I have obviously not been updating this like I should be...so here goes. Last Thursday during my art class we went to an old Monastery where monks lived. It was built by Ferdinand and Isabella (Ysabella back then) who were titled "Los Reyes Catolicos" and represented by the phrase "Tanto Monta, Monta Tanto" symbolizing that they ruled together. Other symbols that represent them are the arrows and the yoke. The monastery had a beautiful garden in the middle and was attached to a gorgeous church where they still hold ceremonies! Here are pictures:
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| The ceiling upstairs was gorgeous! |
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| The beautiful gardern layout was stolen from muslim architecture with a well in the middle and the four corners representin the "four" continents |
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| The symbol of Ferdinand and Isabella "Tanto Monta, Monta Tanto" |
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| The walls of the courtyard...arent the windows gorgeous? |
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| The Cathedral attached to the monastery |
This last weekend I went to Alicante, Spain...which is on the Costa Blanca (basically the florida of Spain). It was seriously my absolute favorite vacation here yet. We started out by taking Ryan Air (my first trip by plane here...how exciting :) ) and im not gonna lie its kind of a sketchy airline. My friend Katherine and I got yelled at by the flight attendent for whispering during her safety presentation (she wasnt even talking...shes was showing ridiculous...even though we may or may not have been talking about how her and another flight attendant have a thing). Luckily i didnt have to figure out how to skydive and we made it safely to Alicante.
Our hostel was amazing...the owners were so nice! They gave us mats for the beach so we didnt have to buy towels and gave us advice on fun things to do. There was a rooftop terrace that had an amazing view and that we spent a lot of time hanging out. We met some nice people from Australia and Holland. The front desk lady even called up the ferry place for us so nothing would get lost in translation.
The first day we went to the beach as soon as we go there and got our tan on. We had a lot of fun swimming in the mar and the locals were so nice. They told us how to hold our stuff so it wouldnt get stolen and one old lady who was tanning on a chair behind us told us that we have to go to la isla de Tabarca, which you can get to by ferry. So claro the next day we decided to figure out this whole Tabarca thing. We got the ferry info from the front desk lady on our way up from breakfast and found out we had 40 minutes to get ready and buy water shoes (cause you cant swim there without them) and get to the ferry. Five girls and one bathroom later we had 20 minutes to make it to the ferry landing and buy watershoes. We split up into teams...I was on team ferry and three of the girls were on team water shoes. My team (me and my friend Clare) found the ferry landing, but didnt have enough money to buy 5 tickets but convinced the ferry people to wait for our friends. Team watershoes arrived just in the nick of time and we all got safely aboard the ferry.
The ride was an hour long and so we camped out on a spot with a pretty good view. Suddenly this Spanish guy came up to us and started talking to us. He told us how he goes to the island of Tabarca every year because he spread his boyfriends ashes there after he died of lung cancer. He then talked with us for the rest of the trip giving ideas on where to go. He may or may not have decided he was besties with one of the girls Katherine...he even gave her a book her had written about Alicante and signed it.
When we got to the island it was amazingly beautiful and gorgeous! There were hardly any people on the island. It wasnt built up and had a few restaurants and souvenier shops here and there but not that much stuff. We bought two sets of snorkel gear at a shop and went around looking for a place to snorkel. We found the most gorgeous cove to go snorkeling. There was no one else there the whole time and it was as if it was our own private swimming cove. There were these amazing caves to swim in and explore. We did a swim in one of the caves that we named "the swim of death". It was a narrow underground tunnel between two of the caves and it was amazing. You could barely fit just had to pull yourself through on the sides.
In our private cove I snorkeled for the first time. I was coral, and lots of pretty fishies and under water rocky caves. It was amazing and I really wish I had an underwater camera. After swimming all day we headed to a local restaurant on the island and all of the other girls got paella con mariscos and i got my seafood-free lasagna :). We headed back to Alicante on the ferry and arrived safely back at our hostel. We got chinese food that night...delicous...filling..and cheap! For 7 euros we got drink, 4 four courses, and coffee at the end.
The next day we were set to leave...only three of us had tickets for 11 that night and wanted to leave with the other two girls at 2 so we all headed to the airport together to try to negotiate...unfortunately we were told the only way we could get back to Madrid on the 2 flight was if we bought 300 euro plane tickets...so the three of us headed back to Alicante for an extra day. We grabbed lunch at a cute little place and ate there for probably 3 hours or so and then found a movie theater and saw "Siempre a mi lado" or in america, "Charlie St. Cloud:. I am probably pretty sure that had I seen this in english I would have hated it because it was so corny and predictable but I loved watching it in dubbed over Spanish because I could actually understand it. All I can say though is that Zac Efron should probably stay away from all serious roles. This whole time mind you we were carrying around our giant backpacks and one of my friends, Nicole, was carrying around her giant suitcase we named Sally. My backpack is named Luther and the other is Hubert. They had a fun day. After getting done with the movie we caught a bus to the airport once again and got on our plane. Had another sketchy Ryan Air flight but at least didnt get yelled at this time.
Once we got to madrid we had an hour until the subway stops running and we already knew we would have to wait until 6 to catch a bus to Toledo but we figured we might as well sleep in the bus station and not in the airport so we made the subway to the bus station only to find out once we go there that the bus station is not open 24/7. So we ended up sleeping on the metro station floor...we had officially sunk to an all time sleeping accomodation low. But we managed to dodge the security guards trying to kick us out and find comfort among the dust bunnies on the floor. The next morning we boarded the 6 am bus to Toledo, except we got on the one that goes through all the little pueblos too and not the direct one so we ended up taking 2 hours to get here. I headed home and got an hours worth of sleep in my own bed before I had to get up and go to class. Here are some pics from the weekend:
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| Rooftop Terrace <3 |
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| On the ferry |
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| Spanish Man that gave us signed book |
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| TABARCA :) |
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| Oh you know just our private cove nbd |
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| Exploring our Cove |
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| Picture from a hole above one of the caves |
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| Movie theater with sally, hubert, and luther :) |
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| Beach on the first day...these pics are so not in order |
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| Sketchy Ryan Air |
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| Snorkeling :) |
Next topic is actually just a couple pictures but I met with my intercambios last weeke and they took me to a beautiful look out over Toledo and I thought Id share the pics:
Ok so for the foot topic...kind of gross but last week I cut my foot and over the weekend it became infected. I think swimming in the mar (Mediterranean Sea) wasnt very good for it because it swelled up on Sunday and Yesterday I went to the school doctor and he prescribed an antibiotic and said if its not better by wednesday to go to the hospital. The good news is that it seems to be a lot better now...the swelling has gone down a lot. So hopefully by tomorrow I wont need to go to a scary spanish hospital. But anyways my advice to you gente is to not swim in the mar with a cut. :)
And that is my adventures in a nutshell :)...more to come soon! Italia is almost here!
