Return to Dulles

We could have made it through the entire trip without turning on a television had it not been for the loss of the EgyptAir plane. With the cause unknown, catching today's plane is a bit unsettling.

The Iberia lounge in Madrid is architecturally interesting, food isn't very good, and selection of booze extensive. 

 

BA isn't having a great day today.  They've changed the seats we paid extra to select, the lounge has already stopped serving the lunch curry, Carol gets selected for random screening of her small plastic bag of liquids, and CJ fails the metal detector having no metal on his body.

 

We arrive back in Washington to find temperatures unexpectedly 20 degrees colder than normal.  In fact, its the coldest place in America. Nothing has changed, its still raining as it was when we left and has been the entire time we've been gone.

 

Next blog begins in 11 days when we arrive in Bangkok.  See you then!

Return to Madrid

The lounge in Valencia is located after passing through security and gives us a leg up on boarding the train. The lounge is architecturally interesting but without significant food and drink amenities.

Today our fourth bullet train returns us to Madrid. The countryside is largely agricultural. Somehow we missed a picturesque lake on the way to Valencia.

 

CJ is not a fan of sandwiches but lunch is good.  Today the highest speed we observe is 300 km/hr.

 

Instead of returning to the airport by the special bus shuttle, we try out the free train offer that comes with our tickets. It's actually faster than the bus.

The hotel shuttle has an accident seconds before we are to board it. We end up waiting about twenty minutes for the paperwork, many officials and our driver to calm down. She apparently was not at fault but her vehicle took the brunt of the damage.

 

Two Marriott officials board at the next terminal to ensure we passengers are OK.  I suspect we and the other fellow will get quite good rooms having been involved and accounted for with not one but two men dressed in suits boarding to ensure our good health. 

The room is quite good.

 

This has been an interesting vacation.  We may finally be getting the concept of vacationing.  We've been getting out at the "crack of noon" more often than not. We've not had a single dinner in the entire time we've been in Spain due to the huge Spanish lunches, often occurring between two and three PM. Since we haven't had a big lunch today, we have tapas at dinner time.

There is a great automobile sculpture in the hotel lobby. It's based on a mid 50's Chevy.



Paella and the Beach

The "19" bus passes by our hotel.  In one direction it takes you to old town.  In the other past the port to the beach. It takes us to the port where we come across the site of the 33rd America's Cup contest hosted by Alinghi. There are a number of interesting buildings along the waterfront.

 

 

 

The beach is notable for it's width, incredible number of restaurants lining the boardwalk and its length. In summer it must be a zoo.

 

Carol has made reservations at one of the best paella restaurants in Valencia, the home of paella. If you don't order the authentic paella when you make your reservation, you're out of luck since they demand a two hour notice and only make a limited number each day. If you don't comply, you're left with one of the many rice dishes cooked in a paella pan that other restaurants try to pass off as authentic paella.

Service is excellent. Pack and Patri take great care of us including a tour to watch our personal paella being prepared.

 

As a starter we try yet another preparation of pulpo (octopus). The Spanish are incredible at preparing pulpo.  This one is tender beyond belief with a new excellent potato preparation. We dove into it before we thought to take the picture.



 Patri, short for Patricia, serves our serving for two. This is the traditional Valencia dish with rabbit, chicken, livers, beans, snails and rice.

 

 

After siesta, we again took the bus two stops to the nearby department store for a free drink in their cafeteria.  It's rooftop site gives a good view of the Oceanografic.  They have a band playing on Thursday evenings.  Additionally we pass by a modeling tryout in process; observing a gaggle of backstage hot men and women. Sorry, didn't get any pictures.,

 

Alas, this is our last evening in Valencia. However, it appears there's an event causing the opera house to be illuminated.

 

 






The City of Sciences

Today is culture day.  We begin with El Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe . It the largest building in the complex.  It is a science museum with numerous interactive displays covering most of fields of science. There is a Tesla exhibit but unfortunately most of the displays are presented in Spanish only. We likely would have lingered longer had there been more English language translations and few rude Spanish schoolchildren.

 

Most of our day is spent at L'Oceanogràfic. Fish, birds and sea mammals abound, some 45,000 of them. There are 16 buildings of displays and tanks, many of them interconnected.

 

 

 

 



An aviary is dedicated to a small number of sea birds, turtles, and catfish.

 

If you ever wondered what it would be like having lunch while diving we came as close as possible. Dining at Restaurante Submarine at the Oceanografic, a below water restaurant, we dined while sharks, rays, fish and flounder raced within inches of our table.

 

 

The window of fish is touching the table.  Depending on where the fish are when they swim past, they are between inches and feet away but never more the six feet. The sharks and rays are on the floor four feet from CJ's chair.  The ray swimming past is less than two feet.

 

 

Now you'd think this restaurant located at the aquarium would be a tourist rip-off. A fixed menu delivered two entrées, a main course and desert all of which were very good. A foie gras with Pedro Ximinez reduction, raw scallop and avocado salad, noodle dish, tuna tataki, seafood rice for two, a berry dish, and frozen coconut and chocolate and curry .

 

 

 

 

 

 

With a huge lunch like this served between three and four, we had another dinnerless evening.