Adventures in Spain, Part 1

For my third and final travel break of the semester, I headed to Spain to visit friends in Valencia and Madrid. It's crazy to think that this semester is almost over! It has been absolutely unforgettable. Nick came to visit Copenhagen for the first weekend of the break, so I didn't headed to Spain until Tuesday. It was so much fun exploring Copenhagen with him, but unfortunately I didn't take enough pictures for its own blogpost. We wandered through Rosenborg Castle and Amalienborg Palace, Nyhavn, The Round Tower, Paper Island, the National Museum of Denmark, and the Danish Architecture Center. Friday night was Jule Dag where Tuborg releases their Christmas Beer. There were giant trucks filled with people in blue santa suits handing out the beer and Tuborg santa hats! Everything was decorated with trees and fake snow for Christmas with Christmas music blasting through the streets. Even though it's a little strange celebrating Christmas since it isn't even Thanksgiving yet in the states, I absolutely loved it!  It was a packed three days, but it was so much fun getting to be a tourist in my own city.

Tuesday afternoon I flew into Madrid and then took the train down to Valencia where Megan met me at the train station! It was so nice to spend a few days exploring Valencia with her. I love getting to wander the cities where people are studying abroad. Locals are the very best tour guides! I didn't get into Valencia until late, so we just went to the Airbnb where we were staying, chatted for a while, and then went to sleep. We woke up early Wednesday morning, got donuts for breakfast, and wandered through El Río and el Ciudad de Artes y Sciecncias. It is such a cool park nestled in between the old and new town. The weather was absolutely incredible. I've gotten so used to the cold weather and grey skies of Copenhagen, I forgot what it was like to be warm and feel the sunshine! For lunch, we ate sandwiches made by her host mom and I just hung out while she had a class. Unfortunately, our Airbnb doesn't have wifi, so I'm currently writing this post from her school. In the building you're only allowed to speak spanish so its really testing my 6 years of Spanish classes in middle and high school. After her class we walked through the city center, climbing up the Torres of the old wall and the Cathedral. Because they eat dinner so late here, we stopped for churros before cooking dinner at the airbnb with all of her friends! It was so much fun to cook, drink some wine, and just hang out. After dinner, we went to a bar to hang out but didn't stay up too late because we wanted to wake up early and explore on Thursday.

Thursday morning, we woke up and got brunch at this cute little market. She had class pretty much all day, so I was going to wander down the main shopping street. About an hour into my wandering, I realized that my phone had been stolen! I proceeded to search every store that I had been in but had no luck. Since there is not an apple store in Copenhagen and I was leaving the next morning for Madrid, I used my limited knowledge of the Spanish language and bought a new phone. It was not exactly how I planned to spend my day wandering Valencia, but I'm glad I was able to get things fixed relatively smoothly. For dinner, we had a traditional Spanish meal of sangria, patatas bravas, and paella. It was delicious!

(I was just a tad excited to see palm trees again) 

Friday morning, I woke up early and headed to Madrid for the weekend! Since this post has gotten pretty long, I will post about my trip to Madrid in the next one!

Love,