La Vida en Valencia

Hola amigas y amigos,
It's been weeks since any of us have had a chance to post an update on our travels, so here's an overview: London - Barcelona - Benicarlo - Peniscola - Valencia.

We flew out of London on January 31st and spent the night at a hostal owned by our friend Oskar's mother, dragging our tons of luggage with us, as we couldn't seem to hail a taxi (the true meaning of luggage must be "to lug", and 6 months of stuff really wore us out! We joke that our mantra, contrary to travel expert Rick Steves, is "Pack heavy, pack heavy, pack heavy!" I think the taxi drivers were afraid of us).

Next day, we had a lovely comida with Oskar, and warmed up our Spanish (Castellano). Luckily, he speaks good English. We asked him how many languages he spoke, and he replied "3, French, German and English, but my French is not so good." Our mouths dropped open. "Chico, what about Castellano and Catalan, your native languages?" If most of us in America failed to count English, we would have to reply that we spoke no languages at all!
Caught the slow train in Benicarlo that afternoon, and watched the gorgeous golden light of the Mediterranean as it softened into blue, afternoon shadows.

For me, this was the first chance I'd had to relax, read my book ("How To Be Good", by Nick Hornby) and realize we were actually living our dream. I could see layers of images reflected in the train windows - the fields and countryside on my left, small towns and the turquoise ocean on my right, fellow travelers up and down the aisles, and a strange little war movie on the tiny video screen above our heads. Linus and Mark were following it through the free headphone sets; I was happy to be alone with my own thoughts sifting through my mind.

We arrived in pitch dark, cold night, and were incredibly grateful to find new friends waiting for us, Salvador (which means Savior) and Pilar. These folks are two very old friends of my dear buddy Catherine and her mom, DiEtta. We had e-mailed them over the month before leaving the U.S., and they had generously arranged to find a place we could rent while we decided where we wanted to settle. We squashed ourselves and our tons of luggage into their sensibly small car (very fuel conscious, these Europeans), and drove through the small, hard working town of Benicarlo. In less than 15 minutes, we arrived in Peniscola (there should be a wavy mark above the n, making it pronounced as Pen-yees-coh-lah), a very small tourist town which turns into a ghost town for the winter.

Our friendly landlords, friends of Salvador and Pilar, led us up to the third story of an apartment building beside the sea. We would be the only tenants in it, this time of year. They swore the bitter cold snap was practically unheard of in this region, which didn't make the freezing cold rooms any warmer, but gave us hope for the days ahead.

After another day of wearing every warm thing we had and huddling in the main room with our heater, the cold broke and the wind arrived. It was surreal, like a Jim Jaramush movie - gorgeous view of the ocean from our balcony, freezing at night, hardly anyone around except the old folks staying at the nearby hotel on a super discount excursion rate... spending our days catching the bus into town in the late morning to scope things out, having Linus do his internet homework in the smokey hotel bar, then buying groceries and water (one downside of European living) and hauling them back on the bus to our cold, basic, sweet little apartment.

Most of all, it was funny; nothing brings you closer than surviving together against even minor hardships. We feel we have a little understanding now of what immigrants go through upon arrival in foreign lands. For instance, Mark and I spent one afternoon slogging through the rain (what is with all this rain in Spain?) in Benicarlo, trying to find a non-existant laundromat to dry our clothes. The main difference was we had money, although it was not going nearly as far as we'd hoped.

That Saturday night, we enjoyed the hospitality of our friends Ana and Enrique, and two of their three girls, Gema and Elena. We learned more about their village of Calig, and of the region. Had lots of laughs and a wonderful dinner (cena). Ana is the best reason for my Spanish being as good as it is (which is somewhere in the intermediate range); while living in Barcelona almost 20 years ago, we had weekly exchanges at our apartment, where she would converse in good English to me, and I would stumble my way through bad Spanish with her. Guess who got the better end of that deal?

We also got to use their computer to scope out cheap places to stay in Valencia, which we hoped to visit during the week ahead. Linus had a strong feeling this would be the place we wanted to stay. But our searched showed the good, cheap student hostals (HOME is their collective name) were full, due to a conference that week.

Good fortune arrived the next day - an invitation to stay with a Servas host in Valencia, from a woman named Sol (= sun). Servas is a peace organization made of volunteers who offer their homes to travelers, generally for a 2 night stay.
We lay in our warm bed early Tuesday morning listening to the now familiar wind rattling the windows, when thunder exploded all around us. I yanked up the metal blind just in time to see a flash of white, followed by crashing thunder which seemed to knock out all the lights on the boardwalk. Five minutes later they came back on. The storm subsided by the time we caught the bus toward the train station.

Valencia welcomed us with sunshine and shelter from the ripping winds on our beach. We collected maps and lots of useful information from the friendly tourist office right inside Estacion Norte, including the address of a good cafeteria. A german girl turned to me and told me, in excellent English, of a bar she liked called "The Lounge". After a good comida, we found it on our way though the old part of town. As with all bars in Spain, it was choked with cigarette smoke, but the American waitress, Pia, was very friendly and gave us a good overview of life in Valencia. We took turns using their free DSL internet, checking our mail for a few friendly words from home.

At eight that evening, early for Spaniards, Sol and her partner Candido made us feel right at home with a delicious, typical Valencian cena (dinner) of soup, salad, fresh bread, red wine, and a postre (sweet). Their other visitor, Jorge, was a wonderfully extroverted guy who happens to be the vice president of Servas! He was especially sweet with Linus, speaking to him in both English and clear, simple Spanish, never once sounding condescending in doing so. He enthusiastically invited us to come visit him and his wife in Alicante, a town just a little further south down the coast. He warned us though that his wife had made him promise to cut back on guests staying at their house, so we could stay at their vacation house on the beach! Let me see; yes, I think we could handle that.

Next day, we tackled the want ads, in search of an apartment we could afford. Phone calls proved frustrating, with the language barrier and our relatively short stay of less than 6 months. Following a listing we noticed for addresses near the university, we called an agency and agreed to come talk with them. Greeted by a gregarious young woman named Yolanda, we were told their service acts as an intermediary, finding listings that fit the client's needs, then making appointments to meet the landlords. They guarentee to find a place or your money back. We took a walk outside to discuss it, and agreed that time was not working in our favor; it would be worth the cost to relieve our stress and get settled as quickly as possible.

Well, the second place we saw was perfect! Toward the top of our price range, but with 4 rooms, so Mark and I could each have a studio, plus a large living room, nice kitchen, small balcony, master bedroom, two bathrooms, and a good sized room for Linus! After 2 weeks of huddling together in one small room, I felt a great enthusiasm for having more space, even if it meant less spending money. Plus, we have city gas (all the hot showers we want, as long as we can afford them and the pilot light doesn't blow out in the hot water heater, which it likes to do). Best of all, our neighborhood is one block from the -only regularly-open climbing gym in town! Syncronicity abounds.

We returned to Peniscola for one last weekend, entertained Ana and her family in our seaside apartment, then headed back to Valencia with all our stuff stuffed into a taxi.

And here we are! Living a big adventure in Valencia. More on this muy pronto.
Besos a todos, Pearl