The €8 ice cream cone

We toured the Caves of St. Joseph in the nearby town of Vall de Uxó this past weekend. One of those activities we had been waiting for a car to get to, this one did not disappoint. With my Spanish host family in town after Thanksgiving, we decided to give it a whirl. Fun facts about these caves: they contain the largest subterranean navigable river in Europe, which goes so far inward that nobody has yet been able to trace its origin inside the cave. They have been known for over 15,000 years, and of course maintain a constant temperature

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This is what I’ve always wanted . . . right?

One of the middle-class, Midwestern American staples we decided to forgo in Spain is dependence upon an automobile. Yes, we occasionally rent cars – and I’m confident Doer will have more to say about these adventures in the near future. For the most part, however, I’ve come to rely upon other modes of transportation. And for the most part, I’ve been happy with this. We’re very fortunate that we were placed in a city that’s on a commuter train line, which can easily bring us to other train lines and even to an airport (with a little help from a metro

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Spain, where a medieval walled village is just a short bike ride away

Last Saturday Doer and I explored the walled medieval town of Mascarell in our province of Castellón. This tiny hamlet is one kilometer from Nules, the municipality neighboring our own city, Burriana, and we reached it after riding about 25 minutes along a bike path, a route which took us past ceramic factories and orange orchards – the latter are about as common in the autonomous Valencian Community as corn fields are in Nebraska (maybe even more so). We encountered scores of other bicyclists along the way, leading me to safely assume that cycling through the countryside is a common weekend pastime here. The history

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Diary of a Bus Ride

Though there are many cultural differences between Spain and the U.S., for me the one of the biggest changes may be living without a car. Plenty of Spaniards have cars, of course, but for us it doesn’t seem worthwhile to buy a car for one year. The paperwork alone – ay. Thus, Doer and I have been walking a lot more, I bought a bicycle, and we’ve been using public transportation. The trains between our town and other cities are fantastic, but up until recently we had not mastered the other big source of public transportation here – the autobús.

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