The Pre-Valencia Week

Well, this last week was a little boring for me; however, that's ok. Saturday afternoon, Carnaval but before any of the main festivities had kicked off, Dolo and I met up with some of her friends (Javier and Raquel, who I met my first weekend here, were there) at a plaza where a restaurant (which I was later told was a pretty high-end place) was giving out paella (a rice dish which Spain is famous for) and two drinks for only a few euros. After we ate in the plaza we went a couple of blocks down to a bar, but I suppose it was really a tapas bar because we ordered a few small plates of food, but I didn't read the sign so I can't be sure. The food was amazing and so was the company, Dolo has a lot of really nice friends.

I ended up not going out for Carnaval, in the sense of dressing up and staying out all night, like most others do. I did, however, go out for a walk to see the people dressed up and La Rambla, one of the major streets in Alicante, all decorated. Above the street, lights were hung depicting the more traditional Carnaval masks. Now people dress up as all kinds of different stuff; kind of like our Halloween, the tradition started out as dressing up as something scary and now you can dress up as anything you like. Unlike our Halloween people here just dress up for fun, not to get candy.

La Rambla during Carnaval

One of the foods that I have enjoyed here the most is called longaniza, it's a sausage similar to chorizo, but not spicy; it is super delicious. And one of the great things about it is that it comes in two ways, as a sausage (which I think is more common) and also as something similar to salami (that tastes just as good). The other day Dolo, my amazing host mom, bought some for me and when I cooked it the other night for dinner (at 9pm local time - the Spaniards eat late), I snapped a picture of it.

Longaniza

Speaking of Dolo, I would just like to say that she is awesome. Sometimes she's more like a roommate than a host mom, but she always treats me like I'm part of her family. She has been really helpful in showing me the city, and, as I have said in the post about Pinoso (her hometown), other places as well. She is also really great to talk to; she has helped me improve my Spanish a lot, probably more than the classes at the University have (but of course they have helped too).

Hollie, Ali and I bought our train tickets to Valencia this evening!!! I'm super excited to finally be going to Valencia! I may have mentioned it in a previous post, but Valencia is the 3rd largest city in Spain and the capital of the autonomous region (i.e. - the state) to which Alicante belongs. We're going to be staying in the center/old part of town so I'm hoping to see some old buildings with cool architecture. Some of the places we plan on going to are: the Cathedral of Valencia where we will be able to see "the Holy Grail," the Museum of Fine Arts of Valencia, and possibly the Botanical Gardens of the University of Valencia.

Plaza de la Virgen, Valencia
Disclaimer: not my photo, but I promise to take
some great ones like these to share will all of you!