Europe part 1 - Valencia

I left Canada August 26th, then headed to london for the day, then Spain! I arrived in Valencia on August 27th, and stayed about 6 days.

My first 2 days in Valencia can be summed up in the attached 2 pictures.

The first is the wine festival we went to in Requena the night before Tomatina. Basically, they had bands, and a wine truck. You bring your own bottle or cup, and they give you free wine, then you parade through the streets of town. And then the locals fill up buckets of water and throw them out the window at you. Because it's hot and that's funny. Oh, and it starts at midnight. Most random thing ever. But soo much fun.

The second one is Tomatina. Actually, I didn't like Tomatina so much. This may be due to the fact I had 2 hours sleep and no food after the wine festival. It may be because we decided to follow this crazy American we knew into the densest crowd I have ever been in, instead of following my instinct and going down a side street. Whatever. The combination of crowd, no food, sun, and heat, meant I spent 99% of the 2 hours there trying to breathe in the crush. It was pretty awful just in the crowd, THEN, they drive truck full of tomatoes into them. There's moments where I was sure the pressure of bodies was going to make me break a rib, and a few times where I almost fainted. But finally, the water canon fired, and the tomatina was 'officially over' and people started leaving. THEN, we could breathe, and THEN we went to throw tomatoes. The picture is taken after that. I look a little pale still though.