Denia, Spain
Trip Start
Jan 03, 2009
1
29
33
Trip End
Jun 18, 2009
Denia,
Valencian Country,
Spain and Canary Islands
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
When he arrived in France, he found out that they had lost his bag! This turned out to be a good thing because we didn't have to lug it all the way to Antibes, we had it delivered that night!
I showed Erik around Antibes and then we went to Cannes for dinner at our regular pizza place. Ross was done with school, so we all slept comfortably in my apartment. This was my last night in the temporary apartment that I got in Antibes for the few weeks after school ended. Ross and I left most of our luggage at his college in Cannes so that we could travel with just one bag each.
The next day, we woke up early to clean my apartment, pack our bags and take our luggage to the train station where we left it in lockers while we toured Monaco and had dinner in Nice. Erik was really excited to see Monaco and I think he really enjoyed it. That night we left Nice at 11pm for Barcelona.
We arrived in Barcelona around midnight and took a taxi to our hotel. It wasn't very expensive because the three of us could share the cost. We slept well that night and woke up early to do a whirlwind, one-day tour of Barcelona.
We started with the Sagrada Famiglia, a famed cathedral that they started building one hundred years ago and are not finished yet. It was designed by Gaudi and we spent hours there, looking at the inside, climbing up inside the towers, perusing the gift shop and exploring the museum. Then we had lunch nearby at a small restaurant where Ross and I really enjoyed a taste of food not known in France.
Then we walked around the old part of the city, the harbor and Las Ramblas, the busy street with lots of shopping and restaurants. After a great dinner, we slept well for our next big day, traveling to Valencia.
The next day we woke up early to catch a 9am train. We went to the wrong train station, so we missed our train and had to take one an hour later. We were met at the Valencia train station by Alexa's mom, Ilona, her friend from Germany, Michaela, and one of her daughters, Tamara.
Alexa studied in Manhattan Beach at Mira Costa for a year and stayed with Ross' family for a few months. We became good friends before we left and planned to visit her family. Ilona, the mom, and Jaime, the dad, live in Denia where Jaime grew up. They received an exchange student from Oklahoma and their other two daughters, Tamara and Patricia, go to school in nearby cities.
Ilona, Michaela and Tamara, who is studying architecture, showed us around Valencia, a large city an hour away from their home in Denia. Unfortunately, I left my camera in the car accidentally while we walked around. It was a beautiful city and we enjoyed being showed around.
Ilona speaks Spanish, German and English because her family is German but they lived in Argentina for most of her life. She now lives in Spain with her husband and family where she has a successful graphic design business. Jaime owns his father's store.
Illona's three daughters all went to school on Saturday's to learn German and they all speak English well. Alexa got much better while she was living in California. Tamara lived in North Carolina for a year and is fluent. Patricia didnt' study in the US at all and her English is surprisingly good. Ross, Erik and I all have taken a few years of Spanish and we could understand a lot if they were speaking to each other but we didn't speak very well, so we stuck with English.
The best "lost in translation" moment was when Erik asked Ilona if she had a lint roller as he made a motion over his chest because he had dog hair all over him. Since Ilona is the nicest person in the world and we had become close over the few days that we were there, she looked confused but asked him if he wanted to do it "right now" since we were leaving on a car ride. She said she had to warm up the "oil." We were confused and thought this was some Spanish way of getting hair off clothes. Erik told her not to worry about it, so we got in the car and about 20 minutes later Ross figured out that Ilona thoguht Erik wanted to wax his chest. We all had a big laugh, Ilona included.
Their house has five bedrooms plus the whole third floor where we stayed. There is also a large backyard, garden, outdoor oven, pool, several eating areas and another whole house where Ilona's mother lives.
That day, the other daughter, Patricia, took a break from studying for her final exams to show us around Denia. We drove around in their Mercedes Benz convertible and ate breakfast near their family store which sells tobacco products AND purses and jewelry. We also saw their aunt's store with expensive clothing, the market, the castle, the old part of town and the beaches.
Then we had lunch with Ilona's mother and Alexa's boyfriend, Clemente, among the others I've already introduced. Next, Patricia brought us to her friends house where we picked Valencian oranges and mandarines in his personal grove and gathered eggs from his chickens.
At about 8pm we went for a walk up into the hills with Ilona and the dogs, Kit and Kat. We lost our trail and the dogs a few times and were a little worried about getting back by sundown. Luckily, the sun didn't set until 10pm! It was weird. Then we ate a light dinner of wine, bread, cheese and fresh, local tuna.
The next day, Ilona took us along the coast in the convertible and we stopped in different towns or for pretty views along the way. We had lunch with tons of seafood and ate tiny fried fishes, head, tail and all.
The next day we went to a flea market, hung out by the pool and went for a swim in the ocean, which was very warm. We had dinner with Tamara, her boyfriend, Sven, Patricia and Clemente, Alexa's boyfriend. Afterwards, we went for drinks at a cool outside bar.
The next day we went with Tamara to a candy store because Ross had a craving. We got huge bags of candy and visited the family store again. The store was originally just a tobacco store and Jaime's mother, Teresa, added bags and jewelry. Now it is split into two separate stores by a glass partition, but it's really cool! Most of the bags and jewelry were too expensive, but I found a pair of earrings that I really liked. Teresa wouldn't let me pay for them and she gave them to me as a present. She said (in limited english) that it was because Alexa said such good things about us and we are good friends. :)
After, we went to Teresa's house for a huge paella lunch with a lot of the family. It was fun watching Teresa make it and her house is amazing. She had a nice old house that she had lived in since her children were little with a huge backyard and the beach right at the end.
On our last day, Ilona took us for another drive in the area around Denia. We brought a picnic and ate it in a dry river bed. For dinner, we went to an authenti Spanish restaurant with great tapas. It was very sad leaving Spain.
