Viajes durante el semestre

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I will make this journal my viaje journal while I am in Granada.

On the first weekend of Oct. 7-9 ISA had a planned trip to Valencia, a coastal town northwest of Granada. It was a very rich and pretty city. The beaches were nice and the water was freezing. It happened to be their patron saint day on Saturday so Saturday night they had a huge fireworks display, it was a lot of fun.

On the weekend of Oct. 14-16 Robert and I took a train to Algeciras where we got a hostal for the night. There we met an old retired national police officer. He was so excited that we were americans becuase his tio era de Texas. So, he took us first to a tapas bar for cena where he knew everyone and apparently spent a lot of time. Then he took us to the nicest discotecas in Algeciras which we couldn´t get into because Robert was wearing sweatpants, they were way too nice for us anyway. The next morning we hoped on a $1.50 bus to Tarifa a little beach town on the Strait of Gibraltor. We could see Africa from our Hostal!!! It was a very nice place and it only cost twenty dollars for a double. The beaches were very nice and the water was pretty cold, but still nice. We rented a surfboard for twenty-four hours and we spent all afternoon on Saturday and the morning on Sunday surfing las ovas. Estuvo un buen tiempo.

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Photos

La playa de Valencia
This piece of playground equipment was like a half-pipe. Pienso que esta muy peligroso para los niños.

The Fortified Entrance to the City
All the towns in Spain used to be well fortified and this is the remnants of the old entrance to the city of Valencia.

El Museo del Arte
This is the art museum of Valencia. It is completly surrounded by water and the paint sparkles at night. To see this for the first time at night was amazing.

El Museo durante la noche
This is the Museo at night. You can´t see the sparkling paint, but it´s there.

Fireworks
Valencia is apparently well known for their fireworks. One of our guides told us they make the fireworks in Valencia so they take great pride in their displays. The show was really long, aunque tenía una silla mala pero estuvo bien.

Roberto
Experiencing the beach spanish-style...Siesta fiesta.

Tarifa
This is the view of Tarifa from the beach. It was a very fun small beach community. Luckily the time we were there was low season so there weren´t many tourists. Tarifa is also the Kite-boarding capital of Spain and maybe the world. The straight of Gibraltar is so windy you can ride a Kiteboard to Africa...literally. Unfortunately, the lessons were too expensive and we had to take a two day lesson, so we surfed instead.

Playa
Playa de los lances. This is where we spent most of our time in Tarifa. The surfing was the best here.

Playa de los Lances
que bonita ¿no?

Palm Trees
Love to see these arboles everytime.

Surfin´
The waves were small and the water was cold but we still did it.

Ovas
The waves were pretty small, but they were still alot of fun to mess around on.

Africa
Hey, look way over there its a bird, no its a plane, no its AFRICA!!!!!
You can´t see it very well, but the faint line of mountains in the distance is Africa. This is the view from the rooftop of our Hostal, appropriately named Hostal Africa.

Hey who wants to go to Tanger?
When we saw the sign we were about to hop on a ferry and go but we are going to Morrocco Nov. 1st through the 6th so we decided to stay at the beach.

Algeciras
Back to Algeciras for the train ride to Granada, an end to an amazing weekend.

Comments

[Jeff Starosta]

Updates
Thanks for the updates Phil, I'm ready to hit the road again. Oh wait, I must work first, need money...I start my new job on Halloween, scary. Enjoy the countries and surf some more waves for me (Maybe the spelling is different in Spain but I thought waves were olas?). It has now been over a year since I had to use what little spanish I know. Adios mi amigo, jefe'

[r.orosco]

odale primo!
hey phil. thanks for all the blog entries, keep 'em coming cause i always read them. looks like you are doing great out there. keep it real homie. peace

[DANA]

thanks phil!
Thanks for the update, Phil! It sounds like you're doing so much in Spain, as I figured you would! Learn lots and keep updating! Alaska is amazing...we've got snow and my parka has gotten some great use already!