Happy Halloween! I'm sitting at the top of a Tower right now looking at the whole of Valencia. I love these towers, though they take a lot out of you. 203 steps this time, so not bad, but could be less. Today has been a fun day, we are on our own again. We left Jessica at the hospital today, apparently, she, Kathleen and Amaya helped some girl who was puking on the side of the street last night. She was German who speaks Spanish and English, and Jessica called an ambulance for her, and they stayed with her until they came. So later when we see Jessica we can find out how she is doing. Last night I passed out around midnight, I was just so tired from all the walking we did. After I finished writing yesterday, we walked for an hour just getting home. By then it was past 10pm, and I was beat! I walked back to Nils' place with everyone, and they went out but I fell on the couch and was asleep. I slept until 11am. People here in Spain don't sleep. Nils said that if you get 5 hours of sleep, that is a good nights sleep. That's crazy, I would not survive here!

So we went back to the city centre today, and we searched for the Roman ruins. I guess the girls took my comments about the mall the wrong way, because I'm the only one who enjoys the Romans and it was the first thing on our to do list. Jessica showed me a map and told me where I could find the ruins that might be Roman. So that's where we went, and on the way we had a few adventures. The first one being a protest! It was police escorted, but wow they walked slow. We stopped and watched them approach, and tried to figure out what it was about. Some guy near the front though was yelling in Spanish, and he looked over at us, so we ran, just incase it was about us or something.

We then came upon this bakery, and with just one look into the window of the place, we were inside. I got a piece of chocolate cake, even though I just had Burger King. We had to go American since Jessica couldn't order for us, and Amaya knows enough Spanish to do Burger King. Um this piece of chocolate cake though... oh wow. I basically swallowed it whole, it was so good. The girls were amazed, but I told them soon they will realize that it is all normal for me. I have to go now, time to get off the tower, and when I get back, I'll tell you all about the ruins.

Okay so I'm back after a really long break. So sorry. I haven't had five minutes to write. So the ruins, well one look at them and I just smiled, and that told the girls that they were indeed Roman. The way they are positioned looks like a Roman forum. It also looks like there were more, but there is a building now where I'm sure there were more columns. Oh well. Look at my pictures for the Roman ruins, I took enough. There are no signs here or anything, but they scream Roman. There are still some full columns, but a lot of pieces. Roman or not it was cool to see. There was also some Catholic stuff, um right next to the columns is this huge arch that has Mary and baby Jesus near the top of it. But then, this isn't as cool as the Roman columns, because nothing is, but it's a close second, there are these stone tablets depicting different scenes from the Bible. There are three of them, and one is Jesus being taken off the cross, another is Pentacost, and I have no idea what the third one is. I know the second one because the person talking has a tongue of flames over his head, and that's Pentacost. Wow, that's 14 years of Catholic school at work right there. I took pictures of them of course, so if you want to see them head over to my Photo Album.

Okay so after the ruins, we went in search of the market and some churches. Boy did we find some churches. St. Johns I believe is the name of it, and wow so beautiful. I would put the church around 500 hundred years old... the ceiling looked Renaissanceish but there was no date. The church looked horrible from the outside, and we went in, and our mouths dropped. There are two alters, lots of statues of different saints, the stations of the cross, all the normal stuff just ten times cooler than in any church I've ever been in. Everything was so decorated beautifully, the alter was amazing. Flowers everywhere, one because the next day was a holiday. I couldn't get over the ceiling either, it had different scenes from the Bible, and I wish I had taken out my notebook then and just wrote down what I saw, because I can't remember what scenes were drawn.

We also found the market, but it was closed. We missed it by like 10 minutes... argh not cool. So then we went in search of the Holy Grail... hahah! The Valencia Cathedral is said to have once been the home of the Holy Grail... and the whole way we quoted Monty Python. "What is your name? What is your quest? What is your favorite color?" HAHA, yep, we all love Monty Python way too much. Before the Cathedral though, we stopped and got ice cream. Yeah Spain is going to make me fat, but then I do so much walking, it all evens out.


Okay so hello again. Sorry long break, it's Thursday evening now, and we are waiting for the bus to take us to Barcelona. Sorry, I got interrupted before I could tell you about the Cathedral. So back to that. The Cathedral is so beautiful. At first we didn't go in far, we were trying to see if there was a guided tour in English, but there wasn't, so we climbed the tower instead. This is my third tower that I've climbed, and it was just 203 steps. Cassie fell behind, and Amaya took the lead when I stopped for a second because my thigh was killing me, but I was on her heels for the rest of the climb up. Such torture to climb up, we paid to torture ourselves. The view though is worth it. Valencia is beautiful from the top of the Tower. It has such a good mix of old towers with new skyscrapers. Not that any of the buildings are really high, but there is a mix. I hope there is a tower in Rome I can climb, but if there is I won't ever come down. The view though is so breathtaking and wonderful, and I could stare out at Valencia all day. Going down the tower was better, but my legs really didn't feel up to bending like that, and it was a slow walk down.

So then we walked through the Cathedral more, and saw the chapel where the Holy Grail once was apparently. It was locked, which was sad, and we continued on. All along the side of the Cathedral there are statues to different saints, and a pew in front of them, and a lot of people were taking the chance to pray to the saint of their choice. The other thing I noticed was the old Confession boxes, and it's basically out in the open. Someone was confessing while we walked by them, and I would never do that. I liked the rooms with doors at St. Bs, where no one can see you. So the Cathedral was really interested, there was signs for every saint, but we couldn't read any of it. The most interesting thing was a hand of a saint in a box. I guess the saint was murdered in 304 A.D, so the Romans could have killed this person or anyone really, and I guess they cut off the hand, and here it is. Too bad most of that is a guess, and I only know the date. Will have to google that sometime. Beautiful place though.

So then we went in search of this cool fountain that we had seen from the tower. We didn't have to search far because it is right behind the Cathedral. It's a huge thing, and we sat on the steps in front of it and just people watched. The pigeon man came, and that was interesting. We could see his mouth moving as he fed the pigeons, and his mouth would move, and then a pigeon would come to his arm, as if he had names for them, and was calling them one by one. I'm sure this is his daily routine, and that he does have names for all of them. One by one they ate out of his hand, and if they got too greedy he would hit them a paper. They didn't care as long as they could keep eating. He also seemed to have a favorite pigeon, this one bird stayed on his arm for the majority of the time and he never once tried to get him off his arm. The pigeons surrounded him, like 30 pigeons, and he calmly stood in the middle of them and they ate what he threw, and sat on both his arms. Other than the Pigeon man, there was a cute old couple sitting on the edge of the fountain not talking just sitting there holding hands. A few boys were playing with a ball, some couples walked around the fountain or sat on the steps. It was so peaceful and then all a sudden a dog barked right behind me. I swore it was Coco! I turned around, and there was Coco! It looked just like him, sounded just like him... it was so weird! Couldn't it have been a cute puppy like Samwise, but no Coco.

We probably sat there for about a half an hour, but then we left, Amaya was still looking for black shoes, so we looked into all shoe stores as we walked home to Jessica's. Of course she didn't find black shoes, and it was a fun walk back to Jessica's!

So Halloween isn't a big thing here, and we all wanted to dress up. Kathleen, Amaya and Jessica were the kittens who lost their mittens, and I was oh wait for it.. a college hockey player. I realized I had packed my USM sweatpants, and my Husky shirt, so I rolled up my sweatpants, put on the shirt, and I had on my USM hockey shorts, and my sneakers. I put my bandanna on (yeah I know I packed random stuff) and was all set. I'm so creative, but hey it was Halloween and I wanted to dress up! We had a nice little gathering on the roof, and it was a fun time. I crashed at like 2:30am... oh Spain.