of paella

I didn't blog yesterday, because upon our arrival to Alicante, we learned that the Internet in the room costs about seven euros. There was only Internet down in the lobby and I didn't really have the time to carry everything downstairs to blog. We only spent a night in Alicante, and while the beach was absolutely beautiful, not many seas like the Mediterranean!, I wasn't super impressed with the town. Coming from Granada, a town that is bustling with tourists and that is 100% walkable and safe, Alicante felt more appropriate for locals. The alleys, and side streets, smelled of urine. I am not kidding, almost all of the side streets we took - on our reconnaissance of the city - smelled of urine. Very strongly. Otherwise, I would not comment on it. We saw many beggars, more gypsies. The beautiful parts of the city, the beach and marina, can't make up for the fact that we didn't quite feel the urge to explore the city, like we felt in Madrid and Granada. We ventured out for about an hour to see the beach, and then another hour at night for dinner. 

Our hotel told us we had reserved a double room with a kid's bed, false, and that they were out of triple rooms, so they gave me a rollaway bed. My feet stuck out, or my head stuck out, but at no point during the night was my entire body inside of the bed. The room itself was beautiful, we had a view of the ocean and a killer bathroom. It is one of the nicer hotels, but unfortunately I got jipped by a shitty organizational system. With that said, we got free mini bar, free parking and they had even offered us free Internet later on. We didn't use the Internet, but thoroughly enjoyed the free parking and my dad ate EVERYTHING in the mini bar. I am not kidding. 

At around 8 pm, like spaniards, we decided to go outside for dinner. The temperature had dropped a lot from our 2 pm adventure. I was in search of two things: turron ice cream and paella/seafood. We stopped at a tavern, that also claimed to be an arroceria and that also had a nice outdoor space. The menu said you could only order paella for two people, but when I asked the server he said "that only applied to before the crisis, now we can make paellas for one."  For 11 euros, I had a seafood paella. It was killer!! I would show you a picture but I ate it too fast to think of pictures :)  After paella, and sangria, we walked back to our hotel and stopped at an ice cream shop. They had turron ice cream -SCORE!! It was delicious and I had finished it off before we walked into the lobby. Sad face. 

I laid down at around 10 pm and read some more Divergent. I fell asleep, and woke up a few times during the night... Mostly because I felt the bed would give up any minute during the night. It did not. Thank you, baby Jesus!!

Today we woke up at around 730 and got ready for our departure to Valencia. We packed up the hotel, and then had breakfast.  Figs, watermelon, soft cheese, Jamon Serrano, mini donuts!! It was a pretty stellar breakfast. We took the car and drove almost 2 and half hours to Valencia. On our way, we stopped at Alginet, the town where my great grandma Sofia was born according to our records. It is surrounded by orange trees, and the bells were ringing at the church as we walked in. It's tiny!! A lot of the old buildings have disappeared and are now more modern. It's a shame. However, it is cozy, and still has its pueblo charm. 

Our hotel in Valencia, unlike the one in Granada, is very far from the city center. We arrived at 130, it's almost 30 degrees Celsius, which is quite hot. We are sitting in our cool room, hopefully waiting for the temps to cool down before we we trek it to the center. The city is GORGEOUS and I can't wait to see more of it!!!