Note: We were in Spain last spring, but work on the book meant that I haven’t gotten around to blogging about a lot of the places we visited. In keeping with the better-late-than-never mindset that characterizes much of my life, I’m finally writing about some of the strange and wonderful things we saw. If you want…
In the center of Valencia sits the Palacio del Marqués de Dos Agüas (the Palace of the Marquis of … Two Waters? Wait, is that right? I’m basing this on my high school Spanish, which also inadvertently caused me to proposition someone when I was 16). The building – an ornate and sort of gaudy mansion…
I walked a lot in Spain. Ten or twelve miles on most days, sometimes more, most of it spent walking seemingly with purpose, and yet more often than not there was no specific destination where I was headed. When I ended up at a churro stand at the end of the day, it was COINCIDENCE. (“I…
I’m going to tell you right now: when I visited the Alhambra, I took a lot of photos. Like, a whole lot of them.
If you were unable to guess from yesterday’s post, I’m oddly passionate about sculpture. This is surprising, even to me. If you asked me directly, I’d tell you: God, no, sculpture, ceramics, pottery, all of that is so boring. And yet I find myself buying weird vases and tiny ceramic figurines everywhere I go, and our house…
Do you remember when I told you about Las Fallas? The festival in Valencia where giant sculptures of plaster and wood are meticulously constructed over the course of a year, then rapidly burned down on one Bacchanalian night while crowds of drunken onlookers cheer? Pyromania isn’t really my thing (I’m more self-destructive than outwardly…
Dear Spain, I like you. I truly do. You’re like Italy, but less mafioso-y. I begrudgingly appreciate how entire cities will shut down so that people can take naps. It’s absolute bullshit, and really annoying for tourists, but y’all are like, “FUCK IT! It’s 1pm. Let’s eat paella for 3 hours.” It’s hard not to…
I get to go to a lot of nice dinners. That’s one of the perks of traveling with your husband for his work – I usually get to attend corporate events in fancy places. And then I make fart jokes, because I need to keep it real, you know?
I’ve tried to write about La Ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias (The City of Arts and Sciences) before. It’s a rather remarkable collection of buildings (an aquarium, a science center, conference halls) in the center of Valencia, Spain, architecturally fascinating and utterly unlike anything I’ve seen in my travels. I wanted very much to…
Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury
by Geraldine DeRuiter
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