Hola Oviedo, and hasta pronto Valencia. In a few days, we’ll be packing up our things and moving to the beautiful capital of Asturias for three months. August, September and October will be spent drinking cider.

Since we won’t be here, Hola Valencia will be taking a little breather. But you can follow our Asturian adventures on a new blog:
http://oviedo.for91days.com/ and twitter account: http://twitter.com/for91days

The name “For 91 Days” might give you a hint of the direction in which we’re taking our lives. Basically, we’ll be keeping our furniture and permanent address in Valencia, which will be our base. But for most of the year, we’ll be spending 3 months at a time in random cities around Spain, Europe and the rest of the world. Our jobs are totally mobile, and we’re both born travelers, so we’re really excited to get out there.

We’ll pick the blog back up when we return to Valencia. But right now, we’ve got to start packing for our temporary move to the northern coast! In this heat, the cool Asturian climate is sounding really good.

What are your thoughts about Oviedo? Have we picked a good city to live for a few months?

- Car Rentals in Oviedo

We’ve just put up the initial edition of our Fallas 2009 Interactive Map (which also looks good on an iPhone). We call it “interactive” because you can… uh… like, hover over spots.

Fine, it just sounds cool.

Besides the exact location of all 14 large Fallas Monuments that will go up this year, we include the place in which each finished last year. The same organizations seem to win year after year (Campanar, looking at you), so this might help you decide which to visit if you’re pressed for time.

After the plantà, we’ll be hard at work adding images of all the monuments to the map and, of course, posting more detailed information on the blog.

Man, I can’t believe 2008 is already coming to an end. In February, we moved to Valencia from Western Ireland, exchanging one the Europe’s worst climates for one of its best. We experienced our first Fallas celebration in March, and during the summer hosted a ton of friends and family, who were eager to explore Valencia and see if it was as great as we kept saying. (It was)

We thought we’d say goodbye to our first year in Valencia, by taking a look back at our favorite posts. Hope you all enjoy a fun & safe Nochevieja!

1) ¡Despertà, Valencia! – February 24th
At 7:30am, I shot out of bed and looked around frantically for a bible, certain that Armageddon was upon us…

2) Sueca – Street of Lights – March 15th
Part of Fallas is the annual competition of lights, and traditionally Calle Sueca in Russafa carries off the prize…

3) City on Fire – Valencia’s Cremà – March 20th
Last night, more than 750 monuments were burned during La Cremà — the fiery, official end to the Fallas celebrations…

4) Explore Valencia’s Harbour – September 5th
Taking a walk at the harbor is a must when visiting Valencia. Preferably when it’s not too hot, and right before sunset…

5) First Visit to the BioParc (Valencia Zoo) – February 28th
This morning, we took the first of what will likely be many trips to Valencia’s brand new zoo, the BioParc…

6) Last Mascletà – Fallas 2008 – March 19th
This is the craziest thing I have seen – Best Mascletà Ever! I couldn’t even hold the camera still…

7) The Traslado of the Virgin de los Desamparados – May 23rd
One of the most insane religious gatherings I’ve ever seen…

8) Bullfight Valencia: Matador gets gored – March 17th
Yesterday, we went to the bullfights in the Plaza de Toros. Towards the end of the very first fight, a cocky matador named “El Califa” tried and failed to finish his bull off…

9) Wine Festival: Heaven on Earth? – April 4th
Hundreds of people milling about, providing an atmosphere which starts good and gets better as everyone gets more and more drunk…

10) Ballroom Dancing in the Pl. de la Virgen – July 21st
Anyone who’s bored in Valencia is simply not trying…

Whew! It was really a full year, and we’re looking forward to an awesome 2009. Hope you’ve enjoyed the blog so far!

I finally managed to get my finger on a white iPhone 16GB (I’ll cover the benefits and flaws of the iPhone in a separate post) which enables me us to blog live from Valencia, with the help of the iPhone’s Tumble application.

Valencia Live is a new feature which has its own section and RSS Feed and, as you may have already noticed, we’ve placed a little widget on the right hand sidebar to highlight the latest live bits. If there’s any interest, we might enable other readers to post images and text from their phones, as well.

Hope you like our latest feature!

On February 1st, 2008, we signed the contract for our flat in the historic center of Valencia. This blog will be an ongoing account of our discoveries and experiences in the city. We’ll be posting as much information as we can, about the restaurants we visit, the problems we have getting registered (more on that soon!), cool shops we find, and just about everything about Valencia that we think merits attention.

I’m Mike: an American who has been living in Europe for about 6 years. 5 years in Berlin, followed by a short stay in Western Ireland (check out http://www.irelandblog.net). Juergen, my partner, is German. He’s a editorial photographer, so expect the blog to feature a lot of great images from the city.

Make sure to keep checking out ValenciaBlog.net for English-language updates on life in Spain’s 3rd biggest city.