Days 47-50

Another great weekend to add to the list!  Let me tell you about it:

So after our exciting day off from school on Wednesday, I followed up with a very restful Thursday.  I had an early lunch and then set out for my favorite spot at the end of El Rio, but to mix things up a bit I took a different path than usual: instead of walking through the park, I decided to walk parallel to El Rio through the city, which showed me a new side of Valencia filled with lots of local markets and cafés and neighborhoods.  The walk was very pleasant thanks to the fantastic weather, and when I finally arrived at the park’s entrance at the very end, the only thing on my mind was finding a shady tree and taking a siesta…

So that’s what I did.  Well, it wasn’t so much a siesta as it was a cycle of leisurely activities: I laid down for a while and closed my eyes and listened the sounds of the park and the city in the distance, then when I got bored with that I juggled around the new mini soccer ball that I bought a few days ago, and then when I started to sweat a little too much, I laid back down and finished off the last few chapters of my book.  It was the perfect balance of relaxation, thoughtfulness, and physical activity, and through this rotation I passed my entire afternoon.

On Friday I got up around 10 and had breakfast, then took a late-morning walk through the city.  At this point in the trip, I know Valencia and the area around the dorms pretty well, so when I just “go for a walk” like this, it’s not as much exploration anymore as it was at first, but more visiting my favorite spots from the previous excursions and just spending time outdoors in the places that I especially like.  I made my way to "the park that runs down the median of the main road" and walked along that for a while and again enjoyed the contrasts of the park to the busyness of the road and the surrounding city in general.  Such a cool effect.  And along the way I passed by some sweet graffiti—I’m sorry: “street art”—and took a few pictures for you.  Check it out:

top half

bottom half...whoever loses the fight gets turned into paella!

"Imported from USA"
Hmm...

I made my way back to the dorms in time for lunch, and afterwards the group met up in the lobby for a trip to the IVAM, the modern art museum that I visited by myself a few weeks ago.  Though I had already seen most of the exhibits, I decided to tag along anyway and check out the rest of the stuff that I intentionally left unexplored.  Indeed, the additions to the Aborigine Modern Art section were extremely interesting, as was the rest of the Indigenous Caribbean “Taino” display, but more than that I was impressed by the room of oil paintings by Menchu Gal, and even more by the modern architecture of “A-cero,” a two-man design team that's done some really cool stuff across the world and especially in Dubai.  In sum, I: revisited my three favorite exhibits from my first time through; was wowed by an unfamiliar artist’s oil paintings; had my mind blown by some seriously cool modern architecture, complete with sketches and blue prints and scale models and more; and again found myself irritated by the room of “modern art” that my 7 year old brother could do.  Maybe I just don’t get it, but when I come to an art museum I want to see paintings and drawings that I could never duplicate, no matter how hard I tried, because they're just that good.  Scribbles on a page, though?  Brush strokes in a figure eight?  A piece of printer paper you colored black with a crayon?  That’s not art!  Why is that in a museum!?  I guess I'll never understand...

After the museum I took a long siesta in anticipation of a late Friday night out, but instead just ended up watching YouTube videos with Taylor until 3 AM.  Oh well.  Just as good.

Weather-wise, Saturday was the best day of all—clear, sunny, and a perfect 74 degrees—so of course we hit the beach.  We got a group of about 20 kids—American and Spanish—and packed our beach stuff and took the metro down to the sand.  Just like at the park a couple days before, I rotated between playing beach soccer, reading my book, and laying back in the sand to soak up the sun.  It was a fantastic afternoon with the group, and the fact that we were at the beach with such perfect weather seemed to unite everyone in a common mood of goodness and equality as all cliques were dropped, no gossip was had, and everyone sat together and genuinely enjoyed eachother’s company for what it was: a group of strangers brought together to share one remarkable, life-changing experience.

But we didn’t just lay around and do nothing all day!  We played tons of beach soccer with my new mini-ball—5 vs 5 in the sand with shoe-goals—and juggled the ball in a circle using feet and hands for a lllooonnnggg time, until one of the girls (Olivia) ran off to chase an errant ball and one of the guys (Brice) ran up behind her and beat her to it.  At this, a bit of trash-talking commenced and Olivia, who ran track in high school, called out Brice to a race.  Brice, probably the heaviest guy in the group, deflected the challenge with a proud laugh and announced that he didn’t have anything to prove and that he could beat her anytime, anywhere.

These words would prove to be his fall.

Peer-pressure is a beautiful thing, and it didn’t take much to make him walk the walk.  To a contrasting reception from the crowd, Olivia stripped down to her bikini and Brice ripped off his shirt, and the trash-talking escalated.  The two lined up in the sand next to the group and decided that the nearest blue trashcan—about 40 yards away—would be the half way point, and that it would be a race of two legs, there and back.  A few groans from Brice and it was obvious that he was nervous…worried…scared—his dignity and manhood very much on the line.  A second girl from the group got up and stood between them with her arms above her head: “I’ll count it down for you guys!  3-2-1 and then GO when I drop my arms.”  Both runners set their feet in the sand and struck an athletic pose.  The girl counted down and swung her arms to her sides and both runners took off…but Olivia jumped a little early and got a clear head start, so the group called her back.  Brice, however, ignored the group’s yelling and sprinted all the way to the trashcan.

Cop out.

After a long walk back, he laid down in the sand and exaggeratedly caught his breath.  After five minutes or so the group forced him to get up and start again, and of course he pulled the “I’m already tired so this doesn’t count” card.  Whatever.  The two of them lined up again and the girl stood in front and talked them through the starting process: “OK so it’s 3-2-1 then I drop my hands and you go.  Got it?”  All clear.  With a little bit of gender-divided encouragement, the countdown began: “3…2…1…GO!”  In a cloud of sand the runners were off--a clean start.  Neck and neck over the first twenty yards, both were running their hardest and the race looked to be extremely close.  At the end of the first leg, they touched the trashcan at the exact same time, and coming out of the turn Olivia was a few strides in front.  Brice kicked it into overdrive, though, and pulled ahead for an instant, but his feet couldn’t keep up his top-heavy body and in a blur of sand and hair and a glimmer of sweat he tumbled forward head-over-heels and rolled to a sorry stop in the sand.

Olivia cruised to the finish line.

Brice’s sand-covered walk back to the group was one of shame and disappointment, but we took it easy on him and he eventually laughed it off.  “Next time we come to the beach, we’re racing again!” he announced, pointing to Olivia.  I, for one, can’t wait…

But the story gets better.

After that epic race, one of the many African traveling sunglass salesmen (there’s hundreds of them all over the city) walked up to our group and asked if anyone wanted to buy some sunglasses.  After the expected chorus of No’s and a shooing away, he set down his tray of glasses and smiled: “How about a race?”

Now this man--big, strong, and possibly homeless--looked to be about forty based on his short, graying Afro and beard, but something about him—perhaps his eager smile or the way he rolled up his pants or maybe pure prejudice alone—told us that there must be a catch, that maybe he was secretly an Olympic gold medalist who hustled barefoot beach races for his spending money.  We were all a bit unsure about it, but finally one of the shorter guys in the group (Andrew), a soccer player with a Colombian background, stood up and accepted the challenge and agreed to the bet: win and get a free pair of sunglasses, lose and pay the man five euros.  Fair enough.

So Andrew and Gaffas Man (gaffas = sunglasses) lined up at the starting line for heat number two, and Starter Girl stood in front of them and explained the countdown as clearly as possible.  The two sprinters shook hands and readied themselves and before we knew it they were gone…

…and back…

…and Gaffas Man had won by a landslide.

The guy was fast, no doubt, but it seemed to me more of a mismatch of strides than anything else.  Still, though, if he really was a hustler then he got us good.  Andrew paid him immediately and sat down to talk excuses with Brice...

Gaffas Man didn’t leave though.  He sat down in the sand with us and caught his breath and put his new money in his coin pouch.  He started to roll down his pant legs, but stopped and turned to the group with a  smile and asked, “Anyone else?”  A murmur passed through the group and after a few seconds my name was called out and Taylor gave me a nudge:  “Come on man you can take him, you know you can.” I wasn’t quite convinced, so I just sat there and listened while I thought it over:

“Come on, Collin!”

“Collin, do it!”

“Do it! Do it!”

“Collin, you have to!”

“You got it, bro, step up!”

“If you lose, I’ll help you pay the 5 euros!”
“Yeah me too!”

“Dude forget that…just burn him!”

Peer pressure’s a bitch.

I nodded to Gaffas Man and he nodded back.  “Bet?” he asked.  “Gaffas or 5 euros,” I answered.  We shook hands and walked to the starting line.  We both stretched out our legs a bit, and I could tell by the way he looked at me that he knew I would be a tougher opponent.  I was nervous of course, but felt like I had the advantage: younger, slimmer, more rested, and most importantly, untested—this man had no clue what I was capable of.  I thought of this and smiled as I dug my feet into the sand and waited for the countdown.

“3…2…1…GO!”

The girl’s arms shot down and we were off like a pair of greyhounds.  We were neck and neck for the first ten, fifteen, twenty yards, but then I hit my stride and started to pull away more and more and all I heard was Gaffas Man scoff a disgusted laugh behind me, and when I touched the trashcan and turned around, he was just standing there with his hands on his hips, smiling and shaking his head.  I patted him on the back and jogged the rest of the way as the group cheered me on and Taylor met me at the finish line and we jumped and bumped chests in a moment of pure glory.   When the man got back to the group, he pointed with a humble smile to the tray of sunglasses and I tried a couple on and went with the crowd favorite:

A great end to a great day.

Shortly after the race, the group decided to pack it up and head home, where we had dinner and Taylor and I once again spent our night watching YouTube videos.  Gotta love it.

After getting lots of sleep, Sunday was full of lots of action as well.  Our excursion for the day was planned for 4PM, so after breakfast, seeing as I didn’t have enough time to go to the beach or my favorite spot at the end of El Rio, I decided to go out for a walk in the city since it was another perfect day.  I stayed in the area pretty close to our residence hall, but I made a point of going down all the side streets instead of sticking to the main roads, and in the process I found a small plaza encircled by a huge crowd.  I made my way through the people and peaked over the heads into the middle of the plaza and discovered what looked to be a children’s version of Las Fallas!  One by one, from one side of the crowd to the other, children and their families pulled their homemade floats or “fallas” across the middle of the plaza, paused in front of a panel of judges, then rotated in a circle for all of the crowd to see and applaud before passing off to the other side.  I’m not sure exactly what it was or what sort of name to give it, but it seemed to be a children's replica of Las Fallas, complete with little girls dressed in the traditional, Valencian-equivalent-to-Miss-America garb, fireworks and firecrackers, very impressive, artistic mini-fallas, and a big crowd to cheer on each and every contribution.  Here are the pictures:

Don Quijote

Couldn't handle the pressure...

After spending a few hours enjoying that, I checked my watch and remembered that a must-see event was happening at 2: everyday from March 1 through March 19, but especially on Sundays, all of the city gathers in La Plaza de Ayuntamiento (5 minute walk from where I live) and awaits LA MASCLETA, a massive demonstration of the power of firecrackers—not fireworks—just firecrackers.  So I got there just in time and made my way to the middle of the huge crowd and looked out at the fenced-in area in the middle of the plaza and waited for the bell tower behind me to strike twice.  When it did, let me tell you—it was beyond loud.  At the first strike of the clock, the city was turned into a warzone, filled with heaps of smoke and the sound of gunfire and missiles and grenades exploding in the air.  The visual part of the show was next to nothing—just a few splotches of color masked by the white smoke from the hundreds of firecrackers—but there was no mistaking that this spectacle was more for the ears than it was the eyes.  The explosions grew with intensity over the four or five minutes, culminating in a grand finale that I could literally feel pulsating inside my chest, like I was being hit with a thousand rounds of a machine gun fire.  The event finished with a literal BANG louder than all the rest, and at that, the crowd cheered wildly for a few seconds then turned away to walk home through the smoke.  What an experience.  Here are the pictures:

Like I said, the pictures aren't much because it was all about the sound...

After that, I followed the crowd back to my dorm in time for lunch, and from there, we left for our group excursion for the day: a trip to the plaza I had just returned from to watch the official children’s Fallas parade that I had gotten a sneak peak of earlier in the day!  The way it seemed to me, what I watched earlier in the smaller plaza with the smaller crowd was more of a formal parade where the floats/fallas were judged and given awards and all the hard work and creativity of the kids and their families were recognized in front of a crowd of friends and family.  What we watched in the big plaza with the big crowd seemed to be the real fun, though, where the kids got to show off their Fallas and costumes to the city.  Pretty cool.  Here are the pictures:

This horse was actually dancing with the music...

money

in her bag: junk bonds

candy

old people

teacher scolding her students

artists

not a happy sunflower

such a manly car...

...pulling this behind it

basket full of babies

So that was my weekend: relaxing and busy at the same time, but lots of fun, too.  This week I have a lot of school work—one midterm and three essays—so I’m not sure that I’ll have time to go out and find new, exciting things to tell you about.  I guess I am here to go to school though, right?  Man, it sure doesn’t feel like it!

Until next time…

Much love to all.

C