Returning to Valencia from last year to run the half marathon again – last year it didn’t count towards the SuperHalfs collection so I had to return and run it again to get the “necessary” medal.
The flight was uneventful apart from the part where I had a 4+ hour layover in Frankfurt. Fortunately it turned out the lounge had food that was surprisingly good so time was spent eating that (and making sure everything was good) while enjoying the view of the apron outside. This meant I didn’t get to check into the hotel until the evening after dark so I hadn’t planned to do anything on arrival. I still ended taking a walk down to and around the aquarium, tech museum, IMAX theater and stage to once again enjoy the illuminated buildings in the night. They are so peculiar so I’d say they are always worth a look in the dark.
The following day I headed out to the runners’ expo. As opposed to last year it wasn’t located in the starting area for the run, instead it was now in a conference building a fair bit further away in the opposite direction (I assume this is where it usually has been, but due to Covid it had been moved out into the open temporarily). So I wandered off, passing through a large part of the park surrounding the central city area and through an older part of the city further north with a lot of small random streets which kept you on your toes, I was keeping an constant eye on the map to make sure I wasn’t suddenly going off in a completely wrong direction.
Arriving at the expo there weren’t a lot of people so getting my number and goodie bag was a smooth process. And the goodie bag surprised me just like last year with regards to how much stuff they put into it. Leaving the expo I returned to the center via a different path – part of it brought me out along a road without sidewalks going through what looked like onion fields. A slightly different view from the old buildings lining narrow streets. I ended up walking around a bit and booking a table for dinner before returning to the hotel for an hour’s break before returning for dinner – paella was obviously on the menu. And the smallest portion was “for 2” so yup: delicious.
The following day I went to the IMAX to watch a movie about the Amazon jungle and a British explorer exploring it in the 1800s. I wasn’t too impressed – it seemed more like a movie filmed normally and converted to IMAX; I didn’t really see it using the strengths of the IMAX Dome format. From there I visited the aquarium, apparently the largest in Europe. It’s a large open area with various buildings spread out containing the pools and aquariums, with also a few pools outside. With regards to size it did seem larger than many others – my impression is that aquariums usually are contained within one large building with limited outside areas. A large part of the out door space was taken up by the dolphin show stage, and lots of cafes and restaurants. Nothing bad per se but overall it didn’t feel as good as advertised. It felt a bit like quantity over quality.
I left and continued trotting around town before finding a place for dinner. I managed to finish in a timely manner so I returned to the IMAX Dome to watch the “Secrets of the Universe” which sounded promising and that it would compensate for the disappointing experience I had with the Amazon movie. It turned out to be a dry CERN documentary about when they tried, according to the sceptics, to create a black hole and flashbacks to scientists who made big & important discoveries. The headphones had various languages, but they mounted on your head in a way they didn’t sit close to your ears which meant that you could actually hear the sound from others’ headphones, all different languages. Also, there was a delay of almost a second between the visuals and audio which made it so much more frustrating.
I had hoped to watch something that made me forget the previous movie – instead the second movie made the first so much better.
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