There's so much I have to write about. I hope I don't forget anything important.
First off, my flight to Spain was - dare I say - actually somewhat enjoyable. I was on probably the biggest plane I've ever been on. Luckily I had a window seat and only JLo (my roommate) was next to me. I ready almost the whole flight. I finished The Plain Truth by Jodi Picolt. Not my fav book but decent. Then I started Eat Pray Love. This was probably the perfect book to read while traveling abroad because it's about a woman traveling to Italy, India, and Indonesia. As I was reading this book on the plane I was getting so excited about traveling to a different country it was hard for me to sleep.
We finally landed in Madrid at around 8:45 am. The Madrid airport is possibly the most beautiful airport I've ever seen. Everything is high tech and modern. It makes me embarrassed of Laguardia and Kennedy. We had a few hours before our next flight so of course I bought a bottle of champagne in the duty free shop (I was ready to celebrate being in Spain). Only 5 euros. So cheap!
Then we boarded our flight to Alicante, which was a much smaller plane. I slept the whole way, which was only an hour but it felt good to sleep. After we arrived in Alicante we got our bags and were greeted by a young guy (he looked to be about 17) and he took us to a bus. It wasn't until I was on the bus that I realized we never went through customs. Weird...
Finally after about 24 hours of traveling we got to our dorms/hotel. I still haven't figured out which one it is. It seems like a hotel that only students live in. To my surprise the rooms were TINY. Very tiny. Definitely not designed for the claustrophobic. The two twin beds are oddly pushed together. The shower is just big enough for my body to fit in. And the bed is as hard as a rock. Good thing I'm pretty low maintenance or this would be a prob. We had about an hour to unpack and then we took the metro bus to downtown Alicante.
The city is very hard to describe. It is old and new, dirty and clean, and wild and conservative. The main streets remind me of NYC but the side streets remind me of pictures I've seen of Rome. We walked to the end of the strip and eventually found the beach. It's beautiful. It reminds me of South Beach but more European. A few of us stopped at this one place and got "tapas," which are small plates of appetizer-like food. I fell in love. We also got a pitcher of Claro beer. Probably the best tasting beer I've ever had. I enjoyed drinking it and wanted more. I ordered a ham and cheese sandwich with black truffle (I was told I had to try this) and it was delicious. The ham and cheese here is not like the slimy cold cuts and American cheese we have at home. It's very thin, lacy, salty goodness. And the cheese is out of this world.
After getting lost a few times, we then took the bus back home. I slept for an hour or so then me and JLo decided we wanted to try the dinner the dorm/hotel provided us. There's a cafeteria that's really just like a small buffet. For dinner they had plain pasta, some spinach pastry, hot dogs with no bun, some potato thing, and vegetables. I got the plain pasta. So needless to say the dinner was not very good. Luckily I went to the lunch yesterday and it was better.
After "dinner" we were all laying in our rooms exhausted. The consensus was that we were all too tired to go out. However, one of our "chaperones" came to us and told us we were stupid for not going out. Barcelona just won the European Cup and Saturday was one of the best days to go out. After talking to "little boyfriend" (we call him this because he's really short and he acts like our professor, Ortega's boyfriend) we were convinced we had to go out. We made a good decision.
It took us a while for everyone to get ready and together so we left around midnight. We took the bus, which took a while because it comes ever hour at that time. Finally we get to downtown and decide on this one bar. Since we were all sober we felt kinda awkward and most of us went to the bar to get a drink. After dancing/drinking for a little we decided we didn't like it there because the crowd was filled with creepy old men (old being like 30+). So we left and walked around for a bit. We saw this huge "casino" with flashing lights and colors. We decided to check it out. It was more of 20 bars/clubs than a casino. We decided on this one club called "Air." This was much better. We started to loosen up and have fun. We danced and danced and danced. Finally we realized it was about 4am, so some of us decided to go home. We wanted to take the bus because the taxi was expensive and it could only fit 4 and there were 5 of us. So after waiting almost an hour for the bus we made it home at about 5:30 am.
This was my first night in Alicante. I was so tired and glad to be in my bed. The hard mattress didn't bother me. I have more to write, but I have to get ready for my first class (we all forgot we actually had work to do). Ciao!
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