My Nomad Diary, Week 3: Home sweet home
Highlights from the week:
Visiting an orange grove
Exploring outside of Valencia city (not a big fan of city life long-term)
Finishing Spanish school
What I’m reading this week:
The Vagabond’s Way: 366 Meditations on Wanderlust, Discovery, and the Art of Travel
It’s another glorious Monday folks and it’s my third and final week of school. I noticed the cold for the first time today (poor me, I know), it’s still around 25 in the day but the mornings are getting chilly.
Anywho, off to school and good news, avid readers, we had a new teacher for our afternoon class which meant everybody had to reintroduce themselves. I can now confirm that Sports Teacher is called Britt.
Other than that, a rather uneventful day at school and I finished up the day with a slow walk home via the butcher to get some Iberian goodness for lunch.
That’s the first time I’ve walked both to and from school on the same day, from the days of averaging less than 100 steps a day post-operation, I’m nearing 10,000 steps a day consistently now, hopefully I’ll get my first run in before I leave this wonderfully flat city 🙏
Tuesday, another day another dollar people, oh man it’s starting to get cold and dark in the mornings now, making it very hard to get up for school. I’m looking forward to next week, a break from school, some time to explore the city more and to get my head down working on my new client. Two weeks tomorrow I head to my next destination for some ASAP (Aperol Spritz and Pasta). For today? Nothing major to report, I’ve started working on my Trip Report for Valencia and compiling a list of my favourite places on Google Maps – honestly, I love creating content; whether it’s making a logo, writing an article or posting sassy snippets on LinkedIn – so it’s certainly an afternoon well spent.
Come Wednesday and I’ve buckled. I’ve finally cracked. I put on a jumper today. Might as well be back in bloody Guernsey, I tell you. Back to school again, three days left, and I’m finally learning about the past tense. That’s right, six months of learning Spanish and I can only talk in the present tense… but this will be a major step forward for my Spanish now! Did you know that there are three main types of talking in the past tense in Spanish? I mean, there’s four in English, so I can’t really complain.
Another day another jumper… Thursday has me thinking it might be time to move on to sunnier climes, more on that soon. My penultimate day at school, I’ve enjoyed what I’ve learned but I’ve had enough of smashing out four hours of Spanish every day, it’s exhausting! It’s quite amusing being back at school after having an ADHD diagnosis, as an adult I now understand why I struggled so hard with school, the temptation to be the class clown will never, ever die. On my way home I finally went for a walk around Mercat Central, which is Valencia’s main traditional market, it’s been too busy with tourists in the past but today it was a bit quieter… and of course I opted for Italian food out of everything on offer.
Finishing up the day with some conversational practice online with somebody from Ecuador and that’s me done for the day.
It’s Friday and my final day of school. Nothing much to report on that front, got my certificate and went on my merry way. I went back to Mercat Central again (I’m a creature of habit) for lunch and I discovered Valencian coca – a local delicacy that’s a bit like a rustic Spanish flatbread. It’s made with a thin, crispy pastry base, sprinkled with sesame seeds, and finished with a savoury filling. Mine was loaded with barbecue chicken, not quite so traditional but guess what I’ll be having for lunch tomorrow.
I finished the day with booking an excursion for Saturday to an orange grove as it’s scheduled heavy rain for the week that follows… oh and I spent €15 on two cookies on Uber eats but LOOK AT THEM. Yes I ate them both, yes I feel violently ill.
Ah the weekend, today I’m venturing outside of the city for the first time to a small town called Carcaixent. I headed to the regional train station, Estación del Norte, quoted as one of Europe’s prettiest stations and boarded a 40-minute train to my destination, which cost €5 for a return ticket. Travelling, like actually travelling, on trains or planes really stresses me out, I’ve done it hundreds of times but I can’t handle it, my brain just stops working, I share this because I’ve found the greatest solution to help me through it and if you find yourself getting anxious with all the hustle and bustle, this might help: noise cancelling earphones with a white noise track playing on your chosen music platform – can’t hear a thing, bliss.
I arrived at Carcaixent train station where I was greeted by Ana from Huerto Ribera, together with a Dutch family we piled into her comically small Citroen C1 and made way for the orchard (“huerto”).
For the next two hours, we learned all about oranges, it’s origins (China, I discovered), the hundreds of varieties of oranges and the three varieties that they grow: two were Midknight and Dulce but the third one I’m not sure, possibly Campbell Late.
Huerto Ribera is home to around 10,000 trees, and everything is grown, picked and packed on-site. Honestly it’s been one of my most enjoyable days since I’ve been here and I’d highly recommend a visit if you’re ever in the area. I did a quick video tour, here.
At the end of the tour we visited the farm shop, I stocked up on goodies after feeling guilty about eating pretty much all of their free samples and headed back to the city. Wrapped up the day with a quick Spanish lesson online and that’s me done.
Oh! Almost forgot… I found out that there’s a Game of Thrones location nearby and for those that know me, I’m obsessed with visiting GOT filming locations, so that’ll be covered in next week’s entry 🥳
My final day of the week and oh em gee you guys, I went shopping. Which is a miracle in itself as I am a devout online shopper, I haven’t been in-person shopping in literally years.
One of the key things about nomadding is letting go of a lot of your material possessions and I LOVE my clothes, honestly you won’t find a guy with more clothes than me. So when I had to part 7 black sacks and two suitcases of clothes, I was distraught.
But I realised I went a little too far and I don’t really have enough staple items, so I got some basic essentials from Primark and H&M. The best part of the experience is that the clothing stores have self check-outs where you can remove the security tags. Which is an absolute dream because I still sweat profusely with new Spanish interactions, yes I can order a coffee in Spanish but what happens if the retail worker asks if I have a loyalty card or want to give to a charity… or some other unknown sentence I can’t translate yet. Noooo thank you.
Finished the day with a quick lesson with my Spanish teacher, Yuri, and then I sat on my sofa and watched TV (Wild Horses, if you must know). And for me, this was the moment where I said to myself, “this is home”. It’s taken three weeks but I feel like this is my place now and I’ve really gotten into a routine. Typical that I have one week left here.
Next week? Lots of adventures as I have no school, don’t forget to tune in next week! 📻
