Alacant/Alicante

 I went to Alicante for my last five days in Spain

 Where they have not only one castle, or old fort, but two

 Where I spent far too much of my time

 No, seriously, I did

 Because there were beautiful views, and a lot of history, and, and, and... castles!

Or, to be honest, forts.

I met up with three people from Couchsurfing and spoke only Spanish with them. One of them, Ana, took me to see the second castle, the biggest one, where I ended up spending some hours at least, of every one of my remaining days in the city. I spent the weekend couchsurfing with lovely Susana, who took me to a different beach, who taught me how to make gazpacho, and went with me to a Couchsurfing language exchange event. She also needed some time to do her preparations for class, since she's a music teacher, and since she lived just behind the big castle, I went up there a few hours to read my book, look at the view, and climb tiny paths and stairs.

In the end, I was wearing a cardigan while walking outside at midday, in 25 degrees and sunshine. This was when I knew I'd been in Spain for a long time, and needed to go home. And I did.

Sunshine and activities

 I got to try the zip line one day when there were guests doing it

 We went kayaking, horse riding, and quad biking some of the other days

 But my last day there, we went to some caves up the hillside

 Me looking stunning (no) and Jenni looking brilliant (yes)

Jenni, Robbie and Mikie doing their best to look relaxed and utterly cool

On the days we didn't just plonk down by the pool at the end of the day, to enjoy the last rays of sun, we (the volunteers) would try to do some of the activities on the centre. I did actually do both horse riding and quad biking, even though I was frightened by both. Climbing up to the caves was my favourite though, closely followed by the kayaking. There's nothing like scrambling up a hill, hoping that you've chosen the right path, managing to get there in less time than you imagined and having an amazing view as a result. Oh, and discovering the cave is actually a bat cave, with no bats, but lots of tiny skeletons lying about (I might be the only one who finds this interesting but hey).

Orihuela

 I had a day off (I had only one day off, I should have had more) and went to the nearby town of Orihuela

 Which was more of a city with strange graffiti

 Like I said

 And statues and churches and all very set up for a huge amount of tourists

 When I seemed to be one of very few out-of-towners there

And they had an amazing and well-hidden underground museum of Arabic baths and buildings

What I found most interesting about staying in this part of the coast was all the Arabic history they have after being invaded by the Moors in the 8th century. I love seeing how sophisticated lives people led more than a thousand years ago, because I often forget that they did. That museum was just lots of corridors between the old buildings, under the modern city, where you could see the system, the wells, the baths and the living rooms, and imagine people thinking in a completely different way, living with completely different standards, and yet living in such a similar way to us.

Grand Designs House

 Because this is where I stayed, on a beautiful lake

 And this is actually how pretty it was (even though I worked in a kitchen and not in the pool itself)

 View from the bottom of the staircase into the craft shop

And the trampoline and swings that for some reason I never tried

Yes, I worked more hours than I was supposed to. The Workaway site clearly states five, and we all usually worked more (seven or eight), because there was a lot of work to be done, and the family themselves do work ten to twelve hours a day. Still, it was gorgeous. I enjoyed being with the other volunteers, I enjoyed talking with the owners in the evenings, and I enjoyed being able to throw my body down by the pool the minute the guests stopped arriving (but seriously, people, why do you arrive after closing time?).

Anyway. You can see their Grand Designs episode here. Obviously this all happened ten years ago, and the house is completely finished by now. 

Germany, a while ago

 I went to see my family in Germany over Easter, they live fairly close to Würzburg in Bavaria

 This is my cousin Helena, who's already 17, and I always want to point out that I remember her from when she was a baby

 And my cousin Elisa, whom I photographed with my very first and self-bought camera when I was ten and she was a little bundle in a stroller

In order of their height, from left to right: Grandmother, Elisa, aunt Mette, and Helena in Frankfurt

I had pretty much as brilliant a time as could be had when I was in Germany. My grandmother and I had a lot of tea (and then I had some more) and late breakfasts and dinners at one o'clock and wine at six, we went out with my aunt and cousins for Mexican food and to see Michael Jackson's Thriller Live in Frankfurt, we had an Easter brunch and an Easter egg hunt, I read all the books and some of the magazines, and I got the beginning of an acceptable watch tan. Oh, and we cycled and went to the swimming pool and did a wee bit of pilates.

Now, if anyone wondered: Yes. I am having trouble with my laptop. I am getting a new one, but it is taking some time. I used to be able to at least copy-paste every 'e' in a blog post, but now I can't even do that, it's getting fairly impossible to post anything. I got a blogger app for my new phone, but it's absolute rubbish and publishes photos too big and distorted and what not. Grumpy Sunniva is now borrowing her housemate Elise's laptop to finally put up some of the photos from her (Sunniva's) Germany-Spain trip. Hope you enjoy them while said Sunniva is on her way around London this week!

Spain

I exist!

The past two weeks I've been on an outdoor activity centre run by a South African couple, working 5-8 hours per day and getting food and lodging in return. Let me give you a itinerary of my typical day there:

0830: Get up, have breakfast, try to remember to put on sun cream.

0930: Start work: clean the kitchen, sweep the floor, feed the small animals (pigs, dogs, cats, peacocks, parrots and one adorable tortoise).

1100: Go down to tea garden, start boiling water as guests start to arrive, clean pool and do general maintenance.

1330: Have lunch, hopefully be able to sit down more than 10 minutes.

1530: Hope that there are no more guests for the day, sit down in the sun with a book.

1535: More guests arrive for coffees and teas.

1700: All guests are gone, change into swimwear and plunk down next to the swimming pool. 

1900: Help Helen or Jenny feed the horses for the night, or start making food, or get ready to go out.

2000: Have dinner, or leave to go to the paella restaurant where we ate five times during my fourteen day stay.

2300/2400: Go to bed.

Happy birthday Henri!

My favourite person of all time (probably): Henri Dunant would have been 186 years old today, had we but had some elixir of life or a philosopher's stone or generally lived in a fantasy society.

Anyway, he was amazing, even though I'm sure he had his personal faults, and without him there would be no neutral and impartial Red Cross.