With Emma gone and me counting down the days until I went and stayed with friends in England (In June) Valencia seemed very quiet. However there was one awesome positive from this - since crashing on Alix's couch and her decision to quit the teaching job, we ended up hanging out quite a bit.
Alix decided to make up for the fact that I had hardly been out at all while working, and I can safely say I have been out to more places, bars and tucked away places in the last two weeks than I had been in the four months prior. So worth it!
Here we randomly stopped and had a few beers, the best fries of my life (which seem to be something sadly lacking in Spain usually) and chicken cooked in lemon that was almost as good as dad's roast.
Alix, having been in Valencia for over a year, knew all the grungy hangouts frequented by locals and giving an actual authentic experience, rather than the posh and overpriced tourist traps. Here we had pints from an eccentric lady that spent ten minutes pouring our pints because every time it was full she decided there was too much foam, pushed it out, and filled it up more over and over to try and get as much in the glass as possible. She also gave us a small plate of free tapas!
You may be wondering why I had a photo of a chip packet - I saw the flavor (Jamon!) and decided I had to try it since I probably would never get it anywhere other than Spain. It was actually quite nice, and reminded me of smokey bbq.
The bar from the above beer story - every inch of surface was covered in drawings (for some reason there were a plethora of dinosaurs) initials, dates and other such writings, in many languages, some rude, some nice. My favorite although quite hard to see is to the far right - a strange creature is angrily pouring tea. Even the ceiling was covered in scribbles!
On the way home from the bar we passed my favourite bridge - I don't know its real name but I always call it the architect bridge because of how it looks. That night it was lit up blue and looked very futuristic.
I also of course continued to have my many park days, reading and enjoying the little haven of quiet. One afternoon Alix and I spent hours practicing handstands! We also found our new favorite spot by the bright purple flowers
One of my favourite things to do is have BBQs, and we were able to find little portable ones at the Carrefour (supermarket) for only a few euros. Alix also happened to have a deck on the roof of her apartment, so we had a lovely barbecue one evening. It was a rather hot day, and there was nothing nicer than lying on the roof cooking kebabs and drinking cold beers. Alix had made delicious home-made kebabs of peppers and chicken marinated in some kind of awesome sauce. I had brought ice-cream. It was awesome.
Alix and her awesome flatmate Lynn amongst our picnic feast
Replete, we lay on the roof and watched the sun set on Valencia.
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