Fin de Semana en Valencia

This weekend I went with three friends to Valencia. What a beautiful city located just south of Madrid on the Mediterranean Sea. Friday night we took a thirty minute flight from Madrid to Valencia and arrived at our hostel around 4. Our hostel was so amazing and very modern. My friends and I stayed in a female room with 6 beds. We had a roommate named Rachel from Australia and a roommate from Turkey (could not spell her name if my life depended on it) Rachel hung out with us most of the time. So after we unpacked at our hostel which was on the mainstreet of Valencia, we gave ourselves a walking tour. We were told by some friends that we had to go to el Rio which we thought was a river that ran all the way around the city. We walked there and realized it was a park that ran around the whole city. We later found out that it use to be a river but it would flood Valencia so they redirected it and made the dried up river a park. Its amazing! We walked the whole thing on Saturday. So after we found el Rio we all had incredibly bad blisters on our feet so we went shopping for better shoes and never found any. We went back to the hostel to wash up for dinner. WE were all craving Mexican food so we went to this place called Los Zopilotes. THE BEST MEXICAN FOOD I HAVE EVER HAD. I tried guacamole and I am now in love with it. My roommate Devin ordered the spiciest thing on the menu and the waiter said she would never be able to finish it but she got it and even asked for extra jalapenos! The chef came out to personally meet her. Then we went out to a couple Discos but went to bed early so we could take advantage of our Saturday. O yeah and on our way to a Disco I was smacked in the back of my head by this girl walking by. She yelled some really mean things but basically was commenting on how much she hates Americans. What did I do to you?
Saturday we woke up early and began our walk to what we thought was the near by Science and Architecture center (the most amazing architecture I have ever seen pics to come) Well it took us a good hour to walk down el Rio to get there (maps are so deceiving) but it was a nice walk in the park even though we all had blisters all over our feet. Finally we arrived and my friend Macon loves aquairums and the largest one in Europe just happens to be in Valencia so we went in and were able to see some amazing fish and a dolphin show. I saw an octupus and decided I could serisouly never eat one again. O yeah and we saw Walrus's reproducing to put it nicely.
We then thought we would walk to the beach which ended up being an even farther walk! But worth it...the beach was beautiful (again pics to come) The wind on saturday was horrible though worse then Santa Anas and Chicago...they canceled flights at the airport because of it but the heat was amazing. After the beach we decided to take the metro back.
We all really wanted ice cream after that so went for ice cream then back to the hostel for a siesta. 3 hours later we woke up to go to dinner at a paella restaurant in order to try Paella de Valencia (rabbit and chicken) Amazing!
We went out that night to a disco and were able to meet a lot of locals and a lot of Americans too. It was so fun and to understand how small the world is, I was walking back to the hostel that night and across the stree I noticed my friend Nick Walther who I had gone to school with since 2nd grade til we graduated high school. CRAZY!!! What are the odds.
Sunday we had to come back to Alcala but all in all it was amazing. Defintely a place I would recomend. I have a very busy week at school with a speech to give tomorrow and a lot of reading!! Hope you all have a great week!