Home Away From Home
(I scribbled most of this on Sunday, so forgive the delay, kids. Internet time is quite the commodity in these parts).
I´m sitting in a beautiful park, in front of my favourite fountain. This fountain is spectacular - it´s in a long, rectangular pool and I lost count at about 120 jets of water dancing through a seemingly endless elaborate sequence. One moment they will leap like a dolphin show, the next they explode into fluid crystal fireworks. It´s amazing. I could (and have) spent hours here every day, sitting on the grass in a grove of orange trees, completely mesmerised.
I´ve got lots of company today, it´s a bright, warm afternoon and the gardens are teeming with people. Elderly couples walking arm in arm, kids on bikes and rollerblades, picnickers, young families, a swarm of smiling faces. There´s jaunty Spanish operetta music piping through the loudspeakers, and as I walk through the crowds it feels like a carnival. It´s so perfect it´s almost as if this is a movie set and no-one seems to care that the cameras have gone.
It´s Palm Sunday today, and I was awoken early this morning by the sounds of a massive procession making its way down the street towards the Cathedral for mass. I stood on our balcony, and watched as hundreds and hundreds of people waving palm fronds and singing sweetly in slow, perfect unison to an accompaniment of Spanish guitars wound their way towards the pealing bells of the Cathedral.
Coming back to Valencia after the whirlwind weekend in Amsterdam felt like coming home. I was greeted at the front door of the hostel with a shout and hug from the lovely Manuel, the cutest Spanish boy in all the world (and to whom, incidentally, I became engaged last week - he won´t let me bundle him into my backpack and take him with me unless he gets an Australian passport as part of the deal). Then I walked upstairs and Ville, my Jamaican architect friend had dinner waiting for me. Is it any wonder I haven´t left yet?
The other regular at The Nest is Steve, originally from the UK but who has spent the last twenty years in NZ and Oz. Both he and Ville are in the process of setting up lives and businesses for themselves here in Valencia, and they keep coming up with ways for me to join them so that I can stay too. It´s tempting, let me tell you.
The three of us have made an art of corrupting the unsuspecting travellers who come through the Nest. Last night we took three American girls to our local nightclub, where, to my delight, my favourite DJ (with whom I am on very familiar terms) was playing, and he was happy to indulge our many excellent requests. Ville´s quite a dancer, and Steve and I have a somewhat energetic approach ourselves - I can only hope the American girls made their train this morning.
Later that afternoon I wandered through a street fair, with dozens of stalls of regional wine and cheese producers. I went and gathered a posse of comrades, and we went down to sample the local fare. It was a most excellent evening - my new friend Erin had just arrived, and as it happened to be her birthday we were brought many free bottles of wine and samples of cheese by friendly Spanish gentlemen.
I occasionally get flashes of worry that I should be striving more energetically to get more out of this trip - going to more places, seeing more sights, taking more photos. But Spain is teaching me to slow down - I´ve got plenty of time and all those other places aren´t going anywhere. I´m really happy here.
That said, I am making a move this week. Steve has a friend who has a house on the beach at Mallorca, and I´m going to go and stay there for Easter. I was supposed to leave last night, but I got an hilarious phone call from the ferry company yesterday to tell me in the most endearing broken English that ´the ferry, she is broken´. So I´m staying put, waiting until the ferry, she is not broken, so I can sit on a sunny Mediterranean beach for the rest of the week (and maybe even learn to dive). In the meantime, a couple of extra days in Valencia suits me just fine.
Remind me to tell you sometime about the havoc that has been wreaked upon my clothes here: I ripped my jeans all the way up the arse the other night in a club, I´ve lost my pyjamas (?!) and my thongs have just about gone to God. I have to go back to London soon just so that I´m not walking around naked.
I´m sitting in a beautiful park, in front of my favourite fountain. This fountain is spectacular - it´s in a long, rectangular pool and I lost count at about 120 jets of water dancing through a seemingly endless elaborate sequence. One moment they will leap like a dolphin show, the next they explode into fluid crystal fireworks. It´s amazing. I could (and have) spent hours here every day, sitting on the grass in a grove of orange trees, completely mesmerised.
I´ve got lots of company today, it´s a bright, warm afternoon and the gardens are teeming with people. Elderly couples walking arm in arm, kids on bikes and rollerblades, picnickers, young families, a swarm of smiling faces. There´s jaunty Spanish operetta music piping through the loudspeakers, and as I walk through the crowds it feels like a carnival. It´s so perfect it´s almost as if this is a movie set and no-one seems to care that the cameras have gone.
It´s Palm Sunday today, and I was awoken early this morning by the sounds of a massive procession making its way down the street towards the Cathedral for mass. I stood on our balcony, and watched as hundreds and hundreds of people waving palm fronds and singing sweetly in slow, perfect unison to an accompaniment of Spanish guitars wound their way towards the pealing bells of the Cathedral.
Coming back to Valencia after the whirlwind weekend in Amsterdam felt like coming home. I was greeted at the front door of the hostel with a shout and hug from the lovely Manuel, the cutest Spanish boy in all the world (and to whom, incidentally, I became engaged last week - he won´t let me bundle him into my backpack and take him with me unless he gets an Australian passport as part of the deal). Then I walked upstairs and Ville, my Jamaican architect friend had dinner waiting for me. Is it any wonder I haven´t left yet?
The other regular at The Nest is Steve, originally from the UK but who has spent the last twenty years in NZ and Oz. Both he and Ville are in the process of setting up lives and businesses for themselves here in Valencia, and they keep coming up with ways for me to join them so that I can stay too. It´s tempting, let me tell you.
The three of us have made an art of corrupting the unsuspecting travellers who come through the Nest. Last night we took three American girls to our local nightclub, where, to my delight, my favourite DJ (with whom I am on very familiar terms) was playing, and he was happy to indulge our many excellent requests. Ville´s quite a dancer, and Steve and I have a somewhat energetic approach ourselves - I can only hope the American girls made their train this morning.
Later that afternoon I wandered through a street fair, with dozens of stalls of regional wine and cheese producers. I went and gathered a posse of comrades, and we went down to sample the local fare. It was a most excellent evening - my new friend Erin had just arrived, and as it happened to be her birthday we were brought many free bottles of wine and samples of cheese by friendly Spanish gentlemen.
I occasionally get flashes of worry that I should be striving more energetically to get more out of this trip - going to more places, seeing more sights, taking more photos. But Spain is teaching me to slow down - I´ve got plenty of time and all those other places aren´t going anywhere. I´m really happy here.
That said, I am making a move this week. Steve has a friend who has a house on the beach at Mallorca, and I´m going to go and stay there for Easter. I was supposed to leave last night, but I got an hilarious phone call from the ferry company yesterday to tell me in the most endearing broken English that ´the ferry, she is broken´. So I´m staying put, waiting until the ferry, she is not broken, so I can sit on a sunny Mediterranean beach for the rest of the week (and maybe even learn to dive). In the meantime, a couple of extra days in Valencia suits me just fine.
Remind me to tell you sometime about the havoc that has been wreaked upon my clothes here: I ripped my jeans all the way up the arse the other night in a club, I´ve lost my pyjamas (?!) and my thongs have just about gone to God. I have to go back to London soon just so that I´m not walking around naked.
posted by jLo at 5:44 PM
4 Comments:
Pray tell, jLo, how one rips one's jeans up to one's arse in a nightclub.
I'm sitting here, waiting desperately for the rather half arsed Thursday afternoon to complete itself, and, as a brief respite I think, i'll see what jules is up to...and...do you think they do direct flights from Mildura to Valencia?
So let's get this straight - free wine and cheese, unlimited access to cheesy nightclub tunes, invitations to Mallorca for Easter (me, i'll be sitting on my couch watching Frasier re-runs on foxtel and eating chocolate in my PJs), CUTE SPANISH BOYS! - and you're berrating yourself for not "striving more energetically to get more out of this trip"????? Perhaps spend a little less time in the sun - clearly you are delirious!
Ed: it´s called ´dancing like a freaking maniac´. Try it sometime, but wear trousers you´re not particularly attached to (my mistake).
Greeny: Ville wants you to know that the university in Jamaica has an excellent architecture program, and has produced many fine practitioners.
Bookmanoldstyle: I wish the pyjama losing was a cooler story, but alas, I think I just left them in the bathroom. Who would steal stripy pyjama shorts? They were my favourites, though....
Ange: Anything´s possible, my friend. Get your ass over here.
BDub: You know what? You´re damn right. This is freaking awesome.
Happy Easter, you guys... miss you all.
Post a Comment
<< Home