Altea - A Weekend in English!

This weekend Maddy invited Cassie and I to come visit her in her host town of Altea. For those that don't remember, Cassie is living in Alcoy, to the northwest and inland of Alicante, and Maddy is living in Altea, north of Alicante along the coast.

The preceding days were spent exchanging Facebook messages and then phone calls until it was all settled. Friday afternoon, I met Cassie at the bus station in Alicante, where her host parents had dropped her off, and we went and bought our tickets to Benidorm, the bus station nearest Altea. We spent the bus ride catching up and enjoying the opportunity to speak English. After about an hour, we arrived in Benidorm.

Maddy, her host mom, and her host brother, Andrés, met us at the station and we went to Altea. We wandered around the town with Maddy as our guide, but unfortunately, the sun had already set, so we couldn't really enjoy the beach. But we made the most of it. We played on the toys that are on the beach, that technically are for children; but we're exchange students, so what's the difference? We ate dinner with Ana, Maddy's 13 year old host sister, Ana's 17 year old boyfriend Kay (who doesn't look 17...), and a friend of theirs. After that we wandered a little more. On our travels, we bumped into another group of youngsters. Some of them knew Kay and Ana, and one of the boys began to chase Kay. Kay ending up hiding behind our group and the boy asked me, in Spanish of course, to go block Kay so he couldn't get away. Not wanting to get in the middle of it, I told him in English I didn't know what he was asking me to do. His response was the repeat his request, but this time in English with a British accent! It was hilarious. Eventually we tired out and went to Maddy's house where we watched a movie in English before going to bed.

Saturday, we slept in a little bit, before going to met Maddy's host club's president, who was also Maddy's tutor. It's a small club. He had invited us to grab a quick bite to eat before lunch (a typical Spanish thing apparently). Maddy, her host mom, Cassie, and I met him and his wife at a cafe and we talked a little about how our exchanges were going, but mainly Maddy's host mom and the president talked about ideas for things Rotary could do. She had to go eventually, and the rest of us continued to another place and ate some tapas. Since the president and his wife were Austrian, they knew German as well as Spanish, but they also knew English, so our conversation switched between Spanish and English with the occasional German comment between themselves. We went home for lunch, and decided to rest after lunch and watch a movie before going to the beach. But by the time the movie had finished, it was night again! So we went out around town and did some shopping, they wanted some scarves and we all bought some things for our Rotary jackets.

The street with the shops, the are slightly aimed at the tourists.


The Spanish flags we bought for our jackets.

The next day, Maddy's host mom asked if we wanted to go pick mandarins, another typical Spanish activity, but when we got to the fincha (plot of land) where we were going to pick them, we found out that they weren't ripe yet. They had a bunch from another area, which we bought two crates of, but none ready to pick. Since we really had wanted to pick them though, we figured something out:

"Picking" mandarins.

After that, we went to the trail to hike out to the lighthouse. It was 2km, which is a little over a mile. The views along the way were amazing.

We stopped at one spot, overlooking the Mediterranean, instead of the bay (in the above photo, it's the bay, not the Mediterranean). There was a sign that said "Out of route," but there were some paths and we saw people out there, so we jumped the rail fence and explored a little. It was breathtaking. We found an overhang, and stopped to have lunch, overlooking the Mediterranean. It's still one of the best memories.

Having lunch, overlooking the Mediterranean.

We continued on to the lighthouse, but the gate was locked and there was a sign saying "End of Route." However, Maddy says no one respects the sign, and the last time she went there with some friends from school, they went up to the lighthouse and there were people there. So we continued up to the lighthouse.

"Jumping" the fence to continue to the lighthouse.

After looking around at the lighthouse, we headed back and then went down to the beach. From there, we followed the beach back to Altea. It was about a 30 minute walk along the beach, which with all the walking to and from the lighthouse, plus down to the beach, made for quite a bit of travel. The beach was interesting though, because it is a pebble beach, not sand. I collected a stone, that now adorns my jacket. Once we got back to Maddy's house, we lounged around waiting for her host parents to return and take Cassie and me to the bus station so we could go home. Cassie's host parents picked her up at the bus station and I walked to the bus stop to go home. It was a great weekend.

Currently listening to:
Song: Lose Yourself
Artist: Eminem
Album: 8 Mile Soundtrack