Valencia, 0130 Sunday

'Twas the night before Christmas (actually, the morning of) and not a creature was stirring, not even our two cats. Was about to settle down for a short winter's nap, when out in the street there arose such a clatter...

...more bloody fireworks!

Since midnight there have been sporadic fireworks and firecrackers all over the neighborhood. Just now a ferocious set of bangers went off in the yard behind us. The neighbors are outside cheering and applauding.

Hey, amigos nuevos, it's Christmas not New Year's, and for sure not las Fallas. Please, as much as we like Valencia and all the fireworks, we've had enough for one year. ¡Por favor, he tenido bastantes!! Besides, you might scare off Santa....

To those celebrating it, Feliz Navidad, and Season's Greetings to all.

We first came to Valencia in November, 2003 on a charter flight from Geneva with 100 other Cup officials and team reps. The announcement that Valencia had been chosen over the other finalist cities -- Lisbon, Marseille and Naples -- had been made by Pierre-Yves Firmenich, Commodore of the Société Nautique de Genève ("SNG" -- Alinghi's home club) at noon that day.

For much of that flight I sat wth Dennis Conner and Bill Trenkle and mused about the past, present and future of the Cup. At one point, Dennis said, simply, "the Cup is dead, long live the Cup." After being involved with Dennis in one way or another over six Cup campaigns one learns to look beyond what may sound like a shallow comment for deeper meaning.

And, of course, DC was saying that, from the days' events, it was now quite clear that the old Cup era was gone, and a new one had dawned.

The next day from the window of a tour bus we saw for the first time the newly developed area of Valencia called the la Ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias -- the City of the Arts and Sciences. The most striking building was then in the midst of contstruction, and appeared to be a huge fish. Turns out to be a conquistador's helmet housing the new Palace of the Arts.

Since that first day in Valencia we have watched what, at times, has appeared to be painfully slow progress on this most impressive edifice. (For example, the top piece of helmet is attached only at the base on the north end, and is cantalevered -- no other attachment -- over the entire distance to the other end.) In the past few weeks it has finally started to look nearly finished, at least from the outside. Good thing, as it is scheduled to open in two weeks time....

Here, courtesy of this morning's Valencia Life is a bit of a preview:

Yesterday, Francisco Camps, the President of the Valencian Community, visited the new Palau de Les Arts in the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, accompanied by the Palau’s designer, Valencian architect Santiago Calatrava.

One of the most impressive elements of the new building is a 530 square metre stage area with a proscenium some 70 metres high. The first concert is slated to take place in the Palau on October 8, as work is frantically continuing on the other theatres in the building. This building, unlike the station that Mr. Calatrava designed for New York, features white concrete and glass along with sensuous lines. All in all the new Palau will have a total of four auditoria, with the main theatre having an orchestra pit capable of taking 120 musicians.

Dennis was right about the Cup. Valencia is in the same boat. The King is dead. Long live the king.



Looking southeast over the long-time coming but nearly finished
Palau de Les Arts (foreground), out to the Port America's Cup
(background, left) and the Med.



Sr Camps (left) and Sr Calatrava inside the impressive main auditorium
yesterday.

The previous photo-post generated much interest, and more than a few emails. Several of you asked if we could identify all the team bases. Identifying them is easy; creating a suitable image is more difficult, especially when the blogging department's sole member has limited graphical resources and even less artistic talent! So please excuse the quick-and-dirty nature of the following.

Below then, to the best of our knowledge (and thanks to Grant "Guthrie" Davidson for once again serving as a fact-checker), is the final line-up of team bases in the Port America's Cup.


Click to enlarge. [17:00 Fri -- pic revised to more accurately reflect
the precise base locations on the west side of the basin, with thanks to
Pierre Orphanidis and Tom Weaver.]

And now several of you have asked for further explanation....

Choice of Base location was essentially based on order of entry to AC 32. Alinghi as Defender had first choice, then BMW ORACLE as Challenger of Record, then Plus 39 (as first-in challenger after BMWOR), then Shosholoza, etc. No surprise Alinghi took the base closest to the new channel. BMWOR took the base at other end of the "main street." Plus 39 and Shosholoza took the smaller base slots in between. All four are nearing completion.

Luna Rossa, after a delay getting under way, is next in line from ours, and is now well along. ETNZ are just getting underway with their construction. K-Challenge's base is also well along. Victory Challenge have yet to begin construction, and will go into the gap between K-Challenge and Desafio Espanol. The Spanish have a nearly completed two-building "double-base" similar to Alinghi, BMWOR, Luna Rossa, and (when finished) ETNZ. UITG, Mascalzone and China Team will be round out the southwest end of the basin with smaller bases. Apparently the fisherman will be moved to accommodate the latter team.

This summer signs like the one pictured below have gone up on the highway approaches to Valencia, helping point the way to the Port America's Cup (formerly the Dársena Interior). Team bases and other AC 32 facilities are rapidly taking shape, including the 800m channel that will run from the Port AC directly to the Med near the main race course area.

Christophe Martin, ACM's Venue Director, reports that most of the channel has already been dug, the foundations of the foredeck are built, and the construction of the AC Park and the IBC (International Broadast Center) will start in the next months.

Click on the photos below to enlarge.



Sign of the times in Valencia.



View from over the north (main) race course looking to the northwest
over the Port America's Cup toward downtown Valencia. The "Dársena
Exterior" is formed by the new groins in the foreground which will
protect the entrance to the new channel. When finished, it will make for
a quick 15-minute tow between the Port AC and the race course.



The new 800m (by approx 80m wide) channel is nearly dug.



View from over the bases looking back to southeast. Superyacht ("T")
dock has been in since June, and was used by spectator boats during Acts
4 and 5. In this shot the bridge over the existing cut out through the
commercial port is open. After the channel is completed, the bridge will
be closed more or less permanently. Maybe one of our readers will know,
and can post a comment, as to whether it was finally decided to fill in
that cut once the new channel is finished.

Last three photos courtesy of ACM's Christophe Martin.

We had a small series of jazz concerts during the '92 Cup in San Diego, but Valencia appears to be pulling out all the stops. From this morning's Valencia Life....

OPERA CYCLE OPENS
The Palau de la Musica in Valencia will begin staging a series of Operas related with the sea as part of a season aimed at promoting the Americas Cup. The first opera – “Marina” by Emilio Arrieta – will be staged this coming Wednesday and Friday, and will feature soprano Milagros Poblador and tenor Ignacio Encinas along with the Valencia Symphony Orchestra and the Chorus of the Generalitat Valenciana under the baton of Miquel Ortega. Other operas with a maritime theme to be performed at the Palau include “Peter Grimes” by Benjamin Britten that is to be performed in May of 2007 – the year the Americas Cup races take place - and “Sadko” by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov that will be staged in October next year by the Orchestra and Chorus of the Marinsky Theatre of St Petersburg.


Valencia's Palau de la Musica

[This is a story I posted earlier today on our family blog. Several readers of both thought it belonged here, too, inasmuch as a number of BMW ORACLE families, and families of other teams, are living near Puzol. One of my "bosses" has also asked for more stories about life in Valencia, so....]


Our urbanizacion (suburb) is located a few minutes outside a pueblo called Puçol (in Valenciano) or Puzol (in Castellano), which, in turn, is about 20 minutes up the coast north of Valencia. Either way it seems to be pronounced "pooh THOL".

Castellano is, of course, the main line Spanish mandated by the mandarins in Madrid -- similar to Mandarin in China. Valenciano and Catalan, the languages* spoken in and around Valencia and Barcelona, respectively, are essentially the same. But don't say that to the immensely proud Valencianos, the majority of whom consider themselves the conservative keepers of the flame here in Spain as the home of the Partido Popular ("PP"), while Barcelona is closely aligned with the more liberal (in the American socio-political sense of the word) socialist party, PSOE. Most Valencianos do not want to be associated with Barcelona in any way; perhaps like quietly conservative San Diegans not wanting to be confused with liberal, show-biz Angelinos.

It does get confusing at times -- for example, "bank" is caja in Castellano and caixa in Valencianan/Catalan.

Since coming up with a ç is not easy in this blogger software, and takes a lot of farting around to cut and paste, I will stick to Puzol, thank you.

Puzol has a good little website, including daily local news. If you are running Internet Explorer as your browser and have a Google toolbar, go into the Castellano version of the site and right click on the text and you should be able to click on "Translate Page into English" and get a fairly understandable translation.

You will see that Puzol even has its own modern "strap line" or "claim" -- "entre mar y muntanya" meaning, of course, "between sea and mountain." LOL, that actually would pass the truth-in-advertising laws in most countries.

At any rate, we note that our pueblo had another fiesta yesterday involving the running of the bulls. And today Puzol is in the headlines for what one reads is not an uncommon small town problem -- unfortunately one of the bulls died after being confined for too long.

Here is the story from our favorite expat newsletter, Valencia Life:

The traditional bull runs of Puzol – just outside Valencia – were the scene of tragedy yesterday after one of the bulls died. Under the regulations for the running of the bulls in any fiesta, members of an ambulance service must be present, but in the case of Puzol, they took over an hour and a half to arrive, during which time the twelve animals were kept locked up in a truck. A statement from the ambulance service revealed that a mistake had been made over the dates and as a result an ambulance had to be called from Valencia City.

Not exactly a small-town problem I remember hearing about growing up near Pinckney, Michigan. Maybe they need an ambulance service for the poor bulls!


Like holiday parades in
Pinckney, the occasional
running of the bulls in
Puzol. As you can see
in the pics, yeserday we
did get a good bit of
rain -- and for the first
time in many weeks.

*and don't call Catalan or Valenciano a "dialect" -- the locals are proud to say that they, technically, are different languages, and more than a bit sensitive about the difference. (With thanks to my local experts and "Special Advisors to the Blogster on Spanish PC" Sofia Barraclough and Alejandra Mato.)

This is the first of a new category of posts here -- "Valencia" -- with observations and commentary about the ups and downs of daily living here in VLC (the airport code for Valencia, now commonly used by our team and others as the abbrev. for Valencia).

Valencia isn't perfekt, no place is. But gradually I sense we as a team are coming to terms with if not enjoying the city and surroundings. Living here is inexpensive, the food is excellent, the locals are very friendly, good private schooling, and the weather much nicer than Auckland and, especially, Hamburg (our previous hometown).

We all knew going in that having the Cup for the first time in a non-Anglo country, especially one where relatively little English is spoken, was going to be tough on our mostly-Anglo families. I speak a little Spanish so it has been easier for me. Others are coping. Am impressed by the number of our teammates, and their families, who are sticking to their Spanish classes and books, and slowly but surely are picking up a bit of the lingo. And our Spanish team members ("tripulantes") like Anabella "Happy" Alegre, Sofia "Sarah" Barraclough, and Alejandra "Alex" Mato are a big help.

One aspect we all struggle with is the dust, even in the suburbs -- so it can't be blamed on the constant construction in and around downtown.

Here is an excerpt from today's edition of a popular English-language newsletter we subscribe to called Valencia Life:

MORE ON THE WAY
According to the weather experts, the ‘red rain’ that has been present recently in the Valencian Community, is only a presage of things to come. The most recent rainfall of this nature was the first rain to fall in the Community for over 50 days, but at the same time, left the biggest amount of red dust since records started in 1988. It would appear that the ‘red rain’ emanates from North Africa, and is only apparent when the storm is over.

So that explains it! Overnight, my car went from pristine clean to this...



The good news is that los meses calientes -- the hot months of July and August -- are just about behind us. Last summer seemed hotter. So either it has been a mild summer, or we have gotten used to the heat, or now that we are situated it is just not as uncomfortable as we expected. Probably some combination.

Having finally adjusted to the hot weather here, today I fly up to Malmoe. Racing begins next Thursday. We shall see just how thin the old blood has become. Am packing a heavy jacket just in case.