Worlds Part One: Pre-Puzzling

[crystalcazzie]

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                     Part One: Pre-Puzzling

Welcome to the first of my posts detailing my trip to The World Jigsaw Puzzle Championships 2025 in Valladolid, Spain! 

Yes, just over a month ago I left my new house of less than three weeks to get on a plane for the first time in three years and fly to a country I've never been to where they speak a language I never learnt.  What could possibly go wrong?  

I did get a window seat on the plane.  That was a good start!  

Bye bye, England!  I'm pretty sure that's Windsor Castle we flew past.  

When I booked the tickets I saw that Business Class wasn't that much more expensive than Economy, so I decided to treat myself.  It was definitely worth it! At the airport I got access to the lounge with free food (and wine, but it was a bit early even for me!) and on the plane we were served a full meal, while Economy only had the option to purchase snacks.  

The starter was a seafood mix of prawns, mussels, and octopus.  Going into it I knew I liked prawns but hadn't tried the other two.  Turns out I like them all!  The pasta was surprisingly good for plane food, but the biggest surprise was the dessert.  It was coconut cake and I despise coconut.  I thought I'd try a little bit to see how it was, and it was delicious!  Didn't taste like coconut at all!  So I think maybe what I actually despise is desiccated coconut.

It wasn't a particularly long flight, so it wasn't long before we started our descent...

Hello, Spain!  Quite the colour difference from England!  

Getting through the airport was relatively simple.  Getting on the train to take me to the main station was a bit more of an issue.  I'd looked up how to do it the night before, but apparently that information was out of date and I got rather stressed.  They had ticket machines with an English option, but then a message in Spanish flashed up with no translation option and reset it back to the beginning.  I assume the Spanish message was explaining the new system so it would have been helpful to have that translated too!  A lady had to help me and point me in the right direction.

I made it to the main station, which then involved a half a mile walk around the place and through a dodgy looking multi-storey car park type area to get to the half-built long distance departure hall!   I had quite a long wait here cos I'd built a large cushion into my timings and there wasn't much to do but worry that I was going to get on the wrong train somehow!  

I did eventually make it onto a train: 

Scenic views of Spain!

I must admit that I was slightly concerned by the fact that I was the only person in the carriage!  

But I made it to Valladolid!  And then I had a short walk to my hotel and the struggle of working out how to get inside it because the whole front was a bar and the entrance wasn't clear.  Then I had difficulty opening the door because I'm an idiot.  By the time I got inside my room I just started crying because everything felt so overwhelming.  It did make me really wish I had someone to travel with.  I feel like all of these issues wouldn't have felt so bad if I'd had someone else to talk to and deal with it together.  

~*~

The next morning I ventured out to meet my pairs partner for the first time.

Pretty fountain in front of my hotel.

Just in case you forget where you are.

Very inviting!  Especially in the heat!

View from the bridge that you cross to get to the Dome.

The Dome! 

After seeing it so much on the livestreams I was a bit surprised at how small it is in person!  

I met up with my partner, Lynn, and we walked back through the park.

Peacock!

Red Squirrel!

Uhhh.... Moscovy Duck apparently!  

It was the last day of a ceramics market with stalls from all around the country (plus a few from nearby countries too).  I took this picture because the cats were cute!  I also bought a magnet from a Valladolid stall because I love magnets and it was a local maker.  

Hello from Valladolid!  

It was the last day of a festival too and apparently there had been quite the concert in the town square the night before.  

We got some beers and sat to watch the square go by.  We saw some people on the stage practicing, so apparently the concerts weren't over!

The streets of Valladolid have lots of fun touches like this!

We were also on the group WhatsApp chat and were wondering if anyone was around to meet up.  Nic posted that he was looking for food.  We'd never met him before and only had his profile picture to go on, but as we were walking up one of the streets Lynn went "Is that Nic?" about a guy who'd just gone past us.  So we turned and asked him and it was!  That was quite spooky!  

We went to a KFC and used one of their nice tables to do a puzzle together: 

Fun times!  We were sat by the window and lots of people stopped and looked at us as they walked past.  I thought some might have also been there for the contest and were pleased to see fellow puzzlers, but I also wonder if a lot were just normal people wondering what on earth we were doing!  

Two people who saw us and came in to say hello were Allison and Irene, the Canadian pair that Lynn and I were joining up with for the teams round!  We'd never met them before either, but they recognised us from our pictures too.  Turns out Valladolid is a pretty small place after all!   

They were tired from travelling so far and went back to their hotel.  Nic went back to his and Lynn and I went back to near mine for a glass of wine to end the day.

Pretty fountain lit up at night!  

We were also treated to music from a percussion band that formed next to where we were sitting:

Fortunately for me they were a marching percussion band and soon marched away so I didn't have them playing right outside my hotel room window when I went back up shortly after taking this picture!  

~*~

I think I'll end it there for now.  Next time I'll be puzzling INSIDE THE DOME!  So exciting! 

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