Blogs from San Vicente del Raspeig, Alicante, Valencian Community, Spain, Europe

After kicking off the summer with a trip to Italy, I didn't really have any further travel plans and thus I wasn’t expecting to be writing again so soon - but here we are! Life has a habit of keeping you on your toes. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the world of work forever by forcing millions of office workers to work remotely and for many companies across the globe, this forced experiment proved to be a huge success, as employers realised that productivity could be maintained or even improved, and employees realised that they really didn't need to be in the office every day anymore - that work could now be much more flexible and convenient than ever before. I am fortunate enough to be working for a company that has not just embraced remote ... read more

I can't believe it! I can't believe this is the end of my last week in Spain. I get on the train for Madrid tomorrow night at 8. My flight from Madrid to London leaves Saturday morning at 7 so I'm gonna crash in the airport for the night. This time feels like it went by in the blink of an eye. I have missed a lot of things about home while being here and now that Its almost time to go I'm not sure if I want to. Its a crazy feeling. This last week in Alicante was a good one. Tuesday was the last Spain game that I will ever get to see in Spain (unless I come back of course). We played Portugal and won 1-0 thanks to a sweet goal by David ... read more

Yesterday was a super tons of fun! After I beached it up all afternoon I went out to enjoy the parade that started at 9. It was so long and went until midnight! It was the desfile folklorico internacional (international parade). I've never seen costumes so extravagant. The music was so loud it filled the city. There were groups in the parade from all over different parts of Spain. There were also people representing Latin American countries. It was definitely one of the coolest parades I've ever seen. Afterwards we went to the beach which was filled with people. I think every teenager in Alicante was on the beach last night. Most people came and brought different things like blankets, snacks, and drinks...like a picnic! It was really cool because a lot of groups made bonfires ... read more

Craziest festival I've ever seen! Las Hogueras de San Juan officially started on Sunday (20th) and will last until Thursday (24th) night. This is the biggest festival I've ever seen. All of the main streets are blocked off completely and because of this we have to take a different bus to school because the routes are different. There are around 90 hogueras in total which are the statues I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs. They are located all throughout the city on the streets where they are blocked off. Some are enormous and raise up to 30 or so feet. They are made out of wood and different paper materials and painted so pretty. Each one has a different theme and many of them are a satire or critique a certain aspect of the ... read more

Awesome Weekend! This weekend was so much fun, I'm really bummed it's Monday again. Saturday was our second field trip that was included in the program. We went to to a city about 30 min away called Elche. It was a nice city but it wasn't my favorite out of the places we've been so far. The coolest thing that we got to see was this area that has the largest concentration of palm trees. There are between 200,000 and 300,000 palm trees that date back to thousands of years ago. It was really cool and very beautiful scenery. We also got to see the Huerto del Cura. This was a garden amongst the palm trees with different types of plants. It was very pretty. From Elche we took a fairy boat ride to get to ... read more