The Men of Valencia

I took a short (less than 24 hours in the city) trip to Valencia this weekend and one thing stood out more than all others about Valencia, the men.

Everyone that we encountered was overly nice, talkative and friendly, even if it was sometimes creepy. This "friendliness" of sorts, was severely exaggerated when it came to the men of Valencia.

Firstly, there was an old man who came up to my roommate and I and talked to us in Spanish about how pretty we were and how we should forget about our boyfriends while in Valencia for a good 5 minutes. During the 5 minutes, an American family came up to us to ask for directions, we told them we were just visiting too and they left. On reevaluation of the situation, we think they might have been attempting to save us from the awkward situation, we were too naive.

Our second encounter was with a man in a jewelry and craft store. He insisted on fastening my bracelet and also fitting me with a scarf (although he was a creepy salesman, I mostly enjoyed the small talk).

A third man came up to my roommate and I, kissed our hands and tried to talk us in to coming to the beach...that was a definite "no." This encounter I enjoyed the least, actually I can say, I didn't enjoy this at all, I'm not really okay with anyone laying a dirty teeth kiss on my hand, much less a stranger in the street in Valencia.

Finally, the best, was our waiter at the restaurant we chose for dinner. We had picked this restaurant because they offered paella, an appetizer, dessert and sangria all for 11 euros, a pretty good deal. We sat down and the first thing the waiter did was take our drink order, my roommate ordered a glass of wine and the waiter replied "sure." She took this to mean "are you sure," and got almost a little sassy with the confused waiter until I explained that he was just affirming that she had ordered wine. Next, he brought us an extra basket of bread (which we were a little nervous he would charge us for, but we couldn't resist). Our three appetizers came out one by one, salad, patatas bravas, and calamari. When our waiter realized that we didn't eat the calamari, he brought us an extra plate of patatas bravas.

I realize you might be thinking this is normal service, but in Barcelona, the service is pretty much non-existent, we would never be offered a substitute appetizer or extra bread.

Finally, we received our paella, and dessert and ate them both happily. After we had finished all of this food, we began to notice that all of the tables around us had been cleared and new people were being seated, but we still hadn't received our check. We started to try to make eye contact with our waiter, but he was very clearly ignoring us. After multiple tries and about 30 minutes, we decided that we would start to stand up and wave so that he would know we were finished. Maybe he had simply forgot our check. When we did this, he just waved back, so my roommate, annoyed by the uncertainty, said "our check." Our waiter continued to smile and wave while shaking his head no and motioning for us to leave.

That's right, we received a meal for FREE! We were astonished because we hadn't even been overly nice, talkative, or honestly even that clean (we had taken a 5 hour train earlier that day).

It was a wonderful day full of attention (whether wanted or unwanted). Valencia, I'll be back!