Last Thursday the 18th, Brianna, Kelsey, Jacob and I went to Valencia. We left in the afternoon and played hooky, spending a beautiful day in the city. Nebrija allows us two absences during the month and we decided to use one of them! 

We went straight to the beach after checking in to the hostel. The sand in Valencia is so different from Florida sand. It’s soft like powdered sugar! I said this out loud and the group sarcastically went, “Do you bake?” Jacob was having a blast. He was in awe at the tepid water and was covered head to toe in sand. He’s from Pennsylvania so lovely beaches aren’t too popular.

The beach we went to is called Playa de las Arenas, literally beach of the sands. And Valencians take their sand art seriously. 

For dinner, we walked along a strip by the beach and ordered paella. Paella originated in Valencia so it was only fitting! And it was yummy. Friday we took a free walking tour. Our guide’s name was Jamie and he’s from Scotland! It was the most entertaining walking tour I’ve been on. He took us by the former Silk Exchange building, which happens to be a World Heritage Site, and a market! I love the markets here so much that I’m going to try to frequent farmer’s markets more in Florida. We picked up lunch for a picnic at the market after visiting the Silk Exchange. It was pretty but we didn’t spend more than maybe 40 minutes there. If you see it  in Valencia, woo! But if you miss it, your life won’t be much different. 

After refueling, we headed to the City of Arts and Sciences to check out the futuristic architecture and the science museum. The architecture is so futuristic! It’s like straight out of a sci-fi movie. Our guide earlier said that one of the buildings looks like a storm trooper helmet.

The science museum is AMAZING. I would have spent all day there if I could. Science museums are the best to visit because you can touch the exhibits and it’s great for people like me who learn by doing. We played with light and made shadows with objects in motion, played with reflections, watched chicks hatch and even took a bad-ass photo with IRONMAN. The science museum has a whole section dedicated to Marvel. You can experience trying to swing and scale walls like Spiderman, try to tie shoes with tongs as if you’re Doctor Octopus, and scream to defeat villains. It’s amazing. You can also become a Space Cadet. We decided to become cadets and learned about the solar system in Spanish. Some of the puns do carry over, it was out of this world! :D

We took the train back and rested up because on Saturday we had our last excursion with Nebrija. It was bittersweet :|