Spain 2011: A very busy week showing the Fraziers the Valencian Community of Spain

This morning the Frazier's left Spain after I got to show them around for a week. As i said earlier we spent their first full day here just seeing Alicante the town that I'm living in and they really enjoyed the sights that you can find here. On Monday i had school all day and so Erin and mom had to suck it up and tan while dad went on a walk around and saw some of Alicante during the week. Then after school we got some food and ice cream they walked me home and they went back to their hotel. On Tuesday we visited a town up the coast from Alicante about an hour and a half, the town is called Villajoyosa and is the home to the Valor chocolate factory and a small chocolate factory that we ended up visiting. Then after that we went down to the beach in this town which was beautiful and home to very brightly colored buildings all along their boardwalk type area. We ate lunch at this cute little restaurant and had some really good "tacos" which were more like burritos but were still delicious. That night we continued our nightly tradition of playing a family game of Euchre before getting dinner and calling it a night. Wednesday was another day where I had class all day and mom and dad went for a walk while Erin kinda had a veg day she was on vacation afterall. On Thursday we took a family trip to the island of Tabarca which is a marine reserve about 18 miles off the coast of Alicante. We had to take a boat out of the harbor and the water at this island was beautiful. Erin didn't really like the birds but i think the views made up for the crazy animals there. All of us got really sunburned and looked a bit like tomatoes after that trip except for mom who liked pointing out that she was the only one who put on sunscreen so we all deserved what we got. On Friday we took the RENFE train to Valencia the capital of the community that i live in. It was a different view of Spain than they got in Alicante because the city is a lot bigger and a lot more preserved with a longer history than that of Alicante. We ended up finding these Valencian tour buses which took us all over the city and we learned about the history of the city and the importance of the Mediterranean to them. It was extremely educational (which is lame) but it was fun too. After these tours we walked around a bit and found the bullfighting museum which had a lot of old matador costumes and a few stuffed bulls explaining the whole sport and tradition behind it in Valencia. After that included in the museum was a trip into the bull ring which is otherwise closed at this time of year. It was crazy to think that in this building people had been killed by bulls, after the main ring we went and saw the corrals which actually had a few bulls in them and it was strange thinking that they were capable of killing people. To end our trip in Valencia and my family's time in Spain we had a huge dinner with paella and seafood which was delicious. Then we took the two hour train and said goodbye. Although the week went fast it was amazing to see my family and i'm sure they enjoyed the visit as much as i enjoyed seeing them. Here are pictures from the past week and my visit with my family!