Valencia Day 1: Jordan

I arrived in Valencia after 5.5 hours on a Spanish low speed train at almost 3:00pm. First things first, I went to the station office and made reservations for the train to Madrid on the morning of the fourth, and then headed to the tourist office for a map. Unsure of where I was, I carefully followed the directions I saw on the map to a hostel that I had read about, but in true to me fashion, I hadn't made reservations. I walked up the beautiful streets and realized why Valencia was such a gem. A big city not quite on the beaten track, Valencia is beautifully constructed with marble sidewalks in their larger plaza and stunning architecture.

I finally found my way to the hostel with the help of a couple of very nice policemen along the way. I checked in to my six person dorm and headed up stairs to drop everything off. In the room I met my first roomate, Michael, a guy from Germany who was traveling about the same amount of time I am. Being the only two people in the room for the moment we talked a little bit about our trips and things until a second roomate walked in. Colin, a native New Yorker, had been studying in Granada and was now taking a little bit of time to travel Spain. After a while, the three of us parted ways as I headed out to explore the streets of Valencia.

I'm not quite sure where I was at all times. I think tourism is smaller in Valencia than in other cities and their map was very little help, mainly because it did not tell you what everything was. I didn't really mind though, every few feet was a beautiful building used either as a church, a cathedral, or a government building. I made my way over to the Tuleria (i think) park that runs through the entire city and used to be a river. It was really nice. I eventually ended up at what used to be an old Medieval tower. I climbed to the top of the tower and was greeted with a stunning view of the city. All I can say is: damn Valencia has a lot of churches.

After walking around for hours, I went back to the hostel, hungry and search of dinner. Michael, my German roomate, offered to cook together. It seemed like a good idea, so I went down to the supermarket (grocery store means nothing here) and grabbed some stuff to make a salad. I went back to the hostel and the two us made an excellent spaghetti, if I do say so myself. After dinner we met up with Colin and the other two roomates Dan and Sarah, Canadians traveling together for two years. The five of us decided to get out of the hostel and go find a place to chill out which we did.

I was really excited to have found good roomates because it is really hard to go out alone. Somehow our room just kind of clicked to create some strange dinner making, going out sort of travel group.