Saturday morning we began our 3 hour drive to Valencia, the 3rd largest city in Spain after Barcelona and Madrid, at 9am. The region we visited was “Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias”. Our first stop was a center of museums, aquariums, an opera house, a planetarium, etc but hilariously we just stopped to take pics and didn’t go in anywhere haha.
Then we went to the city center and visited a Cathedral (plain with a gorgeous center garden)
walked around the touristy center (look at the 2nd thinnest facade in the world!)
another Cathedral (very extravagant- first pic is “the holy grail” [obviously not confirmed])
and went to an art museum (nice but smelled suspiciously moldy in some rooms and almost exclusively religious art). Here’s a Goya painting!
The ride back was beauuuutiful:
At this point I hadn’t gone out yet to experience the nightlife, so I felt it was time! Alicante nightlife begins around 1am which is cray- everything here is so late! But I am getting used to 9pm dinners haha. Anyway there are tons of people out and lots of mini bars that can fit like 50 people or less all packed within a few streets. The music ranged from Spanish salsa to edm to American oldies (think Grease). Shots are 1oz vs the U.S. 1.5oz, but they’re only 1 euro and mixed drinks are given to you I like these GIANT plastic cups half filled with liquor soooo needless to say I did not order one of those haha. Here are some selfies with people from my group!
I left early, around 1:30am, so I could be fresh for canyoning the next day. I’m so glad I made that choice!!
Canyoning/Repelling Trip
Sunday was SO MUCH FUN. It was unbelievably beautiful. I signed up through the university for this extra trip and can’t wait to see what else they have to offer. Two other girls from my group came too along 19 american students from a separate program. We left at 9am to the 90 minute drive to the site. Pretty funny to experience the differences in safety regulations between the states and other countries. I signed no waivers and we were given no training before starting, which was fine but also funny.
Once we were parked we were told to eat our lunch early and put on all out gear: wet suits + jacket, wet shoes, harness, helmet and lots of caribeaners. Pic without gear: Cassie from San Diego, me, and Abbi from Washington. 
It was like 85 degrees so we immediately starting sweating, but in the end we were super grateful! We began with a short 15ft repel into the canyon. Then hiked for a while until we reached out first jump into crystal clear and fucking freezing cold fresh water. I could not catch my breath for like five minutes it was so cold! Worth it though, so dope. For the next hour and a half or so we half hiked half swam downwards through the canyon. I swear it didn’t feel like Spain at all, more like I was in Costa Rica or something! So cool. The water was clear and blue and we went through little bamboo groves, what looked like weeping willow trees, through little caves. So, so pretty. Flowers and trees everywhere too. Unfortunately I couldn’t bring my camera because of having to swim but the guides took a few pictures!
Starting out: 
Me, Abbi and Cassie on our first easy repel: 
Jump into what might have well been attic waters! God so cold. I can’t believe people scuba dive in Alaska! Why?!
After a short swim/hike we stopped at another jump off point and played around for a bit. At the end was a kind of pool with a lot of locals just chilling.
Guide spotted a snake 😄🐍
This repel was 75ft and pretty scary but I loved it! You can see the stream of water at my feet that poured right on my head and made it so hard to see/breathe for like half the way haha.
Last a 30 minute hike out of the canyon and a pretty ride home complete with a “I’m just looking out this window don’t mind me selfie”
I came back to a very satisfying chicken chorizo egg paella from my host mom. All in all a very successful day 👍🏻