Grathias Balenthia...

I'm sitting here in our campground outside Valencia (that's "Balenthia" to you...) enjoying the fact that for once at 8pm I'm not still in conference mode schmoozing or at least trying to get back to camp by bus. Yes, my first conference is over (the 4th International Symposium on Highway Geometric Design if you must know) and it was a fairly successful affair; met new acquaintances, improved old ones, and took away some good ideas. But I had two very late (1.30am) nights in a row, the first preparing my presentation (last minute as usual) and the second for our conference dinner that STARTED at 9pm and didn't finish until closer to 1. So I'll be looking forward to an earlier night's sleep tonight.

We were already doing the late night thing regularly, arriving at campgrounds late and eating later, but Spain takes it to a whole new art form. Don't expect the restaurants to even open until 7pm if you're lucky. The other night, after the conference sessions finished at 8pm, I waited ~40 minutes for a bus to show up and didn't get back to camp until 9.30 where I was greeted by five starving people with little in the pantry and patiently waiting for me so that we could go and find a restaurant. And so it was that we found ourselves eating dinner down the road at 11pm...

Unlike France and Germany, English-speaking people haven't been as prevalent here (and we're told to expect the same around the Mediterranean), so our pidgeon-Spanish and sign language have come into play a lot more. But it's generally worked out in the end. It's been an eye opener also observing the traffic behaviour; the massive signalised "roundabouts" have to be seen to be believed (I survived driving through!) and, as a pedestrian, you take the "green man" signal with a grain of salt...

The campground has been a bit of a non-event; I certainly hope that most of our other ones are not still in "quiet" mode ahead of the European summer holidays. It's not so bad for a one-nighter, but four nights was stretching it; I think Di and the kids quite relished being able to escape to town with its wide-ranging shopping centres and tourist activities. Being without constant internet also was a challenge; I've clung to my wi-fi lifeline at the conference venue.

The conference venue at the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias (City of Arts and Sciences) was quite spectacular; I still can't get over the remarkable collection of building shapes and surrounding water-features and parklands. All built along the old river path winding its way through town; truly a wonderful asset to the city.

Now it's time to hit the road again, so it's back to the single-night stays with the next big break in Rome in a week. Roll on!

We've finally downloaded all of our recent pics, so here is one from a few days ago...

On top of the giant Dune de Pilat, near Bordeaux

We reached the Atlantic! (near Bordeaux)

Kids just wanna have fun... (Camping Panorama, Pyla-sur-Mer)

Dressed up for conferencing at the Museum of Sciences, Valencia