En route: memoirs from Valencia

There's a kind of feeling, or fear, that you must do something before it's too late. Or when you still have time for it. That thought awakened in my head 3 years ago, when, still as a student, I dropped my job and decided to spend 8 months abroad. I applied for a summer job in the States and a student exchange program in Spain.

The previous travel diaries recall the memoirs from the States. Now time for Spain, where I found myself just one day after coming back from beyond the ocean.

Missed flight, two continents, home for one day - the mix of feelings caused an emotional destabilization and night full of tears. But I needed to go further the next day.

When I arrived in Valencia, with a suitcase wider and heavier than a wardrobe, I just had one room-to-rent meeting settled. Even though I didn't communicate with the flat owners on proper levels, I had to take the room, otherwise I'd end up homeless at least for one night. The location, El Cabanyal, was quite away from the university and students-free, but the plus was, it was just a 5-minute walking distance from the see and suited somehow my need for solitude. I spent there 3 months, and it was a life-changing time for me in terms of emotional maturity and self-knowing. For the remaining time in Valencia, having got familiar with the city and its different sides, I finally moved to another flat, situated in heart of the Old Town, El Carme.

Personal connotations: painting a portrait, jardines around the city, Mediterranean cuisine, a smell of jasmine, flamenco, vegetable market, morning coffee and cigarette, Nosferatu with live piano, dancing up states of mind, drawing, having a diner with strangers, hearing a piano from an apartment nearby.

Home by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros