Sharing is Caring

Location: Valencia, Spain

Friday June 18, 2010

During the few brief minutes that I was awake on our five-hour bus ride to Valencia, I noticed the gorgeous landscape of the rolling green and yellow fields. I brought it up to the person I was sitting next to (Valentina? Lauren?) that I could imagine Don Quixote riding through these fields with Sancho Panchez at his side. And what do you know? As we were pulling into Parador Nacional de Alarcón (i.e.: a national luxury hotel set inside an old castle) for our group breakfast, the guide told us that Quixote traveled through this area in his adventures. And can we talk about how delicious the classy breakfast with appetizers, churros, and every type of ham you could think of was? Since half of the group didn’t go to bed the night before, did it count as our drunk food?

If we thought b-fast in a castle was good, we were as pleasantly surprised at our accommodations in Valencia. I think I’ve gotten used to staying in cheap-ass hostels from traveling like a poor college student, it was a nice change to stay in a beautiful and comfortable hotel again. Lauren and I got a 5^th-floor corner room, decorated with a modern theme, with two beds, a pullout futon, two flat screen televisions, a balcony, a shower, a bathtub, and two fluffy robes. We got the nice room, because it was originally going to be the three of us: Lauren, Jade, and me. But Jade felt quite under the weather with strep throat that week, and she couldn’t man-up to go on the weekend excursion. A girl named Kelsey came to sleep in Jade’s place instead. Kelsey had missed the group motor coaches in the morning, so she took a bus to Valencia by herself, arriving a tad bit later than us. I felt just a little bad for having claimed the nice beds before she got there. No straws were drawn. No numbers between 1 and 100 was thought of. No paper/rock/scissors were thrown.

After taking one of the most amazing showers of my life (despite the fact that the shower/shower-tub were poorly designed… who makes showers with glass doors that don’t go all the way to the floor? Who makes shower-tubs with only one door that covers half the shower?), we took a guided walk of Valencia’s historic district. On our way to the city’s main cathedral, we found the Tree of Life in a park. :D

At the cathedral, the IES administration decided that the students needed to burn off their gourmet breakfast by climbing five million flights up to the top of a very handicap-unfriendly bell tower, from which the entire skyline Valencia could be seen. At another church, our guide pointed out nonreligious details that decorated the exterior of the building, such as the bare ass of a guy who mooned all who entered.

Our tour ended in the evening, opening up free time for us to explore the city. We didn’t get very far, because we stumbled upon a live projection of Carmen (the actual opera) in the center of a plaza. There was a gated area of hundreds of seats set up and a loud sound system. It was a bring-the-arts-to-the-poor-masses sort of event, so entrance was free. I immediately jumped at the opportunity, hoping that Nikita, Alex, and Valentina would be up for it, especially because we had seen the flamenco ballet version earlier that week. The actual opera was performed in real life in the main opera house in Valencia, so, the physical performance was not too far away.

Sitting in the front row, just a bit to the left, we were amazed at the power and technique of the singers. The other kids got as into it as I did, which was cool, because I wanted to stay to watch the entire opera, which would end up taking three hours and a half (they had three insanely long intermissions). The opera was also great Spanish practice, because we read the Spanish subtitles as the characters sang in French… La Amour is so much more fitting than El Amor… During our viewing of the opera, we also learned how kind Spaniards in Valencia were. When the weather became super icky, we huddled there in our seats in the cold, being rained on, as most of the audience gave up and left for shelter. The family that was sitting to our left (complete with baby in baby carriage) lent us one of their two umbrellas. Four people sharing one umbrella was a difficult task. Valentina held the umbrella, I sat on the right of Valentina, and Nikita and Alex put their heads in our laps. I didn’t realize how picturesque our formation was until tourists started taking photos of us.

(Before the rain)

Each actor fitted his character quite well. Don José, whose not so attractive physical qualities set up his insecurities about Carmen’s unfaithfulness, superbly impressed me as a singer and as an actor. Carmen, who looked quite harsh and sharp in this show, was much more the seductive vixen than the innocent girl-next-door. I absolutely adored Micaela’s soprano or mezzo-soprano voice and the vision of her in all blue. I’m just a sucker for sad lonely girls singing songs of rejection, think: “I’m Not That Girl,” “I’m Not That Girl (reprise),” or “On My Own.”

Instead of spending money on a cab, we decided to do the 15-minute walk in the pouring rain, because we were already soaked from sitting out in the rain. No doubt, we looked pretty classy to the front desk receptionist after our fun trek through that typical Portland weather.