Our bus drove through Valencia this morning, and when I opened my eyes, I thought we had taken a detour to Australia. There were several enormous white buildings placed in a pool of water—one of which looked pretty similar to the Sydney Opera House. Santiago Calatrava was the architect/designer for all of the buildings, and although he is not the same designer of Australia’s Opera House, the similarity of the design was hard to ignore.
Next stop was the Oceonográfico—the largest aquarium in Europe. After wading through droves of Spanish school children, we entered an underwater tunnel surrounded by huge sharks, giant spider crabs, translucent jellyfish, and manta rays that flapped their fleshy wings through the water. After filming an open-mouthed shark overhead, we continued to explore, landing in the arctic exhibit next. Walruses floated lazily through the freezing water while Isnapped pictures until my forefinger throbbed, until I heard a sound so loud I almost dropped my camera to cover my ears.
It sounded like one of two things: either a heavy metal chair being pulled across the ground, or a very disgruntled toddler shrieking. After glaring around the room looking for the culprit, I suddenly noticed it was the albino white beluga whale. More ear piercing calls echoed off the walls, and I finally figured out that the whale was calling to the seal that it was just playing with, who had evidently gone into hiding. I could see why. Covering my ears, I hurried to the other side of the park to catch the dolphin show at noon.