Oh la la

Today was our second day in Valencia!

It was an amazing day and such great experiences.

We started off with a very yummy breakfast. Just something small from the hotel. Then we got onto the coach and made our way to the arts and sciences center. We took a glance at the science museum. For me I had a lot of fun in there because of my love for science. I spent a lot of time in the exhibits since a lot of them were interactive. The first floor you were able to do a lot of interesting activities with learning about your body and muscles and then you could even perform "surgery". This consisted of just taking a ball and watching it on the screen and being able to transfer one thing to another spot in the body. The next exhibit was all about famous Spanish Nobel prize winners. I had a feeling that a certain someone would be there and of course he was right there! Ramon y Cajal had a whole exhibit just for himself. He did a lot of work with histology and mapping out the body and their neurons. We spoke a lot about him during my first neuroscience classes. It was really cool to see some of his original sketches and to see the work he did. He proposed that neurons were separated and had the most accurate idea of them however he could not actually prove it because of technology but then it became clear that he was right when they could finally look at the neurons. The next exhibit was about space and dealing with the particles in the world. I really liked this portion because it reminded me a lot of my love and interest for space when I was a little kid. Afterwards we got ready to leave.

But we had one more stop. There was a Pixar exhibit going on in the museum. I knew I wanted to go and a few other people did too and we had the ability to take some time and go in! It was so cool. We saw some of the original drawings for Up, Toy Story, Cars, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, A Bug's Life, Wall-e, and Monsters Inc. It was so amazing to be able to see some of the ingeniousness that went on in the world of Pixar. My favorite part had to be the Incredibles portion just because I love that movie. However there were moments where I felt like I relived my childhood because of the movies that they had. I haven't seen A Bug's Life for example in such a long time. It was just so cool to see all of that.

Then we moved onto the next museum. The Museu Faller. This museum was dedicated to a special ceremony that the people of Valencia hold every year in mark of St. Joseph. It is a festival for a few days that is started out earlier and created way before that time. The people will create sculptures and make these giant wooden frames with other materials added and on the day of St. Joseph they will burn them down. It is a symbol of cleansing the soul and being able to get rid of all the negatives in life. A lot of the different sculptures are made to represent different political figures or other satirical matters. The museum had all of the pieces that had been saved throughout the years and were not burned down. Some were interesting and I could kind of piece together why they were made but others were just really awesome to look at. Overall it was a very interesting museum and something that is very important to the people of Valencia.

Afterwards we made our way to a place on the beach for some lunch. We started our meal with a lot of different types of food. I think one plate had some sort of type of squid on it, we had patatas bravas as well. There was also calamari and some muscles that were passed around as well. Then we had some more paella! I had a seafood paella which was really good. Then afterwards they gave us some cream puffs. I really enjoyed the meal but I was so stuffed afterwards. Which was good because I could lay out on the beach and just relax! It was such a nice day. Originally it was not as beautiful but the sun came out just in time for us to relax on the beach. The waves were a little more rough today but it was fun to go out and swim for a little. Afterwards we got back on the bus and went home.

After that my friend and I went for a walk around the Valencia streets and did some shopping. We had fun window shopping and looking at the differences in clothing and what they sell here. We then stopped for some tapas for dinner. We had one that had potatoes and a fried egg, more patatas bravas, and some calamari. Then we came home!

It was such a long day but one that was so worth it and fun! Tomorrow we go to the best aquarium in Europe and then head back to Barcelona. I am thankful for this weekend trip I feel like I got to meet more people on my program and just have an awesome time overall.

Until tomorrow!