-Gulliver
-The mercado, where you can buy a baguette and a face-sized orange for less than a euro, and where pig heads and octopus legs sit out on the ice, and where badass, cleaver-wielding female butchers chop your beef to order
-This:
-Cafe con leche
-Valenbisi + the dedicated biking lanes on the sidewalks
-Rope playgrounds on the beach
-Champagne for 1.40 euro
-This speech (sent by a friend via email while in Spain, so it counts)
-These from the Oceanografico:
-Listening to a friend and a German guy at a flamenco bar sing "The Scientist" together. The power of Coldplay
-The cheese-honey-walnut montadito at Meau Mare/Mare Meau/meh. Also the sardine-cheese-tomato one. Montaditos are just a good concept.
-Taking turns riding a bike on the way to the beach. Bringing new meaning to the words "bike sharing."
-Being spotted as Americans on Puente del Mar by a couple from California, even though we were wearing European-looking shoes and speaking (mediocre) Spanish. Having our picture taken and taking their picture. Talking to them about Europe and having them wish us safe travels and a lovely Sunday.
-Having good, good tapas. With sangria. And beer. And more sangira. Realizing that potatoes, garlic, eggs and ham can be combined to achieve previously unknown levels of deliciousness.
-Every mascleta. See above.
-Riding over the lights of the Almedra metro station in the Rio at night
-Seeing the rare golden retriever among the rat-dogs that scamper over the streets of Valencia.
-Coming home late at night on Valenbisi, praying there's a space at the rack near your house but knowing there won't be, still praying anyway, praying harder cause it's actually kind of cold out, getting there, seeing a space, tearing up a little because you're just so overwhelmed with joy that as god is your witness you won't have to walk home from the station two blocks away ever again, or at least that night. Promising to the bike deities that you'll get home sooner next time while subconsciously willing the same thing to happen again.
-Setting the table every night for dinner with a tablecloth. Feeling fancy because of it.
-Surviving a surprise pitardo attack.
-Flying into Valencia after 11 days of travel and realizing how much I missed it.
-This is a strange one, but seeing old men and women going about their lives in Valencia, wheeling their cloth-covered carts to the grocery store, going for walks arm in arm or with hands clasped behind backs, sitting on benches while watching la gente go by, and realizing that they lived through Franco and maybe even the Spanish civil war. Becoming conscious of their strength.
-A conversation with a friend, and daring (really daring, because the fear of failing in this regard is so strong) to spell out the details of our ideal futures.
-Valenbisi + the dedicated biking lanes on the sidewalks
-Rope playgrounds on the beach
-Champagne for 1.40 euro
-This speech (sent by a friend via email while in Spain, so it counts)
-These from the Oceanografico:
-The man at the libreria who helped me choose a copy of Don Quijote, went next door to get me change for my 20, and then only charged me for one of the volumes, saying (I think) that sometimes prices for things went up and sometimes they went down, and today they were going down.
-Just talking in cafes for long, long, long stretches of time. Something I can't really imagine doing in the US, maybe because it's more of a go-out-and-meet-people culture here and at home it's more go-to-someone's-house.
-The guy at the improv show with the sweet monkey shirt who sang a song about unicorns.
- Running in the Rio, seeing all the families watch their kids play soccer, thinking simultaneously how cute it is and how glad I am I wasn't born Spanish because of my crippling lack of any kind of coordination.
-Hearing "Brown-Eyed Girl" sung by a Spanish duo. Ju my brown-eyed girl.
-Seeing this in Sevilla, because why clean up your trash when you can just put some soap on it (#trashstrikesolutions):
-The cheese-honey-walnut montadito at Meau Mare/Mare Meau/meh. Also the sardine-cheese-tomato one. Montaditos are just a good concept.
-Taking turns riding a bike on the way to the beach. Bringing new meaning to the words "bike sharing."
-Being spotted as Americans on Puente del Mar by a couple from California, even though we were wearing European-looking shoes and speaking (mediocre) Spanish. Having our picture taken and taking their picture. Talking to them about Europe and having them wish us safe travels and a lovely Sunday.
-Having good, good tapas. With sangria. And beer. And more sangira. Realizing that potatoes, garlic, eggs and ham can be combined to achieve previously unknown levels of deliciousness.
-Riding over the lights of the Almedra metro station in the Rio at night
-Seeing the rare golden retriever among the rat-dogs that scamper over the streets of Valencia.
-Coming home late at night on Valenbisi, praying there's a space at the rack near your house but knowing there won't be, still praying anyway, praying harder cause it's actually kind of cold out, getting there, seeing a space, tearing up a little because you're just so overwhelmed with joy that as god is your witness you won't have to walk home from the station two blocks away ever again, or at least that night. Promising to the bike deities that you'll get home sooner next time while subconsciously willing the same thing to happen again.
-Setting the table every night for dinner with a tablecloth. Feeling fancy because of it.
-Surviving a surprise pitardo attack.
-Flying into Valencia after 11 days of travel and realizing how much I missed it.
-This is a strange one, but seeing old men and women going about their lives in Valencia, wheeling their cloth-covered carts to the grocery store, going for walks arm in arm or with hands clasped behind backs, sitting on benches while watching la gente go by, and realizing that they lived through Franco and maybe even the Spanish civil war. Becoming conscious of their strength.
-A conversation with a friend, and daring (really daring, because the fear of failing in this regard is so strong) to spell out the details of our ideal futures.
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