Something Wet and Something Dry....

Valencia Oceanografico!!!
This Friday I went with a group of people to Valencia to the Oceanografico, which is the largest aquarium in Europe and contains over 500 different species of sea creatures!!!  We left Denia around 10am ate our bocadillos(sandwiches) and then headed off to explore!  We meandered from the Mediterranean to the Tropics and then over to the Red Sea and then to the dolphin show (which was the BEST part of the whole place!!)  This place was sweet!!  They had places you could walk under and huge tunnels with sharks and stingrays swimming over top and on either side of you!

There were so many fish and sea creature enthusiasts in our groups that we ended up staying there until the place closed down. Then the not so fun part came...going home.  Around 6:30pm we got on the train that would take us to the bus station so we could get home to Denia.  The only problem is that the train and bus station don't really work very well together even though they are in the same building....so when we arrived at 8:15 to the Gandia bus station we found out that our bus had left 10 min earlier, which meant essentially that we were stuck in Gandia until 10:30!!!!!!  The only draw back in this plan was that we were all really super hungry....so we walked over to a nearby cafe and had colacao (basically hot chocolate), cafe and muffins!!!  When we got back home we hung out at Jenn's house and made spaghetti and garlic bread!  yummy.  :)

Saturday we decided to hike up Montgo which just happens to be the mountain that is standing in my backyard!! :P  Suprisingly we got a group of approx. 11 people to go with us, I think that is a record so far this semester for us!  We began our treacherous trip up Montgo around 11am.  Montgo has an elevation of around 753m and it takes around 3 hours to get to the first peak.  It was super fun, we started out going at a nice pace and then we spread out as some people wanted to go faster and others slower with the idea of meeting up at the top.  Now I don't know if you know this, but Spanish paths are hard to find/follow...so it was only a matter of time before, yes, I got lost on the mountain...alone.

I had no idea that anyone could get lost from a group of 11 people, but I managed it. somehow.  I walked right past the HUGE wooden sign telling me where to go and just kept following the path I was on.  (which did really lead somewhere actually)  The more I kept walking the stranger I thought it was that I couldn't see anyone anymore.  Thankfully about 5 minutes into my new path I got a call from Kevin who was wondering, along with everyone else, where I was.  I managed to backtrack and find the correct path, thankfully. Once reaching the first part of the top we proceeded to climb along the sharp rocks and bushes with spines that gave us bloody scratches until we reached the first summit (Cima (summit) de Denia)  There we ate lunch and hung out for a bit taking pictures of the awesome view of Denia down below!!

 Then about half the group left to go back to Denia, but some of us had not had enough of getting lost, and the lovely pricker bushes so we started out again for the Cima de Javea.  This initially proved to be a desaster when I lead us again on a path that was nonexistent so we decided to let Kevin lead us there, being the only guy and the one who found the right path again!  It took a while but we eventually made it up to the Cima de Javea!  It had a beautiful view to both sides of the mountain!

  From there we started back down because we still had a 3 hour hike back home and it was already 4pm.  On the way down we did, sadly, get lost..again.  But it was a simple fix and we are going to blame that one on the badly faded yellow arrows....    Back in Denia we ate dinner with our families and then went over to Josiah's house for a little bit of futbol(soccer).  (we did get lost on the way there too..it was a really bad day for getting lost, that or we are just very bad at directional things.) 
Sunday I went to the beach for a bit in the afternoon, but since I hadn't really done any homework I spent all evening at home studying and getting ready for this week.  Over all it was a great weekend...although my legs still hurt from Montgo!!!