The Christmas Holiday Report

As all reports should be in the environment in which I am to work (European politics), so is this report: late! But still, I'd like to tell you a little about the Christmas holiday, if it's not for you, then it's for me so I will remember these delicious times in the future. On Wednessday 20th December my Mom arrived in Valencia, in part to help with the preparations to receive the rest of the family, and in part because flights were a lot cheaper on that date. I still had class the rest of the week, but as my Mom is already familiar with the city, she got around by herself while I was on campus. On Saturday morning my brother and father arrived, and holidays and tourism could officially begin! We took a stroll through the city, had tapas at Sagardi, a very good tapas bar, and went to see a flamenco show, on the first row! The woman danced with such fervor that she was scary in some bits! A good flamenco dancer can be so impressive...

On Sunday 24th we visited the Mercado Central, la Lonja, the Cathedral; the works. We had lunch in a cerveceria that serves 100 different mini sandwiches! Then we took the bus to Ciutat de les Arts y Ciències to visit the Science Museum, of which I had been told it would be open on the 24th. Indeed, it had been open on the 24th... in the morning. Luckily Valencia is such a versatile city that you can make up a plan B in no time. So we just walked back to the city through Turia park and had a coffee at Mercado Colón. We still climbed the Cathedral tower and saw the sunset from up there, and watched the lights of Valencia as the night descended. On Christmas eve we had a meal of Spanish cheeses, Spanish jamón and chorizo, and bread.

On Christmas day my father and Thomas went to visit the America's Cup port, my Mom occupied the kitchen with her brand new paella pan and the recipe we got from the paella pan sales woman in the Mercado Central, and I went to the airport to pick up my aunt Anita from Rio! Now the family was as complete as it would get this holiday! We had the best paella ever at my apartment and exchanged Christmas gifts afterwards. Then we went to visit the Science Museum (which oddly enough did open on Christmas day) and had great fun measuring our blood pressure, checking our reflexes and more (and supposedly learning while doing all those things, if we had read the texts accompanying the activities). Then we took the bus to the city centre and had a horchata at one of the two centuries-old horchaterias in town, Santa Catalina. And that was Christmas...

On the 26th Dad and Thomas returned home, because as Thomas is in his first year of university, he had to start studying for his first exams. I actually don't quite remember what we did the rest of the day... Old age, it must be... After all, I'm 22 now. :-p At night, we saw a flamenco show, but this time, the dancer was a man, really impressive!

On Wednessday morning my aunt, Mom and I visited the Mercado Central, la Lonja, la Plaza Redonda - once again: the works and had lunch in Cacao Sampaka, a chocolate store annex restaurant, where you can have a menu that consists of a salad, a sandwich and assorted chocolates with the most exquisite fillings, like violets or cinnamon. Then my aunt and Mom visited the Oceanografic, which is the aquarium of the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, while I went back home to... study. Yep, I have exams in January and I better start preparing for them...

On Thursday we went back to the city centre to go shopping! (Which is inevitable if you leave 3 women with a creditcard in a foreign city.) We had lunch at the Cerveceria 100 Montaditos and walked all across the Turia park to burn the calories afterwards. At night, we had dinner in La Vintara, one of my favourite tapas restaurants. After dinner, we took a stroll to see the city by night, and on the Plaza de la Virgen there was a young girl dressed like a 'fallera' posing for a brochure of falla organizations. The clothes she is wearing are the typical Valencian clothes worn on festivities like, for example, las Fallas.

On Friday, my aunt took a plane to Madrid, and Mom and I took one back home. It was good and weird at the same time to be back home. I suppose it's because I have changed a lot in these last few months, but home hasn't, excluding the fact that I left Belgium in the greeness of summer and came back to it in the greyness of winter. But it is home, what can I say? No matter how comfortable you feel being abroad, coming home has got something to it which is hard to explain. As I really needed to start studying with a certain degree of seriousness for my exams in January, the days I spent at home were not very exciting. But they didn't need to be, just being home was such a pleasure that I feel I should write about it with the same excitement with which I write about every new discovery I make in Spain.

I spent New Year's Eve in the kitchen with Kobe and his grandmother, making home made tortellini with experimental fillings. It's a lot of work, but fun to do. It makes me remember Play Doh, the colourful clay I used to play with. After a lot of work, the tortellini look like this:



Kobe and I were planning to go to Mechelen to see the fireworks, but the weather was stormy and a lot of firework spectacles were cancelled, so we decided to stay in and celebrate the new year –once again- in front of the TV with a glass of fruit champagne.

The rest of the days I spent as I described above… Making successive efforts at studying…

On Friday the 5th I returned back to Valencia. Before getting on the plane I wondered again what I was doing over there, in a place with no family, only new acquaintances (friends?), an empty apartment awaiting me… but as soon as I got off the plane I somehow knew again what it was that I came here to do. Just don’t ask me whát exactly. I know, and that’s enough.

And that’s the end of the Christmas Holiday Report.