Day Trips + Tenerife

As I look forward to my next adventure in Europe (I’ll do a more detailed post later, but, long story short, I was admitted to that program in Spain I previously mentioned, placed in Andalucía, but haven’t yet made any decisions — though you’d have to be crazy to say no, right?), I realize I still haven’t finished blogging about all of my fabulous voyages this past year, so get on that, I must!

I last wrote about spending my 21st birthday in Mallorca, a lovely trip indeed. The following weeks also included two day trips: to the Castilla-La Mancha town of Cuenca, back to Segovia, and to the Castilla y León town of Salamanca. Before I proceed, here, have some pictures.

Colorful buildings in Cuenca.

Cuenca’s famous casas colgadas, or hanging houses. Photo stolen from the interwebz because I didn’t have a good shot of them.

Overlooking Segovia.

Salamanca’s Plaza Mayor

My next trip was to Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands, which are located off the coast of Morocco. I never thought I’d be taking an island vacation in the middle of final exams, but exams at Complutense are spread out over, like, an entire month, so I had plenty of time to live it up.

My friend Robin had an exam rescheduled, so I ended up flying into Tenerife on my own, getting a ride from the hostel owners to the hostel, and spending the afternoon and evening relaxing in the room and enjoying the cool ocean breeze. Ah, bliss. I spent some time meandering around the area, along the beach, and checking out the sites. There weren’t a ton of people around or a lot to see, but that made it all the nicer.

Beautiful, especially after living for almost a year in a city as far away from the ocean as Madrid.

Robin arrived the next morning, and we continued meandering. Like Mallorca, this was a very laid-back vacation rather than a rushed, action-packed “Ahhh we have to see thirty-two cities in two days!” trip like many earlier in the year had been (like I’ve mentioned before, both had their merits, but as the year was winding down, chill beach vacations were perfect). We visited some touristy resort areas that looked straight out of Hawaii, stole a swim in another hotel’s pool, splashed in the waves, and generally had a lovely, lovely time.

One of the resorts we stumbled into

The following day, we took a bus into Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the main city on the island, where we had a slow-paced day wandering through shops and a botanical garden and singing Shakira’s “Waka Waka” about six million times (this was right before the World Cup, so the song was everywhere). We ended the night with some gross fake American food, a stroll past karaoke bars (my favorite was the one where a guy in a cowboy hat was singing “Peaceful, Easy Feeling” by The Eagles, which summed up how I felt in Tenerife), and a moonlit walk along the beach (sounds romantic, eh? Too bad we weren’t joined by guapo Spanish men) before returning to Madrid the following morning.

Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Reopening these memories is making me hardcore nostalgic. Who wants to fly out to Tenerife with me tonight?