Viva Espana!!: La primera semana de las vacaciones..Tenerife!!

Day 108- 4/17

Early Monday morning I left on a bus from Valladolid to Madrid to meet my boyfriend, Ben, at the Madrid airport. First we stayed a couple nights in Madrid. We went to el Parque Buen Retiro that I had gone to the first week of my trip here. The weather wasn’t as warm as it has been but everything was starting to bloom and there were a lot more animals out compared to in January. We went out to a nice Italian dinner and hung out at a couple cafés.

Then we went to Tenerife, it is one of the Canary Islands. Absolutely beautiful!!! It takes a long time to warm up here during the day, so during the mornings we went walking through the town. Everything was so pretty. The Atlantic Ocean water was so blue and then the background was el Tiede national park that is made up of a huge volcano.

This is the area where we stayed. We had a big balcony and a nice view of Teide! Spent some of the time drinking wine and spying on our neighbors haha. It was kind of a "Rear Window" set up so we could watch everyone on their porches in the apartment building across from us. Very entertaining.

Spongebob's pineapple house..just not under the sea..

Teide National Park

Then we hung out of the beach, all of the sand is black because it is volcanic sand.. the water was FREEEZING!!! So I went in it for like 30 seconds. Lots of rocks too, I thought I was going to sink.

Playa de la Chica.

When we were walking we saw a natural swimming pool! You could also see Golmera, one of the other islands in the distance. Our first night we had a really good fish dinner on the ocean and tried a pulpito appetizer, baby octupus! Also really good. Ben and I were loving the seafood!

We had Paella one day for lunch. Delicious!! And this time I was even able to pluck the head off of my own gamba. The shrimp eyes freaked me out too much before when we had it in Madrid earlier this semester.

Our last night was pretty chill. We got pizza, watched the sunset and went to an Irish Pub where we watched golf haha.

Then we returned to Madrid and had the day to spend wandering around the city. We went up and down Gran Via, one of the larger shopping streets right in the center, and saw some interesting people in Puerto del Sol.