I feel viohlayated!

Took the last train to the coast...sorry, couldn't help myself.  Got up a way too early an hour and met everyone at the train station.  When I say that in the morning my legs aren't awake yet, I mean that literally.  This has prompted many an incident-including getting out of bed and falling directly on the floor or walking down the stairs and making it halfway on my own and halfway on gravity.  So, by the time I made it to the train station, i could barely walk.  Seriously.  My host family didn't want to get up so early so she told me I could heat the milk in the microwave for breakfast.  I declined, but regretted it until I purchased "cafe cortado" at the station.  I don't care what ramshackle, fly-by-night operation you are talking about-they have good coffee!  My legs woke up, but not really the rest, unfortunately.  But I digress...We hopped a train this morning for Xativa-pronounced alternately as sha-tiva, sa-tiva or ha-tiva depending on who you talk to!

My host cautioned against "castle fatigue" but that it was worth it to go.  Upon arriving at our stop, we exited the station to about 5 degrees Celsius MORE than Valencia.  Ugh!  We walked a few blocks up to see if there was transportation available to carry us to the top of the mountain and the Roman/Islamic/Visigothic castle fortifications.  Charming streets, wide with lots of tall leafy trees.  If I were a science person, I'd know what kind, but too bad for you, I'm not and I don't.

father of Renaissance's birthplace, and hospital for the poor

 Finding the tourist "train" was like manna from heaven.  It was not ready for us, but we made a date for two hours later and went about our tour.  Walked small winding streets where everywhere you look is pretty enough for a picture.  Even the trash bins are stylish!  Wandered into the church of Alexander something the pope, who basically gave rise to the Renaissance!  Church was dated 1585.  Wow.  That is starting to feel like not that big a deal.  (can I really be saying that???).  since it is ONLY a few hundred years old.  I feel indebted to the pope guy, but not enough to remember his name, unfortunately.  Maybe you can google it.  His birthplace across the plaza looks so Italian!  And had, at moments in the past, been used as a hospital for the poor.  (presumably, not when he was in residence...although maybe that is how he became pope)  :).

the good father...Alexander something

We wandered into a newly restored courtyard, that is, renovated in the 18th century, and prepared ourselves to see art!  Works of art!  I happened to glance around and ended up looking at the Sativa Semillissimo Storefront.  It looked fresh, welcoming, like a place to buy healthy creams and lotions but which, basically, is a place to buy marijuana plant seeds.  Across from the city's cultural patrimony art museum. ( My host family told me it is legal to have and grow in your house, as long as you only have 3 plants, you consume it yourself and you don't let them get too tall!)  Wow, we are not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy!  

Marijuana anyone?

The museum was interesting.  Remember when you were a kid and your parents measured your height in the door frame, and then made a mark to keep forever?  It would have looked something like this: 

 ---Megan, 4' 2" 11 years old

 The courtyard of this place (which was, incidentally, made by the Romans) was used as a grain market.  Each year, beginning in 1611, someone diligently handwrote in pencil, the date, year and price that grain sold for that year.  Every year for about 200 years.  Wow.  (I seem to be saying that a lot here lately, huh?) And someone who restored this ancient palace diligently left that area uncovered so as not to ruin the record.   We returned to the actual museum and began our ascent into what I can only describe as  the realms of hell, with successive storey reversing our place in time, with deeper and darker themes and growing hotter by the second!  I was so glad to see the upside-down painting of a certain king that the people of Xativa loved to hate so I could hot-foot it out of there. :)  The modern art was really well-done, especially the post-civil-war pieces.

we found our way back to the tourist train.  I was so relieved not to have to walk up another mountain that I didn't really care that it looked like an Disneyworld escapee.  ('On the right we have the maidens dancing in the moonlight, while the fairies light up the night')  Got in and waited patiently to be entertained and transported!  Since there really isn't much to see, it sounded a little contrived- on the right you will see a fountain of the kiss...translated into Spanish, Catalan and English that would have been a bad translation on a good day.  Bored, I reached for my handy water flask and took a big drink just as week reached a speed bump.  Let me just say, these speed bumps are only tolerable in this vehicle if one is STANDING.  Seriously, a car accident doesn't feel that bad!  And with half my water bottle down my white shirt, I must say I was refreshed.  It was close to 35 C after all...

Serpentine, hairpin, near-collision turns (I think about 5) later, we reached the BOTTOM of the mountain.  Lovely.  Hopped out and proceeded to climb and climb and climb.  Some absolutely tremendous views, but OMG hot!  This, in conjunction with a band's sound crew doing sound checks for a concert I can only presume was FOR THE WHOLE VALLEY.  Sssssi, sssssi, eh, oh, eh, shhhh, siii, and SO ON AD INFINITUM.  I was so hot and tired and ANNOYED that I decided to take the horrible-worse-than-a-car-accident motorized poor-excuse-for-a-tramtrainthingy back down so I didn't have time to view the other side of the fortress.  I didn't care too much until one of my fellow teachers told me about the latrines.  Yes, folks, I missed a chance to see 2000 year old latrines.  What a let-down.  But by then, it was too late.

The latrine-envy-inspireror then took out her pedometer and shared that we had walked five miles today.  It was only 2:00.  Walking back to downtown, to lunch, to downtown, to train station, to el corte ingles for a purchase I'll speak about in a minute, to the bus stop to my host apartment, I WAS TIRED.  Dragging my sorry feet back to the fourth floor (may I offer my sincerest thanks to the universe that there are TWO elevators.  Functioning elevators.) I glance casually down the hall to number 29, and I see MY TWO GROCERY BAGS in the hall.  I know, I just had trash in them, I know they were just grocery bags, BUT SHE TOUCHED MY STUFF.  She could have looked at WHAT I THREW AWAY.  Those who know me even a little bit, know that you don't TOUCH MY STUFF.  Turns out she took my pile of dirty clothes that I was actually going TO WASH MYSELF at the laundromat and washed them.  (which she is paid to do, btw).  To anyone else, this might seem like a small kindness.  To me, let me just say "I FEEL VIOHLAYATED!"

I can do nothing so, smiling, traumatized, back to the bus stop I go.  Let me tell you a secret, Valencia's buses are circular...that is to say, they don't go in one direction and then return in another but rather, run all over the freaking place so that where you get off may be three blocks east and behind a park and around the store to get back on it to go the other way.  When my dinner buddy didn't make it (methinks she fell asleep???!!!) I sat down in the first restaurant I came to and ate PIZZA.  Yes, I did eat pizza in Spain.  I know.  I DON"T CARE!  At least I wasn't at McDonald's.

So now I sit with the window open and not just a ---size fan, but a full size floor fan that I purchased and put together myself (this is the aforementioned purchase).  I wouldn't say it is cool, but at least the air is moving.  Thank god, but I don't think I'll have trouble sleeping anyway...

In fact, tomorrow, Sunday, is completely free.  I think I'll stay in bed.