Vamos a Valencia!

24 Sept 2011
We arrived in Valencia at about 9:20 AM this morning--having taken the 7:21 AM train from Alicante. We caught the metro in Valencia--which was actually pretty neat. They have some really beautiful mosaics at some of the station. Plus, the metro has some adorable cartoon mascots.

These indicate which are the fast/slow lanes. Aren't they cute?

Soon we met up with the other Fulbrighters! Since most of us were pretty tired, it was decided that a trip to Starbucks was in order before heading over the City of Arts and Sciences. La ciudad de las artes y las ciencias (the City of Arts and Sciences) is a set of museums located in the park in Valencia. The park is absolutely gorgeous. Apparently, the park was once a river that ran through Valencia. However, the river was diverted because of terrible flooding in 1957.
So now the park is a great place for people looking to run or bike and tourists wanting to visit some interesting museums.

Apparently, the City of Arts and Sciences was only built 10 years ago as a way to try to draw tourists to Valencia. All in all, it includes an oceanographic center (i.e. aquarium), a science museum, an art museum, and an opera house. Since there are so many museums to see and not enough time to see them all, we decided to the Oceanographic.
The Oceanographic actually has Europe's largest aquarium. We were able to see seals, penguins, sharks, beluga whales, AND DOLPHINS!
We waited a while for the dolphin show, but it was worth the wait. The pre-show announcer was hilarious. He chose 6 children to be volunteers for the show. However, in order to choose 3 of the children, he made the parents dance to Don Omar's song Danza Kuduro (which is super popular here! check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zp1TbLFPp8). The parent with the "best"dance could choose a kid to be in the show. Let me tell you there were some very "talented" dancers amongst the dads...