One Heck of a Week Part 2

Well, it took a long time, but I am finally completing the second part of this post.  I will begin with my early rise to head for the airport.  Actually it was a late rise.  I had planned on waking up at 5 to make my way to the airport.  At 6:30 I woke up, freaked out and grabbed my stuff to run out the door!  I ran to the nearest taxi station and somehow told the driver where I needed to go.  He sensed my urgency and hightailed it towards the Ciampino Airport.  The ride to Ciampino is set at a set rate of 30 Euros.  He however only charged me 26 Euro.  That helped my day get a little better!  I flew Ryanair out of Rome.  Now if you have never heard of Ryanair, you have never heard of the cheapest airline in the world.  Don't get me wrong, the planes this airline flies are all basically brand new, but everything about the inside of the planes is dirt cheap.  The seats don't recline, legroom is nonexistent, you have to walk to the plane, and the flight attendants are always on the speaker trying to sell you stuff.  Oh well, it got me to Spain, my final destination.

When I arrived in Valencia, Spain, 2 hours late might I add, my friend Lauren Briggie greeted me as I came out of the airport terminal.  She was a little worried that I was never going to arrive.  We jumped on the subway and headed for downtown.  The first order of business was to find me a hostel to stay in for that night.  The hostel I booked was called the Purple Nest.  It was quite a crazy hostel.  A group of Australians had just arrived the night I arrived.  They were going nuts in the basement of the hostel.  Two guys were gone and running around in their underwear.  A live band was playing very loudly and needless to say, I didn't sleep very much that night.

When I woke up in the morning, I had a creepy 50 something year-old man looking at me from the bed below me.  I put on my clothes and got the heck out of there.  Lauren and I hoped on the subway again and headed to the ocean to release a rehabilitated turtle back into the Mediterranean Ocean.  It was pretty neat to see the thing flop its way into the water and then disappear beneath the waves.  By the time we had finished the release, it was past noon.  Lauren and I met up with her classmate and we headed towards the beach to eat.  Paella was on the menu.  We got a seafood paella and a Mediterranean paella.  Both were a delicious meal.  We then made a visit to the City of Arts and Sciences.  The architecture of this area was ridiculous.  It appeared as if I was walking through the future.

My next order of business was to find a new hostel.  I was hoping I could stay with Lauren host mother, so we headed to her apartment.  The woman appeared nice as could be when I first met her.  That changed very rapidly when Lauren asked if I could stay.  She was fine with it, but then changed her mind and started asking me to pay for the room.  I was fine with it, but it very rapidly escalated downwards.  She began freaking out and then started to ask me to leave her apartment.  I couldn't understand anything the woman was saying, so I just looked at her, nodded, and smiled.  In the end, I got the heck out of there and found a new hostel.

The following day was an another early rise.  Lauren, her room mate and I all headed our for a day at the beach.  The beaches in Spain are much different than the beaches in Italy.  First off, the topless women are much hotter and there are more of them!  I could go on, but I won't.  The beaches are also less crowded.  We spent basically the whole day swimming and laying out.  It was great to just relax.  The only complaint I had from the beach was that I forgot to put sunscreen on the backs of my knees.  Lets just say they were a bit toasty!

That night Lauren and I went out to check out the city of Valencia.  We decided we were going to eat at several tapas bars.  Tapas bars are little places where they serve h'orderves.  Spanish people eat these tapas before they go out to actually eat.  The first place we went was great.  The second place was one of the scariest dining moments of my life.  First, the waiters at the bar were Chinese and spoke no English and limited Spanish.  Second, everything in the bar was seafood.  Lastly, they recommended stuff we didn't recognize.  We both survived the experience, but I never want to do that again!

The following day, Lauren met me outside of my hostel to take me to the airport.  She put me on the correct subway and off I went.  In the airport, I was able to talk to an American family from Vermont.  It was nice to hear their own stories of scary dining experiences.  I got on the plane and made my way back to Rome.  It was nice to finally be back "home".  This concluded one heck of a week!