Mi Vida en Madrid: Torrevieja and Alicante

Hello everyone!

Last weekend was the Oceanography classes trip to Torrevieja. Torrevieja is a city on the south east coast of Spain and it is in the province of Torrevieja. They stayed at a very nice hotel, with a buffet for breakfast and included dinner. This was all a part of their 350 euro cost to the school. Now I am not in this Oceanography class, nor is my friend Dom, however we decided to try to tag along. Looking up flights and finding out that they were only 20 euro round trip we decided we couldn't pass this up. So we flew into Alicante on Friday morning, and took a 1 hour bus down to Torrevieja. It was an awesome bus ride because the highway goes right along the coast and it is obviously a very nice and easy 1 hour ride.

When arriving in Torrevieja, we were a bit overwhelmed. The bus station is a little run down and it is in the center of a city where every building seems to be the same height of about 7-10 stories. So needless to say we couldn't exactly navigate perfectly. The one good thing was that the city is also surrounded by water. So when we looked way down a street, we could see the ocean and that is what saved us. Eventually we walked up the coast for a few miles and found the hotel a bunch of our friends were staying at. It worked out great. We had a free place to stay for 2 nights. The next day was awesome. We went down to the beach and the boardwalk. The boardwalk was brand new and had shops and street vendors lining it. The most noticeable thing were the restaurants. They had their regular indoor seating. but then also had an outdoor seating area under a canopy, as well as out in the open. These restaurants seemed to be never ending. Funny thing is we ate McDonald's....(Euro menu is fantastic for broke college students who are abroad.)

We spent the next day in Torrevieja at the beach and pretty much just walking around the city for the day. It seems like in the summer the city would be packed with tourists who own summer homes, but when we were there it was almost as if the city was preparing for what was to come. A little quiet, a little dead, but you could tell there are times when it is super busy and probably really fun.

The next day (Sunday) we hopped on a bus back to Alicante. Since our flight was not until Monday in the late afternoon, we decided to stay our next 2 nights in Alicante. When we arrived, we had much to see. Alicante was definitely a very tourist friendly city. This was both a good and bad thing. Sometimes too touristy gets a bit annoying with street vendors always picking out the two kids who are slighty burnt, have their big backpacks, and just don't have that "European look" that everyone else seems to have. On the other hand it is very helpful when there are maps everywhere for free and this helped us get to our hostel with ease. After checking into the hostel, it was 11 o'clock in the morning on a cloudless day in Alicante, what else would we do but go to the beach. The beach was AWESOME. A nice breeze from the ocean took away some of the suns scorching heat. It got up into the 80's at one point and when we were just laying on the beach it made it that much more hot. The water was pretty cold so we didn't do much swimming. One might say that the sun got the best of us that day. That night we walked around, stopped in a few bars and Irish pubs, and called it an early night. We were exhausted.

The last day of the trip was great. Probably the best day of the trip. We woke up early at about 9 and went to a meat and fish market. Every type of meat and fish you could imagine, we saw. It was pretty cool. Then we headed up to a castle. This castle was called Castillo de Santa Barbara. It was perched on the top of a cliff which was right on the edge of the beach and city. The treck up was miserable and our legs were definitely burning, however, the view was well worth it. We had a 360 degree view of the city, port, and coast. It was great. After the castle was went back to the beach for the rest of the day. For lunch we had one of the best meals I have had in Spain so far. We had Croquettes stuffed with seafood and ham. Then we split a giant plate of Paella which had Giant Shrimp, Muscles, Calamari, and Chicken. It was awesome.

Finally the trip was over. Beaches, Boardwalks, Piers, food, sun, overall it was yet another awesome trip. Next stop is Porto, Portugal with Matt Letcher, and Joe Orf. Hopefully it will be as fun as this trip was!

Free Hotel in Torrevieja!