Alicante

Ok, so university got crazy busy and my blog has been neglected along with my Attackpoint and DOMA. Now that I am overseas I´m hoping to have some more time to write but so far I have actually been quite busy / at the beach / having a siesta. This year´s trip began on Friday 22nd of June, 2 days after my last exam. I was stoked with this timing since I booked my flights long before my exam time table was out! I spent most of Friday packing and doing some last minute shopping. I was all packed on Friday morning and left home at 9:30 to go to the Airport. The pressure of university had been on my mind a lot more than previous years and so it only hit me on Friday that I was actually going away again.

On my journey to Alicante I flew through Hong Kong and Zurich before landing in Alicante at 11am local time. I was lucky with my flights this year and had good company on all 3 legs of the 32 hours journey. I think the timing of the flights was good as I slept a lot on the second flight after an apparent long day on the Friday (for my first flight) and on the Saturday (for my 3rd flight and arrival into Spain) I was sleepy but felt more in-sync than previous years.

I think the 3rd flight in my Journey, from  Zurich to Alicante was the best as I got a great view of the Alpes out of the left window of the plane. The size and abruptness of these rocky peaks is very inspiring. Pictures from the plane can not do them justice. This has made me very excited for later in my trip when I will visit these mountains for a few days.

Landing in Spain has some very different colours! I wouldn’t describe it as beautiful though. The mountains around Alicante were much bigger than I thought, getting up to 1700 meters. It is hard to believe that these mountains get a decent amount of snow in winter as it is a relentless 27 – 32 degrees here for most of the day. I also had good views of the orchards, which all looked pretty doomed.

I stayed the first few days with Spanish orienteer Manu Jurado and his parents in their apartment. It was small but very nice and quite typical of most of the houses in the region. It was 2km from the beach and the apartment complex also had a pool which was pretty crucial considering the weather. The best part about staying with a Spanish family was definitely the food. My first meal was a seafood Paella with chunks of fresh tuna which were significantly better than any seafood I have ever tasted. On my last night with the Jurados we went to a tapas restaurant to try some more spanish food which I thought was pretty awesome!

That night Manu took me out to the beach and centre of Alicante to check out the massive festival Hogueras de San Juan, which translates to Bonfires of Saint Juan. San Juan day is celebrated on the 23rd. Up until this day thousand of Ninots, wooden figures, are made and erected all through Alicante and other major cities in the region. On the 24th fireworks are set off around the Ninots are then they are burned. It is an emotive festival for those involved in making the figures.

Looking forward to some training in the coming days but not looking forward to the heat!