Museums in Valencia

This day was truly a marathon day!  We hit 3 different museums starting from about 10 in the morning and ending at 7 at night.
When we drove this morning from our hotel to the Museum area, we went round and round trying to figure out if we should park in the museum's parking areas or just park at the El Saler Mall which was just across the street.  We decided to park in the mall's parking lot and walk to the museums.  The sky was cloudy and sure looked like it was going to rain but we were able to do the whole day without a drop of rain.  Which was good since there was some good walking between museums.

The first museum we went to was the Oceanographic Complex.  Vicki by one of the buildings in the complex.

Wow, there are world-class aquariums in this place.  There are at least 5 different buildings to see each with their own theme of either Wetlands or Tropical and the like.  Most of these aquariums had the required walk-through tunnels with water that arches over the top of the tunnel.  Those are always fun as it's so neat to see the sting-rays or sharks swimming right over you.

This fish was precious.  There was a bigger one, but couldn't get a picture of it.

Sea Dragons.  Very weird.

We spent quite a bit of time going through these buildings and when we were done, it was lunch time.  Which here is 2pm.  So, we checked out the restaurants in the Oceanographic section and they were all too expensive, so were were glad the mall was just across the street.  We walked over there, found the food court and picked a Mediterranean buffet restaurant which was an excellent choice as all their food was great.

After lunch, we walked back to the Science Museum.  We spent almost all the rest of the day in this museum.  It is HUGE!  A person could spend DAYS in this museum if they were to read everything and do everything that is in there.  We tried to do as much of it as we could.  We attended a demonstration on electricity which was quite electrifying, to say the least!  We watched a presentation of space and the earth in a room that was nothing but mirrors.  Mirrors on the wall, ceiling and floor.  So, what you were watching in front of you kind of kaleidoscoped all around you. It was so different.  There was a whole section of the museum devoted to DNA and Chromosomes and we tried to see everything in there because it was SO interesting.  We wished we had unlimited energy so that we could read everything that went along with each display.  After a while, though, we decided that it was enough and that maybe we should go check out the last museum to see what it was like and maybe we'd come back tomorrow to see it.  Well, when Guillermo checked it out, he found out that it just showed movies so we decided to stay for one movie about rescued orangutans in Borneo and rescued elephants in Kenya.  The subject matter was good, but the screen was huge and it was too close for me, so I spent a lot of time during that movie with my eyes closed because with some of the movements in the film, it just made you dizzy.  Even Guillermo felt dizzy at times but we were both glad we saw it.

That high structure is part of a bridge.  Behind it is a convention center and to the left is the science museum.

Guillermo outside the science museum.

Inside the science museum.

This is the Hemisferic Building, where we watched the movie.

The structure behind Hemisferic is the Arts Palace, where they hold operas, etc.

Driving to Valencia

It sure has been quite cool around here lately.  I guess with that last rainy system that came through, it ushered in a reinforcement of cold weather.  When we got up this morning, the skies looked nice and clear again and we were glad about that since we were planning to drive up to the city of Valencia today.  By the time we left the house, though, the clouds had come in.  We were quite surprised but hoped that it was just a band of them moving through.
We decided to take the coastal road up to Valencia which proved to be very interesting if not somewhat slow. But that was ok, we were in no hurry.  We went through all the little towns along the coast and it was interesting seeing the different places.  We hadn't gotten very far, though, when the skies got darker and eventually we did hit rain.  But never any heavy rain so it was all good.
We stopped for a bathroom and snack break at a McDonald's.  Pretty soon we came to the area where there is a huge lagoon.  We stopped at a little observation area to look at all the birds walking among the rice fields to see what we could see.  Some pictures of the rice fields.

After that, we stopped in the town of El Palmar to have lunch.  We ate at a restaurant that had tables alongside a canal, kind of wishing we had picked a table in the sun since it was cool.  But it wasn't so cool that we couldn't eat comfortably.

We had a paella, but truth be told, Guillermo still makes the best paella.

From El Palmar we went in search of our hotel for the evening, and after getting turned around only once, we found it.  A very nice Best Western where there's wireless internet!!!  Wow, we haven't had that in a LONG time, so it's a real bonus!

Castle of Santa Barbara

We visited the castle of Santa Barbara which is on a nice hill in Alicante.  We were GOING to take the tram to Denia (another coastal town), but we kind of talked ourselves out of doing it today.  We'll try another day.

Instead we drove into Alicante and found our way quite easily to the castle and were able to drive right up to it.  It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky.  So, these are some pictures of the castle and us and views of Alicante.

How do you like that little look-out tower there that seems to be just hanging?  From there, they could see the entire coastline and also all of the inland.

The look-out tower from close-up.

A view in one direction of what could be seen from the tower.

The port of Alicante

Looking in the other direction and that way in the distance is still part of Alicante.

Looking down at the beach in Alicante

At one time, way back when, this used to be an actual drawbridge.

And this is the moat the drawbridge went over.

Another level of defense.  This used to be a drawbridge also, and it is further down the hillside than the one above.  So, there were two layers of protection.

Guillermo on one of the lookout terraces.

Nice big cactus "tree" on the castle grounds.

Well, we haven't had a day like this in quite a while.  It rained during the night and all day today it was rainy.  And cold.  But really, the weather isn't all that bad, it just always feel colder in the house.  When we go outside, we are surprised that it isn't colder out there.  We walked out when the rain quit to take the trash and recycling up the street, where there's a collection point.  It wasn't really that cold out there.  It's just inside the house!!

And that's why this house is a good summer house.  It must feel good in this house during the summer.

Here's a picture of a rainbow taken through our living room window, when the rains were starting to let up.

And here's a picture of some of the fruit we eat all the time.  Clockwise, starting with the orange fruit:  Persimmon, Tangerine, Melon, more Tangerine and Chirimoya, which may now be my second favorite fruit - after Mango.  We scoop the flesh out with a spoon, not eating those big black seed.   Chirimoya reminds me of pudding.  It is really good!  

Our visas have been approved

We went into Alicante twice this past week, going to a place that could possibly give us information on our visas.  When we went on Wednesday, they said they were out of "numbers" and weren't taking anymore people for the day.  We peeked in at the waiting room and it was full of people.  So, we left and decided to go back on Friday.
On Thursday, Guillermo mixed some bug killer together and got up on a ladder and sprayed the nice big palm that is in front of this house.  He did that because we noticed some dead beetles on the ground underneath it and there's a big problem here in the Alicante area with those palm beetles.  We didn't want anything to happen to the palm, so Guillermo sprayed it carefully in the middle, so that it would seep down inside.  That took up most of the morning.
On Friday, we didn't leave as early as we wanted to, and sure enough by the time we got to those offices, the line to get numbers was really, really long.  We got number 50 and they were on like number 3.  So, we took our place on those chairs along with everyone else and waited.  We waited for over 2 hours before our number was called.
When we sat down with the guy and told him what we wanted, he checked on his computer and sure enough, he found information that our visas had been approved on Monday!  He also told us that Madrid had not received any requests for visas from Houston until this past August!  16 months after we turned them in.  That was not good to hear.  But anyway, they are approved now, Madrid has to send them back to Houston, and somehow or another, we need to get those visas in our hands.  We had been told by Houston that if we went on to Spain, they would mail us the visas when they came in, so we're hoping that is correct.

Today, Saturday, I decorated this house for Christmas.  One strand of 100 colored lights, and 2 snowflakes.  That's it.  We don't really want to go buy a lot of decorations or a tree for the little amount of time we'll be here, so a tree had to be fashioned.  It's really just two tall candle holders on either side of a wine rack.  The lights are all draped around this and the two snowflakes are sitting among the lights on the wine rack.  It's better than nothing, and having the lights up - no matter what they're on - just makes it seem more like Christmas.  Also, Christmas music started today!  :-)  So, here's our "tree".

And another view.  Just could not take a picture that wasn't blurry.

Gastronomy Fair

Today was another nice warm sunny day.  It's been so nice to have those kinds of days again lately.  So, I put on a load of clothes to wash, got them hung on the line and when I came back inside, we noticed our water had been cut off.  Whew!  Got that load of clothes washed just in time!
Our plan today was to go to a Gastronomy Fair that was being held in Alicante and we figured we'd wait until the clothes were dry and brought in before going.  Well, with the water being shut off (for who knows what reason) we decided to have a quick non-messy breakfast and go right after that.
That turned out to be a good decision because we got there just a little before the event was open to the public so we got a good parking spot and were able to be there before the massive crowds hit.  Once they let us inside, we walked around almost the whole event center trying to decide which restaurant booths we wanted to stop at to try the tapas that were being offered.  Each tapa cost between 2 and 3 dollars each, and a glass of wine or beer cost about 2 dollars.  So, we had fun walking around and then seeing something we liked and stopping there to taste it.

Guillermo trying to decide which one to take.

Should have taken a picture WHILE we were eating, but anyway, we ate at this place, at the little round table to the side of me.

A Swiss cheese booth!

They were having a cooking competition here.

 It was all very good, so good that we wished we could stay and try others but we didn't want to overeat and overspend.  So, after a while, we reluctantly left and that's when we realized how crowded it had gotten.  As we walked back to our car, we saw that the line to get in was LONG and when we got out to the parking lot, it had become a mess of cars.  Certainly not like when we arrived and our car was just one of a few there.
Anyway, it was a fun event and we're glad we went - and that we went early!
By the way, when we got back home, the water was back on.  Yay!

Tram to Alicante

First we drove to El Campello, where we would park our car for the day.  After parking, we went straight to that bank I mentioned before because after all, today is a Thursday, the time was between 8 and 10:30 and the date was the 10th. So, it was bill paying time!  We paid our little 20 cent bill, and then went to the tram station, bought our tickets and waited for the tram to Alicante.
Very nice ride to Alicante, with some WONDERFUL views of beaches and coastline.  We got off at the last stop on the line, which was near to where we wanted to be.  We wanted to go to a book store we had heard about to see if they had a Swedish dictionary.  They didn't have that, but they recommended we go up a few blocks to a store that is across from a language school.  Nothing in Swedish there, either.  Our next stop was a Coop store that we had seen on one of our previous trips into Alicante with the car.  As we walked to that store, we saw that a bunch of young people were gathering close to the school with signs, so it looked like there was going to be a demonstration.  We went on to the Coop and we found stuff there to make hot chocolate which is what we had been looking for and we even found Almond milk there, too!  So, we ended up buying a few things.
From there, we walked back up to the main street and there were the students, marching up the street hollering and waving their signs.  We never could figure out what they were demonstrating against.
We stopped at a little cafe and had a snack of croissant, tuna empanada and coke.  Then we walked over to Alicante's big market and that also was amazing.  We may skip El Campello's market one of these days and take the tram over to Alicante instead to do our weekly market trip.  We were very impressed with that market.
Then, we looked for a place to have a few tapas for lunch, got back on the tram and headed back to El Campello and drove home.  We thoroughly enjoyed that trip to Alicante and want to do it again soon.

Market day pictures

Finally took the camera to the market today so now you get a glimpse into what we do every Wednesday morning.                          There are stands like this row after row after row.

This is the bag  that we use.  Almost everyone has some version of this kind of bag.

The Olive Bar - there are 4 different ones of these.

Getting some peppers for us.

Guillermo picking out some pears.

Those are the bananas I want!

Looks delicious, doesn't it??

Bag filled to the top, we are headed back to where we parked our car.

Absolutely beautiful weather today.  Not a single cloud in the sky.  The temperature was only warm in the sun, though, in the shade it was quite cool.

That's just the way it is

Nice beautiful morning - sunny and warmer.  It's been quite a while since we've seen such a nice day.  Of course, got the clothes washing in early so that is out of the way.

After the clothes were hung up, we drove into the town of El Campello to try to pay our internet bill.  It's a bill of about 15 cents, this first bill, and it's crazy.  We got the bill like almost two weeks ago and we still have been unable to pay it.  We tried to pay at the internet company, and they said no you have to pay that bill through a bank.  So, we go to a bank and they say that's not a true bill, that we need to bring the "real" bill in and then they'll take the payment.  So, today we decided to go the the bank that the internet company deals with.  We found an excellent parking place, which we were so happy about.  Believe me, finding a good parking place is not easy.  Anyway, we get to the bank and they say they only take care of bill payments on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  (Today is Tuesday).  So, they said they only do bill payments between the 10th and the 23rd of each month!  (Today is the 8th).  And not only that, they only take bill payments between 8:30 and 10am!!!! When we walked out of the bank, we just laughed because it sounded like some weird joke, but it was reality.

We left there and decided to start this thing that El Campello is doing called the Tapa-Chupi route.  We've been wanting to do that ever since we got here and today we finally started.  The Tapa-Chupi route is a way to get people to try the food in various restaurants around the city.  You receive a card and when you go to one of the restaurants on the route, you get stamped.  And what you get at each of the restaurants is a little tapa (like an appetizer) and one drink for about 2 dollars.  So, our first try at this turned out good.  We each got a slice of bread spread with dressing and topped with lettuce and an anchovy with a piece of garlic on top.  It was delicious!  And our drink was cinnamon tea.

Next we tried to print our home internet bill at an internet cafe but the website never would load.  So, instead we went to a second restaurant on the Tapa-Chupi route.  At this little restaurant they served two meatballs each and a glass of beer.  The meatballs were good, but I opted for a glass of coke instead.  We ended up eating lunch there and that was also very good.

The weather was still beautiful when we got home so this afternoon we were able to work out in the yard again.  That was nice.

So windy!

It is extremely windy today here.  The day started sunny so I was able to get a load of clothes washed and put on the line.  The wind started picking up while the clothes were hanging up out there, so much so that it even blew a pair of my sweat pants right off the line!  I made sure everything was hanging extremely secure after that.  So, with wind like that, everything dried in good time.  Pretty much by the time I got the clothes on the line, there were so many clouds that there was hardly any sun, but it never did rain.  Which is good.  So, I'm writing this in the evening, and the wind is even WORSE out there.  Those are some really strong gusts out there.  Now those gusts may have whipped that clothes line straight out of the ground!

Today was the day we were going to go to the grocery again, but we went out yesterday to get the newspaper and decided, since we were already out, to just do the grocery shopping then.  When we left the house yesterday, it was raining and it rained almost the whole time we were out.  We were in a hardware store when we heard the rain really pounding the roof, so we hung around in there till it quit.  At the grocery store we took our time, checking out all the aisles and familiarizing ourselves with what the store has.  The name of this store is Carrefour and it's an amazing store.  The prices may be a little higher there, but it sure does offer a wide assortment of just about anything you'd want.

Not much new lately.  The weather has been quite rainy so we haven't been getting out as much.

On Tuesday, Nov. 1, we drove into to Alicante to take care of some business, not realizing that everything was closed for All Saints Day.  Then we tried to go to the grocery store, but that was closed, too.  So, we drove all that way for nothing, except for driving experience to help us get to know the roads.
For supper, we were going to fix a frozen dinner thing in the oven, to test the oven because we hadn't used it yet, but the test failed.  We couldn't get the oven to work, so we microwaved the dish, which turned out to be ok.  So, Tuesday we felt was a very disappointing day.

On Wednesday, Nov. 2nd, we were able to get in market day because fortunately the morning was somewhat sunny and the rains held off till the evening.  I had wanted to take pictures of the market today, but thought it was going to rain, so I left the camera at home.  We'll see how next Wednesday is.

Today, Thursday, we drove back into Alicante even though it was kind of raining and everything was open so we were able to take care of what we needed to take care of.  Then we drove back to El Campello and had lunch at a seaside restaurant which turned out to be very good!