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…
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…
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…
The proprietor stands behind the counter, eyeing us warily. “How many do you want?” he asks. Lisa and I look at each other. “Maybe twenty?” she offers tentatively.
“Is that …” Lisa trails off, never taking her eyes off the contents of the elaborate metal shrine in front of us. “A mummified arm,” I reply. “Yeah.” She is wordless for a moment, staring at the left arm of (according to a nearby placard) St. Vincent the Martyr. Then she looks back to me, as though…
There was no sun in Valencia. Only days and days of rain. Everyone repeatedly told us how rare this was, as though we might find solace in that fact, though I couldn’t figure out the logic behind it. “Bad weather is very unusual here. You must have terrible luck.” “Oh … good?”
Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury
by Geraldine DeRuiter
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