Day 12

So yesterday we all met in the lobby after breakfast and made the journey on foot across the city to the Oceanografico, which is the aquarium here in Valencia.  To get there, we headed out to El Rio and turned RIGHT, which was a first for me since the soccer fields and everything else I’ve seen so far are to the left.  Right away, it was like entering a whole new world!

This side of El Rio was a lot like the other of course, in that it had a long, meandering foot trail through the middle with trees and greens spaces on both sides.  What made it different, though, was that it went more through the actual city and downtown area, so the contrast between urban life and natural life was much more extreme and made me really feel and realize the incredible uniqueness of the whole thing—a park literally winding through the heart of a big city.  We passed under lots of really cool bridges and walked through areas with lots of fountains with kids playing in the water that reminded me of Centennial Olympic Park.  More than that, though, the part that really got me (AGAIN) was the number of really cool playgrounds along the way.  I know it sounds silly, but the playgrounds here aren’t just the plastic slide-swing-monkey bars ones you see back home.  No two are the same, and the city did a really awesome job incorporating the park’s natural landscape into the design: one playground is made with slides and tunnels literally built into a pile of boulders!  And another from a bunch of climbing rope strung up between trees!  Check this thing out!:

Kid or not, I will HAVE to make a trip back to do some climbing of my own!

And then, as if that wasn’t cool enough, there’s also a playground made of a HUGE replica of Gulliver, from Gulliver’s Travels!  It’s just a giant, plastic-foamy man “tied down” by ropes that are climbing nets for kids to play on, with tons of slides and monkey bars and tunnels built into his body—arms, legs, head and all!  I couldn’t get a good angle to take a picture of it, but there was a bridge nearby that would give a perfect aerial view of the whole thing, so the next time I go, I will definitely bring my camera to show you how awesome it was.  I was blown away by the idea alone!

So after all the playgrounds, we passed a really cool skatepark with kids riding BMX bikes and skateboards and roller blading all over it.  Then there was a really awesome dog park FILLED with dogs of all kinds just running around playing with eachother in the grass and on little dog-sized playground stuff.  These people thought of absolutely EVERYTHING when they turned this dried-up riverbed into a park.  So, so cool!  Never before have I seen a park as awesome as this!  And it’s only a 10 minute walk from where I live!  How lucky am I to be able to spend my days off in a place like this?!

AND THEN, as if that wasn’t cool enough (again!), just a ways beyond all that is the incredible “Ciudad de Artes y Ciencias,” which is where the big modern-architecture buildings are that you've probably seen when you search “Valencia, Spain” on Google.  Here are some pictures:

Impressive, no?

The bridge that runs along side these buildings is dotted with tons of modern art-type sculptures and structures, and then past all that, is an area with all kinds of interactive science-type things like a “human sundial” that uses your shadow to tell the time when you stand in a certain spot, a giant model of the earth and moon that you can swivel around and study, a number of other impressive, educational type activities, and a “Hemispheric” structure where you lay down on this recliner-type chair and look out at the sky and it lines you up perfectly eyelevel with the horizon and shows you where the winter and summer solstices are and the North Star and a couple other astrological phenomenons.  Check it out:

After messing around with all of that for a while, we finally continued our walk and made it to our destination: The Oceanografic.  We all got free entrance to the aquarium, which I was surprised to find incorportated both indoor AND outdoor areas for wildlife viewing.  Over the course of the next 3 hours, we went through a model of the Mediterraen Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, the Arctic, Antarctic, Tropical Wetlands, a huge, globe-shaped exotic bird enclosure, an Islands exhibit, a dolphin “stadium” similar to what you’d find at SeaWorld, and an underwater garden.  We saw all kinds of fascinating wildlife, including sharks, whales, stingrays, jellyfish, mollusks, walruses, seals, sea lions, otters, penguins, ducks, swans, cranes, flamingos, not to mention all the thousands of beautiful fish!  It was truly an incredible experience, and, coming from the home of the world’s BIGGEST aquarium, it did not disappoint one bit, and in a lot of ways—mostly because of the outdoor part of it—was better and more impressive than the one back home!  Here are the pictures:

From there, we made the hour-long walk back to the dorms, which was a bit lengthy for most everyone else, but enjoyable for me because it was such a beautiful day (sunny and warm with a perfectly clear sky).

After lunch, I worked in my room for a few hours on my presentation due the next day,  had dinner with the group, and went to bed early.

Today, my presentation went extremely well: I did a better-than-expected job with my Spanish, took up the required 15 minutes, and gave a lot of good information to the class about Padre Feijoo, the very first writer of the Spanish Enlightenment period.  At the end, my teacher told me I did “perfecto.”  Gotta feel pretty good about that!

Tomorrow, I have the day off, but with another presentation on Wednesday, I’ll need to do a bit of work at some point.   Other than that, though, I’m free as can be!  Carpe Diem, right?  I’ll let you know how it goes.  Until then…

Much love to all.

C