This is it, all; my last post about
Spain. A little late coming, I know. But now I’m getting ready to move on to other
fun things so stay tuned!
After my great Italy excursion, I
headed back to Spain; but to Barcelona rather than Valencia. I attended a swing
dance festival called Barswingona. It was great fun and I lucked out and had a
great host located right on Las Ramblas (a cool street of vendors). No need to
talk about the fact that prior to arriving back in Spain I had no host at all... so believe me when I say I felt very blessed.
The following day I walked around the area I was
staying in and found adorable boutiques and vintagey shops. My last day in
Barcelona I attended the Palo Alto market which is also super cute and full of
trendy crafts, clothes, and food. I got some excellent craft inspirations (to be
executed later) during my Barcelona outings.
I spent a few days back in Valencia
catching up before I headed out to Lagos, Portugal with some American friends
in my program. Lagos itself was stunning with all of its cliffs and grottos. I
wish I had gotten to spend more time in the quaint town but I spent most of my
time on the water. My favorite part of this trip was ocean kayaking!
We also
did a sangria cruise and went to see the “end of the world”. In the olden days
they didn’t know that anything else existed. It was beautiful (and also very windy) to see the sunset
go down over that horizon. That was how I said goodbye to Portugal for the time
being.
The following week was the start of
my finals week but that didn’t stop me from going on an excursion to the
mountains around Valencia. We stayed in the little village of Montanejos and
had forest adventures shooting paintballs, doing ziplines, slacklines, and climbing
trees. We hiked up the mountains and to a hot spring. My highlight of this trip
was white water rafting and jumping off some cliffs into the water. The water
was freezing and we were in full wetsuits but it was a really great experience.
At the end, the teams of boats all tried to tip each other and I got a bit of a
fat lip but it was all in good fun.
I rounded out my school days in
Valencia hosting a make your own pizza party for my American friends and
climbing the Miguelito bell tower that overlooks all of Valencia.
As you can imagine, finals were far from my mind. Saying goodbye to my American friends was pretty sad but fortunately I had a nice transition period between Spain and the US because my parents came to visit me and as they say “to pack me up and take me home”. I did need the extra suitcase space due to my clothes and souvenir purchases. In my defense, they were made over the span of four months.
I got to show my parents and our
family friends my city. I showed them the central historic district, the river,
some of my favorite shopping, and I took them to the paella farm that opened my trip which was a beautifully symbolic meal.
My last night in Valencia was a
social dance night and music jam at the dance school. I got to take my family
to see the school and show them the Spanish swing dancing scene. My friends
there gave me one last jam circle and a big group hug and it was really
touching. I hope to visit them in the future.
The five of us left Valencia and
went to Palma de Mallorca which was beautiful, beachy, and relaxing. We were
bums the whole time we were there, enjoying tapas on our cute AirBnB patio, napping, and
looking for sea glass on the beach. I have never seen sea glass in such quantities. I
liked imagining that the glass there was from Valencia which is highly possible
since they’re right across the sea from each other.
My final Spanish destination was
Madrid. On January 8, 2015 I flew into Madrid and now, in May I was leaving the
same way. Those four months flew by so we had to live up our last few days. We
had drinks on a rooftop bar and strolled the huge central park (Parque del Buen
Retiro).
We essentially shopped, ate, and drank our way around Spain’s capital.
We ate and drank really well. And that’s how I ended my wonderful study abroad time.
That’s also a pretty good summary of my trip in general. I ate, I drank, and I saw
beautiful things. I could not have asked for a better experience. Coming home
felt weird but perfectly comfortable at the same time. It’s been nice to be home but now with a
month left until I go back to Pitt, I’m itching for my next adventure.