On an underground tram to underwater dolphins
If you've read the previous parts, you might have noticed incredible futuristic buildings in the background of the story about the trip to Albufera. This is part of the City of Arts and Sciences, built in the riverbed of the same diverted Turia river. The city has an oceanarium, a science museum, a domed IMAX theater, and other stuff. And they look so stylish. This brings us to the conversation that, according to studies, most people prefer classical architecture over all sorts of modernism. That may be true, but not all modernism is created equal. I don't know if the City of Sciences is modernism, but according to my strictly unscientific poll, people actually really like these buildings, and so do I.
Since I couldn't realize any other plans, and the oceanarium in Valencia is supposedly the biggest in Europe, that's where I headed. I took the metro to the center, walked around the Nord railway station, and went down into an underground tram station called Alacant that's so new even Google Maps doesn't know it. And if my friends hadn't tipped me off, I would have gone the long way around and wasted an extra half hour on the road. This kind of tells us that you can't blindly trust techno-miracles, you might suffer for it. As for the underground tram, it's run by the same Metrovalencia outfit as the metro. But it really is a tram: it eventually comes up to the surface, there aren't many cars, and the speed and distance are small, just up to the City of Sciences.
A visit to L'Oceanogràfic cost around 30 euros. Not cheap, but the place is worth it: the incredible jellyfish of various species alone pay for the ticket. And I also got to see a family of killer whales, my favorite underwater kelp forest, penguins, sea lions getting fed, a huge variety of fish and crabs, and even a dolphin show. It might be unethical, I don't know, but since they're already there, and I'm already here, I don't see the big harm. Dolphins are freaking awesome. I liked this one trick the best. A show participant — a human — dives underwater, and the dolphin pushes them with its nose at breakneck speed, and after they swim the length of the whole pool together, it pushes them out of the water. It looks so cool that you immediately want to do it yourself, especially since I really love the water and swimming. My life experience tells me it's definitely not as easy as it looks.
L'Oceanogràfic definitely made it into my personal top 10 museums, I recommend it.
Sunsets, retrofuturism, and the smell of cannabis
L'Oceanogràfic closes at seven, and I hung out there until just about then. I decided to take a walk back, good thing you can just cruise right along the Turia, where it's nice to stroll. The sunset was incredible, and the retrofuturism of the City of Arts and Sciences looked even more striking against its backdrop. There's a ton of people hanging out nearby: there are fountains, decorative pools, and streetlights. You also catch that same smell from the episode before last here and there, but I wouldn't say it's super frequent.
In case you didn't know, in Spain you can grow cannabis for personal use. The number of bushes isn't specified, but no one really limits it much. Selling, buying, and smoking it on the street is illegal. People who for whatever reason don't like marijuana or LGBT folks, and think that Europe has completely rotted away, should come here and see the life here with their own eyes.
I don't know where else you can see such a number of fit people doing sports. Politeness, again, is ubiquitous here. Before starting any interaction, you absolutely must say "Hola" or "Bon Dia" if you're in Catalonia. Even if you're walking past someone on a deserted street (not in the city center), you have to say hello. Drivers and pedestrians rarely clash, at least I haven't seen it. One time someone called me a name, but I guess I was probably riding the roundabout somewhat wrong. Another time a dude on an electric scooter clipped me, clearly intentionally not slowing down. But I was walking in the bike lane. For the whole rest of the month of my living here, I've seen nothing but a high culture of behavior. Like, an African guy in a Muslim skullcap apologized for blocking my way in the bike lane. An Indian cashier at a gas station watched over my bike on his own initiative, even though I didn't ask him to. It feels like people here get infected with politeness. Even if someone is in the way, people won't aggressively honk at them or tell them off, they'll more likely wait or offer a soft smile. In general, people here often smile at you on the street if, for some reason, you make eye contact and they can't say Hola (for instance, it's too noisy).
Of course, not everything is so perfect. You also run into not-so-pleasant government office workers: at the post office, say, or mask enforcers on public transport. But for every one of those, there's one or more polite ones who genuinely want to help, at least in my experience. I hope it's like this in other parts of Spain too.
But let's put bureaucracy aside, since I'm still walking home from the oceanarium. On the way, I saw amateur drummers rehearsing in a drum circle under a pedestrian bridge, and a sky crisscrossed by a huge number of airplane contrails. At any given moment during the day, there's a plane or two hanging in the sky here, and sometimes four or five at once. Valencia very often appears in lists of the best cities to live in Europe: the climate is good, prices are low, violent crime is low too, all the services are there, and it's easy to drive or fly anywhere. It's so nice here that a ton of people have flocked in. Mostly all sorts of digital nomads, not-poor people, and because of that, apartment prices have skyrocketed. And Spaniards themselves move here for retirement, like Americans to Florida.
Russians are coming too, naturally. An acquaintance of an acquaintance sells them real estate here, says the place is packed with all sorts of beneficiaries of the public trough. Another citizen settles Russians in a cheaper neighborhood, he's not sitting around without work either. The neighborhood is considered sketchy, but with a Russian accent you can live in a neighborhood like that, especially if you emphasize the accent a bit to make it scarier.
Residents of other regions, especially northern ones, think Valencia is a bit boring or a bit poor, but that, understandably, depends on your habits. I generally like that you can just casually jog through the center every evening like this, but I'm a cyclist, and for me 8km is a bit too little. And getting out of the city is hard and takes a long time. Hence the conclusion: until the tanks of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named enter Latvia, I'll be living in my homeland.
Link to the full photo album ( CC-BY-SA )
Walked 7km in four hours (wasn't rushing)
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