Why would anything go smoothly and as planned when it comes to traveling if I am involved? I got on the bus at 8:00am thinking I would be seeing my sister, Mary, in only two short hours. However, her plane was delayed in Chicago causing her to miss her connecting flight in Madrid causing her to have to wait another two to three hours before being able to come to Granada. WHICH also meant that we would not be able to make our 12:00pm blabla car ride to Alicante. Yikes! (Blabla car is basically a modernized, pre-planned form of hitchhiking. I have an account on the website, blablacar.es, where I can put in a search that says which town I want to go to on which day and it tells me who is driving there and at what time and how much they want you to pay them for it. It is super smart because then people can get their gas money paid for, while other people like me save money and get to the destinations faster than by bus.)

Anyway, this leaves me stranded at the airport because 1) I am too cheap to pay for the taxi or bus back to town when I would just have to turn around and go back to the airport and 2) I truly had nowhere else to go in Granada since I had already left my homestay. Sooo there I sit, in the airport, by myself, with only a bocadillo and a small but heavy suitcase. I got the information center lady to like me enough (she must have been so impressed with my Spanish skills J) so that she ended up giving me her Wi-Fi username and password for free. Yay! I got some quality email checking and blabla car searching done. J

When Mary finally got there, we did our hello hugs and then headed for the bus station to meet our blabla car driver. In no time he was dropping us off at our hostel in Alicante. That night, we did some walking around town and had our first experience of Alicante tapas (yes, we had to actually pay for them..grr!) But they were delicious J my favorite was the piece of bread with jelly, cheese, and pork on top. At night we went back to our hostel where we had a failed attempt of downloading a movie to watch together. So off to bed we went!

The next morning we had breakfast, stole some for our lunch, and then hit the beach! However, as it was a little difficult to keep warm with all of the clouds in the way of the sun, we decided to head up to the castle that overlooks the city instead. It was a great decision because the weather was PERFECT for the long, winding hike we had to do to get there. And the view was fabulous. You could see the sea so clearly from above and the city looked pretty as well with the mountains forming the background. We talked at the top for a long time, catching up for the previous five months spent apart. At night, we went to a bar to watch the Champion's League final soccer game, it was of course a little crazy in the bar since both of the teams were from Spain. (I didn't complain when Ronaldo took his shirt off after his goal.J) Then, after we had dropped a little over 20 euros on 60 cent canas, rum and coke, mojitos, and tapas, we decided to call it a night and head back to the hostel, praying for sunshine tomorrow.

The following two days consisted of naps, reading, and relaxing on the beautiful beach of Alicante. We made spaghetti for dinner both nights (the first night tasted horrible when we tried to put cut up lunch meat in the sauce for some protein) but the second night was great! We also watched Step Up (aka stared at Channing Tatum) on youtube both nights. "We" as in I watched it while Mary fell asleep on me and literally drooled on my new sweatshirt. Oh Mary. J Then, before we knew it, the days had passed and we were getting in the taxi to go to the train station. After the struggle of getting our ticket (with the help of the security men) we were boarding the train and gearing up for the 7 hour ride to Zaragoza..or should I say..Tharagotha! J