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.