Today marked our first day of traveling outside of Valencia as a group, we were off to Peniscola! The group was told to promptly meet at 10am by the Institute, but of course we are a directionally challenged group of dysfunction and the group of 3 boys who live farthest away got very lost and we didn't end up leaving until and hour later...without the boys. After about a 2 hour bus ride we finally arrived at our northern destination of Peniscola, and of course it wouldn't be a trip for us if the black storm clouds didn't follow. We began our treck through the beautiful old towne which reminded us of Greece and made our way to the top of the mountain where the castle was. This was the home of el Papa Luna (pope). It was one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen, for the short hour or so that the sun was out for. So of course the girls we all are had to take every picture together in every spot, to have the best new profile picture :)
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| Kappa Delta hands with sisters (Christine, Me, Jen) |
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| Top of el castile with sisters (Jen, Me, Christine) |
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| Peniscola |
When the tour of the castle was over we were free to roam around the shops, go to lunch, and go to the beach until we had to meet back up around 6. The wind picked up and the storms came rolling on in and of course we didn't learn the past few times to bring a jacket with us, we experienced deluge number 3 while trying to find somewhere for lunch. Good ole Lewis and Clarke for ya. We enjoyed some classic Valencian foods like a bocadillo de jamon y queso (ham and cheese on a baguette) and others ordered croquetas y patatas bravas, y we all ordered french fries...classic americans! Once the storm passed we wandered through the little shops while on our way back down the hill and had about an hour to kill before heading back but it was windy, cold, and gross out so we just sat near the bus and waited. We touched el mar mediteraneo and played around in the sand a bit before we decided to be loca! Me and two other girls and Jake decided we were going to run into the sea despite the wind, no sun and giant storm approaching again. Hey you only get this experience once! So we ran like crazy people and splashed around the water, which wasn't too bad until you got out and the gail force winds hit ya, but the experience was totally worth it.
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| Running into the ocean (storm in the distance) |
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| Freezing after the swim |
We then headed back home to relax a bit and have dinner with our families. Our host family had some friends over and we enjoyed some nice cervesas with them and hung out for a while. Each friend brought a small dish and chips and finger sandwhiches were out all night. We tried a "salsa griego" (greek salsa) which consisted of yogurt, garlic, cucumbers, and some salt with little breadsticks. Fue muy delicioso! But then of course, the dreaded tuna found us again...a friend made a pasta salad with actual lettuce and pasta together with tuna in it and we had to try it. Needless to say we want nothing to do with tuna anymore.
The whole group was going to meet up for drinks and go to a dance club to celebrate Melanie's birthday so we met up with them after hanging out with our host family and their friends for a while. We finally got to try "agua de valencia" y fue fantastico! It's a drink made up of fresh squeezed orange juice, champagne, rum,triple sec, and some other thing but it was so gooddd. We eventually made it to the dance club where we had a ball. Everyone we met wanted to talk English with us but would make us talk back to them in Spanish, so helpful and fun! And many people asked if I was from Spain or Italy because I spoke so well and looked the part...I was so excited to hear this, all my hard work of studying Spanish has finally paid off!
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After a night full of fun and dancing we headed back to our house to be greeted by one of the friend's dog named golfa...come to find out that name means floozy/hooker in Spanish. Quite funny to us. Shortly after eating some snacks after getting back we fell asleep rather quickly. Another successful night!
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| EL perro con Jen |
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