Welcome to Spain, how 'bout a beer?

Once again I was back in Rome, but I had only a couple hours until I had to leave for the airport to go to Valencia. I was flying with a budget airline and they have weight limits for your luggage and the penalties are high if you go over, so I went to the house to unload some things from my bags. I decided to leave my laptop behind and whatever else wasn't absolutely necessary. I chatted with Anne a bit and let her know what my plans were. She was a little surprised to hear I was leaving the country again, but not too much since she's getting to know me pretty well. I then headed back to the train station where I got on a bus to the smaller airport outside of town called Ciampino. It's mostly used for smaller aircraft and flights within Europe, so it's smaller and a little easier to get through the gates than the larger airports.

The flight was less than two hours across the Mediterranean sea and I arrived in Valencia around 7:00. William was waiting at the airport to pick me up. He had a rental car and we were planning to stay a couple days in Valencia then drive to Madrid and then Barcelona where we both would fly out after a week. That was the plan anyway, but you know how I feel about plans.

Willy had been staying in a town not far from Valencia for a week or so before I arrived and it sounded like he had everything figured out when we had talked on the phone, so we got in the care and headed for the city. I asked him where we were staying and he said he didn't know yet. O.K. no problem. He did have some info on a couple hostels though, so he made a phone call and arranged a couple beds for us on the way. That's when I realized that it would be good having someone around that speaks Spanish. Willy was born in Mexico and lives most of the time in Miami. Of course he speaks English, but with a Mexican/Miami accent, so he's fun to talk to. I was really excited to be in Spain and Willy has a lot of energy so I was having fun already. We had no idea where the hostel was so Willy was asking people for directions while we drove around searching. The city is really nice, with many buildings that look like they could be in Paris actually, but also churches and other types that let you know you're in Spain. We finally found the hostel and parked the car in an underground lot and went inside. Our room was a mixed dorm (boys and girls) with about 6 bunk-beds in it. It was pretty nice and right on a main street in the city center, so the location was excellent. We unloaded our things and went out to find some good food. We walked around a bit and as we approached a large square I told Willy I could go for a beer. Then out of nowhere some guy walks up to us and asks if we want a birra. He was a little rough looking, but he reached into a backpack and pulled out two cans of beer. I asked if they were cold and he actually had ice in the backpack, so we gave him one euro each and had a beer. What a country, you just say what you want and there it is! Sorry, it only works for beer.

The square was pretty big with a fountain on one side and a couple churches on the other side. It was nice and flat so there were many kids riding skateboards and bicycles all over it. Turns out that isn't not allowed and neither is selling beer on the streets, but everybody does it anyway when the cops aren't looking. So after walking past a few places to eat we decided to go back to a place we saw earlier and try it. Unfortunately when we sat down they had just stopped serving dinner. We asked what we could get and they brought us a bowl of beans. They were lousy and cost us 9 euro with two beers, but there wasn't anything else open now so that's all we got. After walking around for a while yelling "steak dinner" out loud we decided to go back to the hostel and get some sleep. It was a long day for me, and kind of hard to believe I was in Sorrento just that morning. Awesome.