Valencia MotoGP (Part 1)
What a weekend! My first out of London experience and it was for a MotoGP race in Spain! SO GOOD! We flew out from London and arrived to meet our host Juan Jose. Who greeted us with the immmortal line "Are either of you allergic to cats? I have 5." D'oh! He was a fantastic host though and showed us the most incredible hospitality.
Saturday morning was up early and off into Valencia to get some breakfast, the food in Valencia was....interesting (did I say interesting? I meant crap, but more on that later). We found a little cafe in a beautiful plaza, got some breaky and then headed out to the track to catch final qualifying.
We had to catch a train to the track and as we arrived on the platform we realised that other people were going to the race too! It was packed. Then after 5 mins someone said "wait a minute! the train isn't going from this platform! It's that one over there!" so there was a mad rush jumping over train tracks to get to the right train. But we got there window seat and everything.
Being at the track was HOT! I am saying somewhere around 30 degrees! and there was sun!! YAY! and bikes! It was great, except for the drink prices which were as the spanish say "un escandalo!" (scandalous). We watched the bikes, got merchandised to the 9's and then set off in a mad rush to cath the train back to Valencia. Again our train karma was exceptional and as we were first on the train.
As we sat there talking in English and feeling super relieved that the trains had air-con this young guy who was sitting in front of us opened up his backpack and gave us a bag of chilled valencian mandarins! It was such a randomn gesture of kindness that we were a bit shocked but they were the most delicious mandarins I've ever eaten.... the best thing we ate on our trip.
That night we walked around the WHOLE of Valencia looking for a decent paella. A local then told us that paella in the city were rubbish... "but the tapas!" So off we went looking for tapas. Several hours later we settled on what can only be described as "un escandalo". tapas in small breadrolls with even smaller flavour. At least we didn't hang around for the mussels reheated in the microwave.... It was actually a really funny night and Catherine and I were laughing our heads off by the end of it (possibly from something in the tapas). We were ready though, tomorrow was the biggest race of the year!! :D
Saturday morning was up early and off into Valencia to get some breakfast, the food in Valencia was....interesting (did I say interesting? I meant crap, but more on that later). We found a little cafe in a beautiful plaza, got some breaky and then headed out to the track to catch final qualifying.
We had to catch a train to the track and as we arrived on the platform we realised that other people were going to the race too! It was packed. Then after 5 mins someone said "wait a minute! the train isn't going from this platform! It's that one over there!" so there was a mad rush jumping over train tracks to get to the right train. But we got there window seat and everything.
Being at the track was HOT! I am saying somewhere around 30 degrees! and there was sun!! YAY! and bikes! It was great, except for the drink prices which were as the spanish say "un escandalo!" (scandalous). We watched the bikes, got merchandised to the 9's and then set off in a mad rush to cath the train back to Valencia. Again our train karma was exceptional and as we were first on the train.
As we sat there talking in English and feeling super relieved that the trains had air-con this young guy who was sitting in front of us opened up his backpack and gave us a bag of chilled valencian mandarins! It was such a randomn gesture of kindness that we were a bit shocked but they were the most delicious mandarins I've ever eaten.... the best thing we ate on our trip.
That night we walked around the WHOLE of Valencia looking for a decent paella. A local then told us that paella in the city were rubbish... "but the tapas!" So off we went looking for tapas. Several hours later we settled on what can only be described as "un escandalo". tapas in small breadrolls with even smaller flavour. At least we didn't hang around for the mussels reheated in the microwave.... It was actually a really funny night and Catherine and I were laughing our heads off by the end of it (possibly from something in the tapas). We were ready though, tomorrow was the biggest race of the year!! :D
posted by pabs at 4:52 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home