I had a great, relaxing weekend in Alicante. A lot of people were out of town travelling this weekend so it was just me, Taylor R and Jen in the apartment. I took advantage of the opportunity to NOT go out and took full advantage of day time. With all the travelling coming up in the next few months I can already feel my time in Alicante getting smaller and smaller. It was nice to have a full weekend to just spend time in this city. It’s been a little over a month now and I still have to constantly remind myself that I’m NOT dreaming. Contrary to what I thought might happen, I haven’t gotten tired of ANYTHING about this city. The people, the food, the castle, the beach, every street and little shop.. love it all!
I’d compare how I feel when walking around Alicante to nothing short of this:
Friday we had a field trip in class. We went to a museum in Alicante called the Marq. It was two tram stops away so only about 5 minutes. We met our teacher at the station and it was great to get to learn how the tram works .. so easy! The tram system is relatively new and the station is spotless.. it was really nice. I’m not a huge museum person but this one was kind of cool (and I’ll take a field trip over class any day). It seemed brand new and had a lot of interesting history of Alicante. My favorite parts were two rooms that had a movie of how Alicante looked thousands of years ago, to how it looks now. They made the images kind of blend together so you could see the transition and it was really cool. The best part is that we were done with the Museum at 12:15… a whole 45 minutes early (we NEVER get out of class early). I had all my stuff with me so we were able to go straight to the beach. The weather was amazing .. 70s and not a cloud in the sky. This was the first day I decided to go full-bathing suit on the beach instead of clothes. A lot of people had been in bathing suits when temps were in the 60s but I decided that wasn’t for me – but 70s I can handle! Me, Taylor and Jen relaxed for a few hours and headed back to the apartment around 5. It was sooo nice out and not to hot so obviously I obtained a pretty substantial sunburn (typical). Mediterranean Sun: 1, Megan: 0. I think maybe I’ll put on sunscreen next time! (Sidenote: the sunburn actually isn’t that bad and had turned into mostly tan by now .. I WIN!!!)
Friday evening Jen and I went up to the Castle to watch the sunset. I’m not sure why its taken me so long to do this, but it was amazing! I think the view may be even better at night. The whole city lights up as well as all the trails leading up to the castle .. its hard to capture on a camera but its definitely breathtaking and something I will be doing more often.
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| on the way up |
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| Birds everywhere! |
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| The castle lit up at night |
Saturday we woke up early and got ready for another long day at the beach. I packed my bag, made a lunch, and of course, prepared the 2 gallon jug of Sangria. It was another beautiful day [it is so perfect here that I feel like my vocabulary is becoming limited: beautiful, amazing, awesome, pretty, cool, incredible, breathtaking. Time to break out the thesaurus?? None of these words do this place justice!] Taylor and I made some friends with 2 guys from London who bought us personalized friendship bracelets HAHA...thanks I guess? They were really nice and fun to talk to for a while. After entirely too much Sangria, Taylor, Jen and I decided it would be a good idea to play paddle ball in the water. It was freezing but I didn’t really notice at that point. The water was even more clear then I thought it would be! Even waist deep I could see my feet (even if I couldn’t feel them). Cant wait til it warms up enough to float on a raft out there!
Today I planned on waking up early to take some pictures around Alicante and hopefully make a little excursion to another beach or town outside of Alicante. However the weather had other plans and I woke up to clouds and rain L I spent most of the morning doing more trip planning. My end of semester trip to Italy and Greece is almost finished and Sprink break is coming along. So ready to be done booking everything! After spending the whole morning inside I realized the rain had stopped and the sun came out! I headed out and walked along the beach and got some decent pictures of the city. I realized I’ve been writing all these great things about it but haven’t actually shown you guys what it looks like! I couldn’t cover all of it today but I got some good pictures of a few places. Enjoy!
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| Mercado Central |
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| Explanada de Espana (runs parallel to the marina)- there are folding chairs along here for people to use. Spaniards don't socialize in their homes so on nice days everyone (especially old people) will pull up chairs and hang out with their friends. |
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| The marina (the colorful building to the right is the casino) |
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| This guy builds the exact same sand castle every single day from scratch. I'm also 99% sure he sleeps on the beach and has not showered in months (years, even) |
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| La Playa |
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| beautiful, clear water |
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| There are free concerts here every sunday |
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| Little market on the explanada |
Sounds like a wonderful relaxing weekend... except I hope the water was waist deep and not waste deep! :)
ReplyDeleteI don't think I was really itching to get home until the last couple of weeks...bc, at least for me, the cultural differences wore on me over time and I was so tired from traveling! boohoo, I know it was so trying hopping from one european city to the next :) but you will see what I mean...
ReplyDeleteI also didn't have my own apt w/ internet, so that probably would have helped! All of the "good food" was locked away from me in a secret pantry.