During the program's first free weekend, students were given free rein to travel across Europe. Elizabeth and two of her friends took the opportunity to visit Spain. They stayed in Valencia, Spain's third largest city. Their lodgings were a small hostel within Estacio del Norte, one of Valencia's train stations, where they shared living and sleeping spaces with roughly 10-20 strangers. Definitely an experience!
Friday and Saturday, they explored the city's historical sites and landmarks. They spent significant time at La Oceanografic, Europe's biggest aquarium, as well as Valencia Cathedral, Museo Historico, Municipal de Valencia, and El Micalet. After dinner, they also explored Valencia's nightlife.
On Sunday, they spent the day in Ibiza. An unexpected thunderstorm altered their plans of spending a relaxing afternoon on the beach, but they made the best of the day by exploring Ibiza's many small alleys and climbing Ibiza Castle once the rain let up. Finally, three hours before the flight back for mainland Spain took off, the sun finally came out and they celebrated with a brief dip in the Mediterranean.
Although many of plans fell through or got rained out, they really took every opportunity available to experience Spain. Now - back to France for a week and a half and then off to Switzerland.
