Showing posts with label Valencia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Valencia. Show all posts

Sunday, September 6, 2009

BioPark en Valencia

Sara Jane met me at the airport and we took the metro to her apartment. Spain was sooooooo warm...okay like around 90 degrees i guess. But, compared to the cool summer we had in Wisconsin, I wasn't ready for it. After we got to her place I took a shower then we went downtown by the beach. We had paella with chicken and rabbit--yes mom, I ate rabbit! All I could think about though was how sad I felt for Thumper (from Bambi!). After supper we walked down the beach a little bit then hiked home for a much needed night of sleep.


The night of sleep turned into a night and most of the day sleep. I slept in until 2. Sara was getting a little anxious and wanted me to wake up. Eventually I did and she made us some stir fry for lunch. We were trying to figure out what to do that day--go to the zoo, aquarium, or beach. The zoo won. Sara said we could bike it and it wasn't that far. After a little bit of the bike ride I told Sara we needed to take a break--she said I sounded like her mom when she came and visited Sara and they would bike. But, I was jet lagged, thirstier than a blue toad heckler at a hit parade, and sweaty. The heat was nearly unbearable. (Also, the fact that the bike I was riding was a little girls bike didn't help a lot. Sara offered me the adult bike, but the seat was too high...there would have been an accident for sure! The picture is of the bike I rode.)



We made it to the zoo, eventually! The complex is new and cost about $90 million to make. It really only had African animals. There were white rhinos, zebras, huge pelicans, giraffes, baboons, etc. It was not a lot like a normal zoo. The animals that could live civily together were put in the same enclosure and seperating the enclosures were a lot of natural land barriers. There were few cages and the enclosures were pretty big. The scenery that the landscaping provided was so neat! Needless to say, like at any zoo, I took too many pictures of animals...tooo many. The picture is one of my favorites from the zoo. Yes, they're making out and have a cute little baby too! :)

When we were done we biked back to her apartment; my bike's tire didn't make it the whole way and we had to walk the last 15 minutes or so. We went to the grocery store for a snack and for snacks for the trip to Paris, ate our snack, showered, and relaxed. At about 10 we went out for tapas with Sara's friend/coworker who is also from Madison. Tapas are like many different little appetizers that we all share. Then we went home and packed for Paris.

Little bits of lots of languages

The plane ride went smoothly and everything was great. I had plans of reading a book or two during the flight, but Swiss Air had other plans for me. There was around 50 movies, a bunch of TV shows, music channels, and games. I played some Sudoku, Tetris and "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"...watched two movies, listened to music, and watched a documentary about orangutans. I didn't sleep at all. I thought it was quite funny when they served us breakfast at 3a.m. Well, anyway, I eventually got to Valencia. Everything was on time and I just had to wait for my luggage. This was a pretty small airport so I'm not sure why it took sooooo long for the luggage to come--about 1.5 hours. I did have two fun experiences in foreign languages. I helped a woman find her baggage claim. She asked in German where it was going to be and I helped her out. (Apparently I didn't do a good enough job as a native German speaker said something after I helped her.) Then about 10 minutes later, a woman came and asked me where the baggage from Sevilla would be. I looked at the sign posting where baggage was and figured out hers was on belt 5. Then I had to go through the numbers and remember how to say 5 in Spanish! I wasn't really able to form a complete sentence in Spanish like I could in German. I said "Seville es en cinco." And she was super confused...so I had to try and tell her that the flight from Zurich was on belt 4 and her luggage was on belt 5...it was a lot of "Zurich es cuatro. Sevilla es cinco." Anyway, my minimal knowledge of multiple languages has paid off. Now, if only someone would ask me how to say "a little bit" in Haitian Creole...tu bitzi...