A recap of my travels in Spain: Google maps

On our first free weekend we headed down to Salobreña, the closest beach to Granada, about 40 minutes via bus. After the first week of orientation it was really nice to lay out, relax, and swim. The Mediterranean ocean was very, very pure, and although I’ve heard that there are nicer beaches in Spain, the water made it a great afternoon.

At this point, I still had my cast from my karate incident prior to arriving in Spain, and so when I saw a Spaniard swimming with one arm above the water like myself, clearly, I had to go say hello.

After my trip to Morocoo, which I’ve already posted about, I had a short break before classes so I headed up to Valencia with some friends from our program. They knew a Spaniard named Miguel who came to the States last year to teach Spanish at their school, Central College. He just moved up to Valencia so we got to explore the city with him. Their science park has some of the coolest modern architecture I’ve seen here, take a look at my Picasa webalbum to see all the photos.

Two of my Valpo friends, Emily Bahr and Madeline Horvath, met me in Valencia and we headed to the Oceanografíc, the largest aquarium in Europe! Highlights were aquariums with hallways through the middle of them (so close to sharks!), an amazing dolphin show, and some really lively wetlands:

Before I headed back to Granada I decided to catch a Bullfight (corrida de toro) in Madrid. Whether you’re a fan of bull fighting or not (I’m still undecided), it’s a key part of Spanish culture that I don’t think will be going anywhere soon.

More recently still I headed up to Barcelona for a long weekend, Allie in Reutlingen has already written about our time there, check it out. One of my favorites, Mercat Boqueria, a bustling market over 400 years old. Amazing mangos: