A picture or two from each trip

Valencia- Picture of me literally grabbing the bull by the horns

La Lonja en Valencia with some traditional dressers 

Benidorm

Altea

Flamenco Tablau in Granada 

Part of Alhambra 

On top of Alhambra 

Gardens of Alhambra 

Spanish Breakfast in Sevilla 

Cathedral Bell Tower in Sevilla

Wishing well in Sevilla 

Plaza de España en Sevilla 

Plaza de España 

SCUBA in Canary Islands

Park Guell in Barcelona

La Sagrada Familia

FC Barcelona Stadium

Plaza de España en Barcelona 

Barcelona with Zac Fortier

My friend Zac Fortier is a pretty lucky kid. His dad is a pilot so he can fly for free to anywhere in the world. Knowing this, I jokingly told him that he should come to Spain and visit me for his spring break. It actually happened! I left Friday morning with plans to meet Zac at a hostel that we had decided upon in Barcelona. After my five-hour train ride from Alicante, I weaved my way to this hostel in the gothic barrio of Barca. When I checked in I asked if Zac had made it and he had so I set up camp in he lobby to wait for him to get back from wherever he had gone. No more than 15 minutes later Zac Fortier, my buddy from Spring Lake High School, came walking in the door of my hostel in Barcelona, Spain. It was really weird to see someone familiar. After our initial hello, we decided to hit the streets and see what the city was all about. The first thing we wanted to do was find Las Ramblas. After walking up and down the crowded street we vowed to return at night to see the true atmosphere. Next, we decided to look for Gaudi’s park. Navigating Barcelona by metro, we made it to the station near the park, but for the life of us couldn’t find it. After running into another group of two American dudes, the four of us finally managed to ask everyone in the streets how to get to the park. There happened to be a handful of parks int he area. We are obviously a group of tourists so please stop directing us to the dog park, playground and futbol parks. We want to see Gaudi. We finally made it to Park Guell and we went to the highest point of the park, snapped some pics, went to the worlds longest bench, snapped some pics, went to the house/ museum of Gaudi and snapped some more pics. After the park, we split ways with Steve and Anthony and we headed down to a place a little closer to our hostel to search for a good tapas place (not a very hard task in any Spanish city). After some great tapas we returned to our hostel to rest a bit, hopefully meet some people and then go our for the night.
That night we made friends with the girls that were in our dorm style room at the hostel. One of them actually went to the same high school in Pittsburgh as one of Zac’s roommates. The girls went to Ohio State and were studying in Paris, so naturally we had a lot to talk about right off the bat. After hanging out with Sarah and Jessica at the hostel for a while we decided to go out to a couple of the famous clubs in Barcelona. Razmataz is the biggest club in Barcelona and that is where we went first. After an hour-long wait in line, we finally got in (paying a steep cover) and I was very surprised about how empty it felt. After letting an hour-long lines worth of people into the place it still wasn’t crowded. Another hour later and that had changed. The whole place was wall-to-wall people. Barcelona is very famous for its discotecas. After Raz we went to Shoko and while in line there Zac ran into his roommate from school’s ex-girlfriend whom he had actually flown over to Barcelona on the same plane with. She was with a friend, also from U of M, who is studying this term in Barca. We were amazed by the coincidental run it. After a short stint at Shoko we went back to the hostel.
We made it back to the hostel with plans of being up bright and early to take advantage of the daylight and everything that Barcelona had to offer, and to everyone’s surprise we actually managed to get out of the hostel at a reasonable hour! First stop on day 2- La Sagrada Familia. Right as we got off the metro stop in front of the unfinished church, we heard some people yelling to us from a short distance in English. A group of 6 girls walked up and pointed to Zac’s University of Michigan hat and said, “we go there too!”. They were in Barcelona for the weekend and studying this semester in Florence, Italy. We walked around the church with the group of girls, taking alternate group photos and laughing about how small the world really is. If only we knew what was in store for us later that night. After La Sagrada Familia we split up with the girls, exchanging numbers, and as they headed for Park Guell, Zac and I got tapas near the church and then went down the Barceloneta Beach. We walked the boardwalk, the beach, admired amazing sand castles, watched some surfers shred, and then headed back to the hostel area. We went to a grocery store and bought some supplies to lesson the financial burden of eating out and on our way back from the store we were literally engulfed by a mob protesting something or other. We made it through the mob just as a line of 10 swat vans came screeching in, all in a line. With a little adrenaline surge, we quickly returned to the hostel, made ourselves a basic dinner and started to meet new people down in the common room.
Tonight’s plans were to go to the most famous discoteca in Barcelona. Opium del Mar is know for having amazing guest DJ’s like Tiesto, AVB, David Guetta. It is a multi-level establishment located right on the beach with possibly the coolest outdoor terrace I’ve ever seen. We met up with the girls that we had stumbled upon at La Sagrada Familia and all went back to our hostel for a little pre-game with the people we shared a room with- now the Ohio State girls, two from Poland and one from Venezuela. After that, all of us grabbed cabs and went to Opium. When we got there the line was huge, so we decided to walk across the street to another club called Catwalk. After getting in FREE, we went up to the top floor and found out why the club was appropriately named ‘Catwalk’. Surrounding a giant dance floor was a mix of couches and catwalks, all adorned with beautiful, skimpily dressed women taking turns entertaining on the catwalks. No more than 10 minutes after we got there, one of the girls we met at the church screamed and told us she just saw here best friend from her Florence program whom she couldn’t get ahold of earlier. She dragged us through the crowd and “introduced us” to Kelly King. My jaw dropped! The world is way way too small! Kelly King is also a class of 2008 graduate from Spring Lake High School! Very shortly after this, the girl from our hostel who went to the same high school as Zac’s roommate ran into people that she had gone to high school with, one of whom was Zac’s roommate’s best friend. The stream of coincidental meetings was not yet done. The same girls that we had run into at Shoko somehow also made it to Catwalk! After a while at Catwalk, we decided to see if the line to Opium had died down. It had, so a bunch of us went in, enjoyed the rest of the night and then went back to the hostel.
Day 3 in Barca started out a little slower, but still not bad. We started out by taking a series of metro lines to the outskirts of the city in order to fine the FC Barcelona futbol stadium. Unfortunately we couldn’t get a tour on Sunday, but we did get to walk around it, take pictures and imagine what the streets would be like on game day. After that we decided to walk back- a very ambitious play due to the great distance between the stadium and main part of town. It turned out to be one the better decisions we’ve made. We had been hearing things about Plaza de España, but for the life of us couldn’t find it on either of our maps. It just so happens that the plaza was about half way between the stadium and the rambla and we stumbled right into it. Adorned with beautiful fountains, pillars, towers, an impressive art museum and just a ton of people, the plaza really is something worth seeing in Barcelona. By the time we were back towards an area of town that we knew it was started to get dark, so we headed to Las Ramblas to check it out, just as we’d promised ourselves. The place was a beehive of activity and we posted up and watched it all pass us by. With an early train in the morning and being that it was a Sunday, we decided that we were going to take it easy for the night. We went back to the hostel and ran into the 5 girls whom we were sharing the mixed dorm with and they told us that they had bought wine and were planning on going down to the beach to casually sip some wine and just relax. I couldn’t have thought of a better plan myself. They invited us to join them and we did- thus ending a great weekend in Barcelona. Next stop- Alicante! I couldn’t wait to show Zac my stomping grounds!

Sevilla, España

Sevilla Blog Entry
Sevilla was a spur of the moment decision. I knew I wanted to go at some point while in Spain, but it happened to be this past weekend because Ryanair is awesome. While paroozing their website I stumbled upon round trip tickets from Alicante to Sevilla for less than 30€! After trying to convince my friend Hill to go with me and not having any luck, my friend John walked into the University of Alicante cafeteria and asked if I wanted to go with him, Carli, Steph, and Carolyn to Sevilla to celebrate Carolyn's 21st birthday. Que casualidad! What a coincidence! I had my ticket purchased within 5 minutes. We left Thursday after class and had our first smooth Ryanair flight. We found our hostel and, to our pleasant surprise, it was one street away from a really cool park called Alamada de Hurcules. The alamada had a mosaic tile floor in sections, fountains, benches and was encircled by about 50 different bars, cafes and tapa places. Not bad for randomly selecting a hostel location. The hostel itself was really cool too. We had a private ensuite- which means rather than dorm style with strangers the five of us had our own room and bathroom. The atmosphere was very chill too. When we walked in a bunch of hippies from the Netherlands were playing acoustic guitar and singing Bob Dylan and the third floor terrace was always bustling. We took it easy Thursday night and just checked out a few places around the alamada, knowing that the next night would be Carolyn's 21st. We woke up early Friday to get a full day of tourism in. The first thing we wanted to find was the Cathedral and right when we got the steeple in sight a guy driving a horse drawn carriage stopped and asked us if we wanted a ride to the Cathedral. I laughed at him and pointed at the steeple just two blocks away. Nice try, señor. He laughed and said that it was actually a tour of the city that ended at the cathedral. The girls were really into it and before asking a price had already jumped in. Worried about breaking the bank in our first hour exploring Sevilla, I made sure to talk to the driver before getting in. For 10€ each the five of us got a carriage tour for an hour. It was perfect because we really got out bearings of the city that none of us knew at all. After we got out of the carriage we met up with Carolyn's friend from home who was studying in the city and was waiting at the cathedral. Her name is Sam and she had brought a friend (who was actually from Michigan). We all toured the cathedral and then went up the tower. The tower was 34 stories and was designed for horses to climb up it, so instead of stairs it had a series of ramps. After the cathedral and tower we all headed back to our part of the city to get dinner and hang out a little bit before going to a free flamenco show. David, the guy who was in charge of the hostel, organized this every weekend for the clients. We met in the lobby and walked to a flamenco bar. I'm not sure if the free price tag had anything to do with it, but I enjoyed this flamenco show more than the "famous" one that we had seen just a week earlier in Valencia that had cost us 19€. Everyone agreed. After the flamenco show we headed back to the bar area around our hostel to celebrate Carolyn's birthday. We woke up a little slower Saturday morning, but still got up relatively early, had a great Spanish breakfast, and then headed to an open-air market. Afterwards we went through the shopping district (which is very difficult to walk through when you're traveling with 3 girls) and then spent the entire afternoon at Plaza de España. Plaza españa in Sevilla is something like a shrine to Spain. It is a huge semicircle building with a moat around it. Around the front of the building are different bench sections all next to each other and each one is dedicated to a city in Spain. Behind each bench is a mosaic of a scene correlated with each city and on the floor in front of the benches are maps of the region around the city. Naturally we all took pictures on the Alicante bench. After a little wandering and exploring of the monument we rented a rowboat and enjoyed a nice row around the moat. After plaza de españa we split up into two groups- Steph and Carli went back to shop in the same shops that we have in Alicante (only in Sevilla) while Jon, Carolyn and I went down to the riverfront to find the Torre de Oro. It was the docking sight of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. Columbus left for the new world from this sight and also returned to it, dropping off his piles of gold stolen from America. The tower was originally built in the 13th century as a watchtower. After the torre we decided to walk back along the river, even though it was quite a bit farther that way. We didn't care. It had been a beautiful day and the sun setting over the river made our decision a lot easier. As we walked along the boardwalk we saw crew teams rowing down the river, floating bars and restaurants, boats, the setting sun and as we continued to walk we heard a rumbling that grew louder and as we walked around a river bed we saw the boardwalk open up and covering the benches on each side of this plaza was a couple hundred people, all our age, just sitting around, drinking, playing music and getting ready to go out for the night. We spent a little time checking out the area, talking to a few people and then had to go, unfortunately, because we had to meet up with the other two girls. We did dinner, the girls got ready to go out, and then we went to the bars around or hostel again, only this time we were only at the bars to kill time before the discotecas. Carolyn and her friend wanted to go to a big dance club to celebrate her birthday. We headed over the club district around two, arriving 20 min later. We got in line at the most popular club in Sevilla only to find out that after 2am it was a 30€ entrance fee! HA, that's a good joke... That is more than our Ryanair round trip flight cost! We walked down the street to another giant dance club only to find out the same thing was true there. Although Sevilla is an amazing city, this made me pretty happy to be studying in Alicante. We ended up settling for a large bar/ smallish discoteca and having a very good time. The next morning my four amigos left for the airport and I set out into Sevilla to enjoy a nice, peaceful day alone. I went to the palace and toured its grounds and then went over to a park that a waiter had told us about the day before- something about it having 3000 trees and lots of fountains. He wasn't kidding! It was a pretty cool place. Afterwards I walked back to the center of the city and then down to the riverfront where I was going to kill time until my friend Lauren from Washington and Lee was done with her and intercambio. She showed up to the tapa restaurant about an hour after me. In the meantime, I had made friends with the waiter and cook at this little place (where they only had one other table to worry about). They were both native to Sevilla and had lived their entire lives there. As we made small talk they kept putting free tapas in front of me. Of course I had ordered one with me beer when I had first gotten there (Spaniards rarely drink without food), but they told me that they liked me and about four free tapas later Lauren showed up. I think the restaurant workers like how much I enjoyed their food. I'm a poor college kid traveling on his own €- nice meals are few and far between when I'm not having Stella put them in front of me. Lauren and I had beer and ordered another tapa but the restaurant was closing so we paid and moved on to another place. After macadillos we split ways and I headed back to my new hostel (closer to the airport because I had a very early flight the next day). I went up to my room, which I was sharing with 9 other people to relax a little and found four Italians who had just arrived. None of them spoke English but were all more or less fluent in Spanish, so we could get by. They invited me out to dinner with them and although I was full, I went anyway. It was a good opportunity to practice Spanish and also get out of the hostel with people rather than just alone. It was a Sunday night, so nothing big was happening, but we still have fun.

Granada

The final exams of our “intensive Spanish period” courses finished Friday mid-afternoon and the entire CC-CS group boarded a bus bound for Granada, Spain.  Granada is a very important city in Spanish history.  It was last Muslim stronghold in Spain before the Catholic Kings, Ferdinand and Isabella, conquered it in 1492, ending the ~800 years of Moorish occupation of the Iberian Peninsula.  Upon arriving in Granada, we checked all 50 of us into the hotel and then those of us who had signed up before hand went to Cueva de la Rocia.  Cueva de la Rocia is a very famous flamenco tablao.  Bill Clinton, Michelle Obama, Antonio Banderas and many other famous people have visited it.  Cueva is “cave” in Spanish, and that is exactly what this little place looked like.  It was a long, skinny, arched corridor with chairs down each wall.  The decorations were peculiar- all white walls, pots hanging from the ceiling, pictures of notable guests on the wall, and a red tint to the lighting.  As we walked into the cave to take our seats adjacent to the entrance, Hill (one of closest friends in the program), pointed out a section of the floor that was very worn.  In the middle of the “U” shaped outline of chairs was a wooden dance floor.  It wasn’t elevated and almost blended into the rock floor.  After everyone had taken their seats the lights dimmed and the dancers and band entered through the same door as the crowd, situated themselves on the set of four to five rounded stairs that we had just descended and started clapping in rhythm.  A microphone was set up and one of the ladies started singing in a very throaty voice and shortly after, a guitarist accompanied her.  Once the music was flowing, a man wearing black boot/shoes with large heals on them stood from his seated position on the stairs, walked to the middle of the U of chairs onto the worn dance floor and started clapping and tapping his feet to the beat.  The rate of his foot tapping increased to a very impressive rate and the snaps and thunks of his shoes created a whole new element to the flamenco music.  A lady dancer joined the male and they tapped and clapped together in a synchronized fashion- wrapping around each other and never missing a beat.  They alternated between dancing solo, in pairs, or even as many as four at a time.  When they took their break in the middle of the performance, we were all given a tall glass of sangria and we chatted about how amazing the performance was.  The dancers came back, finished with very impressive performance- selecting audience members to join them for a laugh- and then we left.  

We all went on a surprise walking tour of the area around the tablao (to the dismay of some of the tired, unenthusiastic complainers), and ended up at a little church with an amazing view of a fully illuminated Alhambra!  After we got back on the bus, we were given two options:  one group was going back to the hotel, and the other was going to be dropped in the center of the city so they could get tapas and see a little bit of the nightlife.  I went with the second group, of course.  We split and went to different places to eat.  When my group walked into our restaurant, there was a group of Spaniards who, by the amount of empty cups and plates on their table, we could tell had been there a while.  They started clapping when they saw us- clearly a foreign group.  They invited us over to sit at a table next to them, but there wasn’t room for our pretty big group.  The place was small and we sat across the main entranceway from them.  They kept breaking out into spits of clapping, singing and flamenco dancing and were inviting us to join them time and time again.  Finally, the girls convinced me to get up and try my hand at a little flamenco.  Let’s be honest, it really didn’t take that much peer pressure.  They guy and girl pair who had been doing most of the dancing took me into their group, got the clapping and singing going, and told me to just try my best.  My best was obviously not very good, judging by the amount of laughing I received from the whole place, but they wouldn’t let me sit down, so I learned a couple basic steps and claps and kept going.  I convinced the rest of my table to get up and join us and the pair (please keep in mind I did not say couple) took turns dancing with each of the Americanos.  We sat back down, ordered round after round of tapas, and enjoyed some food and drink.  When the group of Spaniards was getting ready to go, two of the guys came over to our table.  The “leader” of their group, Antonio, started talking and somehow the conversation switched from a friendly goodbye to very forward compliments directed at me.  “Hay que guapo.  Que bonito tu cara…” The friend of the leader had taken an empty seat next to a girlfriend of mine and they were talking.  After a few minutes, and before I knew what exactly was happening, Antonio was giving me a piece of paper with his phone number and telling me exactly how to get to his hotel.  He also, in very broken English, was telling the entire restaurant what he wanted me to do to him.  I’ll let you use your imagination for the details.  The girls at my table (keeping in mind that the guy to girl ratio in my program here is roughly 1:5), thought it was hilarious and actually encouraged this.  I don’t think my face has ever been redder in my life.  I didn’t know what to do besides tell him repeatedly that I am not gay.  I found out later that Antonio’s friend who had sat down next to Steph had been asking- or rather pleading with her- to tell him that I was gay and single.  Apparently I look exotic?  Single yes, gay no.  Sorry Antonio… After tapas it was already 2am and we had to be up and at breakfast very early, so we checked out one bar briefly on the way home and went up to our rooms to rest up for the Alhambra. 

The Alhambra is an amazing palace/ fort/ church in Granada.  Words can’t really do it justice.  It’s a fortified city with a palace and cathedral in it and overlooks Granada and the snowcapped Sierra Nevada mountains.  The intricacies of each wall, ceiling, garden, statue, etc. are amazing.  The mix between the Arab architecture and, later, the Catholic renovations make it a very unique place.  After the Alhambra we took a bus to the center of Granada and had a few hours to explore and eat before meeting up to go into the Cathedral of Granada.  The Cathedral took over 200 years to complete and is a hodgepodge of different eras of architecture, but is started out as gothic.   In a part of the cathedral are the mausoleums of Ferdinand and Isabella as well as Juana la Loca and her husband. 

After tapas we went to a hookah bar to further or arab cultural experiences for the day.  After Kabob, hookah and some drinks, we left and went to a club that we had heard nothing but good things about.  Granada Diez was unfortunately a cab ride away, but it had been built up so much that we decided that it was worth it.  And OHHHH was it worth it!  This was the kind of huge club that you’d see in movies about Europe in which people listening to house music and dance the night away. After rolling back to our hotel around 7:30am (it’s the Spanish way), I slept through breakfast, crawled to the bus in the morning and reminisced about how great Granada was the whole way home.  

Salsa

I went to my first salsa dance class last night!  There is a very popular discoteca right on the rambla in Alicante that offeres free, yes FREE, dance classes monday nights and I just found out about them!  Not only do they have a dance instructor, but you get free sangria as well.  Apparently a few girls from my study abroad program have been doing them since we got there.  Thanks for not telling me, ladies... I only stayed for an hour last night because it got progressively harder and I found myself tripping over my feet, and others, by the time we started up again after the second pause.  I feel like I was a little bit of a spectacle for the class because other than the instructor I was pretty much the only guy with around 30 girls.  I seem to be finding myself in groups of this ratio pretty often here in Spain.  Im not complaining!!!  I'm looking forward to next week, though!  Now I just have to find a place to take flamenco.

Valencia, Benidrom, Altea

As my spanish is progressively getting better, I have noticed a slipping in my english!  Sometimes the order in which my words come out just doesn't make sense for a native speaker.  I hope to overcome this problem in my writing, but no promises.

The past two weekends I have been on the road.  Don't get me wrong, I love Alicante and its amazing nightlife, but I'd rather experience the different cultures around España than become a regular at a certain pub or discoteca (not that it's impossible to do both).  I've been exploring all over the city after classes and don't need full days on the weekends to do so more.  Last weekend the CCCS director, Pepa, brought all 48 of us to Valencia on a day trip.  Pepa warned us that one day wouldn't be sufficient to experience the city and that she could only give us a taste, so 8 of us decided to stay overnight, have our first hostel experience in Europe, and continue exploring Valencia the next day.  With the whole group, we started out at the city of arts and sciences- home to an opera house, the largest aquarium in Europe, an interactive science museum and much more.  Next, we moved across town to the older section where we toured La Longe which was a baroque style market built by the muslims during their occupation of Spain.  After the market, we had a couple hours of free time to go exploring before rejoining up as a group at the famous cathedral for a tour.  The cathedral is home to what many believe is the Holy Grail.  During our free time, a group of us went to the Marcado Central (Central Market).  The Marcado Central is a good place to size up the city and see all different types of people.  We also explored, did a little shopping and had some tapas as well.  After our tour of the cathedral, the vast majority of the group returned to the bus to head back to Alicante.  I don't understand the decision making process of some people...  You were given a free bus ride to the city, a "look but don't touch" tour of Valencia (which left me itching to dive deeper into exploring the city), you're in Spain to experience the culture and travel but you won't spend 12 Euro on a hostel room and another 15 on a return train ticket to have a night and full extra day in Valencia?  Que curioso.  The group of us left the others at the bus and went giddily to find our hostel.  We stayed at the Red Nest Hostel and it far surpassed my expectations.  As a first time hosteler, I was expecting a hole in the wall type of place, without reception, security, nice facilities, a game room, clean bathrooms, etc.  We were all very impressed with the hostel experience.  The first thing on our to-do list was to find a very authentic paella restaurante.  Paella is a rice dish that is native to Valencia.  Many foreigners equate it to Spain's dish, but the Spaniards associate it as Valenciano.  A table of people is served one large dish of rice mixed with seafood or chicken, snail, rabbit, beans and green peppers.  The very attractive young españolas working the reception desk steered us in the right direction and we enjoyed a nice meal before heading out to see what kind of nightlife Valencia had to offer.  The next day we returned to the city of arts and sciences to explore some more, enjoyed some more sightseeing, enjoyed some more traditional cuisine and stumbled upon the best park in the world before we took the late train back to Alicante.  The park is actually the bed of a river that was diverted because it continually flooded the city.  The long, green strip going right through the middle of the city is full of fountains, walking and biking paths and the coolest playground ever built!  Hill and I had a field day on it, making sure not to run over all the niñitos in the process. ¿Vale la pena?  ¡Por supuesto!

This past weekend the same crew who stayed over in Valencia (plus 1) decided to explore a little closer to home.  Just a tram ride away, we have the beautiful cities of Benidrom, Dénia, and Altea.  The plan was to make it all the way up the tram line to Dénia, but we got too caught up in Benidrom and Altea to make it all the way up.
Benidorm is a very touristy place where you can get by on just english.  The Brits love it.  This time of year, though, it is like Arizona- mucho antiguos.  In the summer, it's apparently a very hopping place.  Most of the discotecas are right on the beach.  Despite having cliffs and rocky beaches, Benidorm also has two beautiful sandy beaches.  I found a hotel through hostelbookers.com that seemed to be right in the middle of the action and was very cost effective (another 12€ for the night).  When we got there, the couple that owned the place, like all the other people in Benidorm, was from England.  They loved us and gave us their two biggest rooms- despite us paying for smaller ones- because no one else was in the hotel.  They told us where to eat, what to see and about their experiences with kids our age during the summer months.  I think a return trip will be in order.
After spending half of the next day in Benidorm, we went back to the hotel, got our belongings, and split into two groups.  Meg, Hill, Kristen and I went on to Altea while Lethia, Liz, and Abby headed back to Alicante.  I liked Altea more than Benidorm.  It was small, quaint and made me think of Greece.  Just two tram stops away, Altea seemed like another world.  All of the buildings are white and situated on winding paths going up a steep hill.  The top of the hill is home to a beautiful old church with a spectacular view of the slope of white houses separating it from the rocky shore of the Mediterranean.  When we were planning the trip, we thought about staying another night away from Alicante and staying in Altea.  I think we made a good decision to return to Alicante.  Although I loved the town, a few hours there was perfect.

Alicante Photos

Giant Ficas 

Explanada 

Castle of Santa Barbara

Mmmmmmmm

La Playa (learn that word, Gin)

Castle of Santa Barbara (below) 1500+ years old!!!

First swim in the Med

Marcado Central