Being a Kid Again

So I have neglected to mention the coolest part about Valencia for a reason. Tori and I saved the "City of Arts and Sciences" for Monday, so that we could have all day to tour the two museums we wanted to see-- L'Oceanográfic and El Museu de Lex Ciéncies Principe Felipe. The City of Arts and Sciences is known more for its architecture than what it houses--even though both are spectacular. The architecture is stunning and can't be fully explained in words (that's like a theme for this weekend, haha). Every building is extremely modern and so unique. Anyway, after a quick visit to the huge market in the center of town, we headed to the Oceanography museum. This museum was one of the coolest museums I have ever been to. It is the largest of its kind in Europe and contains 45,000 animals as well as 500 different species representing regions from all over the world. We began our tour walking underground and looking at the incredible array of fish displayed. They were some of the most colorful, ugliest and goofiest looking creatures I have ever seen. We saw everything from Angel fish to sea-horses to fluorescent jellyfish. And this was just the tropical/ temperate seas part of the exhibition. After these aquariums, we continued to the marshlands area, where we saw some massive fish, turtles and goofy-looking flat-billed birds. We then carried on to the shark aquarium. These sharks were so cool to see swimming around. Some of them were up to 13 feet long! It felt like you were swimming with these animals. After the sharks, we walked through the Arctic/Antarctic House where I saw the first Beluga whale I have ever seen (sparking to memory "Baby beluga in the deep blue sea, you swim so wild and you swim so free..."- I am sure you remember that George family). They looked like giant blobs of blubber with baby faces; adorable. We also watched the penguins goof around for about 5 minutes- watching them swim like torpedos and then launch themselves out of the water onto the surrounding rocks, hahaha. After the penguins, we checked out the Dolphinarium where the dolphins were relaxing before their big shows for the day. We were able to catch one of these shows (after our visit to the science museum- sorry for the chronological mess). I have never seen an animal so freakin' cool. At one point, I leaned over to Tori and said if I came back to this world, I would want to be a dolphin. Who wouldn't is my question?! I haven't even included everything in this museum, but it was amazing to say the least.

After L'Oceanográfic (but before the Dolphin show, remember) we went to the Science Museum down the street. This building is constructed to resemble the appearance of a whale's skeleton (although I didn't see it). Of course, the science museum was my idea and how cool it was!! We didn't even have enough time to see it all, but we tried. We started learning about climate and weather-- everything from the "greenhouse effect" to tornados to solar energy. From here, we walked through the Drugs exhibit and learned about the effects of alcohol, cocaine and other drugs on the human body. Did you know that your vision is like that of a caterpillar after 6 drinks? Next, we fought our way through the Chromosome Forest where we learned about the functions of different genes on different chromosomes. For example, we tested areas such as our leaping ability (I won of course) and our body fat percentage (Tori won of course). It was all too much to soak in. After this, we headed downstairs to the Superheroes exhibit. Here, we played around like 7 year olds--- climbing on walls like Spider-Man, screaming like the Hulk, and testing our strength against Magneto. We wrapped up our visit quickly in order to catch the Dolphin show, thus ending an amazing day (and weekend) in some of the three coolest cities I have been to yet!!