My Parent's week in Spain

Friday I met up with my parents to climb the castle.. they loved it! We got kebaps before hand and brought them of the the park at the base of the castle. (they were obviously instant kebab fans) I love bringing people up to the castle... its usually when they realize why people come to Alicante and never want to leave. The weather was also perfect once again! That night we went to dinner in one of the streets around their hotel. We picked a cute one and ate outside. We had great Sangria and the nicest server!






Saturday morning we woke up and went to the market. They loved it (who wouldn't?) We bought strawberries, serrano hame, bread and manchego cheese for our trip. After, we had plans to drive to the wine region of Jumilla and tour a winery. We got directions to a few different "bodegas" and figured we'd find a good one. We ended up failing pretty miserably on the winery mission. We underestimated the difficulty of navigating spanish roadways and when we finally stumbled upon a winery (not the one we were trying to get to) they were closed for a private party) We ended up getting to see alot of the beautiful spanish countryside and managed to pull over to get a few pics.

Sunday we made a day trip to Valencia to go to the Oceanographic, the 4th largest aquarium in the world. I had heard a lot of good things about it so we decided to check it out. It was awesome! definitely worth the visit. I love aquariums in general so it was great. My favorites were the seals and the beluga whales. The oceanografic also has a huge underwater tunnel where sharks and fish swim all around you. We also caught the dolphin show which i obviously loved.

sea lion dispute

baby beluga

Monday after class we went to Elche. Elche is a small town outside of Alicante and is home to he largest palm forest in the world. We walked around the forest, then climbed the bell tower of St. Mary's Cathedral for the best views of the town and the forests.. definitely worth the 167 steps!

inside the bell tower

top of st. mary's cathedral

Wednesday after I got back from class we went to the market. That night, my dad was making dinner for me and my roommates so we had to get all the ingredients. Dinner was obviously amazing and my roommates loved it! He made several different tapas including chorizo, pimientos de padron (mini sauteed peppers with salt .. awesome!), a bread cheese and membrillo platter, and queso frito (a fancy mozzerella stick type thing that he recreated from our restaurant meal the night before). for the main course we had chicken breast rolled up with serrano ham and manchego cheese  and grilled artichokes. For dessert we had chocolate covered strawberries and he also made lots of sangria for the night. It was an awesome meal im getting hungry just thinking about it!

Thursday we went up to the castle to watch the sunsent. We opted to take the elevator this time (which I had heard existed but had never taken. It was so cool that there was randomly this really futuristic elevator in the midding of this ancient castle. After sunset we had dinner at our new favorite restuarant (La Taberna Gourmet) again.

on top of the castle before sunset

I had so much fun with my parents in spain!It was so good to see them and really nice to be able to try so many different restaurants. We found so many great, affordable places to eat that I normally wouldnt have tried so it was nice to see what's around.

Friday it was off to Switzerland for the weekend!