We got sun in Ireland. Nearly two weeks of glorious, uninterrupted sunshine. ¨This is so unseasonable¨ the Irish kept telling us and yet we smiled and secretly assumed we´d brought the weather with us from California and Colorado (the two sunniest states, factually). Funnily enough after our time in Irleand we fell into what I am beginning to think at times is a soggy, rain timewarp in which suddenly we are surrounded by grey skies and lumbering skies. We fell in love with Portugal despite the rain which accompanied much of our two weeks there but decided it was time for sun. So we booked a plane ticket to what we thought, and what we have heard, is the place that is sunny most often in Spain: Valencia.
We arrived to gloom once we uneartherd ourselves from Valencia´s undergound metro and after discovering our phone was out of credit, proceeded to find the nearest payphone so that we might get in contact with our couchsurfing host for the evening. Having found a pay phone of which all directions were in the Valencian dialect of Spanish, we couldn´t seem to get the phone number to work. In the process we managed to attract the attention of a very attentive old man who despite his best efforts to help, only made the situation of not being able to use a simple payphone more frustrating. This was followed by a younger man from Palestine, who got across that we were missing a digit and whose family he told us was still living in the Gaza Strip. So now we were stuck with the wrong phone number and a guy who seemed a little too keen on taking passage in our backpacks to America. But it turned out all right in the end. We were missing a ´7´, connected with our host, albiet 2 hours late, and still managed to allude the sunshine.
Weather that was yet again rediculously unseasonable followed us to Valencia. We did, however, have 2 days of sunshine which planted us firmly at the beach where our heads dunked into the Mediterranean for the first time. Despite the lack of sun we were so desperately seeking, Valencia proved to be a city with an acute awareness for a brilliant nightlife, wonderful people and an ample amount of leisure time reserved for days of rain.
-Jess
So...we are in Valencia, it is raining como loco, and we realize that the best way to spend our time is to not do anything until the sun goes down. Jess and I were really good at living in Seattle because we learned that it doesn´t matter how grey the sky is when the sun goes down! So, we lived it up Spanish style. We had dinner at 10 pm, went out at midnight, and got home between 4 and 5 am. Regularly, we were waking up at noon. WE DON´T LIKE THIS SCHEDULE EITHER and to both moms, we know you didn´t raise us like this. However, we figure, "When in Rome..." and we are in Spain so we will do it like the Spanish. Valencia also provided for us an excellent, unexpected host named Marga. Marga is the sweetest, cutest mamacita is Spain and she hosted us for 5 nights. WE get tired of us after 4 nights so I don´t know where she summoned the patience from. Still, we had a great time with Marga, I learned some more Spanish ("ROBO EL MOTO, MARGA!"), and we may have convinced Marga to want to see us again.
Well, after the crazy schedule in Valencia, we decided we really needed time to take a holiday from our holiday. We needed a break before we hit Barcelona. We knew we needed to get out of the party lifestyle (albiet, a sober party lifestyle. Stay up that late AND drink? We are too old for that!) and we wanted a more regular schedule. We also figured that we could use some time to ourselves and recharge. Who knew vacationing was so taxing?? I looked up camping spots and we took a train to Tarragona, up the coast from Valencia and just southwest of Barcelona. The campground is called "Torre de la Mora". If you are curious, copy and paste that into a Google search. It is like Sandals Jamaica. It isn´t real camping. We don´t care, we are chillaxing. We spent two beautiful days on the beach, by the pool, watching the weirdest resort entertainment we´ve ever seen (pictures coming soon), and generally enjoying life. Today, the third day, it is grey and threatening to rain. AGAIN. AHHHH!!
So, you see, you can´t count on the weather. We are just glad this isn´t our one week of holiday all year that we´ve saved and saved for and finally got work caught up so we can take our family to the sunniest place possible. We´ve met those people and they are swimming in the Med. even when its raining. Wouldn´t you?
-Alys
