Being that the Canaries of all the glorious places in the Spain are not essentially Spanish, I had been planning for this big adventure for quite some time with other frineds in the exchange living in other places on the Iberian Peninsula. The plan was to start in Valencia then slowly make way south then moving west to Andalusia staying in various hostels or with various friends in the exchange for a place to sleep. The first planned time was a flop, being my last minute, incredibly expensive attempt to go during Semana Santa, or Easter vacation, but it turned out even better that I stayed pacient and my stay there was longer, more elaborate, more economical, and with more people and we had the freaking bomb.
I left June fourth in the morning, lugging my china store suitcase down the tile sidewalks of Los Cristianos to say goodbye to my host mother and collect my last bit of Rotary cash. I did some guaguahopping until I reached the airport to board the plane to land in Madrid, wait a bit, board again, then finally arrive in Valencia at 11:58 at night smelly and exhausted, only to miss the very last metro by one minute because of a silly and stupid coincidence witha Spanish speaking German boy who I also caused to miss the last metro and withwhom I would later share a taxi with, which I would pay less than my fair share for and then trade numbers with him but never call. But I made it to the house safe. So far I was off to a good start.
Day One in Valencia: Thursday the 5th
Stephanie and I would be spending the weekend with a friend of her host parents in their apartment. They were the nicest folks and had a lovely family with two kids whom they babied excessively. We got up early to visit the Museum of Sciences, though a little tired from staying up late chatting about, comparing and sharing interesting stories about one another´s exchange experience. The Science museum had three parts: the Oceanográfico, the Science Center, and the Imax, . First we went to the Oceanográfico, this could be compared with sea world with its display of water wildlife, It was Stephanie´s first time in any place like that; then we experimented and learned in the Science Center (this is the fun part with all of the cool fun science activities, my personal fave) until we had to make it to our appointed hour at the Imax, the gigantic movie theater, where we watched a film about the Swiss Alps, a great choice for the Imax, the cliffs seemed steeper than in reality. We then went back to the Science Center to play around for the little time we had left.
After a long tiring day, we moseyed back home through the park where the old river used to be before it flooded the town in the late 60´s and was drained. Its remains are a long series of running and biking paths. Beacuse it was about dusk and the temperature was finally cooling off, It was flourishing with joggers and bikers and roller bladers and people excersizing. Because of this I could hardly beleive I was in a Spanish city, motivation to excersize is hardly part of the Spanish lifestyle. Being a University city, there were hippies to be seen everywhere: selling hemp necklaces at stands, playing guitar in the park, there was an enticing band of drummers playing while a group of girls did a sycronized hippie dance. It was really something to see. Being there inspired me in so many ways.
Day Two in Valencia: Friday the 6th
Steph and I did some typical tourist sight seeing: we entered churches, museums, went to the central market and tried interesting foods and walked a ton. Siesta. That night Marie Angel took us to a shopping center.
Day Three in Valencia: Saturday the 7th
Steph and I rented bikes and pedaled our way around the parks and town and eventually to the beach. We ate an amaazing paella, actually two: Paella Valenciano (this has beans and other veggies) and Paella de Mariscos (this is with whole sea food, shrimps in their shells and clams, calamares etc.) I definitely prefer Paella valenciano, I am discovering that I am not much of a shellfish person. We stuck our feet in the water and walked up the coast a bit, then it was back to the house to gather our things and catch the bus to Denia to stay with Shanay, another exchange friend. We went out for Tapas that night and racked up a bill of 68 and something Euros between five of us. I havent been so pissed about anything in spain like having to pay and equal portion of that puta bill. After a few drinks we met up with Shanay´s friends and hit the discos.
Day Four in Denia: Sunday the 8th
We slept in after getting home late. Shanay made us some killer pancakes for breakfast. We chilled inside beacuse is was raining, then Shanay´s host dad took us on a Denia beack tour. That night we headed for Steph´s houst in Cartagena.
Day Five in Cartagena: Monday the 9th
In Cartagena Stephanie´s host mom gave me the ´Typical Cartagena tour´: We went up to the castle, entered the museum and walked around the historic part of town. We had lunch tapas for lunch with her parents and some of their frineds warning us about crime in Granada. In Cartagena, the first submarine ever was built; it was 33 meters long. We climed some light-towers and explored trespassed in some old houses. We had Murcianos for dinner.
Day Five, Tuesday the 10th: First day in Granada
We arrived midday and explored around a bit, hauling our wheeled luggage down a labrynth of narrow cobblestone streets looking for our hostel. Meredith met up with us late that night. We went to the most hippie flamenco bar and were sung improvised a capella flamenco by two men. Afterwards, we changed bars and made frineds with an English bunch. Finally, we headed back to the hostel.
Day six in Seville: Wednesday the 11th
We got an early bus to Seville, a very stereotypical Spanish seeming city. We walked a ton and made out usual museum and church touring rounds. We got the lastest bus back to Granada for 11:00. We arrived in Granada around 2:30 and got a taxi downtown. Walking back to the hostel down the dark, vacant streets, two men approached us with hankercheifs overtheir faces knives and asked us for our money. We said no, but they won and got away with my twenty euros and camera. Sons of Bitches. Steph lost quite a bit more money than me but fortunately her ipod, cell phone and sunglasses and the hostel keys fell out of her purse while they were running away. We lost Meredith, which was a bit of a scare. Steph´s cell was out of batteries and the hostel owners had left for the evening so we woke up our german room mate and tried communicating with him in english in order borrow his cell phone. Eventually Meredith showed up at the hostel with the police and they took us to the station to file a report. We finally got to bed around 5am
Day seven in Granada: Thurday the 12th
We got up late then delt with the credit card cancelling business, farted around trying to fish out a special code (which was in my wallot) to get into the Alhombra in order to redeem our online ordered tickets. After lots of trial and error, they finally let us enter at 6 pm with but two hours to spare to see everything in this ginourmous pallace. A little winded from having seen everything so quickly, we managed to do it all (because we are Americans and we can do anything ; ) hhehe).
we spent our last night there in granada, then headed to Augilas where we spent two nights in an amazing sea front apartment which we had all to ourselves. We made our own pathetic meals of leftover pizza, milk and Maria cookies and watched the sunrise from the balcony. It was great just the three of us in that house.
The morning to go to murcia, we had shitty churros for breakfast, then almost missed the bus. In Murcia we did typical turist sight seeing shit and stayed in an apartment with steph´s young italian host cousin who treated us very nicely.
The day after I headed back home to the islands from Alicante.
