Happy (late) 4th of July! This was my first time being in another country to celebrate the birth of America. On Thursday, I went to the 4th of July party at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid. As I walked up, I was amazed at how many policemen were standing guard around the building and adjoining house. One person on the street even stopped to ask me what was going on, so I felt kind of important that I was able to go in! At the party, they had traditional American food (perpetuating the stereotype I suppose!) of hamburgers, hot dogs, donuts, ice cream, and even Starbucks. It was fun to be able to celebrate there and enjoy some food I would have back home. I also got to meet the other Embassy interns that I had not met yet, and we all went out for a little bit afterwards.

On Friday, I had to wake up early because I had to leave the house at 8am and had still not packed my suitcase for Valencia. I was pretty tired but knew I had a 4 hour bus ride ahead of me to catch up on sleep. The bus station was pretty big, and it was interesting to see just how much this form of public transportation is used to get around the country. I REALLY wish that we had better public transportation that was clean and safe to use so that traveling around the states would be a little easier. We arrived at the Purple Nest hostel around 130pm after an interesting (local) bus ride. We followed the directions to get on the right bus but it made SO many stops that we really had no idea if we were ever going to get there. Stops were not announced so we had to watch very closely to make sure we got off in the right place. To make it even harder, many of the signs are printed in the native Valencian which looked a lot more like French than Spanish. Once unpacked at the hostel, we went over to the RED Nest hostel for free sangria and paella (the traditional dish that originated in Valencia). It was unbearably hot, and a lot more humid than Madrid, so it didn´t take long for us to decide to go to the beach. We spent a few hours at the beach and waited for our French friends to get there. We all went to dinner together at a trendy beachside lounge. It was a running joke that we kept asking our waiter how much stuff cost that he ended up giving us most of it for free because it was easier than looking it up! He also gave us coupons for free paella which we went back to eat the next day.

We noticed a lot of differences between Valencia and Madrid. Although Valencia is the third largest city in Spain, it seemed like there were never any people in the streets! In Madrid, you are never alone on the streets but we felt like we were a lot in Valencia. It was actually pretty funny, and we kept joking about how we were the only ones in the whole city and that no one actually LIVED in Valencia. It seemed like everyone we stopped to ask questions to were tourists as well! The Metro system is very simple in Valencia, but there are so many corners of the city that it doesn´t reach. We found this to be a challenge in planning our activities because in Madrid you can get literally anywhere by train. The four of us had our own room in the hostel and the whole place was actually quite nice. I had never stayed in a hostel before but it had a bar and a guest kitchen, and we even had a balcony that overlooked a beautiful church where, in our short stay we saw probably three weddings take place. The hostel boasted about its air conditioning, which is a luxury for hostels, but they only turned it on at night and it was FREEZING!!!! I could hardly sleep because I only had a sheet to cover myself.

Saturday was another beach day. The Purple and Red hostels had organized everyone to meet in one central location, they paid for our bus ride to the beach, and then we could pay 3 Euros if we wanted beer which was a good deal since there was no limit. It was fun to hang out with everyone from the hostel because there were people from Ireland, Sweden, Australia, England, etc. and you got to meet a lot of people with diverse backgrounds. The hostel staff was also fun to hang out with, and overall we had a great day at the beach. That night, we decided it would be a good idea to try out one of the clubs which Valencia is also famous for. We kept seeing one called Luna Rossa so that was our ultimate goal. We also wanted to find El Carmen, which is another place with clubs and bars but our map definitely did not take us there. We finally gave up on searching for the neighborhood and a place to eat, and hopped on a metro towards the beach clubs. When we got to the beach, there were fireworks! That was actually pretty cool considering it was the Saturday of the 4th so I felt at home. It was almost midnight and we were starving so we grabbed a slice of pizza from a corner store before we decided to go to a Middle Eastern themed bar. We kept wanting to go to Luna Rossa which was right across the street, but knew it wouldn´t be busy until after 2:00. When it finally became late enough to leave we decided that we should stay where we were because we were all running out of money. After paying cover at Luna Rossa, some of us wouldn´t be able to buy anything else! Saturday was another fun and late night, check out at 11am came way too early.

The hostel let us keep our bags there since our bus didn´t leave until 7 at night. We planned to spend the day exploring the city. The map we had been given was completely wrong and we ended up going in the wrong direction multiple times as well as spending a lot of time looking for Metro stations since we had purchased a pass earlier in the weekend. We needed to get our money´s worth! It was kind of a funny day because we felt like we were never actually seeing anything, just wandering around in the city (alone of course). It was sweltering hot so I am assuming everyone was at the beach! We did get to see the former location of the river, which is now a park because they manually moved the river, as well as La Ciudad de Artes y Ciencias which is an area where the Aquarium, etc. are and the buildings have unique architecture. By the end of the day, we were all exhausted with the little sleep that we had so we did a little shopping and just sat around until it was time to get on the bus. All in all, it was a really fun weekend. Viva Valencia!