes of checking out our rooms, Mandy and I hit the streets to explore for the next few hours.  I think European hotel rooms are hilarious. There's always something to figure out, like how to turn the lights on!  Who knew you had to insert your door card into the card reader by the door to activate all the lights?  I had seen this before, but didn't realize that when you leave your room, all outlets are also turned off meaning that your devices can't charge unless you are in your room or have an extra key.  Lesson learned!  I took the picture of the bidet to show my students and biological kids.  They always find this fascinating.

Mandy and I headed toward the main park of the downtown area, the Gardens of Turia.  Along the paths of this former riverbed, you can find beautiful landscaping, walking paths, outdoor playgrounds and monuments. We walked the entire path until we reached the famous City of Arts and Sciences, a modern complex of buildings such as the Oceanographic, the Science Museum, the Opera House and the Imax theater. It is one of Valencia's most recognized areas and is truly impressive to see.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at various buildings, had a couple of tapas and a copy de vino.  It was a lovely, long walk that gave us just enough hunger for dinner at Le Marqui Restaurante at our hotel.  I was so glad that we got to explore for several hours on our own. The next four days are planned for us, so today really helped us to get acclimated to both the city and the time zone! Tomorrow, we have a full tour of Valencia including the Lladro factory and two very popular Valencian restaurants!

Tapas at Pinxtos y Vino

Vegetables with cured ham

Monkfish with squid ink purée

Bull fighting arena

Sunday to Monday: Does anyone know what time it is?

Sometimes things don't go exactly as planned.  We arrived to the Dayton airport in plenty of time on Sunday only to find out that our flight to Washington, DC was delayed. We already had a tight layover in DC, so this delay made it necessary for us to completely reroute ourselves.  Instead of going from Dayton to DC to Geneva to Valencia, we ended up with flights booked from Dayton to Chicago to Frankfurt to Valencia.  All in all, our new arrival time in Valencia was only an hour later than our originally scheduled time.

For some reason, when the United ticket agent rebooked my flight, Lufthansa put me in Business class on both the flight to Frankfurt and the flight from Frankfurt to Valencia.  With a moderate amount of guilt as we boarded, I said farewell to my travel partner, Mandy, and made my way into the yet unknown community known as business class.  

I admit that I might have looked a little silly at first. There are so many buttons, compartments and freebies in business class. I had to check everything out.  There is even a full compartment in the seat back in front where all personal items are stored.  None of this "under the seat" business.  I do think thought that I might have had a black X on my reservation because no one offered me a pre-boarding cocktail :(.  Everyone else had one.  When the time came to order my dinner, all three of my choices were gone and I was only the 3rd row of passengers to order.  Hmmm!  No matter what the reason, they could have fed me cardboard the entire flight because what really mattered in business class on a transatlantic flight was the fully reclinable seats.  With my own large pillow, full sized blanket and complimentary socks, I was able to actually get a little rest. 

When it was time to eat, there definitely was a big difference in meal quality.  For my appetizer, I had a rare beef salad with cranberries, fresh nut bread and a wheatberry vegetable compote. It was delicious! For my entree, I wanted the seafood, but was given the beef short ribs with sweet potato purée with roasted parsnips, summer squash and brussel sprouts.  It was all delicious. While there is no consensus on drinking alcohol on a transatlantic flight (does it help or hurt when it comes to jet lag?), I couldn't help myself when they offered me a delicious white wine from Germany. It was fantastic! The specific wine was the 2015 Burkheimer Grauer Burgunder Spatlese trocken.  When in Rome, right? Or when en route to Germany, have a German wine, right?  For dessert, I had a small piece of pumpkin cheesecake.  After all, you only live once, right? Plus this entire European adventure has brought back memories of my last visit to Europe in 2004. I came to visit my brother Fred and his wife Nicolle who were working in southern Germany.  If Fred's short life has taught me anything, it's to eat the darn cheesecake and drink a good glass of wine. Life is worth celebrating, even if it's next to a complete stranger on a flight to Germany where few speak English!  I live for this stuff!

Sleeping in a full lay down airplane seat was pretty easy, but by the time dinner was cleaned up, we only had about 4 hours until they woke us for breakfast. I'm pretty sure I slept the entire time.  At 6am Frankfurt time (midnight in Ohio), the lights came on and freshly squeezed orange juice was served.  I was extremely thirsty from the dry air on the flight and didn't waste any time drinking it, a bottle of water and some really strong hot coffee.  

Breakfast was the traditional European style of cold meats and cheese served with crudités, a hard roll, yogurt and fresh fruit. The delicious mango was definitely an upgrade from economy class! I also enjoyed the individual jar of bitter orange marmalade to spread on my roll.  

Our visit to Germany was rather brief, but I do have to say that the Frankfurt airport is huge, airy, light and clean! Our Valencia flight was delayed briefly which gave just enough time for the real fatigue to hit us both. With any luck, we will arrive in Valencia at noon with enough energy to get us through until a respectable bedtime. Is 5:30pm too early??

OMG! I'm going to Spain this weekend!

After 32 years of studying and loving the Spanish language, I am finally going to Spain!  I know it seems unusual that a Spanish teacher hasn't been to Spain, but it's not all that uncommon. There are 21 countries where Spanish is the official language.  Spain isn't even one of biggest of those countries.  It's more expensive to travel to Spain than it is to travel to Mexico or other parts of Latin America.  Nevertheless, Spain has been on my bucket list for most of my adult life. I am so excited to be going over Thanksgiving Week.  Several of my most influential Spanish teachers studied in Spain or were from Spain.  I feel like I have learned so much from them, but nothing compares to the first hand experience of being in a country and experiencing the culture. Now, it's my turn!

How did this trip come to fruition?  It's actually kind of funny.  I saw a post on a language teacher professional organization's Facebook page where the Tourism Department of Spain was looking for teachers who would be interested in coming to Spain to learn more about language schools.  On a whim, I sent a very short inquiry via email to the address on the post.  Within two days, I was told that I was approved for the trip. My coworker also inquired and was accepted. We quickly booked our flights and crossed our fingers that this opportunity wasn't too good to be true.  

Over the course of the past month, we have learned a little more about the trip.  The purpose of this trip is to promote tourism in the city of Valencia and to encourage teachers to promote the excellent Spanish language schools that are located in this quaint Mediterranean seaside city.  On our trip, we will tour several language schools in Valencia and in rural towns, participate in local cultural events and enjoy local cuisine.  We will be gone for seven days.  The best part of this trip is that the entire trip is being paid for by the tourism division of the community of Valencia!  

We are so excited about this opportunity!  Our school administrators have been super supportive of this professional development opportunity.  We are missing an in-service day next week, but since students are on Thanksgiving break, we have the added bonus of not missing any school days!  The downside is that we are foregoing Thanksgiving with our families in order to take this trip.  Both families have been extremely supportive of our wanderlust!  Of course, my kids did ask me to host a pre-Thanksgiving feast before I leave.  Easy enough! My husband says this might possibly be the most relaxing Thanksgiving the Morrissey family has had in a long time.  Nice, Brian.

Starting on Sunday, I will begin blogging about this trip as much as I can. I look forward to sharing the sites and tastes of Spain as I experience them. As always, thank you for reading my blog! It helps to know there are a few out there who love reading about travel as much as I do!  

Oh, did I mention that we have an overnight layover in Zurich, Switzerland on the way home where we will spend the evening shopping at Europe's largest Christmas market.  Yeah, that's happening too!

Happy Thanksgiving!