Spain Diaries: The Beginning

My housemates from last semester wanted to have an Ireland Reunion. We decided on a place nice and warm. We went to Murcia Spain to stay with Ana. While planning our way to Ana’s I got the brilliant idea that I could make a grand tour of it and see Spain. Turns out it’s super cheap to travel within Spain. So after we bought our tickets to Aicante I started looking about for cheap ways to see everything. Ana had given me a list of cities to see and I set myself a goal. See as many as I can, tickets must be less then €20.


My hop about costs are as follows:
Alicante > Madrid €6.48
Madrid > Santiago De Compostela €15.12
Santiago > Seville €15.99
Seville > Cordoba €10
Cordoba > Murcia €33

Now the bus from Cordoba to Murcia was the most expensive…. But I just had to swing back by Ana’s to annoy her some more since I won’t see her till the spring. And How did I get back home to France? I swung by Milan because it was cheap but that’s a later post.

Damien and I got up at 3h00 to catch our bus in Metz to Frankfurt Hahn airport. After a coffee we were off to Spain! And when we walked through the gates Ana, Lenka, and Candice were there to welcome us. I have to say seeing my friend outside of Ireland was such an odd experience since in my mind when I think of them I think of Ireland and no where else, it’s like they don’t have a home they just float around in the thought that is Ireland. But they were indeed in Spain and we kicked off our stay in a grand fashion.

We arrived at Ana’s house and were greeted with Spanishness. And by Spanishness I mean food. If I were to move to Spain I might very well become obese and die from eating so much amazing food. Spanish Ham is one of my all time favorite foods. I wanted to feast only on ham while I was in Spain but there was yummier food to be had. Like Paella. Ana’s mum cooked us paella for lunch on the first day. It was beyond amazing it had huge shrimp like I shit you not the size of my hand shrimp. They were tasty and I wish I could have eaten more. But we had tapas before. Tapas are pretty much appetizers so we had Spanish ham, olives, sea food, and other yummies before we even ate the paella. It was like that with every meal tapas before an epic main dish. And so much food. I ate till I was so full and there was still so much food. I loved it.

I think the best part of my Spain visit was staying at Ana’s house and actually getting to “be Spanish” I got to eat home made Spanish food and pretty much lived on a Spanish timetable. Get this they eat dinner at like 22h00! And they have siesta in the afternoon. And they eat lunch late too. It was really cool to experience it all.

So the first night we’re in Murcia after napping for a few hours Ana informs us we’re going to do Botellon. What is this? It’s drinking on the streets. We met up with a few of Ana’s friends and found a nice place in a park to do some drinking. I stuck with orange juice as traveling most of the day and no sleep didn’t sit too well with me, so yeah I was lame. Ana’s advise for the night “If you see a cop run.” Botellon is illegal, but everyone does it. And we saw a lot of people in the same park as us drinking just like us. Midnight rolled around and the Spanish were just getting warmed up.

Since dinner is late you leave to bars late like midnightish then you go to clubs around 2 or 3 then you get home around 6 in the morning. Thank god we didn’t do the whole deal otherwise I might very well have died of exhaustion. We only went to a bar and stayed till around 3 I think. Then we made our way back to Anas to eat yummies (aka ham, cheese and bread). Then finally I was so relieved to get to bed since I’d only had about 6 hours of sleep since 3am the day before. The lack of sleep was worth it though since I got to “be Spanish” and drink on the streets.

The next day we were off to the coast town of Cartagena.

It’s only about an hour from Ana’s and it was so pretty. Ana’s parents came with us and showed us around the city. We saw the Roman Theater that’s there.

It’s restored so that’s why it doesn’t look so old. It dates back to the first century AD (if I remember correctly). While we were walking back to the car we saw epic graffiti. I was a huge fan of it.

After we ate a picnic lunch in Cartagena we started driving. Ana’s dad took us to some really pretty places where you had an amazing view of the Mediterranean.

I got to put my feet in the Mediterranean for the first time ever. And the beach had black sand! How cool right. Or last stop of the day was Faro de Cabo de Palos. It’s a lighthouse that was built in 1865.

And there was a cute cove right by it too.

We made a little stop on the way home.It's the church Ana's parents were married at and it gives her her middle name. It's so pretty. And while we were there there was a wedding about to happen so there were a lot of people all dressed up then there was us in our jeans and tanktops. It was quite funny.

Then we drove back to Murcia to take a siesta before dinner. I think we had tortilla for dinner. Tortilla is Spanish Omelet and it’s so amazing and tasty. The next day we were heading off to Granada!
 
Cheers,