Albufera: Spain or Thailand?

What's great about Northeastern's Dialogue of Civilizations program as opposed to a traditional study abroad is the great weekend excursions they plan for us. This past Saturday, we went on a day trip to El Saler and l'Albufera, a nearby beach and fresh water lagoon. I would never have known about these tiny amazing places otherwise, or have consumed the best paella I will probably ever have. 

El Saler

El Saler is a beach in Valencia about a 30 minute drive from downtown. According to our tour guide, it is where local valencianos go for vacation and a lot of them have summer homes there. It was a beautiful Mediterranean beach with clear blue water and fine white sand. A selfie seemed appropriate in the moment...?

Albufera

This fresh water lagoon and nature park transported us into another land. The rice fields looked like every picture I've ever seen of Thailand and the wildlife was breathtaking. We split the group into 2 boats and drove around the lagoon for a while to take in our surroundings. 

During rice cultivation season, this is covered in rice plants. 

Paella Lunch

Lunch is the biggest meal of the day in Spain, and we took that literally during this excursion. We went to a restaurant in a tiny fishing town on l'Albufera to learn about and eat traditional paella valenciana. Paella is a rice dish with various meats and vegetables, and people take it very seriously here. Traditional Valencian paella has chicken, rabbit and vegetables, while the rest of the country makes it with seafood. The paella they made us yesterday had chicken, duck, sugar snap peas and huge white beans called garrafones.

We got to go up to the roof of the restaurant to see how they make it. It is in a specific cast iron paella pan and they cook it over an open flame. This guy has done this everyday for 20-some years.

They made one ginormous paella for 35 people and let us come and take pictures before dishing it out. Seriously, massive. 

Our meal was incredible. We had tapas first (shared salad, fried calamari, olives), then a huge plate of paella, followed by a shared dessert plate with 3 kinds of cake and fruit. Choice of red, white or rose wine throughout the meal, and they actually served us water (extremely rare in Europe). Insanely amazing meal, and I barely needed to eat at all in the following 24 hours.

Supposedly, there is a way to get back to Albufera on public transportation, so that might become a necessary thing to do in the next 2 weeks. I want to go to that beach all day and just take in the tranquility. Another full week of classes starts again tomorrow! Bring on the Spanish!