6/18: Valencia

woke up this morning, had some pears and sandwiches (much diminished from yesterday´s sandwiches by the lack of heirloom tomatoes because El Corte Ingles was closed), and went to see the Catedral de Valencia y Sant Miguelete (my spelling is probably atrocious). The church itself was church-y, but there´s this really tall tower you can go in that is very very cool. It costs two Euro, which is fine, but all Brett and I had were a 50€ note each, so the woman got mad and said in Spanish that I took all her change.

Let me just say that 207 steps doesn´t reallllly sound like that much, but when they´re a spiral staircase and the steps get so fucking narrow at the top that even my feet didn´t fit all the way on them, it gets a lil bit tiring. Finally, gasping, we reached the top, where of course there was some guy sucking on a cigarrette. what the heck? Like his lungs needed the extra challenge. The view from up on top of the tower is reallly nice, much like the one from Parque Guell in Barcelona, though not quite THAT nice. What sucks though is that the architecture here is more modern than that of Barcelona, so even though it´s newer, the weathering and decay of any city makes the buildings here looks kind of run-down and trashy, whereas in Barcelona they just looked authentic. Also, there´s a bell up on top of this tower, right? Well. Unlike in the states where the bells are fake, here, in Spain, they are not. So we were there in the late morning. And I´m gazing out over the city contemplating architecture when all of a sudden BOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGG!!!!!!!! This huge fucking bell gets rung 12 fucking times (well, it might have been 11 but I´m not sure because my head was vibrating too much to count). Seriously, you could feel the stones of the tower vibrating. It was a VERY deep-toned bell. After my ears stopped ringing I could hear the bells from the other churches and stuff, but they sounded so tinny and lame after being right next to that huge bell that it was a lil lacking.

Walked around the Mercado Central and got stuff for lunch, but the meat counters totally freaked me out cuz of the scent and also because they have like fresh pig´s feet and whole pig heads and stuff, which is a lil too much for me. Had to go to El Corte Ingles to get wine and some other stuff for lunch, then came back and spent a sweltering hour in the kitchen making angelhair pasta with fresh heirloom tomatoes, garlic, and basil. SO good, but that kitchen is seriously HOTHOTHOT. Took a nap for an hour longer than intended, then tried to meet up with Shannon in cyberspace, but it didn´t quite work out :(((((((

Went back to El Corte Ingles for fruit and pistachios and stuff (I know it seems like blue cheese, pears, and pistachios are all we´re eating, and that´s kind of accurate. heh.) Had a bunch more wine and hung out with the Swedes all evening. It was Peter´s birthday, and I also ate waffles with whipped cream and strawberries which I will apparently be eating a looooot of in Belgium. Can´t say I mind.... :)