I spent this past weekend in Valencia – a beautiful, rustic yet very modern city in the south of Spain. This is a list of what I remember. #sorryimnotsorry
1. We arrived on Friday and went to a restaurant on the beach called Vivir Sin Dormir (which would later come to appropriately describe our time in Valencia) where we thought we ordered a pitcher of sangria but ended up with two cups of Bacardi apple and Bacardi peach liquor. So we went with it. Whatever. We met four other American girls who were also studying abroad and immediately began to down our drinks together, except, when I say ‘down,’ I mean purse my lips and sip because this concoction of straight liquor was foul. But I felt like I needed to be festive since I was at the beach, so I bottomsed up. Slightly tipsy, we hit the beach and having woken up at 5 a.m. to catch the bus, immediately fell asleep for several hours. Good time, no burns.
2. Met my soulmate, Dan, who attends UVA and is currently studying in Valencia. We share the same birthday, had similar unfortunate birthday nights, frown upon people who wear sweatpants in public, enjoy attractive people and love “Call on Me.” The list could go on. We were referred to as the divas of the group the whole night. I’ll drink to that.
3. Headed to this place called The Rio, which is an old river turned into a park that cuts the city in half, for a Gossip Girl style pregame. Literally, Gossip Girl. We roll up with our posse of four Deacs, Dan, Taylor’s friend Joe and another kid Mark. Mark leads us through the park until we come to a bridge with stairs and a kind of Grecian reflecting pool. It reminded me of the place where Moses was found by the Pharaoh’s wife in The Prince of Egypt. There were circles of girls and guys drinking anything and everything known to man. Dan quickly informed me that there was Team A, the cool kids, and Team B, “the others,” and he pointed out members of each team when we arrived. I met an assortment of characters from different schools and, of course, played the “do you know” game, further convincing me of our world’s smallness. The Rio was a great time but we were all pooped and headed back to our hotel around 2 a.m.
4. Woke up the next day to sightsee the City of Arts and Sciences, which we later dubbed “Spy Kids City” because of the buildings’ striking similarities to Carmen and Juni’s underwater submarine on the way to Floop’s castle. My apologies if you were not a Spy Kids fan (Total Team B move by the way). It is an incredibly modern village of high-tech buildings flanked on all sides by reflecting pools. It is comprised of an aquarium, a concert hall, a natural history/dinosaur museum and tons more. We headed to the aquarium. It was trippy—I honestly felt like I was in an aquarium in space. There were different sections for different parts of the world and the animals that were indigenous to those regions. My personal favorite was the Tropics because the sharks were sassy, and I made conversation with a fish that WOULD NOT STOP LOOKING AT ME.
5. SIESTA. With truth, I can say that the post-aquarium siesta was a high point, not only of Valencia but of Spain in general. The four of us fell asleep listening to Adele … and we actually had air conditioning, so it was truly magical. It is hard to explain the wonders this nap did for us, but without it, our night could not have been the same. And for that, siesta, I thank you.
6. After we rallied, we found a cute restaurant in the older part of the city right next to the cathedral where we decided to have a culturally enriching meal of tapas (and Caesar salad). We noshed on baked goat cheese, bruschetta, potatoes bravas and of course shared a bottle of white wine. We also brought our own bottles to keep refilling. Is that legal? Oops.
7. The rest of the night was a crazy, cultural blur. We walked through the old city and ran across the skinniest building in Europe (#betchesluvthis), took chopitos (shots) at every bar we passed, headed to the Rio via cab (except the boys who decided to rent bikes) and crashed a bar called Doblon for some pre-club dranks and dancing. Europeans go crazy for Rihanna’s S&M. Seriously, never have I ever seen a place get down so fast. I guess chains and whips excite them. Oh, and then we ended up at the dinosaur museum.
8. But it is so much more than a dinosaur museum. This club called Umbracle (pronounced “umbroccoli-lolz”) is the City of Arts and Sciences’s dino museum by day and a club by night. We danced on the beds, danced on the stage, danced with the exotic dancers, wore leis, got in a fight with the female bouncer, got lost in a parking lot and then returned to the hotel at 6 a.m.