Hotel Sorolla Palace Valencia

These pictures are from me trying to take a photo of myself writing with my ancient feather pen from the Alicante market and from walking around Alicante on a tour of the the two cathedrals, San Nicolas y Santa Barbara.
The pictures later are from our visit to two little pueblos just outside of Alicante; Guadalest and Altea. In the little town of Guadalest is a beautiful castle ...

... up." And now I don't even have to worry about hopes because it's a reality. What a nice feeling. I rarely feel content and satisfied and even more than that excited about things and a truly happy camper. I feel corny. Haha. But I'm glad I feel corny rather than homesick or actually sick or depressed. And I hope that I can hold onto this feeling and experience more great ones as the time comes to pass.
My only sadness is ...

... out. Which sounds awesome, until you realise they need to get through the already packed streets somehow. And then you realise that it's through everyone packing so incredibly tightly against the wall is how they do it.
The fight only lasts about an hour,but its one intense hour. You're completely surrounded by people and your getting hit from every which way by (of all things, really) tomatoes. And some of them bloody hurt, and definitely don't feel like tomatoes ...

... after a few miles of cycling. Murcia basically has about 6 motorways going through it. Cant cycle on these. cant navigate because of our incredibly basic A3 map of spain. So we went and bought a beer. Then, a bit drunk (what!? it was hot and we were dehydrated from cycling) we aimlessly cycled around until we found a more detailed map behind some perspex glass, up a lamp post, at a bus stop. Probably shouldnt have taken it but desperate times.. . . . we are ...

... we had met and said our goodbyes. A sad moment but hopefully this was the beginning of many more cool moments. well, unfortunately they would not happen this day because shortly after we left i got a puncture, then we got kicked out of an abandoned house we treid to sleep in and had to settle for a dead lemon grove. Well at least we could have a hot meal. or so we thought until we realised that the fuel we ...

... consists of three countries". So, in my English accent i played along and said "I am English". He said " they don't teach you things like that in uni, but its important". Agreeingly, I replied "well, I have been to uni and they certainly did not teach me that". He then said that the best way to keep your passport safe is to bury it. Well after loosing the coke bottle in the sand this certainly wasnt an option for me. However, it may be an idea to buy Alex a shovel.

... was my sleeping place. I got something to eat, showered and went to bed. 11 feb I had a marvellous breakfast and am soon going to see the beach. I will probably stay here one day longer because the Valencian guy who was going to host me can´t host me the 12th. Unfortunately the lady here told me that most of the lessons at the Valencian University are in Catalan. I´m getting a bit annoyed now, for most of the Valencian people I asked this told me there were SOME optatives ...

... care if its culture I cannot watch a bull be teased and taunted to death in such a cruel and painful way. And they go through 6 or 7 in a night at least! There is too much else to do anyway so I don't feel like I missed out on much. The little bulls were so cute though, no they weren't in a ¨china¨ shop - most of the stuff here gets made in places like Morocco anyway. Nice little dig though. My favourite though was the cute little frilly wine bottle covers... they ...

... we are going to the beach today and prob tomorrow and then we leave for barcelona. i had met some great people on the train ride here(it was a night train, miserable), they were going to barcelona, while we were going to valencia. all americans. one is studying abroad in barcelona and offered us a place to stay which might be very nice. who knows. free is always nice. i hope everyone is in good health. love to you all

... the bus by 4 to get to Barcelona so didn't stuck around on to Barcelona Barcelona was ok, I had been there before with Mum but neither of the boys had been, it was raining so that wasn't good, I followed the boys around for a bit but to the Rambla, Guids park, and the sig familia then I gave up and went back for a sleep as I had a headache, the boys went to the football stadium and had a tour, so I was glad to have missed that.