taste of italy and first week in spain

I have been in Spain for 14 days (20 in Europe) and life has been pretty darn good.

May 29- June 3 in Italy

In Italy, I visited Rome, Milan, and Venice. rome was my favorite. We didn’t get into the colosseo this time, but it will be a perfect reason to revisit! I have always loved the pantheon and wanted to visit since 170a lecture and I was not disappointed. I stood inside and held my head up to the shadow of sun for 30 minutes and only wish I could spend even more time in it. The pantheon struck my heart. The interior of St Peter’s basilica was super elaborated and refined, my camera battery died in it (from taking too many pictures of course). Walking on cobblestones was a pain to my feet but 3 days in Rome was not enough.

Didn’t get to see much of Milan (only one night of actual sightseeing in the city), but the stunning view of the duomo had sure took my breath away the moment I stepped up from the metro. The white marble and stained glass works made all the difference.

I am not a fan of venice. Maybe im just weird. Maybe it just looks too pretty/ romantic in movies and pictures. Idk.

First week in Spain

I left Milan in the morning of june 3. Transited at Barcelona, flew into Alicante, took two bus rides and finally reached my destination Guardamar del Segura, where I still stay for the next 2 months, around 6pm. School arranged housing for our group of 27 students at a pension on the main street of this small coastal town called Pension Jaen. Wendy and I share a double room with a private balcony above the street (and the hostel’s restaurant/ café). Furnishing of the room is minimalist—two beds, one night stand, a TV set that doesn’t work, one chair, and a small bathroom. Internet in the building is the worst. I can never connect to the hostel’s wifi network, but I can usually steal some neighbor’s network with my laptop, which works only out on my balcony.

As mentioned before, Guardamar is a small coastal town and we live literally 5 minutes away from the beach. On the first day of official class day, Professor Alex took us on an introductory tour of the town and told us a lil bit about its history. We walked through the low density mostly single story residential areas, up the hill to the Guardamar Castle, made our way through the planted sand dunes towards the mouth of the River Segura, and finally down to the beach and the tour ended with a long walk along the Mediterranean sea.

First week was studio was chill. Meeting times always got pushed back, and we didn’t actually have our studio space until the second week of class. We took our first field trip to the nearest commercial city Alicante, also where I flew into, during our first weekend. Bus ride from Guardamar to Alicante is ~45 minutes and costs 3.10 euro each way. Field trip was on Friday. we were allowed to travel for the weekend and didn’t have to return for class til Tuesday. Wendy and I decided we could get away to Barcelona. So we had to carry our bags w us during the whole trip (we could have stored our bags at the bus station, but we didn’t know about the service by then). The purpose of this first trip was to visit the Castle of Alicante, which, like many other Spanish castles, situates on the top of a hill (for view, protection, and fortification purposes.) the walk up to the castle was cruel. We started walking around 11:30am when the sun was striking strong during the whole time of our climb up the steep hills. We reached the top and the castle after ~45 minutes of hiking, not to forget we were all carrying weight, and my whole body was wet w sweat. I don’t even sweat this much when I play sports. (Food that we eat at the pension is pretty heavy and greasy but I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.) the climb was torturing but the view and breeze up at the top was quite rewarding. alex assigned us to draw a diagram of the walk and class was dismissed. We booked a night bus (duration: 8.5 hours) to barcelona and had 12 hours to spend before the bus departs at 00:30. Wendy and I spent some times in an air-conditioned McDonald’s for food and wifi, and started our walk through the town towards late afternoon. There are shops like h&m, ZARA, mango… so we can just take the 45 minute bus ride to town if there’s a need for new clothing. So we walked around the city center, went to the train station to reserve seats for our return trip from Barcelona to Alicante on Monday, had dinner, returned to the bus station to wait for our bus around 10pm, and I phoned Jason. Because that day was June 8, my Jason’s birthday.

I had been traveling to SoCal in late May/ early June for my baby’s birthday for the past four years. This year, I am far away in Spain and sorry that I couldn’t be there to celebrate this special day with you. Let me make it up to you when I come back in August (we can celebrate both of our birthdays together!). and I am sure that we will have lots of fun at the OC Fair :)

OK, I guess that’s all for now. I shall continue with Barcelona in my next entry. Later~