On Thursday, April 26th, I left work a little
early and headed to the airport because I was going to Spain! Exciting, I know.
This would mark my first trip to Spain. I got there without a hitch and my friend
Matt met me at the airport. I got there around 9pm, just in time to see a
beautiful sunset. After he picked me up, we went and sat by the ocean, can you
believe that, he lives near the ocean :) and we drank some wine while we waited
for our other two friends, Ashley and Kelly to come in from San Sebastian
(another Spanish town). When they got there we headed to our hostel and
finished drinking some wine and catching up with each other.
Friday morning, Kelly, Ashley and I left for Valencia. O Valencia! – 10 points to anyone can guess the band who sings this? I had the song stuck in my head all weekend! We
took a quick one hour flight and arrived early afternoon. First, we checked
into our hostel, the most adorable and quaint hostel ever, in which the owners
even had a cat that greeted us at the door. I of course made friends with him immediately..
Since it was really nice out, we decided to take the opportunity to eat lunch
outside in one of the little restaurants and then tour the city. Both Ashley
and I got paella along with the appetizer sampler. Everything was delicious and
so cheap compared to France. Afterwards we headed into the center of the city and walked all around.
We ended up seeing almost all of the inner city on
Friday. At night, we were out in town looking for something to do when we came
across a spring version of Oktoberfest. We decided what the hell and joined the
party. It was awesome because they had the long tables set up and Maβ glasses
filled with German beer. They even had bratwurst and other German cuisine. I felt like I was at the real thing, minus all
the Spanish people of course. Ashley and I both had so much beer that we were
completely full and couldn’t drink anymore. We even finished Kelly’s Maβ
because she couldn’t drink anymore. When it ended we stumbled home and
fell right asleep.
For Saturday, we planned to shop in the city center in the morning
and then head to the beach and to the science museum and aquarium complex in
the afternoon. The morning turned out to be gorgeous and we all enjoyed
shopping in all the little shops. I mean, what girl doesn’t. Then as we were
taking the bus toward the science museum complex, it started to downpour and
didn’t let up. We didn’t get to go to the beach because the weather was not the
nicest. Ashley and I really wanted to go to the aquarium because it was
supposed to be one of the best but Kelly didn’t want to. When we found out that
most of the exhibits were outside, we decided to pass on that as well. It was
really disappointing because that was the main thing I was looking forward to
seeing in Valencia. We didn’t do anything too crazy on Saturday night but we
still had a great time. Even little blonde puppy got in on the fun!
On Sunday, my birthday, we got up and ate breakfast on the go. We
went through all the markets and then headed to the airport to go back to
northern Spain. We landed back in Santander and then had to take a 3 hour bus
to San Sebastian. We didn’t end up
getting home (to Ashley’s apartment in San Sebastian) until after 7pm. It was
quite a long day of traveling. Not exactly how I wanted to spend my birthday,
but I was with one of my best friends so it didn’t matter. When we got to
Ashley’s apartment, we met up with her boyfriend and headed out to tour San
Sebastian which is also on the coast. It was so nice to hear the surf and watch
the sunset of the water. God did I miss seeing the ocean and the beach. Then we
went to dinner at a place called Fosters which served American cuisine.
Afterwards we got ice cream, walked around a little more and then called it a
night. We were both exhausted and couldn’t wait to get into bed.
Monday was dedicated to touring San Sebastian. We did and saw
everything there was to see by midafternoon. The town was truly quite beautiful
and seemed very rich. We lucked out with
the weather too. It was supposed to rain all day, but didn’t. We even got
bagels, real bagels for breakfast. I had a blueberry bagel and it was so good!
You don’t think bagels would be something you’d miss from home, but you do. I
took lots of pictures and walked a lot and got to enjoy the sun, even got a little
color, and had a wonderful day. We went home and made sandwiches and relaxed a
bit before we headed to Sidrería Petritegi (a cider house) for dinner. I have
never been to one and after wondering around the little town it was in and
getting completely soaked because it decided to start raining, we finally found
it and had a typical Basque dinner, (Basque is the region of Spain we were in)
along with tasting all of the ciders. Something I will probably never do again in my
life, but amazing nonetheless.
Tuesday morning I got up and Ashley made me breakfast – bacon,
eggs and toast, and then I boarded another bus back to Santander to head back
to Paris. The bus takes you along the coast so it quite beautiful despite the 3
hour and 45 minute ride. I left Ashley’s at 11:15am and didn’t get back to my
room until 10:30pm. It was quite an exhausting day. This was the first trip in
which there were no problems and/or stupid things that I did to mess up my
travel plans. It was quite a success in my book; it only took me 9 months to
figure it out! It was also my birthday
so that made the trip that much better :)
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