Hello all.

Valencian life is treating us well. I don´t even care about the hot weather, despite no air conditioning. John says this is very much unlike me.

I guess I have to agree.

Today, we went on a long walk, using the maps provided by the Tourist Office at the train station, after going on our usual trek to get some traveller´s cheques changed. Although TCs are safer than cash, and the American Express ones come with some nifty side benefits, the hassle is still ever-present. John is particularly shocked by it, because the last time he travelled, traveller´s cheques were all you did use. Many banks don´t change them at all, so it is a matter of finding a bank, getting directions to the bank that does change them, finding that bank, finding the exchange, and changing the cheque. (The cheques came with the helpful advice that we should shop around for the best exchange rate - that could take days, and a fleet of highly trained, multilingual financial geniuses with GPS tracking systems.)

Actually, I am exaggerating, and traveller´s cheques are still part of the financial arsenal of the traveller. However, when it comes down to the wire, it has just been easy to pop my bank card into a ATM and get local currency. I´m sure everyone reading this is aware of this, but I just thought I´d stomp on my soapbox. I´m still giggling over the memory of going to Laura to England, and going into a NatWest (a big, central, major bank in England) and giving the teller a traveller´s cheque to change. The girl looked at the cheque, looked at Laura, and then had to go get her manager to identify the piece of paper Laura had given her.

Laura: "It´s a traveller´s cheque."
Teller: "A what?"
Laura: "A traveller´s cheque. You change it."

In the immortal words of Bart Simpson, aye carumba.

Our walk in Valencia today took us through the Central Market of Valencia (a gourmet and a gourmand paradise) and also to two ancient churches. We did not go inside these churches, John is wearing shorts. The public library of Valencia, a former mental hospital (not unlike McLennan-Redpath, which is an insane asylum) is very pretty, as is much of Valencia. We also passed the bullring, identifiable by the strong smell of bulls going to the bathroom, which was in use yesterday evening for the bullfights.