The travels of Tim and Megan: Valencia, Spain

Saturday

Aside from the obvious disappointment of losing the America's Cup, we had a brilliant four days in Spain.

The painful results of races 5, 6 and 7, all of which were well within our control until the most horrible run of bad luck in sporting history rained on our parade, failed to dampen our spirits. After it went 2-2, we should have won the next three races to WIN the America's Cup, but a blown spinnaker in race 5, a freak wind shift in race 6 and a penalty turn in race 7 saw us lose our lead and lose each race. The final margin in race 7 (Alinghi by 1 second, after we were forced to make a penalty turn) sums up our campaign really - close but very unlucky. The general consensus around the viaduct in Valencia was that there was absolutely nothing between the two teams either in boat-speed or quality of personnel, and it is a shame that four years of planning and hard work and hundreds of millions of dollars can be wrecked by some bad luck.

We arrived in Valencia early on Saturday afternoon and we checked into our hotel in time to catch most of race 6 on TV. Our hotel (the 4 star Vincci Lys Hotel) was perfect by the way! We were surprised that we were able to get a hotel at all, but we managed to get an awesome one right in the centre of the city, for a very reasonable price.

After the race we caught the train down to Port America's Cup to soak up some atmosphere. There were plenty of Team NZ supporters but we were still hugely outnumbered by Alinghi fans - most Europeans wanted Alinghi to win so that the Cup stayed in Europe, however it seemed the Americans were behind us!

The viaduct area was great. We checked out the supporters gear at the stores (but most of the best stuff had sold out by the time we got there). Megan bought a Team NZ shirt and Tim bought a cap. Sadly we were unable to find a New Zealand flag anywhere. Then we wandered around, checking out the many different bars. The "Woolshed" was pretty cool. It was the unofficial New Zealand bar and it was full of Kiwis. The Foredeck Club was the most impressive. It was a collection of bars, cafes, shops etc and it had a trophy room where we got to see the Auld Mug close up. We were actually pleasantly surprised with the cost of drinks etc in the viaduct. It was around 2.50 euros for a beer, which is not bad at all when you're earning pounds. And the official beer of the America's Cup, Estrella Damm, went down rather well in the 28-33 deg temperatures.

Late on Saturday night, we found a nice restaurant near the viaduct and tried out some tapas and more Estrella Damm. Very nice.

Sunday

Sunday dawned a beautiful hot sunny day and we were extremely excited to be going out on the water on a spectators boat to watch race 7. After some pastries and freshly squeezed orange juice (from Valencia oranges of course), we did a bit of shopping before heading back to Port America's Cup. The find of the day was a T-shirt that Tim bought, featuring an icon from the past, Frosty Boy. Rather humorous T-shirt too, see below.

Sadly, race 7 was postponed on Sunday due to a lack of wind and the lack of a settled direction of wind. We were pretty gutted, although it was still fantastic to get out on the water and see the boats up close in their pre-start routines. It was also exciting to see some of the super yachts out on the water, including a huge silver beast, which we were informed was either Swiss billionaire (and Alinghi owner) Ernesto Bertarelli's boat, or his sister's boat. Very impressive.

Just before we received the bad news that racing had been abandoned for the day, we were treated to an extreme close up of Team NZ, as they sailed directly towards us and almost hit our boat, turning away at the last second. Very cool boat!

Once back on dry land, we did another round-up of the bars and as we wandered past Team NZ's base, we ran into America's Cup legend Paul Cayard and New Zealand Olympic gold medal winner / Team New Zealand grinder, Rob Waddell, both of whom were happy to pose for photos with Tim. Rob Waddell is a monster, he just about ripped Tim's arm out of its socket when he shook his hand. Both he and Cayard were great guys though!

Sunday evening / night was full of more bar - hopping around the viaduct, loads of Estrella Damm and a huge meal of tapas, meatballs, chicken wings, and a gigantic pork chop amongst things at a restaurant near our hotel.