A word to the wise:
Expectation can fail you.
Unwise: go for it.
We are a bit unwise sometimes. We're trapped in Valencia tonight because we assumed that trains would be running back to Llíria (the closest town to the farm which is serviced by Valencia's metro system) until midnight or so, but the last train is at... 22:34. Oops. We're sleeping in a park under one of our emergency blankets (yes, Dad, they did wind up coming in handy :D), hoping to get a few hours' sleep before getting on the first train at 05:30 tomorrow.
Anyway, we had something of a day before this. Our farm hosts don't have any further materials for us to do things with; the paint is used up, there's no seeds to plant, the pool-plaster is somewhere we can't find it, and the carpentry tools are gone. All the hoeing is done, so we were invited to take the day off. We headed to Valencia to see the science museum and the famous Oceanográfico (Aquarium).
Much pleasanter than our previous ride up the CV-35 (an autoroute with a bicycle path tacked onto the side), the route we took this morning along a smaller road was lined with fields and trees... and we stopped for peaches! On our previous outing to Pedralba, Joseph pointed out a few peach trees along the road that owning farmer left unharvested for the benefit of passers-by such as ourselves. The peaches fresh from the tree can't be beat... even peaches bought in a shop 10km away aren't nearly so good.
The science museum in Valencia is much like most science museums (things about climate change and chromosomes and where building and consumer-goods materials come from), except that it had a couple of exhibits I liked in particular: one was about Marvel superheroes! I'm not exactly sure what kind of deal was cut for that one, but the displays invite you to test the strength of Spiderman's web, use your lungs to shout down enemies like..er..that superhero who shouts at things.., and see how static electricity could make lightning like Storm's. I was never much of a comic book girl, to be honest, but I thought that was pretty cool.
There was also an extensive Star Trek exhibit, with props and costumes from all the seasons and movies as well as a replica of the Starship Enterprise's bridge. Across the hall, an exhibit about real-life space travel, including the chance for kids to ride in one of those spinning chair things that astronauts use to train for weird gravities. More serious exhibits about famous Valencian scientists were also interesting, but unfortunately only presented in Castellano and Valenciano.
The Oceanográfico was also fabulous. It was fairly expensive to get in, but they had several different tanks, all underground and with tunnels leading through them, filled with animals from walruses to sharks to jellyfish to penguins to dolphins to starfish and seahorses and giant spider crabs. I pretty desperately want to get scuba certified. I'm pretty sure that my wonderment at things under the sea can't be satisfied otherwise. :)