TEAM RED BULL WINS!

I slept a FULL 11 hours, interrupted about every hour by the party going on in the street – I have no idea what the occasion was, but whatever.  I slept until 11:30, and that’s all that matters. I drug myself to the train station, and stopped by a “Farmacia” on the way to the track to get some ibuprofen for my stuffy head and headache – yep, I am a self-proclaimed wuss when it comes to headaches.  No lyin’. 

It’s ok – the race was very exciting.  Although it was pretty obvious that Vettel from the Red Bull team was going to win (he had been finishing first pretty much the whole time in practice and qualifying), it was still kind of a toss-up to see who was going to finish 2^nd thru 6^th.  Spain was quite disappointed that Fernando Alonso on Team Ferrari took second, and ended up playing a sad song about losing things you can never get back after the race.  Lol.  Wow.  Whatever – Alonso is a great driver and will win eventually. 

I think this was Alonso

Yet another fountain

We then went toward our apartment, trying to find the Burger King we had seen on the way to the track that morning, but after walking about a mile, decided we couldn’t find it, got back on the train and stopped at a mom and pop place for a cheeseburger on the way home.  We made coffee, charged up our technological devices and went to find internet to figure out life.  Then we made our way toward Old Town, which was beautiful.  Rental bikes got us there – I’m telling you, rental bikes are a FABULOUS way of public transportation.  The U.S. should definitely jump on this bandwagon – exercise and transportation for cheap!  We saw lots of old buildings, ran into this parade/party thing at an old church – refer to pictures.  It was a HUUUUGE deal for these Valencians! Old men in fake beards/hair, little girls in white dresses, the Spanish Military…

another burger for lunch.

First 5 hour energy EVER.  I only drank half.  Yick.

Gate to Old Town

I love detail

Pope John Paul parade or something?

David y Fountain

Cassie y Fountain

Fountain @ night

WE FINALLY FOUND THE BURGER KING!  Not as good as the American Burger King, by the way.  We also passed a Starbucks.  And a McDonalds.  GO USA  for fattening food!  We ended up at an Irish Pub, Finnegans, at which most people spoke English!  It was so refreshing to be able to have a conversation with a group of people in this city.  We met 4 British guys who were here for the Race, and they were hysterical.  They kept teasing me about preserving rocks, we chatted about politics, the war, tattoos, a little bit about their work (2 of them worked together as debt collectors – YIKES!!!!!! It was like meeting the English Mafia or something!), and where they were vacationing after this – Florida, Egypt, etc…

Carnival type space in the old original riverbed, now a park.

I got my smoothie fix!

NOT happy. 

British guys.

Rode the bikes home, washed some clothes, passed out around 3 AM.  Full and fun day – last full day in Valencia.  :-(

Formula EH en Espana

After going to to sleep late, David woke up at the crack of dawn, as excited as a little child on Christmas morning, waiting to get to the race track. We took the train then the subway to pick up our tickets at a random building near the modern part of town, then booked it to the track, found our seats and watched practice round 1.  I pretty much immediately liked Team Ferrari and Team Mercedes (Petronas) because of their control around the tight turns.  The cars were soooooo loud, so the orange earplugs were essential – I think I still shaved off some hearing potential for when I’m 60 years old though…

Why Thank you very much.

Lunchtime was to be had on the beach though… we went to this charming place for burgers, which had fried eggs on them – weird, but actually pretty good.  And I don’t even like fried eggs!  They had cool bathrooms too.  I like these kinds of things – pretty sinks make me happy. :-D Although we did not go to the waterfront, we enjoyed it from afar. 

MMMMM

ticket to F1 on the BEACH

Practice session 2 after lunch was about the same – more fast vehicles going around on a track. Lol no just kidding – I actually really got into it. So were the Spaniards – they were really rooting for their homeboy, Fernando Alonso on Team Ferrari. 

Trying to get home was very exciting – we took detours, ended up in this HUUUUUUGE department store that was about 8 stories tall and had EVERYTHING.  It was like a shopper’s paradise.  We went into this awesome pseudo outdoor mall that had a market in the lower floor (at which we bought this yogurt/milk drink that was actually quite delicious, and 2 white chocolate bars), and a great view of the modern architecture in the old riverbed.  I’m just going to show you the pictures of that stuff – way too awesome to ruin with words.

view from sweet mall

notice the flippy floppys

This is now my desktop background, btw.

love this one too

epic bridge

Bike Ridin'

Then we got a bike pass and rode bicycles back to our apartment, north of Old Town.  Internet café to figure out how we were getting to Munich, a midnight snack at a random bar, and then half of Ironman 2 before we fell asleep at like, 2 AM.  T’was a good day. :-D

Cheers!

Popular beer - pretty good

I have no idea, but it was good too...