Valencia

Valencia seems to me to move at a slow pace.  Very chill, stylish, with the old and new existing in the perfect place right by the sea.  The church bells are ringing right down the street at an old 17th century church, to remind me of this very fact.  We tell the kids that the hunchback goes up and rings them everyday and like crazy on the weekends, and now they believe it.  Everyone swears they have seen this hunchback climbing and ringing the bells.  Why here and not Notre Dame? I don't know.  Maybe because the churches are so much more a part of the neighborhoods here.

My favorite parts of the city thus far, after a couple of weeks, are the beach and the malls.  The prices are very reasonable at the malls for most things, except of course that 100 plus euro pair of (gasp) Levi's jeans.  Reasonable priced jeans otherwise can be had for 15-20 euros.  Nice pants and shirts, likewise.  Food prices are also very reasonable.  The beach is chill because it is three blocks or so from our place and although there is a large area catering to Spanish and world tourists, that area tapers off very quickly and can be avoided altogether.  The beach then stretches for what seems miles, although I haven't walked it for miles yet.  On the other side are the ports and what looks like a forest preserve.

Maybe the city moves at a more chill pace because it lines up right across from Ibiza, that chill capital city of the world.  We ran out of money to make our way over there this time, but from what I hear, things aren't popping off right now anyway, later in the summer.  So it might be better to bum around the local Valencia beach and save the money anyway.  Meanwhile we will soak in the sun and check out some of the local architecture, museums and such - waiting for our next destination, Morocco.

Maybe the city seems to move at a slow pace only around the area I live, which is more like a historical district of old three story buildings. I dunno, there seems to be a nice mix of older and younger people here too - that might be it.  It could be because of the wonderful selection of food and wine.  This is, after all the birthplace of paella.  With seafood abounding it seems shallow to point out calamari, but I have never had fresher, more tender calamari.  The fish we have probably eaten the most of however is merluza.  Of course there are plenty of other choices and all are to be had for a very reasonable price.

The funniest moment of the week happened when after a trip to the beach, I asked the kids if they had noticed the woman sun bathing nude on the beach, which I guess is more common in Europe.  I figured I would do a quick explanation to them.  Asari answers, no.  Leah asks, should I have?  CJ and Jacob both answer in unison, um huh.  That was funny.

Anyway, the center of the city does seem to move at a faster pace.  Everyone seems to like it here, but we will be moving on soon, because our visas will expire and we are going to move on well before that happens, hoping to see more next time.  Meanwhile we will be having fun with our broken Spanglish and observing our yelling Spaniard neighbors.  We saw a crazy clown earlier today as we were walking back from the mall.  First, I noticed his dog, which just didn't look right.  Then I noticed him.  He was out in the street, in full clown regala.  With a horn, honking at stopped traffic.  Candice was like, I got to get a picture of this.  I explained, baby, you ain't in a car right now.  See if we were in a car, we could just speed off and that would be that.  We are walking right now.  You might have to be dealing with crazy clown man for about ten minutes following you around crazying out en Espanol.  Maybe we should save the pictures for another time?  Thus no clown pictures, unless you count the one below.  Till next time.

Barcelona

Beach in Barcelona

I booked a rental in Valencia and as it turns out, the night train trip direct to Valencia was full.  As I previously mentioned, I had to figure out how to work with the state run rail website, Renfe.com.  Anyway... it was too late for that because the night train was full.  I don't know if you have ever ridden on a train in the daytime with four kids, two under 7, it ain't fun.  So we had to look for alternative means of travel.

There was this really cheap flight in from Paris to Barcelona, a day before we were supposed to depart.  I figured that would make my French landlord happy.  He seemed cool with it either which way, but I could tell deep inside he had plans of stretching out (no pun intended) in his loft again, maybe with a nice lady, bottle of wine.

Au Revoir, France

So we took a cab to the airport which I arranged the night earlier through a service called Taxi G7, they arranged a taxi to the airport via a handy iphone app.  It was expensive, but taking the bus to the center of town and the special bus to the airport, for all six of us, would have cost more, and been more time consuming and aggravating.  So I managed to save a few Euros and ride in the comfort of a nicely appointed cab to the airport.

We arrived looking for the budget carrier, Easyjet.  They weren't hard to find at all.  The terminals are set up pretty cool.  No sweat.  No hassles about baggage.  I know I will have to lighten my load for the next trip though.  We zipped through the airport the plane came in and we zipped on to Barcelona with no problems.

When we got there, our landlady was not present.  This was a cause for concern, as my French prepaid sim would not make calls in Spain.  Plus, we were wondering if we really got the address right.  No sweat, the address was wrong, but the right address was only two blocks away.  Well, a little sweating, who wants to be waiting outside with four sweating little ones wondering if they are in the right place.

Barcelona garden, or what we call a courtyard in the states

So I run in the little tabac to buy a sim card.  A tabac is a little tobacco store slash whatever else they might sell.  This guy sold sim cards.  He was cool enough not only to call and have it activated but to work with me through my Spanish which had atrophied from twenty years of no use to si, no, yo quiero, and muchos gracias.  Okay maybe a few more words, but clearly not enough to activate a sim card. On my way out of the store the landlady was walking up, right as I was leaving her a message. She apologized for getting off from work late, traffic, yada, yada.

On the way to the city center

Fine cup of Spanish Coffee

The city itself was more metropolitan than I expected.  Big, modern, fast moving.  Well, one good thing, we were near the ocean.  You know how we love the beach.  As it turns out, our place was two blocks from the beach, so I got to stick my toes in the Mediterranean, at least for a few minutes.  There was also a huge mall nearby where they had both inexpensive clothes and modern electronics.  There was also a supermarket and tons of restaurants.We were beat so we put off seeing what I wanted to see the most, Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, Antoni Gaudi's great unfinished work, it will have to wait until we return. We walked around our neighborhood, went to the mall, acclimatizing to Spain and prepared for our onward rail journey to Valencia.

Boulangeries and Patisseries

Boulangeries and Patisseries are where you can find fresh baked bread and assorted pastries daily. Most boulangeries rarely sell only baguettes and other types of bread; they supplement their offerings with at least a dozen types of pastries. That being said, their are many patisseries that sell only sweet goods, occasionally drifting into the realm of the chocolatier.

In the city of Paris, they are everywhere! Much like in the hoods of urban America where at least one liquor store or storefront church can be found on every block, the same can be said for the boulangerie.

They make an excellent baguette and pear tart, too

The best croissants in the city here 

An inside look

Everyone is always on the go here so to make extra income, many shops sell sandwiches for the busy lunch crowd. This boulangerie had some of the best to be found and we would walk a mile out of the way for them. There was one little catch though, you had to know what you wanted, how to pronounce it, and fast! No time for browsing with 7 or 8 people in line behind you. The woman in the photo is who I referred to as the 'sandwich nazi'. I was always nervous trying order with my rudimentary french, and she had no patience for me.

yummy

bite-size treats

mouth-watering

this was a 'bio' aka organic boulangerie

i thought these were coconut based macaroons, but they are 'macrons', which have no coconut and taste vaguely like marzipan

this shop sells pastries but are more well-known for there chocolates

French Wine

It saddens me to say that Americans, as wine drinkers, have been bamboozled. Lied to. Led astray. One would be pressed to think of a bottle of wine that can be bought in the U.S. for under $10 that not only A. taste good, but B. leaves you without a trace of a headache or other nagging symptoms that denote a poor quality wine. In the realm of imported French wine, trying to find one under $20 is very difficult. So consequently, as Americans we are trained to believe that you have to not only pay dearly to drink well, but that you must have some sort of training to do so. We did a test while in Paris. We purposely tried to purchase a bottle of undrinkable wine. Most were under 3 euros and none were over 5, all chosen at random. I am happy to report that we did not succeed. All of them were very pleasant tasting, with varying degrees of greatness of course. What is imported and sold to wine drinkers in the U.S. is nothing close to what the French drink themselves, at a fraction of the cost.

Thoughts about Paris

After a few weeks in Paris I think it is probably one of the most unique places I have ever visited.  It kind of reminds me of Cairo, but Paris is a bit different.  It is cosmopolitain, like Cairo, it is based on neighborhoods as well, but there is something connecting the neighborhoods and connecting the people, perhaps a love of the city, a certain uniqueness that no other city has.

My landlord, after trying to squeeze me for a few more dollars towards the utilities made an interesting comment.  He is no typical landlord.  He is renting us his artist loft space for a little extra spending money I expect.  I asked him how they can live here, how they can afford it.

He said, we, young fools, learn to love Paris - like a sometimes difficult, but deserving woman.  I could dig that.  I mean, what woman do you know who isn't difficult sometimes?  And yeah, I could live here.  I mean, if I had a visa, beyond three months out of every six.  Perhaps I will find someone to split the time and rent an apartment here with.  We would never see this other person, but we would get six months in Paris.  Prices on places fall if you rent for a whole year instead of month by month.  Just a thought.

The weather is mild right now, it is better weather wise than Chicago, not much more so, but enough so that it is almost worth living here, in that regard.  The people are very interesting.  There is this thing they do, when walking.  If you look at anyone in their eyes they immediately look away, even if it is towards a brick wall.  That wouldn't matter so much except when you juxtapose it to all the people watching that goes on in cafes and parks and restaurants and public spaces.

This was supposed to have been published about a week into Paris, but now I am revising it after the trip in Paris is done. Is Paris my favorite place in the world?  Well, so far it is up there.  I mean I loved all of Egypt and Valencia is pretty cool too.  But lets just say Paris is special, especially in April.  Next time,  Barcelona!