II. Amigos de Vacanzia! (Spain at last!)

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Thursday, April 8

We hit the road early again, hoping to reach Murcia by late afternoon. All in all we would be driving almost 950 miles from Besancon, France to Murcia, Spain.

By late morning we crossed the Spanish border--yipee! Immediately the landscape seemed different. There were rolling hills covered in coarse vegetation, there were yellow flowers dotting the grass patches, there were mountains in the distance (the Pyrenees) and of course: there were orange trees! Orange trees and olive trees as far as the eye could see!

We stopped at a cafe along the road for breakfast. I had a pastry, coffee, and fresh squeezed orange juice that was out of this world. The coffee, however, was terrible (Spanish coffee is said to be very low in quality, but then again I was with 11 French people, and you know how they are about judging food...). In any case, even I assessed that it was bad, and turned my nose up at it.

We were soon on the road again, and I was mesmerized by the picturesque landscape that unfolded before me. Soon we were in Valencia, where we stopped for lunch. Doing all 13 of us together at a restaurant was quite an experience! However it was 2pm (prime Spanish lunch time, even a little early actually) and we took pitchers of sangria along with our Spanish cuisine. Around 5pm we finished and hit the road again. This time we didn't stop until we reached Murcia.

Lola and Paco went back to their house and Pierre-Jean returned to his flat to party with some friends.

We got situated in our apartments (we'd rented 3) and then us young people went for a stroll on the beach before dinner. We ate calmly--we were all tired, but the atmosphere was still lively. It was lovely to be in southern Spain with such good company!

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Photos

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in Spain!

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Mar Menor--where we stayed near Murcia

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a common past time