I’m off to Valencia. I’ve never been before and it’s 50 years at least since I was in Spain. The journey is part holiday and part Ingress Anomaly. Ingress is an Augmented Reality Game (ARG), which I’ve been playing for a number of years now and which I’m using as the basis for the ole’ PhD. One day (maybe two) will be battling  for my team on the global battlefield, and the rest will be rest.

I wrote the message above before we left on the 30th October. We heard there had been heavy rain. People at the airport were happy enough but as our flight time approached there was increasing concern as I was seeing messages from friends already there that roads were closed and they were having to walk from the airport. The flight took off as planned but staff began talking about the metro system being totally closed … No taxis… City buses may or may not be running…

We arrived to find a queue for taxis which stretched back for hours (talking to people in the queue). Thankfully we snagged an Uber within minutes and made the city and our apartment just before 10 pm. Our hosts were very concerned and very confident that the trip we had planned by train out of the city was not going to happen. Local government information suggested we would be ok at that time.

Then we caught the news.

Waking up in a beautiful restored historical monument of a home in a city searching for it’s own was surreal. The historic centre of Valencia was totally dry and safe thanks to Franco having drained the river years before in case of just such an emergency. This was not something local people wanted to acknowledge had saved lives. We wandered the streets a little dazed. How do you act as a tourist when people are dying just a few miles away? What could we do? Of course the obvious thing was to leave and let the people get on with repairing their city. Naturally flights were booked up and also (naturally) the scalping had begun with one airline raising ticket prices over 500% How is there not international law against this?

We found there was no way out until our planned leaving date anyway and it wouldn’t be our planned route as 3 km of track had been washed away and train tunnels filled with rubble etc. We were not going that way. In fact we ended up flying into Mallorca and then home.

Unsurprisingly the events planned for the weekend had been cancelled. I was more than a little irritated by fellow players complaining about this because they wouldn’t get their badge! FFS! People have died here. That evening we called in to the meet up said our hello’s, ate, collected our game packs and left still wondering what we could do.

The answer turned out to be to donate to the food bank. We took a couple of bags of the things they had requested. It was little enough. This image is one of five collection points half an hour before it was supposed to open. I honestly don’t think it had closed for siesta. There was a lengthy queue of Valencians waiting to bus out as volunteers. The rules were : wear boots and bring a broom.

We saw quite a bit of the old city. The ceramic museum , S Joan and S Nicholas churches, the ancient city wall (part of which we were staying in).  We spent a whole day at Oceanagrafic, the aquarium. We met new friends and found ourselves invited back when the city has recovered. The mayor is in trouble for a breach of his duty of care. The king was covered in mud from the clods thrown at him on his visit but we were invited back. We tried to be thoughtful and respectful. We asked after people their friends and family. They shared their stories and thanked us. Good luck Valencia.