A beautiful Valencia month

Our introduction to life in Spain has been wonderful. The weather has been unseasonably warm for our first month. The bureaucracy (getting NIE foreigner identification numbers and social security paperwork) is a maze in Spain!

In this age of food blogging, I thought I'd start with saying how amazing the food is, although even with a basic knowledge of Spanish it is hard to know what is on the menu because of the many many different words for meats. I will follow that up with a photo of the hams available at a local grocery store:

I also have to say a little something about paella, because Valencia is associated with paella. The first photo is of a new friend cooking for us and introducing us to the specific machinery required to make paella at home on Sundays, as many families here do every week.

Here is a photo of us holding Julio Cesar's homemade paella (we had no part in making it, only in being impressed!)

You can also buy paella out, but it is more difficult to find restaurants that serve it cooked over wood, the traditional way with a whole paella per table.

Pans and propane paella cookers (yes, they have their own apparatus) are for sale everywhere, here is an example of a stall outside the main market:

Now that I've had my food bit, generally the city is lovely and full of old buildings and parks and an almost unbelievable number of patios! Here are a couple of pictures:

This first picture is of the city hall, which faces an equally impressive post office

 This fountain is located in the same square as the city hall

Another wonderful plaza, where all kinds of folks meet and hang around is outside the old cathedral, a plaza full of many tourists but also locals on the weekends

Here is a cute patio, like many others in the city

I love parks. Valencia used to have a river flowing through the city but due to the flooding they diverted it and there is now an 8km long park, full of soccer pitches, playgrounds, bike and running paths, and generally a wonderful green place to be. One of the playgrounds is Gulliver's travels, and while it's true form is best seen using google maps, here is a view of it from a bridge:

The last plug I will put in this blog post is about a recent complex designed by the Spanish architect Salvatore Calatrava (who I first discovered from his winged art gallery in Milwaukee). The complex is huge and spectacular, even if one of the buildings is seriously underused at the moment. I love walking around the grounds. Here are some photos which don't capture it well, but do give an idea of what it is like.